The 60th Gopher State Roundup in Bloomington, MN

Yeah,

I wanted to keep doing something else. I was like, let's count again.

Good evening. My name is Teresa. I'm an alcoholic,

great for to be here, grateful to be sober because of a loving God.

There's a lot of people in here, OK,

And it was enough to try to take in how many people I see. And then you just had to talk about other rooms and

you know what I mean?

This is really nerve wracking. I always like to get this out of the way first before I even thank anybody because this is what stands in the way of my usefulness to you. And it's my uncomfortability. I never thought that my experience can benefit others. I don't ever remember saying, sitting out there, I can't wait to get up to this podium and talk to all these people.

So it's just really uncomfortable. I find it to be extremely intimidating

and I'm very vulnerable. And even though people tend to give me advice and I say it's their opinion, but they tend to tell me it's not a big deal. It's just a bunch of drunks and I'm like the most judgmental, critical people.

That doesn't make it any better. Trust me.

We're the worst crowd. You know, I'm saying

I want to thank Connie, my host and the committee for asking me to come out. I always say for doing a 12 step call on me,

helping me to stay sober another day. I always think it's funny when they call you a couple of years beforehand,

right? That was a couple of years ago. Connie called me. Somebody called me just the other day for the 2015 and always funny when they do call me. I don't make them feel any better of their choice because I tend to go you a A people can mess up a girl's drinking.

You mean to tell me I gotta stay sober to 2015?

I thought it was one

one day at a time thing, man. Well, there goes my glass of wine tomorrow,

right, Carla? You've been hoping, right? I got to speak and I have too much pride to drink, right? So I got to stay sober to 2015. That's what I'm saying. I don't want nobody to say that. You hear on speaker. She went out, you know, I mean, so I'm going to keep coming back.

So, so that's why I say thank you for doing a 12 step call on me.

God has a sense of humor.

He really, really does. He tends to find the things that I'm most uncomfortable with to do,

and I do believe that for whatever reason, God knows that if I don't keep sharing it, I'll forget it. If I don't give it away, I won't be able to keep it.

I'm a real sick alcoholic. If you leave me on the couch too long, I'm one of those that be like, we're all gonna die.

What's the point anyway? You know? It's real scary.

So I got to do a lot of service work.

Oh, my goodness, there's a flood of people. OK. I always be like, all right, God, anytime. Now I'm just stalling here. This is your gig.

Hey, sorry, got me standing here. I'm looking pretty foolish, you know what I'm saying? Much more time

you need to kick in anyway.

Hahaha

Oh my goodness what an honor Gopher state. This is my first time here, so thank you so much.

I

I've heard lots and lots of great things about it. There was a couple of years back that my mother had the opportunity to come in and spending the weekend with you guys. I was out speaking somewhere else. It's great to be back in Minnesota has been bittersweet for me the last few days. I was here just last weekend actually. I've lived here on and off for the last five years. My brother lived here. He went to seminary school

and he just passed away. And I'm just so grateful for the love that I received in Minnesota and the support of alcoholic synonymous. And I got to give my props to Bob. Bob Visan's thank you Bobby

for coming. It was so cute. My my spawn sees I was on the phone with them and my girlfriend and I was just a basket case and they were so adorable. One of my sponsees called Bob and was like, hi, my name is SOAS, I'm an alcoholic. It doesn't matter. My sponsor is in Minnesota. You need to go help her.

It was so cool. And he came

because they wanted to give me like sedatives and stuff, right? They needed a tranquil. I was a mess. They were like, you need drugs. And pretty much I was like, I'm I'm not in a position to make that decision. I mean, I'm down, but I don't think it's a good idea

and since I'm not emotionally well at this point, I think we better check with others.

So I actually called the emergency a a meeting.

And thank God for sanity that they're still an ounce of it.

And I'm like, let somebody else who is spiritually fit decide what I need for right now. And you know what? Bob was the best sedative because you know, he's cool where you got like 50 something, you saw how long he was standing. It's nice to get a real old timer to pick you up when you're emotionally a basket case. They're real cool. You never. I love the old timers. They don't like nothing. Nothing faces them. Do you know what I'm saying? So Bob is just like what's happened?

I'm like, I don't know. I'm not doing well.

He's just like, get in the car, you know what I mean?

That is so cool.

I thought they would. I thought he was taking me like the looney bin or something because they didn't say nothing and the whole time in the car he's just driving. I'm like where we going? Where we going? Anyway, thank you.

That was so right on time. Right on time. I want to welcome anybody who's new. Welcome home.

We've been praying for you.

I love to share that because I heard that when I got here.

I love to tell a newcomer that there is a moment of silence and prayer and it takes place in every meeting all over the world.

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 is not your idea.

You don't get credit for this one.

You've been given a gift, and it's a gift unearned. We ask you to keep coming back. Don't leave 5 minutes before the miracle happens and let us love you until you can learn to love yourself.

And my prayer is that alcohol is through with you, that you've been given the gift of desperation,

and that when you think about your last drunk, you get so sick you just want to throw up.

And it's gonna be all right.

Just hold on. And the good news is you don't have to do this alone.

I asked you to listen in a general way and to listen to the similarities and not the differences. And as I share what it was like, what happened and what it's like now, you get to ask yourself some questions like, that happened to me. I felt that way too. And more importantly, perhaps this program can work for me

sometimes before I share depending on where I'm at, but this is a pretty big place. But I tend to do a disclaimer. My disclaimer is a little different. I tend to go rated R, adult content, nudity, parental guidance suggested,

and whenever I don't do that, there's always somebody afterwards who tells me I should have because it was a bit much for them.

And even though the newcomers, the most important person in the room and that you are, and if you be new, it's important that you understand that not only am I here so that I could stay sober, the only way for me to do that is to be here for you.

So I came here for California for you

because I'm responsible, because somebody was here for me.

But as we acknowledge all those who stood up, the old timers always like to acknowledge the old timers. I want to thank you for

my life and my sobriety. I still want what you have and I never want to lose that. Never.

I don't know where I would be if it wasn't for the old timers. We would be a mess. We're already a mess.

I watch them. I still watch you. I watch you show up at the same meeting. Sit in your favorite seat. Your seat. That's your seat. Everybody knows that's your seat.

Even if somebody sits in it by mistake, they're just not comfortable. They can't get comfortable. Something about that seat,

I watched them that they still sweep the floors and they put up the chairs and they extend their hands and they set that example and you let me know that I too can recover one day at a time. I love the old timers in my Home group and many of them have passed on to the big meeting in the sky

and it is my responsibility to carry the same message that they carried to me.

If you be new, you'll notice the old timers. They're usually the most quiet person in the room. I always like to identify them like Confucius or the guy from the movie Kung Fu. And it's kind of an old movie, but

Kung Fu guy used to walk around, you know, his master teacher. He be like, take the coin from my hand grass hopper. You know that guy.

They're the coolest people.

I like to watch the old timers. I've been hanging out with each other for a while in the rooms.

A lot of them still don't like each other after 30 years.

You never notice that

it's so cool.

I totally did that. If you like 35 years I've been hanging out with each other and get one is going to get ready to share and the rest of be like, oh,

I love that, I love that and the other one don't care. He's like whatever, you know,

years they've been doing that. I have so much respect for you. That's cool.

It taught me that everybody is welcome and that the only requirement is a desire to want to stop drinking.

So if you knew why? We say a lot around here and I've learned a lot through watching

and I've watched a lot of those who've come before me. I've learned what to be like and what not to be like. You are all my teachers, and I want to thank you.

So as I said, we share in the generator what it used to be like, what happened, and what it's like now. And I tell you, that's why I keep saying God got a sense of humor. I am so sick of me,

but for some reason I, you know, he's making sure that I don't forget it. You told me not to forget my last drunk. And when I talk about what it was like, I feel like I'm talking about a stranger,

that I'm talking about myself in third person.

You can't tell me there isn't a God and that this program does not work.

My experience has proven otherwise.

I am definitely a miracle and I see a lot of miracles in the room, but I still trip out that I'm here, that I'm present, that I'm alive

only but for the grace of God.

I'm an alcoholic because I like the effect produced by alcohol

and I'm restless, irritable and discontent unless I find that ease and comfort that comes immediately with the first few drinks.

And even though I admit that it's injurious, it really doesn't matter.

Receive. My relationship with alcohol goes real deep.

I like to classify my dynamic or the relationship of my drinking career as the love affair.

Alcohol was administered to me so I didn't have the privilege. As I've heard so many people share the story of not fitting in in their life and one day discovering alcohol and alcohol making it all better. Until one day they cross them at visible line and it got bad.

I always go. As the story goes,

there's not much of this changes.

My mother didn't want another child. My father did.

According to my mother, I am a product of rape. My father has an entirely different, you know, angle on that situation.

My mother, too, is an alcoholic, and I don't say that because I label her an alcoholic. She's an admitted alcoholic and alcoholic synonymous.

My mother drank and she did a lot of drugs and she did everything possible to abort me. Needless to say, well, I was meant to be here because I'm here. I was born a preemie. I was born sick and I was born addicted.

My mother told my father and my grandmother in particular, my father, she said you wanted it, you can have it, take it and keep it away from me. And my mother left and she left me in the hospital.

My father and my grandmother came to get me and according to them, whenever I would cry, the only way to keep me quiet was to put alcohol in my bottle or in my gums.

Now my dad and my grandmother came up with an idea. They wanted my mother to touch me or to look at me or something. So they decided that if they left me alone with her, they took my older brother out the house and they left me alone with mommy. According to my mother, I began to cry and she tried to muffle out the noise by putting the pillow over her ears and she couldn't.

So she went to the crib and she tried to put the pillow over my face to shut me up.

And then she remembered, if you give her alcohol, she'll stop crying.

From that moment on, my mother made sure that I had alcohol in my system 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

So now for years, I used to go around parroting what other people said in the rooms, Like, I don't blame my alcoholism on my family. I don't say that anymore.

It's just my experience, my story.

I don't ever remember making a conscious choice to drink. I love the diversity in the rooms.

Somebody asked me that once. When did you make a conscious choice to drink? I don't remember. I don't think I ever did. How could I possibly?

I drank 24 hours a day, all day long, seven days a week.

I wasn't really given any food. If there was food for us to get, my brother and I will go to neighbors and my mother was drinking and partying. I'm an adult child of an alcoholic. I grew up in an alcoholic home. Now, does that make me alcoholic? No. That's when I started out by saying I'm an alcoholic because I like the effect produced by alcohol.

Maybe I could have grown up to be different. I don't know. But I just know that alcohol was given to me. It was very dysfunctional, and I learned that here. I didn't know that my family life was dysfunctional. That was my family.

There was a lot of drugs, there was a lot of alcohol. I have uncles that are heroin addicts. They were always nodding out. I wasn't embarrassed about them. If you know any heroin addicts, they they're telling a story and they nod out and they wake up and finish right where they left off.

You know what I'm saying is it ain't all that bad.

So it wasn't embarrassed. You know, I'm saying my friends been like, what's up with your uncle? Like you'll be fine. He'd be back in the minute. Just hold on, you'll finish.

He's cool.

There was a lot of drama going on, a lot of chaos. And I come from a lot of abuse,

physical abuse.

Get smacked, kicked, punched, spit on. Verbal abuse. I'm stupid, You're an idiot, you're ugly, you're nothing, you're nobody. Get out of my face. You don't deserve to be here. You need to die. You disgust me. That's the language I understood

sexual abuse. I lost my virginity around 5:00.

Men and women took turns. Now it was family members, it was neighbors, it was people down the block. I, I don't know if I was sold. Maybe one day you say more and more will be revealed. That'll come. I don't know. I just know there's a lot of people.

There were a lot of strangers in and out of the house. One minute I could wake up and somebody was there,

but the whole time I'm drinking

and I sipped my drinks. It was like drinking from a baby bottle. I I didn't drink milk like we sip on water today or the way you drink milk or you call it pop. That's been fun since I've been here. I keep thinking something's about the pop. You want pop? I'm like, something's popping. What's happening anyway?

I know something to drink. I'm like, oh, OK, whatever. I get it. It's poppy, It's bubbly, OK.

I grew up in the projects in New York City,

so I know it's a little confusing, right? They say Theresa from California, then I sound like Rosie Perez. You'll get all thrown off, right?

And when I really start going, that New Yorker comes out, it gets scary. I'm trying to be, you know, mindful of the signer. I feel bad for them.

And sometimes I'm glad that the interpreter is further away because when they're right next to me, I really confuse, you know, the hearing impaired because I'm a Latina. We talk a lot with our hands so they don't know who to see if like

be growing them off. So I'm glad he's all the way over there.

So we talk about the insanity of alcoholism, incomprehensible demoralization. I tell people that that was my life, that

normal in my world, whether somebody got shot, somebody old deed,

that was normal. And what alcohol did for me is I always tell people, I don't know if alcohol talks to you, but alcohol talk to me. And when alcohol told me was if nobody loves you, I love you.

If nobody wants you, I want you.

I got your back. You don't have to worry about nothing and nobody.

I always take care of you. It's you and me against the world and that's how I live my life.

I don't know about fear or feelings or emotions. I I wasn't emotionally attached to anything or anybody.

I see people as horrific as that sounds of coming from all this abuse and physical abuse and verbal and sexual. I wasn't present for that experience.

Come, come on.

I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous for consequences of my drinking.

Consequences don't get my attention. I don't have a problem sleeping with Cousin It. I don't have a problem sleeping with strangers or waking up in a strange place or in alleys at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, or you calling me names. I don't have a problem with that when I'm not present for the experience.

Alcohol allow me to be detached and disconnected.

What do you want to do to me next? That was my attitude. Who's next? You want to hit me? You want to punch me? You want to have sex with me? What's up? Let's do this. I had a smile on my face. I didn't. Crying. No, punk.

I was going in and out of therapy since I was a kid. My mother was always suicidal and we had to go to family therapy. I've seen enough two way mirrors and ink blocks. Those ink blocks are ridiculous. Not only share this because I'm hoping somebody will explain this to me one day of why you're going through stuff psychologically, I guess in trauma and they show you these ink blocks that all look like butterflies and I'm trying to figure out what that's about. I just want somebody to explain that to me.

I still don't get that. Are you going to, what is this, a butterfly? What are we talking about? What's happening here

was supposed to help me. I don't get what's going on.

No teacher, no social worker. I'm sure there are people who cared about me who wanted to help. I remember I had a brutal rape when I was in the 6th grade and I went to my 6th grade teacher and I was concerned. And I just think about these things. I'm so out of touch with reality. Alcohol allow me to be so disconnected. I remember going to her like it was no big deal. I was like, excuse me, can I talk to you for a minute after class? And she said sure. I said, by the way, I was like, my cousin raped me yesterday

and I'm bleeding everywhere. I mean, not yesterday, the last week. I've been bleeding for a week and I don't know what to do. She's like, what?

She took me to the doctor. That's all I remember.

This was the life that I lived. I wasn't planning on changing that life. I never questioned it. I never said something's wrong with the way I'm living. I really thought everybody lived like this.

If you meet friends of my past that I grew up with, they would tell you that they would have never known anything was wrong with Teresa. I talked to them today.

I would smile, I would laugh, I would connect with you. I didn't go around saying that this was horrible. This is it. And I went to Catholic school for 11 1/2 years.

I said the Our Father, the Hail Mary. I sang in the choir. I put on my uniform what this is. What you do

is a lifestyle.

I didn't have peer pressure. I don't have to drink in the streets. I drink in my house. I don't share my booze. I'm not into, like, everybody party. No, this is mine, OK,

Not everybody, nothing. This is mine. You get yours 'cause this can't run out.

I always describe it this way. I'm a cigarette smoker, OK? I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. There are 20 cigarettes in a pack. If I give you one, that leaves me 19. That's an issue. You understand,

right?

We got a problem.

I'm down one. I'm short. It's very confusing. No, I can't give you one. It throws me off.

That describes my drinking.

The truth of the matter is, from what I understand, even though my perception is warped, I didn't know that I was suffering from a spiritual malady. I didn't know I had an allergy of the body or the obsession of the mind. I didn't have that language. The way I understood it, there was nothing wrong with the way I was living, even though perhaps doctors, social workers, teachers thought there was. I didn't

and I wasn't going to change it. And if you got in the way between me and my booze, you needed to go

because this is the only thing that's going to take care of me. This is the only thing that's going to love me.

You're not.

It never crossed my mind to leave alcohol, that alcohol would leave me. Ever. I was going to die like everybody else in my family. The way you die in my family is with cirrhosis of the liver, kidney failure. You fall down, you crack your skull, you get shot, you OD, your legs get amputated because you're a diabetic and you keep drinking. Even more reason to drink with no legs. Imagine

I never understood when the doctors be like, you need to stop. I'm like, you ain't got no legs.

I'm going to ask him to stop drinking. You don't got no legs

don't make no sense.

You know, it's kind of trippy. I talk about what it was like, you know, my family still like that.

When I go visit, my family always say I go to Puerto Rico and when I show up, I buy my cousins a six pack. I let them smoke a joint and we get on the road. They can't drive. No other way. I'm not going to ask them not to drink and drive. We'll have an accident. I can't tell them to do that. They've never driven soba, you know what I'm saying? I was speaking at a conference in Puerto Rico. It was such an honor. I got to do it in Spanish for the first time. You know, it's my first language. That was beautiful to tell my story. Oh, we were crying. It was a mess. We're very passionate.

Could you imagine the story in Spanish? You ever seen the Spanish soap operas? It was deep.

Everybody was like, Oh my God, what was intense?

But I bought a friend of mine from my Home group and he got to meet my family. He was like, she's serious. He was scared. He made my fate was scared. He was like, I don't want to go up there. I don't want to go up there. I'm like, you're fine, man. Everybody got guns. It's all cool. Ain't going to shoot you. Relax. We got you. I got you. You were me. You were me. Anyway, it's scary.

As I said, I wasn't planning on changing that relationship in the way that I lived and and there's a lot of horrific things that I went through. I ran off with strangers. I could have got killed many times I've I've Od'd, I've been in and out of hospitals that the people in the hospital were tired of seeing me. They'd always say, oh, her again, put her in the corner. I was always malnourished. I didn't learn about the four food groups until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't eat food

and I was planning on dying like everybody else

and my family. When a baby's born, we cry, and when you die, we celebrate.

So what ended up happening to me, you know, I still trip out on how I ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I wasn't planning on coming here.

That was not the plan. I wasn't like, oh, you know, I think I drank a lot. I ran my car into a tree. I woke up with a stranger. Perhaps I need to go to Alcoholics.

I crack. A couple of people tell me that yeah, I was drinking a lot. I came to A I'd be like, really? That's D,

right? That's very impressive. You just came like that. You show you an alcoholic because we don't really do things like that.

That's not normal. You know, I'm saying for an alcoholic, that's usually a normal person, things like that. But whatever, I'll keep coming back. I hear you. It's all good.

I

what I say is what end up happening to me is what the way you explain it to me is that alcohol stopped working

one day at the age of 24. Alcohol betrayed me

and it turned his back on me

and it left me emotionally retarded with no coping skills

in a world that was not familiar.

And so you see, to me it's different to now all of a sudden be present. From my experience, I think that's different. When I now notice that I'm sleeping with strangers that's different.

When I walk into a bar and I hear them say look what the trash bought in,

how long they've been saying.

I never heard that. But now all of a sudden I hear it and it goes into the pit of my stomach and my stomach does something funny and I can't shake that off.

That's scary to me.

I see the look of disgust in my grandmother's face and I can't get rid of that look.

And then I noticed that daddy stopped talking to me. When did Daddy stop talking to me?

I had always burned bridges. Now all of a sudden I want to know where everybody's going, why you ain't talking to me? One of the sudden everything became so important. I just remember that all of a sudden I became present for my experience and it scared them living daylights out of me.

I don't know how to do be present

now. I can't take a bath because the water hurts my skin and I drink because I have to. I drink for oxygen. It's not fun. I've never been a social drinker.

I drink to breathe.

I didn't know that I shook when I didn't drink. I never noticed that

I always had booze. I don't know anything about running out

and all of a sudden I'm counting how many. It was a very strange time in my life. You can look back on all of the 24 years and say that my life was horrible. A lot of people say you got to write a book.

I've seen a lot of scary movies. I go see what's that movie Precious? I don't know. There's a lot of movies out. People see that movie Precious. I'm like, that's not

scary. You want to hear scary? I'm not scary.

All of a sudden. I'm drinking and I'm still present and I'm drinking and I'm still present and I'm noticing that I'm present. This is the best way I describe it, and I never want to forget it. All I know is that I'm sitting at my favorite bar. I'm a VIP. You call it Barfly. It's all about perspective, OK? By the way, you want to break it down for yourself, You call it that. I call it VIP, OK,

I'm the VIP at that bar and a VIP is a person that they can close the bar and you don't have to leave because you're going to be right back, OK, So they do is they close and they leave you there and then they open up and you still there. There's a lot of VIP

in here. OK,

And the same thing like the old timers. I had my favorite seat in that bar that nobody sat down in. Saw Bob

And all I know is that I was sitting in my bar, my seat, and I took a drink and I looked at you and you were still ugly. And that kind of tripped me out a little bit, OK?

And I turned around and I took another drink, you know, I'm saying because I was wondering what was going on there. And I turned back around and you were still ugly. And now that started freaking me out because you should have transformed by now. Because that's usually how that goes, you understand?

And that scared me. And then I took another drink, and not only were you still ugly, I still went home with you. And that's what I knew. We had a problem, yo, that's a problem. You know what I mean?

That's a problem

and that's scary. Now I couldn't change my condition, I couldn't change my situation. I don't know how to live any other way. This is the only thing that I know. What am I to do?

My best friend, my lover, my companion just betrayed me. It stopped working for me. What am I supposed to do? I am emotionally retard. I got no coping skills.

Where is a drunk like me supposed to go?

What am I supposed to do?

I got no point of reference.

The only thing left for me was to call deaf into my life, and to me it's a cold thing when you invite deaf into your life and death don't take you out. What's up with that?

I ended up on a cold day in Queens, NY with the snow up to my knees

doing the aimless walk. I call it the walk with no purpose, No agenda, no destination is just a walk.

And I ended up in a church.

Wasn't looking for the church

and it's not a straight line walk either. I still trip out on that. I go to New York and I do that walk. It's not a straight line. It's a lot of insurance and outs to get there.

And I ended up in a church and I walked in that church and I felt a presence.

Was it a moment of clarity?

Was I completely tired?

Was I really sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired? Was I done?

I don't know.

All I know is that I walked into that church and I felt the present. I know I was tired

and I said a prayer,

you see, it's a prayer that's different than any other prayer.

It felt like it came from the depths of my soul.

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

And I didn't want it for a year. I didn't want it for a month. I just want it for a moment. I just wanted one second from my head to shut up,

for my insides to stop turning, and for my skin to stop crawling, just for a moment so I can get a grip.

I had no idea that that prayer was going to change my life. None.

I'm still tripping now. I'm still tripping out from that prayer. I got picked up and bought 3000 miles from New York City to California, and I've been driven ever since I got here. Like Disneyland,

like I got abducted, that's how we feeling. Like the UUFO people abducted me and I'm on some other planet.

I went to my father's house. I asked him for help. I'm so surprised that I did that. I never asked for help in my life. My father said that I was standing in the middle of a crossroad. There was three directions I was headed. I was so close to him. I could taste him, I could smell him. That was jails, mental institutions and death. There was another Rd. It was recovery. He told me I can give it a try if it didn't work out. The other three were waiting for me.

I got on a Greyhound bus and that's why I detoxed all the way to California from New York.

I threw up, I shook, I sweated, I hallucinated. I had my last drink in El Paso, TX. There was a man on that bus that I believe helped save my life. I was sick. I hadn't been without a drink in this body since fetus. I was sick

and that man said I know what you need and he was right. I was sick. More people die from alcohol detox than anything else. I could have died on that bus.

And he got me this drink and he held it to my mouth and I drank it like a dog that had been out of water

and allow me to go the rest of the way. You ever heard that joke? You take an alcoholic brain when they die and put it in a jar of alcohol, you're gonna hear. You ever heard that?

I should leave that in my will, right?

I'm gonna put that in the will, make everybody do it. Put it in there. And I want you to listen.

I arrived in downtown Los Angeles on May 29th, 1990.

The last 23 years, but for the grace of God.

As my sobriety date,

you be new. There are some first timers around here. This is my first time in the program. I like seeing newcomers outside in conferences. They're so cute. They're like, this is my first time. I'd be like mine too. They'd be like, really? How long you been having like 20-3 years? They're like what?

My first time

my mother picked me up, I was wearing a size 1 pair of pants with two pants underneath. I had a huge sweatshirt. Four months pregnant with a dead baby in my belly. Didn't have a heartbeat by the time I got there. I've lost four children

and my mother dropped me off in the rooms and she turned me over to the very people who had saved her life. I always say I feel like a baby in a baby basket left at the doorsteps of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was the old timers who picked up that basket and spoon fed me and nursed me and loved me.

I needed to learn a whole new way of life when I got here.

Talk about getting rid of old ideas.

My perception was completely warped.

I definitely couldn't differentiate the truth from the false.

My reality was so distorted. I I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know how to think. I didn't know how to live without alcohol

and you had to teach me how to live all over again. I've been on a journey the last 23 years.

They gave me a sponsor. They told me to sit down and shut up and listen and, and they and they just spoon fed me and they loved me in a way that was so different. We were talking about it during dinner. It was different

then to teach me how to love myself. And I always say I learned the traditions long before I learned the steps. I love the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm a member because I say I am. You can't throw me out. You don't understand a girl like me, how important that is. It don't matter if I'm Latina, I'm Puerto Rican, I'm black, I'm short, I'm tall. Money, no money. That's none of your business.

The only thing that matters is that I have a desire

and I'm a member and I have a seat. You, you should have seen me my first year, asked him. I was like, I'm a member, you can't throw me out. I don't like you either, OK?

I don't like you and it don't matter, OK. I don't like you. You don't like me. It don't matter. We're members. Sit down.

I used to go around telling people that I don't like you, you don't like me, but you have to help me because I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'll tell you, this is funny. I was used to tell the story a lot, but it just gives you a good description. I went to a meeting and I thought it was KKK. All right. They look like a very, they were all white people. So I thought it was a KKK meeting. It was early in the morning. Actually, it's unit A. It wasn't even K whatever in Burbank. And I sat in that meeting. It was 7:00 in the morning and I was like, Oh my God, it's a KKK meeting. But I'm not leaving because I'm a member, right? And,

and I raised my hand. I said, excuse me, I'm making announcement, OK? I'm a member,

all right? And I don't care if you KKK, all right? And I'm not leaving, OK? Because you everybody in here is gonna help the Negro today, OK? It was so funny. I started going to that meeting a lot, right? And the family was instead they were like, we're not KKK. I'm like, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just

saying and as long as I don't see no rope going around no tree, I'm not going nowhere.

I was a mess when I was new. Anyway,

you told me to apply the same energy that I drank to this program, and I applied a lot of energy to my drinking.

You told me this was a life and death errand. I came to you like I had 20 bullet holes in me. I'm bleeding all over the place. I'm not interested in your credentials. I just need to know if you have a needle in the thread. There's a last house on the block. I came here to save my life and if you can't help me, somebody needs to blow my brains out because I can't do another 24 hours like this.