Jennifer H. – AA Speaker – Singles in Sobriety Speaker Meeting

With alcohol, it was the only way I was able to wind down and the only way I was going to be able to get some relief. Unfortunately I took my show on the road. I would get pulled over and sometimes I would be able to get out of it, sometimes I would end up in the slammer. I ran a red light in front of the police station, but I explained to the officer that it was an emergency. It was like 3:00 in the morning and I needed some eggrolls. Jack in the box was about to close! You know you don’t eat before you drink, because it ruins the buzz. But at 3:00 in the morning you’re just hungry. So the cop took me to jail, and now even the state of Texas becomes convinced I have a drinking problem and at that moment, I become convinced I have a driving problem. What do I do next? I move next door to my favorite bar, drinking problem solved! Well driving problem solved, because I thought that was my problem. I started doing some outside issues because I found it allowed me to drink, ironically it also allowed me to be a very quick preschool teacher. We could do the whole lesson plan by 10:00. You know, and it was a speedy and energized puppet show. You know, that’s not how I was raised. I was not raised to do those things, for years I turned down outside issues because they were, they were wrong and they are illegal.

I heard my daddy one time saying how sorry you would have to be to do those types of thing, you would have to be pretty sorry he said. It reminds me there was this night and I was at a Halloween party dressed like a bag lady, and a friend of mine invited me into the bathroom offered me a little powdery substance, I said, “Nope, its bad, wrong, and illegal. I don’t do that.” Then she said the magic words, she said it will make you last as long as the party goes, at that point I said, “Get out of the way.” So I started doing those other things. It was a really great diet, but I scared other people when I drank, and I frightened myself on drugs because the clock and started talking to me and said, “I can’t understand why I still can’t understand.” I was super paranoid on that stuff, so much that I thought street signs started my car. I had to stop doing those things and I put on a hundred pounds in 24 hours.

All the guys like me don’t do speed anymore because I was eating Taco Bell in a blackout, and that was really kind of cute because even in a blackout I was concerned about appearances. I would go through the Taco Bell drive thru and order lots of food like I’m taking it home to the family, to my babies that are hungry. Things were just completely out of control. I was changing my tires that were not even flat. This one time while fixing a flat I took the oil pan off my car, it would not even drive, and someone tipped of the cops because flames were shooting out. You know I wound up a couple of times with three flat tires all at once. I called my dad and bless his heart he didn’t know what to do. You know, he comes in he can’t even speak. I was drinking all night going home and crying. Then I call my job in the morning to tell them my allergies were acting out. I didn’t even know I actually told the truth. I had no idea that I had an allergy to alcohol that meant that I absolutely would never be able to drink normally, and that I had a head that was absolutely out to kill me because it was going to tell me “this time,” it was going to be different.