The Thunderbird Speaker Meeting 449 Club in Yuma, AZ

Especially grateful and thankful to be here tonight, sober through the grace of God, this fellowship in the AA program. And I also have privilege and the honor of introducing our speakers tonight. And I've known at least Robin, I've known for a considerable period of time and, in recent months or recent years now, I've come to know her husband, Fernando. And, we we were at their wedding and, it was mostly an AA for us, AA wedding surrounded with AA people. Great people of alcohol Anonymous.

It was exciting what wedding. But what we were really impressed with was Robins Verdandel's excitement and enthusiasm for sobriety. When Robin was asked to come to share here, she she was excited to come and say and tell what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for her. Believe me, from where she come from, Alcoholics Anonymous has really worked. So Robin's going first.

Robin? Oh, do you have a step stool for me? No. Just a step. Wonderful.

I like steps. My name is Robin. I'm an alcoholic. Oh, I have to tell you that it is a privilege to be here, and I'm I'm really grateful to be a sober member of Alcohol Anonymous, especially sober woman. It can be so demoralizing and can you hear me back there?

Okay. Let me fix this mic. Can you hear me now? How do you audition for the Verizon commercials? Can you hear me now?

K. Is that better? Alright. It's especially demoralizing, I think, for me to to be a woman alcoholic. There was so much shame for me drinking as a woman and I'm so grateful that that shame is no longer necessary in my life because of the power of the steps and of this room of these rooms, really.

I'm gonna tell you a little bit about what it was like and what what happened and what it's like now, as efficiently as I can in the amount of time that we have. The truth is is that if we all had all night to to sit here and talk, I I could go on and on and on about the various things that have happened to me in my drinking, during my the initial stages of my recovery and since, you know, in my journey in alcohol anonymous. But I I have a limited amount of time, so I will do the best I can and know that my higher power will put out of my mouth whatever is supposed to come out. The disease of alcoholism progressed very very rapidly in me as it often does in women. The big book of alcohol anonymous talks about how it progresses more rapidly in women and, I've had people in meetings tell me, you're the least alcoholic looking woman I've seen and I think, well, what does an alcoholic look like?

You know? And, a lot of you didn't look the way I expected you to look when I got to Alcohol Anonymous. I had this preconceived idea myself about what an alcoholic looked like. An alcoholic was always dirty, always homeless, and always toothless, and that was absolutely not true. Sometimes sometimes an alcoholic is those things, but not always.

Sometimes an alcoholic looks like a clean-cut girl that lived down the street from you in your clean-cut, you know, middle class town. And, my alcoholism, I thought was a secret. I think my family knew, but a lot of people didn't. And that increased my shame. I thought I was a really bad, irresponsible, horrible person And I was always trying to be good and I was always trying to get it right.

I didn't know until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous that I was sick, that I had a disease that affected my mind, my body, and my spirit. I didn't know that until I got here. I was 15 years old the first time I got really raging drunk. I grew up in an alcoholic home but I don't believe that that's why I'm an alcoholic. Absolutely not.

Maybe except for hereditary but, you know, but I don't believe that because my dad is a drunk, I had to drink. I had to drink because I'm an alcoholic. Period. You know, I know people that grew up in alcoholic homes that didn't go on trying to kill themselves with booze. And so, you know, just because you live in an alcoholic home or an abusive home or maybe life dealt you a hard hand doesn't mean that that that's why you drink.

I drink. Well, I don't know why you drink, but I know that I drink because I I'm an alcoholic. And, I'm glad that I know that today. I'm glad that I finally know what was wrong with me. Because my whole life I felt like there's something wrong with me.

I just didn't quite fit in, you know? I've I've heard people describe it around a a that it was like I always felt like I was trying to put a round peg into a square hole, and it just didn't fit. And I just didn't fit anywhere, you know. And I remember feeling that way from very, very early in my life. By the time I was 8, my folks split up.

My mom was, unable to care for me and my brother. My dad was drinking, and he had full custody of us, so he was unable to care for us too. And I felt very much thrown away and abandoned by both of my parents at a very young age. And, I remember thinking for a very long time that that was what was wrong with me. Is I came from a broken home and if you came from the home I came from, you would drink too.

If you have the dad I had, you would drink too. If you got abused the way I got abused, both physically and emotionally, you would drink too. And I used that as an excuse for a long time for my drinking. So the first time I got drunk, I was 15. I was going to a night club.

I had a a friend that had an older sister that knew the guy at the door. You know how that works. And, you know, he got us in and I remember we went through drive through dairy, before we went to the club and they got 3 big Syskos. And, one for each of us and they gave me mine. And the club was 30 minutes away.

And, my parents, of course, thought that I was, like, going to the movies or something, you know. And, by the time we got to the club 30 minutes away, my Cisco was gone. And they were still sipping on theirs. And they went on ahead of me into the club while I finished theirs as well. 3 Ciscos in a 95 pound 15 year old doesn't go over well.

And, I went into the club and I remember not really even having a very good time because I was too busy walking around the tables, picking up half empty bottles and drinking them because I wasn't I didn't have an idea and I wasn't old enough to go up to the bar and order a drink. And that is my first experience with drinking. From the gate, I could not get enough. From the gate, I needed to have more. From the gate, it did not matter even if that booze was not mine.

I mean, I was willing to, like, take other people's drinks without asking. I mean, they call I think they call it stealing. But, I didn't see it that way. I just figured they're dancing. They don't want it, you know.

And, so that's how I was drinking right away. You know, I don't believe that, you know, the big book talks about this potential alcoholic idea. You know, how how us young people might be but potential alcoholics. And I tried to convince my first sponsor that I was one of those, but she she wasn't buying it, you know. I definitely didn't get to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous as a potential alcoholic.

By the time I got to the rooms of alcohol and I continued to drink that way, by the way, for, like, 8 years. And I would I got here, and I heard people that talked about drinking for 40 years, and I was so jealous that you all got to get away with it for so long. I thought, damn it. I only got to drink for 8 lousy years, and I'm already here with you. You know?

And, I wasn't happy about that. And and, you know, and I would hear I I heard, you know, that old timers would tell us young folk that they drank more than we spilled. And I I heard a younger person rebut to that once her rebuttal was, well, if you didn't spill so much, maybe you got here sooner. And I felt that way, you know? And I could relate to that, you know?

It's like I didn't spill my booze, you know? And, and, you know, this is kind of embarrassing, but one time I was, I walked to a liquor store and I got this this bottle and it was in this paper bag and I was so drunk that I tripped and fell and it broke the glass in the bag and I brought the bag up to my face to suck the booze out of the paper bag. So even if I spilled, I had to suck up the excess. That's the kind of drunk I I was. And, and I was under the delusion that I was cute, that I was sophisticated, and I was a lady.

I mean, I don't know how many ladies suck juice out of a paper bag, but that's, you know and then my other thing too is that I'm absolutely powerless over alcohol, but when I drink, I'm also powerless over my bladder. And so I also have this problem not only of getting drunk in public, but of wetting my pants in public everywhere I go. And, and I don't know too many ladies that do that either. And, but, you know, in my mind, because I started off with wine, I was a lady. And, because I drink my vodka and fancy, triangle shaped glasses, I think they call martini glasses, you know, I was lady.

And, of course, I also prided myself in being able to take 10 shots of tequila in a row with no lime or salt. I don't know too many ladies that do that. So I drank as much as I could get my hands on. And, and thank god for alcohol. Thank god for alcohol.

I was shocked when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I found out the people in AA did not have a contempt for drinking. We're not prohibitionists here. We don't think there's anything horribly wrong with it. I mean, maybe some of us think it's morally wrong, but AA, you know, thank god for alcohol. In a way, alcohol kind of saved my life.

I was nutty before I ever took a drink. Before that first drunk at that night club, I was absolutely nutty. I, in a fit of rage, this is before I ever took a drink, in a fit of rage, I destroyed my stepfather in my mother's condo with a bat. I broke everything in the house in a fit of rage. Just blind rage.

And then I staged a robbery to cover it up. 15, I did this before I ever took a drink. You know no. I think that's 14. I can't remember.

Instead of facing the consequences for that, I think my folks wanted to put me in therapy or something, I opted to move back in with my alcoholic father. And that was hell. And I'd rather go back to hell than be responsible for my actions. And I didn't know why I even did it. I had no idea why I had done that.

At that time, I now know it was because I was angry. I was angry because I felt alone. I felt abandoned, and I didn't know how to talk about that, you know? And I also think that there's just some mysterious ism that makes us do nutty things. I am bodily and ism that makes us do nutty things.

I am bodily and mentally different than my fellows. And, so I went back to live with my dad and my dad got drunk one night, put a gun in my face and scared the bejeebers out of me and I ran away from home and I was running around on the streets and I got a horrible kidney infection a few months later because it's real hard to find a place to go to the bathroom when you run-in the streets at 15. And that kidney infection almost killed me and somebody picked me up and took me to the hospital and they packed me a nice and pumped me full of antibiotics and sent me on my way and I went back down to finally live with mom again. And my mom and my stepdad had their hands full for a long time with me. And, I moved in and out of their house 7 different times.

I dropped out of high school halfway through my junior year. I was drinking every opportunity I had and hiding it as best as I could. And, and what's amazing is that to the dismay of my high school counselor and my parents, I had a 3.8 GPA. I was in the concert choir. I was interested in the mock trial in the girls league.

I ran on the cross country team. There was nothing wrong with me. There's no reason why I couldn't have been a successful student. There was no reason why I couldn't have gotten into a great college. There was no reason why I couldn't have been everything that my parents dreamed of having in their little girl except that I was an alcoholic that wasn't being treated for alcoholism because nobody knew, not even me.

Nobody knew what was wrong with me, and I'm so grateful today that I know what's wrong with me. I'm so grateful that I know that I'm an alcoholic and I'm so grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous because the solution is in Alcoholics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous was named after the book. So the solution, Alcoholics Anonymous was named after the book. So the solution, if I say is in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's in the book and what's in the book but the steps? Twelve steps and it's a design for living that's totally changed my life.

When I got to alcoholics anonymous, the end of the end for me after lots of drinking just like the kind of drinking I just described, much much more of the same. I think I had fun in my drinking a couple of times because it saved me from that insanity of, like, rage and destroying because when I drank, I wasn't mad no more. When I was drank, it didn't matter no more that I was abandoned. When I when I was when I drank, it didn't matter if you loved me. When I drank, it didn't matter if I loved you, you know.

When I drank, it didn't matter if I did well in school. It didn't matter if I all those feelings that I wasn't gonna make it in the world. I mean, I didn't feel like I was gonna make it in the world when I was 8. Most people don't start worrying about that till they're in high school or later, you know, and none of that mattered to me anymore. When I drank when the car broke down, my solution was go to the bar.

It just took all the care and concern of living away from me. You know? It just it was the ease and comfort that I always wanted when I first started drinking, and I'm sure I had a little bit of fun. Once once, I think I had fun in Rosarito, but I can't really remember the trip. So I think I had fun though.

Because I don't remember anything too horrible about it, but I was a blackout drinker. You know? And so the the beginning of the end for me was, I had moved to this town called Fullerton because it was closer to my my job. I was living with my folks in a town called Chino Hills and working, like, you know, an hour away. And what was happening is I was stopping after work to drink every day and then driving a long ways to go back to my parents house, and I was really scared of getting a DUI.

I was horrified of that because I wouldn't do jail well. Okay? I'm like 5 foot, little white girl, you know, £100. I'm like, I would not do jail well. And so I I really was frightened of being arrested.

And, and I had sat in the back of cop cars many times, but for some reason, I just always got out of it. I've been pulled over many times drunk driving, you know. And, so I moved closer to my favorite bars. And, 2 days after I moved there, I decided I didn't wanna drink there, I wanted to drink somewhere else. And I got in my car and got on the freeway.

I I I just no matter where I went, I wasn't gonna be happy. And of course, it wasn't the alcohol, it was that bar. You know, I'd get restless, irritable, and discontented everywhere I went. And so I'd change brands of of drink. You know, the tequila's making me pissed off.

I'm gonna go back to wine and drink like a lady. Or it's that damn bartender. He's such a jerk. I'm gonna change bars. You know?

And, I can't believe they 86 to me. I only stole the wallet once. You know what I mean? Like so I was kind of a stuck up drinker in that sense. But, so I got in the car and I'm I'm driving to LA.

I wanna go drink in Hollywood. To hell with Orange County, you know? And I totaled my car going 68 miles an hour at impact on the freeway. 2 other cars were involved and I was drunk. And, nobody was seriously hurt.

My car was totaled. And I remember that they brought me to the hospital and somehow I got through that and didn't get a DUI. They wrote on my release papers, don't drink and drive. They underlined it three times and put 3 exclamation points. But somehow, I didn't get a DUI.

They probably just failed to report it. California law requires hospitals to report it, but they they didn't. And I I didn't get a DUI, but I remember the next day, I took the last, like, $10 that was in my pocket because I was always living hand to mouth and, took a cab back to the apartment I was living in with 2 other girls that drank like I did. And it was a horrible apartment. They had this little pug dog that crapped on the floor all the time and nobody picked it up, and it was just dirty and smelly and not ladylike at all.

And, you know, my room always smelled like urine because I was always peeing on the bed, and I used to blame it on the dog. But, or whoever I happen to bring home with me that night, and, I'd look at him like it was his fault. And I'm not alone. I've heard other men and women say the same thing, so I'm not alone. That was one of the reliefs to me in Alcoholics Anonymous is that I'm not the only one that did these embarrassing things.

That was such a relief to me because I thought I was the only one. You know, this is a disease of loneliness, man, and I thought I was the only one that hurt like I did, and I thought I was the only one that was embarrassed like I was. And I wasn't alone. I wasn't alone and so I didn't have a drinking problem. I had a car payment problem.

And after I totaled the car, that was taken care of. And I just walked to the bars. That's why I moved to that neighborhood anyway. It was It was closer to my favorite bars. And, god has a sense of humor because a month later, I broke my ankle drunk walking.

And I did that actually on purpose. I ran into a light pole on on foot on purpose because it was New Year's Eve, and I wanted to swing around it like they do in the movies. But in my drunken state, I I failed to perceive that the light pole was, like, twice my width. And so I ran right into it and broke my ankle. And, so then I couldn't walk to the bars anymore, and now I'm on crutches.

And so I decided, well, I didn't really like walking. It wasn't safe for me to walk at night anyway. I don't have a drinking problem. I have a transportation problem, and so I called the cab company. And, so I got a regular cab driver.

Her name is Peggy. And Peggy would come pick me up every night. She'd take me to the bar because I was a bar drinker. I was too lonely to drink alone. Although towards the end, I really kind of had to because it was getting too humiliating to drink in public and besides all my favorite places were throwing me out.

And, so I in the end, I would sit in a room and flip through my phone book looking for a new name to call and there never was one. There never was one, you know. Maybe some drug dealer that I owed money to or my mom who always looked at me with this look on her face of like it was it was a combination of disgust and terror. So I didn't wanna call her because I hated that look. I I've heard it dubbed the Al Anon look and, she doesn't look at me like that anymore by the way.

It's a relief. My mom looks at me and she hugs me and she's happy to see me and it's great, you know. So Peggy would take me to the bar and she'd come pick me up at 1:30 and she knew she had to be there at 1:30 because I had to scrape up enough money in the bar and I'm I don't even wanna tell you how I managed to do that, but I found my ways to get a a little bit of extra money before I left the bar. Sometimes I stole it. Sometimes I finagled it in my own ways and and, I had to have that money when I left the bar because I had to get a bottle before I went home because I had to have something to nurse me back to life in the morning.

3 weeks of that, I'd hobbled my way into the bar on my crutches because my ankles broke and I propped the crutches up on the bar next to me and I'd sit at the end of the bar drinking alone. Even the drunks in the bars didn't wanna drink with me because they knew that they'd get thrown out with me when I did. So they stayed away from me so that they could be left alone to drink. And, it was just demoralization like anything nothing I can even begin to describe, but if you're an alcoholic like me, man, you know what I'm talking about. I don't have to try to describe it.

And Peggy had come pick me up. And one day, I came to on that urine soaked mattress. It was freezing cold. It was the middle of January just like it is now, and I I called Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew about AA because preacher in my church when I was a kid was always saying my dad needed to go.

And I knew that's where people went that drank too much, and I thought maybe my drinking too much might have something to do with my state. And, they sent me to a meeting at 1 of the 1 at a club just like this one and I called Peggy and I said, Peggy, I'm not going to the bar tonight. I'm going to 218 North Malden, which was the address of the place I went. And she pulled up next to the club and she turned around, she looked at me and she said, honey, do you need me to pick you up in an hour and a half? And I thought, how does she know how long I need to be here?

She must know that this is a a. Oh my god. She knows I'm an alcoholic. You know? Like, getting into her cab every night full of urine and booze didn't give me away.

And, I never saw Peggy again, but what she was one of my many angels. She got me home safe every night. Because to be an alcoholic woman means that I'm always seconds and inches away from death or destruction, you know, and and I'm grateful. I'm grateful for the people that delivered me home safely. And, even in that state that she didn't think that I was too beneath her to help me.

And, I hobbled my way into my first meeting of alcohol anonymous on those crutches, and I remember thinking I didn't even know why I got I went, you know, I thought why am I here, man? I don't know what I'm here for. And I remember that first meeting of alcoholics anonymous, somebody carried me a half a cup of coffee. And I cry every time I talk about this cup of coffee because I didn't even like coffee. Okay?

Now I can't get enough of it, but I should practically own stocks in Starbucks. But, you know, somebody carried me a cup of coffee. And it was the first kind thing that anybody had done for me in a long time and justifiably so. It's not exactly like I was making it very easy for people to be nice to me. And it was the first kind gesture.

It was the smallest thing. It was just a cup of coffee, but it meant that somebody noticed I was alive and somebody cared if I had a moment of comfort. And I've had nothing but that, an alcoholic's anonymous, in the last 6 years of my sobriety. I'm in rooms full of people that care that I'm alive and will go out of their way just to see that I have a moment of comfort. And that ease and comfort that I got from booze, I now get from the steps in my higher power and the people and the fellowship and the service and all of the things that alcoholics anonymous has to offer me.

You know, and and today, instead of those superficial acquaintances of people in the bars, I have real meaningful relationships with people and we talk about real things and Alcoholics Anonymous has afforded me so much in my life. You know, I I'm a high school dropout and now I'm a straight a college student, you know. One more semester, my GPA is gonna be back up over a 3 point o. And, I've had the same job for, you know, the last 5 years and, I got married in April. Me and my husband went to Kauai and I never used to leave the barstool, you know.

And, a girl I sponsored was my maid of honor and I've got I got to see her pick up 2 years and that meant more to me than my own chip, to see other people recover. It says in the big book that's some that's something you will not wanna miss. You must not miss working with others and seeing other people get this thing too, you know. And it and it was drilled into me from the very beginning. My first sponsor told me, she said, Robin, pay attention to what we're doing here.

I go to her house every Tuesday to work the steps and whether I drank or not because I drank the 1st year of going to meetings before I stayed sober. I ended up in a low bottom indigent detox and I came to and there and I thought, how did a nice girl like me get here? You know, this is where the homeless bums go and I thought I'm a homeless bum. The 1st year of my sobriety, the best I could do was live in a garage. I didn't have a toilet or a heater.

You know? The car I was driving was gonna be repossessed. I did not do well in my 1st year of sobriety. I had 6 different jobs. It wasn't easy for me.

It wasn't easy. And I remember thinking, if this is what sobriety is, I don't want it. And if I left 5 minutes before the miracle happened, man, I would've missed it all. I I would've missed it all. I'm a stepmom to a beautiful child today.

You know, it's like I would've missed that. I would've missed it all if when I was sitting in that garage, I thought, oh, to hell with this. Sobriety isn't any good. You just gotta hang in there, man. You gotta hang in there long enough for the magic of Alcoholics Anonymous to enter your life and your heart.

You know? And get busy as soon as possible. Work the steps as fast as you can, man, and go help other people as fast as you can. Get in here. Get in the middle of the pack.

My first sponsor told me, pay attention, Robin, because the only reason why God's sparing you is so you could turn around and spare someone else. I didn't like that so much because I didn't think I had anything to offer. And if I did, I wasn't gonna give it to you. You know, that was my idea at the beginning, you know. And, she also told me get in the the pack and keep moving because you can't hit a moving target, you know.

And so I just got busy, man. I made the coffee, and I I passed out the chips, and I did the literature commitment and I I secretaried meetings and, you know, I sat in the committees and I went to the picnics and I went to the potlucks and I went to the dances and I went to I just got real busy in Alcoholics Anonymous, and it saved my life, and I have a life beyond my wildest dreams. I am 29 years old. I've got 6 years of sobriety. And if I live to be a 100 and I stay sober, god willing well, god's always willing.

If I stay out of god's way and I stay sober until I'm a 100 years old, there's no way that if I'm in of service in Alcoholics Anonymous, I could ever repay back what it's already given me. You know, it's like I just I do a little bit, and I get so much back in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not a fair deal. It's really not fair, but I'm not gonna argue with my higher power. It doesn't work.

You know, when I argue with my higher power, it doesn't go over too well. I end up self will run right and everything's all messed up. So I don't argue. I don't argue with my higher power about the gifts I receive and I don't I try not to argue with my higher power about the gifts I don't receive. I try to just show up where God wants me and do what God wants me to do and keep learning about how to know what that is.

The serenity prayer, you know, the wisdom to know the difference. And, I'm so grateful for my sobriety. I'm so grateful that I that I'm not living that lonely, desperate hole of despair that I once thought life really was. And that wasn't reality at all. The big book says that we can't tell the difference between truth and false.

And the way I was living wasn't reality at all. My perception was so twisted. Reality for me today is the love that I find here, the hope that I find here. There's hope. Man, if you feel like you just can't go any lower than you've been, well, you might be able to go lower, but there is hope.

It doesn't matter how far down the scale you've gone, there's hope. There's hope for all of us. You know, if you just do a few simple things, get a sponsor, work the steps, go to the meetings. It'll start sounding like Mary had a little lamb. There's no big secret.

There's no big secret. You know, you just do a few simple things and your life gets better and it's not always perfect. At a year and a half sober, I was institutionalized for suicidal depression. So it hasn't always been perfect and it hasn't always been easy, but I wouldn't trade not one second of it. Not even having to, like, go to the bathroom in front of other people because they're afraid I was gonna try to kill myself with a plastic toothbrush, you know.

I wouldn't trade any of it. I wouldn't trade not one minute of my journey for what I found in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a design for living that really works. Please keep coming back if you're new. Thank you for listening.

Thank you for having. Also, I have the I've known her husband, Fernando, for just a few years, but they spent the weekend with us. And, in that short weekend we got to really know each other. Got to know Fernando and the excitement and the enthusiasm he has for alcoholics and I'm just active in that program. His eyes sparkle with with his joy and sobriety and and serving others.

He's really active over and coming just like his his wife. We've really had a tremendous week with him. We've been blessed. Fernando. We do welcome Fernando.

Thank you, Frank. Good evening, everyone. My name is Fernando and I'm a filthy, homeless, smelly alcoholic. I'm one of the other kind of alcoholics she was talking about. I wanna thank first of all, thank Frank and Betty for their hospitality, and inviting us here.

It's been a pleasure and an honor. We got to speak at a noon meeting today and I'm really grateful for that and for the time we got to spend with them. You know, thank you both. We, you know, we really appreciate and we've thoroughly enjoyed the time we've gotten to spend with both of you. And thank you all for being here.

I wanna welcome the newcomers. I don't live out here, but I know that, what I say, anybody with any time feels in that we want you here, we need you here, and we love you here. You know, we understand in a way that the non alcoholic cannot understand the magic in a bottle, you know, and, if you understand that, you're in the right place, you know, and and, the magic in the bottle. And I chased it in a in a vision for you. It talks about, you know, to for for most normal folks, drinking is conviviality, friendship, warm feelings, a good time, you know, but for the alcoholic, it's everything.

And they chase it and they chase that feeling for years and I chase that feeling for a long, long time. You know, I don't look like, I'm old enough to have chased it for a long time, but, I got sober in my twenties, but I started real young and you'll hear that in my story. The most important thing I can share tonight is I haven't had to take a drink or put any other drug in body to change how I feel since April 28, 1998 and for that, I'm very grateful. And, thank you. And, I can't take credit for one day of that.

You know, the credit goes to my sponsor, my home group, and my higher power. I wouldn't be sober without a sponsor. My sponsor is Armando g, who lives in Staten, California. And he that's in Orange County, and it's about 5, 10 minutes from my house. You know, it's a good idea to pick a sponsor that where there's not too many bars in between you and that sponsor.

You know, I I I've had the opportunity to speak faraway places. People come, you wanna be my can you be my sponsor? Too too many bars between a son. I see a lot of people willing here. Why don't you ask them?

Yeah. I wouldn't be, sober without a home group. And and, this time when Alcoholics Anonymous finally stuck, I heard a really important word, which is important as my sponsor in the 12 step, and that's a home group. And my home group is a Moe's men's stag meeting on Thursday nights in Fullerton, California at 8 PM and Moe's music in the back. And if you're ever in Orange County up in North Orange County and Fullerton, please come visit us.

There's a lot of time and a lot of recovery in that meeting. And I wouldn't be sober if not if I didn't work the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous with my sponsor. And and I wouldn't be sober if I did not continue to be willing to work the steps with a newcomer. You know, my book tells me I need the newcomer to recover, and that's why I am so welcoming and grateful to see newcomers in meetings. I cannot recover without you, you know, and, whether you stay sober or not, I cannot recover without you, and you will always be welcome in this room or any other room of alcoholics anonymous.

Don't let anybody chase you out just because you come in smelling like booze. You know, I went to a lot of meetings drunk and nobody kicked me out. And, real quick, I wanna, say a little disclaimer. I didn't drive all the way out here from California to tell y'all how to do it. I know y'all don't give a rat's butt how we do it in California.

Frank warned me, and, you know, and and, so that's not why I'm here. I'm here to share just my experience, so, you know, and I can get preachy, I've been told, or I can sound preachy, and I'm just sharing my experience and I'm passionate about Alcoholics Anonymous because of what it's done for me and what it's done for the people around me, you know, but most importantly, what it's done for me. That's that's where it means the most to me. And, you know, if if what I say bothers anybody, you know, call your sponsor, work it out with them. And if that doesn't work, come back next week.

There'll be a different speaker. I was born in East Los Angeles, to, to alcoholics. And, my mother has told me the whole time she was pregnant with me, she shot heroin, dropped LSD, and drank whiskey. She did not plan on on having being a mother. You know, they were involved in in, gangs, my parents, and and drug trafficking, and and the Mexican mafia, so that wasn't their plan.

But, being alcoholics and being kind of preoccupied with parting and not being real responsible, she didn't make it to the clinic, so here I am. And, thank God. And, I don't remember my first drink. Obviously, I was in my mother's womb, but I'm pretty sure I probably enjoyed it based on how much I loved to drink after I came out. And, my earl I do not remember my first drink.

My parents made it. We're always the party was always at our house, so I had plenty of opportunity and seize that opportunity to pick up a drink early. While they were talking to their friends and drinking and, you know, carrying on and having a good time, you know, I was sneaking under their noses drinking their drinks. You know, cleaning out the cups that were left around the party. Kinda like Robin was doing at a club, but I was just a little kid.

And, and, and I loved the effect produced by alcohol. The doctor's opinion, it says men and women drink essentially because they love the they they enjoy the effect produced by alcohol. And though they can admit it's injurious, they add a after a period of time, they cannot differentiate the truth and the false. Now that happened probably by the time I was in the 6th grade. You know, and and, I was blessed.

I thought it was a blessing. Maybe it was a curse. I don't know. It doesn't matter to have older cousins around me who are 2 and 3 and 4 years older than me, who are already, you know, knew about the drinking game, and knew where to get booze and what out what in in in Los Angeles in the county of Los Angeles where I grew up, they weren't real careful about checking how old you were. You could look like a 12 year old and they'd sell you a case of beer.

And, they weren't too concerned about abiding the law. They just wanted to make a sale. So they knew which, liquor stores would sell to minors and we'd go there and if, you know, if they had just been visited by the police and were scared, we, you know, we could get an uncle to buy us booze or we could just stand outside and see a drunk walking in or somebody walking in who's probably a drunk because they were the ones who would bias the booze. Hey, buddy. You got $20.

Can you get us a case and a bottle? You know? Sure. As long as I get a cut, you know. Oh, here you could have a 6 pack.

You know, and then we'd take our booze and go our way, and you'd go his way. And I loved everything about drinking. To me, people that drank were the coolest. You know, kids that were into sports and into academics and and into karate and they were dorks, you know. I wanted to be a hoodlum like my like my cousins.

And, so that's what I gravitated towards, you know, right away, I liked how drinking looked, and I definitely liked what drinking did for me. And and I felt I felt like drinking made me feel how I thought men looked. You know, because I always suspected that I was a little weak scared, punk, and I always felt uncomfortable in my skin. When I took a drink, I was just like my dad, you know, a tough guy. I was just like the guys I saw on the street corner.

Smoking cigarettes, selling drugs, and drinking out of a brown paper bag. You know, I I I had arrived, you know, in in a excuse me. You know, so right away, you know, I'm already a full blown alcoholic and I'm just a teenager. By the time I was 16, I was puking blood on a regular basis. You know?

And my dad, he was sober for a while in the church, and, that quit working for him. And, he had been forced to go to AA for a for, for a DUI, and, and they gave him a big book at this meeting. And, he arrived before he gave me he went to prison. He gave me the big book and said, I'm not gonna need this. I don't need this.

I'm not an alcoholic. Like, 2 weeks later, he went to prison for a DUI, and he had a he had, he was trafficking cocaine, so that that kinda sent him away and and but he didn't need the book, But okay. And, he went to prison and, he was sober for a little in the church, relapsed, went to prison, and then my mom, who was trying to keep a roof over our head and food on the table, you know, had to get, like, 2, 3 jobs to keep paying the bills. So basically, I had no supervision. I didn't have much supervision when he was around anyways because they were so involved in their lives.