Francis C. from San Fransisco, CA at the gay/lesbian "Living Sober" conference in San Fransisco, CA

how do I know

here again my whole face

my name's Francis I'm an alcoholic and an addict

what a red

thanks for the intro

I know we don't do newcomer thing here but I know

welcome all the newcomers

and say that if you think you have a problem with drugs and alcohol

thanks to being actually is the new comers

because you are living examples that on a daily basis that it still doesn't work out

and then believe me if it didn't work out there I

we can drink we were doing okay

nothing really

in your ****

hi can you hear like everybody else because I drink too much and I didn't look very pretty when I

if I can drink like a lady I would still be out there but I never really did anything like a ladies

so anyway here

and

you know I started drinking when I was in seventh grade and

and it was the usual thing you know

the girl yes

if I want to do these drugs and I said yes and

I really like going there and I wanted to do her

do you really know that

figure that out later anyhow

you know I I started doing drugs and alcohol and drugs are a big part of my story and it's kind of hard anymore to differentiate it

alcohol was kind of like my main thing was kind of like drinking water every day and drugs were like the thing that I would like to do all the time but I couldn't afford it and and you know I bottomed out really quickly and drugs and alcohol was finally brought me to the

drugs are a big part of my story

you know from the time that occurs during that

I don't really get and and the reason I get because it was because I didn't feel anything and that and that's what I want there is a lot of **** going on at home

people here know what I'm talking about

my father is an alcoholic my mother

not around and and I was sexually abused and by the time the drugs and alcohol were around

save my life I think my life because I didn't have to feel something twelve year old

and

so I have this weird kind of respect for alcohol and drugs today because I really believe I would be

if it wasn't for that time in my life when I do drugs and alcohol and you know the crazy thing about

ideas that I would be dead today

on

so anyway

you know I really don't know

for months about what was going to say

really okay

when I was a wreck but

but you know in the final analysis it really it really doesn't matter what happened because it wasn't when I came in it wasn't what happened to me here it was the feelings that I heard in these rooms

I related to that made me feel like you guys

how I

for the first time I felt in my life that I belong somewhere

there were other people walking around without like being beaten from some other planet

and

and

it was the first time that I heard people talk about beer in about loneliness in about the only one in

and about trying to be cool but being a total nerd

and

about that

the whole inside of a

and it was the first time in my life that I never heard anybody talk about

and

it was what I related to

I try you know I didn't

probably about five years to get to that point

you know I heard all this other stuff like

people have gotten in

you know all the stuff that they did and

you know it's been a long time like about five years to realize that I never got really in any car wrecks

I never had a car and

and when I do get in car wrecks because I did it with somebody else's car so that really didn't

I use those things to keep me separate from people in the room and then and when I stop using those things those outside things about how exactly we got here

and stop comparing my my insides if you're outside then I started

believing and really feeling along tearing

and I

that's what happens

we live by the valium before I got up here

I'm still wondering

this is after twelve years of being clean and sober I still have like

the mere

with the story

yeah I know I have to tell the truth here because there's people here that know me that if I don't tell the truth it's really hard they're going to beat the **** out of me after this meeting

you know I'm really

in nineteen seventy

six

I guess over nineteen eighties I think of the people from the crowd

during those years because I really don't remember

I think that's one of the questions may twenty questions was did you ever have a lapse of memory when you're drinking

remember

I guess

I remember the day the other one was the very first one

did you ever miss work because you were drinking

I think every newcomers is becoming a problem we should give them the twenty questions they should write down their answers in your later we give it back to them

when you start coming to

fading away and you realize

I was like

majorly

yeah I moved here in nineteen seventy or something whatever it

and I immediately heard

at Kelly's bar anyone remembers that lovely place

one of the nicer lesbian bars in San Francisco

Jackson mines were like where I live for the next years

and I'm proud to say that all of us are here tonight

anyways you know it was called into because it was like a party town I was young I didn't have wrinkles

on the

I didn't know anything you know you don't have a consciousness so you do **** anything and you don't care about it and

I don't remember even knowing what the word political

and

so it was fun you know there was like a party on Castro street all the time

there was a minor

and

I would love to be totally unclear

you know alcohol in that one bar and it's still there we used to go to like monster and you know user something in two or three years

let's say that we would stay there longer than we should have

we were leaving we would even bring even more

and go hit this bar casters

clock in the morning and then we come out at about

who's with me then it is with me

the bar in

and it was like that was my life

that was my life and I thought that I had around

that's what it was all about

I don't know if anyone knew

but I was in a lot of **** pain I think a lot of people were and I just didn't know what to do you know how hard in everything and and

and are you gonna do it was

that was my purpose in life I thought was to get totally smashed their members coming up from work one day and I said let's go to the bar

that was like what I always wanted to do

I remember being anything that I wanted to be my best friend that I want to be when I grow up

these are my aspirations in life

I'm here

women in this room tonight

last night took me to my first meeting

thank you

I ran across the big book

it was mine

and this is in March in nineteen eighty

I also give you my love strength hope and prayers for your journey

and when I read that this morning I thought you know here we still are

there's a lot of car

we talk a lot about these meetings are very strange feeling to sit around and meeting new people and new faces and it's easy to sometimes feel like where did everybody go I got sober and it's important to remember that most of them are still here

most of the people that I got sober with are still in

are still sober and are still alive

and then I think that that's important to remember

because it's easy to focus on what's not here

easy to focus on who has gone and I'm not saying that I shouldn't remember because those are lessons for me but I need to remember the people who are still here who came in with me

still sober who help me stay sober at the time and taught me how to like live and be crazy and not during

and that that was the point

the point was to

not even

my first thought was the weirdest thing I've ever been to

and I still

going you know I don't know who I thought I would

and on and dark glasses

I think I wore all black

was gonna recognize me who the **** I thought I was a

thank

and

but I didn't you know I didn't I didn't get the simple things in

the simple little plug ins you know if you don't want to drown

what is that

what is

simple well there is nothing simple about my life

it is very complicated and

you know you got this one

I don't want you don't

that one like really complex

and for quite some time after March back from March to April I continue to go attend my lovely bars

checking in on my friends were still drinking and using because I know them and I didn't know what to replace I certainly didn't want to replace it with a bunch of containers and talk about that and but it was only

it was only until I was in and out

I because I think that that's the hardest part is when you you know you know you're an alcoholic

and you know you can't really drink or use anymore and you've been to a couple in meetings

the serenity prayer is in your hands

and you go out

that's a hellish place to be and it was it was the worst part of my drinking

because I would get drunk sometimes I wouldn't get drunk I would drink and I was here the serenity prayer over and over and over and

and I would sit in the bar and I would see someone from these rooms come walking in a bar graph going to the bathroom

you know and then I go back and it seems like I raise my hand is a newcomer for ever and in fact they did I raise my hands and you come from March through about April and March October and down

and it was very humiliating I felt like something was wrong with me I was one of these people were in constitutionally capable of staying sober

but I finally surrendered to over twenty fifth nineteen eighty and haven't had it having

during

it's not because I'm smart or because

a lot of things because things got

that I have stayed sober

I think it's over because I finally got to a place of where

I understood that during the dying

if I drink again I don and I know that

you know it's like I was in a place where I was too scared to live but I was too chicken ****

and

but I was just doing it

I was drinking and I was like my

and I was overdosing and it was just a matter of time

locked up a couple of times you know I thought the other day that they sell

was so intense

but I used to sit in front of the mirror

and punch myself

in the days before I left my house

I hated myself so much you know whatever reason I internalized all this crap

and then I you know I've been victimized so long and then I just did it myself and that's my responsibility

and that's my responsibility today is

stopping to hurt myself and learning how to love myself and accept myself as a human being

it's been necessary for me to do a lot of strange

I used to love that bumper stickers over crazy

because that's kind of what it was like twelve

years that I've been sober

I've been like really crazy but you know it's like growing up I came here when I was

twenty four

twenty one

I'm thirty seven now you figure it out

you know I grew up in a

grew up here in these rooms and

and didn't do a great

and I'm still growing up and it's really important for us to do that

it's really important for us

for me

not to look really good on the outside because that stuff doesn't mean **** to me

meanwhile in recovery to figure that out you know I thought that my program

granted by me X. amount of dollars a year if I had a certain kind of looking

his name is Daniel

and then she called and that he's just a little

eighty

about three weeks old

and

I can interview somebody brought pictures

you're welcome to dash

I keep coming back it really does work

did you

with one out

but I guess I'll find out when I you know I'm gonna write

I

because I have the honor

watching him come into the world

I got on tape anybody wants

I'm gonna get in big trouble

I wanted to mention him because

because

I knew like me and to mean you totally symbolizes

what you know I know it sounds totally corny okay

and then

you know when I came here I got a chance to do things differently he has to go through the same

the same way if I wanted to or you can get a chance to look at myself in the learn just beginning to learn how to love myself on a daily basis

and

and when I hold him

when I am I see this horrible totally dependent on you little light and I think about me and my higher power

you know I think about him for about twenty seconds then I think about me and I think about it yeah my higher power and like me and my higher power

and

and so

anyhow you know if anybody's in this room in there and there are a lot of pain please keep coming back

you don't have to drink you don't have to do drugs you don't kill yourself

three days we can do it the community here has helped me stay clean and sober datacom and to all of you I am very very grateful thank you thank you