The SW Kansas AA Conference in Dodge City, KS

He introduced me birthday night and I rocked that night, so I'm Melanie Solis. I'm a grateful recovered alcoholic. My sobriety date is 10,102,002. I actually made that date up. I know I have to tell you about when we get there.

It it is amazing. I I didn't know I had and we'll get to that part of my story. I have picked so many desired chips like John and a lot a lot of other people, chronic relapse or whatnot, and it took me a real long time. But I just stopped. This is the day, you know, looking at the clip.

It was sometime in October. That's all I remember so friends suggested 10:10 so I wouldn't forget it and so that's what we got. It's 10:10. It was sometime in October. They say they're nervous and they're I mean, we were talking beforehand.

They're both like, I'm so nervous doing it. I'm like, hey, stop. Quit that. My sponsor, told me one time, informed me I would be doing the steps at our group and we have a pretty neat group. I I hope sometime y'all get the opportunity to come and visit.

It has been wonderful meeting all of you. If I haven't met you yet, hopefully, we'll get to chat afterwards. Everyone has been so nice and and so warm and welcoming and loving. And if you ever are in Dallas, please come by our group, and visit because it's it's pretty amazing place. We were talking a little bit about it beforehand, but we have a lot of people because we just do big book studies and and so there's a lot of people that, you know, kinda know what their know the book and stuff.

And my sponsor had told me, who's only been at the group for, like, 6 months, she goes, you're doing the steps. I was like, oh. I was like, well, what if I vomit from the podium? She goes, take a can. So if I step away for a minute My story is a lot like everyone else's, a whole lot like it.

I I started drinking when I was 10, so we'll get to it real quick. There's not a lot to say. I grew up in a in a in a wonderful family. My father is an alcoholic, but I never saw him drink. I I never saw him drink.

I saw him go into the garage and come back in and kinda be different. And I couldn't figure that out. You know, you're just out wondering, what's in that garage? What's happening out there? But I didn't know and I and I didn't see, you know, a lot of it.

I just saw his personality change. And thank goodness I understand alcoholism as I do today because it makes sense. Not only for myself, but for a lot of things that happened around me as a child that I I didn't understand. My dad has a big family. He's the Mexican side and my mom is just as white as snow, you know, blonde hair and so But on that side, there's The family's huge.

He has, like, 14 or 13 brothers and sisters. And 6, you know, of the of the men, you know, all handfuls of them, just alcoholism, just alcoholics. My brother is, you know, also, alcoholic and and they haven't drank in quite some time and and, they were able to do it without this program. I, on the other hand, absolutely unable to quit drinking without finding some sort of power greater than me and quick like. So I saw them do all this and I was I was a pretty good kid.

I got, like, in school, I was kinda like I am now, you know, just kind of chatty, real you know, easygoing for the most part. Got, like, best citizen when I was in 3rd grade. You know, I remember the shiny new outfit my mom bought me for the best citizen award. And and the only thing that I remember, and everyone's kind of alluded to it and I've always had a really hard time finding words for it, was that that sense of being just, you know, so painfully different. I would look at the other girls on the playgrounds or different people's houses and I would just want my insides to match their outsides so bad and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.

And I remember being highly aware of that at a really young age and it's so great to hear other people say that because I thought it was just me. I really thought I was just crazy. And then if I had different parents, I was very imaginative and just kinda, you know, always I started lying at a very early age too. I think, like, in kindergarten, we went on a little field trip and I told everyone my dad had bought me the monkeys and, you know, just trying to always make myself just seem so much better than I was. My teacher even tried to correct me on that, like, Mel, are you sure about that?

Yes. Kid heads are my monkeys, you know, trying to correct me. I know what I'm saying. But I just wanted to be anybody but me. I I had traded places with anybody and that that feeling would stay with me for a very very long time.

So, my dad's a karate instructor and, we started taking karate at a young age. And so those of you who keep picking on me, I tell you I talked to you outside earlier. I was serious about that. We were real active in in sports and stuff like that and did soccer and karate and stuff. And my my brother excelled and and I would, like, try to do it and just this thing would happen where I would go so far and then I would just stop.

I just I couldn't pull it through. I was so afraid. Fear, just companion, you know, constantly on my back. You can't do it anymore today. I try to love God more than that fear is the goal.

But it was just always there, so I would just drop out. So at about 10 years old, I'll just get there, there there was nothing wrong is basically what I'm trying to say. There was nothing to blame my alcoholism on. My parents are wonderful people and no dramatic abuse or anything like that occurred. By the age of 10, I remember I was at a friend's house and I have never been really concerned with consequences of any type.

I'm really To be afraid of talking in front of a bunch of people about what God has done for me is just not really in perspective because I was never afraid to walk, you know, straight into liquor stores or some of the places that I've been. I've got no fear whatsoever to go do those things You know, it's just not there and so I had no fear of consequences. So my friend Courtney and I were walking home from school one day and we went to her house and she said, hey, do you want some of this? And it was this blue liquid in a in a glass jar and it was mint liquor in a decanter that I know today, but it was just blue stuff in a jar then. And so she said, hey, do you want some of this?

And I said, well, yeah, sure. Because I did you ever question anything you put in your body? I never questioned much about anything. Here, take this. Okay.

You know, find about find out about it later. So I I drank some and I remember the way that it tasted. I remember that like it was yesterday. It went down and I remember it was kind of peppermint y and I remember it was kind of warm and I remember the way it went down the back of my throat and the way it kind of makes you tingle and it kind of gets to the tip of your nose and it went all the way down and everyone just kind of had a way of saying it, but it was it was the magic. It was like, wow, what is this?

This is good. You know? And I stole my 1st pack of cigarettes that day. It was a big day. Salem menthols from Albertsons.

And every time I mention that, I always try to remind myself to get to that amend and so this time I'm gonna remember. But I did. I went in and stole this pack of cigarettes. You become real brave real quick, And so I I did I only had like, you know, just a couple of swigs. It wasn't like I was just rip roaring drunk or anything, but immediately I just felt, you know, so much better.

And so I got home, I remember I smoked those cigarettes, felt real bad about it, tore them all in half. My mom comes in, do you smell smoke? This guy came to the door and he was selling something, you know, I can lie on a turn of a dime. And she was like, oh, okay. I'm like, okay.

And so, but you know that feeling starts to wear off and you just start thinking, where do I get more of that? Where do I get more of that? And so, I guess, people have asked me, where did you get liquor that young? And what I just would go to friends' houses and I started drinking every opportunity that I got. The first The next thing I drank was Jack Daniels with Coke.

I got sick immediately. I have never been able to control the amount of alcohol that goes into my body. I never started off being someone who could control it. I've never had the experience either of just, you know, being able to say this I'm just gonna have 1 and then over time I got worse. No.

From the get go, I drink, I have 1, I seem to get thirstier, you know. And that one just, you know what, I'm gonna get just a little bit just a little bit more, just a little bit more before you know it. I'm puking up Jack Daniels and Coke and I think, well, you just don't drink that brown stuff. You know? It never occurs to me not to drink.

Maybe you shouldn't do that. You know, my mom doesn't drink. She's a normal drinker. She has one and she says she drinks it and she's like, I just start feeling out of control. I'm like, yeah.

Press through, mom. It gets better. She just stops. I was like, didn't that irritate you? No.

No. And so I got drunk. I remember getting sick on that stuff and that was the deal, was just to change up the drinking. Like I said, I was 10 and from the age from 10 to about 15, that was pretty much what I did. We would go, I would skip a lot of school and stuff and, we would go to karate tournaments in different places and and there was a lot of older people.

Older. They were probably 16. You know, they seemed really old at the time. And they had everything that I needed. We'd go and we'd just drink as much as we possibly could and I'd get sick and sick and and I would just wait, shake it off and then we'd do it the next day.

And and that's just how it went. And I have a lot of outside issues as well and, we, you know, combined the 2. And by the time I was about 13 or 14 years old, I wasn't going to school. I was very depressed. My I had gotten kicked out of one school already, and my parents had sent me to a private school somewhere in there to make it better because they knew if I got around the right kind of kids, which actually private school was much worse than going to public school.

Yeah. And so we went there and they tried to fix me with doing that and it didn't work and I got kicked out of that school and I came back and because the problem was is that I I could not I could not do what I was doing. I loved it. The first time I just got completely out of my mind, I remember this girl sitting next to me and I grabbed her arm. We were sitting on the corner and I remember telling her, please don't ever let this feeling end.

I don't wanna be just a little bit drunk, I wanna be completely unaware of what's going on. We We're talking about cocaine addicts and crack addicts earlier, stuff like that. And I I've I've done it, you know, and I'll I'll go through with it, but I I don't enjoy it because I don't know why anybody wants to be more aware of anything. You know, I was like, Why do you do this? This sucks, you know, because I don't wanna be more awake.

If I can just go right into the carpet and be asleep, I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to know who I am, I don't want to be social, I don't want to be laughing with you, I don't want to be here. And that was a problem. I was very, very sad as a kid, very, very over the top emotional. You know, just if I cried, it would be like for a month and we're talking in the hole and mom wasn't real quite sure what to do with me with that. And so at about 15 years old, is when it all started coming to a head at that age.

And I sponsor a lot of young people, so just, just for the record on young people in AA, AA. Guys, there's some amazing young people. And, and the feeling I had when I was 15 years old, because what happened was, it had gotten so bad I wasn't going to school at all or anything, and I just very rarely. And, one of my counselors was concerned, and so they called my parents. And and I remember sitting I had found out I was going to treatment because they needed to send me to treatment.

And I remember sitting out on the balcony real late at night and it was real dark and I remember crying out to God and just saying, you know, please help me. My my cry to him has always been please help me or take me. I don't care. Just one or the other. Please just figure it out quickly.

And that that feeling of of being, you know, dead here was no different than when I would sober up again at 30. It it doesn't change. And so when people say, oh you haven't drank enough or you were too young, it's that's not true. You know, because to be spiritually dead is just that. And so I have a lot of respect for the young people in this program.

One, that's the people who are gonna be leaving this program in their hands, you know. So to teach them well would probably be better than say, you know what? You're too young to be here. So that was that. Okay.

Back. At 15, when I went to treatment, John talked about it last night. I I I didn't actually have insurance, but it was, the Plano Independent School District where I was paid for my treatment. And so it was beautiful. It was in the eighties.

If you all remember in the eighties, treatment centers were real big, and they had charter, and they had swimming pools, and they had swimming pools and they had volleyball courts and we had biscuits and gravy for breakfast and stuff like that. And at first they took me to the state hospital, the Terrell State Hospital, and I remember us walking around there and thinking, daddy, you can't leave me here. You can't leave me here. And I'd repeat that again 15 years later too. But I went into this treatment center and it was great.

It was fantastic. I wanted to quit drinking. Well, I didn't want to feel the way I was feeling. How about that? I I didn't know, I just didn't know, and I would take any solution.

They actually talked about AA and the treatment centers back then too. They gave us big books. We talked about Alcoholics Anonymous. I went from that treatment center to a halfway house and spent about almost 9 months of solid treatment. And I got involved with the groups in San Antonio and they had big clubs there.

They don't really have clubs in Dallas anymore. I don't know if y'all have it here. And that's all they would do was kind of play dominoes at one part. You'd see a few people laying on the couch and we'd go and hang out and, and it was fun. I got a sponsor.

I don't know if I did any work really, but I had a sponsor because they told me to get one. It's funny, like, we think people know what that means immediately. You need to get a sponsor. If you're brand new, you have no clue what that means. For what?

You know? And so I just did and got this lady and and, I ended up coming back home and stayed sober for about 4 years. And, everyone thought it was really great to have this young person come in. I had my little big book. I still have my first big book.

I sat and took so much time with highlighters highlighting everything. So if you sat next to me, you'd be like, wow. She knows her step. I didn't know anything. I knew lack of power, that's my dilemma.

Lack of power, I had no clue what any of that meant though. And so, I I went to a lot of conferences and and I I felt good. I must have done enough of something to be able to stay sober that long, but about 3 years into sobriety, what I remember very painfully well is sitting on my bed with the 12 and 12 in hand, my big book in hand, reading it. I'd gone to so many meetings at this point too. I had heard, I know how to rarely have we seen a person fail, but I could do it drunk.

You know? I still kinda zone out when we read it because I've just heard it. I don't mean to, it's just I've just heard it so many times. You know, so I remember just thinking, there's got to be more than this. Because when I was in the rooms of AA, I was great.

I was real sweet. I knew kind of how to pull it off in there, but once I left those rooms, disaster of a human being. Still couldn't go to school, still felt uncomfortable in my own skin, still was borderline suicidal at times. You know, I had no idea how to have relationships, that thing that I had was still following me around, that spiritual sickness that we talk about, that spirituality that gets inside. So I threw my books down and said, I'm too young to be an alcoholic.

I threw them down and as you know, once that thinking sets in, there was nothing that was gonna keep me from drinking. I called the therapist back down in San San Antonio and I said, I'm thinking about drinking. He said, well come down. He flew me down and we were talking and he said, well Melanie, do you know God? And I thought, we were thinking, what?

What does that have anything to do with the fact that I wanna take a drink? Did you not hear what I'm saying? I wanna take a drink, but I wanted him to move me into sobriety. You know, say something real profound like, really bad idea, Mel. I know it's a really bad idea.

No? And he didn't. He was unable to He didn't move me, so I came back and I'm at the bar that night drinking on lower Greenville in the area we are drinking margaritas, getting sick. I'm not one of those kind of people that maintains well, that goes to work. I I hear that there's some people that can go to work, when they're drinking and that's just not me.

I fall apart very, very quickly. Within a year, I'm back in treatment again, and I've still got insurance. And at this particular treatment center is where they started loading me up with meds, and they said, you know what? You need this, and we think you're bipolar, and you might have chronic depression or, you know, maybe manic depression, and we're gonna need to be on, this anti psychotic, and we're gonna give you this, and that's where I started loading up on psych meds. Psych meds and hospitals are huge part of my story.

I did stay. I thought it was comfy. Steve talked about that yesterday or Friday. I would have stayed. It was comfortable.

I love going to hospitals today because I'm just comfy. I just kinda fit there. It was so much easier to be crazy than it was being alcoholic and you don't have to be responsible. I go in, you don't have to pay bills, everyone feels sorry for you for a while. Poor me, great meds, you know, kinda shuffle around.

And so they gave me that, I remember if they could see I knew it, I'm crazy. I'm crazy. That's it. And then they loaded me up. They said we're gonna need you to go to outpatient.

I didn't learn anything, you know, other than you're such a bright beautiful young girl. Why are you doing this? You have so much going for you. Why are you doing this? Like, I don't know.

I learned that. Go to outpatient. Went to outpatient and went to a few AA meetings. It was alright. Found a him.

That's part of my story. My MO is and then I found a him. And it was usually at the treatment center because that's the best place to find a man. Yeah. I usually tell people that they were broke, just out of jail, living with their mom.

Please, me. I'll take it. My poor mom, when I made amends to her, like, I don't know, like I was a year sober, she's like, I said, what can I do to make it right and we go through it? And she goes, can you please just not bring any more boyfriends home for like a year? I'm like, okay, I can do that.

I'm calling vice president. She's like, okay, well then you're definitely doing that, because I was just always bringing the next solution through and you never knew what it was gonna be like. You know, it could be someone with a flying high mohawk or it could be someone you know, you just didn't know what was happening, but, you know, they were usually from treatment. And that's what got me out at that point. And I went to AA a little bit and spouted off a few great things and, I guess, you know, I always still don't like it when it comes around the room.

I still like to pass and because I just don't know so much what to say. I don't go to a lot of discussion meetings anymore, so I don't have the experience as much. But, I decided it wasn't for me, and for the next, like, 12 years, I would proceed just to try to control my drinking. What I decided was that I would study wine for a while, and so I did that. And I decided I needed to learn how to drink like an adult.

And so I would try to watch you, and I would watch my friends. And I figured out what they did was they drank, and then they went to work in the morning. So I tried real hard to do that. You drink and then you go to work. I I Like I told you, I studied wine and and did that for a little bit to the point that I subscribed to Wine Spectator.

So the magazine so I could put it on my table so people would understand why you keep a red bottle of wine under your bed to keep it dark and at a certain degree. And whoever invented the martini is a genius to drink straight vodka out of a pretty glass. You yell that if you're drinking it out of the bottle, But not when it's in just a shaking glass. So I did that for a while and I thought I was choosing to do that. I thought I'm making the choice to drink the way I want.

I want to be drinking this much. I want to be doing what I'm doing. I will never be as bad as My father was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 1995 for drinking and driving. And, I remember at the time I was drinking, a lot and thinking how could he Thank God, you know, I would never ever do something like that because it was just so easy to, you know, judge and and think I'm just not that wouldn't do that. And so my drinking continued, but it just wasn't that bad.

I I would stop in intervals and and go to AA for a little bit and I would hear people go around and they would talk about their drinking. 1st step meetings are are weird to me and they're still weird to me because we sit down, you come in, you get your desired chip, and they say, oh, we're having a 1st step meeting. It's not really a first step meeting really, because everyone just kinda goes around and tells you how much they drank. I I don't really care how much you drank. I I don't I can't stop my drinking, you know?

And and while that is so helpful on a 1 on 1 basis, you know, in just a little bit, but that seemed to be all it was. Well I did this and I did that, and so you know what I did? I tune into you men who drank a lot more than I didn't think. Well I haven't done that. I don't share a lot of stuff from the podium that, or you know, the things that happened because some of it doesn't happen to people.

Some women never leave their house and they don't have the consequences that some of us have had. Some people don't drink themselves to the point of DTs, but that doesn't mean you're not an alcoholic. And so for years, I would listen to people go around and say that and I think, I don't need to be here yet. I don't need to be here yet. And then I would hear people raise their hand and say, you know what?

I'm so and so and I'm choosing not to drink today, and I think, how do you do that? I wanna do that. I wanna choose not to drink today. I'll choose all the way to the liquor store. I'll pray all the way to the liquor store.

And so I would go to these meetings and get chips, and I decided that AA didn't work and so that I didn't wanna go anymore. I tried NA for a while, but when they shut out we, and I'm not saying anything about that NA program other than it just was a lot for me. I was like, wow. It's like being at Rocky Horror Picture Show. We.

And we. My god. Sorry. But in, like, 1995 and and I worked in there, I was able to keep jobs and stuff like that, and I traveled the country a whole lot and it was always just kinda moving around geographical cures. I I did a lot, I opened restaurants for a big company and, followed him around for a while, opening restaurants.

And we lived all over the country. And and I got married somewhere in there, like, in 1997 or something like that. And because I was in Las Vegas and I met this guy at the poker table and it just seemed like the thing to do. And that's just, you know, how I am. It's how my mom and my parents and everyone always perceive me.

Well, she's just Melanie. She's just doing what she's doing. I'd go on a trip and I'd call back and say I'm not coming home, and she'd be like, okay. Because it's just these random things that I do because I just wanna feel better somewhere and it has to be Well, I haven't tried Florida yet. You know, I haven't tried Las Vegas yet.

Married a really sweet man. It's just amazing, the people that we run over. He's wonderful. Had a had a child and and everything. He he was fantastic.

I didn't know him, but for all the month. But, I just thought if if if I got married and he had a kid, I thought that would fix it. I thought, well, maybe then I could stop doing what I was doing. I'm also a thief, a recovered thief. I started stealing at a young age too.

And at this time, in about 95, after I had opened restaurants and stuff like that, I was doing some accounting for, a business, a a club that I was working for. I I still count on my fingers to do math. I have not one class of accounting, and so, I did some creative bookkeeping and embezzled a little over a $100 from this company. And, for no reason other than I just want to feel better. I just want to feel better.

Put myself under the knife a couple times, just women may get this more than the men for just plastic surgery galore. It's not here, so you don't have to worry about looking. Because I wanted to be I wanted to be better. I just wanted to I hated being me and hating just isn't the word. The depth of the self hate just was so huge.

Suicide attempts were huge for me. I was constantly in the psych ward on suicide attempts. And so I'm stealing this money and I'm getting married and it's all about to come down. I'm not drinking to the extent that I would be, and I would never would have thought in my life that my story would end up the way that it did. I ended up moving to Arizona because that's where this man lived, and and I came home within a month.

I remember my grandmother had died, and and I was drinking enough. You know, when you drink just enough to kinda just tick you off, can't drink the way you want to really because of the people that are around you. I was just drinking enough and had enough just to make me real irritable. My grandmother had died and and I remember him and I had gotten in a fight and I was tearing him up and down and and I said something and he said, you know what? He goes, you are the most evil person I have ever met and I hate you.

And I remember thinking, but not as much as I hate me. And I was, I was evil to the core. Because I can tear you up because this this thing of how much I can't stand myself in my own skin, the only way I know how to get that out is to rip you up and down to get some temporary relief. And I was very abusive to him, and I was very abusive, to his son. That that's been something that has been difficult.

That was something to come terms with, you know. And it just it's mind blowing, you know, to come to terms with the, the havoc that we reap on other people and the the amount of abuse that we, you know, give off, even though seemingly we're just as nice as can be. Right? I get people sometime, I'll walk into a group, oh, you're our speaker, but you look so nice. I'm like, yeah.

Okay. It's taken some time to not, you know, do the things that I did. So I came I came home and, we got a divorce, and And I remember I went instead with my mom. I usually lived with my mom. I don't think I lived alone until I got sober this time.

The only time that I did before that was, because I was stealing money and could support myself. But I never had a job where I could be self supportive. I never could make a living. I couldn't do anything. I just would drink all night and pawn all my stuff and stay living with my mom.

And I came back and I wasn't making enough money, so I moved to Arlington and I met another him. And I remember when I met him, I told my mom I couldn't stand him and so I moved in with him the next day. And, I'm My poor mother. I moved in with him and he was We can find some of the best men out there to take care and it was either going that way or the other. I was either taking care of them or they were taking care of me.

And he was taking care of me and he let me drink as much as I wanted to. And he we decided I needed some therapy at one point. And, I was actually working at a bar at this point, and so I could drink as much as I wanted. And my drinking would take on a whole different face because one of my counselors, I told her how much I drank, and she said, well, you know what? We need to put you on antidepressants, 1.

And she was, you really shouldn't drink on them. Like, I could You can drink great on antidepressants. Especially if there's any of them have a little sleepy eye on the bottle, you know, may intensify effect. Okay. This is good.

And she gave me Klonopin, of which to not drink so much with. And I didn't know, you know, that those pills break down, you know, my body reacts the same way to to those chemicals as it does to alcohol. It's causing the same thing and so I would it said take one as needed. That's a lot. I think that liquor bottle say drink responsibly or something like that.

Okay. So I was working. This guy was taking care of me for the next, 5 years. The first two years, I remember well. It was a bunch of taking handfuls of pills in the morning.

I was going I was running like 15 miles a day. I I cracked my shins from running so hard because I'm just trying to fix it. And I would tape them up real tight and take handfuls of volume and go and run it out, come home, take handfuls more, pull up the liquor bottle, go to work, sit down, take deep breaths, do a couple shots because I knew it was going to be on for the night and I'd go in and I do that repeatedly and that went on and on and on and on, finally to the point where I decided work was really inconvenient. And so I decided to quit working and I informed him of that, I'm not working anymore and he said, okay. And so I went home and I proceeded to try to drink myself to death.

And it's it's it was amazing. I remember most of the stuff that happened. I went had a series of psychotic breaks in that time. They were always rushing me to the hospital. They had me on Melarel for for a while.

If you're familiar with some of the old school antipsychotics, that's some one flow over the cuckoo's nest stuff. And I was on Mellaril for a long time and and because they were trying to get my sleep patterns back and and it was just crazy. And Hal Dahl was a good friend of mine for a while. And and and, I mean, it was just amazing that I was even able to exist or walk at this point. And I remember the first time I was trying to get down the stairs and my leg shook.

I didn't know what that was about until I got to AA this time, that the reason that I was shaking and couldn't walk and couldn't drive and couldn't move my hands was because I wasn't having enough stuff in me. I didn't know. I thought I was just a nervous wreck. I would leave the bottle under the bed and as soon as the sun would come up in the morning, it would come through the little blinds. I'd wanna just pull it up again right out because I don't want to be conscious of what's going on.

And I'm going to AA in the middle of times and I'm trying to do the next right thing and I'm asking people what should I do and they said, you know what, sweetie, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. Thinking it's not gonna be okay. Because I'm getting sober for a little bit at a time for, like, 2 weeks, I remember and I remember the man I'm living with coming in and throwing, you know, pills at me or a bottle at me because I know this is what you really want because I like you so much better when you're drinking. Because I'm a wreck when I'm sober without a solution.

Maniac of a human being. It's just terrible. And so I'm doing all this. I've I've got atrophied muscles. It's terrible of what's going on.

I know at this point too that I'm going to go to the bathroom all over myself when I go to sleep. And so instead of that being like something to be concerned about, you just lay down towels. Right? What does the doctor's opinion say? Our alcoholic life becomes the only normal one we know.

That was normal. It's okay. It's alright. You just lay towels down. Drinking was not an option.

I didn't know there was a solution to be found. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I do not It pains me what has happened to our fellowship today. Because I've come in with a desperate desire to stop drinking and I can't figure out what's wrong with me. I went to a group one time that I had gone to and and I asked this lady who was like 20 or sober, well, she had come up to me and I picked up another desire ship and she knew me from when was a kid and and she said, Melanie, what happened?

And I remember thinking, good god, if you don't know. I don't know. What happened? Why did you go back out? This is a silly question.

Because, I don't know, did you work the steps? I didn't know. So I went home and I opened my big book. After that meeting, I remember and I found that part once in a while he may tell the truth and the truth is strange to say. He has no more idea of why he's drinking than you have.

I have no idea why I'm doing this at all. I've been to some of the best addictionologists in this country and have had, you know, all kinds of therapy and healing the child within and, you know, all the courage to heal stuff and the shame spiral and John Bradshaw, whatever. It doesn't matter what child are you. Are you the scapegoat? Are you the clown?

Who cares? Triggerless galore. Breathing in and out is a trigger for me. Did you wake up? Yes, drink.

And so the guy I was living with at the time, this is all real fuzzy to me, He called my dad and told him he couldn't take care of me anymore because I'd become a full time project now. You you know, just I had to be, you know, at any time with some of the other stuff I was mixing it with, you know, it just at any time, anything could have happened and horrible catastrophic consequences that occurred. And so, my dad came and picked me up and they took me to the hospital And, it was one like John's talking about, which we go to now as a state funded facility. I ran out of insurance at like 19. And so, I remember we pulled up and it's by the missions in downtown Fort Worth.

Like a lady got killed on the doorstep, you know what I mean? It's a not safe kind of place. And I remember we pulled up the 1st day and it was very dramatic, just like we like and and, they said, you know, she's gonna die within, you know, such and such time, 24 hours, you know, take her to the emergency room and so they did that. And you know how when you're shaking it out too and and you think you've been asleep for like hours and it's been like 2 minutes? You look at the clock, you're like, oh, my god.

You know? And it's just and you just to move your head an inch and everything comes out, and it's just painful. And my dad's covering me up with newspapers because I'm cold, and I'm laying on the floor trying to get checked into this hospital, and it's just a mess. It's just a mess. And he takes me back to this place when they'll let me in.

I remember asking him the first time they wouldn't let me stay is because I didn't know the date or the president or my name. And so I remember asking him, him, who's the president and what day is it? Because I gotta get in. Just who is it? And so I'm signing in and I'm going in.

The problem was though, in the treatment, I'm sure it was great. I checked it out, got sick with the rest of them. I think on my 3rd day there, I found my new boyfriend. He was a heroin addict. Treba's just funny, if you've been.

You're all gonna be best friends and you're all gonna go to meetings, and we're all gonna move in together, and we're gonna have coffee afterwards, and it's gonna be great. Yada yada yada. You know? And so I I kinda shuck it out. The thing was is that I had no desire to be sober.

Sobriety wasn't what was on the forefront of my mind. I didn't wanna be sick. They pulled me up out of that. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be alive today, but I didn't come thinking I wanna quit drinking. I was I was okay living and dying just the way that I was.

And so about 3 weeks out of treatment, I broke my foot and I had some surgery, so I went and lived with my brother for a little bit, and they took me back to the treatment center after that and ended up leaving because I got pneumonia. But I had some surgery, was living with my brother and they were bathing me because I I couldn't bathe myself and they cut all my hair off. I was real matted and stuff and and I remember they cut it off and I didn't have a place to live because when I went home, my one true desire was to get back into that house of of my ex that had brought me to the hospital. That was what I wanted more than anything, not to quit drinking. And so that, I went home, knocked on the door.

He wouldn't open it all the way because there was already someone else there, and rightly so, I'd been sleeping in my pee for like 3 years, you know? And so I came back and moved to a Oxford house, a halfway house that's here in Dallas. Now, you couldn't have convinced me otherwise that I wasn't ever I was never drinking again after that, ever. Called a sponsor that I knew, that I had worked the steps with before or not worked the steps, but had been to AA with before. And I called her up and and she said, Melanie, do you think maybe you should work some steps?