Okay, hi, I’m Larissa and I’m a grateful member of Cocaine Anonymous. My sobriety date is August 11th, 2020. I got sober right before the world shut down, so I attended, so what it was like, what I was like, a lonely codependent addict.
Um, I, uh, I was in another 12-step fellowship and I was doing my step four there and I kept saying I wasn’t an addict and my sponsor there recommended I go to like AA or CA and so I went to a couple meetings in person, um, because I was just ready. I’d heard this voice in my head of like, this no longer serves you. Um, I, I had quit cocaine, quit drinking, I couldn’t give up on weed though, it was legal, why would I stop using it? Um, although like, I was living paycheck to paycheck, living with my cousin, not paying rent, uh, going to work high, I worked in a hospital, um, wasn’t the right thing to do.
Um, so I listened to my sponsor and that nudge, um, and I went to meetings and I could relate to the feelings that they were feeling. Um, I never related to being an alcoholic, um, but I, I was always the last one at the party, um, the first one to get started, um, and then COVID shut all the meetings down. So I, thankfully I had built up some friends and they were very quick to be like, hey, there’s a Zoom meeting, jump on.
So, um, this was, oh God, I don’t even know, like maybe March 2021, I guess that’s when the world shut down. Um, and I started attending meetings. I jumped right in, I would listen to like three a day.
Um, I would participate in one, you know, but I just, I needed to hear the solution, uh, and I could do that. Like I knew there was like YouTube video and speaker meetings, but I wanted to be like present listening to people that were like actively going through what I was going through. Um, and then I jumped immediately into doing service on Zoom, showing up, chairing the meetings on Zoom, um, you know, like screen sharing, however I could be of service.
I did that. Um, and then I found, um, CA cause I was attending the AA meetings there. Um, and then CA meetings.
And then we had, we held our, our, we had a, like a fundraiser and we always did like fundraisers in person. Um, but 2021, we did an online, um, convention, I think. And you actually came Cameron and, uh, you spoke and you shared, and it was our like online, we did a CA trivia.
I got to come up with a whole bunch of questions on the big book and stuff. Um, and I continued on. So like once, once Zoom, uh, the old rooms opened up again, um, I just continued being of service because I learned how to do that in a like, it was a smaller setting on Zoom for me to like, get my foot in the door.
Um, I still attend, you know, at least one Zoom meeting a week. Um, I recently moved so I can continue joining like a different Zoom meeting in my hometown. Um, and I still get to see all my people that way.
Um, I sponsor online because we have this, um, this baseline. Um, and I don’t know, I wouldn’t, uh, I don’t think I would have gotten sober if it wasn’t for the Zoom meetings, honestly. Um, cause I, there was nothing for me in Winnipeg, everything was like shut down.
So, um, yeah, now I’m very heavily involved in service and I do, I thank the Zoom rooms for getting me started in that. Um, and now I still do a lot of stuff. Like I do a lot of my service work on Zoom.
Like we, our committee meetings meet on Zoom. Like it’s just, I think it’s such a, an amazing platform. Um, yeah, so I think without, without Zoom, I don’t think I would have known how, how important service work was, um, to be there for the still suffering addict.
Um, I am currently an alt delegate at my area and I’ll be attending conference this year. Um, and I’m very grateful that I was one of the Zoom babies that came out of the, all the chaos.