The Laguna Beach Canyon Club in Laguna Beach, CA

Thank you, Denise. It's now time to introduce our main speaker for this evening, Teresa F. From North Hollywood. Good evening. My name is Theresa.

I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Theresa. I'm, like, all emotional now. She's got me like a mess over here. I'm like, woo hoo.

Okay. Oh, did that hit home? Thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you. Oh, boy.

Yeah. It does look a little different from up here. Oh, man. Always gotta be still for a second. I tell you, it doesn't matter no how many times I speak.

I'm extremely nervous. My heart's pounding. I wanna puke. I gotta go to the bathroom. I can't go right now.

Right? I wanna go. Can you hold on just for a minute? Oh, boy. I all I also like to say that not only am I an alcoholic because they get to tell you a little bit about me.

Not only am I an alcoholic, I'm also an Al Anon. I'm an adult child of an alcoholic. I'm an incest survivor. I'm a workaholic. I survive domestic violence, abuse, and all kinds of things.

And so Alcoholics Anonymous has pretty much saved my life. And I say all those little extra little titles because I have a lot of issues, and we have a lot to talk about. Just kinda give you little adjectives, so that you can identify with, oh goodness. Happy birthday to all those who take cakes. Whenever I see people take cakes, I wanna cry.

It's very emotional because you just get to see how this program works, and it's a miracle. It's like a miracle. Every time somebody blows out a candle to me, that's a miracle because it is so normal for us to drink and abnormal to get 365 days. And that's, like, huge, and I get to see God's work. And so happy birthday, and I applaud God's grace.

And welcome to the newcomer. You're the most important person in the room. And I always like to tell the newcomer that I hope and pray that you are sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. That's what I asked because we've been praying for you. Welcome home.

Do you know, like, we do pray for you? Like, there's a moment of silence for those who are still sick and suffering, and that's, like, for you. Like, that's what it meant to me when I heard that when I came here. And when I walked in here, somebody said, we've been praying for you, and it's true. And so welcome, and prayers do work, and let us love you till you can learn to love because you because you're in for a ride.

And if you don't think this is for you, as they told me, we will gladly refund you of your misery because it's waiting for you. Seems kinda harsh. Y'all came from worse. Oh goodness. Oh, man.

They say share in a general way what it used to be like, what happened, and what it's like today. And I always like to start off by going as the story goes because my life is a blackout and it's like a puzzle, and I have to get pieces put together the longer I stay sober and little information that my family members give me. So I kinda put my life together to be able to share it with you because really I wasn't present for any of it. But this is how the story goes. My mother didn't wanna have any more children.

My father did, so he raped her, and I was conceived. She did everything possible to abort me. She took every pill, every drug, every she drank. She's alcoholic. She drank.

She took everything possible to abort me, and it didn't happen. I was meant to be here. Obviously, I'm here. She left me in the hospital. She didn't want anything to do with me.

My dad and my grandmother went to get me. She didn't touch me for about 3 months. In the meantime, the only thing that kinda quiet me down was to put alcohol in my bottle. So I was born addicted and I was put in my bottle and in my gums. My whole life from the time of birth up until the day I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous 15 years ago at the age of 25.

That's why it's a blur. I drank every day, all day to exist and to breathe. I am truly a miracle. I am honored to be standing here and speaking to all of you because my life from what I've come to understand, is as amazing as more and more is revealed to me. And I am truly a survivor.

I live my whole life, and I try to describe it through adjectives. I was. I was empty. I was disconnected. I had a I was spiritually disconnected.

I didn't know how to love myself. I didn't know how to love you. I had no self respect. I didn't respect you. I didn't respect me.

I couldn't identify feelings or emotions. I was empty. I wasn't present. I had issues with authority figures. I never listened to anybody.

I was defiant. I was selfish, self centered, self seeking, driven by a 100 forms of fear. I was terrified of everything and everybody. The best way for me to handle that is to continue to have a bottle and just kinda chug a lug so I wouldn't have to be there. The best way for me to also handle that was to act better than dress up my outsides, put a smile on my face, and pretend that everything was okay despite what was really going on.

My body never belonged to me. I was physically abused, verbally abused, emotionally abused, everything, men and women. They could do whatever they wanted to me. And, you know, when I share about that, I tell you, I wasn't present for that experience. It's only through sobriety that I've been able to go to the process of getting in touch with that, embracing, and healing it.

But when I was there, I had checked out on my body a long time ago. I was not there for that. And alcohol worked. You know? It really did.

It made it okay, and that's what allowed me to put a smile on my face. And whatever you did to me, I just smiled and said, okay. That's just the way it is. What are you supposed to do? And that's pretty much how I live my life.

And I remember, I would go to therapy because my mother was in and out mental institutions, and I would sit there and they would say, how are you doing today? And I would go, just great. Fantastic. Everything is just wonderful. And And they would go, 'Your whole life is falling apart.' And I'm like, what are you gonna do?

This is just the way it is. There's nothing you can do about it.' And I really felt that that was my life and that I was doomed to live this life. And I never thought to myself why was I born and why was I here. I just thought that I was a curse I was horrible and I was filthy and I was stupid and I was an idiot and that I had no other choices in my life, and this was the only one. And alcohol was my friend.

That was my friend. It kept me company. It stood by my side. And when nobody else loved me, alcohol loved me. I felt that it never betrayed me and never let me down.

And when you walked away, it never did. I grabbed my bottle and I took a swig, and I said, it's okay. It really doesn't matter where you're going and that nobody is here. And it just filled me up, and it filled up that deep, dark, empty, nasty hole that lived inside of me, and it just masked it and it made it better. And I walked around pushing people away from me.

I didn't wanna be vulnerable. I didn't feel like I needed anybody. I didn't want anything from you. I didn't ask anything from anyone. At the age of 14, I left my home.

I had my own business at the time. I was with a relationship with a gentleman who was 26. He was, like, 11 years my senior, and that was familiar to me. I never had friends my age. I didn't play with Barbie dolls, and I do hopscotch or jump rope.

That that would I don't understand that. Girls did that. Couldn't get that. Never could get the Barbie doll thing, but whatever. I, I get to do that today.

And so I didn't do that stuff. And my friends were always 15, 20 years my senior. And so when he was 26 and I was 14, that was normal to me. And he beat me on a daily basis, and that was normal to me. You couldn't have told me that that wasn't love and that he really, really loved me.

I thought that was love. And if he didn't do that, it something would have been strange him. And he would buy me my bottle of Southern Comfort, and I would drink that. And I would get this pint, and I tell you, he would be beaten on me, and I'd be like, are you finished? Because I wanna watch this television program.

And that's just the way I was. And I would drink and, like, hurry up. I'm like, aren't you tired? And he would get frustrated because he'd be pounding on me, and I'd be like, are you finished? Because that wasn't fair.

And he would get frustrated, and I would just drink and do my thing and just keep watching TV. And that was my life. That was my whole life. Every day, all day. And I had to be the best of everything.

I was an overachiever. I had I never wanted to be subservient to anyone. I didn't know how to follow directions. I was not a team player. I had to be the CEO, the vice president, the president of some company.

I would never be a clerk or a receptionist, not to offend anyone who has that position, but that was like I couldn't do that because I had to listen to somebody. And so I always look for those type of positions. I love putting people down. I loved holding people hostage, taking advantage of people. Those were my friends.

I bought them. I used them. I abused them. I disrespected them. I did that in relationships.

They gave me power. They gave me a sense of feeling control. I had no self esteem and no self worth. What's the best thing for me to do is find somebody who I think is less than me so it can pick me up and make me feel a little bit better. And that's what I did.

I sought out people like that. I looked for the sickest person in the room to have relationships with, and we were abusive to each other, and it was just terrible. I had lost so many children. My womb was so polluted. I was on my 4th child at this point.

I would just drop them like it was going out of style, because my body was just so unhealthy. Talk about beans. I was never into health and salad, so I came to LA. But I'm from New York, New York, Boricua. We rice and beans.

But, you know, it's just I was my body was just a mess. I hardly slept. I didn't do anything healthy. I didn't go for walks. I didn't eat right.

As long as I drank, I was okay. And I went there was that closet drunk they talk about. I didn't go to parties and hang out with people. I didn't like sharing my booze. That was mine.

I would get my bottle and I would go home. I don't wanna go to a party and drink with you, and I don't want you coming to my house drinking on my liquor because then I gotta buy more. And that's kinda the way I saw it. And so if I did go to a party, it would come in and have one and go, oh, I gotta go, you little party animals, you know, so I can go home and do my thing. I never wanted to pass out.

I didn't want you to see me drunk, and I was just so I didn't want I had to mask how I drank, and I did everything alone in the quietness of my own space so you could never see me. As long as what I wanted you to see is I wanted you to see somebody who just looked flawless on the outside and that nothing was wrong with me and didn't know that I was dying on the inside. And as they say, all good things must come to an end. And, you know, And for me, you know, I truly believe when I remember when I first came here, I would talk about resentments. I was so angry at alcohol.

That was my friend. That was my companion. That was the one thing in my life that I thought I can rely on. Talk about a higher power. I went nowhere without it.

And then this came a time where it just wasn't working. It I I don't understand that. I was I was it it confused me. I didn't understand that if I go and and I do what I know how to do, and why is it that all of a sudden I'm, like, feeling something, like, dirty? Where where did that come from?

I didn't even know what that was. But all of a sudden, I started feeling these things, and I started noticing things that I hadn't noticed before. Like, walking into a bar and somebody saying, look with the trash bought in. Now nobody I never noticed that before. Maybe they have been saying that for a while, but I heard it this time, and that bothered me.

Oh, waking up with Cousin It. Now that didn't matter to me before. Really? I didn't care who I would wake up with. I didn't know what they look like.

But now I notice. I was like, oh, you know, what's happening? Oh, that's scary. Uh-oh. What happened?

That that's my bottom. That stuff started scaring me. Some of y'all keep doing that for a while. I couldn't do it. I was paying attention, and and and I couldn't make it stop.

And I would try different remedies, different concoctions. I would enhance. I would do everything possible. I was never choosy or picky what was in front of me. And I just tried everything, and nothing was working.

I mean, it's scary when you got alcoholics and addicts throwing you out of your their house and you're buying. That's scary. And they're like, no. You're gonna die on our floor. You need to go because I was just like, make it stop.

Make it stop. Whatever it is, make it stop. That was the mission that I was in. I didn't want one second of whatever this was that was coming out of me. I didn't want a minute.

I didn't know what to do with that. And I give the best description towards the end for me as I came up with brilliant ideas, and I like to use these as descriptions because they say that my best thinking got me here and that my disease is centered in my thinking, and it makes sense. I came up with ideas like, I don't need no lights. Why am I paying for lights? That was my idea.

And then I have friends that I hung out with that say, yeah. You don't need no lights. We could do a lot with that money. And so I turned off the light, and then I was like, and why am I using a phone? You here?

Well, I gotta call. And they're like, yeah. So I turned off the phone, and then I just didn't feel like going to work anymore. I was special. Right?

Tell them to call me and beg me to go to work. That was my idea. I stopped going to work, and then I didn't feel like paying the rent. Let them come and get me. That was my attitude.

I'm not paying the rent. That's not fair. People have to live places. Why do they have to pay? That was my idea.

Let them come and get me. And I remember my uncle came to visit me, and at that time, I had another relationship that I had abused one more time. And he left, and he took everything that I owned in that home, and he just left me with a brass bed. And I came home, and I said, I can handle this. And I put a blanket and a pillow in the middle of the brass frame, and I said, I'll sleep there.

I had no lights, no phone, eviction notice on my door. My uncle came over and he said, how are you living? And I said, what? I gotta have furniture like everybody else? I don't have to have furniture.

You need to mind your business. And I meant it. I was serious about that. I just I thought that made sense to me. And when my grandmother waited night after night wondering when she was gonna get that call to find out that I was dead somewhere because of the life I was living or my my father didn't know what to do with me half of the time, I would turn to them with arrogance and say they need to mind their business.

How dare you intervene in my life? And I know exactly what I'm doing. I've been taking care of myself. I've been handling myself. You need to mind your business, and that's how I talked to them.

I had no clue that they were in some level of pain of trying to figure out what in the world I was doing with this wonderful, brilliant ideas that I had. And so pretty much, I, the Marshals came and got me. I had to move. And when they came, they knocked on the door, and I was like, who's Marsha? Who invited Marsha?

I don't know no Marsha. Who invited Marsha? They're like, girl, that's the Marshals. You gotta go. So the marshals came, and even then, I was escorted.

I packed my Louis Vuitton luggage, and I walked out with glass. And I said, I did this. This is my thing. Right? I orchestrated all this.

Nobody's embarrassing me. I did this. That's my disease. I gotta watch that stuff today. So pretty much I was escorted out of there and I was homeless.

And I did that for a few months and I would show up in my dad's house, my grandmother's house, and I was all over the place. At that time, I was pregnant on my 4th child. I was with some other relationship, drinking consistently. The highlight of my day was going to a bar where I would put a quarter in the jukebox, and this man would get up from the he would sit down at the barstool and just I felt like he was just waiting for me to come. And I would come in and put a cord in the jukebox and would get up and jitterbug.

And that was the highlight of my day. I felt so special that he was waiting for me. And I had nothing going on. I had burnt so many bridges. No one pretty much wanted to have anything to do with me anymore, and I just didn't know where else to go.

I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't shut off the noise in my head and and all the feelings that kept coming up, and and I just couldn't make it stop anymore. And the more I drank, the worse it got. And I heard an old timer say once, you know, incomprehensible demoralization is a whole lot of things. But, and I've totally identified with this.

Demoralization is when you can't get sober and you can't get drunk, and that's kinda where I was at. And I I just couldn't handle it. I don't know why this was the last day that I could take it anymore. My boyfriend, we forgot something. I went back to see him, and he was sleeping with a guy.

And I walked in on him, and I tell people he wasn't kinda, sorta, doing something. I wasn't delusional. He was in it. It was like, you know, that kinda thing. And so I kinda looked at him, and I just said, well, you with him.

I guess you don't wanna be with me anymore. Whatever. And that was it for me. That was my bottom, pretty much. It's not scarier than that, but that's what I saw.

And I just I guess for me, I was exhausted. I was just tired. I was just tired of trying to figure it out, and I couldn't figure it out anymore. I walked and I walked and I ended up in a church in Queens. I was living in Queens at the time.

And I sat down in this church and I felt this peace. And I asked God to please allow me to feel the peace that I felt in that church inside of me. I had never felt that before in my life. And see, I wanted a second of it. And every time I share that, I start to cry because that was, like, a really big deal for me.

I didn't want a minute. I didn't want a day. I just wanted, like, a second. I just wanted to feel what was in that church in me just for a second because I had never felt that before, but I felt it outside of me. And God has not failed me.

He has answered my prayer and given me the sense of peace that is unshatterable. There's so many other gifts I've gotten as a result of that, but that is something that I have received. And I left there. I went to my father. I told him I had a problem.

It wasn't like he didn't know it, but I finally said it for the first time in my life. I need help. My dad had told me that as a father who loved his daughter so much, he had to sit there and he had to watch me do these things. And with all the love that he had for me, there was nothing he can do to stop me. And he wished he can tie me up and keep me in a closet, but he couldn't.

And he said that I was heading down 3 roads and I could taste them and I can smell them. I was so close to them. And that was jails meant to institutions and death. But that there was another role, distinct court recovery, and I didn't I didn't know what that was and neither did he. But if I tried it and if I didn't like it, the other 3 will be waiting for me.

And they weren't going anywhere, and that made sense. Now for me, this is truly where my journey has begun, and I always like to say this because I go out of my way to do this as well. They say this program is based on attraction rather than promotion, and this is the reason why I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a mother in recovery and a cousin, and I will come to visit in California, and they will bring me to these meetings. And now I would drink and I would do my thing, and I would go to the musicians picnic.

And whenever you had coffee afterwards, I would order my thing, and you would go and order coffee. And I would sit there, but no one ever shun me, shook their head at me. You and I went, you poor thing. No one ever told me I had a problem and I needed to stop drinking. I didn't realize that the seed was being planted.

And when the time came that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired, the faces popped up. All the smiles and the laughter and the gleams in the people's eyes, these people in California and these rooms came in front of me, and that's where I needed to go. I thought everybody in California was sober. That was my identification with California. California is the sober place to be.

And so I headed out to California. I got on a Greyhound bus. I was wearing a size 1 pair of pants with 2 pants underneath with a huge sweatshirt. I had a dead baby in my belly at the time. I didn't know it.

And I got on that bus and I headed out to beautiful sunny California to seek this thing called sobriety that I knew nothing about. I detoxed on that bus. I threw up on that bus. I shook on that bus. It was horrible.

I don't wanna do that again. I woke up in El Paso, Texas, and that's where I had my last drink. I turned to the person closest to me, and I said, where is there a bar? I couldn't take another second. They took me.

I ordered a double shot of Courvoisier. I took that down, and I remember just going, and I got back on the bus. I was everybody's friend all of a sudden. I had talked to them for days, and I headed out to California. And I arrived in downtown Los Angeles still thinking I look cute and that I had it going on just as some other people had shared prior.

And when I got there, it was you know, I just my mom was waiting for me, and she picked me up and took me directly to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And we walked in. We came halfway into the room, and she turned around to walk out. And I asked her where she was going and she said this is far as I I can go with you. And she turned me over to the very people who had saved her life.

I always say that I feel like a baby in a baby basket. I am truly an AA baby. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. This is my home and you have adopted me. I was 3,000 miles from my home.

I didn't know anybody. And I came in and I sat in the back of the room. And I kind of looked at people like, don't look at the outfit. I'm kind of going through a crisis at the moment. But it's just a moment.

Still vain. And I sat in the back, and I didn't wanna tell anybody that I was a newcomer. I didn't stand up as a newcomer. I thought I could just blend in and act like I've been here for a while. And this is my experience, and I needed it this way.

And I wanna thank all of you who have come before me, for all of you tough old timers who needed to teach a little arrogant, egotistical little girl like me a thing or 2. I sat in the back of the room. There was a lady taking the cake. She left from the podium. She walked to the back of the room and she said, Girl, you will stand up and state your name in your disease.

Now I did not turn to her and go, do you know who I am? I was like, my name's Theresa. I'm an alcoholic. She took me from the back of the room and she sat me in the front. She said, you will sit down, shut up, and listen.

You take the cotton out of your ears, you put it in your mouth because your best thinking got you here. You were to never sit in the back of the room again because the back of the room is death row. That's when people chitchat and take other people's inventory. That was Marcy. My goodness.

Marcy did so much over there. I was at Credshaw Alano. She's passed away recently. Oh, man. She worked with so many newcomers.

I'll be forever grateful for that woman that had the courage to tell me to do something like that. And I needed to sit down and shut up and listen. I was a sassy little thing that thought I knew everything. And I came in at Alcoholics Anonymous, and for the first time in my life, I was given a sense of relief. I was told that I didn't have to have all the answers and I needed to know everything.

And they, you know, and they taught me a thing or 2. That's why we say I feel like a baby, and I've grown up in here. And I sat in the front and sitting in the front, I had to listen like the dying only could. And I thoroughly identify when they talk about in the first step in the 12 and 12 about that last gasper. I knew that I was gasping.

I knew that I was reaching for a life preserver that I had nowhere else to go. I had nothing else to do. I didn't know how to live 24 hours without a drink. I I knew that because, obviously, it wasn't working, and this was the last house on the block. And I came in here, and I just grabbed on.

The old timers kidnapped me and adopted me. I had nowhere else to go. I literally lived in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was told to sweep the floors, get the chairs, clean up the ashtrays. That was my role in the meetings.

They didn't allow me to share for a year. For a year, I couldn't share. I would raise my hand. I'd be like, I got something to share. They'd be like, what you got to talk about?

All you know is what it was like, what it was like, what it was like. Sit down somewhere. That's how they talk to me. I was like, well, these people are harsh, but they love me. They said this podium was sacred, and it was a place to share your experience, strength, and hope, and that I need to sit down for the first time in my life and learn something.

They gave me the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and told me that it was a textbook. It was not a novel. It was meant to be studied. And they opened it up to the very first pages, which are blank, and they told me to read that. And I'm like, there's nothing there.

And they were like, exactly. You don't know nothing. That's how they talk to me. And I had to study those pages so I can go into the book with an open mind. They taught me how to dress.

When I first started gaining weight, I used to walk into the meetings all, you know, fishnets, stockings, spindecks, skirts, high heeled shoes, all half naked, prancing in the little co ed meetings looking all cute. Old timers be like, look like somebody still got some issues. Where your clothes at, girl? What you come up in here looking for? And I used to have to go home and change my clothes.

Every time I share this, somebody out there half naked going, uh-oh. Oh, my goodness. So many things that I needed to learn when I came around here. The simplest thing like reading, that they would tell me to come up and reach after 5, and I was just so excited to come up because I had been studying it for so many days to wait for the day that I'd be asked to read. And I would come up and go and they go and I start looking at people and start reading it off, and they'll be like, excuse me.

We asked you to read, not recite. There's a difference. See, those things are so important. It's so important. They they've made the difference in my life, that there is a difference between reciting and reading and following direction and to learn how to be humble until first time in my life, follow some direction.

You know, it's really nice that people got to choose a sponsor. I didn't get an opportunity to choose. They gave me one, and they were like, you. She's your sponsor. And I was like, but I thought you're supposed to find somebody you can identify with.

They're like, you now identify with her. That's your sponsor. I love it. Oh, man. I love that.

And I had to follow her everywhere and had to do everything she said. Everything she said. You know, I can't tell you why is it that I came in so humble, so gullible, like, childlike. I was. I was emotionally an infant when I came to you 15 years ago.

One day at a time, I came in here March 29, 1990 at the age of 25, emotionally an infant. I was a broken my wings were broken. I was tore down, and I wanted what you had. I understood that when they said it. What did you have?

Was it your outfit? Was it your hair style? No. You knew how to stay sober for 24 hours. That much I knew you had that I didn't know.

You asked me to be honest for the first time in my life. To get thoroughly honest. I heard things like, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. I've taken this program literal. You know, some people say big book dumpers and all the quotes in AA, and I tell people, I'm sorry.

I don't know another language. This is the only language I've I've come to understand. I've lived in these rooms. It's just like for 25 years of my life, I've heard nothing but sickness and unhealthy toxic information, and I came into Alcoholics Anonymous to learn a whole new way of thinking and a whole new way of speaking. This is my home.

You are my fathers, my sisters, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, my brothers, and my sisters. That's who all of you represent to me. And I sat here and I listened. And I heard that rarely have we seen a person feel as thoroughly followed our path. That was significant to me because rarely means hardly ever.

I held you accountable to every single thing that you told me from this podium and what you said in that book because I was so desperate, and I just needed you to tell me that this was true. And that is it possible that I can have these things that you say that you have. I was hungry for that. I listened to your promises. I listened to you tell me happy, joyous, and free.

I wanted that. That was important to me. You gave me hope. I was hoping you wasn't lying to me because everyone had lied to me, everybody, from where I came from. And I came to Alcohol's Anonymous, and for the first time in my life, nobody's ever lied to me.

I said to my spouse, if you tell me, if I do this, you say do precisely. It says precisely. It's in italic for a reason. So you could pay attention to the rest of the stuff, the sentence. I took this very literal.

I go, it says precisely. If I do this precisely, I'm gonna get this? And she said yes, and I did it. I follow it to the letter. I've never questioned it, judged it, tried to alter it, or change it.

Such a simple program. I heard that for complicated people. I heard half measures of elders nothing. I heard that, that I needed to let go absolutely, if not, the results were nil. See, these things were, like, real significant.

They told me, you know what, Teresa? There's some things that we talk about suggestions, but there's some things that you must do. That's how they talk to me. We don't make suggestions. You're either gonna live or you're gonna die.

You're gonna live in your disease or you live in your recovery. There was no gray area for me the way they taught me. They told me unity, recovery, and service, that it was full circle to treat my disease, which is of a threefold nature. I love the doctor's opinion. I love every area that book.

It spoke to me. There was music. It was the language in which I can finally understand that I began to say to myself, oh, so I'm not just an idiot. I can run companies and balance checkbooks, but why can't I just have one drink? I didn't understand.

And then you told me. You told me, and then you told me how I can be treated. That was such a sense of relief. And to finally get honest and And I remember this woman used to say, Teresa, you get honest about your wrongs, not your rights. I used to hear that.

Time and time again, your wrongs. Tell on yourself. Disrobe. They told me you don't have to dance with everybody, but you gotta dance with somebody. That's what I always heard from the podium over and over and over again.

Tell on yourself. You're sick as your secrets. Tell on yourself. And I would have to stand to you or to my sponsor and totally disrobe and say I feel afraid. I feel empty.

I'm terrified. Gee, I wanna drink. How do you live this world without that? What am I supposed to do? I don't even know how to talk to people.

I'm afraid of them. I don't wanna talk to nobody. How do I do that? And for me, being here, everything has to be like a point of reference. I came into the room and I learned from you, like, what to be like and what not to be like.

That's how I was taught, and that's okay. Literally, I've grown up in here like parents. I've had to look at you and go, oh, I kinda like that. That works. Oh, no.

That doesn't. That's kinda like the way I've had to do it. I've had to be schooled that way. I understood that this was a spirituality, and then I had to get down to the causes and conditions, that my drinking was only but a symptom. I got that.

And there were things that I must be rid of. Selfishness, I must be rid of it. If not, you you could imagine having me as a. I told my sponsor, I said, I gotta get rid of that because they say if I don't get rid of it, it's gonna kill me. That's serious.

I was like, that says it right there. It's it's going to kill you. They don't say it's gonna kinda hurt you. It say it's gonna kill you. I was like, oh.

I was like, we gotta get rid of that. And she be like, that's right, baby. We gotta get rid of that. It was so easy for her. Right?

I was so gullible. I was like, what we gotta do? What we gotta do? Because I don't wanna die. And that whole thing blocked from the sunlight of the spirit.

I saw myself in darkness. I was like, oh, I'm in the dark. I'm in the dark. We gotta get the light. We gotta get the light.

I was like, oh, man. Let's do this. Let's do this. And I ran and got that pen and paper. I got that pen and paper, man.

Resemment was my number one offender. I understood that. People were dominating my life. You know how many people were dominating my life? Head?

Are you kidding me? I needed to get rid of that. I would never be free of that. I never owned my body for goodness sake. How can I ever find freedom?

When I took the 3rd step, I understood it. I understood it. That third step prayer to me was huge. I say, relieve me of bondage of self. That's what I'm asking for in the 3rd step, of self, of me, of this garbage, this nasty cancer that's living inside of me that I can't exist.

I don't know how people do it. My hat is off to you. There are people who come in the program, don't work a step. Don't I don't know. Hey.

Go for it. I can't do it. I couldn't I would be a mess. If I don't live in the core of Alcoholics Anonymous, I will be a mess. I'll I'll be killing somebody.

I'll I'll be a mess. I had to clean house. I knew it. I had way too many demons, way too many, and I want it to feel the sunlight of the spirit. You told me that's what would happen.

That step offered me freedom. See, everything in the book to me was laid out in a way that was like problem, solution, promise. Problem, solution, promise. And I held on to that promise. No matter wherever I look in the book, it's always problems that are going on in my life.

I'm like, yep. That's me. Uh-huh. I never questioned anything in the yep. I'm doing that right now.

Mhmm. Yep. You guys are good. This is pretty good. And then they would tell me what to do about it, and then if I did that, this would happen.

And I did it. I did it. I wanted that. I wanted that. I'm a do it just like that, and I want that.

And I was serious. See, the funny thing is I did it, and I got that. I've got that. Never once have I ever questioned my sponsor. They told me when I came here, I couldn't think no more.

Every time I go, I'm thinking, they go, that's the problem. You're thinking. I could no longer be a victim. I wasn't responsible for my disease, but I was responsible for my recovery. I came here to understand that it is but a daily reprieve, but for the grace of God, that only an act of providence was going to help me.

What a miracle it is that everyone in this room is truly a miracle. There are people out here who need to be here and they're not. This program is for people who want it, not who need it. We pray for you. You prayed for me.

I am a miracle. Every day, I look at my sobriety as such a precious gift. It really is. It is a miracle. I what I know how to do drinking is an option for me.

I know how to do that. Then I know how to do well, To stay sober 24 hours and to live a life that is so rich and so full, what a gift. What a gift. I'm, like, amazed. I'm, like, baffled that I can handle situations that used to baffle me.