MY SPONSOR, HER SPONSOR AND HER SPONSOR'S SPONSOR - CONFUSING HUH??
EMERIL'S - IT WAS SO YUMMY:
TERESA AND I:
JUST ME:
DISNEYWORLD:
EPCOT:
NORWAY BECAUSE I'M NORWEGIAN:
CAN'T FORGET MICKEY:
LOOKING OUT MY HOTEL WINDOW:
On February 10th-14th, I had the pleasure of attending the International Women’s AA conference in Orlando, FL with my wonderful sponsor who is my ROCK and my personal confidant. It’s a conference for women only who are all Alcoholic’s!! What an amazing event. I was able to attend last year’s conference as well because it was held in Salt Lake City, which will probably NEVER happen again as next year the conference will be held in Alaska. BRRR!! But over 1,500 women attended this year’s conference in Orlando. We attended several panel meetings where they would have a topic and 3 women would speak on that topic. Then each night they had one main speaker. Each speaker was absolutely amazing! Their stories were heart wrenching, not only because what they each went through however because when I would listen to their stories, I knew that was me too. I am not ashamed anymore to say that I am an alcoholic because I am a sober alcoholic. Most people just don’t understand what an alcoholic is. Alcoholism is a disease and a deadly one. Deadly not only in the physical form however more deadly emotionally and mentally! The disease of alcoholism took ALMOST everything from me. It took my heart, my soul and my mind which have now been restored. I’m no longer shameful and full of guilt. I have self confidence that I never had before because alcohol robbed me of all self confidence and self worth. I am so blessed to be sober and even MORE blessed that I have a family who stood beside me 100% through my alcoholism and into sobriety. Mike and Mason didn’t deserve a mother and wife who is an alcoholic however now they have a sober Mom and wife. I am so lucky that Mike stuck beside me!! I have no clue how he put up with me through my drinking, he wanted me sober however he knew that I had to be ready. I will never forget the day that I made up my mind to go to rehab. The feelings I felt that day were HORRIFIC and I never want to feel that way again! The day that I walked into rehab, I was hopeless with NO feelings left. I had forgotten how to even cry. Now I get to feel again! I get to see things in a light that I’ve never seen them before. This has been a hard journey, a journey I will have to work on for the rest of my life. But today I can say “bring it on”. I can fight anything because of the program of Alcoholic’s Anonymous!!Oh and YES WE GOT TO GO TO DISNEYWORLD!! However it was really hard to enjoy because needless to say Orlando was FREEZING! It was just as cold there as it was in Utah. Maybe even colder because of the humidity! But I tried to take in what I could at Disneyworld. We didn’t get to see all of it because we had limited time. We had to make it back for the BIG BIG speaker on Saturday night. Now that’s committed…I had to pay 140 bucks to go to Disneyworld and not even get to see it all because I knew I needed to be at the conference!!
