Rae's Journey: From Family Strife to 12 Years Sober

- Hi everyone, I'm Rae, I'm an alcoholic.

And thanks to Bennett for asking me to come out to speak.

Really glad to be here, I've had a warm welcome tonight.

And I'm really happy to be in a meeting

with Alcoholics Anonymous.

And so I've been at this meeting before

when I was at the last location.

And if any of you saw me at the previous meetings

before I was in a really bad spot in my sobriety,

I was sitting in the rooms contemplating,

do I wanna stay sober?

And I was coming to these meetings and it was same thing.

I walked into the rooms, not a vision for you,

not approachable and everyone would still welcome me

to the meeting, ask me how I'm doing.

And I didn't wanna be here.

So if you're new and you're sitting in the room

and you're like, I don't wanna be here.

If you have some time and you're sitting in the room

and you're thinking, I don't know

if I wanna do this anymore.

I understand, I've been there before, I've sat in the rooms

and I just kept coming back to the rooms

despite how I felt and because I had the support system,

I had friends who were coming to this meeting

and were like, Rae, come to the meeting tonight,

come out with us, right?

And I'm really grateful for that.

I'm really grateful for my sobriety.

I've been sober since December 6th of 2011.

I got a sponsor and my home group is this Pacific group.

And I'll tell you my story.

So I grew up in Northern California.

I was born in San Francisco and my parents raised us

in the Napa Valley, so wine country.

And people are like, oh, it's such a beautiful place.

I'm like, it's boring as hell as a kid.

There's nothing to do, there's tourists coming

to drink and enjoy the vineyards.

And I just did not, and already, right?

Restless, irritable and discontent for my earliest memories.

I don't like anything, I don't wanna be where I'm at.

I don't like myself, you hate me, but I hate you more.

So I don't, and I just have a fear for people growing up.

I don't like being around people

because I always have the thought like,

are you thinking something about me?

'Cause I'm thinking something about you

and like, is this okay?

Am I okay?

And just like the constant thought like through my head.

And I remember as a kid, like people would be like,

what goes through your head?

I'm like, a lot of stuff.

And they're like racing, people tried to get it out of me,

but then that also like made me so introverted

'cause I just thought if I ever said

what was going on in my head, I would like explode.

And my mom used to tell me about like spontaneous combustion

so it would freak me out, right?

Like she would be like, don't do that.

You're gonna spontaneously combust.

Like whenever we'd act bad, like she was just like...

- And like me and my brother,

so both my parents are still together.

I have one other sibling and we like,

oh, we were just, we are those kids,

we would run around the neighborhood.

We would like, we would just aggravate our mom

and they were like so bad

that sometimes she would just like fake passing out

and like just lay there.

So we would leave her alone and like,

and then like we would just poke at her, right?

For hours and hours, like mom, get up, get up.

We need you, we need you.

And like, we'd call her all the time

because we'd fought so much.

So we'd call her at work like 20 calls a day.

Like it would just, we knew her like extension.

Like, and the secretary would answer.

They'd be like, Leah, you need to stop calling.

Your mom is very busy.

And then we'd just call back five minutes later.

So me and my brother, like we were just those,

we just caused a lot of trouble growing up.

And you know, my brother came to AA before me.

Here's just a side story.

He came to AA before me.

He found God in a church group and her name,

like I forget her name, but he started doing that.

And he said, he doesn't need AA.

To this day, he is missing.

We don't know where he is.

The last time I talked to him,

he was in a full paranoia like episode.

And he like, he was like, they're coming for me.

Like someone like has told on me like,

and he was out of state the last time I know,

like I knew of, and you know,

and he's like one of the alcoholics that, you know,

I pray for it when we pray at the end of the meeting.

And I'm so grateful for my surprise

that I still can take his call,

but I, and he knows where to go if he needs help.

So growing up in my household, you know,

my parents worked a lot,

even though they moved us to the Napa Valley,

they still worked in San Francisco.

So they were commuting a bunch.

We didn't see them a lot.

We were always with babysitters

or making my mom fake pass out on the ground in the house.

And she, so I,

my first resentment growing up

was that my parents didn't love me.

They didn't, I wasn't worth their time.

They didn't think I was worthy of their time.

They wouldn't take the time off.

And that was it.

I just was unworthy of their love.

And, you know, my parents,

they never came to any of my,

any of my basketball games, my softball games,

any of my concerts.

And, and that was like the one thing,

like I just thought that they hated me.

And if my own parents don't love me, no one else will.

And, oh, and Dan, thank you for your talk.

I related a lot.

And so growing up in a Filipino household,

I don't know if any of you have Filipino friends

or if you have been around Filipino families

when they have parties, but there's a lot involved.

And that is a lot of food,

a lot of booze and a lot of karaoke the entire day.

Or if you have Filipino neighbors

and you hear the karaoke machine.

Yeah, that's a regular weekend or a Thursday night.

So that was every Saturday at our house,

everybody would come over.

They'd eat, drink and sing karaoke.

And my dad, he would sing and he would sing

and he would be drunk.

And everybody, I just adored him because every,

like all the attention would be focused on him.

He like spoke to people with like, like effortlessly.

It seemed, and for me, it was always really difficult.

Like if I speak, I'm gonna spontaneously combust.

That was like the constant thought in my head as a child.

And my dad, he was just my hero.

So I would do anything to try to be like him.

And one weekend he was just drunk enough

that he goes, Ray, give me another Henny and Coke

and you could have whatever you want out of the cooler.

And I was like, okay.

And I had already put it together.

I'm watching these people sing karaoke terribly.

Why would you do that to yourself?

Like, 'cause I'm not gonna do anything I'm not good at.

I'm not gonna do anything that is gonna embarrass me

and make you have opinions about me

or even tell other people that I did something terribly.

And so, that day I grabbed something out of the cooler.

It was like the Bartle James, like fuzzy navel wine cooler.

I grabbed two of them.

I went straight to the backyard.

Nobody else was out there.

And I drank that down.

It tasted like sparkling Kool-Aid.

And drank the second one down.

And I just remember sitting there like looking at the sun,

like, and my shoulders slumped down

and like the lines across my forehead gone, right?

Like I just had that first like breath.

And so, and my head slowed down.

Like all those thoughts, right?

That I had just slowed down for a moment.

Came back in the house.

My dad said, Ray, you wanna sing?

I'm like, absolutely.

It's time, right?

And I sang that day and my dad was like, good job.

Like he was so proud of me.

And I was like, this is part of the formula then.

Like this is what's gonna work.

And that, you know, I didn't become a daily drinker

every day at the age of 12.

But every time we had a party, I went in those coolers

and I grabbed something and I put it in my closet.

I grabbed something for any other time

that like my head just got too loud.

Like I'd already put it together.

Like this is gonna help.

And you know, and the way that I, you know,

growing up in a Filipino Catholic household,

like I knew from a very young age,

like I was attracted to my babysitter's granddaughter

who was like my age.

And I was like, all right, like I think I'm gay.

But like my parents also being Catholic were like,

you can't like, don't be like your Auntie Daisy

who's gay, right?

Or we're gonna kick you out of the house.

And I'm like eight years old, like, oh, I can't be gay.

And I used to go to church with them.

And I would pray that like whatever,

like those feelings or whatever that was,

I would just try to pray it away.

Like, I don't wanna be this.

I don't wanna disappoint my parents.

I don't wanna give them another reason to not love me.

And go to church every Sunday.

And then I would do two a days and I'd go to like,

I'd go to church on Wednesdays with my friends.

I go to Bible study and I'm like, let's, you know,

like I wanna make it go away.

And like whatever else is going on between my ears

and what goes on in my head, like pray it away.

And, you know, and today I'm an alcoholic,

still gay, but I'm, and I'm married.

And my mom wasn't happy about that.

That's another, we'll get to that part.

But, you know, I tried so hard just to change who I was

because like I could not, I could not be like,

I couldn't live in my family.

I'm not allowed to be who I am.

And like the alcohol really helped just to like

give me moments of peace with that

because it would keep me up at night as a kid

to think about it.

And part of feeling that way meant like I was in over,

for me, like coping with that, like meant overachieving.

So I did really well in school.

I did really well in sports.

I did really well in my music.

And that was, those were also areas where like

I excelled that like I didn't feel less than.

And so I did well in school.

I went on, and I finished high school.

And like the only thing that happened was like

I got kicked off of a couple of teams

'cause I just couldn't show up to practice

because I discovered that I liked being more like

the musicians after school.

Like that is where I found,

that's where I tried weed for the first time.

That's when I started drinking with my friends.

That's one of the things that I would collect on the weekends

in my closet that we would go after school

and go drink together, you know, and like,

and then my head would shut off, you know,

and I'd have those moments of peace.

And I didn't have to stress myself out

getting to basketball practice to get yelled at

because I was usually higher drunk

when I'd go to practice anyways.

And I liked that, right?

Like it was, that was fine.

Like that took pressure off.

Like I don't have to keep like

playing on the basketball team or overachieving.

And then I just, I really just stopped going to school

for the most part in my senior year.

And then I had to, they like do this thing

where you have to just sit in a room

just because the state of California requires

a certain number of hours for you to actually like graduate.

Even my grades were fine,

but like I just didn't show up to school.

And so I did finish high school by the skin of my teeth

just because of hours and I got into college.

And so like, everything's working for me.

Everything is working for me.

I'm not doing anything wrong.

And my drinking is progressing.

My using is progressing.

My ability to not show up for anything else

is also progressing.

And I still, you know, I'm still doing everything

that everyone has asked me to do, right?

Like go to school, like get a job, make some money.

Everything that I'm seeing the rest of my friends do,

I'm doing.

So I get to drink exactly how I want to drink, right?

Like you can't tell me what to do

because I'm doing everything you expect me to.

And, you know, eventually, you know, I'm in college

and I, you know, my drinking progresses.

I start the days between, like I can no longer determine

the days that I'm going to drink and not going to drink.

I don't have the choice anymore.

I'm going to school, I'm still doing all of that.

But like now I have a bottle in my car

on my in-between classes because I need to drink.

I need to be drunk at school and I just need to show up.

But like, that's the one thing too.

My parents are like, if you just go and do all these things

and you, you know, like we really,

what are we going to tell you?

And so I'm earning, I'm protecting my right to drink.

You know, and I finished college.

I get an internship after college

in kind of in the field that I'm in now.

And, and that's, that's all good, but I continue to drink

and I continue to use and that progressively gets worse.

And I, my girlfriend at the time, she caught,

she caught me cheating on her and I,

and I was blaming her for it.

And then she broke up with me.

And then I said, and then I, to get her not to leave me,

I tried to commit suicide also because that was my way

of keeping you here, right?

Like I need you to live.

And part of that too was just, I was so depressed.

Like the drinking, the using, like everything,

like if you can't stay with me,

no one's going to stay with me, I'm unlovable.

That whole, that whole thing in my head is still playing.

Like you're unworthy, you're unlovable,

no one's going to stay for you.

And, and I try to commit suicide and, you know,

and she tricked me into going to the psych ward.

She was like, all right, let's, let's have a chat.

Like, let's go get breakfast.

And she, she got me Carl's Jr breakfast sandwich

and then took me to the psych ward.

So that didn't work out well for us.

But in the psych ward, they, they like did a full assessment

and they were like, yeah, we're going to keep you.

And one of the people working there was like, hey, do you,

you know, like, do you drink or use?

And they, at that point they had already done

a urinalysis.

They were just asking to see if I would tell them what,

and I was like, oh no, no, I'm like, I mean, yeah,

like I earned it, right?

Like I'm a college graduate.

Like I have a job, I have a car, I'm not, you know,

and she kind of like looked at me weird and I was like,

yeah, like I'm, I can't, I don't have a problem with it.

Like I just drink and use.

And she's like, oh, okay, yeah, no problem.

And like the tests come back, she talks to me about that.

And she's like, great, we're just, you know,

with the things that you've been talking about,

it sounds like you have some, like,

some other traumas that happen.

Like we have some medications so that you,

that will help you to like not feel suicidal,

but whatever you do, like don't drink on it.

So she gave me some antidepressants, like sent me home

and said like, I'll see you in a couple of weeks,

like after the psych ward fold.

So I come back after two weeks and she asked me

about how the medication was going and I, you know,

she said, whatever you do, don't drink on the medication.

She asked me how it was going and I said,

I haven't taken it.

Why haven't you taken the medication?

I'm like, well, 'cause you're telling me

it's gonna take two weeks to work,

but like when I drink or when I use, it works like that.

And she looked, she gave me that look and I was like,

I said the wrong thing right there, you know?

And she was like, do you have a problem with like alcohol?

Do you have a problem with drugs?

And I said, no, no, I don't have a problem.

Like I have a college degree, I have a job,

I have a place to stay.

Like I'm not an episode of intervention,

like I don't know what you're talking about.

She was like, okay, well, you have a couple of options,

you know, we're gonna,

you either start taking the medication

or we're gonna put you back into the psych ward

or you can try our treatment program.

I was like, absolutely.

Like I was just like that, those are weird options

because I, again, I'm not an alcoholic, you know,

and I don't, I'm not suicidal right now.

And so she was like, listen,

you can stay on disability leave

and you don't have to go back to work.

And that sounded like a good idea

'cause work was the problem then.

And so I stayed on disability leave

and she put me into this treatment program.

So not even, I wasn't even like willing to give it up.

I was just willing to like be off of work for two more weeks

'cause I do like the grippy sock vacation, right?

Like they medicate me heavily.

I don't have to think about anything.

I get to see people,

like there are people who are willing to help me,

like talk with me.

And like I went to this treatment program

and they, you know, they like tell you about triggers.

They tell you about, you know, like people to avoid,

like things to avoid doing.

And I was like, okay, I got it after two weeks.

Like I'm ready to go back to work.

Like I'm done with this, right?

And you know, they let me out on a Friday,

like five o'clock and like six o'clock,

like sitting at home.

I know nothing about alcoholics anonymous at this point.

Sitting at home, like what am I supposed to do

for the rest of the night?

'Cause I know like I'm not supposed to leave the house

'cause then I'm gonna drink.

'Cause I can't go out and function out in the world.

Like I don't know how to live my life

without using drugs or alcohol.

And now 605 rolls around like,

no really, what am I supposed to do?

And like I, at that point, like I couldn't afford cable.

It's like I have a job,

but like I don't manage my money well, right?

I don't have cable.

I don't have anything to watch.

I don't have any way to like,

and I'm calling all my friends after having been gone

during this treatment program.

And none of them are answering their phones.

None of them want to talk to me.

And I don't think I've caused any harm to anybody.

I just, I drank.

Like that doesn't hurt.

Like what I do hasn't like is none of your business.

And I'm not hurting you like by my drinking.

I don't think that I have any fault in that.

Meanwhile, like I have like left friends at the bar

because I was supposed to be designated driver.

And I just like, I just leave

if I don't want to be somewhere when I'm drinking.

Like you will lose me when we go out.

And you know, and I dip out on friends

when I promise that I'm going to move in with them

and pay them rent and like not pay them anything, right?

Or I just like stop talking to people

or I don't like, I don't call you anymore

if you don't have anything to contribute to my life.

And, and I don't think I'm hurting anybody.

I'm just protecting my right to drink

and I'm just doing what I have to do.

And that's really none of your business.

So like 610 rolls around, no one's called me back.

615 rolls around and like the liquor store down the street,

I remember that it's like, it's open.

Like I can get a couple of tall cans, like no problem.

And I'm like, well, yeah, it wasn't like six, you know,

635, like it wasn't that bad, was it?

You know, and like just each five minute increment,

like the, like I have no choice

over whether or not I'm going to drink.

I'm going to drink, I have no higher power.

I have no knowledge of alcohol, it's anonymous.

And that night I walked down, you know,

I walked down to the liquor store,

I grabbed two tall cans

and a fifth of UV blue raspberry vodka.

I drink it all and I drink that all.

And I decided it was a good idea to like drive over

to my ex-girlfriend's house and throw rocks at her window.

'Cause like if we worked it out,

if that would have solved everything.

And yeah, that did not.

I did have one buddy, he would call me

like while I was in treatment.

And I didn't know this until after I came out of treatment.

He was like, "Bae, where have you been?

Like, I haven't heard from you."

And I was like, "Look, I'm just trying to stop drinking.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

And he's like, "Listen, I've been clean and sober

and Alcoholics Anonymous for eight years.

Like, I'm willing to help you."

And I'd be like, he'd be like,

"Let me take you to a meeting."

I'm like, "I can't leave my house or I'm gonna drink."

You know, and I'm telling him these things.

I have no idea what Alcoholics Anonymous is.

And he, you know, he keeps calling me.

And at that point I'm like,

"I don't know what he has to offer.

I don't know what I'm supposed to get like from him."

But he keeps calling me.

And then one night he just says,

"Rhea, listen, look, I have a girl for you to meet tonight.

Like, I'm gonna pick you up at six o'clock.

Just be ready." And so I think he has a girl for me to meet.

I'm like, "That's a plan."

So he picks me up at six o'clock.

He takes me over, it's a Wednesday night.

He takes me over the hill

and he takes me to Pacific group.

And I walk into that meeting

and there's a bunch of people there.

I'm overwhelmed, but I'm like, he's like,

"No, no, no, I have somebody for you to meet."

Like, so I don't have to pick her out.

He's picking her for me.

And he introduces me to my sponsor who,

but I think it's a date because I don't know

about Alcoholics Anonymous.

And so he's introducing me to his friend

who is still my sponsor today.

And she's like, "Hi, my name is Sarah."

And I'm like, "Hi, I'm Rhea."

And she was like, "Are you, you're friends with Doug?

Okay, great."

And she would, she walked me around the meeting

and she was like,

"Has anyone given you a meeting directory yet?"

And I'm like, "No."

And so she gets a meeting directory.

She writes her number at the very top

of the meeting directory.

And she's like, "Call me every day."

And I'm like, "Yeah, I will."

And she's like, "Oh, do you smoke?

You can go outside.

And like, when you go smoke,

like go get some numbers from other women."

And I was like, "Like that?

Okay, cool."

Like, so I think like it's an open relationship.

And so I'm out there getting numbers from women.

And then at the end of the night after the meeting,

I don't really remember much about my first meeting,

but at the end of the night,

she was like, "If no one's told you today,

I love you and I'll see you tomorrow."

And I was like, "Sounds good.

Like, love you too.

This is gonna work, right?"

And I'm like, "I love Alcoholics Anonymous."

So my motives are terrible, you know, like for two weeks,

I'm trying to like Mack on my sponsor.

And then like, we met up for a step work

and she was like, "I don't know what anybody's told you,

but like, I'm only..."

She goes, "I'm only here to give freely

what was given to me.

And that is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'm here to walk you through the steps

and help you find the connection with the higher power

so that you can go and help another alcoholic.

And that's all it is."

You know, and other people were like, "She's dating somebody."

You know, I just, I was really confused in the moment.

And once we cleared that up, you know,

and I really reflect, like reflecting on it, right?

Like I'm thinking, growing up,

I'm thinking that my parents, they don't love me.

They're unable to show up for me.

That I'm unlovable and worthy.

And here's this woman who, you know,

every time I call her to check in, she's like,

"Ray, how can I help you stay sober today?"

And every Sunday before the Ohio street meeting,

she would bring her big book.

She'd tell me to bring my big book and a notebook

and sit with me to do step work

because she just wanted me to stay sober.

And I, and like today I know as a sponsor, right?

Like it's good for my sobriety to be working with others,

but like as a new person walking in the room,

like I'm like, "I don't know how to pay you back."

And she's like, "You just do the steps

and then you help another person."

That's it.

And you know, like I think I'm absolutely unlovable,

absolutely unworthy of it, but man, you know,

that it was the first act of kindness

I had felt in a really long time.

And like, as somebody, as a sober member

of Alcoholics Anonymous who gets to sponsor people,

like it is a beautiful thing to like sit across the table

from another person and walk them through the steps

and then watch the light come on in their eyes.

You know, and my first year of sobriety,

my sponsor said, "You're gonna go to seven meetings a week.

You're gonna do all of the activities

your home group has to offer.

We go to Clancy's house on Saturdays.

You know, we do the yard, we do the moves, the watches,

everything, you're gonna do everything."

And I thought it was so severe

because I still had a college degree.

I had a job, I didn't lose everything.

And she's like, "But did you drink every day?"

And I was like, "Yeah, I absolutely did."

And she's like, "So we do something every day about it."

And that was it.

Like there was just no negotiating that.

And I was like, you know,

so I did everything in my first year

and I told you my parents had never been to one of my games

and first softball tournament that was local.

My sponsor shows up and she,

during my first year I got the name Little Bear

from my softball team because like from the outside

it just was like scary, not approachable.

And, but on the inside I was like really wanted

to be close to you and like have relationships with people.

So I got Little Bear like Care Bear.

I was like, "Let's drop the care part.

Let's just keep the bear part."

And my sponsor shows up to the first tournament that's local

and she's wearing a shirt that says Mama Bear.

She's sitting in the stands, it's like so hot outside.

The whole day she just stays out there.

She watches me play and she's cheering me on,

cheering on the rest of the team.

And like that's alcoholic phenomenon.

It was like, we have the ability to show up

in somebody's life just like they just need some love.

They just need, they just need people to show up for them.

And so my sponsor has taught me to do the same things,

show up for my sponsors,

show up for all of the AA things that we do

because the miracles that I see in alcohol

and synonymous is just an absolute beautiful thing.

And it reminds me that there's like, there is a God.

I wanna talk a little bit about the last year

and kind of how some of the things that have happened,

you know, I got engaged to my wife

and I called my parents when that happened.

And my dad, you know, my dad had,

ever since I've gotten sober,

my dad had this huge like turnaround of like,

look, I love you, I just want you to be alive.

I just want you to be happy.

And my mom was like, is this my fault?

Like, I don't know how to talk to you.

Like, I don't know how to be close to you.

And we just, you know,

my sponsor told me to just continue sending the cards,

continue calling them regularly

and like let that relationship play out, you know,

but I could still show up to it.

And I'm sure I got engaged.

I called my parents and my dad was like,

congrats, like, I love you guys.

Like, you know, so happy for you.

Like, let me know if there's anything I can do.

I called my mom and she's like, okay,

I'll pray for you guys and hung up the phone.

Man, that was a tough year, right?

Because I'm like, how am I?

And I was like, I don't know how I'm supposed to ask her

to show up for me.

And my sponsor was like,

you just get to continue sending the cards.

You get to continue calling her,

like just keep showing up.

And like one thing that my sponsor taught me was like,

we just get to keep doing the footwork, right?

And so I continue to do that.

And you know, and then my wife's mom called my mom

and then her sis, my aunties called my mom

and they were like, Ray, I just want you to show up.

You don't have to, you don't have to accept it.

Like, or you don't have to show up.

She just needs to know whether or not you're gonna be there

because it's expensive per plate

and somebody else wants to go at this point, right?

Like another one of my aunties wanna go

is during the pandemic.

She's like, well, if Gloria is not gonna go,

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna take that seat.

And, but with the help, like, you know,

my friends through this engagement party

and like they all talked about how much they love,

you know, me and like me and my wife

and like how Alcoholics Anonymous is like,

just like made us who we are today.

And my mom's sitting on, it's a Zoom call

'cause it's COVID, she's sitting on the call

and she's crying and she's crying.

She goes, you know, she decides that she wants to talk

and I'm like, this is gonna be wild, right?

Like, I don't know if she's gonna have a moment

where she's like, this is wrong and just like log off.

But she gets on the call and she's like, you know, Ray,

it's always just, it's always been so hard to like raise you

you've been so independent and so closed off

and so introverted.

I haven't known how to be your mom.

And like in that moment,

like it was just like complete forgiveness, right?

Like she doesn't, she's doing the best she can

with what she has and like, and my sponsor was like,

she showed up and then because of that

and she showed up to the wedding and she had a great time.

There's great pictures of my mom dancing

at the wedding.

But the last year, which I haven't told my mom

is that we've been trying to have a baby.

And so we've been going through this fertility process

and in my sobriety, I've had this thing where like,

I do the footwork, I take the next indicated action,

I get results, I do the footwork,

I take the next indicated action and get results.

And I've been, we've been doing the footwork,

we've been showing up to the appointments,

we've been taking the actions and we're not pregnant, right?

And it's the next cycle, we do the footwork,

we go to the appointments and not pregnant.

And we've done that four times this year.

And, you know, we took a break this summer.

It is really hard, it's really challenging.

And like, I'm so grateful for Alcoholics Anonymous.

You know, I've been talking to my friends about it

and I had one of my buddies call me on Thursday

and he's like, look, I know you guys are going through it,

but if there's anything that I can do to help,

like let me help you.

And I was like, I don't wanna be weird,

but I don't know how you're gonna help us.

And he was like, no, no, no, not like me,

not like me helping you guys like that.

'Cause I'm thinking he wants to be baby daddy.

And he goes, no, no, no, like if you want,

if you want me to rally the troops,

like we can do a GoFundMe.

If you, if like, 'cause the process is also really expensive.

If he's like, if you just need people to send meals

on the days that you have those,

those like really intense appointments, I'll do that.

Like, no problem.

Other people are happy to take commitments

to support you guys.

And, you know, and I'm not thinking about that.

I'm like, I gotta do it all on my own.

There's no God, right, that all of that happened.

All of that has gone through my mind.

And one thing I like, like God is in everything.

And I will say that my relationship with God has changed.

I had the Catholic God coming in,

like trying to make that right.

And, you know, over the years, with my sobriety,

like my God is a combination of like the Fab Five

and RuPaul, like we work every day, right?

I don't hit my knees unless, you know, like I don't,

I don't hit my knees to pray anymore.

You know, the only time like my God would have me hit my

knees is when I'm twerking at, you know, at a dance club.

And that's pretty much it.

And like, I was told, like, I was told,

you gotta hit your knees to pray.

And that was the only way to pray.

And what I've learned is like, I get to have my own God.

Like, it's not that like other people find it serious.

Like my God is not that serious with me

because I cannot hear a message that is like stuffy.

And so, and having that kind of God

where I can approach my higher power

and say like struggling, what are we supposed to do today?

And I get the girl go to work, you know,

like lip sync for your life.

Like today we're going to lip sync for our lives.

And, and that helps me stay sober like one day at a time.

And like the, the relationship that I've gotten to develop

with my higher power also allows me to like sponsor people

really well, like it can be anything, any,

anything my higher power can be is mine, right?

And I will say, you know, I've had,

I've had the honor and privilege of sponsoring women

in this program.

And I've also had, you know,

I've also had to be part of like burying sponsees.

I got to participate in young peoples

and I've gotten sponsees out of there.

And, and it gets sometimes, you know,

like being young feels invincible.

And I've watched a lot of people leave and come back

and leave and not come back.

And I've had, like, I had to get right with God on that.

I've had friends die not from alcoholism and die from cancer.

And I tell you the thing about my higher powers

because like that is the higher power that I have today.

And when that was happening in my life,

like I blamed God for everything.

And those were the times that I was coming in this meeting.

Like, I don't want to be here anymore.

I could not find a higher power that I could connect to

because I thought God was punishing me.

Like you make me gay in a Catholic family

and you take away my friends.

Like when I, like when we're doing all of the stuff

that worked, like we're trying to stay sober.

Like, why are you taking people away?

And an old timer reminded, you know, she told me,

she's like, God isn't like the reason

that bad things happen.

God is what gets us through.

And that like changed my perspective

just long enough for me to sit here

and like rethink like my third step practice

and like my relationship with my higher power

so that I could continue to stay sober, you know?

And I had, I just, between four and five was really tough.

I just did not want to, I didn't want to do it.

I didn't know how I was going to have a life

in Alcoholics Anonymous because I got sober young

and I didn't really think it was fair,

but I'm really grateful for my sobriety today.

You know, the things that have happened in my life,

like I have traveled all over the world.

I never thought I would be able to do that.

And I, and that was one of the things

I told my sponsor very early on.

She was like, well, what do you want to do?

And I was like, I just want to travel.

Like I don't see that I would ever get the opportunity

to have money.

And you know, in the last 12 years,

I've gotten to hit nearly every continent

and I'm so grateful for that.

But my time is up.

If you are new, welcome.

I hope you stay.

I hope you find what I've found here.

And that's my time.

Thank you.