Melissa's 10-Year Sobriety Celebration: From First Drink to Healing

- Good evening, everyone.

My name's Melissa and I am an alcoholic.

I'm really, really happy to be here.

Thank you, Scott, for asking me.

I love and adore you so much

and I swear you just get more handsome every year.

But keep doing it.

Scott asked me, I think he texted me on Tuesday

and he asked me if I would speak tonight

and I said, "Well, but I turned 10 years sober on Saturday."

And he said, "Well, yeah, that's why I'm asking you."

So today, I'm 10 years sober today, May 28th, 2012.

I remember that day like it was yesterday

and so I'm here celebrating my 10 years

and I couldn't be more grateful

and there's nowhere else I'd rather be, honestly.

I'll tell you what my day looked like

because we're all friends here, right?

So I wake up in the morning

and the first thing I do when I wake up

is I have a conversation with my higher power.

That's the very first thing I do.

Every night when I go to bed

and every morning when I wake up

and I ask God to just direct my thinking

and I tell God, "Whatever you want me to do, I'll do."

Whatever it is.

And I will try to do it with some dignity, some grace

and just act as you would.

I really do.

So I did that this morning

and then it hit me that I was 10 years sober

and did a little happy dance in my mind

and I was like, "I can't believe it."

I honestly cannot believe it.

It is a miracle.

And then I went to work

and I work with recovering addicts and alcoholics

and I've been doing that for about 10 years now.

And so I spent my day with them

and they have their family visits

and they have all their wonderful things that they're doing

and I'm just there observing it all

and asking myself, "How did I get here?

How did I get here?"

I was born and raised in San Fernando Valley my entire life.

Never envisioned leaving the San Fernando Valley ever.

But three years ago, I got an opportunity

to work for a different treatment center

and I took a leap of faith and I took the opportunity

and I've never regretted it once.

I'll talk a little bit more about that later

but I went to work.

I got a call from somebody that's really struggling

that wanted to leave a sober living environment

that's worked really hard.

And I went to go see this person

and I was able to talk to them a little bit

and try to get them to unpack their belongings

and just stay another day.

And I did that and then I came home

and now I'm here with you guys.

And you know, this was not my life 10 years ago.

And this is, it's amazing.

It really, really is.

So what it was like.

So I think personally that I came out of the womb

really, really thirsty.

I really believe that.

I was told growing up that I was just an unhappy,

restless, irritable kid.

And you know, my grandma, when I was three years old,

my grandma used to tell my mom all the time,

you know, this one's gonna be trouble.

This one's gonna be trouble.

And she was right.

You know, I really was, I just was not,

I just was not happy at all.

I was just restless, irritable and discontent.

I don't know, you know,

but my grandmother did make my inventory.

I was like, so three years old,

I've got a resentment already.

Anyways, so I was doing okay until about fourth grade,

I'd say, and I moved to a completely different school.

And when I got to that school,

it was the middle semester of that school

or the middle of the school year.

And I didn't know anyone.

And I started to get bullied pretty immediately.

I was bullied because my last name is Luna,

but I don't speak Spanish.

And so I was bullied for having a panic

and not speaking Spanish.

And you know, kids just can be really mean.

And so what happened was,

is I started ditching school in fourth grade.

I was scared all the time.

I was being threatened to be beat up all the time.

And so I started ditching school

and I started hanging out with kids that smoked pot

and they were experimenting with alcohol.

And I remember I didn't start drinking

or smoking pot right away,

but I was ditching school pretty regularly.

And you know, I remember what it felt like

to even just ditch school and to get away with stuff.

And that to me was I think my first experience

really getting high, honestly.

I started drinking my very first drink.

I'll never forget it.

It was a lot like my last drink.

And there was about 20 years of drug use

in between my first drink and my last drink.

So alcohol bookended my entire addiction.

And that's just kind of how it went.

But my very first drink, I'll never forget what it was like.

I remember telling the person that was buying the alcohol,

I don't know if any of you ever drank Cisco before,

but yeah, so the person that was purchasing the alcohol,

I was in eighth grade, we were ditching school.

And this person asked me, you know,

what do you want to drink?

And I had never drank before in my life.

And I said, well, I'll take three bottles of Cisco,

you know, and he said, are you sure?

And I said, yeah, I love that stuff.

So I really did whatever I could to kind of fit in

and be like a chameleon and, you know,

act as if all the time and act like this tough person.

But I really wasn't, I was so insecure

and just so full of fear.

And I just wanted to be liked by everybody.

And I just really just wanted to fit in so badly.

And so anyways, what wound up happening

is I wound up drinking that one bottle of Cisco,

one was enough, and I blacked out

and, you know, passed out and woke up in the shower.

And I woke up again at a completely different location.

And I really had no idea how I got

from one place to another.

And that's what my very first drink looked like.

You know, I was a blackout drinker from the very start,

the very first drink.

I did not have any kind of off or moderation or, you know,

anything it's like, you know, and that's,

and that's how my using looked,

that's how my using looked too.

I mean, it was always like that.

You know, I never had any kind of concept

of I'm just gonna have a little bit.

I just didn't, I was always the person

that wanted to be the most intoxicated

and I would do whatever I could to be that way,

you know, as long as I could.

And so flash forward, you know, there was about,

I don't know, nine or 10 years of pretty heavy pot use,

you know, there wasn't a whole lot of alcohol,

but I was smoking pot pretty regularly

and I was smoking a lot of pot.

I was able to get jobs and I was able to hold jobs down.

And after a while I had met someone

that was actually into, and I hope, you know,

talking about my drug use doesn't offend anybody,

but it is part of my story.

It's a big part of my story, but you know,

the disease of alcoholism, it is progressive, you know,

and it shows up in a lot of different ways.

And so for me, you know, it's just their drug use in it.

So I'm gonna just talk about it and I hope that's okay.

So for me, what happened was is I met someone

and of course it was a dude and he was really cute,

you know, he was really cute.

He happened to be into meth.

He was into meth and I had no idea what that was about,

you know, I didn't know anything about it.

And I tried it for the very first time.

And of course, you know, I didn't really like it

because I was so used to being a pot smoker.

But you know, after a while, if you do anything enough,

you know, you start to develop a tolerance for it.

And so I did, and I wound up using crystal methamphetamine

for 10 years and what that drug did was it brought me

to my knees, you know, in a lot of horrific, horrific ways.

How much time do I have left?

I'm sorry, I meant to start my own timer.

20 minutes, okay, cool, okay, cool.

I did, you know, I was able to have,

I had a really good job.

I got a really good job, I think I was about 19

and I hadn't quite started smoking meth yet,

but I got a really good job in real estate.

And you know, I was a notary public.

There were a lot of things at that time that I was proud of

at that time that I had made some achievements in my life.

But when I started to smoke meth

and my disease started to progress,

I started doing things that I would never do, you know.

I started drawing a whole lot of lines in the sand

and crossing them every single time.

And what I wound up doing is I wound up doing

a lot of illegal activity

and things that I'm not proud of at all.

And I've worked to make amends in these areas

and I'm still working on these amends

because I've heard a lot of people and you know what,

they have no idea that I did some of the things that I did

just to fuel my drug addiction at that time.

What wound up happening is I, you know,

the real estate market crashed around 2005, 2006

and there was no more real estate.

You know, there was no more money.

And so what wound up happening is I wound up turning

to only criminal activity at that time

and wound up going to prison for 18 months.

I was 30 years old when I got arrested

and I'll never forget the day that I was arrested

because, you know, so many times I had wanted to stop.

So many times I had said to myself, you need to stop.

And I could not stop, you know,

no matter how much I wanted to stop,

no matter how badly I wanted to stop,

my addiction was just so, it was out of control.

It was beyond me, you know?

And I look at the people that come into treatment

that I work with every day and I say to myself,

I'm just so proud of them, you know,

for just making it in there and, you know,

having a seat and staying because I could not do that.

At the point in time that I got arrested,

I, you know, I had stopped showering.

I had stopped brushing my teeth.

I had stopped brushing my hair.

I was talking to inanimate objects.

I was just so far gone, you know?

I just was a shell, a shell of a person at that point.

And so the day that I got arrested,

I will never forget what it was like sitting

in the back of that police car and the detective,

who was a woman, me asking her, you know,

am I gonna get to go home tonight?

And she said to me, no, you know,

you're not going home for a really long time.

And I'll never forget the look on her face

and just how sad she was, you know, how sad she was.

And I remember sitting back and, you know,

this is part of, when I was early, early on,

I had to do a lot of playing the tape

all the way through to the very end.

It's a relapse prevention tool.

And I had to use that a lot.

And this significant period of my life is, you know,

embedded in that tape because I will never forget

what it was like to sit back in that police car

and to finally just feel myself relaxed, you know?

I had been running for such a long time

and I was so tired, you know?

And finally, you know, I believe that God did for me

what I couldn't do for myself because there was no way

I was ever gonna walk into a treatment center and surrender.

There was just no way, you know,

I had to be taken off the street.

And so I'm incredibly grateful.

And actually after I got out,

and a little while after I got out,

I actually went to go find that detective to thank her

for saving my life.

And she had already retired, so I was never able to do that.

But that's, you know, another amends I make to society.

It's just, I stay sober, you know, I stay sober.

And so flash forward.

You know, when I got arrested and I did my time,

I knew that I was a drug addict

and I knew that I was never gonna do drugs again.

I was done with them, but I wasn't so sure about alcohol.

And so I didn't think I had a problem with alcohol.

I never thought about what my first time drinking looked

like, but I did try some controlled drinking

for about a year after I got out.

And my very last time drinking,

it looked a lot like my first time drinking, you know,

there was just no difference.

And so I said to myself that morning, I said, you know,

you feel exactly the same way that you used to feel

when you were on drugs.

And so you need to be sober.

And so I made the decision that morning

that I was gonna be sober and I was gonna stay sober.

And that was, you know, May 27th, 2012.

I had drank that morning.

So it took me a long time to come to AA, unfortunately.

You know, I tried my damnedest to not have to come to AA.

I wanted so badly to be able to do it on my own.

And so I self-willed it.

Man, I white knuckled it and at almost three years sober,

I started having suicidal thoughts.

And so I became suicidal.

I was full of anxiety.

I was having visions of me driving headfirst

into oncoming traffic and I could not get away from myself.

I had absolutely no program whatsoever.

I had no concept of what a higher power was.

I had no knowledge of really looking

at my character defects and what that looks like

to work on them.

I was just riddled with just so much fear.

And, you know, I told you that I've been working

in recovery and treatment for my entire sobriety.

And so I'm really lucky in that sense

because I've always been surrounded

by people that are in recovery.

And you know what?

People that are in recovery are the only people I trust,

honestly, because they tell us how it is, you know?

And we may not always like it,

but it's always right on time.

At least that's been my experience.

And so there is somebody that I really know

and love and admire.

And I went to her and I said,

"I don't know what's going on with me,

but I'm either gonna shoot myself.

I'm going to relapse or I don't know what's gonna happen."

And she said, "You know, well, why don't you try going

to an AA meeting?"

And I said, "Oh yeah, you know, okay, I'll do that.

You know, I'll do that.

That's a great idea."

It didn't even occur to me.

It didn't even dawn on me.

I just, I was out of my mind, you know?

And so I did, I wound up going to a meeting that night

and you know, the guy that was there, he said,

"Well, why don't you go to this meeting?

That's tomorrow night.

There's a lot of women there with great sobriety.

And you know, you'll find a sponsor there."

And I said, "Okay."

And so I went to that meeting that Thursday night

and the first woman that introduced herself to me,

I grabbed onto her and I just didn't let go, you know?

I was so desperate, desperate and dying.

I was literally dying.

And you know, that's how I know I am an alcoholic, you know?

Because I didn't have any solution at all.

And all I was doing was just not drinking or using.

That's all I was doing.

I didn't know how to live.

I didn't know how to live.

I didn't know anything.

I didn't know anything about myself.

You know, it was only through working the program

of Alcoholics Anonymous

that I was able to really learn about myself

and learn what I need to do to take care of my alcoholism.

And so my sponsor, Angela, she, you know,

she had 19 years of sobriety and I wanted what she had.

She was everything I needed, you know?

And I really trust, you know, my higher power immensely

because whenever I've needed something,

as long as I've been open-minded and willing,

my higher power is always provided

and put the right people in my life to just light the way.

And I really do believe

that my higher power shows up through people.

And it's never, he's never not been on time, you know?

And so when she, how much time do I have?

20, okay.

When my sponsor, Angela, you know,

I've always been a slow bloomer, I think, with recovery.

And I've always just been, you know,

I still struggle with defiance today, you know?

It's not as bad as it was, but when my sponsor told me,

you know, well, you know, she took me through,

she took me through the steps and, you know,

step one was really easy for me.

I had no, there was no qualms about me being powerless

and my life being unmanageable because it clearly was.

And it was unmanageable without alcohol, you know?

Without drugs, it was unmanageable.

And so that part was easy.

When we came to step two,

I didn't really have a concept of a higher power

at that time, you know?

And all I really had was what I was exposed to growing up.

And, you know, my grandmother, she was very religious.

And what I remember is I remember her dragging us

is what it seemed like.

She would drag us to church and I remember the pews

and I remember getting up, kneeling down,

getting up, kneeling down.

And that was only my only concept of what God was.

And I honestly, I didn't really want any of that.

And so, you know, thank God for this program

and thank God that we get to create our own concept,

you know, and my sponsor, she sat me down

and she had me do, you know, my old concepts

of what God was.

And then she had me do what I want my concepts

of God and higher power to be.

And, you know, without that, without her doing that with me,

I wouldn't have been able to surrender anything to anyone

because I needed to have a clear understanding

of what my higher power is.

And what I've found over the years

is that the more I grow in recovery,

the more my higher power has grown.

My higher power has started off as one thing

and today it's something completely different,

but with still original parts in there.

And so step two was life-changing for me.

I'm so grateful that I had a sponsor

that knew how to explain things to me.

It was very important because I didn't know

what the hell was going on.

And so step three was then easy

because I worked step two with her

and I had a clear understanding.

Step four was hard.

It was really hard.

I did not want to do the inventory at all.

I didn't want any part of it, you know,

and she would tell me to write stuff down

and I would say, but I don't have any resentments.

She would say, just write it down.

And I would say, but I don't have any resentments.

And she would say, you know what?

I don't care.

I don't care what you think.

I don't care how you feel.

I only care what you do.

And you know, that has stuck with me today.

You know, when she says that,

that has burned a hole in my memory and it doesn't matter.

It only matters what I do, you know?

And I think about that every day.

And so what happened was is I wound up just writing it down.

I did exactly like she told me to do and I wrote it down.

And she spent, you know, when we went through my inventory,

she spent about, it was about 15 hours total, you know,

that came out of that inventory.

Okay, thank you.

It was about 15 hours total

that we spent out of that inventory.

And that, if anybody has not done the inventory,

I cannot tell you how life-changing it is, you know?

It's something that you have to experience for yourself.

And I highly, highly recommend it

because I learned so much about myself in that inventory.

And my, you know, my character defects where they were,

there's just a lot that I had to work on

and there's a lot that I still have to work on today.

And it was just such a great experience doing the inventory.

And I was able to make my amends.

You know, it took me a long time.

I didn't actually start making amends

till I was about probably about six years sober.

It took me a long time to become willing to make amends.

I didn't really talk a whole lot about like my childhood

and what it was like growing up.

But there were a lot of, you know,

there was a lot of things that I had to learn

how to forgive people for what happened to me growing up.

But I was able to do that through the process of the amends.

And I was able to own my part

through the process of the amends.

And that was another incredible experience that I had

as a result of coming to AA and finally surrendering to it.

What it's like today, you know, I have, like I said,

you know, I have a really good relationship

with my higher power, you know,

I've come to rely on my higher power for everything.

I do, you know, I do three meetings a week.

You know, my program has not always been the best,

you know, it's been challenging.

I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous

until I was almost three years sober, you know,

and it's been challenging where I've come and I've gone

and I've come and I've left.

But the one thing remains the same

is that I know where I need to be if I'm struggling,

you know, and I thank God for AA.

So today I've stepped up my meeting attendance,

you know, I'm doing three meetings a week now.

I got a sponsor, a new sponsor out here in San Jose.

You know, that's another thing

it's been challenging out here is because meetings out here,

they're not like meetings back home, you know,

it's different that the sobriety out here is different,

but I have to suck it up and I have to,

I don't wanna lose what I have today, you know,

I work really hard to get to where I am today.

And so I'm surrendering, you know,

each day I surrender a little bit more.

And so I'm doing three meetings a week.

I got a sponsor, we're gonna meet tomorrow.

We're gonna have a conversation, you know,

probably do some step work.

And my relationship with my higher power

is stronger than ever, you know,

I practice a lot of gratitude every day.

I find that gratitude lists help tremendously.

I practice gratitude every day.

And, you know, I ask God to guide my thinking

all throughout the day to help me just to have positive

relationships with people, you know,

I struggle in that area, you know,

I still have a lot of like reactivity towards things

when things don't go my way.

And, you know, that is a work in progress.

And I feel like I'm gonna be working on that

for the rest of my life probably,

but I really try my hardest to just be a decent person,

you know, be a good person.

I don't steal from people anymore,

which is, you know, a huge thing.

And, you know, I just do the best that I can

and help when I can and be there for people when I can

and be there for myself, you know,

I show up for myself today.

There was such a long time where I just didn't care

about myself or what happened to myself.

So if you're here tonight and you haven't done

your inventory, this is my finger telling you, you know,

do it, it's worth it.

It's amazing.

I know it's scary, but I just, I highly recommend it.

So I think that's all I got.

Thank you so much, Scott, for that too soon.

All right, okay.

(indistinct chatter)