Delana's Journey: From Early Trauma to Sobriety and Healing

My name is Delana and I'm an alcoholic.

I'm super grateful to be sober because the alternative sucks.

I'm such a chronic hopeless, I can't save myself even when I try really, really, really, really hard.

I can't save myself from alcoholism and it's heartbreaking.

My family did, well, my family didn't mean to raise an alcoholic, but my family did.

And there's no one to blame, it's just a series of events.

And probably, you know, my parents, you know, struggle with the allergy as well of alcoholism.

So I was double dipped.

And, you know, you can't take a test at the hospital.

Like you can't make an appointment with your PCP to see if your brain will crave dopamine.

There's no test available.

But if you look at me as a little kid, you may wonder, did I have the phenomenon craving?

And it was set off by attention.

I was a non-child.

And so I modeled or mirrored behavior with adults only.

There were no cousins.

There was only one child in the entire family, on both sides of the family, and it was me.

Okay, I was a product of teen pregnancy.

Okay, my parents were 17 when they got pregnant and 18 when I was born.

And I hung out with people that were 35 and 50 years older than me.

And we watched soap operas, drank coffee, and as a five-year-old, I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to smoke Winston cigarettes or Cool Filter Kings.

I mean, I was just modeled as an adult, you know, like I did not know what children did.

I didn't live in an apartment.

I didn't play outside with other people.

I couldn't go outside my gate, you know, because these people were afraid for me, you know.

And this is my story.

So I was a little off socially, you know.

And so even going to kindergarten, I remember it was nap time at noon, and I'm thinking all my children.

I loved Erica.

And I drank coffee, and I watched so far.

And I knew it was time to get ready to get my grandfather's dinner together because my grandmother was a homemaker.

And, you know, like I did what she did, you know.

I wrote bills, you know, and we read the Bible.

Like, that's what happened, you know.

And so being around other children was interesting to me.

I knew that I needed to be better than them.

I mean, that's just how it is for me, better, not the same.

I don't understand the same.

I'm either better or feel less than.

And it's a very dangerous game to play better than.

But I came from a family that played better than, you know.

My grandparents, all four of them migrated from the segregated South, either when they were 10 or 20 years old.

And so they came to Los Angeles in '40.

And for them, they worked hard for a little of nothing, and they bought properties.

They made, we're still living off of the legacy of those people.

Like, they totally did it right.

You know, they knew what to do.

And so there was this thing about, in my mind, my goal in life was to do well in school,

get a good city job, and work there for 30 years, and retire, and own property.

You know what I mean?

And just live a good, go to church, get married kind of life, man.

That was the, nuclear family is what they called it, nuclear family.

So I didn't, I don't know if you guys, because I, there's like this format thing that I kind of heard the first speaker say.

But I'm Delana Zee.

My sobriety date is 10/21/1996.

And my sponsor is Brenda M.

And my home group is Sisters in Separate and South Central Life.

And it is a meeting of cocaine, but I'm born in alcoholics, anonymous.

I get my life here.

And I wanted to introduce that aspect of myself, because I want you to kind of grasp the whole, like, where I'm coming from.

So here I am.

And so even this story that I'm telling you about this little kid, it's not why I was an alcoholic.

It sort of helps you understand why I was maladjusted to life, why I was outright mentally defective.

Like how I had an off perspective about myself and the world in which I live.

And I guess everybody does, you know.

At some point in my life, I compared myself to other people.

At some point in my life, which I should probably also add that I'm a therapist.

So at some point in my life, I understand now that from age five to 12 is where the inferiority complex is built in all human beings.

And sometimes it hides itself as superiority.

Superiority is inferiority inverted.

It's the same thing. I just came up with some type of survival skill to hide that I don't feel good enough.

So I, you know, the superiority thing is that my family thought because they were homeowners and not renters that we were better than people who rented.

And in the black culture, if you had browner skin or lighter skin, you were more at a greater advantage, people with darker skin and tighter curled hair.

Like it's the craziest stuff in the world, what people can come up with to decide that they are better than other people.

OK, and and whatever the case is, it would have me believe that I was better than.

But the problem with that is that if that's a true concept of less than and better than, then eventually I walk into a room where I feel better.

I'm sure they're better than me because I've done the comparison.

I think it's an actual thing that can occur.

So the big book talks about whether it's fancied or real. It has the power to kill.

There's no such thing as better than. There's only one.

And I'm so grateful for that. And I learned that in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

It's 12 steps closer. There is one power and that power is God.

And it says suggest. Well, it doesn't. It says find him now is the direction. Exclamation point.

But that that this power is my director and my principal and that that I, instead of seeing myself as better than you or less than you,

I can begin to start to see myself as a spearhead of God's ever advancing creation.

But I am one with you and you and we're the same thing.

And I'm really, really, really it's the 12 steps that helped me get into that eating out process where I'm not a better alcoholic than you.

Right. I'm not a less alcoholic than you. They wrote one book, one.

Seems like it's just that. Right. And it doesn't matter what brand I drink and it doesn't matter what substances I use that went along with it.

Doesn't matter how many nights I stayed up. It doesn't matter how many arrests I had.

It doesn't matter how many times I hit the 50/50 spot. I mean, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't make me a better or worse alcoholic than anyone.

So I'm just really grateful to know that I and you are one. Right. I'm just so very grateful for that. And it helps me in my recovery.

And it helps me in my relationship with my children. It helps me in my relationship with loved ones.

And it helps me in my relationship with clients. It helps me in my relationship for a long time in corporate America as well.

You know, I began my drinking because I became a cheerleader. I shouldn't have been a cheerleader.

They shouldn't have let me on the squad. I bullied my way onto the squad and I bit off more than I could chew my mother.

I wrote a check that my behind could not cash. Okay. And it's like the sweater, you know, and and I started manipulating right away because this is my game, you know.

And because I was an athlete, I ran track. I was a tomboy. I ran a track. I was working out femininity at that point in my life.

And, you know, I wanted to be liked by boys. And and I was concerned that it would never happen because I had decided that the shape of my body was not attractive enough.

Even though I was beautiful and I had amazing hair and I was witty and funny and athletic.

I did not think for a moment that a boy would truly, truly like me with the shape of my body.

And it was all a figment of my imagination. And so anyway, I because I'm an athlete and because I'm afraid of embarrassing myself,

I studied this cheerleading tryout, you know, situation really hard.

I was at home in the mirror doing it and working on my jumps and kicks, something I had never done before.

And when the trial day came, I killed it. And I sort of dared them not to pick me.

I don't think they would have picked me if I wasn't a bully, but they did and on this team.

But, you know, when you're on the team, you have to go for four. I hadn't considered that really.

Like literally, I didn't even know that drumsticks, drumstick that when I was a kid, you know, drumsticks and mashed potatoes, fried drumsticks and mashed potatoes.

I didn't really get that that was chicken. So I'm just trying to get you to understand that I didn't get that I was going to have to go out there in front of people and perform.

I got in the sweater. That's what my hustle was. And I had to wear it every Friday.

I went to a high school that had night games. It was like Friday night live, you know, like at this.

And it was huge. We had a good football team and it was bad for me. And I went out there once.

And I mean, the anxiety was overwhelming. I mean, I performed, but I felt numb.

I didn't feel my limbs, if that makes any sense. And then a guy had a backpack and he was walking down the walkway.

And I was like, what's in that backpack? I was just being funny. And he said, you want some? Well, of course I do.

I don't even know what it is. And I said, poison? It didn't matter. Yeah, I want some because, you know, who am I to say no?

And I think I left my water over there. Thank you.

And he gave me a sip of his brass monkey at Funky Monkey.

And it tasted amazing. And it was warm. And I like the effect produced by alcohol. It's not the first time I'd ever taste alcohol.

I told you I was in the house with all those southern people. So if you had a cough, you got corn whiskey.

And I really liked having a cough. And you know what I mean? My grandmother was Jesus's little sister.

So we took communion, literally. She'd heard everything Jesus said, thought all that. So I figured that they were related.

So we didn't take grape juice for communion. We took Manischewitz wine.

So I like communion. You know, I like communion and I like having a cough.

And occasionally I would get champagne on New Year's Eve because there were no, you know, just adults.

So they gave me like alcohol. So, you know, when is it going to hurt? Well, so I liked alcohol.

And then eventually I was piecing up on the weed, you know, and get a darn bag of sesame weed.

Put $3 in and you hit it as many times as you want. And so this is how Friday started for me.

And so I was fine and naturally uniformed and I was performing well.

And this is the beginning of me using alcohol and drugs. But prior to that, I used attention and sex and candy.

I think I need to say that. I think somebody needs to hear that, too.

Because once I've been relieved, I haven't had a drink in 25 years. You think I don't still obsess and crave?

Oh, sweetheart, follow me home. It happens. It happens. Oh, absolutely.

That's why it's so important to do the maintenance part of this program. We call it unmanageability, as we call it.

However, when I am not managing the feelings in my body that I'm aware of, unaware of,

or if I'm not able to manage that feeling in my throat, you know, you know, the one or the one in my stomach, you know,

the one that you feel. When I'm not able to manage that, I use things to move it. Sometimes I use anger, right?

Sometimes I use, right, projections. Sometimes I use cake. Sometimes I don't smoke cigarettes anymore.

I used to use cigarettes. It was just easy. I need a cigarette, you know, but I don't have cigarettes anymore.

And, you know, cell phone will dull the senses as well. You know, watching a whole series in a night will dull the senses.

I can't go to bed. I can't do it. I've tried to stop in the middle, but I have something that doesn't let me stop.

And it doesn't care if it's Hennessy or, right, Breaking Bad. It doesn't care how I've watched Breaking Bad four times.

I don't know. Like, I don't know what's going to happen. What's that other one with the dragons? Oh, my God.

What kind was that? Quarantine? Oh, my goodness. So I'm just saying, like, this is what happens to me.

You have to look at your own experience in sobriety. What is it that I have the phenomenon of craving for?

Now, those of you that may be new, I want to say and I want to qualify that I had to learn.

I had to learn and commit and admit to my inner self that I have this disorder.

I don't. Just because it's been twenty five years since I have activated the alcoholism doesn't mean that I am not clear on step one.

I concede daily that I have this disorder. I treat it daily because I know that I don't keep me sober.

I have there are people are dropping like flies in my community. Twenty nine years sober, 30 years sober,

taking newcomer chips, losing their sanity, not coming back the same.

So every morning I treat my alcoholism. I wake up. It is about prayer. It is about meditation.

I'm in 10 and 11 every day. I am asking the creator to please divorce me from my selfishness.

Please help me be a better human as I exchange energy and conversations with other people.

Please help me. I sponsor women. I am sponsored. Work life balance.

I am hiking. I can't get to the hill. I am doing step ups and weight.

You understand weight? I'm a 51 year old woman.

That is not in a delusion about where I am even in life, because if you stay sober, you get older.

Last year in the quarantine, I had a heart attack. Ten years ago, I had brain surgery.

The worst of them all was hemorrhoid surgery. Thanks to having babies where you shouldn't get a whole bunch of stuff from that.

But I'm saying around this program, you'll find yourself in situations where you're going to be given painkillers.

You're going to find yourself in situations where you can be at the brink of your existence.

Where is my power? Where is my power? When I am in the quarantine and coronavirus before the vaccine and I feel this warmness running down my left arm.

And I call and have an ambulance call for me and I have to put a mask on and get an ambulance and go to the hospital by myself.

I'm self-centered. What about me? I want you to change all your covid policy because I'm now here.

What do you mean I had a heart attack? Check it again. I want to go home.

My pride doesn't even want me to admit that I was stressed. I want to look bad.

Don't you know who I am? I'm the therapist. I carried the message from the podium. I'm Delaina.

I'm not supposed to be down. A lot of things come up in sobriety.

And if I don't have emotional sobriety, if I don't learn how to manage those things in my body,

if I don't get honest with myself that I even have them as a result of doing steps six and seven, I start to see I have stuff.

I have self-righteousness. I practice it. If I'm not careful, right, I will judge you the way I judge myself.

If I'm not careful, my critical voice will convince me that this life is not even worth living.

Kill yourself is also a mantra that I know. I'm a survivor.

I mean, this is just so basically what I'm saying is I know heartache in this program.

I know facing death in this program is a power greater than me. I didn't send me to this planet.

I don't know. Maybe you sent you to this planet. There is something greater than me.

There is something that created gravity. There is something that continues to sustain me with oxygen.

I don't give me oxygen. And that's how I began to understand my higher power.

Over the years, my higher power has evolved, has become more infinite, has lost its shape.

That the realm of the spirit I actually believe is roomy and all-inclusive and includes me with a cold, a very cold, long resume of sin.

I mean, the list is just ridiculous.

That has graced me back from the gates of insanity and over, over, and over again.

I did not save me from the serial killer that had his hands around my throat.

I didn't save me from that, even though I pulled the $20 out of my pocket.

The fact that I had 20 and over and over again in sobriety out of sobriety.

If I don't believe in the thing that created oxygen, man, what am I believing?

Me with my finite thinking? Me with my redundant emotional self?

Me with my inability to handle traffic?

I mean, actually, I handled traffic pretty good now, but there was a time when I did.

Right? I have a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old.

I just need you to know, that's my spiritual practice.

They are in college in New Orleans sharing a car.

I mean, I just want you to understand there is a power, oh, there is a power, and it ain't me.

Because if it were, I'd make you pay for that oxygen. You'd work for yours.

Do you understand what I'm saying? If you didn't do exactly what I needed you to do in the moment,

you would lose your oxygen, or I would just take it from you for a while, just so you could act right.

Like, thank goodness I'm not your power. Thank goodness I'm...

Think about Bill. I thought that I was going to be the head of the best enterprise system as well.

And I, like Bill, you know, started law school and just decided to sell the insurance just too much.

Because it's in the way of my drinking.

I started cheerleading, right, and drinking.

And the next summer, I'm the one that they have to push on the front porch of Rainier-Doreville.

I'm still in high school. It's just the summer. I'm going to the 12th grade.

I'm an alcoholic immediately. It manifests itself immediately.

I didn't work my way up to alcoholism. That's why I believe I always had the craving issue.

That's why I believe I always suffered from it.

Because I used to sniff rubbing alcohol as a little kid, and pine salt.

And when we went to the gas station, I'd leap over to the back of the station wagon so I can get the fumes very strong.

And this is a five, six, seven, eight year old. I mean, this is my story.

So it's just, whatever would have been poured on me is what I would have craved.

So it doesn't matter if it's alcohol. It doesn't matter if it's malt liquor.

I mean, how harmless can a corona really be?

My last run started with a glass of white wine at a wedding reception.

I don't even know whose wedding reception it was. I don't know who got married.

I met some dude in rehab. We got married and had a baby because that was going to save me.

And some people he knew, and we didn't have our kid that night.

And I said, "I met him in rehab?"

So how in the world do I sit at this table, see that box of Franzi of wine, and decide that white wine is nearly water?

It couldn't possibly hurt me.

I have the mind of the alcoholic, "Did you hear? Let's put some whiskey in this milk."

Even though I've lost everything prior to this date behind this and other substances.

My head says, "Let's put some whiskey in this milk."

Or, "White wine is nearly water."

I said it to myself and agreed with myself and walked over to the Franzi of wine, not thinking I was being too smart either.

I learned in rehab number one, and this is rehab number four that I got this husband from,

I learned in rehab number one that I had the phenomenon of craving and the allergy.

I was taught the circle and the triangle there.

I understood that this program affected me in a three-fold nature.

That affected my body, my mind, and spirit. I knew that at treatment number one.

I had a sponsor that taught me we take our body to meetings, our mind, to the big group of alcoholics synonymous,

and that we treat our spirit by being of service.

I knew this information, but information is not enough.

Three rehabs later, I still walk over to the Franzi of wine, and I'm walking back with this little plastic cup.

Yeah, I'm drunk at work because I can't drink at home, sneaking and drinking.

My husband thinks I'm in a lesbian relationship with my boss, but that's my drinking buddy.

So he puts me out, and I'm really grateful.

Are you a lesbian?

Him, my son, the safety of this home, everything, it's in the way of my drinking,

and I throw a party for being put out of my home because now I can drink like I want to.

It takes me to the streets of Los Angeles.

My cocaine addiction helped me identify my alcoholism.

I put myself in these situations all the time because I'm always choosing right now what feels good right now.

I'm always surviving.

I'm always reacting to what I feel.

There's no responding.

There's no prayer or meditation, no pausing, agitated, doubtful.

It's just whatever I feel, I react.

Whatever I feel, I react.

Whatever I feel, I react.

Before you know it, I'm married.

Alcohol and drugs are not my problem.

They are a solution to the way that I feel, the way that I perceive.

A lot of the thinking and perception that I have is habitual.

It's been handed down to me.

There's lies most of it.

It's victim, and it's based in fear.

The big book says hundreds of forms of fear.

Self-pity, it says self-pity a lot, a lot.

What about me?

What about me?

That's all self-pity is, is what about me?

How am I going to, what, me?

What about me?

What about what I think?

What about what I feel?

What about what I want?

Why did you think of me?

Why didn't you invite me?

Why did you, why do you think of anything else other than me?

It's self-pity.

Me, me, me, me.

I'm the only person on my mind, and I swear I'm the only person on your mind.

And it makes for a delusional person, and it makes for a person that struggles with illusion,

and it makes a person that struggles with mental blank spot.

And it does mean that my perception is off.

I lack the ability to think straight.

This is the mental, the mental symptoms of this disorder, because I am only focused on me.

So of course my, my thinking and my perception is askew.

Of course I'm now going to struggle to be in relationships with you because I'm thinking about me,

and I'm judging me harshly based on my mother's critical voice, which I always have.

And I'm thinking that you're thinking about me in the way that I'm thinking about me.

And then I project it onto you, and then I fight you and punish you because you thought that about me,

when it was actually me who thought it.

So I'm not in a relationship with you. I'm in a relationship with an idea of you.

We never experience true intimacy and evolution and connectedness.

And I struggle to be connected to people because I'm afraid that no one loves me and that I'm not good enough.

And no matter how much I buy you or give you or stretch myself out for you,

I'm 100 percent convinced that I'm not good enough, and that is the unmanageability that this program talks about on page 52 of the book.

And that is what has to be overcome, and that is what has to be treated every day, every day.

Every morning I treat it. I decide that I'm good enough, and I love myself.

The difference is in the final analysis, after I looked everywhere, the only place that God could be found was within me.

When I read that sentence, I'm going to tell you it was a relief that I was pissed off, very upset.

Because I've been thinking that God was in the sky taking notes on my behavior, planning a hell party for me.

When I found out that the power had been in me the whole time, my goodness, my goodness, but that's the beauty.

The book also says that my problems begin and end with me, and that gave me choice and hope and faith.

It's okay if they begin with me. I'm humble enough to accept that.

The end with me gives me choice, choice that I never had before. It takes me out of the state of power.

It gives me something to do about the problems that began.

I realize that the symptomology doesn't really change. Just the subject matter. The symptoms are the same.

So if I experience abandonment in my childhood, the way that I see things is through the lens of abandonment, if that makes sense.

It doesn't mean that I'm actually abandoned. I learned how to manage that. I hope that makes sense.

I still see when you don't call me or you didn't invite me as abandonment. It still feels like abandonment.

But it doesn't mean you actually abandoned me. I now know how to manage that feeling.

Does it make sense? I'm a triangle. I'm in shape. I grew up in a triangle garden.

So some of my edges aren't as sharp as they used to be. They've been filed down a little bit.

But I'm not a circle, if that makes any sense. I'm shaped in a particular way.

So things pass through me in a particular way. I just now know that it's not true.

So I know how to breathe through, process through that feeling, which used to be called abandonment, if that makes sense.

So I have made conscious contact and I experience inspiration a lot.

And my intuitive thought guides me and directs me. And most of the time I'm aware of what I'm doing.

And I'm really grateful for the power of this program and self-aware, self-awareness.

And even if I wake up from the delusion, which was my second marriage,

I remember that God is my director. God is my principal and my employee. And I have a way of what it is I've created.

And I get to make amends along the way. And that is beautiful. Thank you so much for having me out.