Sue C. – LGBT AA Speaker – “Hiding and Seeking”
Extremely powerful share by Sue C. at a Gay and Lesbian AA speaker meeting. She recounts of coming to terms with many things in her life and having the courage to face the truth. Sue is a wonderful example of the LGBTQIA recovery community and she has an uplifting story that I am sure many people will relate to.
A story of loss and a new found enthusiasm
About three months after the dust settled and life started moving on I sat down in the middle of the living room. I had a complete breakdown and I cried. It was way beyond any tears, there was nothing there, an emptiness. I knew at that point in time, I absolutely knew in my heart, that there could not be a God, and that no God could allow this sort of thing to happen. What I knew then, and what I know now, fortunately are very different. That relationship actually continued on for a while, the drinking continued, the using continued and the violence stepped up to another level. Any sane person, any healthy person would have gotten out of that. I did not. Not being sane or healthy. However, God did for me what I couldn’t do for myself and that person ended up moving out of state which is probably good because I might not be here today had that not happened.
So life goes on. I had a few relationships after that, and then I meet my first recovering alcoholic. The really good news is, that’s where I got my introduction to AA. It was a person who worked this program to the best of her ability and to the level that she needed. We were together for almost seven years. She was just shy of picking up her nine year chip when she was killed by a drunk driver. She had said all the way through her recovery, the reason she quit drinking and quit using was because she knew that drinking and using would kill her. What she didn’t know was that it would be somebody else who was drinking and using.
There’s a piece of literature that I love, I won’t read it because it’s not conference approved, but it talks about a conversation between man and God at the end of man’s life. The man says, “Why do I look back at certain tough times in my life and there’s only one set of footprints in the sand. And why did you leave me with those? Why did you desert me at those difficult times?” God then responds, “That’s when I carried you.” What I know today, is that those times when I felt like I was on autopilot was when God was carrying me. I’m sure there were other times I could have looked back and there would be two sets of footprints, but on this situation, I could not have gotten through on my own. God carried me, I mean I had no idea what to do.
Total strangers stepped up and kind of directed me through the things that needed to be done. I know that they were doing that at the direction of God. Things got done. Life moved on. And one of the first blessings of the program was given to me when God sent in my direction the partner who I am currently with. Some of you know us, and kind of know how we got together, and I don’t need to go into that because most of it’s her story and I probably shouldn’t tell that from up here. But it has been such a blessing and what I saw when I met her was that I saw the program of Alcoholics Anonymous helping my partner get through her life with a level of serenity that I didn’t have in mine. That was kind of how I found my way in here and got going again in the right direction.
