A conference in Houma, LA

Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm really nervous today. My name is Deb Kinney. I'm a real alcoholic.

Hi. My sobriety date is March 15, 1987. My home group is the Bay Street Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's in a little town called Beaufort, South Carolina, which is an island on the coast right above the Georgia line. We were holding our breath due to the storm coming at us, and, it's one of those things where it's it's an absolute travesty that it's turned towards Florida.

Makes me very, very sad, and I'm praying for them. You know? But I was really glad that it didn't hit my home. It's just it's one of those things where, you know, it's it's gonna go somewhere, and it's gonna be ugly. But I I'm currently I'm writing the the logistics operations plan for Beaufort County, and it's not quite done.

And that's the plan that we'll use to recover if we, you know, if an earthquake happens or if a hurricane comes on land or something like that. And, my deadline is not for 2 more weeks. And I said, we can't have a storm yet. We're just not ready for this. It's just not time.

It is always an honor an honor and a privilege to do anything I'm asked to do at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is absolutely my least favorite thing to do at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, But I do what I'm asked to do, and Yogi was was so kind and called and asked me if I wanted to come have the best time I would ever have at an AA convention. And I said, well, how in the world can I possibly turn that down? And he said, well, then you're coming to Houma, Louisiana, and I had to ask him what he said about 7 times because of that thick Cajun accent. And I was finally able to get all the information from them, and I'm absolutely thrilled to be here.

I've had a great time. I got in yesterday afternoon, and Cammy and Robin picked me up at the airport, and they were just absolutely beautiful, beautiful, strong recovering women and I was just thrilled to be in their presence. Thank you very much. And they took me into New Orleans yesterday and they sent me lunch at Chef Paul's Kitchen, I think. And, I had some jambalaya that didn't look like anything I had ever had, and it was really good.

And, and I was hanging out here last night, and I've seen people that I that I've seen over the last several weeks, Cajun Joe and father Peter and Yogi and I, we all and Hugh Hue's here somewhere in the room. We were all together in Jackson, Mississippi a couple of weekends ago, and we had a great time, and Yogi fell off the stage, and he'd ask him about that later. And it's it's just been really neat to reconnect with some with some people that I know, and I've been able to make some new friends and spend some really high quality time having good discussions about god and recovery and and the gifts that I've been given and and listen to you guys share the gifts that you've been given with me, and it's just been amazing. I'm here to tell you a little bit about what it was like for me, what happened, and what it's like today, and I'm gonna do I'm gonna do my best at that. I, I was born in a in a in a really small blue collar town in Northeast Ohio, right outside of Akron.

And, you know, my my father's people, they all come from West Virginia, and when the coal mines closed, they all came over to Ohio looking for factory work, and that's what he and all of his brothers and sisters did. And, they worked at a factory called Rubbermaid and, which is in a little town called Blister, and I grew up in a little town called Rittman. And and in that little town, you know, the the the people that I knew, my my friends, their parents also worked in factories, and it was just a real, you know, hardworking blue collar town. And, and all the parents that I knew, everybody worked really hard during the day. They came home, and they all carried beer underneath their arms as they walked in the door, and they started to drink the moment the moment that the door closed behind them.

And then and then, you know, things began to happen in our home. And my dad, he would, you know, he would walk in about 3:30 or a quarter till 4 in the afternoon. He'd have a 12 pack under his arm. He'd drink that by 8 or 9 o'clock at night. And then my sister and I would fight over who would get to crawl in the truck with him to drive down to the drive thru to get another 6 pack that he would drink then, you know, fall asleep or pass out about 8:30 or 9:30 or 10 o'clock at night.

And, and that's just what he did every day, you know, day in, day out. I did not have any idea that there was such a thing called social drinking. I'd you know, I had never seen anybody in my life, you know, come home after work, have a drink and not have another, or have a glass of wine with dinner. 1st off, I didn't see any wine. It was all whiskey or beer, and I didn't know that people had just 1 or 2.

I mean, it just I I I don't know. I just I I hadn't seen it. And, my father was a was a real violent alcoholic, and today he's a very, very sick alcoholic, and I might talk about him a little bit later. But in my house, there are things that happened all the time that weren't right, and I was always scared. I was scared of you.

I was scared of me. I was scared of my shadow. I was scared of noises, any noise, good or bad, because you never knew what was gonna come next. I was absolutely terrified every moment that I was awake, and I and I had dreams at night that didn't make any sense. I was terrified in my sleep too.

But, you know, if you watch me walk down the street, you wouldn't know that I was terrified. You would think that I was angry, but you wouldn't know that I was terrified because I was just ugly all the time. I was the kid who chased other kids home from school. And when I was 9 years old, see, the only thing I'd ever been told about alcohol is that I wasn't allowed to have any of it. You know?

That's that's adult stuff, and you're not allowed to have any of it. Well, that just wasn't gonna do. I've always been a bit tenacious, and, and I was gonna figure out what that stuff was. And when I was 9, I spent the night with one of my girlfriends, and her parents had a bar in their basement. And we convinced her mom to let us sleep down there so that we wouldn't make too much noise and keep them up when really it was our plan to go down and figure out what this alcohol stuff was all about.

You see, I am not an alcoholic today because my father was alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic today because he was violent. I'm not an alcoholic today because I was scared. I'm not an alcoholic today because of all of the things. I'm an alcoholic today because I drank alcohol too much too often.

My body got physically addicted to it, and I needed it by the time I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous to function at all. That's what makes me an alcoholic today. And that night, I drank my first fear out of curiosity. I did not know that it was magical. I just knew I wasn't allowed to have any of it.

And so that that night was the night of first meal. It was my first drink, my first drunk, my first blackout. The next day was my first hangover. And it was also the first time that I could remember in all of those 9 years where I wasn't scared. That stuff, you know, I had to choke it down because it tastes real bad and it burned on my on the way down in my throat.

I didn't have any I still couldn't tell you today what I was drinking. We were just taking random bottles off the shelf and just taking licks out of the out of the next of the bottles, this and that. And I and I had enough of it that burned its way down and hit my belly and warmed me up, and all of a sudden, there was this warm, safe, fuzzy feeling that came over me. And all of a sudden, my skin fit, and I was okay with you. You were okay with me, and the world made sense.

I understood why this stuff was so important. I absolutely understood why this stuff this stuff was so important. You know, my parents, they would fight. I mean, they would just say they would go at it all of the time. And, my dad wouldn't beat my mom when we were awake.

He would wait to do these kinds of things until after we were asleep. So I never saw him physically hit her, but I heard it. You know? And for a long time, I thought that my that my mom's name was, you know, you dumb because that's what he called her all of the time. And I thought, you know, I I don't think she's dumb.

I don't understand why he's saying that because she's not dumb. I had I had all of the confusion that a small child should have in circumstances like those. And one of the fights that they got into is my father tried tried to join one of those animal clubs. We were talking about animal clubs last night with somebody. Somebody here belongs to the elks.

Well, he had tried to join the moose. And before that, he tried to join the Elks, and I think he even had a he had to go with Eagles Club at one point, I think. And every time my mom would get one of those letters in the mail, she'd say, if you're gonna spend your life drinking, you're gonna at least spend it with your family. Now here was another point of confusion for me because I didn't like him. He was always drinking.

He was always drunk, and he was always just a jerk. And I thought, now why on earth would you keep him home to do that? It just didn't make any sense to me. And what also didn't make sense to me is that after the first time I drank and I got that warm, safe, fuzzy feeling that came over me and all of a sudden I was okay and my skin fit, I didn't understand why the moment he began to drink, he got worse. It fixed me, but he got worse.

After that first night of drinking, I made I made a decision, and the decision was this. I'm gonna drink as much of that stuff as often as I can. I wanna feel like that all the time. And if booze is what does it, let's go find it. So I made friends with all the with all of the little girls in my in my class whose parents had bars in their basement, and there were a lot of them.

And, and I made friends with them, and I and I made sleepover dates with all of them. And I and I never slept at home. I was constantly on the road sleeping at somebody else's house drinking their parents' food. And sometimes the, you know, the little 9 10 year olds I spent the night was they didn't have any interest in drinking. I'm not sure what that was about.

If they just knew how good it worked, you know, they would have drank too, but they didn't have any interest in drinking. And so I wait till they go to sleep, and I would sneak down their parents' in their parents' basement into the bar, and I would drink. And, you know, and that was the moment that I began building relationships based on how much bougie you could get me. And it never changed until I got sober. I didn't drink a long time, and my drinking isn't isn't fun.

You know? Some people can get up here and they tell you all kinds of really stories of huge ruckus and going to jail and wreck cars and, you know, losing families and just doing all kinds of crazy stuff and sad stuff. And, you know, my drinking was constant. It was tragic. And it made me sad, remorseful, guilty, and shameful on a consistent basis.

That's what drinking gave me once I came to. What it gave me in the first two minutes was a warm, safe, fuzzy feeling where my skin fit and I was okay with you. And you know what? It was absolutely amazing to me, but I I could drink and get that feeling that would last about 2 minutes. And then I would spend all of my sober time being regretful and feeling shameful about the things that I had done, things that had happened to me, things that I had seen, and things that I had participated in either with or without my own will making the decision to do so, which lasted a lot longer than 2 minutes.

But I would go back to the bottle, and I would look for that 2 minutes again. I still shake my head a little, and I know what I've got. I know what's wrong with me today. But that's how my drinking was. I never drank just a little.

I never tried to control my drinking. Like I said, I didn't know that people had 1 or 2 drinks and just and put it down. My thing was, what was the point? You know, my tolerance, because I was so young and because my body physically, I was still in in I think, Burns is probably gonna talk a little bit about the disease of alcoholism tonight. And because I was physically developing, I got addicted to alcohol very, very fast.

You know, by the time I was 14 years old, I was daily drinking. By the time I was 15 years old and went to treatment, I hadn't drawn a sober breath for over 6 months. I mean, not a sober breath. I would wake up in the morning. I would find the stash because I had to learn I I did control my drinking a little bit.

I always knew that I had to save myself about that much in the bottom of a bottle stuffed in a bush somewhere so that I could find it on my way to school and take the edge off because I wouldn't be able to make it if I didn't. And I knew that when I was 14 and 15 years old, when I was a freshman and sophomore in high school. That was the only the only controlled drinking I ever did was to stop myself so that I have enough to get through the next day. Now I I wasn't a juvenile delinquent. I know.

Think about the definition. You think, yes, you were. You were definitely a juvenile delinquent, but I, you know, but I really wasn't. My sister was a juvenile delinquent. She was the one that was in and out of juvie jails and running away and, you know, doing all that acting out stuff that Chris is talking about with her daughters today.

My sister was doing all that, which worked really, really well. My sister was 2 years older than I was. She used dry drugs. I used alcohol. That way, we didn't get into each other's stashes, and she kept all the focus on her because she was acting stupid.

And so everybody pay attention to what she was doing. You know, she was the one in and out of juvie jail, not me. I was playing varsity sports. I was getting straight a's. I was running the pep club.

I was president of my class. I was doing everything that I was supposed to do to be a successful 15 year old. And I was drinking every morning. I was drinking at lunch, and I played volleyball games I don't remember. And when I played the alcoholism card later on to get out of trouble, everybody said that you don't drink.

And I thought, you know, in my life, I was surrounded with people who saw what they wanted to see rather than what they believed. I'm sorry. People in my life who who believed what they wanted to believe rather than what they were actually seeing. And that was a key component of my drinking. If anybody had looked at me and said, what's really going on with her?

Why does she have that glassy look on her? And does she smell a little funny today? Because, you know, vodka comes out of your pores once you get saturated with it. And on that note, I a friend of mine lives in Myrtle Beach, just south of Myrtle Beach in Pollys Island, South Carolina, and his name is Mac. And I met Mac about 8 or 9 years ago when I was doing some stuff up in Myrtle Beach.

And Mac was a member of this fellowship, and he had about 2 years of sobriety when I met him, and he was 60 some odd years old. And he had this, you know, pretty good sized house on Pawleys Island, and and he had an open door policy for me and anybody who knew me. You just you just show up at my house whenever you want and you sleep here. And so, you know, every now and then, I would just show up at Mac's house and we'd go and we'd spend a weekend with Mac and check on him, and I'd have to clean his kitchen because he just lived like a pig. And, you know, and we and we would hang out and we would have great fellowship and fun.

And and I moved away for I moved from South Carolina to Florida for about 5 years. And while I was gone, things went wrong for Mac. And, you know, Mac never really finished the first step at Alcoholics Anonymous. And and I I pulled into Mac's driveway about a year and a half ago after I got back to South Carolina, and I had 3 of my friends with me. We were on our motorcycles, and I pulled in.

And Matt came walking out to the front door. You know, he could hear us coming in. Imagine that. And he came walking out, and he and he couldn't see. He he came out.

His eyes were closed. And he said, my god. Is that Deb? And I said, yes, sweetie. It's Deb.

How are you? And he said, honey, don't come in here. I've been drinking for a long time. Things aren't good, and I'm not good. You don't wanna come in here.

And I said, I'm spending the night with you. You told me I have an open door policy, and I'm here to spend the night. And he said, you don't understand. Things aren't good here. And I said, Mac, I don't care how things are.

I love you, and I'm coming in. And I walked in, and that house was in absolute shambles. There were empty bottles of vodka bottles all over the place, and he had loaded guns in every room. And he said, baby, I'm just working on getting a little courage. He said, because it's all gonna be over soon.

I said, not on my shift. And I said, boys, go get all these guns and empty them out. I said, we're staying for the weekend. I said, you don't get to do this. And what triggered that was the smell of vodka.

You know? That man smelled. Whoo, did he smell? And he wouldn't go to a hospital, and he wouldn't go to meetings since he had a resentment against Alcoholics Anonymous, and those people didn't do what they were supposed to do for me, and you know how to get. And he was going on and on and on.

And I said, you know what? You don't have to go to see those people in those meetings up here. I said, you're coming home with me. I said, I'm gonna run home. I live about 3 and a half hours south of him.

I said, I'm gonna run home. I'm gonna get my car, and I'll be back for you. Will you come to my house, and will you let me detox you? And he said, well, sweetie, I just don't think that's a good idea. You see, I get really unhappy when I'm not drinking.

And I said, are you happy now? And he said, well, that's not the point. And I said, damn it. I'll be back in a few minutes. I'm a go get my car.

I'll be right back. And so I went home and I got my car and I got one of the women that I sponsor, and and we drove up to Mac's house. And and we got Mac and we took him home. And I a friend of mine is a family physician in town. And I checked back over to see him, and he gave us a little detox protocol with pills and stuff.

And, you know, I really I had no I got no interest in detoxing somebody with booze like they used to do in the old days. I'm just I don't know how to do that. So he helped us out with some medicines and, you know, Max stayed 3 days. He finally stopped shaking, and, he wanted his truck back so that he could drive home, but his truck wasn't at my house, and I found him walking down the highway. You know, he was gonna find his truck because he just needed to go home because he needed a drink.

You know? And I call him back every now and then just to see how he's doing. He says, well, you know, it's ugly, but it ain't as ugly as the day you came. He said, I think that you saved my life. And I said, you know, are you gonna come into Alcoholics Anonymous yet?

And he said, nope. Not yet. I just don't think I'm done yet. You know, we may lose that man. And, you know, that may be part of his story.

And that's just the way that is, you know? But anyway, the smell of vodka, let me go back to childhood. I, my parents had gotten divorced when I was was 12. You know, we finally were like, you know, hey, ma. You know, Diane keeps running away.

It's obvious that we don't need to be here. The man's violent. He's awful. We are powerless as kids. Can you get us the hell out of here?

And she finally heard that. And so she packed us up and she moved us out and we and we left my father. And, and they got a divorce, but, you know, they weren't gonna go down without a fight, and they've got the longest divorce case in Wayne County history. You know, they went to court 13 times, and, and it was just absolutely crazy for a long time, which allowed me to drink the way I needed to drink because my mom wasn't paying attention to me. As long as I got straight a's and as long as I was playing sports, she wasn't gonna pay attention because as far as she was concerned, I was fine.

You know, my sister kept running away, which helped. My mom decided she was gonna go out of town one night. She had gotten herself a boyfriend. I was 15 years old. It was right before Thanksgiving.

She had gotten herself a boyfriend. She was gonna go out and have a have an overnight date. And we just thought that was great. Yeah. I was supposed to stay here.

My sister was supposed to stay here because, you know, my mom was a responsible parent and had arrangements made for us. And my sister and I looked into them and we're like, we're not going anywhere. We're gonna stay right here. Now see, here's part of my drink and I failed to mention. In order for me to drink the way that I needed to drink, I had to hang out with people who scared me.

I had to hang out with people who had absolutely no no moral left in their system whatsoever, and they thought that it was okay to buy a 14 or 15 year old her own bottle of vodka on a daily basis. I hung out with people that thought that that was okay. I hung out with people and they just didn't talk about it. That was Deb's bottle. It was always sitting in the same place.

I walked in, I got the bottle off the shelf. I popped the top. I threw the cap away. I sat with my back against the wall because you know what? Bad things were gonna happen, but I at least wanted to know when it was coming.

And that's the way I drank on a daily basis. And every morning when I came to, I prayed to god that I was gonna blackout the night before because I didn't want those memories. You know, I was a blackout drinker, and I remember enough. Thank God for blackouts is all I have to say. Thank God for them.

You know, there are days that I don't remember, and I know that really bad things happen during those days, and I don't wanna know because the stuff that I remember is enough. But that's the way I drank, and those are the people that I drank with. And and, you know, I didn't associate with them when I was sober. You know, I I wouldn't even I wouldn't even say hi to them when I passed them on the street, and they wouldn't say hi to me. They didn't wanna be associated.

You know, but late at night when it was time for me to drink, they were all about having that. And, so, anyway, my mom goes out of town for this overnight date, and my sister and I decided that we're gonna stay at the house, and we're gonna have over our drinking friends, our party and buddies. And, so, you know, I call these people that that that scared me. I told my mom I was going out of town, and we could party at my house. And and, I don't know why they thought that that was a good idea because they were grown.

They had their own house. You know? But they thought it was a good idea to come over to Arz. I'm not you know, I'm still a little baffled by that. But they came over, and instead of bringing me a bottle of vodka, they brought me a bottle of Jack Daniel's, and I hadn't really drank much of that before.

And and somebody said, you know, you know, you sure can drink a lot. And I said, well, yeah. I can. And they said, well, I don't think you can drink this whole bottle of Jack Daniels. Now you can handle vodka, but not Jack Daniels.

And I said, watch me. And so, you know, I commenced to drink that bottle really, really fast. I went into a drunken stupor about an hour and a half after I started drinking, and I did not physically move for about 4 and a half hours. I was literally in a drunken stupor curled up in a fetal position sitting in the corner of my couch. And by the time my mom walked in at 1:16 AM on a red digital clock that was sitting right there, she had gotten in a fight with her boyfriend and here she was.

You know, she found her baby daughter sitting in every bodily fluid I had. And I hadn't knew for a long time. And you know what? My mom, the next day, my mom did something very uncharacteristic. She grounded me.

She punished me even though I told her one of the best lies I had ever come up with. I mean, I was good at this stuff now. I was really good at it. And I had just conjured up some of the best stuff, and she just didn't buy it. So she grounded me.

She okay. She believed that I wasn't drinking, so she bought some of it. She believed that I wasn't drinking, but she believed that it wasn't my choice to be at home unattended. And that my intentions of not calling her to let her know that my plans had fallen through, well, that that was heartfelt because I didn't wanna interrupt her night. You know, so she bought half of it.

But she believed that I wasn't drinking. She believed that I was just a victim of circumstance. And if you had people in your house that were this big and this mean and they just wouldn't let me use phone, then what was I supposed to do? I just decided I I would just sit there. And so I didn't move.

I was really scared, and and on it went. It was just pathetic. And so she grounded me for a week. And what that meant in my world, if I was grounded, I couldn't walk that walk. I couldn't get in that car.

I couldn't go to that house. I couldn't sit against that wall with my back, and I couldn't I couldn't get that bottle. If I couldn't leave that house, I couldn't drink. Now I had just been in a drunken super the night before. How bad do you guys think that I needed a drink the next day?

I was shaking apart, and there was no booth left in that house. And so my mom and I, we got into a huge fight because I had to create some kind of circumstance to, you know, to be kicked out of the house, at least for a few minutes. I'd watched my dad do it many times, and we did that thing. And, and she told me to leave and and and I you know, it it was bad. And she called the police, and it just got real ugly.

And when she called the police, what happened is that my two worlds came together. You know, no longer was I the straight a student class president on one hand and this, you know, this daily drinking alcoholic on the other, those two things inched and they overlapped, and people began to find out what I was really doing. And so I played the alcoholism card. You know, I didn't you know, I'm 33 years old. I was part of that, you know, generation where they were teaching us about drugs and alcohol and alcoholism and stuff when I was in school.

And, you know, I was I was part of this program called Teen Institute. You know, I was traveling around the county, you know, teaching, middle schoolers about, you know, alcoholism and the family dynamics of the disease of alcoholism, and I was doing all that stuff with a hangover. And, you know, but that's what, you know, popular kids who are just straight a's did. And so that's what I was doing, and I was really sick all the time. And and when those two things came together and I knew that I was in a jam and everybody was mad at me, everybody at at school was mad at me.

Everybody at home was mad at me. The people that I was partying with, they were mad at me because, you know, some of the people that were at my house were underage. Imagine that. And and everything was kinda coming together, and I thought, man, I have got to figure out a way to get out of this jam. You know, not only do I have to drink day, and so being grounded or being locked up isn't an option, but I can't have these people mad at me because that meant that the microscope came out and somebody would try to figure out what it is I was doing all day long.

And if that happened, they might catch me sneaking out at night shimmying down the side of the house on bed sheets tied together and going to drink. And I just couldn't allow that to happen. You see, being powerless has always been my problem. I was powerless over my father's alcoholism when I was a little kid, and I became powerless over my own alcoholism as an adolescent. And I was powerless over whether or not I could go buy my own booze, and so I had to pay higher prices for things.

And all that stuff came together, and so I played that alcoholism card. And I said, I just think y'all ought to send me to treatment. I think I'm probably an alcoholic after I just convinced my mother that I hadn't been drinking. And so the counselors decided that was a good thing and off I went. I couldn't go to treatment for 2 weeks though, because I had I had affairs I had to get in order.

I'm not real sure what affairs a 15 year old has to get in order, but, by god, I had things that I had to take care of before I left. I mean, they were gonna keep me for over a month in this place, and I needed to get some stuff taken care of. And this Saturday after Thanksgiving 1986, I had an admission appointment at Glen Bay Hospital in Downtown Cleveland. It used to be on a 150th. And it did not occur to me because I was playing this card to get out of trouble.

It did not occur to me for several days that going to treatment meant that I wasn't gonna be allowed to drink. It just never occurred to me. But a couple of days before Thanksgiving, you know, as it was inching and getting closer and closer and closer, I thought, oh my god. Oh my gosh. I think I made a significant error.

Because you see, I had reached that point that that our book talks about where I couldn't imagine my life without alcohol and I couldn't imagine it with it. I had reached that point in my life where I was no longer bodily and mentally like my fellows. I was And so I called up these people that that scared me, and I and I went over to get my bottle. And as I was standing there talking to them, I said, you know, I said I've got one problem. And they said, what's that?

And I explained in the circumstance about going into treatment and not being able to drink. And I said, but that's not really my problem. My problem is that, you know, I drink so much the fact that I pass out when I get almost to the end of my bottle. If you guys could come up with some kind of concoction of all these other things that you do, all these little pills that you take, if you'd come up with some kind of concoction that would keep me from passing out, maybe I could drink this a little bit more, and then I wouldn't have to wake up and go to treatment. And they said, alright.

We'll give it a try. And so they gave me a little baggy, and it had about 10 pills in it, and they were all different colors. And I had a little prescription. I said, just take the yellow one and the pink one, then wait, you know, a little while and take the blue one and take the white ones. And, you know, and I was an alcoholic, and I was drinking a lot, and I I got confused, and so I just kinda took them all at once.

And and, you know, and I I came to the next day, and I was really angry because I came to. I was still alive, which means that it didn't work. So I called them up, and I, you know, customized. I said, look. You know, you guys got one thing to do, which is just to you know?

I just want to stay active long enough to drink enough booze to kill me. You guys think you can handle that? And so they gave me another little baggy of pills, and they explained to me. They even wrote it down on a piece of paper. And and I and I had this little concoction of pills, and it was the Friday night after Thanksgiving.

And I was due in treatment on Saturday morning, and I and I was drinking. I started taking those pills, and I tried to follow it the best that I could. And, you know, I came in I came to in Glen Bay Hospital on Sunday. I'm not real sure what happened to Friday or Saturday, but I came to Sunday night in Glen Bay Hospital. And and I was in a room where everything was bolted down.

And I was shaking, and I was sick, and I had thrown up on myself, and I was just an absolute wreck. And I was in complete and utter withdrawal. And they didn't believe in that time in detoxing adolescents because we just weren't that sick. You know, we hadn't drank enough, long enough to be real alcoholics. You know?

So they just let me in in that room to sit there and lay there and and, you know, shake, roll, and roll, and I did. And it was really difficult. I mean, the first two days were really hard. Thank god I don't remember those. You know, but those next 3 days were just awful, and I was and I went through a full blown withdrawal.

I never wanna forget it. And while I was in there, you know, they had you doing the the drug and alcohol inventory thing where you gotta write down everything that you used and drank and who you used and drank it with and all that stuff and amounts and whatnot. And and so I, you know, and I I did all that while I was in a blackout. And so about, you know, several days later, I was in there 10 days, you know, they they got some kinda code called in the treatment center, and all the male counselors are taking off their ties and they're rolling up their sleeves, and taking off their jackets, and they're running. I said, what's going on?

And they said, your sister is here. And she's really angry with you. You know, because when I filled out that little youth survey, you know, I put her youth down there with mine. And so they called my mom and they said, you know, you got we we know you got one sick kid, but, you know, you've got 2. You might wanna bring the other one in too.

And so she was checking in the same treatment center I was in, and, you know, and I saw her 10 days later, and she said, you know, you might not wanna go to sleep. Yeah. It's your fault that I'm in here. And so I didn't sleep the last 20 days of my treatment. And they kept me in there over the holidays.

They knew if they let me out of there, I was gonna drink. You know, I I spent 40 days in Glendale Hospital in downtown Cleveland with kids that I would not have associated with otherwise because, you know, they were thugs and addicts and, you know, drug addicts to me. I mean, they were here, and alcoholics were here. And I'm not sure where I come up with that. But, you know, and I was in there with all kinds of folks and gangbangers and, you know, people that scared me.

And I did everything that I could to not learn and sing while I was in that treatment center. I was just in there to do my time. I thought if I'm gone for 40 days, surely, by the time I get out of here, people are gonna feel sorry for me because I've been gone so long, and they just won't be mad at me anymore when I get home and I can go back to drinking the way I need to drink. Well, my sister had decided I was I was getting out of that hospital, and she said, okay. Here's the deal.

You will not relapse until I get out of here. She said, if you do that, I'll forgive you. And I said, okay. She said, you call my people and you get all of our stashes ready, she said, because the day I get out of here, we're gonna use. And I said, okay.

And so, you know, I called up her people, and I called up my people, and I got all the stuff that we need. I got my bottles, and I got her whatever it was that she she was using at the time. She was you know? My sister would, like, drop acid and go to school and stuff. I mean, just tragic decisions on her part.

But I got her all kinds of stuff, and and I was I'm eagerly anticipating her getting out of treatment. She got out January 6, 1987. And she came home, and I looked at her, and I was ready to go. And she had a spiritual experience over that last 10 days in treatment. She wanted to stay sober.

I was like, you gotta be kidding me. You know? I mean, every day, I'm sitting there and I'm looking at my bottles and my mouth is watering, and I'm thinking, oh my god. There's relief. You see?

Because I spent 40 days in treatment, and I didn't do anything with what was in my head. I spent 40 days without drinking. And all of the memories that I had and all the stuff that I did and all the shame and the guilt and the remorse, I had done nothing with it. It was in my head. It was driving me crazy.

I was not able to sleep. I could barely take a full breath in, and I was absolutely miserable. And I was waiting for her to get out so that I could get some relief because that's what booze had done for me in the past. And when she got out and decided she had a spiritual experience, you know, she said, you know, we probably ought to go to some of these AA meetings. And I had been to a couple AA meetings because my mom made me while we were waiting on her to get out of treatment, and we went to some AA meetings.

And we got there late. We sat in the back. We wrote notes. We got dates. You know, we made sure that our talk was a low rumble underneath, you know, whoever was talking, you know, whether they were speaking at the podium or whether it was some kind of discussion meeting.

I lost speaker meetings up there in the north where I was from. And, and so we were just a general disruption. And and, you know, the old timers hated me. They absolutely they hated me. They hated the fact that I was in their meetings.

They would say stuff to me, you know, well, you're not an alcoholic. You know? I spilled more on my tithe than you drank. And I'd say, well, you know, if you hadn't spilled so much, maybe you've gotten here sooner. You know, I mean, just all kinds of stuff.

And, and, you know, they were convinced that I wasn't alcoholic. I wasn't convinced that I was alcoholic. You know, they hated the fact that I was coming in late, writing notes, getting dates, seeing a general disruption, and interrupting everybody else's opportunity to get sober. And finally, on March well, I don't know the exact date. It was a couple of days before March 15th, which is my sobriety date.