Artis G. from Tulsa, OK at Houston Roundup, TX

finally at last it is my pleasure to introduce our speaker this morning haven't had much opportunity to collect my thoughts about artist G. but and I've known her the amount of minutes is it added up would probably be less than an hour but I already feel like I have a dear friend she's hilarious and smart and

I my spiritual program was reinvigorated from just a few minutes in the car with her yesterday so I'm very much looking forward to hearing artistry from Tulsa

artist and I'm an alcoholic

hi everybody I'm also a member of al anon family group

my own on birthdays January of ninety four and my birthday is August fifth of eighty three I'm sorry eighty four eighty three I'm a little nervous

I

I don't I'll be honest with you I don't like to speak I always tell people that because it's not something that I don't understand even why I speak but I was telling a friend in Tulsa I came close to calling and cancelling because I don't understand a lot of what it is I'm supposed to show it here except

and and he told me that he heard a speaker say that he was going to cancel it with your ego cane he didn't have anything and I have a lot I do I don't know where I thought I didn't I I was he told me that was like a light went off yeah I got a lot of stuff maybe it's not stuff you want

when I just change my whole day around so don't be afraid to share what you feel somebody just might be something or turn your

I mean not just amaze me that one thing and he wasn't there to fix me he was just talking about a speaker he heard

and there are few things are here before I hear my experience strength and hope in the region like you're missing for you

as you can for me

to make sure there are you staying in the now anything the reality that I have grass so far

and I wanna miss that no one speaks for all college nana and doctoral port too many expected if you're a new comer

because the speakers do not represent a were just drunk trying to stay sober and I went to AA and this is some of my experience strength and hope of working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and about one on my own on a night K. forces me

the other thing is I don't have any original thought or any regional with them all I've ever gotten I've got from years

all I did was go to meetings and do what you're told me to do

and then thanks to happen in my life and now I'm behind a podium telling you what you told me

and that and that's why there's no original thought that there were original I charge you

the Grateful

I'm not there I can't

I can get there

you were really pain in the **** is in recovery

or call gave

the other thing is I try to hear from my heart and not my head and it's taken a long time to get to my heart

and

sometimes when I hear something I'm feeling it offends people and I assure you I'm not here to offend anyone and if I do the things you all tell you what they told me

call your sponsor and workers can you get over it

and if you don't have as far as you know have that you never have a good time

because that's how I get over what you say to me

thanks for everything he gave me

the other thing is I am

I believe

not

everything I have today

I got from you and the day I can I'll call economic I have never ever

ever met a sober person

now

you

when you think about how you got here one of those women were powerless over alcohol that our lives have become unmanageable what an understatement in some ways and then wanna overwhelming statement in another way I did not grasp that for years

and when I came here I thought

I thought the steps and I thought

why would I come

the very thing I hate which is dropped

to to get sober and wine

you know I'm not one of the things that I I had a hard time with boys do you want to quit drinking

I mean what was your purpose

I didn't get it and it took a long time for me arm my mother was a bartender and my father was a customer

that would be about a note from my doctor

our

in that moment on

when the two connected over alcohol

it's been my life

all the homeless amid the family does he

and

I tell you from my experience the variety is a very unusual place to be if you've never been there

and when we come out parking arms you tell if you have hope of walk before Thursday to put the court in a ball into the pills away across

have you ever been there wanted to put a Cork in a ball on the way it's like I didn't hear my story for hello I saw what the girl will be Goldberg doing stand up routine

when he got three loaner cars are the best first timer related

and he wasn't even in the program

I was trying not it's not that I'm unique I couldn't hear anything

because I had been sedated all my life

and one of the things there was a guy who was in the paper ending within a calmer remember seven years he worked up there but I was talking about I thought

valid parked off the holidays we've been coming for years

I don't know why they think are seven years our reality is any big deal

and that's on my mind like

I've never been here so everything the step to talk about came to believe that a power greater than myself could be stormy to sanity there was nothing to be restored to

and there are a lot of it to come in that way I mean some of you've had some really normal

nine times got in all colors him and now you're going back and I think that's great but I've not been there

and one of the things about being restored to sanity confuse me for a long time because I had no idea what you were talking about

Oklahoma what they call a local holiday that was raised

our personality

when I went to the bar I had three elements I had to have with me to be a really really good like that

what I had to have a shot of Bourbon for went out the door

and that wasn't one of his many years it took to make me

I feel nothing

because I've I've heard people say when they pick a starter Brinkley thinking they got real pretty

hi there I don't know what I always wonder what they were drinking

I feel pretty I've got nothing in that hope you're for me

and then the other thing I had to have was cocaine

okay this one I want not to the bar in their yard there we are you and me and we look good okay

but one woman I didn't really know

you know what to say

and so I take a couple rows of cocaine and I could talk about anything

and I was so that powerful drug

I believe the I. all in security if you take a you know what I'm talking about you don't I'm going to try to describe it to you if I was like okay now with a little shot of Bourbon I could tell you how to build the hotel

I thank my god when you come and build me one

I could talk about any subject on cocaine it's like I had no idea never read it but it would just come from nowhere

everything

when I really really doing good in the bar you know now I'm I'm I'm you know we call it cable talking I'm going from table to table and

and I I

residents are

the death of them

women are not

and they were my peers have for a long time they influenced my life the women did an arm to the negative not the positive

but I've been a bar and I was ready they're going to night clubs I know what that man was talking about last night about being in a bar trying to sing seven

I was playing pool like fifty seven

my mother there was this barstool and I used to work around on it when I was little I know one day I found on at my feet touch the floor and I thought she lowered it

and I realize I grew up in it

and I've never been outside that environment can all clicking on I never went to prom I never went to the school functions I always did my homework in the bar

and the bar was mine home

I could not grasp why anybody would want to sober up and go to the bar

and it took me awhile to to get morning

recovery from their bar atmosphere into total recovery ballparks anonymous

so now I'm I'm I'm back in the bar now

I've got my Bourbon I got my cocaine and I'm moving around and talked and I'm dancing

I know I need somebody and I guess they like me because they looked at me over a second I didn't blink

so I think they like me

that's the lead in figure I did not know I didn't

it wasn't right I didn't know

right now I mean I don't know anything those you all day that was

for me I need to learn how to remove my mother straight bar without a heterosexual redneck balls cracking man

I tell him I'm going to go home and I wind up and on let me conclude with a thick they lounge within the bars with the gay community and I was fourteen

and I finally found a gay bar I did not know I was gay but I found it

if you're looking for the gay bar

and that when I grew up in the gay community didn't have gained homosexuals it was the day and the men and women we're one bar and we protected the game man

and remember that

come running in there and be the right people

we were very very close

I really hurt when we started separating with gay rights I thought they were to bring it together better kind of separated

but that's okay I've had that thought that today I'm just the flag stands to have picked up the new way alive in the gay community

so I I met this girl and I was I'm looking around thinking

nothing

I never think I look and I'm

I don't remember how we me and then we wind up somewhere else but that's not black out we don't know about right now no one has

but I'm not real sure

and I know how to do it I'm just not sure where the feelings come to do it so now I have the third element that I need and quietly

both have been taken down no one talk about pilots flight taking a Spanish line

I mean when I took those things

right people look you know I mean I have been very careful where I could go

a night out with an alcoholic and addict ACA before recovery

and the next morning when I wake up and I

I look at her he looked at me it was that awful feeling

how much did I pay did you pay me

I don't even know these people I never had an intimate relationship hello I came to realize that our pricing on Amazon so

I was raised in the disease of alcoholism and I didn't know any other way alive knows my education through the how could you got an education to be dropped

tunnel vision that closed off from the reality of the world in this because somebody taught me to do my job

nobody taught me how to be a part of the human race but they did my job in four four eight hours a day with the only time I was ever out of myself that I could work with the patient

and it amazes me that I could go to the emergency room make life and death decisions and then go out

from the Martin hearing tomorrow

there are always right and I couldn't even

do I posted on a normal level but because I knew my skill I could go to merge for Michael I think that the citizens and and that that was the only thing I had going in my life

and while I progressed into the disease more and more and more and and I hated drugs I mean I didn't like them you know I would cook at the table and drink but I would say

I don't I don't really think I drink tonight and what I did was to put it there and go to the bars dot the Bourbon because I didn't want you to think that all right

drunk when I can't and rocks and in the very thing I hate I became

so much of what I heard was overwhelming you know it's just overwhelming

R. I. without the hearing impairments for thanksgiving very often I want to thank them wasn't wonderful dinner a lot of great fellowship

and really need people and I want to thank them for the basket I got in my room the other speakers get a hundred dollar bill

good job

are you did

there

the thing about it is when I feel

overwhelmed with them

ality of sobriety it still scares me band I have thirteen years but I've never had a variety of never had reality so it it's like I'm thirteen

so

we have a lot of

drunk a log cabin and experiences that would overwhelm

most people who are outside the program how we could laugh things to do see I've I've I'm I'm in recovery

and there's a difference between being a part of something and just standing on the perimeter thing and I've been there I've been a

you know that's not what I want in my life

and I did a lot in saying things and I've been in and out of mental institutions before I got here and I'm with the professional woman who went in and out of mental institutions and I would pre register myself because I knew I was going back

and we were taught them that

hearing about the

all there's another lady there were probably saying why am I would P. registers myself put myself in a minute okay

I don't know what the doctor park I would sneak out right away and

why would anybody after me

right

my little rock hall open before we call and we will hear this much anymore but there's an invisible line that we pass over

okay the Bourbon the cocaine and quaaludes saved me

for a long time because I was saying before I ever took those

the card the van right in case of alcoholism I certainly didn't hear any

anything that that would have helped my self esteem or anything no one day you've heard some of the speakers here for me I mean it's very bad in that atmosphere that in a normal home I don't even think there is a normal home out there I think you

I don't really come from one but

there

the atmosphere is so overwhelming that

even when things are happening to us in the disease of alcoholism were not aware that it is bad we do have the feeling we don't know what to do with the with the data that's the way I understand myself and

the line and we'll go along if you're like me and I'm surviving the world work with

with all the synthetic but my body can handle and function in a world that stays between eight and five don't come in with anything in your body

and that's basically all I did

Anna one day I passed over the invisible line let me tell you what that's why because you see it all come forward do what it's supposed to do I wouldn't be here

why would I be here

I certainly don't need you if everything's working fine for me because that work was I didn't feel anything the only time I was overwhelmed this was between Dr

and art and art had people ask me to do it

I don't know if you've been there but they they please take this are taken if you're not sure validate that

and

this morning I'm good morning

I parked over there why not tell you what it's like when I took a shot of Bourbon one guy it didn't work

it didn't not make me feel it intensified whatever was going on inside me that has been dead for years because I came here when I was thirty five

and

the call came and all the sudden I was stupid they were right there though the call me stupid like in reality there right the reality between drink with no spirituality that combine

the Chrysler

I was so bad you I couldn't tell you to go out with me

let's let's give you a quite late at night you think that I was okay because when we took those things we we didn't know anything about each other it just took everything away why didn't care to know Anne I certainly didn't think you care to know about me

and none of those things don't work they they don't work I mean that I'm taking them and they're not working and I don't know what do you do in the probably twelve talks about is so graphic in their what's wrong with that

I cannot face over I cannot K. drive hello

if you read all the jumping off place for most of the guard because we don't know what to do

because we come into our parking armor and it looks like a social gathering and it's a problem here

and I had to learn the difference between the two thanks so

I got to the point in the second step for it talks about that and it says that could be restored the fantasy sanity I had to see what was blocking me off from a higher power well I haven't even gotten to yet and I'm on a second step

I'm trying to find some kind of vanity all the said market Michael personality if it were not working so the book says we'll start doing everything change in rank change and people change in places changing jobs changing things change your luck and everything I'm doing

I then put them

I've been

I thought it was great to be brought out

you got to go to another state to do it

and I'm

and I realized they were real let's bring up they were very nice

I had to clean that up

but I went

and I realized that my life

there was something wrong with and I never ever ever ever thought it had anything to do with alcohol

there were really going on and then I would wind up the notifications and they would get me with medication and then they let me out and I I would try to function on the end of the person thought was Marco try pulling my polar I've got every bell mono prive so

everything and that kind of thing you cannot function in society without medication

all right all right

our

you know that there

on my thirtieth birthday I was in a mental institution on vacation

I always went on my vacation no I don't work ever news that I've been in so many mental institution also called the hospital when my insanity would kick in which is between drunk

because once I got them both up in me I'm I'm David I'm okay

but I couldn't call anything on there a calling hour been robbed

I've been held up by gun point I mean I mean it is so dramatic that when I go back I forget my go are you OK

yeah what

I mean

not only can I turn thirty and I'm sedated from the head down the only thing that they give you that poor thing they knock out and I didn't go in like I'm here for mental health I have some problems I went in there are raids it's like they had to hold me down and sitting in the bar and then

I'm like okay

and I never did know I don't remember ever in the mental health and ever asking me what's your problem

I never know what it was and I just want to make me and feed me and then I just gave him the whole cycle would start over again

so I'm in the middle in thirty years old and I'm laying flat and the only thing I can remember my eyes and just going back and forth trying to figure out what they really gave me on the court I could not lift a finger

and the north

there is only like that instead

Lauer here today you're thirty years old

it was

the floor

I never knew how years later when I was on a day in the nursing station at a hospital and I heard him say his patient down and nobody calls nobody comes complete here it's a birthday let's take them and give her some

it came from I think I always wondered no one saw in my life the cared whether I was thirty our live

I mean I could myself those moments to since and I kick myself out and one time a friend took me to get rid of me

Charlie and I remember saying I'm thirty years old it's my birthday and I thought

born this way what is the matter with me

I can function on a job because I'm so out of myself I don't even in the medical field you can't waste your time thinking about yourself with a life and death decision all time in March I was specialized in

the promoter was over I would complain again it was like I could and then back when you cross over the line of alcoholism now if you think about eight hours

and I found myself going slowly into taking volumes at work and then slowly ask all those who are now going to doctors for prescriptions I can't sleep well how about give me something to sleep in and help I can't stay away stay awake and how about arm arm I have diarrhea I had diarrhea and I just kept getting all these prescriptions now I've got that on top of all the medication and I don't know

I lost control here and I used to have some kind of control over my life and my three little elements that I took to the bar every night

and

then I thought I got up slowly what I did was he would come and put them in the peel and stick in my mouth and pour the water and I did the sticker on the car and started out when he left the room and detox myself

he got up all the bad news and it was a locked ward and I've been a medical care just grab a lab coat just like in the movies earning a high house man because you're Mara and walked up and locked doors and went home

and

western thought I don't know what to do

I don't want to do

and I want to a treatment nineteen eighty or valor hoping Christian and I was there thirty days and I did not

we like that it was Arkansas you know if you take one five milligrams argument takes thirty days to get out of your system

you know and I had so much and I'm not it would take more than thirty days made a graph any kind of sobriety but I remember the guy didn't take anything and everything in front of me and one of the fifth you talk about some equipment that he had bought the third I bought a brand new campaign don't work here got his job back you ever made it because if somebody makes something now to make it work at work now this is how Deepika did I related

I don't think it are related to like god made me no I don't work right

no one paid me back because I've been to the final all my life all my life because I have always tried to kill myself I've done all kinds of crazy things to kill myself and wondered I'm not dying

hi Tom I hit the bottom they're all close to nine o'clock what the bar makes for me the bottom it doesn't matter what happened to me to get me to step one

but I got there and I got it through a mental institution where they told me that I couldn't function in society without medication I had been to Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and I couldn't hear anything I already have a great day I got my life back on the kids back I got my job back there how are you going to get that

so one of my daughter's number up for nothing to get bigger I just couldn't hear anything and there were no gain media well there was but it was not this person called nine and want me there

so I went to the straight meeting and I don't get it and I was in a red neck road you know the ball scratching redneck little town I'm sorry thank you but that's hard to describe what what kind of person I would wind up being in those meetings

and

they told me I went to jail and the food

this doctor I'd work within the hospital in the state are you think you're going to a meeting I'll get you on your own the word reconnaissance

Anna

I can never say economists not

okay you know what it is

so I am

I don't know what the word was but I said okay

I ran home look it up because I thought he wanted a sexual favor

I looked at him

in me damn

cool

but I went to the meeting and I remember the meeting and I didn't have that overwhelming I'm home I have a thing of reminded me of the bar with the lights on

and I was kind of going to your house your car far yeah you know it's kind of like that on the back of the car I couldn't

anyone

I said to myself

why are these people what are they doing and then I was in there this morning and she never sent and thirty days to Marty forty two and I said what is the priority oh my god

the body is going without a drink one day at a time with our party Hughes gagan and doing because they're talking on and on and I said why

why would you want to go there during the one day at a time we could close the

it's good because it's a new way of life and I did not and and this is what you found one more news I thank

I'm not very

because

I think okay well I didn't want it whatever way

I

I got more rain and I'd be more inclined thing and

I wanted up in another mill institution and I'd gone to meetings off and on for three years from nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty three and out and now you can we are those on the coming in out in out and

I went up the middle institution I think Francis and they put me through all the tests and everything and then thought path in the middle path and all that **** and I

you know and then I felt like I

I guess because I'm here and they put me into this office and one of the best colleges they say in Tulsa said

if you're not an alcoholic or drug addict you have grave emotional and mental disorders

and I'm sorry time a lot

hello in my heart not in my head well because I've been here many can I couldn't hear anything hot work rarely have we seen a person fails thoroughly followed our path remember that part and I didn't know whose profit man I do now but then down if you keep it here if you listen to those who with great emotional mental disorders they too can be part of her if they have the capacity to be honest it

we have great emotional mental disorders we have the capacity it would just be honest I have no idea what they were talking about but I remember hearing that so deeply

and

well I would have to go to a meeting because I know there was a meeting and he tried to park do you worry about the holiday anything you know what we do got it so smart because he knows if we if you call now called go north where would they go

I mean I got me a more trouble than anything the people take get out of my house I bet it

go to parties or they didn't invite me

and that's the way our cargo van let me I'm going to stand by me I don't want to go to your party

I was wired that way backwards

only backwards

so I wonder if the only thing I wanted to go to this meeting and and they said that

that let me try explaining you are a mental patient

you are not quite got it no you can't because you're the right

they weren't they weren't I could look I just want to go to a meeting so he gave me the pass and I went to the meeting nothing happened at the Meadville founded by removing it right I got there for the first time with the desire

and I thought maybe I was wrong wrong maybe I just borrowed it part of this you know three months in the median it's awful dream okay I mean the north Parker not talking to anybody Sena we come let me leave early

we don't talk within the back we don't have anything to do with it but we just want to see what you're doing I'm on my way somewhere

we don't want to go on my way somewhere

and

I remember going to my office and I picked up the phone and I thought they had a new comers they had to get phone numbers and they figure for her phone number and I never used them but

I had to my desk and I went to maintenance and I got a rope in there where the beam and I put it

in my office and I was going to hang myself and I I was tired

I was the most miserable human being on earth I thought and I

but you know I'm not Catholic and I just kinda want somebody no I'm gonna leave and

all right I don't call these numbers now in my body rotten by the time they come in the office but I think no one's going to come in there but I want to find the body forgets to smelly and

and we're that way we certainly don't want to leave a man

so I started

those numbers and they were either disconnected me

R. O. W. then I did the same thing and there are they were disconnected

and

given up in the last number I called a woman answered and it was

this woman and I'm not you're not supposed to really tell your sponsor's name over tight because the pit and all

meet me at the mail by one

the lady answered and

my name's already here I don't remember man

amber you

the damn well

so

I can't get out I I I can't go on another moment of my life is crazy I'm going I'm I'm falling apart I feel like I'm going to be homicidal and suicidal I'm I'm gonna kill myself I'm going to R. I can't take it anymore

I'm not gonna forward doing what you know that I'm gonna kill myself and I just want somebody to know that I tried Alcoholics Anonymous it didn't work and he said can I put you on hold

well I waited

when I think of that day I just want okay

he got another phone because back on

I

hello cannot now let me you can only get the state are you are in your arms you don't kill yourself for your private parts from his own work and and you'll find somebody now to find your body and I think yeah okay that's fine too how about we meet a five o'clock have a Cup of coffee and we'll have to work if it doesn't work can go back and kill yourself with that okay

you don't know what's going to turn

so I learned there was the one thing I was running in and he picked me up and

I was in the car he can look at the store you've done everything out parking lot yeah

he can what what what's the problem without parts non smoker I don't know if it would do you believe in the power bring yourself and I think I believe in god I was raised in Tulsa

thank god I had a power greater than yourself and I never heard it quite that way until we want those guys who does not know that a power greater than ours do you believe in the power greater than ours and what I did

and she looked at me on a regular basis

the greater the new artist

thank you I don't want you

think of something greater than me

number that I've been out on my own I've survived on the street by a tree I put myself through high school I put myself there wasn't any armor illegitimate entity and they won't even give me a crime and

there you know there was no culture that helped me there was no siblings there was no follow through with no children it was just me why in god's name would you think I would pick up something greater than me and that's the part that if you are not record not anger I understand now

here's what I'd like to do with you he said will you do something just different I go once you go to if I had things to do when you do them in spite of what the first up here

and and if it doesn't work you can go ahead and kill yourself and I said

you mean you're going to give me something to do and if I do and I don't work

I can go ahead and kill myself he said yes I said in a meeting she said yes

okay

the first thing he told me to do and I forgot that I haven't heard in years may god forgive me because this was one real important thing I had totally forgot about it there were three things he told me to

the first thing he told me to do was use her higher power not mine and they were not her love her higher power because woman's husband had just laughter kids could abandon their and she was spending time with me

he was so incomplete to helping me with her own personal problems going on

the first thing we do here her higher power

can you tell me to do if I go to a meeting get a desired cap if you tell me why he said it

you know when the desired trip is just what it is just a desire to stop drinking detrimental alcoholic or anything but the action changes the feeling and walking up to get the care will be get will be the beginning of my recovery one you know I could I may I may I would desire

I'm not going to let you all see me I'll have a good idea you know I didn't you know my hair's not that that kind of **** goes through our head when we're sending out to why we couldn't get it here I'm telling you from my own experience the tip is the beginning

it is an option because the docking program and the third thing he told me to do is go home and thank her higher power for today

and I did good it was off today he said it doesn't matter

you said you would do all the option no matter what it set up here I went home

I got on my knees I keep coming and I think

what's your name there are

thank you for today but personalized here today and

I know what you're gonna do you go

less than an anthro member help where ever that's what I heard you were going to do that's what I heard on TV and purchasing and protecting and I'm from the sixties and so that's what you're gonna do to me you're going to cover me up and then call me I'm not going to help us over and I went on and I