Mona D. from California

I'm the speaker.

Good evening. My name is Mona and I'm a very grateful addict.

It's very strange fellowship. I get so fucking mad I want to kill you all

and then I see the dredges of society who nobody wanted anything to do with and up for clean time

and I'm impressed.

My clean date is the 12th of August 1968

and your Friday night speaker stole my line because I always say it may not impress you and press the shit out of me.

I want to thank the committee for asking me

and anything I have to say. Please don't hold the committee responsible for

I also do not speak for Narcotics Anonymous, for which they are eternally grateful.

I also have a lopsided mouth because I had some worked on my face, so my mouth doesn't work. I really don't always layer quite this badly.

I will try to tell you a little bit about what it used to be like, what happened and what it's like today. And anything I say is my opinion.

You know, I've been here a day or two,

but I was the one your sponsor told to stay away from because I would never make it,

because I was what was known as a professional slipper.

Just

was introduced to recovery when I was 12 and I got clean when I was 32

and I was different and I was unique.

And I will have to tell you something because it's in my heart. And if it offends you, you know right about it. And talk to your sponsor,

but you may not need to hear the reading. But it says these are the principles that made our recovery possible. I don't know what they do in Illinois, but I can fucking count.

And when they talk and you enter, put your two sentence work in. There may be somebody that's going to go outside and die because they didn't hear the message,

nor did any of you hear your chair tonight say in respect, we will not talk.

These are the principles that made each and everyone of you sitting in this room be able for one time in your life to hold up your head and say, my name is Mona and I'm an addict.

You know, I looked at the ground for 32 years and slipped around because I knew what I was. And today I can look anyone in the eye. And I am proud to be a member of Narcotics Anonymous.

The lie is dead.

The law is also dead that women do not recover.

You saw who stood up first.

Now that I've endeared myself to you all,

I'll try to be a bit more spiritual.

I am born and raised in California, in a place called El Centro. For any of you have the misfortune of knowing where that is. It's where they send Catholics to see if they can stand purgatory.

I am half Irish half Apache Indian and I was born and raised a Roman Catholic so you know I had great need for a program.

I am 8 times married and one near miss

and I've only found it necessary to do one in my recovery and I watched him die of my disease.

I I came from a loving family. You know I am blessed some days. I'm blessed to own my own treatment facility

and I really there are things I really hate to hear in these rooms and that's treatment facility language because the therapeutic value of 1 addict helping another is without parallel. And I hate to hear people say, well I'm from a dysfunctional family, who the fuck isn't?

I mean, I have the most dysfunctional thing my family ever saw

and they loved me and they told me I was special. I was the only girl in 35 grandchildren and a baby. And when they told me I was special, I had selective hearing. Even a very young Asian, I heard I was different

and for till I was about 16 I wanted to be a boy. And then I found a therapeutic value. If I was gonna be a dope, you know, being a girl.

God loves us best. We got the price built in

and I know some of you Vestal virgins that get clean that never did any of that shit you know,

but I bet you fucked your old man for a washing machine. I just made money at it.

And if I could still get anybody to pay, I'd be a different line of work.

I find anybody willing to pay me. We'll lock them in A room.

Just sign a check, Starman.

I graduated from high school when I was one month short of 16. I graduated a second youngest girl at that time to graduate UCLA when I was 18.

When I was 21, I had my first doctor cream. When I was 22 I was doing tender life

and that was the high side of my addiction.

I spent seven years in the penitentiary

and I don't tell you that to impress you. I tell you that so I don't forget. So don't come ask me what for because it's none of your business.

And my first sponsor told me that because I used to like to strut around the rooms in California and tell them how tough I was. And she said you can't tell anybody that. So I don't know why I listened to her, but I did. I want to be worse than because I felt so much less than

I

I got out of the penitentiary higher. My list was obviously to get laid.

You mean you know,

but I am first and foremost a doping. It took me 3 months to get around to that.

You know, coming out of the penitentiary I was had reports of PO until I was 11 years clean

and first thing I did in the parking lot was to fix because I asked

and

I don't know if I was married to somebody.

Solid blur,

but I I was real unhappy in California so I flipped a coin. If I was going to go to Alaska, Hawaii and Hawaii came up. So I went to Hawaii and I was about to go back to jail again,

and my mother said, well, there's this wonderful thing, recovery. All of us people are doing it. That's very important to my mother, that the best people do it.

And my old man, whoever the fuck he was, was real glad to get me to go anywhere. And

but my attorney said it will keep you from going to jail. I said, oh, I mean, I might be dumb, but I'm not stupid.

And so I went in the other fellowship

and in those days we didn't know about cross addiction. If you're addicted to one, you're addicted to all. So I quit drinking and I shot dope and I worked a 13 step the very best. My ability

or any of you who are too new not to know what that is. I'm sure there's someone standing by the door of the opposite sex that will explain it to you.

I'd like to clarify that too, because trust me, men are not the only ones to do that.

I've been there and done that.

And you know what? If they get well, they leave you anyway.

Now, were the sick ones the ones that have quote UN quote some time. And you know,

when I was trying to think of a nice way to say it, she'd fish in a barrel.

Because if they stay around, they're going to drop you anyway because they're going to know how sick you are.

Yeah,

and

I had to come home to California from Hawaii, and I knew my mother would meet me at the plane and say something like, hello,

that's good for five years.

Are you looking good or? I love you. I'm glad to see, you know, And then I would have an excuse to just to put down all the walls and go balls to the wall.

And I came home and

he took me about my mother greeted me and said, you know, now that you're in recovery, I'd like you to start a program for some people down where my folks are in the liquor business, which was quite convenient and, and banking, which certainly was convenient if you shooting dope.

And so I I started this program

and I'd go into bars

and I'd sit down in a bar. Now I am born in the desert where it's too fucking hot to drink soda pop 'cause you throw up.

But I'd go in these bars and I'd drink Coca-Cola and say, well, it's not slippery. I'm a director

and one day the guy said you want to cope more. I said no, I want a Stinger on and over. And I was off to races one more time. And at that time I was the executive director of an inpatient treatment facility in Watts, California.

And I, I ran that program and I was loaded for 2 1/2 years

and but we hired people with lots of letters under their name. Nobody recovering, God forbid, didn't know the trick is up, you know. And

but, you know, normal people who work with us think they have the ability to save us, and we play them like violins.

Please save me. Please pay my bills

now. Give me a little leftover. Tell them 14 * a week. You gotta pay your electric bill. That's $7000.

I

and I,

I went to my mother's on Thanksgiving with my children

and my mother told me I was not welcome in her home

and if I came again that she would call the police.

And I went and I stopped on the way going home, and I bought a Turkey and I bought all the stuff that you do. And

I always kept drugs in my house and always kept booze in my house. And I went home and I cooked the whole thing. And I don't remember, but I threw it all outside for the dogs

and I made-up my mind to show my mother that I was going to use until I died. And from Thanksgiving until the 12th of August, I used round the clock

and God was not ready to let me out.

And I had my friend Derek, who's home with God now, used to say anymore and I would have died. And any less than I would have died, I was at that place that you get to in your addiction where you can't get loaded and you can't get clean. You're just in limbo. The days of being high

were long. Down the road he was now a matter of I use I'm going to die. And I believe,

and I can't prove this in writing anywhere, but from my own personal experience,

if I could have done any better, I would have. I have never met a drug addict who had one minute of recovery that wanted to go back to what they had every day. I would say I'm not going to do it today as I was on the way to doing it

and I believe, and as I said, what I say is my belief that I am not clean because I choose to be clean, because I chose to be clean 15 years before I put it down. Every fucking day I am clean by the grace of a loving God.

I obviously am quite opinionated.

I love newcomers. You know, they've been here. 3 heartbeats. They found God, worked a step, and this is where they always wanted to be.

Last fucking place I ever wanted to be

and the God talks to newcomers. You ever notice you get over a year, God doesn't talk to you? Only newcomers.

My phone doesn't ring. Hello, this is God. Oh yes, God, how are you today? But newcomers, those fuckers, God talks to him.

I'm real grateful God doesn't talk to me. If that call me on the phone, I wouldn't be standing here. I dropped dead.

I hear my God through you.

I am the only thing in my life. I see one-dimensional. I see everything else 3 dimensional. I see myself one-dimensional and backwards.

Should I try not put a lot of value in what I see in myself? But if I see you having a tough day and you're walking a walk as any asshole can talk to talk

now. I mean, this is not Albert Einstein work we do here, gang. You know, they read the same goddamn thing at every meeting.

Have you got it going on in three weeks? You got the buzzwords. And people think well my God they have time

and only newcomers say time means nothing. Fuck you,

I used to say. Well, whoever got up first had the most time I'll beat the shit out of you before you tell me that today

because I didn't pay for my seat to get here. But I have paid dearly since I've been here to keep it.

We don't require much of you here, except that you change everything about yourself.

And the one thing we ask of you here, above and beyond, is that you make peace with the one person in your life that you went to any length not to know. And that's yourself.

I mean, I'd much rather have God talk to me than me have to work on my character defects because I can get mad at him. I don't see him,

but I see him in you. It's like when they're doing the countdown. It makes me cry because there's nowhere, no way for me to get from where I was standing up here.

Ain't no way. No amount of money, no amount of prayers.

The only thing I had to do was surrender that the fight was over and I had lost.

I am proud to be called a book person.

I am proud that if I sponsor you, trust me if you know about the steps and you know about the traditions,

the steps to what allowed me to make peace with me and the traditions are what allow me to stand you.

Because without you, there is no me.

I mean, if I came all the way from California, there was nobody in here, I'd probably feel a little bad.

I've sponsored a lot of women over the years,

and I'm sure you're going to understand what I'm going to say.

Women sponsor women and men sponsor men.

God has not made the man I can't lie to,

and sometimes they can pay for the lie,

and God has not made the man that can't lie to me. I have no idea how you people think. It is a mystery to me.

I know and my ego tells me, well, I can sponsor man. No I cannot. I can fuck them. I can take his money. I cannot sponsor him.

We seem to have a great cloud of people in Narcotics Anonymous today who think they can fuck their way into better living.

I'm an old broad. Trust me, it doesn't work

or I'd have 38 or nine years.

But you know, I have heard women say, well, I can't find a sponsor who used like me. I can't find a sponsor who's from the same kind of family I'm from. I can't find a sponsor who used the way I did. You show me in any piece of literature we have that that's what it says the sponsor is.

A sponsor is a guide

sponsor someone who has a sponsor.

A sponsor is someone who has worked the 12 steps and the 12 traditions.

I think if you take someone life in your hand and you've worked the third step in there on a second, shame on you.

You know, I am responsible for the hand of NA and if I sponsor you, I am responsible that you get the tools, your responsibilities, if you choose to use them.

My responsibility is that you have them, you know, and I,

I had a sponsor. I hated the speech.

I think in those days, you know, they drew cards and she lost and she got me

because I'm not a dad at the beach today. But when I was new, not a lot of people came around me.

I used to walk in the clubhouse and think, Gee, maybe I smell that because they just move away.

Because I only knew anything. I had one working relationship with an emotion. It was called hate

and it kept me alive until I could get to you and I honed that I could find science and I could use it like a carving knife and cut you down. You wouldn't even know you were bleeding until you hit the floor.

You know, I was not a physically violent person. If I wanted her beat up, I paid him.

Made sense to me,

but I thought I was tough

and I thought I was slick

and I thought I had it going on and I'd walk into the room and I just radiated to see disease. Disease.

My sponsor told me that I could not speak for the first year, which she did not need me spreading my disease that people are trying to get well.

She told me I would go to 365 meetings in 365 days and if I missed a day I would have to start over.

I went to over 700 meetings

and I need to tell you that I'm indebted to the other fellowship because when I got clean, there was one meeting in the world and I didn't shoot Dolph one day a week.

So I'm eternally grateful for them that they loved me until more of us got around.

I've been very fortunate. I've had three sponsors in the time I've got clean. My sponsor has the longest clean time in Narcotics Anonymous

coming on 39 years.

So we like to go to meeting with a lot of men and then they have a countdown and she and I stand up and we got a third of the clean time in the room.

The women don't recover.

You know this lady that I hated?

Tree taught me everything that I value today

and I did. I have to tell you that the 1st 3 1/2 years I was here I wanted to use every day all day

and I was afraid if I went out and used I wouldn't die.

If someone had said Mona here take this, I guarantee you'll die. I would have a different clean date,

but I don't know why I stayed. That's the hardest question that I'm asked because I was a slipper for so long and I believe like I told you, it's the grace of a loving God, he said. It is your time in the sun. Come up out of this line and I will set you free.

I know, and I learned that moves like this from people like you,

that I no longer had hang my head.

I no longer had to sell my body. I no longer had to look at the terror in my children's eyes and the fear in my mother's face

that I could upright like God had met me to walk. But I hated this bitch when I was new.

And she said, now you'll go home and you'll read this book. You'll come back and give me one spiritual, one word spiritual principle for the first step. Well, due to my act of addiction, I had lost the ability to read and write

when I got here and I said oh I really like to, but I can't read or write because my addiction. Shit, that's alright darling, we got it on tape.

My first sponsor quit school in the ninth grade so I thought, I'm a mental giant man. I'll get this down slipping in this picture. Leave Me Alone

took me two weeks to come up with what I believe is the spiritual principle for the first step. What my sponsor, my sponsor, sponsor and her sponsor said and all the people I sponsor say. And I believe the first principle is surrender.

I must admit that I have not got the power. I never had the power and I ain't never gonna be here long enough to get the power.

What seems a bit unfair to me, I think God let me drive once in awhile,

but it doesn't.

She took me on to the steps and she's I hear a lot of conversation about the second step having to do with insanity. I beg to differ. Normal people who do what we do, do the behavior we do. They just don't repeat it.

The second step has to do with faith. If I am not in charge, I must have faith that there's something more powerful than I am that will take care of me.

And a third step has to do with trust. If I'm going to turn my life and my will over to something I can't touch, see, taste, feel or smell, I better trust it,

you know? And I never have to worry when I'm having a bad day. What step? I'm not working.

It's not always the first step,

not the four steps, not the 12th step, is not the 10th step, is not the 6th step. One more time I have it in this fine keen mind of mine that I am in charge and it all goes to hell.

The only difference is today. I used to, when I was with less time, I would get the water up here before I'd realized, oh, I'm not in charge. Now. Sometimes I can catch it. It's only to hear you know this is not a program of perfection,

this is a journey. And the only time you will come to the end of this journey is when you throw dirt in your face.

And when I die, I will be able to say I am recovered

because in some of the literature it says recovered. You have to remember these are not Pulitzer Prize people that are writing this book. They did not know the difference between recovering and recovered.

All living drug addicts that I know that are recovered or out using.

This lady taught me what it meant to be a lady.

When I came in, she made me make all my dresses into blouses

and I used to say, when are these guys going to quit treating me like a whore? She says. When you quit acting like one.

What a concept,

you know? I had hip huggers and halters and was running around and a guy would come up and say hi, give me a hug. I went home. It was a white picket fence, 2 1/2 kids and a dog. It was him

when I was about four years clean, my sponsor said to me in a room full of more people than this, from a podium. Mona, I have something to tell you. And I thought she was going to praise me in front of all these people.

And she said Prince Charming is dead

soon as she told me. I know none of you have ever done this as soon as she told me. Do not get involved. Osgun

and I found him

and he was all wonderful. Had one little flaw. He was married to someone else.

Teams everything I like to me. I wasn't breaking any rules. Let him play

and a child was born of that relationship

did.

And that's the time he decides power time to go back to his wife. So I had that child alone, buried alone

and I learned a guy the lessons that I deserve more than somebody elses leftovers.

And I know my sponsor told me that. But you know, we hear when we can hear,

and doesn't make any difference that you tell me I'm alright until I know I'm all right, you know? I mean, I've seen thousands of people die

who work work

and knowing differences. I don't want anything that goes on with using

not to save my children, not to save my grandchildren, not to save my mother. They want it. They can come here and get it,

but I ain't getting it up for nothing. You know my gift from my God says free.

She taught me

that it takes courage to be clean.

If you think you're in this room because you're weak at strongest, suggest weak people die using

strong people. Come in here and do what they got to do to stay.

And she told me honesty had nothing to do about your cash, your old man, or your car had to do that. I had to be honest with me. If I was honest with me, I didn't have to be afraid to be honest with you.

The trick in recovery, if you're looking, if you're a speed freak and you want it in a little car that you can put in your pocket,

is you must become transparent.

If you become transparent, you have nothing to fear.

I don't mean transparency, so we'll feel sorry for you, but I am no longer a secret. I will tell you everything about me, the good, the bad, the boring on a one to one basis. A podium is not a place to share great many things about me. But I no longer am afraid that you're going to find out who I am. You choose to be my friend. You've made a hell of a friend. You choose not to be my friend. You missed a hell of a friend. And that's where it starts and ends.

And the most important thing that she taught me was the definition of love,

she said. Love is something given freely, expecting nothing in return.

I can go into any room, Narcotics Anonymous, and tell you that I love you all. There's some of you motherfuckers I don't like,

Not here. I don't know anybody here. Some of you won't like me here. That's fine,

but it's all my life. If I loved anything, I had a list that it had to come up to.

In all my life, I killed everything I wanted to love because I would not let it go. So I love you. Whether you choose to be clean or if you choose to die, that's between you and your God. Has nothing to do with whether I will love you. My program tells me that I must love you. It doesn't say anywhere I gotta like you

or that I gotta choose to spend time with you, but if you call and need help, I better go or I'm gonna be that one raising my hand. If there's anyone here with less than 30 days.

My sponsor told me that I had to go to the meetings in this one clubhouse. I had to get there half hour early, leave half hour late, shake the speakers hand told him I like him even if I couldn't stand him. So if any of you your sponsor tells you that fucker, don't come up and talk to me. I don't care.

He took me to service meetings for two years

and the only thing I got to do is clean ashtrays. I had a made it home sick. Can I bring her? She said no. I said why? Said you gotta learn things and I know how to clean ashtray. In those days we had real Cubs. Now to put out real Cubs out the door to be gone today. And I got to wash cups. I mean, I was at the top of my game, you know, and I tried. I said, you know, I got them made home. She'll come to the dishes. No, Mona, you got to do. But then they made me make coffee. I don't drink coffee. I don't even eat coffee.

I made such horrible coffee, only had to make it twice.

They moved me right into a range in chairs. I did hoop buy coffee.

She taught me that I that service is the icing on the cake. The 10% do it and 90% bitch about the way it's done.

And if you have a Home group, God willing, your sponsor makes you have one.

Please vote on all issues before your group

In California, we said they'll never vote in the book. We have to put no input. We'll always have the white book. And you see what we got today? We got a book. If you do not want your literature changed

because once they open up the steps to mess with them, in my opinion, the game's over.

I don't care if they call me it or sit and stay, that is not the point. I care that we give them the power to change these principles that made my recovery possible,

and that's probably something I shouldn't say, but who cares? They hate me at World Service anyway.

I will never be a World Service speaker, trust me. At a world convention.

This lady told me that I could go to no other clubhouse with this clubhouse

and for five years this bitch told me I had to move women that I want to spit on when I was using

had to go and say do you need help? I said can I send my friend? No, you'll go.

I went, I don't know why, and said God loved me and I had that fear that I wouldn't die. And finally, when I had just a little over five years, I told my sponsor that I wanted to sell my house and move to Alaska.

This was October and I put my house on the market the first day of October and we figured would take me clear to break up which is in May or June

and I put my house on the market the second day of October and I was in Fairbanks, AK the 12th day of October.

First person that looked at my house paid my price and paid cash to the note and then paid rent until the escrow closed

and the last thing my sponsor said is I'm getting on the plane is Mona. You know how you are. Promise me to be real careful about to me and I said I will never marry again.

I don't know about your God, but mine as soon as I say never becomes always. As soon as I say always, it becomes never.

I got off the plane, I left LA, it was 85. I got off the plane was 28° below 0. Now I'm born in the desert. What do I know about below 0? And I had on these lace up boots that were plastic. And as I got off the plane, it sounded like popcorn, you know?

I got in with the soles and the shoelaces. The rest were gone.

And I'm used to three hundred 350 people at a meeting when at that time and I went to Alaska and I went in this little dark, dingy room.

There were six people there

and it was like a smoker. You open the door and you know,

and I told him about how they didn't do it right. Any of you planning on moving, please zip your mouth.

I told her it's not how we do it in California. They said who gives a fuck how you do it in California.

And I met him.

She was quite amazing, quite amazing.

6 foot 4

full blooded Indian,

five years clean

and he thought I was helpless.

How about as helpful as a fucking cobra?

Yeah,

yeah, little one. Little minor defect.

Today we got married. He told me he'd been loaded the day before

and I said well, I'm an executive director,

save them.

And I took to being an R and on like a fucking duck to water.

And the things I told other people not to do, I did. I knew it was my fault. I knew I could save him if I just did it different. He wouldn't use. And here's the periodic and I had no understanding how you could go two years and not use.

He caused more havoc in one weekend than I caused in 10 years,

and I tried for six years, 6 1/2 years

he was head of department corrections for Estate Alaska, and that time he passed $600,000 in bad paper.

He was slick.

He could pass checks with nothing on him.

Those puppy were straight DF Goodrich

and I loved him. He was all the things that I had ever wanted.

Only man in my life that has ever called me a nickname,

and it's none of your business, right?

But I looked and I watched and I knew

that I had to leave or had to join them because you could not watch something you love die inch at a time.

And I told him that I loved him but that I couldn't do it anymore. And he was on his way to wine and I told him that's fine. And I prayed all the way to the airport and he wouldn't change his mind. And then I cried all the way home. And I never cried from that day to this day. But I had mourned him for 6 1/2 years. If you're married to someone in active addiction, you pray that God will kill him. And then when their two minutes coming home late at night, you say, God, I lie, please bring him home.

You know, and,

and he told me that he was going to Hawaii to die

and that's exactly what he did. And of course, Narcotics Anonymous is a close knit fellowship

and a girl I used to sponsor it was who was with me.

And when he died, she was afraid to call me because I had known that she'd left with him,

and I could truly say that I was. I loved him then. I was glad that he didn't die alone. But nobody deserves to die alone. And the last thing he said when he died was to tell me it would be alright.

And in that week,

I lost my husband, I lost the best legitimate job I've ever had, and I lost my health.

And in 14 years I was where I had been through all my act of addiction out 65 below 0.

Why the fuck don't you leave me alone? Why can't I have just a job, an old man, my kids be alright and work and do the normal things. And so at that time I made-up my mind to kill myself and I bought the drugs I knew would kill me. I cleaned my house. My mother wouldn't come and see the bodies. I see she's still a pig.

I wrote my children these wonderful letters like I'd be a really wonderful mother. Dead,

Uh, and at that time I was a regional, had a regional office and I had to go read a report and I went 400 miles to read this report and we're in the business meeting. They said, well, everybody reading all this report, they said, yes. They said one more, you don't need to read. I said well fuck I could have killed myself

but since I've gone so far I went to meeting and that night there was my Eskimo there and he said what I needed to hear. He said if you're full of anger and resentment,

you're mad at Narcotics Anonymous, you're mad at God, you're suffering from untreated addiction and you work steps 4 through 9 until the pain goes away.

I thought what a concept.

I would like to tell you that one homework and got just wonderful. Peach King took me two years to get to why I felt, and in that time I had to come home to California, which is the last place I had planned on spending my senior years

when I had to live with my mother one more time. And she was the person my whole life that I was blamed for everything. We had a game. I asked. She said no. I begged. She said maybe. I groveled and the check was.

Whole life it was for fun because there was only she and I. And if it wasn't her, guess who I had to look at?

And she's still applied to play that game with me. You know, I own my own business. And so I get short of my I say ma, yes, no, no, no, big. And then she says no. I said, well, thank you. And then she goes like, well, maybe she forgot the game. I'll tell her again, no Mon, I can't lend you the money. I said, well, thank you. I appreciate you thinking about it and go away and she'll call me. Why don't you want my money?

But I don't have to do that today. You know, I used to when my mother would buy my stepfather a gift. I think that bitch is spending my money

and I look at him with his fuck he do with my money on

like I've done something. Now you know when she tells me about she's going to give me this leave me that leave me this this necklace is diamond necklace I have on my mother. Let me work to come here and she said now be careful and don't lose it because when I die you get it. I said, well if I get it when you die, what the fuck difference? If I lose it,

it's mine.

But today I can tell you if my mother goes and has spent every dime, it was hers. And that's the freedom I have because I'm in recovery.

I always wanted to have my own. I don't know what the fuck time it is.

Am I over?

AH,

this is how you get to cry.

I'd always wanted my own treatment facility,

and I tried and tried and tried and tried, and it just wouldn't work. And it's like everything in my life. There's only been one thing in my life that I surrendered to God that he took from me. And as soon as I surrendered God, all right, I'll go get a job, I'll teach, I'll do whatever because I have an abundance. Education is really not good for much.

As soon as I said that, two weeks later I was in my own treatment facility.

It's the process I must surrender to God's will. And then He does more for me than I ever envisioned.

And I had.

My oldest son had gone into treatment

on December

and I opened my facility in February

and the person who was supposed to be my partner back down. And so I had.

I had given my oldest son up

to his father

because I was too busy take care of another kid

and I did not see that child until he they did intervention on him

that December

and two months later he became my business partner

and