The EURYPAA Convention in Stockholm, Sweden

Now please welcome our Allen on speaker, Matthias Gear.

Thank you. My name is Matthias and I'm an adult child. To my mother, who is an alcoholic,

thank you.

I

Yeah,

who are you kidding?

I I know you don't like me. I'm from the,

I'm from the other side. I'm the all unknowner.

I still remember that night.

I was a dead man walking in a nice suit.

I was running and hunting that forest trail.

The rain was weeping into my face and I couldn't barely see the path because it made the visibility equal to 0.

But I could still find that path because I had been running that path during my whole life. I knew every stone, every tree

and there was number problem with that part and I ran that

trail with a

very tense pace, very fast pace I had. I could feel every heartbeat in my temple and I had that taste of blood in my mouth. You know when you are pushing yourself to the limit.

I was high on adrenaline and endorphins up to my eyeball,

but I also felt very tired this night,

close to sick

and I was turning up on a bridge that took me over the channel and I turned out on a smaller on a small trail of gravel or something and I suddenly felt a very strong feeling of dizziness

and in the same moment something warm was streaming over my lip and I realized it was blood from my nose. My body was out overuse and it made

everything it could to tell me that.

But

I live my life with a pedal to the metal and I pushed and I pushed

and

I lost the balance and I was free falling into the gravel.

And I still don't today know

what hurt most, my scrape body or the internal pain in that moment when my superficial

facade

went down like a tree in a storm.

What I am trying to tell you here is

my what, what I, what I was addicted to because I didn't drink, I didn't smoke and I didn't use any drugs,

but I was addicted to excitement. You know, I I was running in the forest when you guys were down at the pub

and I loved it. You know,

I was running from

shame, guilt, unworthiness.

I think some of you maybe could also relate to that

and

training was a short term quick fix for me to get out of a coal basement. I call the coal basement. It was when I,

it was my emotional life, my own emotional life and I needed these kind of quick fixes, training

and you know, I involved myself in

crazy relationship.

You know, the person left, did plastic surgery, came back, same person, new face and I slept with the enemy again. You know, it's a long story,

so every time I had that kind of quick fix,

I thought I was staring at the light at the end of the tunnel. But that light was a train loaded with

feedback from all of the bad choices that I made during my life,

and I made a lot of them.

So

this sick blueprint

made this thick blueprint

and knocked me to the ground.

You know

my drug

one another favorite drug was sex. It's a very good way to escape pain.

Yeah,

you know, 6

was fueling my codependency like a Knox gas fueling a NASCAR or something.

It was very strong. And

when I lay there in the mud, I, I, I realized that I had a moment of clarity and I took a decision that I,

I, you know, I felt that I, I need, I need help.

So the next day I wrote down five names, and

I call the person, we can call him Yoda.

And I met the order for the first time maybe 10 years earlier, you know, that little green guy in Star Wars. And

I didn't remember, even if he told me back in the days that he was sober in a A. But that was not the reason because I just called him because I needed someone to talk with

and I could remember that. I really like that guy. I called him and we haven't been spoken for maybe five years, but we spoke for three hours. But he is always telling me that I spoke for three hours. He was just listening and we

he invited me over to Oslo and actually he's living in Gothambury, but he should should be in Oslo for a while. So I flew over the to Oslo and

you know, at the first lunch he dropped the first plasma shell right into my heart. You are codependent

and I asked what

I mean. He may be sobering a A, but what the hell is this guy smoking?

Codependent.

But I went back to my hotel room and I, I buy the Internet for everything that I could find about codependency and,

and the next day we hooked up and he asked me what I thought about his remarkable idea about the codependency. And I told him that I maybe I am a little, a little bit codependent and he just, you know,

he swing this lightsaber over and over and hit me. And he told me,

Matthias, is it possible for a woman to be a little pregnant?

No. So we made a deal.

I, I flew back to Stockholm and

we the deal was that I should attend 10 meetings and you know, I did one meeting every week. So that took approximately 2 months or something. So it was a slow start,

but I still remember my ninth meeting and it was some kind of organizing meeting. And the leader was asking who should grow coffee, who should take the key. And I was sitting on at the at my peak of arrogance. And I thought, oh, don't look at me because I just had, I have one meeting left and then I'm out of here.

But something happened and I continued and I started to work in that program,

this program, and

I still remember, of course, I had a lot of challenges because things wasn't easier or in the program. It could it it's very hard to

to start from the beginning. You know I if I if you have been running 30 years out in the forest, you it just even if I wanted it, it will not take a one hour back to the main Rd.

You know, even if I running like hell, it's a hard work and sometimes I also need to stop and rest

patient. And you know,

and

one thing my sponsor told me was that

hi Montes, you must have your pants on. No sex for a year. And OK, I still remember it. I asked what?

What is this?

But

so of course I made my relapse and

I can't really

think what you guys

is thinking about

now. You think that this Alan guy is really crazy?

Is he telling me that I can't have sex for a year or what? But

I think

my, my addiction was the excitement, and I think it's impossible for me to recover if my mind is hijacked by endorphins that I, that I, that was my, that was the thing I always haunted and needed to stop being with my own emotional life.

So I did it. I did one year. That's good.

And maybe I can get them a coin for that because the clock is still ticking.

And

yeah,

but

the hardest thing for me

where what I could see today is that

myself esteem

was was gone.

And

and then

and that's the

I'm blown away right now.

It was that sex thing.

Maybe I was too honest.

You know,

yeah, I'm looking forward for the party.

Yeah,

You know, I'm recovered. Humble man.

Yeah.

So

I think

and the time is also taking away her. Jay will soon drag me off the stage but

this program have been

helping me a lot and today I'm a living man working in a nice T-shirt, so thanks.

Thank you, Matthias. And now please welcome our main speaker for this evening, Marge Dee from London, England.

Hi, everyone. My name is Margie and I'm an alcoholic.

Yeah, I really like this Rocky Horror Picture Show part of stuff. You know, you're really coming in and going, waiting for the for the lighters to come out. I just find it amazing to be here. This is just just just just terrific.

I mean the guys there put this together are are just phenomenal. It is astounding what you have done as far as putting this together. Really and truly

I'm going to put this down here, so don't knock it over.

They've been working on it for a long time. They've been campaigning. Peter came to London and did a lot of work. They have been talking to Jay. All the people have put this together is really service to the 10th degree and you should get some kind of a medal for that. Actually,

Like I said, my name is Margie, I'm an alcoholic. You can use skip that other part. We already did.

And obviously I'm not originally from London, although I've been there for for many, many, many years. And I consider that my one of my spiritual homes.

But

I am truly and down to the core in every part of my DNA,

I am an alcoholic. And that is in thinking and physically and every other way that an alcoholic can be defined.

My I

per sponsor Dale the hippie, the knower of all

used to tell me to say my sobriety date whenever I share it because people need to know if you're new, you need to have new friends and and connect up with the program. And if you got a longer term sobriety then people need to know also that it is possible to live your life without having to take a drink, a drug or or anything else. My sobriety date is November 6th, 1979. So,

yeah,

I'm impressed.

And you know, it's like, yeah, I can hear it. I can hear your voices in there going. She's been sober longer than I've been alive.

And yes, I have.

I haven't. So we're mostly. Yeah. Which which is, you know, just it's just that's just freaky to me. Just been using the word freaky tells you how old I am.

And if you were to ask how old the women would, you know, counting fingers and toes, it would take almost three of you to get my age. So I did come into the program quite young for that time. Back in the Jurassic period of of AAI was considered quite young. Quite the catch actually.

Mainly then it was, you know, it was, it was kind of frightening. It was a bit frightening.

It is kind of the, you know what you always feared the most? That a was at least where I was. I get sober in Miami, but I'll get to that in a minute. I was born in Rhode Island

for people don't know that you may know the the TV show Family Guy. I'm from there. I'm from Pawtucket, RI and Woonsocket, RI and that just explain go watch a few episodes. It'll explain my history because I am exact. You know, our family was exactly like that.

Umm, horrifying actually. I actually know some of the people in the cartoon,

which is again frightening, but I grew up in Rhode Island in from Irish, Polish, English, Roman Catholic family, and there was no way I was getting out from being an alcoholic. There just wasn't. You know, with that kind of background, you'll automatically and just roll them in.

It was my, we were Catholic, Catholic,

as they used to say to the NTH degree, we are Irish and Polish. And it was drink and drink, drink and drink and church, drinking church. If you go to Rhode Island, you can see a bar, church, bar, church, bar, church store, you know, in that order. And so it was just part of that. And I do believe that my, my DNA was in, it was inherited from people from a long line of Alcoholics. I mean, I had, you know, I some people, you know, you hear it now and again where I am the only alcoholic in the family. Well, I was not the only alcoholic in the family.

Everybody in the family was an alcoholic. You know, they used to, they used to like to have fun. They just like to dance and they used to like to drink and,

and after you're in an X amount of a time in an event at the weddings, the the joke was, you know, I went to a or picnics or whatever. The joke was I went to a fight in a Polish picnic, broke out. And that's basically, you know, they just, you know, fight all the time, drink, drink, drink, then dance some more and then get pissed off about something else and you'd fight some more. And, you know, it's just, that's just the way

that people were, you know, where I was from and that's what you expected. And I didn't really know any different at the time. It came later. So I grew up there. And again, very, you know, we, we had the nuns of Navarone teaching us and they were fairly, I mean, they're, I think they're nicer now. But back then they, they took Glee and smacking you and, you know, rulers on the hands and other forms of medieval torture. And, you know, making sure you knew that even when you, even when you're born, you have

sin already. You're not even nearly said anything. You don't have any chance to learn how to walk. You're already doomed. So, you know, it was like there was no way of getting out of it alive without getting burned in hell. And I think that's why I moved to Arizona to a acclimatize. Yeah. Because it is kind of like living on the sun there.

Umm, so I mean, you know, I had the, you know, childhood. I mean, back back in those days, they didn't watch children like that. They didn't strap them down into cars. You know, we just go over a bump and go into zero gravity, you know, kind of floating around in the car. And it was very kind of lackadaisical. And the kid, you know, we left the house at 9:00 in the morning, came back at 5:00 at night and,

you know, the pedophiles were chasing us. And, you know, but it just was different. It was just different then. And so it was a little less, we a little less watched and we just did what we wanted. As I went into high school, I was not the the, the queen of the prom. But then I figured out, you know, there's only one, there was 435 other of us that weren't the queen of the prom either. So I can't really use as an excuse. It was imputed, the prom. It wasn't popular. That's why I drank. It's like, what about all these other people? There's only one queen of the prom and it turns out she was an alcoholic. So there you go.

And and you know, I just had a normal kind of a high school kind of experience. I didn't do a lot of drinking then, but when I started getting into

God, I can't even say this because this is a young people's conscience. Do you understand? I understand the irony of my being here

because let's face it, if I need three people to add up my age on their toes and fingers, it's not exactly like I'm a young person.

But the summer of 1968 and 7069 and 70, it was, it was kind of required of American teenagers back then. I was a teenager back then to, you know, get stoned, listen to Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, smoke pot, eat Cheetos and drink rot gut wine, you know, Boone's Farm and Ripple and and Valley High and just this rotten stuff. But it didn't really kick in there. But that was kind of required at that time,

you know, flowers in your hair and peace and love and blah, blah, blah. But, and it didn't really kick in then, but I got my introduction to it then. I used to like ginger Brandy. Then

I married my my high school sweetheart for six months and I went into it with the wrong idea. I was walking down the aisle and going, well, I could always divorce him, couldn't I? Which I don't think was the right

thought to bring forward,

but anyway, and after that is really when after I was in my 20s, so I was just 1920 kind of thing. And that's when I really started to it started to kick in. You know, we got into the 70s seventy one and that kind of thing. And and I had I wasn't drinking to a point where it was out of control at that point. There is a point, I think in every Alcoholics life where you know you're going along. Some people start off bang and they're they're drunk every day. But other people

start off is kind of a slow slide. And then at some point you can't really see the edge. When you've gone over the edge, you just find yourself falling and going over the edge. And there's no way you can't you can't go back up because there's nothing to grab onto. And I think everyone has felt that that's an alcoholic, that the edge is now gone and there's no place else but down. And I don't that happened to me later. It didn't happen. Eventually I

I started to go out. At that time,

I used to go out to dance

to meet what was then euphemistically called boys.

Drinking was part of it. And and that's what we do. We go out and those are them. That was the plan. And, and basically disco was my downfall

when I started going out out into the world and drinking and all this stuff at some point during the disco years. I'm not sure exactly when. Sometime between

everybody was Kung Fu fighting and and Saturday Night Fever, I lost it. You know, that edge. I just kind of come in and then there she goes and she's gone and that happened. I don't know exactly when that happened, but it did. My brother-in-law who used my family was restaurant tourism

catering and you know, so he had a bar kind of restaurant and he used to go in there when I first started out

and

so cute, you know, I love this phrase in England that they use it all blast and it just covers such a lot of territory. And I used to drink these drinks with mixers, you know, they were red and they they'd have umbrellas and and fruit on little plastic swords. And it was so cute, you know, and I went out and and you know, it was alcohol and then with any so stupid

within a year of that. And This is why it came on pretty that my brother-in-law noticed. He said you used to come in here and drink, you know, these girly little, little why bother drinks and,

and by the end of that I was drinking 15 wild turkeys straight a night. I got rid of the ice. I get rid of the mixers. I got rid of the accoutrement, you know, and I downed it. And I was drinking the Baraducci brothers under the under the table. They were from Providence.

We weren't quite sure what they did, but we think it was the funeral business if you get my drift. Or waste disposal one of the other

and I used to drink them under the table, Vinnie and Barry Baraducci and drive them home after having eighteen mile turkeys. So and I switch over to other other forms of of heavy alcohol. So it kicked in and I didn't drink because I mean I had traumas and I had things in my grandmother's died and you know, you know, all kinds of things happened to my life, but I didn't drink because I was shy. I didn't drink because I was,

you know, upset. I didn't drink because I was insecure. I didn't drink because I was angry. I drank because I was an alcoholic and I used those excuses. This for me, this is what alcoholic does. They use. Here's a life circumstances. That's our response to it. Some people go out and they find a therapist. You know, imagine some people go out and they do some some voluntary work. Some people yell at somebody. Alcoholics is like, well, something emotional happened to me. Of course I drink, you know,

and it's not the emotional stuff that tickets. It's our response to it. As an alcoholic, there is no other response. You have to. You have to drink because that's what we do. My alcoholism was alive then and they didn't recognize it as that just then. I assumed I was making these decisions myself. It's a good idea to go out and, you know, smash the car up and come in at 4:00 in the morning and don't know what city you're in.

I'm in control, you know,

if my boyfriend, ex-boyfriend was a Pawtucket, RI cop. And

yeah,

I didn't go over too well, but IT boned. In other words, I drove into the side of the South Attleboro, MA fire chief's car with his car driving drunk.

I can go too. Well, either. And then they gave me a loan. A car

while everyone was being fixed and I ran that one into something else. So I used to do, you know, and so, but I'm still like, yeah, so I've got, everything's under control.

Okey dokey. So I went on and on like that and boyfriend left, of course, and that kind of thing. I got into all kinds of accidents. I I drove drunk every day. And that's when I look back at it now and I understand at that point I would just say, well, I just go out at night and I just have a couple of drinks and sometimes it's out of hand, but I'm young and blah, blah, blah. And you know, that's what you do,

of course. And but now I look back on it and, and for me it is the clock, the clock at 12:00 every day, midnight. I was either drinking, driving drunk, crashed out somewhere with someone. I really didn't know who the name was. I wouldn't call myself promiscuous. I would prefer to use the phrase frisky

here.

Yeah,

doing that, landing home, passing out into an alcoholic Comer, getting up in the morning, 'cause I had to go to work to finance this whole rigmarole.

Driving again to work, half in the bag, swearing to God on the Bible that I would not drink that day because I suffered from hangovers terribly. I wasn't smart enough to take a little drink in between time. I just suffered the whole day drinking Alka seltzers and eating and getting getting rehydrated and what that.

And then at about 3:30, see, I start to feel a little better. And then it started talking to me again. Well, feeling all right, What the hell? You can just go out for one, you know. Yeah, I can do that. And then I drive to the drinking, do the drinking, and then we're back at 12:00. But I would have told you that the only thing that I'm doing is is having a few drinks at night. But my entire life, every action, every moment of the day was dictated either how I felt cleaning up

the mess of what I did before the entire day was was lost

in alcoholism in one form or shape of another. It doesn't not necessarily the complete drinking, but recovering from it, whatever. And I can see that now, but I didn't see that then. And I think that's why we lose a lot of people and a lot of people die or in in car crashes and that kind of thing. I drove drunk every day. Every day I drove drunk, which

I find amazing because when I was 17, my father was killed by a drunk driver and a head on collision. And yet it during that time, during that time that I was functioning as an alcoholic,

I made a decision that somehow this was a good idea to get in a car and put the put the world at at risk and drive drunk. And I don't know how I did that, but that's what alcohol dictated to me. That's and I didn't know was the alcoholism. I thought it was me making that

that decision and it wasn't. So obviously I've gotten a lot of trouble. I never went to jail,

which I should have every single day. I lost a lot of relationships because I was just a gigantic, colossal pain in the ass, which I think we all are. When you drunk, you know, if you see a drunk now, you going, oh, God, you poor thing. But God, could we be annoying, you know, You know, and and there was, you know, let me repeat the same thing 50,000 times in your face while I'm breathing on you. Yeah, Yeah. That's good. That's attractive.

So of course, Alcoholics not knowing not

and I really didn't know it was the alcohol. And again, I think that's why we lose a lot of people because they don't really have a cognitive connection that what is going on in your life is directly connected to alcohol. And they have the layman's view of an alcoholic is this lives under a bridge is all that past this age is ties their coat with a rope. You know, in in those kinds of things, you know, and they're just cliches of what an alcoholic is. And because I don't fit into those little categories,

I'm not an alcoholic. So doesn't have to be the alcoholic. So we don't have to think about that. So it goes on to something else. It must be, you know, relationship. It must be not enough money. It must be this, it must be that. And the alcoholism keeps, keeps the real problem hidden, hidden under here and, and people are not. And then we lose them. They die, they get killed, they kill other people. And, and, and I find that it's not out of

denial per SE. I think it is out of ignorance. Ignorance being that they don't know when an alcoholic is and what that their problems are related to that. So I moved to Miami,

which was great because that's eventually where I got sober in a coral room in Miami. Now the PS to resistance

of my of my drinking, 'cause I was there year and then I then I got sober.

And again, you know, you can't you don't make when you're, when you're feeding the sub personality of of alcoholism,

your decision making is

terrible. You know, so you know, you pick, you know, what is an alcoholic with, you know, use a use of drinking and and you know, no thinking and living through hangers. What kind of a decision are they going to make about yes, I found the man of my dreams. You know, it just, it's just not going to happen. So I went to Miami and I did in my mind, you know, people, places, things, the place. Miami, Hey, you know what, How can you go wrong?

The person,

he was a Learjet pilot. I mean, you know, you know how, what else could you could you ask for so?

And he drank more than I did

and he used to throw me over his shoulder and carry me up the stairs and whatnot. So I went to Miami and I met this person a driving a white Corvette. That should have been the tell all sign right there, you know. But I was like, this is the, you know, I knew something was wrong. You know, Rhode Island didn't work out for me. I had to kind of split town. And I did have this underlying feeling that something was wrong other than, you know, I mean, I could see that alcohol was starting to

work as way in, but I also had this underlying feeling

that

I'm missing something here. There's something that I'm not getting. There's something that I don't understand. There's something that I think I'm supposed to do, but I'm not doing it. And I don't know how to find that. And, and it was just kind of a, a kind of a little role in a little, a little discontent that was kind of coming to my consciousness. So I figured, you know, going to Miami would be great. And so, you know, to, you know, assuage this, this discontent. I, I hooked up with this, this man who was lots of money,

you know, drove away, you know, fluid Learjet here, there and everywhere, which was, you know, interesting to me, drank more than I did, financed my drinking. You know, I never got into drugs. I mean, they were laying cocaine down in the cracks of the sidewalk back then. That was like 197778 the cocaine Cowboys were. That's where the cocaine you ever did came from. And I really wasn't interested into it other than it is

a, it was a tool for me to drink more.

That's it. Do coke, drink more. And that was it. I never bought it. I never did it. And of course I had a, you know, this person financing that And, and one day he flew off. See, I'm thinking he's going off. What? I was told he was going off and flying around Japanese businessmen.

Umm, And one day he flew off and never came back. And I kind of tracked him down and found what was going on. What's going on here? And I was drinking straight vodka all the time by this time. And I found out that his jet had gone down in the Everglades. He crashed in the Everglades and they were all about to attend his funeral. So I went off to the funeral

and at the funeral,

this is at the funeral, I found out he was married with three children. Forgot to mention that.

And and that actually he wasn't actually flying Japanese businessman. He was actually making business trips to Bogota, Colombia's

and oh, and he had, he had business disagreement and they basically shot him out of the sky

and, and I was politely asked, you should get out of town. So I did and I came back in six months. And very soon after that I came into a, a, because I, I, I really started drinking. And although he was a, you know, not what he, I, I still was hurt that, that he would die because at that point I didn't love him and I was getting over that. So that was, you know, that my drinking then escalated to a point that was ridiculous. I drank all the time.

I didn't know what the hell is going on. It couldn't work. I was working at my sister's bar and restaurant. She had a one down there and

it was, it was complete chaos. And I came into the program and six months later after this happened, I found out that he actually had faked his own death and was living in Bimini. So

that was the man of my dreams right there.

So

gathering this, these pieces of information together, I really, you know, I couldn't stop drinking then. I knew that

I knew that death was, was upon me. I could feel it. I could smell it coming near me. I, I had this real insight that I was going to die very soon. And it's funny because I'm not quite sure that Alcoholics are that afraid of death because what we do and we continue to do, you know, it's like death is kind of like, well, if you're drinking, that's kind of part of the deal, isn't it?

But I was afraid that little sneaking suspicion that there was something that I needed to do other than just run around with these cocaine Cowboys and stuff was really, it was it was banging hard on the inside of my head. And I think what eventually drives a lot of Alcoholics to find some help is that they they answer that it's sort of like dying. I didn't want to die with the music in me. I didn't want to die with this thing that I was supposed to be or do inside me still and then just dying this pathetic.

Death, either somebody murdering me or driving into something and that and missing that. It wasn't so much the death that bothered me, but the other did bother me a lot. And I could feel it coming up. And I do think that that was my higher power going, excuse me, do something and do it now. And it's very funny because I think it's funny. I've got these little Angel wings on the back, but I think angels of of

a as and and Alcoholics

come in all forms. Mine came into a form of a girl named Joanne, who if you've ever seen the series Cheers, there is a waitress in there called Carla. And

Joanne was like that. She was a very, very scary person. She was about this high, but the size of a gnome and

she just she just was nasty and I was working with her and she was she was just like you are killing yourself. I had got into a car wreck and broken the vertebrae in my neck and in my back and my face was all my teeth had come through my through my

lip and I was a mess and and she just was like, she's like, that's it. You're coming with me. She was the kind of person if she gave change, she, she, you know, she would give change for drinks like they do over here to buy a drink and give her change. And if you put coins on it, she looked at it and go, do I look like I take the bus and she would make it, take it back and give her paper money of a fiver and stuff. So you didn't say no to her. She put me in her Cadillac convertible with the top down. She said get in the car and I got the car and she basically drove

me by the coral room and open the door. I don't think she stopped even open the door, rolled me out like tumbleweed. And that's how I got here and she drove away and I have saw her maybe twice more in my life, but that's that's who got me there. And I rolled into into a a like that, not knowing what the hell to do because I think the trauma of the boyfriend dying and then, you know, under this and then that and the the overall consumption that I do. And in that it was that feeling of there's something, there's something that

missing here. There's something that I was missing here. And I just, I continued to drink because that's in my DNA. My alcoholism wants me to drink. And it will tell me any kind of a story that I need to hear for me to make that decision to drink. And it is, it's like, it's like for me, it's like being cohabitated by another personality who's my intention is to live a full life and my intention is to do good. And my intention is to achieve some of certain things. And it intention is the complete opposite. It is, you know, George Campbell's

hero

with 1000 faces. It's, it's Darth Vader in Skywalker. It's, it's all of that. And it lives with me and I know that.

And there was that part that still wanted to drink and there was a part that that wanted something else. So I listened to her because I don't know why. And when I came in, I was the youngest one in the group at the time, obviously not now, but at the time I was the youngest person in the group. And I thought to myself, even though I didn't know what to do, I was in grief. I was this, it was drunk, I was falling apart. I was all that stuff.

I, I looked around in it. God bless these old codgers, but they were a million years old to me and they're all smoking their cigarettes right down to the end. You know, the thing that you, if somebody says 80 at all, it's going to be full of old people and they're all going to be Oh God, you know, they were just like that. You know, they were, they were your, your a, a nightmare. And there was me with the, you know, like now hair and all this other stuff and

sparkles. Yeah, I still do this, don't I? Sparkles in the day. And no, it's high heels in. And they were just like, Oh my God. And I walked in and all they, the core woman is open all day. If you ever go to Miami, there it's open from 7:00 in the morning till midnight. And you can stay there all day and you go to meetings all day. And it's, it was, it was basically my treatment center. And they just walk around all day, sit the same spot in the same plastic sofa every day and the same things, reading the same papers. I think they were from like 1895 or something, reading these papers, cigarettes down and little burns going. Yeah. Well,

drink. Go make you know

God. You know,

there was this one guy. I don't know why he decided to call me Genevieve. Fine, whatever. Hey, Genevieve.

And he had orange boat shoes and I always remember seeing them sliding by because he never picked them off the off the pavement. He just kind of kind of shimmy across the floor and his aren't you all right, Jeremy?

Don't you go to meet, you know,

I I don't remember my first year other than that I learned, you know,

but you know what they're absolutely right. Even now, after all this time, don't drink and go to meeting is very profound statement. I If you don't drink, obviously you don't get drunk.

If you go to a meeting, you will hear what you need to hear to stay sober that day. You'll hear what you need to do to hear for a long term sobriety. You'll hear

another person's story that needs is someone that needs to help you get an opportunity to do that. You'll hear everything that you'll need to hear to live a sober life. And

and they were right because that's that's the way I live my life now is that I don't drink and I gotomeeting and at the meeting is everything I need to know do say, hear read to keep myself sober. So I was in this group with these old cargers, which they had an old codger table that if you were 20 years old, but you'd go sit at.

And then when I got 20 years old, because they were laying bets across these tables going, she's never going to stay sober. Look at her, Jesus Christ, you know, and she's never going to stay sober. And they that when I got 20 years sober, I'm like, OK, where's my seat? We're saying, we moved it to 25. I was like,

shit, I sat there last time I went and so they got me sober and I got a sponsor. Dale the hippie had had come in a few years and she was the knower of all things and not interested in any of my complaining whatsoever, which was great. It's like, but I'm having a bit. I don't care about your day, you know,

what are you doing, you know, and which was perfect for me because it gave me an instructions. And when I came in, of course, I said about the Catholic thing, which works for a lot of people, but it just didn't, you know, coincide with my vibe,

as it were. And I saw the steps on the walls and I was kind of agnostic because, you know, God was kind of beaten out of me then. And I, and I thought, Oh my God, what am I going to do? How am I going to reconcile this? Because I, I was listening with the, with my alcoholic