The International Group of Stockholm's "12-Step Workshop Weekend" in Stockholm, Sweden

As part of our 12 Step workshop weekend and tonight, Theresa F from Los Angeles will share her story of what it was like, what happened and what it's like now for approximately 1 hour. So please welcome Teresa.

Going to sit right there. I'm OK. I just, I have to come back at the end. So you didn't get to talk in the mic?

What's it you're recording? Is that what that is? Oh, OK.

See any speakers? I like standing. I like to see people. Hi,

good evening. My name is Theresa. I'm an alcoholic. They won't hear me if I stand on the mic. Huh. Okay. Like to see people all right.

Oh, goodness gracious. Great balls of fire.

I'm all the way in Sweden. Huh. Wow,

I I want to ask. Thank Jay for asking me to come out. Amazing. He's all the way in California

and I'm out here and my spawn sees it with me, Wendy and Gianni. Who stood up from LA? Oh man,

thank you so much for welcoming me. This is my first time ever in Europe, so this is definitely been an experience.

I'm a little delirious, so it's kind of surreal, right? I don't think you actually take it in. Probably when I get home, it'll hit me that I've been here.

You, you know, it's interesting. I had no time in my life that I ever think that my experience can benefit others. Isn't that something

that I would actually be getting on a plane to just carry a message and talk about what it was like, what happened and what it's like now?

God is good every day, all day.

Think I'm gonna get a little mushy. Gonna need some tissue.

My heart is full.

It's a wonderful thing to see Alcoholics Anonymous all over the world. And somebody told me I'm seeing the world through Alcoholics Anonymous,

and it definitely has been a privilege. It is an aw and a privilege to ask to speak in any rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Oh, goodness gracious. I'm always nervous. God has a sense of humor. Because I don't like flying

and I'm always on a plane somewhere. I don't like driving and I'm forever in a car going somewhere

and I definitely do not like talking in front of a bunch of people

so they talk about willing to go to any length. So here I am. I'm usually really nervous. I want to puke, feel like I got to pee, think my peer is going to start. Got a lot going on.

A lot happening up here right now,

but that's OK.

I usually gotta let that out. I'm not going to act like I'm all cool and I'm not scared. I'm scared. My hearts pounding right now. I'm sweating, I'm nervous, I'm embarrassed. Everybody staring at me. So I'm usually like, all right, God, you're on anytime now. You know, this weekend, you asked me to be here. This is your gig. Oh goodness,

I want to welcome anyone who's new.

Many new friends in the house. Congratulations to those of you who took chips.

I always love to hide A city. Newcomers stand up, but I'm sure there's some people in here less than a year. So I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous and tell you that the program works if you work it.

There is a moment of silence and prayer, and it takes place in every meeting all over the world. We did it when we got started, and that's for you. But for the grace of God, you have been lifted up and brought into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. That was not your idea, and you don't get credit for that one.

You've been given a gift, a gift unearned. I hope you learn to water it and nourish it, take care of it and Polish it. It's like a glass menagerie. It's so easily broken.

When I got here, they told me this program is not for people who need it, but for people who want it, and I hope you want it really bad every single day. That's the way it's been for me, they told me. Don't you ever forget your last drunk ever,

I heard. Just keep coming back. You'll never have to take a drink again if you want to. And more importantly, even when you don't want to 'cause that's when I drank,

they say don't live 5 minutes before the miracle happens.

You don't know when that is, so you got to keep coming back.

They said let us love you too. You can learn to love yourself. You don't even know you're not loving yourself,

so you got to keep coming back.

And they said strap on and hold on 'cause you about to go for a ride,

it's about to get juicy for you.

Any old timers in the house? We call them old timers back home. I thank them so much for my life and my sobriety. I still want what they have and I'll never want to lose that.

I watched them breathe together, cry together and watch. The old timers are the ones that are the most quiet person in the room.

They don't say much. There was like Confucius or something, like the guy from Kung Fu. You know, take the coin from my hand, grasshopper.

They be chilling. They still sweep the floors and they put up the chairs and they extend their hands and they always giving out little trinkets. Just recently I was at a meeting and this old timer gave me like these little pins of a, of a pickle, 'cause we like cucumbers and we'll never be a cucumber again. And he gave me little lifesavers because that's what we do. We save lives on timers, do stuff like that and they give us little Nuggets. Like they just say, keep it simple, stupid.

One day at a time, let go, let God. And so I figured the best thing I can do for them is to give back what was so freely given to me.

But today I am responsible.

My heart is full. Sweden Cheese Louise.

I'm originally from New York and I grew up in the cold, but I live in California so I don't care for it much. But it hasn't been so bad since I've been here. I told Gianni, we're probably going to bring you the sunshine. It's going to be all warm. You going to wonder what happened?

Because God takes care of me. He's like, I'm not gonna let it get too cold for you. And so I'm grateful for that. I've had such a good time since I've arrived here. We had an opportunity to spend like 8 hours in London and took a train and visited some places and I had fun doing that. And every place that I go, I'm just amazed that I'm there because, see, I'm the type of drunk that never left my block.

So the fact that even I was sitting at a Starbucks in London, I was just like a static. I was like, Oh my God, we're at Starbucks in London. This is so cool,

check it out. Look at the people you know. And so the littlest things I'm impressed with

and justice being hosted by so many of you and taking care of us. I want to thank you and allow me to stay in your home and just to be loved and for anybody allow you to stay in their house is huge. It was a time when nobody would let me in their house,

you know? So that's huge within itself. We share in a general way what it used to be like, what happened, and what it's like now. I am truly grateful that I'm not a spokesperson for Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'm just another drunk that we get to share our experience, strength and hope. And there's a reason for that. It is called the language of the heart. It is the music that I have found in this rooms. It is what the doctor's opinion talks about, the depth and weight that you will only find from another alcoholic. One drunk talking to another.

I hope if you knew that you listened to some similarities or if you be old, I was always asked to listen to the similarities and not the differences and that you ask yourself a couple of questions like that. Happened to me. I felt that way too. And more importantly, perhaps this program can work for me.

I know when I got here I had to listen to the similarities because my story is just a little different. We suffer from unique ISM around here, so I try to be so unique, but I am to some extent or another.

I always say I like the story of the person who kind of didn't feel like they fit in in life and they always felt awkward and weird. And they had a wonderful family. And then they went to some prom or some high school dance and they had a pimple and they felt awkward

and someone passed them a drink and they drank it down and they puked and everything and got sick. But they liked it. And they did it again the next day.

And they continue to drink until one day they ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I like those stories.

It's easy, the norm

sometimes I want to tell people. Adele Content Rated R

My story is a bit gnarly.

We talk about incomprehensible demoralization. That was my life, folks. That was my life.

I am an alcoholic because I like the effect produced by alcohol.

I am restless, irritable and discontent unless I find the ease and comfort that comes from that first drink. That's what makes me an alcoholic. If you be new and you confused has nothing to do with how much we drink. It has to do with the fact that I am restless, irritable and discontent unless I get that ease and comfort that comes from the first drink.

I'm born addicted, that's the bottom line. I'm an alcoholic from fetus so I tell people if I can do it, I know you can. I am truly a miracle. I'm supposed to be dead or drunk somewhere.

Everyone in my family are alcoholic fanatics. Everybody. I got four members who are not, and I can tell you who they are. It is my grandmother, my father, my brother and my cousin Petra, and nobody likes them.

They're not fun people,

so they weren't anyone I wanted to look up to or to be like

everyone in my family, all my uncles, my aunts, my mother, everybody my mother drank and used when I was in her belly. And I came out of my mother's womb begging for it. And it was given to me in my bottle and in my gums. And I drank every single day, all day long for 25 years of my life until I came into these rooms on March 29th, 1990,

18 plus years ago. Isn't that something?

And my family, the only person who has a problem with alcohol is a person who don't have no teeth and no job. If you got your teeth and a job, you doing all right. Those are the only requirements. I say you got a problem and then we just talk about you.

My heroes, my role models were my uncles and my cousins. I looked up to them. They're heroin addicts, their pimps, their hustlers, their thieves. They're totally cool.

The dealers. I grew up in New York City in the projects. Oh man, love them.

My playgrounds were shooting galleries, crack houses, bars and clubs. I didn't play with no Barbie doll, no hopscotch and no jump rope. I didn't do none of that. I didn't watch television and wish to be like any of those people. Never.

I love that lifestyle, the dynamics of it. I like the hustle, the insanity, the fights that broke out in the middle of the night. Somebody was always getting choked before the end of the night. It ended is using my mother. Somebody was choking, huh? Which I found even more exciting. And so this was the life that we lived.

I come from verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse by both men and women. People took turns with my body. I thought that was normal. I lost my virginity like around 5:00 or six. Oh well. And what about it?

I left home at the age of 14. I'm balancing checkbooks when I was six, Man, I had my own business at 14. Incomprehensible demoralization. Y'all crack me up.

That was my life and you know the beauty about all that? Alcohol told me it don't matter.

I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous because incomprehensible demoralization and the consequences of my drinking. Yo, funny,

I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because all of a sudden it began to matter. That's when things are different.

Alcohol always told me it don't matter. Alcohol was my higher power. Alcohol told me when to get up in the morning and when to go to bed at night.

If I was going to work, if I wasn't

where I was gonna live, where I wasn't gonna live,

if I was in a relationship, if I was not and who I was in a relationship with.

Alcohol dictated every single area of my life. And I was clear about that. And I didn't care. Those were the rules. And if you didn't like it, you need to get out of my life. I never shared my booze. Ever. No, I'm not the sharing type. You hang out with me. You need to bring your own. This is mine, OK? This is mine. You get yours. You can't have yours. You can't hang out with me. I can't afford to run out. I drank alcohol like we walk around drinking water today.

That was my diet. That was breakfast, lunch and dinner. I've been, I've been doing that with alcohol, SIDS, feed it.

I don't know that there's another life different than that life. Never did I question it, that I doubt it, and that I say something is wrong with it, you know? And sometimes when I share in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I get a little nervous. It's as though perhaps nobody else is like me, but there's a bunch you out there that I'm sure are just as scandalous as I was.

It's just that sometimes we don't talk about it.

I've been in the nastiest places and I have done the nastiest things

and I was very clear that if that's what I needed to do for my next drink, fix, pill or hit, that's what I need to do because I'm a survivor. I'll sell a tree at 3:00 in the morning and I'll do what's necessary for the next one 'cause I drink to breathe. I don't know about you. I'm not into happy hour and try to look cute, OK? I don't have to look cute. OK, I'm drinking.

I kept up the facade for what I considered to be a facade. I didn't want to be a drunk like my mother. That's what I would tell myself,

and so I like to dress up my outsides and look as cute as possible.

Always had a job, maintain a job and have money. Remember, my mission in life was to make sure that I never lose my teeth on my job. If I kept those two things, Doesn't matter what else I've done, I'm okay.

I tell people, you know what a good day looks like for me. This is a good. This is a good old days.

I go to some bar and some club, I see somebody I like 'cause that's usually how I got into relationships. I just saw you. I had no major criterias.

I said I like you, I want to sleep with you 'cause I don't want no relationship anyway, 'cause you want to communicate and share stuff.

I just want one night stands. Thank you very much.

So I want to sleep with you. You say sure. We go to some hotel. You happen to bring four or five of your friends. I figure more than merry. I don't question that. And we go to some hotel and by the end of the night

I get gang raped, sodomized, and pistol whipped.

I get up, I crawl the bathroom, I fix my hair, I put on my makeup, I fix my clothes, and I go back to the bar and I do it all over again.

Those are the good old days.

Oh, I missed the good old day.

Those are the days where it didn't matter,

Alcohol said. Don't worry about it. It don't matter. You're gonna be all right. You don't need nobody.

I was always burning bridges. Always. I was always wreaking havoc in your life, destroying your life or having you destroy mine. That was the life I lived. I always took what I wanted to take, when I wanted to take it, and I lived in a state of victim consciousness. I blamed you for everything. Everybody was at fault. I was never wrong.

I didn't know that I was angry. I didn't know that I was bitter. I said I came to Alcoholics Anonymous to get adjectives for my behavior. I didn't know anything about selfish and self-centered and self seeking. I found that out when I got here. That was just who I was. I didn't know that I was arrogant. What they say, low self esteem. That's the first time I heard that when I got here. No self worth. What is that? I'm arrogant and egotistical. I thought I was all that in a bag of chips and I dare you to challenge me. I was bad,

you know. It's interesting. Recently I have been sharing with my sponsor that the more and more I've been talking about what it was like, I feel further and further away removed.

It's as though I'm talking about a stranger.

And I told that I was getting scared because it seemed like she seemed foreign to me, as though I'm talking about somebody else. And I told my sponsor I was concerned because I didn't want to ever forget her, because if I ever forget her, then maybe I'll go back to that. And my sponsor told me there's something that's called a memory,

and she said you'll never forget her. But male, when I talk about her, it just seems so strange. And then I remember going through a period of grieving her, like, we'll go back and visit her and just cry. It's so sad

when I think about her.

I didn't know that I suffered from a spiritual malady and that I was bankrupt and full of shame. No idea.

I was evil. I was mean. I had a nasty mouth on me. Oh my goodness.

So I said I always burn bridges. I didn't want to maintain long-term relationships anyway. I don't want nobody

get too close to me. I don't want you to get close. I don't want long term friendships. I don't need you to know me and know who I am. I like being alone. I don't need nobody.

I walked around my whole life going I don't need no body. I don't need you. I dare you to tell me you love me. Don't you dare say those words to me. That's how I live. But you dare even begin to talk to me like that? I don't love nobody. Don't want to. I did not know how to love you and I definitely didn't need you to love me.

I had no self respect and I definitely was not respecting you.

I took what I wanted to take when I wanted to take it. If I wanted your VCR, I took it. If I wanted your money, I took it. You're the one that's stupid. You should have left it out there. Yeah, took it. And

sure, borrow money from you. You don't want it back, do you? You know I was broke when you gave it to me. Why would I pay you back? I paying you back

evil

didn't even know it.

That was my life for 24 years.

I walked down the street with my cousin and he gets shot. Oh, well, who else am I gonna hang out with? I don't care. Another one bites the dust when we die in our family. You make sure that that person has their booze or their drug of choice in the coffin with them. If not, they're turning in their grave.

You're scaring me, man. You're an alcoholic making me nervous.

I just panic when people start like being shocked and they all start scaring me.

That was my life for 24 years, a life that made complete sense to me, one that I had never doubted or questioned or nor that I looked to the other side to see that perhaps there was a better way. I went to Catholic school, I had a uniform on, I prayed in the mornings, I got Holy Communion, I was baptized, I did confirmation. And where is God and all that? Somewhere it ain't here

and I ain't looking for him either. I put myself to bed at night and I wake myself up in the morning.

I was spiritual, I guess. I showed up to confession on Saturday and took communion on Sunday. That's the extent of my relationship when it came to God. I also grew up in a family of spiritualists,

a practice in African tradition. We got priests and priestesses in our family. I did that too. Showed up, war, white wave the chicken around. Whatever we gotta do, I don't care

man.

The good old days.

As I said, I left home at the age of 14. I was with a man who was 2611 years my senior,

beat me on a daily basis and you couldn't have told me that was in love, That man loved me. That was my Poppy.

He beat me.

Hmm. Something happened to me.

Something happened to me at the age of 24.

I woke up in the morning, the sun came through the window and it burned my skin.

I didn't even know what it was.

I remember asking the person next to me, I said what is that? What is that? Turn that off. Turn that off,

they said. That's the son. The what?

I remember I walked into a bar

and I heard them say look with the trash board in.

How long had they been saying that?

But I remember when I heard it and you talk about this thing called remorse. Something happened to me when my stomach now turned,

I went to my grandmother's house and I saw look a pity on her face.

I can't tell you that I ever noticed that before,

but I remember when I noticed it now. I saw this look on her face and I couldn't quite

get rid of that look on her face. She looked, she looked at me like real pitiful, like, what's the matter with you?

And I couldn't wipe that away. You know, I'm saying I wanted to make that go away.

And my father wasn't talking to me. Now, I can't tell you how long

had it been that Daddy had stopped talking to me. I don't remember when he had stopped. It was as though at the age of 24, I woke up or something. I don't know what happened.

All of a sudden the consequences began to matter. See, now things are different.

Things are different when I'm drinking and you still ugly.

We got a problem.

I don't know how to do that one

you supposed to transform right now

but you have it.

I'm scared

now.

Now waking up with strangers and I'm noticing

see things are different.

Do you know that I didn't spend the time getting rest is irritable and discontent. I never stop.

Ever. I got pictures of my first year birthday. I'm loaded.

I didn't. I didn't do New Year's resolutions. I didn't stop drinking or go to work. I didn't just drink on the weekends. I drank all day long. I don't know. Nothing about rest is irritable and discontent. I never allowed any time for that to happen. But now, for some reason, I'm drinking and I'm restless, irritable and discontent and I'm drinking. Maybe by tolerance is high just that is not enough.

When I got here they said alcohol stopped working. I don't know if it stopped working. I like the effect it's just that maybe it didn't work long enough. It I just know that it make me numb enough. All of a sudden I got a heartbeat.

I live flat line my whole life. My whole life flatlined nothing. No emotion, no feeling, not in touch with anything. Detach, disconnected Nestor ties. I was not present. Now I'm present.

I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to be present. I don't know how to hear the things that you're saying to me and me taking them in. I don't know how to handle that. I just know all that. Now I'm ripping people off. I'm worrying about that. I wasn't worried about that before. I'm walking down alleys at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. I'm getting paranoid. I always walked out alleys

waking up with strangers feeling dirty. What is that about? How's tripping?

Oh, the good old days back

Burden Bridges I'm worried about Where are you going? Why does anybody want to be with me? What happened?

Where's everybody at? Where's everybody going

but the good old days back? I don't care. If you left now, then I care.

My grandmother's going. I don't understand what's the matter with you. And my daddy's not talking to me and I'm homeless. And how did I get homeless? I don't even know how that happened. How did that happen?

How did I end up homeless

when that was my bright idea? I just didn't feel

no more.

That was a conscious decision. I'm not paying the rent

and expect to live there.

Crazy.

Talk about insanity.

I'm not paying for lights. I don't want lights. I don't need lights,

That's my idea. I don't want lights,

mother alcoholic addict friends. Yeah, you don't need no lights. You know those friends?

Yeah, you don't need lights or you need lights for we got candles.

Why do I have a phone? You here? Who do I need to call? Nobody. You have to call nobody.

I love those friends

cosign my insanity,

just like the type of friend I was. You Od'd, I put you in the closet. Those kind of friends. I take you to no hospital. They asked him any questions.

It ain't my fault you don't know how to get high. Those kind of friends.

My uncle comes to visit me when I was living in that apt. I had no furniture

and another relationship. Some guy. He takes everything I own because he got tired of me pimping him, using him and abusing him, treating him less than a man let alone a human being. He takes everything I own. He only leaves me with a brass bed, no mattress

and I remember my uncle came to the house. I had eviction notice on my door, no lights and no furniture

and he asked me how I was living

and I respond to him like any typical alcoholic, right? I said what I need furniture like everybody else.

This is my design.

You need to mind your business. I got this. I want it like this.

We're so crazy,

it makes perfect sense at the time. Some are rationalizing and justifying, right? So what? I got candles,

but I remember when my uncle walked out of the door, I fell to my knees and I started screaming.

Well, I was screaming as though there was some part of me that knew that's not the way I was supposed to be living.

And I'm screaming and I'm screaming. There's somebody in the house. They don't know what to do with me. And I just hear them in the distance going hurry up, pass someone, hurry up, pass someone. And they passed me a drink and I drink it down really fast. I remember them drinking, hurry up, drink it, drink it. And I drink it down. I remember just going

woo. I don't know what that was all about.

Major breakdown.

I was like whoa, that was intense. Oh my. I don't know what that was, but check this out. We will not be doing that again. That was crazy. I'll be getting emotional. I know punk,

and do you know that I was not successful. It got progressively worse and it got uglier.

I'm homeless, I can't work, I can't bathe now because you see, the water hurts my skin.

I'm sick all the time and I've been sickly my whole life. I've been in and out of mental institutions. I've seen enough ink blots and two way mirrors. I'm so sick of those ink blots. They all look like butterflies. They do.

I don't know why they do the inkblot thing. I still haven't figured that out. What are they getting at? I still try to figure out what are they getting at with the ink blots, but anyway,

I've been enough hospitals where they put in Ivs in me because I'm so malnourished. I've been into juvie.

I'm starting to get tired now. See, I'm starting to get real tired. I'm trying to keep up with the hustle, you know I do. I feel like I lost my hustle with. I want to keep up with the hustle. I want to act as if I want to like, dress this up and pretend like everything is okay. I need my mask, I need my armor, I need my walls, but I can manage to keep up with them.

And I'm getting tired and I'm not bathing and I'm funky and I'm nasty, still trying to be cute. Everybody is scared of me. Nobody wants to be around me. How did that happen? How did it ever come to that

on the good old days, back when it doesn't matter now, all of a sudden everything matters. Everything matters and it gets worse and it gets uglier and I can't keep up.

And these are the circumstances of my bottom. This is my last drunk. They told me anyway is going to change if I leave here and come back.

And these are the circumstances of my bottom. If you be new, I've come to understand the bottom is something that happens on the inside that nothing to do what's going on on the outside. Certainly it helps. You can live in a mansion and have a bottle.

So these are the circumstances.

I'm pregnant on my fourth child.

I've lost three prior. I'm amazed that women who have children, their disease. I really am. My womb is so polluted and so toxic, I can't keep a child. You kidding me? I didn't even know I was pregnant half the time. The only time I would find out if it fell out of the toilet on the floor. Let me go. Oh my. What do you know? I was pregnant. Oh well, clean myself up and keep walking. I remember I sat on the toilet for two hours getting drinking and getting loaded, letting that baby come out. Come out already so I can finish doing what I got to do.

My 4th child, this baby thing is happening in my body and that's not stopping either. And this baby is not falling out on the toilet or on the floor like the other ones. I don't know what's going on with this baby but it's all up in my body and somebody happening to my breast and everything. It's weird

and I can't deal with this. I don't know what's happening to my body and I don't like it.

And I'm feeling that going on and it's just scary to me and I can't keep up with that. And I'm living in my dad's house, my grandmother's house, and I'm hanging out with the father of that child, 'cause that's all he was.

We left one another. I went somewhere, I forgot something. To this day, I don't remember what I forgot, but I forgot something. And I went back to where he was and I walked in on him. Sleeping with a guy. OK. Those are the circumstances of my bottom. You figure with all the things that I've been through in my Life, OK, I walk in with my boyfriend sleeping with a guy and I go, I'm done.

That's a bit much.

Pistol with me but not that

can't handle that. I need help. I was like I got a problem. I need help. My boyfriend's sleeping with another guy.

His bottom was my bottom.

Always takes people a minute. I don't know, you Swedish people,

you don't get so many Puerto Ricans out here.

You just see us on TV. Do you even see us on television? Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Rosie Perez, right? Those kind of people.

No. Why you, Wendy? Not so many Boricuas out here. You could tell. You could tell us when you see us. We got our national flag all over the place. You don't know? Yeah, we have it on the hat, on the clothes and the car. You could tell when you see us. Anyway, we always like proud people. You know, we are Puerto Ricans. We are very proud. We wear our national flag everywhere. My cousin always tells me that we still don't realize that our national flag is not a car ornament

we're wearing. What do you go out? You know anyway,

we own the Bacardi factory. You know we're very proud about that. As went by Cardi comes from anyway, I just thought I'd throw that out there. Just noticed that this little Puerto Rican flavor coming at you. Y'all y'all OK, all right. We're so spicy and passionate, you know, very passionate people.

As I said, those are the circumstances of my bottom. I ended up leaving him. I looked at him. I said, I guess you want to be with him. You don't want to be with me anymore.

And I did the walk.

Oh, I hope you remember the walk. If you be new,

you know that walk is called the Aimless walk.

The Walker. You are going nowhere.

I was just walking out to India abyss. Man had no purpose, no agenda, no ideas, nothing. Just walking.

I hope you never forget that walk. That's like the longest walk. Oh, it's so dark and lonely, that walk.

Just desolated and isolated and empty.

The walk into the abyss.

The snow was up to my knees. It was cold. I didn't have a coat

and I remember this day like yesterday and I'll never want to forget it.

I ended up in a church in that something

I wasn't looking for a church.

I ended up in a church on Parsons Blvd. in Queens

and I grabbed the door. I remember there were big red doors. Red. The door was red. It was huge, wood heavy with these metal pieces on it. And I remember I grabbed the handle and it was so heavy. I just remember the door being so heavy. That was a tiny little thing. I'm still tiny, you know, And I grabbed, I opened up the door. It took me forever. The door is so heavy.

And I went inside the church, that big thump, you know, And I don't know if people were in there or not, even if Mass was going on,

but I remember I went in and I felt a presence. It's more like what I feel in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, that silence that we come in here and get, it's just like, especially when we pray, we begin the meeting, it's like the energy changes get still.

And I felt this presence. Oh, and it felt so good.

Oh, it felt so good.

And I said a prayer,

a prayer that's different than any other prayer, as a prayer that I believe brings most of us here.

I prayed out to a God that I have renounced such a long time ago.

Such a long time ago

and this prayer came from the depths of my soul. I'm sure that before this I have prayed to never wake up with another breath

and this prayer was different.

I say, God, please allow me to feel the peace that I feel in this church inside of Maine.

And you know that I just wanted one minute for my head to shut up, my inside

guys who stopped turning and from my skin to stop crawling. That's all. I just wanted a minute of that, just

for a second. Jeez Louise, this. I can get a grip, you know what I'm saying?

I live there. I go to my father's house and the next thing that comes out of my mouth is amazing

for me.

I said Daddy help me and if anybody knows me, I don't ask for help. I ain't no punk. I never asked for help. I'll manipulate help out of you. But I asking you, I'll do stuff like, oh boy, I sure am hungry.

Haven't eaten in a while.

Gosh, I gotta take three buses and a train and hope you give me a ride. That's manipulation. But I'm not asking you for help.

I never asked for help because I know the rules.

Because if you ever asked me for help, you owed me for the rest of your life. I know the rules about health.

But I turn around and I GoDaddy. Help me. Isn't that something

I said? Daddy helped me. I have a problem, Daddy,

and my father says with all the love that a father can have for his daughter, my goodness, we talk about powerlessness in our own lives around here. Remember, the level of powerlessness, the disease of alcoholism that infiltrates into our relationships and our family is absolutely amazing.

Not just powerless in my life, my father was powerless. He's all the love in the world, all the love that I have for you. I have to slowly watch you kill yourself, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. Powerless

can't do nothing. You can love me and love me, and it will do nothing

but an insidious disease,

he said. I wish I could lock you up and put you in the closet.

She a grown woman,

he said. But you're standing in the middle of a crossroad on this three directions you're heading, you so close to him you could taste them and you could smell them.

That's jails, mental institutions and death.

There's another role, this thing called recovery,

Dark and mysterious. You don't know anything about it, and neither do I. That's what he said. I know nothing about it,

but if you give it a try and if it doesn't workout, the other three will be waiting for you.

Isn't that something? Thank you, daddy.

You know that fact that my father shared with me then remains true to me to this day.

Remains true to me. This day

I was scared

because it gets scarier once you ask for help.

Now people know that, you know,

it gets different.

I remember after I told that to Daddy, I told him I was going back to Queens to get some stuff and I was gone for another two weeks.

Crawl back to his house.

They put me on a Greyhound bus and I headed out to sunny California.

Because of a tradition that you have, which is attraction rather than promotion.

My mother currently has 22 years of sobriety and my cousin has 21.

And I think you people messed up my drinking. You know that