The Paramount Group in Paramount, CA

Like to introduce our special guest, Carla R from Tahunga.

Hi everybody. My name is Carla Ralph and I'm an alcoholic. That's nice. That works. I want to thank Michael for the invitation to come out and share with you guys tonight. It's a great affection for this group and I've seen a lot of you since for I've known a lot of you for years and watch your kids grow up and and

it's it feels good to still be here. We're still ticking, we're still here. And I hope if you're new

that you find a love or an affection or something that keeps you here

long enough to start to observe those things, to forgive and grow up and, and love and, and I am one who subscribes to the fact that or the idea that love is a verb. And I feel it and I see it when I come here to this group. And it's great to see Nancy and Mickey and, and you know, if this didn't work, I wouldn't be here my sobriety day, September 25th, 1987. And if it didn't work, I, I, I wouldn't be here And I,

I, I just wouldn't. And, and when I got here, I didn't care if you were a glum lot.

I didn't care about any of that. I, you know, paying rent for more than a month in a row would have been really fun. You know, I living indoors for a you know, a little while might have been nice And and, you know, just stop the fighting and the

any of that keep my daughter.

So if it didn't work, I wouldn't be here. And we have a lot of fun in here and we talk about, you know, I don't wake up on the Sunnyside of the street every every every single morning, But but I do a lot more now. You know, I wake up in the morning and and even if my first thought isn't yippee, my second thought is, you know, and it's thank you and and I want to go out there and see what I can pack into the stream of life. That is my attitude many days

and and that was not always the case and

I don't know why I'm an alcoholic. I'm really glad that, you know, it just I used to think it was my crazy, dark, dramatic, violent, perverted family. If you had my family, you drink too. And I, you know, I almost couldn't wait to tell to give my sponsor my fifth step because I I was sure she was going to go. No wonder you know, and and all would be well. But she didn't do that.

And I never want to forget the grace either.

I want to say that I never want to forget the grace because as all in as I have felt like I have been since I got here,

I'm sure like even when I felt like I was 100 and given 150% and it looked like 60 to you, you know,

it was 150 for me. And God feels that gap every time. Every time with that sobriety math, you know that that, that thing that when I give all I have, God feels in the blank, you know, that's grace. That is grace. And I can't conjure that up. All I can do is open up for it.

I have to. I had to sneak up on myself a lot when I was new and do things that I really didn't know if they were going to work. And they really kind of seemed stupid too, You know, I did not want to come in. If I could have come, if I could have come here and sat, if I could have come here and stolen what you had, what I thought you had from these rooms and taken it home and done it there, I would have done it. I didn't want to get to know you. I didn't think that shaking hands and, and, and singing Happy Birthday, we're going to do much,

you know, And I thought that you really had to be kind of social. And I'm pretty much an extroverted introvert, really.

I, you know, I like people for a few minutes and

it's not even that I really don't like you. I it's just, it's just you. It's a lot, you know, you guys are a lot. And because I want to think about me and,

and I don't know why I'm an alcoholic and I, I've been around here long enough to know that my family didn't really, you know, I, I'm an alcoholic because of an allergy of the body to alcohol and an obsession of the mind for alcohol when I'm not treated, when I'm not treating it with the steps,

that allergy of the body that happens when I'm drinking and the obsession of the mind for alcohol that happens when I'm not. And all by myself, I couldn't, I could not stop. I couldn't stop and I couldn't stop. And even when I stopped, I couldn't stop thinking about it. So I ended up in that torturous state of alcoholism or I'm either drinking or thinking about drinking all the time. And I started young and I know we, we come in here from all walks of life at all ages. You know, I know that I know many people came in here having built and lost great empires. You know, by the time they got to Alcoholics Anonymous, they

some success in their life. And that was not my story. I peaked out at about 11 1/2 and skidded along the bottom till I was about 29. You know, that's when I got sober. And you know, like there are some people who who had charmed childhoods. My husband is one of them and he likes you to know he's three months longer sober than me.

Umm, he, he loves those sobriety countdowns and when they do them year by year because it's just three months, you know, so sometimes we have to share, but, but he, you know, he comes from a, a, a loving family. I mean, they didn't have to go to class to figure out how to love each other or anything. You know, they, they grew up singing together and you know, his dad painted the family pick up the same colors as his high school. You know what I mean? Like they were that family,

you know, It's just, oh, I mean,

I mean, after we leave, we still to this day when we get together for a holiday or birthday dinner or something, we leave. I've got a little bit of a sugar headache, you know what I mean? Because it just so sweet

and that was not my family. Yet he sits right next to me in the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. Why? Because alcohol did exactly foreign to him what it did foreign to me. That's why that's it. That's it. And so you can boil down all the circumstance, all of those, all of our circumstance, our stories are funny and tragic and all of those things. But when it, when you boil it down,

when you boil it down to what alcoholism is, we all had that. We all came to that point where we're either drinking or thinking about drinking all the time.

And maybe you're just a potential alcoholic. Maybe you're just at the very beginning of all that. But if you can see that pattern, welcome. You don't have to ride the train all the way to the end, although if it's still working, you know, for me that was happening, you know, to and for me when I was very young. So why would I do that? You know, and I believed in God and I'm not one who who will call the spirit spiritual thirst alcoholism. I don't call it that. I don't think a spiritual thirst is a is a sickness.

Lots of people have a spiritual thirst. But what I quenched it with,

you know, that was a deal. And, and even even when I stopped drinking, the things that I tried to quench it with,

you know, when they're, when they're faulty, when my dependencies are faulty, they just, you know, it, it's just nothing but trouble.

Yeah. So I believed in God and, and, but when I discovered what alcohol would do for me, I began to let it, you know, alcohol was, I could pray and I could have a drink and drink with so much quicker than a prayer, right. You know, it's just like I didn't have to figure anything out. What's God's will, any of that stuff. You know, when I always kind of enjoyed wondering what that was. But I could take a drink and I'm good now.

And alcohol became my spirituality and it was my growing up muscle. It did all the growing up for me. Alcohol interceded in my life in a way that nothing else could.

It was a thing that buffered me from you, and it was a thing that connected me to you, the thing that made me feel connected to you. It did all of that. So I began to let it

and, and I got my first social resentment behind a game of spin the bottle. When I was a like 11 years old. I, I was that summer between 6th and 7th grade, I was going up into junior high and I was at my friend Leonard's house and we were playing a game of spin the bottle. And the bottle we were spinning landed on me. We're passing around a bottle of his dad's whiskey. And I went off of the bedroom with one of the boys and we were both doing the same thing as far as I could tell. But when we came back out of that bedroom, they called him a player and me a slut. And I did not think that was fair.

I still don't think it's fair if you want to know the truth. But every sponsor I've ever had has told me that the fair is in Pomona in the last two weeks. That's all you get for fair. So,

you know, and I had already grown up with these a lot of stuff happened in my family and and my childhood that I did not understand. I created these ideas. It was a 60. So you add that on top. I was 12 in 1969. So the 60s that I liked were over by the time I got out in the world. But but there was, you know, they talked about free love and all of this and this combined. I just had these ideas about all that that I imposed on the world and I couldn't change.

I just, I just didn't. So I, I got a reputation I didn't understand nor could I take responsibility for in junior high. And boys of my age are looking at me funny and so are the girls. And, and little by little, I began to let go of my life, my social life. I fought for a while and then I started spending more time in the girls room than I did in the classroom and hanging out with the other girls who were doing the same thing. We bring stuff from our mother's medicine cabinets and from their liquor cabinets and hang out until after a while, school just wasn't working for me anymore. And school for me had been my last bastion of refuge. It had been where I went to make everything OK

Stuff was not right at home and, and so now it's not right at school. And, and I, I am a terrible spectator in my life. I am a take charge kid. You know, I am going to take over the management of my life, roll up my sleeves and we are going to get it done. And way back then, my favorite place to be was on my way to somewhere else. I love that place.

You know, it just seemed like I was doing something about my life and I started to be found on the on ramps of the 10 Freeway going east and the 101 going north. And I'd stick my little thumb out on that on ramp and I'd crawl in the car or the truck going wherever with whoever, and I'd be on my way to somewhere else. I love that feeling.

That feeling for me felt like the bottle in the glove compartment, like I didn't like. I didn't even have to have that thing open. I already feel better.

And consequently, because I was so young, I started ending up in some of the Southern California hotspots like Indo Jay on Riverside Juvenile Hall and LA Central Juvenile Hall. And we did that whole dance for a while and they sent me home to mom and home to dad. And then the courts took over. And when I was 14, I left home one more time with a friend of mine and, and we got one long ride all the way up into a place called North Beach in the San Francisco area where, you know, we're feeling very lucky. We're just little kids, bright lights, big city. You know, we got there. The guys dropped us off

and we were standing there in North Beach and we looked to my left and there was Carol Dota and her flashing boobs in neon. And to my right were hookers and dealers and pimps. Oh my. And And we weren't on that street for 10 minutes before a couple of guys approached this offered us money for sex and we said yes and did the next indicated thing. And boom, a whole new career path opened up for us. And, and I started living a day at a time in a way I've not had to live in a very, very long time. And Doctor Silkworth talks about in the chapter, the doctor's opinion in our big book that after a time we can't differentiate the truth from

after a while, our alcoholic lives seem the only normal one. And the already I'd become normalized to a life that I really, you know, I haven't had to know in a long, long time. And I didn't know it at the time, but I had already begun to trade away every God-given gift or potential or talent that I had for the effect that alcohol produced. And if you had asked me back then, I would have told you I was doing it willingly. It just seemed like the next indicated thing. And and don't tell me not to drink. I wish I could have looked my dad in the eye over and over and over and told him things are OK,

things are going to be OK, it's all just fine. I'm not going to drink again and have it be true. But it wasn't going to be true. And after a while I just kept. I just quit saying it.

It doesn't matter. Alcoholism just doesn't care who you love or how much you want it to be OK. Alcohol's got to be in there

and a year later I, I was admitted to a mental hospital. I was supposed to be there for two weeks observation and I ended up being there for a year. I just sort of made myself at home and moved in and they were not talking to me a lot about alcoholism. It wasn't a treatment center, it was an, it was a mental hospital. So a lot of my roommates had some real illnesses, real manic depression, real schizophrenia, the real deal. And those things stand above the side and beyond alcoholism. Some people have both, but those are different things. And untreated, when I've got no booze and I've got no steps,

God, my understanding, I look a lot like them. It takes a little while to sort that out. So in the meantime, they're giving me daily nutritional supplements, a Thorazine, malaria, Valium, Dalmain sleepers. I suppose they were concerned I wouldn't sleep. And, and I become intimately familiar with five point restraints and that's what I look like at 15. And if you don't want to go crazy in the nut house, you got to get busy. And one of my favorite ways to be busy was the boys. I loved all the boys, but my favorites were those sexy, smoldering types. You know, you know the kind.

They just sit back there and simmer and you just never really knew when they were going to blow.

And I love those guys. You know, just, I used to find them very exciting. Now today I know that feeling is fear. It's the last day away.

But the trouble with guys like that in the nut house is that they're usually in there hiding from a junior prison sentence. They don't want to go to California Youth Authority, so they're trying to lay low. They're in there trying to, you know, divert and they can't. They got nothing. So eventually they blow. Like my first boyfriend ended up blowing up and throwing a big chair through the big plate glass window of the boys unit. And my next boyfriend ended up throwing a nurse through the big plate glass window of the boys unit. So that was progressive too.

And

I don't know about you, but I've always thought I should have a soundtrack to my life, you know, music playing in the background of all this drama going on, right? You know, like maybe one day Bob Dylan follow me around singing a ballad, you know, tangled up in Blue, you know, just setting the mood. And maybe another day of mariachi band, you know, just a little Fiesta, oh God, you know, and maybe another day just flat out rock'n'roll, you know, because it's just like that, you know, just days.

We used to play those sentimental jailhouse songs like who? When will I see you again?

Impress our little faces up against the big Bay window of the girls unit, looking out at them, looking back at us,

living in that sweet spot of anticipation. You know what I'm talking about right there. And the if only as soon as I get that, life's going to be good,

right? It's never in the getting it. They actually getting it. You go, what was I thinking? But in the middle right there,

I remember one afternoon I was sitting outside on the smoke break bench watching my boyfriend Terry being cuffed and escorted off by security. And he's the one who threw the chair through the window. He's gone, he's going. I'm never going to see that guy again. And I am devastated because this had been a real relationship, you know, 2-3 weeks or something, you know, and it was just, you know, because nuthouse love, you got to get it done, you know, just it's intense. And,

and I'm watching him and smoking my tragic cigarettes and channeling Greta Garbo.

And just inside the girls unit I could hear Diana Ross singing a top decibel. Touch me in the morning, then just walk away.

Oh Oh my God. It took me a long time to realize I was broken hearted and blue before I ever had a real date because it's the way I saw my life. I was always looking out there for what I thought was going to fix me. I didn't understand

and I was not unfamiliar with church or or spiritual principles even, but I could never just hang on to them. I could never apply them in my life. Some challenge would come down in my home and I pulled the shade down between me and the sunlight of the spirit. I did that, you know. So I started looking out there for what I thought was going to fix me. And the trouble with doing that is, but I'm always about half a bubble off what it is I think I see anyway. Like I'd mistake arrogance for confidence. I'd mistake sex for love. I mistake brute strength for strength of character,

and those are just some. And I get them in my hot little hands and they dissolve where I stand because they're not it.

Come to a A to learn that it's what I'm thinking of you. Constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. That's what makes that illusion of separation disappear. That's what lifts that veil, pulls a shade back up.

And I went from the girls unit to the Coed unit to the unit where they put the patients. They just don't know what to do with anymore. And every now and then I get thirsty enough to where I'd find my way over the fence or under the gate or however I had to do to get out and have a party for a week or two. And then I'd come back in and I'd be tired, come back in the front door of that place. Why 'cause that's where I live. I lived in the nut house and by the time I got to that last unit, I was no longer bathing or getting dressed because you don't have to do that to date in the nut house. And I was had cast on both my arms up to my shoulders because you, because I was, I had been cutting. And that was just a different way of dealing with emotional rel.

I didn't even know that then. And and somewhere along the line I'd begun to surrender to the thought that maybe I am just one of those little nut house lifers who gets to get out every now and then, but I'm always, always going to end up back inside. Why? Because every time I go I hit the street. I am right back doing the very thing that got me locked up in the 1st place and I have no idea how to stop it. I'm just doing the best I can. Alcohol for me was a solution for a long time and then it did become a problem. I'm not somebody you're going to hear say alcoholism is or alcohol was not a problem. And my big book never stops talking about alcohol being the problem

and that's what's at stake and why I continue to do a 10th and 11th and 12th step. 10 is one through 9 all over again. 11 grow that relationship with God and 12 share it. I that's why I continue. I sat last night and my husband had a Doug. You guys know Doug, He

he had a commitment last night sharing at an anniversary party out in San Fernando. And I had a new person with me trying to get back. She lost 12 years, 12 good years. This lady was active, this lady who had had had it and then didn't do it anymore. And that's what is at stake there. That's what so drinking, the drinking is, is what's at stake. That first drink if I ever take when a guy can never safely take alcohol in any form at all, I'll never be so spiritually fit that I can afford to take a drink of alcohol. I just won't.

And um,

so I don't want to ever want to forget that, but, and I was sitting next to this lady last night

and she was just like Lori talked about, you know, every raw everywhere. And just like I felt every nerve ending just hanging off in the, in the microphone was very loud. And every time they spoke, they spoke through the microphone. She jumped and she was sweating and she was drinking water and trying to hang in there and trying to stay in her seat. And I was holding her hand

and she was here every there was a room full of people and she felt all alone, all by herself. And she almost couldn't stand the sound of everybody's voice. Almost. And she knew she loved it. She could hear from a distance and she's sitting right in the middle and she could hear him from a distance and couldn't touch him. And I saw it and it reminded me. And that's what sponsorship is all about. The juice, like you said, the juice of, of, of Alcoholics Anonymous, one alcoholic talking to another, the basis of our fellowship.

When I see that again, it brings it all back

from the guts up from the inside out. What a privilege to sit next to her and hopefully hope that she stays and holds my hand and sits through it. And the deal was as sick as she felt at the end of the night. She said she wanted to go back. So, you know, thank God, because it's been four years trying to get back in, trying to get back in. And if you're new or if you, if you're having trouble, you're if you've gone out, you are always welcome. And Alcoholics Anonymous it is never, never let anybody shame you for coming back into alcohol.

The trouble is, the question is for me is can you, can you stay? Can you come back in across the threshold of AA and and get enough traction to come in here and be with us again? God is painful to watch

and it's why it's why I stay. I'm hanging on to you,

thank God, thankful to the people who who walk before me with 30 and with 35 and 40 and 50 years. Thank you for staying no matter how boring it got or how how sick of it you got and how many personalities we don't like anymore and how much a A has changed from the time you was. You know all that,

you know, and, and, and I've, I've gotten ready to say I'm not, I haven't said it completely out loud yet, but I, you know, I, I get there and I watch. But I, you know, I have to watch the old timers and say, you know what? They're still here,

they're still here. It's still working

and I was locked up in one place for or another during during my adolescence. I was always sitting in front of a judge, it seemed, waiting for placement, waiting for placement, waiting for placement. You know, my dad used to say, I think they're just trying to buy you some time, Carla. And maybe they were. Maybe I was lucky. I come from a family where my baby sister committed suicide at the age of 17. No alcohol or drugs involved. She was just done. She swallowed 3 bottles of pills on a on a very dark day

and she was done. My baby brother died of alcoholism and drug addiction when he was 30 years old and he was done. He'd been in and out of prison and he had lived his life. And I believe that sometimes God just lets a really tired ones go home. That's just how I see it, you know, and

my mother died of end stage liver disease about nine years ago. And, and I and my last remaining sibling lives in Wisconsin. And when she's not drinking, she lives on the Vicodin maintenance diet And

and she's just, she's not interested in a a. So I don't know how I got so lucky, but I'm glad they hung on to me long enough for me to find you. It's the only thing that's ever worked in all those places that I was ever locked up. And there were several if I ever learned anything while I was there, I left it there when I left. And Alcoholics Anonymous has something for some reason either I was when you were delivering the message, I was ready to hear it and I was ready to do something. I was ready to get into action. And every time I leave this room, Alco

Anonymous goes with me, it goes with me, it is with me everywhere I go.

I ran away from the last place I was in and you know, again, you know, I'm the kind of a drunk who sleeps by the side of the road and calls it camping. Really. You know, I, I think I'm on a spiritual quest and I'm a hobo. You know what? I, I

because truthfully, I mean really in Los Angeles, when I'm in the city, I'm a street walking hoe. That's all I know. You know, that's how we're going to get it done. That's, that's it. When I'm out on the highway, I'm a gypsy,

you know, I mean, alcohol lied to me in a way. I lived this life. It created and preserved illusions that allowed me to go a long way. And I drink on those illusions and delusions.

And I hooked up with another guy. Well, I, we, I moved up with the with a couple of friends of mine. They rented a house in, in Eugene, OR. And I don't know about you, but I never went anywhere new thinking, let's go screw this up too. You know, I always went somewhere thinking, you know, fresh start, clean slate. We're going to get this right. We're going to do it right this time.

And

you know, two things happen while I was up there. We're going to get back to the land and and you know, again, I'm from LA, you know, so I don't know what I thought I was getting back to, but I like the idea, right? And we planted a little garden in the front yard. And that's where I learned that when they talk about ho and they met with a tool, you know, this is a different thing.

But two things happen while while we were up there that I certainly couldn't see while it was happening. And our book talks about that too many of us showing symptoms and signs of alcoholism long before we're ready, willing or able to do anything about it. And it was already happening. There'd be days when we go without booze. And I was a terrible thief and I'm trying to lay low. I don't want to go back to to lock up anywhere, you know, So we go without booze. And when I've got no booze and I've got no steps or fellowship or God, am I understanding no sufficient substitute. I am restless, irritable and discontent.

My my relationship with alcohol already so developed that when you take it away, I got nothing.

And when I could drink the way I needed a drink, I was always overshooting the mark. And that was happening again. And still, at 17, I couldn't guarantee if I was going to have two or 22. And that was already in play.

My friends had asked me to leave and I was asked to leave a lot. And I I moved in with my dad against his better judgment. We lasted just a couple of months. And he came to me and he had to ask me to leave. And I know it just broke his heart. He said, I'm not going to watch you die and I'm not going to help you do it. It was right before my 18th birthday. And all I could remember is that one of the counselors at the rehab had told me I was a great actress. And I know today I must have misunderstood, but I ended up on Hollywood Blvd. and there's not a lot of auditioning going on out there. And,

and I was 18 years old, start my days off with a pint of Papa Vodka and I would just go wherever the day took me. And some days it was a party and some days it was survival and not a lot of hope about it getting any different. And a few months into that, I met a man walking down Hollywood Blvd. and I saw the light in his eyes and I didn't realize it was orange sunshine. But we hit it off and I moved in with him that night and I didn't even know his last name. And six weeks later he's asking me to leave and I still don't know his last name. But I like to bring him up because years later he was on my eight step list. He was someone who came to mind very quickly and clearly that I

amends, you know, he'd been nothing but kind to me, did nothing but try to be nice to me and and man, in six short weeks, I ran through his life like that proverbial tornado, you know, physically, spiritually, mentally, materially, and all he did was try to help. And so he was on my list and I was always glad my first inventory, my first inventory. I don't know about yours, but mine was not perfect. I was just not ready for all of it. You know what I mean? Thank God for the 10th step because the first one, you know, it was a lot like your fault, your fault, your fault me, your fault, your fault, your fault me, you know, I,

I couldn't swallow it all and

but he was one. He was one I got. And after I made that first round of amends to my family, that declaration that continues to this day. I mean to follow up. I never want my mother to or well, my mother never had to worry about where I was anymore. And my father and I never want him to. He, he never has to know worry about where I am. He always knows my daughter knows where I am. She doesn't have to worry about why did my mommy leave? My grandkids have never seen me drunk,

that kind of thing. But after that, I spent the last part of my first year of sobriety looking for this guy, you know, because I just wanted to see if I could make that right, how whatever it was going to be. And and of course, I couldn't find him. And my sponsor finally said, you know, you're going to have to leave that alone. If you're supposed to find that guy, you'll find him, but in God's time, not yours. And, you know, there's some you, you're just going to have to leave it alone. You're kind of chasing your tail and, you know, so keep doing what you're doing. You're doing well, you know, and you know, try being a friend

in a vertical fashion. Go ahead and do that and

and you know it, to tell you the truth, when I got here, I didn't need a lot of convincing in that direction. That's not in the big book, by the way, but it's a really good idea. You know, just get your feet, you know, get your feet. And

I didn't need a lot of convincing in that area, but I

because I knew what I was, I knew you couldn't use the words Carla and good character in the same sentence. I, I knew that that when character met comfort, I was always choosing comfort. I always I wanted to be stand up and I couldn't. And I knew I wasn't going to be before I did what I did. And I wanted to be different and I couldn't. And I needed examples. I needed to see how that worked. And I loved our home, my first Home group. I loved that for that because every day when we we if in the book study, they talked about how

applied the what was in the book to their lives and in participation meetings, they talked about how they applied these spiritual principles in their in their daily life. They'd have tangible examples of what that looked like.

So right before my 13th day, a birthday, I had to go give a talk on the other side of town and it was a hot Sunday afternoon and I didn't feel like going. And thank God, you guys have taught me. It's not how I feel. It's what I do that matters. I said I'd be there and I'd be and, and I'd show up, you know, and I love that. I love that to this day. It's really quite a trick, you know, it's really kind, you know, showing up when I said I would. And I, I used to think I could blow off a dinner for two and not be missed, really, you know what I mean? Like it didn't.

But don't dare not invite me. You know what I mean? You're you got invite me, but I'm not going.

That's how it was.

So showing up is always this thing, you know, even if I'm afraid I don't have to stay home, you know. And so I go and I give that talk and of course I felt better. And right after the meeting was over, the thank you line came through and this man stopped and he said, where were you in 1976? And it was the guy from Hollywood Blvd. standing in front of me with 8 1/2 years of sobriety and I was almost 13. Not only a very well organized spirit of the universe could have made that happen when I, in all my efforts to get it done on my own steam, just couldn't make it happen. And even if I could have in some way

made that come together in my first year sobriety, he wasn't sober yet. Maybe he wouldn't have gotten it quite the way he did when he had some time. So,

you know, that's not the biggest immense story you're ever going to hear. It's not even the biggest one I have, but I love that it took so long. You know, I love that I, I just let it rest and it came to me. I was willing. I believe that spirit attracts spirit eventually, you know, so I got to take him to dinner and make those direct amends. And we had a long talk. And after it was over, he said, Oh my God, Carla, that's long forgiven, long forgotten. I just can't believe you're still alive. And, and he's right, you know, I, I think if we're in this room tonight, we're the lucky ones.

And I say lucky because I believe that God's grace reigns on everybody. We all have an opportunity, but are we going to receive it? Are we going to receive it? And then get up. And even if you have to sneak up on yourself, do it, you know, go pour some coffee, even if you don't feel like it, sneak up on yourself and go shake someone's hands, sneak up on yourself and say hello. You never know what will happen. And I had to do that a lot. It felt like everything new that I had to do felt like I was holding my nose and, and closing my eyes and jumping in. But I had to, I had to. I was saving my life.

And you know, you can call it willpower, whatever it is, sneaking up on myself, but I had to do something I didn't feel like doing. And I'm living proof that you can be in Alcoholics Anonymous for nine months and not feel like being here and still have it work. You know, 'cause I didn't. That horrible obsession to drink did not leave me till I was about nine months sober and incidentally in the middle of making my amends.

But somewhere along the line, I realized it had been a few days since since that horrible obsession had been on me. You know, and and for me, I don't know what obsession for alcohol sounds like you. I'm not talking about, I mean, Calvin Klein made billions on obsession and obsession is not good for anybody, you know, to have that. But I'm talking about obsession for alcohol, where that lullaby of rationalization is right dot dot dot dot dot

singing me a song about how it's going to be OK, you know, just just have a little drink on the way to the meeting, a little drink at the break, it's OK. A little drink on the way home, it's OK. It's OK. It's OK. You know? And after a while, that little voice sounds like that kid following his mom through the grocery store wanting chocolate. You know what I mean? Like mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.

And I used to think I had to drink to shut that up,

but I don't. And I'm not going to tell you I didn't sit on my hands a lot. The obsession was not lifted early for me.

And so whatever, whatever you have to do until that internal conversion, I know you got to get on the steps. I highly recommend you get on the steps. I highly recommend you start working with people. Highly recommend getting in the car.

Highly recommend coming in here and sitting with us. I was going to true and three meetings a day and working my little job answering phones,

but something was happening. You know, even while the obsession to drink alcohol, some was happening, something was happening. Something was there was a willingness, there was a change, there was a hope, there was something happening. And I knew it was in these rooms. And even though I knew that in the beginning, I'd sit outside and I'd get to the meeting maybe an hour early and I'd sit in my car till 5 minutes before the meeting started trying to get the get something up to go inside and sit way back by the exit sign in the open door

and be with you. Because for that hour and a half, Oh my God, I heard the hope.

Let's just say, you know, again, I'm going to just get forward to, you know, I ended up having this little girl and we were living in a shack way up on a mountain and with a plastic roof. And it was just, I had this little girl and I thought it was going to change the way I drank. And,

you know,

and I drugged that kid from pillar to post. I had to leave him because it was just violent. You know, we, we just couldn't, we both drank and he was a little more violent at the time than I was. 3 beers. And then we'd be in it and we'd be on and I would take it for so long and then I'd come back and, and it was just like that. And I had this little baby and, and I, you know, I want to be a good mom, but up till then, I've been kind of institutionalized and I hadn't been able to live outside the shadows, live off the side of the road, live in the real world. And so now it was time. And I drugged that kid from

pillar to post and I, and I, my first legitimate work was in the bars. And it never occurred to me not to drink on the job. Why else would you have that job? And, and it seemed to me to be cosmically efficient, you know, and, and we went from state to state and back down and, and to out in Covina. I was renting a room for my aunt out there. And I had a job in Hollywood tending bar. And it wasn't a bad job. It's just me. I'm the common denominator in there. And my daughter's almost four years old by then. And every afternoon I'd kiss her goodbye and I'd take off for the bar in Hollywood

and I get thirsty about Arcadia and I pull in off hunting it onto Huntington Dr. and I pull into the first cabin and I have my afternoon shots at Corville Golden Bud backs and get up, you know, get right and get up and go pour drinks with everybody in Hollywood till the wee hours of the morning and start all over again. And one afternoon I kiss my girl goodbye like I had done for months. And I