Tara's Journey: From Early Drinking to AA Commitment

Can you do my, my name is Tara, I'm an alcoholic.

Hi Josh.

My coffee is very strong, can you hear it?

Okay.

It's like a little weird here tonight.

All right, so I'm Tara, an alcoholic.

I'm a Friday date of 11/30 of 2001.

I have a Spencer, my name is Daphne, I'm a filmmaker.

I'm a singer, I'm a singer.

I love music.

And I want to thank Scott for asking me.

One thing, thank you for your lead, Sean for your lead.

I want to welcome those who identified as being new to the group or to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I hope that you stay.

I hope that you have found what we have found here at the ampoule.

I want to thank Jenna for coming with me, my girl.

She was my, she was my shotgun rider tonight in Orange County.

And my dad told me a long time ago, if you want to sum up service in Alcoholics Anonymous, you can do so in four words and that's get in the car.

And they'd be like, come on Tara, just get in the car.

And I wouldn't even know where I was going.

I'm like, we're going to Reseda.

She's like, where's Reseda?

I'm like, I don't know, let's look at the map, you know.

And she was like, oh, it's next to Calabasas.

It's probably Bougie.

I'm like, nah, we're fine, we're going.

But we were pleasantly surprised when we walked in.

We're like, yay, we came here.

Anyhow, I want to tell you that I love Alcoholics Anonymous.

That's the truest thing that I'll say here tonight is that I'm absolutely just smitten with this program.

Like I have a huge crush on AA and I just, I love what happens in these rooms.

I love watching the lights come on in those around me and the families we've created.

And, you know, it's just, it's just incredible, right, what happens here in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I'm going to tell you tonight in a general way what it was like, what happened and what it's like now.

And what it was like is I grew up in a city in Orange County by the name of Santa Ana.

And for those of you that don't know about Santa Ana, I encourage you never to become acquainted with Santa Ana.

I don't even know how Santa Ana made it into Orange County.

I think it was like a deal with L.A. County.

They're like, we have enough stuff going on.

You guys got to take Santa Ana, right?

And you got to have both kids, too.

But it comes from a long line of alcoholics. My dad was alcoholic.

His dad was alcoholic. I'm German, Irish and Italian.

So I like to drink and I like to fight and have a really bad temper.

Our stories are very similar, minus the whole snowboarding thing.

I'm like literally the most uncoordinated person around.

People are like, "Would you want to ask me?"

I'm like, "Oh, no, my kids begged me not to run in public."

They're like, "You look like a giraffe with cerebral palsy."

So yeah, I like how you describe that feeling.

I was just chronically ill at ease and maladjusted from the gate, right?

Like from birth. I just had these really big emotions always.

I never really knew how to manage them. I felt very deeply.

I was very passionate. I say passionate because I like how it sounds to other people.

It's so crazy. They're like, "She's crazy."

I'm like, "No, it's passionate."

I have an older sister who works for the Garden Grove Police Department.

I have a younger brother who right out of high school did a tour of duty in Iraq.

They both are genius caliber students, like 4.0 students.

They double majored in economics and political science, you know what I mean?

Just a stellar human being all the way around.

I have three kids of my own and if my kids turned out to be like my siblings,

I would have considered myself to be a successful parent.

They're just good people and then there's me.

I'm a carbon copy of my alcoholic father.

I grew up on the street where all the kids my age were boys.

I grew up a tomboy and those boys taught me how to drink, cuss, and fight,

and stick my thumb through a Budweiser beer can and shotgun a beer,

and how to make a pipe out of an apple.

Like important stuff, you know?

I do remember the first time I took a drink I was 13 years old

and it was with the boys on the street and it was at Stacey Parsons' house.

When Stacey Parsons came from a house where a single mom was at work

and we drank there and we drank and we fell down and I had fun

and we broke stuff and I laughed and it was a blast.

And what truly happened that day is I finally felt okay.

Like for the first time that I could recall I finally felt okay.

The playing field was level.

I felt like what any normal person feels on any given Wednesday, right?

It was just I no longer cared about what you thought about me.

Like it was just I finally found that ease and comfort

that comes at once by taking that drink.

For me it just progressed really rapidly.

I never drank in moderation.

I never tried to.

I never wanted to.

Like I hate the feeling of buzz.

It's irritating.

Like even talking about it irritates me today.

Like I don't ever want to be slightly intoxicated.

I don't understand the point.

It's like it's like bad sex really.

It's like I don't I mean like if that's all you got, I'll take it.

But like that's not what I want ever, you know?

And it was always for total oblivion, right?

It was always for complete annihilation.

And it just progressed really rapidly for me.

I too did, you know, copious amounts of narcotics.

And here's the thing.

Like I said, I love alcohol economists.

And had I known, right, at 13 years of age

when that marijuana cigarette was handed to me

that I'd be speaking from the quality of life meeting in Reseda,

30 years later, I would have politely declined.

I'd have been like, no, I need to maintain a signal of purpose

and alcohol as anonymous.

But I could not foresee that, right?

And so I was like, yes, I would like that.

And that was my response.

There was never a substance presented to me in my life

where I was like, oh, no, I just don't think I could.

I was like, yes, absolutely.

Do you want that?

For sure I want that.

There was never that precautionary measure

that perhaps the normal person displays in those instances

where they're like, what is it?

You know?

I didn't care.

And so just it progressed really rapidly for me.

And I became physically dependent on alcohol and drugs.

And by the time I was 15, I had a fake ID.

And my name was Lisa Simpson.

Yeah.

And in the book, I like when Bill talks about like I had a ride.

Right?

Like that was it.

When I got that fake ID and I was going to bars and nightclubs

and I found this group of people that like in this punk rock scene

who like hated the same way I hated probably the same way you hated.

We just hated the thing to do.

I don't know.

The thing to do.

Like I have a propensity towards violence and a huge problem with anger.

And I would -- I'll just give you a brief synopsis

of like what an average night of drinking with Tara was like.

And it would be showing up to the Dybeus Dive Bar in Costa Mesa.

And I would show up already drunk because we called that pre-gaming.

And because I wasn't going to spend my money on narcotics inside the bar,

I allocated for, you know, my funds.

I was budgeting, you know.

And so I'd be drunk by the time I got there.

I'd be with some random dude.

And the guy at the -- the bouncer at the bar, his name was Paul Taylor.

And he would give me a pep talk when I arrived.

Right?

Like there might be something to take a look at when you're 15 years old.

Your name is Lisa Simpson.

And Paul Taylor is giving you a pep talk, right,

at the Grimiest Dive Bar in Costa Mesa about how to behave.

Right?

And so he's like, "Tara, can you just make it through to the headlining ban

before I have to drag you out in a headlock?

Can you just maintain?"

You know?

And I was like, "Whatever do you mean?"

You know?

And so I have this problem when I drink and it's called my mouth.

I'm the girl at the bar and I'm like, "You got something to say to me?

You're going to say it to him."

The whole bar wants to beat you up.

I'm drug out in headlock again and I have the signature move.

And it's -- I like to jump out of the vehicle after the bar is closed.

Right?

It's just like people like us and the cops out.

That's it.

That's the only people that are out at that hour.

And I like to jump out of the vehicle, fight with the dude,

and like rip the windshield wipers off and smash the windshield and, you know,

just real like delightful type of things like that.

I love what the book talks about.

Like I'm a very unlovely creature in my cuffs.

And he's like, "Get back in the car."

And I'm like -- now I'm in the middle of the intersection.

And he's like, "Get back in the car.

I'm on parole.

I'm going to get back to prison."

I'm like, "Go, bye, go."

You know?

I've already been talking to your homeboy for three weeks.

Go.

And that's my dating demographic.

I date convicts.

It's like a revolving door, right?

When this one's coming out, this one's going back.

It's really convenient.

You know?

It's convenient.

And I hang out outside the parole department in Santa Ana.

It's like a hometown buffet.

That's what it was like.

That's exactly what it was like.

And it just progressed really rapidly.

And I ended up on the streets, on the boulevard.

There was nothing that I wouldn't do for that next drink.

Nothing at all.

And I devastated the lives of everybody that came in contact with me.

My loving parents, they were woken up by little firearms to their head

because they were looking for me out there.

The sheriff's department in Orange County

kicked open the door on two separate occasions

Because I'm a nightmare. That's why. And I don't generally show up for court. But moreover, I was in hotels, I was selling drugs, I loved the criminality of it all, and running around with guns and drugs and lots of hymns.

And I was dying, is the truth of the matter. I was drinking, and I was drinking, and I was dying, and I was dying, and I couldn't stop, and I couldn't stop, and I couldn't stop. And I came to a place where the strongest desire to solve was absolutely no.

And I remember in the end, I would just pray, "God, please just kill me in my sleep so I don't have to wake up and live another single solitary day. Just leave."

I just so desperately wanted it to stop, and I couldn't. I could not stop.

And the insanity of alcoholism is that when I was parked up—I wasn't a very smart criminal, by the way—but the insanity of the disease is that the next time I was parked up along a block wall with two hymns that I loved last week who were going to get what I owed them this week, I'd be like, "God, please just get me through this one. Just get me through this one now and then."

And the first time I tried to get sober, I was 21, and I didn't obtain permanence right until I was 25. My first treatment center was in South Orange County, and it was at this place called Casa del Cerro. It was in like 1998, I think it was, and my dad had already had like 10 years in this program by that time, but his alcoholism looked much different than mine, right?

And so he put me in contact with this dude, Jeff H., and he was my escrow, and he was the first person to talk to me about the disease of alcoholism, to tell me about my disease. And he had a message that held depth and weight, and I went into treatment, and I was broken.

I was very, very sick. I didn't sleep for like 30 days, like literally not even a minute, and the H&I panels would come in, and they talk about working the 12 steps and finding a higher power and helping still suffering alcoholic and going to meetings and, you know, all the things that you hear in meetings.

And I think, wow, this program is really great, you know, for somebody like you who really needs it, you know what I mean? But like, what's it going to take for me? You know, because I just kind of, I just thought that I was like, I could do it on my own, I could do things differently.

Like I was going to be successful where you people had failed, right? That was my ego. And I didn't finish my treatment there. This guy came in with tattoos on his face, and that was it, right?

And he had a backpack and like a skateboard, you know, and I was done. And it was a really nice backpack though. Like it wasn't just, it was a nice backpack. But I don't know if it was a nice backpack.

So anyhow, so from there on, it was four years of just going in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out of alcoholics. It was just chronic as they come, never put together more than 45 days in that four year period.

I picked up a lot of chips for more than 45 days, but never really had like more than 45 days. And I had had a lot of really horrific, tragic, heartbreaking experiences running the streets of Santa Ana, but by far the most painful times of my life was going in and out, in and out, in and out of alcoholics on this.

Because what it would do is just reconfirm to me what I already knew it was you really are, you really are just a piece of you know what Tara, like you don't deserve to be sober here. I like I just felt like I was past the point of redemption, I was past the point of God's love, and that I was going to die cold and alone in an alley in Santa Ana.

And I, and again in Bill's story when he references like I knew it, and I welcomed the idea, right and I knew it, I knew it, everybody who knew me knew it, my parents were resigned to the fact that they'd be identifying my body one day, and I knew it, and I welcomed the idea, and I'm forever grateful for God's grace and mercy was better than how my story had to end.

Because that should have, it should have happened that way. So just, I just kind of have this idea that like we have this preordained destiny right you're going to be a doctor and you're going to be a pilot, you're going to be a nurse I just like I just thought that like God had bounced that alcoholics hooker card off of my head.

And he's like, that's what you get chit, like, you know what that, you know, see how you do. And, and, you know, that's not what happened, right, because of, because of you people I found my purpose, right, I found my purpose like I was never really good at anything, you know what I mean like I told you I'm like not athletically inclined, like my best art is like six figure battlefield you know I'm just not, I wasn't like super super I didn't have like any talents, necessarily, and you people showed me what my spiritual gift is and.

And today like, I really wanted to play the violin, but I couldn't. And today I know what that is and I have an endless capacity to love people and I guess I'll take the endless capacity to love right it would be cool to play the violin but I guess I'll take like that but anyhow.

So I, what happened is after like just years of torment and torture. I was desperate, and I was beaten and I was broken, and I was so sick and tired, and I've met some fine people in these rooms, even though I couldn't stay for years at a time, very important in that statement

is that I never worked for 12 steps during those four years the very first time that I worked at 12 steps in order with the sponsor that had a working knowledge of the big book of alcoholics honest I've been sober ever since so it could be some like weird freakish

coincidence right like oh my god that's so weird like you work, you work the 12 steps in the 12 step recovery program and you stay sober like that's crazy. And, and it was crazy because that literally escaped me for years, and on Thanksgiving day of 2001 I called

another member of alcoholics anonymous up and he came and picked me up on the curb in Santa Ana, because that's where I frequently the curb, I hang out on the curb. I don't generally wear shoes I walk barefoot and I hang out on the curb, and actually, I wore a sheet for an entire year one time.

I don't know why I just didn't get dressed for like a year, and it was an IV sheets I recall, and I would go like get alcohol in it just a sheet is weird time but anyhow, I called another member of alcoholics on my stuff and you can pick me up.

It was like okay I'll take you to detox Kara but like you don't have anything on you right because I'm on parole, because that's what I call, and I was like offended that he would accuse a woman of such high moral fabric right like I such a thing like alcohol and detox like who does that right like me I do right like I that's what I do, and, and sure enough I had, you know, alcohol on me, and on my way to detox.

I said this prayer to describe that I rejected, and I said, if you help me, dear God if you help me just the very last time I promise that I'll tell other people that you've done, and I went into detox and I drink, because I had to.

And my last drink was at Stanton detox in the bathroom. And from there I went to a 90 day treatment center in the city of Fullerton, and it was no different from previous times, but I was just, I was given the gift of desperation and.

And like I said, I was just alcohol like I love that book talks, it was like this rapacious predator bleeds me everything just just chewed me up and beat me so viciously that I was finally willing.

That's what happened into a state of willingness.

And I should thank God for that because from that willingness came action from that action came permanent recovery, and I got a sponsor when I was at that treatment center and her name was Lily, and what Lily brought to me was hope and emotional talking to her

because that woman literally had the most profound impact on my life. She led me to God and alcohol and she told me to don't look for God, you just work the 12 steps and God's gonna find you.

And she told me that her role was to gently lead me to God, and nothing more. She wasn't gonna tell me who to sleep with, where to live, what to do. She was going to show me how to work through the 12 steps, have textbook recovery, and find a God that could solve my alcohol problem.

It was like low bottom indigent recovery, which was perfect for me because I was low bottom indigent drunk, and they weren't, they didn't sugarcoat recovery, they're like, Tara, you need to work the steps or die. Those are your choices, right? You need to work the steps or die.

And I couldn't die, I'd already tried that. And so I started out going through the work in the book with Lily and Lily told me it didn't matter where I had been, what I had done, who I had hurt, how many times I have tried this, that I had a chance here in Alcoholics Mountains to maintain permanent sobriety.

And I was so grateful for that, you know, and she had me read the text at Promises where it talked about being safe and protected, and talked about being in a state of neutrality. That really hit me because it had been so long since I have felt safe and protected. And I wanted that, right? And I wanted that so desperately.

I started working the 12 steps and Lily would come and translate that Latin written book into the language of the heart, you know, thank God for me that she didn't tell me read the first 164 pages to call me like she sat down and read the book with me and I'm grateful for that because I don't think I would have done it, you know, on my own otherwise.

She got me involved very early on in a prayer regimen and morning ritual, very early on in meetings with the fellowship. She just really like paved the way for me here in Alcoholics Mountains, got me involved in service.

I did this inventory process with her and I remember, like, I have like, I don't even know how many if I met you, I hated you like there was something that you had done to deviate from the set schedule and how you needed to treat Tara like I could treat you any which way, but like you definitely have to treat me in a certain form or fashion, or like you made it onto the list right you went into the hate bag.

And if you made it into the hate bag you never came out of the hate bag that's where you shall live and dwell for all of each other, right, it's like that, like you don't come back, you know, and, and so I have this ridiculously long inventory with Lily and at the end she was like Tara have you admitted anything and there's like that one thing where I was like, like I can't tell her this like what if I go back to jail and like like she tells the homegirls like what's going to happen to me you know and.

And so I told Lily that thing and she was like Tara I've done that too and I was like, you sick bitch, you're just touching me, like how are you going to have fun for me, like, you should probably leave my sober living right now I'm so offended, you know, and, but what really truly happened that day is I began to trust another woman in alcoholics on this, and the beauty of that step is the most liberating thing that I had done, and the slate was clean.

After that right I no longer had to be that woman that was written down on those pages and frankly I never wanted to be, you know, but the drugs and the alcohol were dictating my every single move, the alcohol determined who I was going to be where I was going to go who I associated with how I conducted myself right, I don't really have a choice in the matter.

So, I, I continued on in the work and, you know, I just I sit before you a demonstration of how God could change the human heart, nothing more, like I'm just a run of the mill drunk. I've done everything wrong and alcoholics anonymous and you could possibly imagine I kicked indoors at seven years sober.

Right. I sponsored a woman who was like, excuse my language she was like bitch come get some and I was like, yes, I think I will, I will come and get some like I don't even know what some is but I'm coming for it.

Today, I don't sponsor anymore but anyhow, I continued on in this work and I come from a good line of sponsorship, you know, and I started making amends, and I sat down with my mom and dad my dad has like double digit sobriety my mom has about the same time.

That's, I forgot that part like when I went to treatment for my first time it's because my mom started going to Allen right, and she came home with these absurd ideas. And she was like, I'm going to detach with love we can't watch you kill yourself and I was like, you need to not go back to those ever.

Is what you need to do, right like what are you talking about I'm your daughter like who am I going to steal from it real. And, and so I sat down with my mom and dad, and my dad was a long time in the program he's like we don't want you to be sober.

Hey, this is great, you know, this is great, and my mom had like an itemized invoice of everything I had ever done since birth, you know, I can go down on wood and I told Lily like Lily's like what are you going to do, and I'm like what do you mean they just want me to stay sober.

She's like, Oh no. Oh no that's not what you're gonna do Tara, you know, and I made amends to them I paid them back I fixed the door I didn't fix the door the door was already fixed but like I made amends you know and I paid them back.

And, you know, I stole from them, everything that I could get my hands on out of their house. My dad sent me out a restraining order on the funny story I was like speaking from the meeting one night.

I was like my parents had a restraining order on me and then after the meeting my dad was like, we really didn't we just told you that.

It didn't stop me anyhow I just go through the window or whatever but anyhow, I started doing H&I work at one year sober I started general service at two years sober. I became the director of H&I Orange County, I became DCMC for the district.

I mean all these things I was doing with my dad. The point is I was doing this with my dad right he was like showing me about service in AA, and I remember calling him at like nine months sober, and I was in sober living right and it was a very slow process for me like I didn't have

a driver's license was 18 months over like did California was not playing with me, and I didn't have a car so I was like two years sober. I recall my dad like nine months, the girls in the sober living were like getting things, you know, I wasn't right I was not like they were getting

boyfriends like I couldn't get to talk to me. I was literally feral is what it was, I was barely housebroken.

They're getting like cars and like bank accounts and things like that you know and, and the people women were like, Tara, don't leave before the miracle happened, don't leave before the miracle happens and I was like, and I remember calling my dad and I was like,

you know what, like, where's mine right like where's my miracle what's the miracle, you know, because I'm primarily concerned with me, and he was like Tara do you want to know what the miracle is and alcoholics on this is, and I was like, Oh, okay, like he's gonna tell me some like

Jedi secret or something, and he was like the miracle is that you've been afforded a couple of days in a row in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous to watch the miracle happen in the life of others, and I was like, I don't care about Gail and my sober

living probably slams the drawers and the dresser in the morning specifically a piss me off. You know, I do not give a shit. You know what about Gail, you know, and I'm here to tell you that's the miracle of alcoholics on this is that I've been afforded a couple

days in the groups watch the miracles happen like others, and because of this program. And you know find people like you I was able to my dad and I were just like best friends we were doing this program for years we're going to Chino State Prison we're going

to St. Louis State Prison we're going into Orange County Jail we're doing like psych units and Norwalk and all these places were just like thick as thieves together like peas and carrots in the rooms, you know, and he became very ill.

A nine years ago next month, and he got cancer, and you people taught me how to act better than I feel, and you people taught me how to trade my feet and you people taught me how to show up, and I would go over there every day on my lunch from this big girl job

that I got at a law firm and, and I would show up there and beauty of this program is that when he took his last breath, I was there with them and there was nothing left unsaid, I mean I don't even get emotional about it because it was so beautiful

there was nothing left unsaid. There was nothing like, oh I wish I could have been this or I wish I would have been that I wish I was a different daughter I wish things could have been different.

It was so beautiful and so divine that what this program had done for our family, you know what this program had done for our family, and if I lived two lifetimes over I would not be able to repay the debt that I had to alcoholics and artists for those types

of moments right for those types of things, and, and that's just like one of them, you know, well it's like today is, I have these, I have this big, bad, beautiful, amazing life that never ever ever should have been afforded to me, ever, ever, you know,

I have this so trippy like the career I have is so there's just no way that you could look at this like alcoholic hooker from Santa Ana, and look at the woman that I am today and deny that God had to have this kind of next I should not have the life that I have

today. I absolutely shouldn't, because of, but because of this beautiful program like find people like you strong sponsorship, and more than anything else like God, God's tender mercy and his grace.

I have this incredible life you know and it's so full. I've got too many. I've got too many commitments. I've got too many sponsors, not your God, you know too many meetings are too many kids I got too many men I got too much, you know, my life is full.

And, and I love it, I love it so much you know, I have these three beautiful children that have never seen me drunk or loaded, and it's an absolute gift that my son was accepted to like the number one baseball school in the nation he's like a baseball player,

my heart just like explodes with pride, you know, I can tell you that there's been some hard days that I've walked through an Alcoholics Anonymous you know I didn't get sober, everything's just been perfect, you know, that's not my story I know that that might be somebody's

but that's not mine like I said I walked through that my father and my very best friend the whole wide world. Two years ago on St. Patrick's Day died in the back of a van and outside of the detox while waiting to get it.

Yeah, I got that call. There's been some hard things that have happened here, but there's also been some amazing incredible define things that have happened here and you hear about like I wouldn't trade my best day loaded for my worst day so replacing that right coffee, I don't know, but you guys get it.

But it's true, you know, it's absolutely true and I remember telling Lily, very early on like, look, Lil unless God comes down from the heavens above and what's the desire to drink out of me, like, it's just not going to work for somebody like me, and that will

make her precisely look like. And I was like this poor woman believes that you know and I'm here to tell you that's precisely what happened somewhere along the lines of work in the 12 steps I had a psychic change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism.

I love where it says in the book like we have a solution here and Alcoholics Anonymous we do we have a solution. It says there's a whole chapter on it right. But it says right in the book we have a solution and the very next sentence is that not one of you're gonna like it.

Not one of you're gonna like the self searching leveling of our private confession of shortcoming. Right. And I never liked that, you know, I never showed up on my sponsors porch and was like, I'd really like to do another searching imperialist moral inventory.

That sounds amazing. You know, it's um, it's pain, you know it pain is such a great motivator for me, I'm like a chronic spiritual relapse or right things don't get really good in my life and I was like, get away from God and I'm like, I'm in so much pain, you know, I wish I could just, I don't know 20 years over I'm still like facilitate just like I just want to be like on that steady path with God you know just I just want to stay on it right I've gotten better.

I'm not kicking anybody's doors or anything like that. But, you know, I was talking to John on the way up and it's like, what I know today like what I have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual growth and I'm just forever grateful for this program and people like you who showed me how to do this thing you know and today like I co parent with my ex as well, he's my very best friend in the whole entire world.

We go on vacations together. It's strange, because I'm the girl who like pulls women out of the bed of my ex boyfriend's house, like two years after we break up, you know, like crazy stuff, and it's just incredible what this program has done for my life and my family if you're, if you're new.

I just encourage you to stay right if you haven't found the same comfort that I found here and I'll tell you this and I'm done. I remember I just, I always wanted that relief that came at once by taking that drink I just needed some relief right I would try and bang for so many years just to get that relief, without the consequences right I just wanted that relief without the constant relief without the consequences and I found that relief.

spiritual needs. Finally, and it's not like it doesn't it's not, it doesn't waver unless I waver right and I'm very glad that I'm here tonight. Thank you again for having me.