Tracy's Journey: From 70s Party Life to 25 Years Sober

Hi, my name is Tracy and I am an alcoholic.

I want to thank Scott for asking me to come out.

He reached out a while ago and I said, "Once masks are over, I'm down."

Vaccinated boosted everything, but I could not talk in masks. I couldn't do it.

Where's Alex? Alex, thank you for your lead. Thank you so much.

I love to hear when young people get here and stay here.

You know, we have a little saying, you know, "Just keep coming back."

I like to say, "Just stay." It really is the easier, softer way.

My sobriety date is May 25th, 1997. I have a sponsor. She has a sponsor.

I've had one sobriety date and today I intend to keep it.

Where's the clock? Okay, so 8...

You know, a typical alcoholic, you know, nothing special.

You know, my parents are still married.

I didn't come from an abusive household.

I'm the oldest of four, but I think Alex talked about it too.

You know, I just always felt a little different. I just always felt a little odd.

Like, I didn't belong in that family. Something was just off.

Well, come to find out, in having my relationship mended due to Alcoholics Anonymous with my sister,

she felt the same way, but she's a completely normie.

Like, she is so normie. I mean, she'll have a glass of wine and she'll sit there for hours.

You know, so, and then we have now found out that my mother suffers from mental illness,

and so we kind of think maybe that's why.

God bless her. So, you know, I grew up, I'm from San Diego originally,

and when my dad got out of the service we ended up here because he worked on, like, the Apollos and things like that.

I grew up on Newcastle, just three blocks over here.

Went to State of High School, graduated in 1976, and I had my first drink in between junior high and high school.

But again, as Alex said, the first time I drank, I drank Boon's Farm.

Took a quaalude, smoked some pot, threw up, and my parents were having a party.

My parents had a lot of parties. They were involved in sports, like they're my brothers.

And I threw up, passed out on the lawn in the back, and that's where I came to the next morning.

Now, most people would go, "I'm not going to do that for a long time."

I can remember waking up and thinking, "I want to do that again, like, really soon."

You know, I found what quieted my inside voice.

The voice that kept telling me, "You're no good. You're worthless. You're not going to amount to anything."

Because that's what I heard, you know, when my dad was not home.

When my dad was home, it was a completely different story.

And so there was a lot of confusion in our household.

And as I've gotten older and done the work, and she was finally diagnosed, then it all kind of made sense.

You know, we were very involved in my brother's sports. They played football and baseball and all of that stuff.

After sporting events, we would go to a pizza place and my parents would drink.

We were underage. We'd drive the cars home. There was just that kind of stuff going on.

But my dad worked for the government, so if we got pulled over, it was always, "Well, do you know so-and-so?"

And they're like, "Yeah, okay. Go on."

I was in handcuffs a few times, and that saved me.

It didn't save me. It just continued my alcoholism, is what it did, and it co-signed my baloney.

So as, you know, most girls in the '70s, well, not everybody.

You know, I found him in senior year, and, you know, we were, you know, going to have a great life and everything was going to be great.

Got married, had a daughter. So I had my daughter in 1977, and he became a dealer.

You know, and I am. I'm duly addicted, you know, and I don't make any...

It's just part of my story. Drugs are part of my story. That's all there is to it.

And one went with the other. I liked drinking, and then when I found the white stuff, and then you combine them, and then there was all that...

It was like a chemistry, like to find the right balance.

Like, you know, I couldn't do the white stuff before I drank because then I would just be like crazy.

So you had to drink, and then it was all balance. It was that vicious cycle.

And I never ever did find that first high I had. I haven't found anything like it. It was the best thing ever, until it wasn't.

And, you know, I just think back on my life then with my brother, and he'd be up all night, you know, and she's crying in her crib, and I'm like passed out.

You know, I'm surprised that social services did not get involved, but they didn't.

And we kind of muddled through, you know, a couple years of marriage, and then, you know, we got a divorce because we had to.

Because we were both a mess.

And then I started working, and I got a really good job, and I was able to control and enjoy my drinking and my using.

You know, as a weekend warrior, you know, Friday night, then Sunday, and then, okay, everything will be fine.

And, you know, I mean, we all did it. We all did that weekend thing, like, and not sleep, and go to work on Monday, and then, you know, get our sleep during the week, and then Friday started all over.

And it worked for me for a really long time, and I had a really good job. I worked for a men's underwear line. It's the number one men's underwear line. I did really well.

Because most of us are super smart. You know, we're smart people.

And for me, I'm very calculated, and I can manipulate things, and that's exactly what I did.

And back in the '70s, early '80s, in that kind of industry, there was, you know, people in their offices with piles of stuff, you know, and, you know, we partied all day.

All day long, and I found the perfect job. I found the perfect job.

Now, by this time, my daughter's older, and she's like, "Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore." So she went to go live with her dad, and it was probably one of the best days of my life because I went, I have no responsibilities, and I went crazy, and I moved to Hollywood.

And I was one of those little punk girls in West Hollywood, in Club Lingerie, and, you know, all those spots, and trying to hold down my job, and I held down my job for a long time.

And it stopped working for me. It stopped working. And, you know, I did at this time. You know, I had a nice apartment in West Hollywood.

I was going to work maybe a day or two. Like everybody else in that industry, that's what they did. We went to work maybe a day or two, and then, you know, we were trying to recover, and then we were, you know, doing whatever we need to do to stay at that level.

It got to be too much, and completely. My car got repossessed. At first it got booted, and then, outside of the rainbow, it got booted outside the rainbow.

And then everything started to really, really, really escalate because, see, I can't stop. I've never wanted to have one drink. I've never wanted to have one pill. I've never wanted to have one hit. I've never wanted to have one of anything.

My entire thought process when I first started drinking was, like, I don't want to feel the way I feel anymore. So I had to. I never controlled and enjoyed my drinking ever, ever, nor did I want to.

I thought it was really silly for people to go to dinner and have a glass of wine. I'm like, that made no sense to me. And it just got really bad, really quickly.

I stayed in that really bad, really quickly for a long time, a lot longer than I thought. And I did everything that I needed to do to get what I needed to get.

And then in 19, I guess October '97, '95. So now, by this time, I have no relationship with my parents. My sister doesn't want to see me.

She has, I'm going from place to place to place. I'm sleeping on Calcas. And I'm just, I'm just a mess. And I cannot figure out why.

I can't, I don't, I don't correlate the fact that all of this, these things are because of my drinking. It doesn't occur to me. So I continue to do that.

I started doing a job in a bar. So that job that I did really well in, and I can't remember for six months or six weeks or before I got fired, I got employee of the year.

Because see, I'm calculating and I'm manipulative, you know, and I'll do and say what you need me to do and say for you to like me, because that means a lot to me.

And it took me a long time, you know, several, 24 years. It took me a long time in Alcoholics Anonymous to understand.

And sometimes I still don't understand, but what you think of me is none of my business. What I think of you, none of your business.

It's an odd concept because that's all I worried about was what other people thought of me. And I wanted to please other people, but I had stopped being able to be a responsible adult many years, many, many, many years ago.

And so then you're fired from the job. And so I'm couchsurfing and I get a job in a bar. I think the bar is still there, so I'm in trouble.

And it's perfect for me because I can drink while I'm working and the guy with the dry goods comes in like he's there all the time, right? So it's perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect.

And then I'm really going fast. I have to slow down. I'll spend a lot of time in sobriety.

In 1995, I'm working in the bar. I'm doing everything that I can possibly get my hands on and I'm pregnant.

And I continue to drink and use the entire time I'm pregnant, the entire time. Because you know what? I'm self-interested, self-centered to the car. I don't give a crap.

What I do to somebody else, even an unborn child, I don't care. That's where my disease of alcoholism has taken me, that I don't care.

My son was born on March 27th, tomorrow, 1995, in Northridge Hospital. And obviously I did not leave the hospital with that child, nor should I have.

You know, I've sponsored a lot of women alcoholics anonymous who have gone, who have had their children taken away through children's services.

And their story's a lot like mine and they're very resentful. I'm not. They saved my kid's life and they saved mine.

A social worker came in and said, you know, because they know when you haven't had any prenatal care and when they go to poke you with something and you scream in agony because you have such a high tolerance for that white stuff, they know.

And so social worker came in and once again, calculating and manipulating, I started a ball.

I knew deep down because I was raised, my parents raised us right with, you know, certain values that you don't, boundaries and values that you don't cross.

And the orgasm had taken me to a place that I didn't know I was eating capable.

And so social worker came in, you know, told me what was happening and I bawled and I said, you know, I'll get help, I'll get help.

And so I did, I went to Tarzana Treatment Center and I did outpatient and that was a long time ago.

And they were very, they did everything on a schedule and I figured out, because here I can, I'm calculating and I can manipulate, I figured out when they were testing me.

Every other Friday. And so I'd party this and I wouldn't hear so I'd be clean.

And after 11 months, so my son went to the custody of my parents because my dad works for the government.

All he had to do was stand up and whatever. Thank goodness, thank goodness for my parents.

You know, and can you imagine, I hid my pregnancy and the hospital calls my parents in the middle of the night and said, your daughter's just had a baby boy.

And they're like, what are you talking about? I haven't seen my parents and talked to my parents in a couple of years.

Can you imagine what that did to them?

You know, I've made my amends and today my parents and I have a really good relationship and I'll get to that.

But so I went to Tarzana, I did that for 11 months. In the meantime, we're going to Children's Service Court and after 11 months,

we stand up in front of the court and here I am every other weekend, you know, thinking I can control and enjoy.

Okay, if I can do this and I'm okay, then I must not be an alcoholic or I must not have a problem, right?

And so after 11 months, we stood up in front of the judge and the judge is like, Tracy, you've passed all of your tests.

You've done all of your parenting classes. You've done everything we asked. We're going to give you the custody of your son.

And inside I'm dying. I'm like, no, no, no, don't do that. Please don't do that.

Because I know I'm getting ready to run. I know it.

And you know, my parents are so proud of me and like, oh yeah, we go home and by this time now I'm living in their home.

They're allowing me back to live in their home right here in Reseda. We go back to their home and my son's name is Christopher.

And now he's 18 months. No, just almost a year.

And so we get home and I say to my mom, oh, woe is me. Oh, woe is me. This has been very trying on me.

I think I'm going to go to, what was it called? It was on Reseda Bullard at the Crest because they knew the owners there.

I think I'm going to go to the Crest and have a glass of wine, drink wine, and you know what my mother said?

I think that's a good idea. This has been rough. Like she really needed Al-Anon way before I even knew what Al-Anon was.

She never got to Al-Anon though. And I left and I was gone for five days.

It didn't matter that I got custody of my son back. I didn't care.

Because the disease of alcoholism was festering while I was doing the...

Because see, when I have any kind of alcohol in me, it sets up that phenomenon of craving that I have to have more.

It was festering. You know, it was just laying dormant and then it would come up and then laying dormant and then come up and laying dormant.

And after that, after I got custody of my son back, I couldn't control it. I had to drink and I had to do what I needed to do.

I couldn't do it anymore because I'm a fake and a phony. I don't want to be a mother. I don't want this responsibility.

I wanted to keep doing what I've always done. And so then again, coming home after a few days, I think five or six days, I was gone.

I was standing at the door. She lives in San Diego and she's standing at the door and she's like, "We're not coming in this house. If you don't go get help, we're going to go to court and you will never see Christopher again."

I'm like, "Okay, whatever." And I was on a run for almost nine months and they never started any proceedings or anything.

And then on May 24th, 1997, I was out doing what I always do and I came.

When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and I saw in the big book Incomprehensible Demoralization, I knew exactly what they were talking about. I knew exactly what that meant.

On May 24th, 1997, Incomprehensible Demoralization happened again. And I came to, gathered myself up, got gathered myself up and now I'm like 110 pounds.

I got an Alice in Chains t-shirt on. My hair is all like red and blue and whatever. I got my Doc Martens and my Rip Levi's.

And I gathered myself up and I think I was in like North Hollywood. I wasn't over the hill. I know I was just on this side.

And I started to walk and it was still dark and a car, a taxi pulled up. There was no Uber back then.

A taxi pulled up and they're like, "Do you need a ride?" And I'm like, "I don't have any money."

They're like, "It's okay. Where are you going? You should not be out by yourself in this part of town. Where are you going?"

And I said, "Bressida." Even though I hadn't seen my parents in like eight months. And he goes, "Okay, come on, get in."

And he drove me and after I'd been here a little while, he was one of us because he was saying stuff that we say in here.

And he knew, you know, because I was saying I can't stop. I can't da-da-da-da-da. And he knew.

And he dropped me off. He goes, "You know, I hope you're okay."

And my parents let me in the house. I didn't have a key obviously. And they let me in the house and I went into the restroom.

And the bathroom does not have any windows. And the light was off and I hit my knees and I said, "I need help."

You know, it wasn't the drunk one that we always do like, "Please get me out of this one." And I did that a million times.

"Get me out of this one. I swear I'm never going to do it again." This was like authentic, "I don't know what to do. Help me."

And the room got light. Like I felt a lightness that I'd never felt before.

And I had a very good friend who had gotten sober because she was my road dog. Like we ran together.

And she had reached out to me right after my son was born and she had gotten sober. She's like, "If you ever need help, let me know."

And she had said that she was going to AA. And so that morning, because my mom's like, "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do." "Well, what about Marty?" I'm like, "Oh."

So I called Marty and she said, "I don't know where there's a meeting right now, but call central office."

And I called central office. It was like 4.30, 5 in the morning. Someone picked up that phone.

Somebody picked up that phone and I said, "I need help and I don't know what to do."

And so there was a meeting. And my first, very first meeting almost 25 years ago was in this room.

In this room. And I have not been back to this room since. Crazy.

You know, it's not up to me to speak. I went over there. I think you guys are still over there.

And I went to that meeting. I went to this meeting and I think it was a double winner meeting.

And then the ladies talked to me and there was a meeting at St. Mark's. I went over there and this was Memorial Day weekend.

And then on that Monday, I went to the Valley Club and I got sober at the Valley Club and they saved my life.

And the women there, there was a lady named Helen and Alice and you know, they were very prim and proper.

They wore gloves and they had the nice bags. And you know, I come rolling in looking like, you know, just got ran over by a whatever.

And they're like, "Hi, how old are you? Are you new?"

They didn't know I was new. You know, "We know when you're new."

And they just took me under the wing. And they told me very nicely, "Sit down, shut up and listen.

You don't have anything we want right now. Just, you know, sit and listen for six months.

You know, if you want to read, great." And I got a sponsor in my first couple weeks and she was my sponsor for my first year.

And you know, I've never looked back. You know, I've made my amends.

My daughter, who is now 40-something, I was, we were so estranged that she wouldn't even pick up the phone call from me.

She had no care list. And I had direction that every week on the same day and at the same time, like Tuesday at 6 o'clock, you call and you leave a message.

So if she doesn't answer, it's okay. And I did that. I can't remember if it was six months or nine months and she finally picked up the phone.

And that was the beginning of me mending that relationship and me making amends to that. Same thing with my parents.

And today, I'm very close with my parents. My mom's got a lot of stuff going on. My dad is bedridden. He's got prostate cancer, metastasis to his bones.

I go home every other weekend just about. And you know, it won't be too long, but like he says, you know, he's lived a good life.

He's lived in the military, traveled a lot. And he's almost 90. You know, it's like, no one knows. He's lived forever.

But in sobriety, I've had a lot of, you know, what ifs too, you know. My grandson, a year, almost, well, it'll be two years in November, passed away. He was 19.

And he had epilepsy and he had a seizure in the middle of the night and suffocated in the middle of the night.

Yeah. And so my daughter found her son dead. And so that's that.

For me, you know, I would say, you know, if anything happened to Chris or if anything happened to my daughter, you know, I'm drinking.

Like, I can't do that sober. I always had that outlet. I didn't. My second phone call after my parents was to my sponsor, you know, because it's what I know.

I had my second sponsor. Her name is Linda. And I had her for about 15 years and then she passed away.

And now the sponsor I have now, I've had, well, I had another sponsor. So dumb. Like, it was me. I couldn't, I didn't want to tell a new person, like, all my stuff.

Like, I wanted to hang on to it. You know, I didn't want, do I have to rehash all that? You know, well, if I'm still thinking about it, well, yeah, I might need to, you know, let it go.

And I was really, really, really struggling. And it was either I was going to ask somebody to sponsor me or I was going to drink.

I was at that jumping off point, you know, and it was at Mason list. And I walked up to her and I just said, will you sponsor me? And she's been my sponsor since, you know, and then COVID hit.

I had a really hard time with Zoom meetings. Really, really, really hard time. I don't like to look at myself on camera because I'm so vain, which is so silly.

It's part of our disease, really. But I had a really hard time and I did have a hard time too because my grandson passed away during that time. So there was a lot of stuff going on, you know, and then my dad got sick.

And so there was a lot. And through all of that, I haven't had to drink. And then a year tomorrow, I quit smoking.

So tomorrow's my first year smoking, which everybody who knows me, I've always been a smoker. And it was one of those things that I've used the 12 steps.

I wasn't feeling well. I ended up in the hospital. I've been having the dialogue with myself about quitting smoking, just like I had done the dialogue about quitting drinking and all the other stuff.

I think we all have that inner dialogue. Like I got this, I got stopped. Like I'm going to die if I don't stop.

And if I continue, I'm going to stick a gun in my mouth because I can't take it anymore. It's too much.

I just said on my son's birthday, I told him, I said, I'm going to try not to smoke today because he hated it. And my son was, you know, I sometimes I forget to say, but my son had no ill effects from my reckless behavior.

He's a really good kid. He never gave me a bit of problem. He played baseball from the time he was four. He made all league in the Valley. And today he works in a dispensary.

But see, my disease is not his. It's not, you know, I wish and I can't because I, I wish I could, you know, smoke a joint every once in a while. I really do. But I play it out.

What's going to happen is if I do that, because then I like to smoke a cigarette with that too. And then to wash it down a little bit cardi and Diet Coke might be good.

And then I'm getting the white stuff and then it's, you know, it's just like, why do I want to even bother? You know, it's too much work.

I'll tell you, because I, I haven't, I probably have another run in me. Not very long, 63. I don't think I'd last very long, but I don't have another recovery in me. I know that for a fact.

And so why am I going to test it again? I just, I just, it's been so long and it's just like, I just can't even, you know, today my sister's like my best friend.

Complete amends. And we laugh about it now because growing up, we always said, you know, well, when we got older, all we did was fight when we were growing up.

If she wasn't my sister, her and I would not be friends. Like we're completely different. She's a yoga instructor. She never smoked.

You know, she'll have a glass of wine every once in a while, you know, dah, dah, dah, dah.

We're polar opposites where I want to do all of it really fast, really quickly. But we would never be friends.

I like, I love my sister and I was never able to say that. And I love my parents.

And it's only because of Alcoholics Anonymous that I've been able to repair my relationship because it's all mine.

Everything is mine. I did it all. They did nothing but try to love me and try and support me.

You know, when I did my, my inventory, I thought for sure I was going to find out where everybody wronged me. Nobody wronged me.

You know, and that's what we, you know, people talk about, they had a hard time doing their four step.

I don't have a hard time doing my four step. Thank you.

Because I'm selfish and self-centered. I don't care what I did to other people.

It's when I have to make amends to people and when I have to look at it on a piece of paper and I go, oh my gosh, how did I do that?

How did I do that to my son? Like, how did I do that?

He knows. You know, he knows what I did. And he, he doesn't really, my son doesn't really, he's not really vocal about a lot of stuff.

But he did say, well, I'm fine. So what's the big deal? Why do you keep talking about it?

And so that's when I realized I had to be quiet, you know, and just let it go and move on from it, you know, so.

I am so grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous for saving my life, saving the life of my children.

And thank you for asking me to come out. I'm going to end a couple minutes early. I'm sure that's fine.

But thank you, Alex, for leading. I appreciate it. It's good to see everybody. And I think that's all from me.

What's that called? Yeah, Musical Church.