Hello and welcome to Sobercast, where we provide A.A. Speaker Meetings and workshops in podcast format.

We're an ad-free podcast, and if you enjoy listening, please help us be self-supporting by visiting Sobercast.com, look for the donate link and drop a dollar or two into our virtual

basket we hope you enjoyed the podcast have a great day my name is charaldine I'm an

alcoholic and an addict welcome to all the newcomers I was a newcomer for seven years on and off and I don't recommend it. I recommend it's

better to come to AA and stay, but I was not able to do it. And I learned a lot. Anyways, I now have one year.

I have over one year.

I work my steps with a sponsor that I really, really like.

I really, really respect her.

She's very patient. I usually meet her on Sunday morning or Monday evening. And my first year, I cried every morning when I met her. Every morning,

every Sunday morning I cried.

And I thought all the time that she was going to tell me I can't do it anymore.

I was a mess.

I was a total mess my first year and she stayed.

So my goal is to be like her and to help other alcoholics and addicts and to have her dedication and patience.

Anyway, I am French. I grew up in a very violent household.

My mom was drunk. She still drinks. My biological dad, he was a big drunk. And my parents were not happy, so they were not very, it was not very happy, well, it was never happy at home.

It was very, very sad.

There was never any encouragement.

It was always, actually they didn't even mention anything.

And when they did, it was never good enough or I could have done better and I learned at a very young age that I didn't matter and then what I was always doing was wrong I learned how to feel very negative and being very very depressed I. I'm dressed in black, but it's because I had nothing else.

I'm not depressed anymore, not like that.

I realized when I was like, I have to tell all these people that I used to be depressed,

...