[22:20] <@Gemm> Hey family – addict here in West Tennessee – problem is Ethel – glad y’all are here tonight
[22:20] <@NA_Greeter> Hi Ethel
[22:21] <@Chairperson> hi Ethel
[22:21] <Nour> Hi Ethel
[22:21] <Haze> Hola Ethel
[22:21] <Tweety> hi ethel
[22:21] <banner> hi Ethel
[22:21] <@Gemm> this isn’t the first time I’ve been asked to do this last minute and probably won’t be the last
[22:22] <Nour>
[22:22] <@Chairperson> The room is now moderated: (Muted and you will not be able to type into channel until the person sharing has finished or the readings are over).
[22:22] * Chairperson sets mode: +m
[22:22] <@Gemm> I will admit though that doing it on a computer is actually just about as difficult as it is at a face-to-face meeting
[22:23] <@Gemm> either way I get caught a bit off guard but I’ve also found that when asked and then take a few minutes to turn it all over to Creator that all goes as it should
[22:23] * bigdaddysgrl1012 (
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[22:23] <@Gemm> I don’t really know y’all nor what you are going through but I know my story and HP will always take from it what those in attendence need to hear
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[22:24] <@Gemm> sometimes I look back and wonder where all those years have gone cause it doesn’t seem like it has been 27 years since I hobbled into rehab in a small city in nw PA and yet it seems a lifetime ago
[22:25] <@Gemm> when I finally gave up and said I needed help I had been using for about 23 years
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[22:26] <@Chairperson> The room is now moderated: (Muted and you will not be able to type into channel until the person sharing has finished or the readings are over).
[22:26] <@Gemm> I got started in HS when I got sick with pneumonia and was given a codiene based cough medicine and found that I loved how it made me feel
[22:27] <@Gemm> I didn’t feel different, alien, alone, fearful, and all those things many addicts also felt
[22:27] <@Gemm> I felt like I was pretty for the 1st time, that I was worth something even tho my mother always said I was the worthless spawn of the devil
[22:28] <@Gemm> on that stuff I didn’t feel like I was worthless anymore
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[22:29] <@Gemm> and that was the beginning of many years of slavery to addiction that took me many many places geographically, through 3 marriages (on the 3rd when I went to rehab), 5 children & 2 miscarriages, from coast to coast and to the depths of a self-made hell I could never have imagined when I started
[22:29] <@Chairperson> The room is now moderated: (Muted and you will not be able to type into channel until the person sharing has finished or the readings are over).
[22:31] <@Gemm> I grew up on a farm where I had been born of a 16 yr old mentally retarded (accident of birth) girl who had been raped by the man of the couple she babysat for
[22:31] * reilly (
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[22:31] * bigdaddysgrl1012 (
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[22:31] <@Gemm> my grandparents adopted me at birth so I knew them as my parents
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[22:32] <@Gemm> they had 13 children of their own so I became #14 and the youngest by several years and 1/2 of those who became my siblings were already away from home starting families or already had their families
[22:33] <@Gemm> we had a very abusive mother and from what I have been able to piece together from a couple of sisters she got worse the more children she had and the older she got
[22:34] * KFLUX (
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[22:34] <@Gemm> we also lived in an alcohol affected family as both of the grandfathers had been alcoholics and even though neither of our parents used that system still functioned
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[22:34] <@Chairperson> The room is now moderated: (Muted and you will not be able to type into channel until the person sharing has finished or the readings are over).
[22:35] <@Gemm> I learned very young how to hid from things, mostly from mother when she would rage again – today she would have been arrested for what she did but back then things that went on behind closed doors were considered nobody elses business
[22:36] <@Gemm> I was molested the 1st time by a male extended family member when I was 4 and off and on until I was 5 and mother caught him and sent him away and beat me – somehow it was my fault
[22:37] <@Gemm> again later by one of my female siblings for several years and these taught me that sex was how to get that positive attention I craved but never got
[22:38] * jill (
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[22:38] <@Gemm> when I was raped at 9 by a teenaged neighbor I had no trust in anyone to tell them what had happened so it was years before I found my way to counseling for it – actually until I was about 1 yr clean almost 30 yrs later
[22:40] <@Gemm> those were all things that I learned to hide from – first in books which today I can say were my 1st addiction cause I used them as a way to hide from my life and what went on in it – to help me feel like I could be someone and through them be someone other than who I was – someone who didn’t hurt all the time or get hurt by others all the time
[22:40] <@Gemm> so when I found drugs I was ripe for a new way to hide
[22:41] * bigdaddysgrl1012 (
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[22:43] <@Gemm> it took me some time in recovery to realize that I was addicted or at least had addict behavior from the very beginning because when I got out of the hospital from that pneumonia I always tried to make sure I had enough of that cough syrup to last until my next allowance – I measured carefully how much I could use each day so it would last and took every opportunity I could to earn a little
[22:43] <@Gemm> extra money to get an extra bottle – back then we were able to buy Robitussin C over the counter so it was easy for me to get as long as I made sure to use different stores to buy it so I planned also which stores I would use and in what order so nobody would question what I was buying
[22:44] <@Gemm> and I learned to hide my supply as well – really hide it well because at that time I was attending a Christian based school that my mother insisted I go to because our local HS was too full of heathens
[22:44] <@Gemm> so figuer
[22:44] <@Gemm> figure*
[22:45] <@Gemm> the one place mother sent me to in order to keep me from the devil’s work is where my addiction started
[22:45] <@Gemm> I still sometimes laugh at the irony of it
[22:45] <@Gemm>
[22:47] <@Gemm> those behaviors I learned when I got clean were typical of us addicts – hiding our supply, doling it out if we thought we would be short, doing whatever to earn money to get more though in HS that was a bit limited until after I got asked to leave that school and went back to PA
[22:47] <@Gemm> then there were more opportunities and I took them – I also soon found other substances that took the place of my 1st
[22:48] <@Gemm> I had my 1st child at 17 and gave her up for adoption – I didn’t really have a lot of choice cause it was that or let mother take her and that I would not do nor would Daddy allow that to happen
[22:49] <@Gemm> he helped me also to find a place to go – with one of my sisters during my pregnancy and was the one who called and wrote me while I was there
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[22:50] <@Gemm> what little I learned in life to that point of real love I had learned from him but some of the other lessons I had learned outshadowed that for many years through my active addiction
[22:51] <@Gemm> for many years I believed that sex = love and love = pain
[22:51] <@Gemm> after the birth of my 1st I went back home again for a short time
[22:52] <@Gemm> home just never really felt like home even when I was a child
[22:52] <@Gemm> I felt like an alien even in my own skin and remember looking up at the sky and asking that whoever it was that had dropped me off on this planet to please come back and get me cause they had left me on the wrong one
[22:54] <@Gemm> I was not only sent to a religious school I was also brought up in a very strict church and learned very young that "God" was punishing and nothing I did was ever good enough
[22:54] <@Gemm> I also learned that he was supposed to be like a parent and figured if he was like mother then I wanted nothing to do with him
[22:55] * bigdaddysgrl1012 (
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[22:55] * beareatsmeat (
[email protected])
[22:55] <@Chairperson> The room is now moderated: (Muted and you will not be able to type into channel until the person sharing has finished or the readings are over).
[22:55] <@Gemm> I mentioned earlier that mother had called me the spawn of the devil – she also said I was devil’s seed and being raised on a farm I knew what seeds did – plant corn you get corn, oats you get oats and so forth so if I was the seed of the devil then I was bad just because I existed
[22:56] <@Gemm> so I figured that since I was just born bad it didn’t matter what I did cause that god mother’s church talked about wasn’t going to forgive me anyway
[22:57] <@Gemm> I was 19 when I met my 1st husband and we ended up hitchhiking from nw PA to the jersey shore together and our daughter was born the following year
[22:57] * mohamedfromegypt (
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[22:58] <@Gemm> at this time in my addiction I was still able to stop using for periods of time when I wanted to and did during my pregnancies – the first 3
[22:59] <@Gemm> but by the time I had the last 2 with my 3rd husband I found ways to justify using – at least drinking – while I was pregnant and even found a ‘wonderful’ doctor who stupidly co-signed that for me
[23:00] <@Gemm> when I was pregnant with my younger daughter I told him I was having trouble sleeping and he said have a drink or 2 of wine before bedtime — he never knew what that suggestion did or he probably would never have told me that
[23:00] <@Gemm> I took that as a sign that it was okay to drink just not use the other drugs while I was pregnant
[23:00] <@Gemm> gratefully neither of the last 2 suffered any real problems from that as I have seen so many do
[23:01] <@Gemm> my younger daughter is even in a PhD program in GA in Inorganic Chemistry
[23:01] <@Gemm> she got most of the brains along with her older brother
[23:02] <@Gemm> about a month before I went to rehab I had an accident on a bicycle that landed me in the hospital with a shattered ankle
[23:02] <@Gemm> I don’t really remember it myself just what I have been told
[23:03] <@Gemm> later I really felt bad for the girl who was my roommate there cause I had gotten to a point where I rarely bathed and this was in July :/ so I know I had to have reeked when I got there
[23:04] * banner (
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[23:04] <@Gemm> my medical records show that my BAC (blood alcohol count) was over .4 which for any normal person would have killed them but as my doctor told me later that as an addict my body was used to that level cause the last year or so I was making a lot of my own wine – up to 35 gallons a week and drinking most of it myself
[23:05] <@Gemm> we figured my BAC had probaly not been below that level for some time
[23:05] * Nour (
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[23:06] <@Gemm> I was put on a morphine drip for 3 days until they got my BAC down to where they figured it was safe to operate on my ankle and try to fix it which they did
[23:06] <@Gemm> the roommate while I was there though planted a seed while we were together
[23:07] <@Gemm> she talked to me about her life and how much better it was since she had stopped using and I thought she was totally insane and ready to get locked up for awhile
[23:07] <@Gemm> I had been in and out of mental wards for about 15 yrs or so by that time
[23:08] <@Gemm> when I got out and got home my wine was there waiting for me
[23:08] <@Gemm> but something just wasn’t the same and I couldn’t figure out what it was
[23:08] <@Gemm> later after I had gotten clean and was working some steps with my sponsor I put it all together with her help
[23:09] <@Gemm> what had changed was the talked that I had with that roommate while in the hospital and had been given a small spark of hope that there was another way of life
[23:10] <@Gemm> I had lost my older 2 children about 8 or 9 yrs before this but had my older son with me that summer
[23:11] <@Gemm> and he was with me that last night terrified that I wouldn’t be alive by morning
[23:11] <@Gemm> I was actively suicidal by this time cause I didn’t see a way out of the hell I was living and not sure I wanted to go on
[23:12] <@Gemm> I prayed to die – I was more afraid to live than to die but didn’t know how to be positive I would die as none of the things I had tried worked and nothing else I could think of appeared to be any better
[23:13] <@Gemm> the 1st of what I call my recovery miracles happened that night too
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[23:14] * TheDramaLlama sets mode: +o Gemm2
[23:14] <@Gemm2> ok what did y’all last see?
[23:14] <@Chairperson> <@Gemm> the 1st of what I call my recovery miracles happened that night too
[23:15] <@Gemm2> ty
[23:15] <@Gemm2> my older daughter was in foster care by this time and I called her foster father – a number I always had to look up but somehow that night I was able to just dial it without looking
[23:15] <@Gemm2> when I got him he also talked to my son and asked him to make sure not to let me out of his sight
[23:16] * @Gemm (
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[23:16] <@Gemm2> Mel told me later that he wasn’t sure what it was but something told him that if he didn’t act right then I wasn’t going to be there by morning
[23:16] * beareatsmeat (
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[23:16] <@Gemm2> anyway – he called the asst pastor of their church and they came and got me and took me to our local rehab
[23:17] <@Gemm2> when I got in that car I had no idea where I was going or for how long and I didn’t care because they told me that I would be able to find a new way to live there — a spark of hope like I had been given in the hospital by that roommate a month before
[23:18] <@Gemm2> it took me awhile to figure out why the hospital insisted on me riding from the ER to the Detox unit – I hadn’t had THAT much to drink that night – less than a case of only 12 oz and that wasn’t much
[23:18] <@Gemm2>
[23:19] <@Gemm2> when I got to the floor I really began to have 2nd thoughts cause there were people there who were welcoming me and wanting to shake my hand or hug me ??
[23:19] <@Gemm2> my experience had always been that people like that wanted something from me and I wasn’t sure what these people would want
[23:20] <@Gemm2> I found out later that they only wanted for me to find what they were finding – a new way to live in recovery not having to be tied to my addiction anymore
[23:20] <@Gemm2> that was Aug 14, 1987
[23:21] <@Gemm2> actually a few days earlier but I use the 14th as it was the day I started my journal
[23:21] <@Gemm2> the day I actually went to the rehab section from the detox section
[23:21] <@Gemm2> I don’t remember a lot of my detox other than the hallucinations and such and that I didn’t ever want to go through that again – I still don’t want to
[23:22] <@Gemm2> I feel we were really fortunate in our rehab as we went out to meetings and most of those were to NA rather than AA as I know many rehabs still do
[23:23] <@Gemm2> so I when I got out NA was where I chose to stay
[23:23] <@Gemm2> I had used a lot of different things so figured that I could relate to y’all better than all those old drunks at AA lmao
[23:24] <@Gemm2> for about the 1st 2 yrs tho many of us used both as we only had 4 NA meetings in our town and many of us, like myself didn’t have reliable transportation
[23:24] <@Gemm2> mine was my own 2 legs
[23:25] * Tweety (
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[23:26] <@Gemm2> where I lived then was 2 miles each way to the NA meetings and close to that for the AA ones and I had 2 children – close to 4 & 2 and no money for babysitters, taxi cab and the buses didn’t run that late so what to do cause I didn’t have a phone either
[23:26] <@Gemm2> we walked to those meetings – well, I walked and the kids rode in the wagon when it wasn’t too snowy then they rode on the sled
[23:27] <@Gemm2> I soon found tho that if I got to the meetings I could always get a ride home and it wasn’t real long and I found that I could arrange tonight for a ride to pick me up tomorrow night
[23:28] <@Gemm2> at close to my 1st yr an incident happened that brought all the abuse from my childhood screaming for attention
[23:29] <@Gemm2> and a wonderful woman I knew in AA was the 1st to see me that night and took me up to the rehab where I had been to talk to one of the counselors until meeting time
[23:29] <@Gemm2> she even went with me to my NA meeting that night to make sure I was okay
[23:30] <@Gemm2> I love that lady and am grateful for all her help even thoughshe wasn’t ever a sponsor – she was a large part of my support system the rest of my time in PA until I came to TN
[23:30] <@Gemm2> this is going a bit long but there are a couple of other points I do want to cover if y’all can stand it :O
[23:30] <@Gemm2>
[23:33] <@Gemm2> at just before my 3 1/2 yr mark the 1st real test of my recovery happened when my older son was killed in an arson housefire at the group home he was in — he was just 3 weeks short of his 18th bd and his 1st NA bd – he too was an addict and had spent all the time since I had gone to rehab trying to stay clean too and had managed it finally on his 17th bd when we were finally able to get
[23:33] <@Gemm2> it through his counselor’s head that he was not too young to be an addict and need meetings just as I did and was finally able to go
[23:33] <@Gemm2> my 3rd marriage had ended @ my 1st year mark too and I was dating another addict at this time
[23:35] <@Gemm2> he was a great help during this time –
[23:35] <@Gemm2> the night we got that call at 3am my 1st reaction was call my sponsor and while we were waiting for the state police to arrive she and her sponsor got to our house as did my son’s CYS case worker and her boss
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[23:37] <@Chairperson> The room is now moderated: (Muted and you will not be able to type into channel until the person sharing has finished or the readings are over).
[23:37] <@Gemm2> the calling hours the night before and the funeral itself were all attended by over 100 addicts – at least that’s how many signed the book
[23:37] <@Gemm2> many addicts brought food to the house so I didn’t have to worry about feeding the kids
[23:38] <@Gemm2> my NA family was there for me in ways my birth family has never been
[23:39] <@Gemm2> and a few years later when I married that man I was dating many of those addicts came to the wedding – in fact my sponsor’s father who was an old time AA and a minister did the ceremony for us
[23:39] * tori (
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[23:40] <@Gemm2> again in just another 3 yrs when that husband died – my NA family was there for me again to help me with funeral arrangements, food for us, phone calls, even a loan of a car as I had nothing fit to drive as his truck didn’t have any brakes and my car needed a new transmission
[23:42] <@Gemm2> that was the year I had my 10th NA birthday and again – I called my sponsor when his work called and told me a foreman was coming to get me as he had collapsed at work and by the time that guy got to me and got me the 20 miles to the hospital at 9am – during work hours – there were some 30 or so addicts there to greet me
[23:42] <@Gemm2> and again – the basics came into play for me that I had learned many years before
[23:43] <@Gemm2> what my 1st sponsor called recovery MAPS —
[23:43] <@Gemm2> M — meetings – where I learn how to live clean not just stop using and where I meet those people who will be my support system through my recovery come good times or bad
[23:45] <@Gemm2> this is also where I will learn to serve 1st NA then my outside community
[23:45] <@Gemm2> A — Action — working the steps with my sponsor that I also found at the meetings I went to
[23:45] <@Gemm2> action is also being there for other addicts who need help – even if just someone to listen when they need to talk
[23:46] <@Gemm2> P — Prayer – I didn’t have to believe in any particular concept of god to do this
[23:46] <@Gemm2> all I had to do was get down on my knees in the morning and ask for help and again at night to say thank you
[23:46] * wavehunter (
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[23:47] <@Gemm2> for me that is merely asking for the strength to get through whatever life brings me JFT and then to say thank you for the strength and the blessings of another day
[23:47] <@Gemm2> and S — Service
[23:47] <@Gemm2> learn to give back with no expectations
[23:48] <@Gemm2> and through this service also begin to learn to be a responsible and productive member of NA 1st then the greater society outside of NA
[23:48] <@Gemm2> these MAPS have served me well and I hope that they will also help some of you
[23:49] <@Gemm2> before I go I want to also leave you with some words from my older son that have helped me through many things
[23:49] <@Gemm2> as I said earlier he too was an addict and the last time I saw him we had a discussion about those times we felt like using or someone was there offering us something and what we did not to use
[23:50] <@Gemm2> he said (paraphased) it isn’t always easy Mom (meaning recovery isn’t always easy) but as long as we do what we learn in our meetings we’ll make it alright no matter what
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[23:51] <@Gemm2> little did we know then how soon I was to need those words to hang on to – that was Jan 1, 1991 and he died on Jan 4, 1991 – and those words have helped me through that and many things since
[23:52] <@Gemm2> so I pass them on to you in hopes that they can help you through as well as they have helped me
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[23:52] <@Chairperson> The room is now moderated: (Muted and you will not be able to type into channel until the person sharing has finished or the readings are over).
[23:52] <@Gemm2> thank y’all for being here and being patient with me for rattling on this long cause even with 27 yrs clean I still need y’all to be here for me
[23:52] <@Gemm2> If nobody has told you today that they love you – besides hanging with the wrong crowd – know that I do love you all, and there isn’t a damned thing y’all can do about that
[23:52] <@Gemm2> HUGS to all
[23:52] <@Gemm2> done
