Seeking Acceptance: From Colombian Roots to Alcohol Dependence

Um, just a little nervous.

Uh, thank you, Karen, for asking me to speak.

Thank you, Nate, for welcoming me here.

I've never had such a welcome before like that.

Thank you, Ben, for adding time to my speech.

Um, wow.

So let's start with, let's start.

Um, I was born in Columbia, South America, two American standards.

I was born to a lower middle-class family, two Colombian standards.

I was born to a, an upper lower-class family.

Um, everything was fun.

I mean, I, I loved, I loved to share about your, your childhood.

You know, I, it's just a great childhood, humble beginnings.

Uh, in Columbia, if you're, if you are familiar with the Latin, uh, with the

Latin culture, they give you as a, whenever you're hot, whenever you go to

hot climate, they give you a beer and soda.

Are you Colombian?

Oh, okay. So, so they, they give you this, this, this mix just to cure your thirst.

Somewhere in there.

I loved it.

Right.

So, uh, I was, I was raised there.

I remember you're saying I was raised Catholic.

So, you know, we used to, we used to go have fun, uh, drink the, the, the, the

mixture that whenever we would go to a hot climate, all of a sudden, um, I was

invited to a wedding with my sisters and my, my aunt, I remember my aunt taking us.

I was seven years old and all I wanted to do was be accepted, accepted by my family,

accepted by my cousins, accepted by everyone, everyone around me.

So I decided to prove to them that I could drink like a man at seven years old.

I decided to, Oh, by the way, welcome to everyone who said they're new.

Yes, it's great.

You're in the right place.

And so, um, I got wasted on rum and Cokes.

You know, I remember this room spinning, everything was spinning, but the most

important part out of that, I was invited to go play baseball at this empty airstrip.

It was so awesome that if you hit a home run, the ball will go over

this mountain and you lose it.

It was the coolest thing in the world.

I don't know how I, all I wanted to do was be invited.

And sure enough, because I felt, because I got drunk, I got invited.

So I kept going, you know, life kept going.

It was, it was, this is, that's a really important part of my life.

As life kept going, uh, we moved to America to Los Angeles and I did

not know the English language.

So, uh, my method of communication was through sports.

I played a lot of soccer when I was in Columbia.

Actually, I was practicing with the minor leagues of a professional

soccer team when I was young.

And so I played soccer in high school.

I played tennis in high school and all of a sudden I was accepted by the, what

I called the cool crowd in my mind.

The jocks, you know, the, the guys who would get all the attention.

And, um, as they began to, to include me in things, we began at right around 15.

I started smoking pot, you know, and then it's just toast all

because I wanted to be accepted.

Well, that was it.

I just wasn't.

So I was accepted.

Then we started drinking.

I remember, um, we used to ride, I had a, I don't know if you know this,

there's a bike called the Strand Cruiser.

And then we used to carry people in the front and there's pegs in the back and

used to ride everybody and we used to drink and zigzag our way through places

and parties and all that fun stuff.

As time went by, um, I can, you know, I, I, my parents used to buy me out a beer

so I could hang out with my, with my friends, but then a college came and I

went to a junior college in Torrance in California called El Camino College.

And, um, once again, the cool crowd were now the good looking people.

And I wanted to hang out with them and I wanted to be with them.

I want to be like them.

I wanted to have everything that came their way, you know, and, um, and there

was a fashion show that we were, I was asked to be a part of with all the, this

great looking people, all the crowds.

But little did I know, prior to the fashion show, there were, there

was champagne and there was cocaine.

So that was my first time, whatever I do, I wanted to, I want to be accepted.

And so they accepted me with open arms and then things went on, things went on.

I continue to drink.

And, um, one of my favorite things to do, my tis that I just love to do is dance.

So I used to love to get drunk right before it, right outside of the

nightclub and go dance all night long.

Or do drugs right before the nightclub and go dance all night long.

And, uh, that went on.

I mean, I used to go to Hollywood pretty much every single night.

There was a nightclub that I attended every single night and all because I

was, I was having, I wanted to have fun and I was having a great time.

And I tell you, it was some of the best times of my life.

I absolutely love the music from the eighties and I danced to

the eighties and all the fun stuff.

And so every night I would go and meet and I would drive by myself and meet new

people and hang out with new people.

And all of a sudden alcohol gave me the security that I didn't have before.

Alcohol somehow accepted me.

And now I'm best buddies with alcohol.

Somewhere in my twenties, somewhere between 23 and 25, I crossed with the

book, talks about the mental blind spot.

I went from having fun, wanting alcohol, you know, just drinking, having a

great time to all of a sudden needing alcohol, I now needed alcohol to be able

to go to places I had to, I needed to drink before I even left my plate.

My, my place where I lived, I lived with my family at that time and then more

drugs came about and all of a sudden I remember dating, I was not, my, my, my

relationship behavior itself, it's of alley cat status.

I never had a monogamous relationship until maybe once when I was young and,

and until I met my wife, which you'll get to hear a little bit in the meantime,

I just floated around relationships.

I've always thought the grass was greener on the other side.

And I always thought I could find bigger, better the whole thing.

Um, so I remember this one lady who I was dating and she introduced me to meth,

crystal meth, and, um, and then all of a sudden I thought that that was

like the best thing I've ever had.

It was, I was able to talk, like I could never talk, nonstop drinking.

I was able to control my drinking with this stuff.

And then all of a sudden again, it had me, it had me.

I needed to have it.

And not only did I need to have it, I began the cycle of the, the, the hamster

wheel in which I needed to, I needed more to be able to work longer hours, to make

more money, to be able to buy more stuff, to work longer hours, to make, to make

more money, et cetera.

And it was just an hamster wheel that would not stop.

Um, my, uh, as I, I, I'll come back to that in a minute as, as I went through

this, um, I must've been nervous because I forgot to tell you my sobriety date is

May 18th, 1998.

I do have a sponsor and my home group is, um, and my home is the Denver

group of Redonda Beach.

So the hamster wheel, all of a sudden I needed to do all those things.

Then, uh, in 1997, March 17th, 1997, my mom passed away and I plunged.

During that, um, during that time, I, at that time, my, my trade, I'm a

tennis pro by trade and I began to, um, to drink and use every single day.

I would have either a quarter ounce of Coke or have like a bunch of drugs and

two bottles of wine, 12 beers, half a bottle of Jack every single night for

the next year or the next year.

Uh, I knew I was killing myself, but I, I couldn't stop.

I remember I dated a girl who introduced me to AA, but that was very brief.

And what happened on May 17th?

Well, here's what happened.

I had an apartment, everything I ever wanted.

I had an apartment by the beach.

It was beautiful, but I lived homeless.

I had not paid rent in three months.

I was wearing my clothes inside out.

I had no electricity.

The only thing I had was a phone.

I had the car, the beautiful sports car.

I crashed it.

I used to pray.

I used to pray.

I used to remember, I'll never forget this.

I used to go to church and sit again on my knees and pray.

Dear God, please send me a lady who has blue eyes.

It was a burn ahead.

And who is, who has a lot, who drives a BMW and who has a lot of money.

And guess what?

She came, she came.

It was the most unhealthy relationship of my life.

But at that time I was dating her, was dating her.

And, um, and she thought that during that time she thought I was

bipolar because she didn't know my drug, my drug and alcohol abuse.

So I began to hallucinate.

I used to think all my neighbors were DEA agents.

I used to tiptoe across the hallway to go to the bathroom and take me

like half an hour to get to the bathroom from here to there.

Okay.

It was hilarious.

Not now that I can think about it.

It's just that I was so freaked out.

Um, May 17th.

And then I began to go and, and, and spend nights at hotels, local hotels,

because I was so afraid of staying, staying at my house.

And I remember one night, one day, May 17th, 1998, um, one year

after my mom passed away, I was driving and back to my apartment where

I had not paid rent for three months.

I was literally in my own homeless way.

And I chose for sure.

I was going to get pulled over somehow by the grace of God.

I made it home fully clothed.

I got on my knees in the shower, turn on the shower and pleaded to

God to please help struck sober.

Somehow I got up and ever since I didn't by the grace of God, I didn't

have to go through a rehab center or anything like that, I was struck sober.

But what happened prior to that now, I said, I will back up a little bit.

Um, so I mentioned to you, I was a tennis pro by trade.

Some of you know, a guy named John McEnroe.

I remember I was at, I was, I was given the opportunity

to hang out with him one night.

And what got me to start drinking Jack and Coke was he loved Jack and Coke.

So we, I remember as being on a huge table, he used to order 12 at a time.

And I'm going to Johnny Mac can't do it.

So can I, so that's what got me to start drinking Jack.

And that's what got me to my very, very, very bottom, not knowing that I was numbing

my feelings about my mom's death and all, and she was my best friend.

And I didn't know any of this.

I didn't know any, any of what I was doing.

I didn't even know I was an alcoholic, but all I know is that I prayed to

God to please help me and he helped me.

I started going to meetings as far away from my lived as far away from my work,

because I was so afraid somebody from work, one of my students, one of my

students, parents, somebody, somebody was going to see me and I was, my job was history.

So I remember going to meetings all the way in Marine Del Rey, all over the place.

And then the very first time I decided to go to a meeting in Manhattan

beach, which is the town that I worked and lived at the time.

Sure enough, there was a member, member of the club sitting right there.

And so I asked him and I, and I began, I began my journey through the meetings,

through another, another fellowship.

And so he, I asked him, he would start talking and asked him to be my sponsor.

He took me through the work.

And, um, and then we were, I was stuck on the fourth step.

I was stuck in the third step, actually.

He said, do you believe in it?

Do you believe that your power is over over drugs and alcohol?

Yes.

Do you believe in a pirate?

Yes.

Cause I was raised Catholic and I'll do, are you willing to turn

your will you have your life over?

Yes.

But I didn't know what any of that.

So I was stuck.

What I did that first year though, that I believe it was, it was extremely helpful.

I made coffee for that meeting.

So it got me to be on time every single week, every Wednesday at six 30, I had

to be there to make coffee for this meeting and by the grace of God again,

somehow I didn't drink, I didn't use.

And then he said to me, well, maybe you got to try AA.

And I said, okay, I was willing to take direction.

I went to my first AA meeting.

It was behind this cafe on this little church.

And then someone was speaking on the 11th step and I was bawling

the lines out, crying like a baby.

And then I went out and then the meeting was over and I went outside

and I met this gentleman right here.

And John and John asked me, Hey, are you an alcoholic?

And I go, of course I am.

He goes, what makes you an alcoholic?

I said, I don't know.

And then he said, well, there is a workshop happening up in

Palos Verdes up in the Hill.

That starts next week.

And I'm going, okay.

So he goes, if you want to go with you, I said, okay.

So then we met, remember you driving, we're talking about his car before

he's driving, that's the car we took, remember that, the Mustang.

And then, um, and so we went, sat in this big group.

There were about 50, 60, 70 people, you know, and the gentleman who let

it start talking about sobriety, meeting ended, we go back down the Hill.

John takes me over to my car and he says, do you like the meeting?

I say, yes, you're going to go.

And I say, yes.

He goes, okay, now you're on your own.

And I'm like, how can I be?

I've never done something.

So, so then I started going through the steps.

Um, then little by little, I began to, to learn and understand who I really

am and what makes me who I am.

So I am an alcoholic and I will forever be an alcoholic.

And what does that mean?

You know, it's just like, I didn't know at the time.

No, I can tell you what that means for me.

It means that no matter how many times I tell myself, I'm not going to drink.

I always end up drinking or drugging.

No matter how many times I put the first drink in my mouth, I can't stop.

And that if I, when I run my life on my will, I screw everything up.

I destroy relationships.

I walk over people.

I jumped from relationship to relationship.

And this is a good time for me to go back a little bit to what happened.

So remember that hamster wheel?

I remember before the hamster wheel, I used to drink on Friday night, Saturday

night, get up every Sunday morning and say, I will never do that again.

And then I would wait until next Friday night.

Cool.

I made it right.

Friday night, Saturday night, get up Sunday morning.

I will never do that again.

And all of a sudden Thursday nights began a fun, fun place to go, fun things to do.

And it was like, I went Thursday, Friday, Saturday, get up Sunday morning.

I will never do that again.

And then all of a sudden, I remember this one nightclub open on Sunday night.

12th street.

I remember that.

You remember 12th street?

So on the night was it happening?

So Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday, Monday morning.

Oh my God.

How can I do it?

Eh, and I'll never do that again.

Guess what?

Next Thursday night, somebody called, yeah, let's go.

Then all of a sudden I realized that Wednesday night splits the week really

nicely, so why not start on Wednesday?

And in no time I was going every night, every night, every night, every night.

And that's when the hamster wheel just continued and it got bigger and bigger

and faster and faster and faster.

And I was working to make more money, to be able to stay up longer, to be able

to, uh, or sometimes work more, to be able to make more money, to be able to

buy more drugs and alcohol and all of that just continued.

And that's what got me to, to my point of desperation, which is that, which

is the time when I got on my knees and I pray to God to please help me.

So if you're suffering or if you ever know someone who is suffering, please

always, I pray that you get the gift of desperation and if whoever, if you

know someone who is suffering, please pray that they get the gift of

desperation, because that's what got me to get on my knees and completely

really surrender to God.

It wasn't even God at the time.

Cause by then I had already lost the, the, my thought of God.

I lost my faith in the church.

I remember I used to, I used to sell drugs for a period of time.

And I remember one day I felt so guilty.

I took her to the church and I said to the priest, what do I do with the money?

He goes, in the back of the church, there's a little box.

You can put it over there.

And I'm going like, what the heck?

He's going to take drug money.

And then, and then I lost, I'm going like, it's over.

My, my feeling for God was over.

So I came in as an agnostic, but yet my very first step was

not about being agnostic.

It was about, it was about knowing and understanding who I am.

So I had to write examples of how many times did I tell myself I wasn't going

to drink and I always end up drinking.

And I mentioned some of you, I had to write examples of how many

times did I pick up a drink?

Did I have a drink and I couldn't stop.

I remember at the very end, I was having to drink before I went to work.

Just to be able to take my jitters out and then recognizing page 52.

Do you have a big book?

No.

Okay.

Page 52.

That'd be, um, ah, look at this, and God, I grabbed my glasses.

Uh, okay.

Page 52.

So I was asked to ask, to ask this for myself.

I was asked to turn this into present tense and I form.

I have to ask myself why I shouldn't apply my human problems, the same

readiness to change my point of view.

I am having trouble with relate personal relationships.

Oh yeah.

Check.

I can't control my emotional natures.

Remember my girlfriend?

She thought I was bipolar.

Okay.

Um, uh, I w I am a prey to misery and depression or me or me another dream.

I can make a living.

And my sponsor asked me to say nice, just put it down.

That is satisfactory to me.

Check.

I was always complaining.

Why is everybody else making more money than me?

And I didn't ever realize that at least I had a job.

It was a well-paid job.

I had, I worked at a very reputable country club, but that wasn't enough for me.

I have a feeling of uselessness.

100%.

I am full of fear.

Fear was my middle name.

I'm telling you everything.

Remember, but tippy toe, I am unhappy.

I can't seem to be a real, real help to other people.

So that came.

Oh, like my sponsor always said is if you were to answer yes to one of those,

guess what you're at, you're running your life on your own will.

Then we got to to look at the second step.

And the second step calls came to believe in a power that greater than myself.

Remember, I had already got right.

But I was willing to believe and I was willing to to have an experience.

And little by little, my sponsor asked me to lean into the process.

And as I leaned into the process, I began.

I went from willing to believe to coming to believe.

Then I went into the third step.

Am I willing to give my life and my and my and became willing to give it a blow?

How does this first step go here?

Made a decision, made a decision.

It's a it's a thank you.

So step two is about willingness.

Step three is about action.

What's the action?

Making a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God.

My will was explain everything I have in my life, everything I want.

Am I willing to give everything to God?

And I remember this lady.

Your name is Kathy?

No, Kathy Unger.

Oh, yeah.

She sat me down.

She goes, Nick, can you grow hair?

And I said, no, I can't.

He goes, show me what it looks like to grow hair.

OK, so then she goes, do you have power?

I said, I have no power.

She goes, so now are you willing to turn everything over to the care of God?

So that means if God wants you to be a Hare Krishna, go to the airport and start singing.

Are you willing to do it?

I go, no, I'm not.

So so then I had to pray one more time.

I had to pray for their willingness to be willing to give everything away.

One more time, I get reminded through every state that every step that I work that I am powerless.

I have no power, but there is one that has all the power and that one is God.

Now, I have to OK, so I'll share a quick story with you.

I was in the third step.

You know that I'm a tennis pro.

There's a tennis tournament in France called the French Open.

They make special balls for this tournament and no one can get them unless you're a player, unless you're a coach, unless you're actually in the tournament.

This was during Memorial Day of 1999.

Yeah, this is Memorial Day of 1999.

I was I was sitting doing my work, my AA work, my my workshop work, looking at watching the tennis on TV.

And I was going, God, it would be nice to have one of those balls.

It would be nice to have one of those balls.

And then I go back to my work.

And then, God, do you really exist?

You know, are you really out there?

I would love for you to show me that you do exist because I don't believe.

But it'd be really nice to have one of those balls.

You know, so I went through the whole weekend, the whole Memorial Day.

So I go to work on Monday and my card is locked because kids get to it and start stealing balls.

I open my card, I'm feeding, I'm teaching ball, I'm teaching as client.

And all of a sudden, what do I find?

The ball, Roland Garros, the French Open ball.

I should have brought it because I have it.

So and I start going normally balls coming cans of threes.

So I went through the whole card.

I couldn't find another one.

Guess what?

That's the day I believe.

That's the day I became willing to turn my whole will and my life over to the care of God.

As in everything I like, I was willing to be a Hare Krishna, shave my head and go sing at the airport.

Now, because of time constraints, I want to fast forward you to the 12 step.

There's nothing more beautiful and there's nothing that is such a great honor to be able to not only...

My sponsor used to tell me like, oh, Nikki, I can't wait till you, I can't wait to watch you blossom like a flower.

I'm going, what the hell does that mean?

You know, he goes, I can't wait.

And it's until I took somebody through the work that I was able to see somebody transform right in front of my eyes.

This process has transformed me, completely transformed me.

The person who I was, I no longer am.

However, I am an alcoholic and I forever will be an alcoholic.

My actions are completely different today than they have ever been in the past.

I found my wife through the fifth through the fourth step, the sex ideal.

The sex ideal, it was explained to me that it is not what I want out of sex with someone.

It's that who do I want to become to anyone, both you or people or my friends or my family?

Who do I want to be for them?

It's not what do they have for me.

Thank you.

All my life, I wanted people.

What do you got for me?

What do you got for me?

If I do damn anything, I got rid of you, kicked you out and I found somebody else.

What can I offer you now?

What can I offer you?

So within that, remember that lady I used to play for?

Pray for the brunette with the blue eyes, BMW, which came through this process.

When I began to walk through this, the fifth, the fourth and fifth step in the rest of the work is now what can I offer to you?

How can I be of service to you?

How can I be a better mate?

How can I trust her, understand her, support her spiritual path, be loving and be trusting and trustworthy?

There's so many more.

I mean, I'm trying to remember everything I wrote.

And I began to live this that my wife came, the lady who is now my wife, and she is nothing that I could ever ask for.

She's way beyond what I could what I could have ever asked for.

I can tell you that any time I asked for something, looking back, I can tell you that every time I was limiting myself to finite possibilities versus being open to what's infinite, the infinite world of God.

She is part of that infinite.

I'm going to get choked up here.

She's part of that infinite world of God.

She's the most beautiful thing has ever come into my life.

She loves me for who I am.

I love her for who she is.

She's fun.

She's loving.

She always tells people, you want to know where we got married because she's fun and I'm boring, you know, the whole the whole thing.

So I pray and I got.

But I got to tell you, when I stopped praying and I let God bring me what he wants me to have, I could never fathom the world that God has to offer us.

Together, my wife and I have traveled the world.

We've been I remember in 2004, we went to 37 countries, six continents.

We met people we met.

We had the most beautiful experiences that could we could ever have.

We by the grace of God, we have a son.

He's a miracle son.

He we she had two miscarriages.

We were able to have somebody through him through surrogacy.

And a lady who carried him, she was going to die.

And we had to pray collectively all the people in a that I knew I called collectively somehow she was bleeding.

She stopped bleeding an hour after prayer.

All these are miracles that I could never fathom.

I could never fathom could happen.

Now I'm going to close with this.

I mean, you remind me so much of my son, but I have not shared this.

So you guys are the first people that get to hear this.

My son is going through tremendous amounts of anxiety and and stress.

And on February 8th, my life was changed.

I found him.

So for those of you who understand that, I'm sorry if you know if you do it or if you but I know he was in that much pain.

But by the grace of this program and the people in it, I can understand my relationship is tighter than ever.

And I were able to help him walk through this journey.

And I told him, you know, I'm going to walk through this journey hand by hand like God has God has walked this journey with me.

Nothing is impossible in a nothing.

So, you know, I remember if you ever watch Scarface, you remember that thing that said the world is yours?

Yeah. Yeah. I used to dream of that.

Right. Thank you. The world is yours in the world of God.

The world is yours.

And there's nothing absolutely nothing that cannot be accomplished, you know, as long as we do it for the right purpose, the right thought, the right mindset.

And God just gives us more than we more than we could ever imagine, more than we could ever imagine.

And I know that our son, I mean, I haven't prayed as hard as I've ever prayed for him on a daily basis, but he's starting to turn around.

He's going to have some testing then.

I think he's dyslexic.

We didn't know that he has ADHD.

We knew that and we chose not to medicate him at the time when he was young.

So there's a lot of it that we take full responsibility for it.

Nevertheless, it cannot be done unless we have the groups, the unity that we have here, as we have God in our lives.

And unless we have the support that all of us, all of us give each other.

So never give up.

I wish all of you new newbies.

I wish someday you kids to sit here and you get to have the sobriety that I have received.

And I thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.

Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Nick.