Art's Journey: From East LA Chaos to 15 Years Sober

- Thanks, man. I'm an alcoholic.

- Good evening, everybody.

My name is Bart and I am an alcoholic.

- Hi, all.

- Please tell me, could I talk a lot?

I just want to start off by thanking Abraham

and Kwak for having me here tonight.

I want to start off by thanking my higher power.

If I'm going to post about anything,

I'm going to post about what AA and God have done for me.

I don't put God first.

Well, I do now,

but I couldn't in early recovery

because I couldn't see myself having a higher power

unless I got sober.

The most important thing that I could do today is stay sober

in order for me to have connection with another human being

with higher power, with God, Allah, the devil,

whatever it is, you know, anything spiritual.

So I'm blessed.

My sobriety day is May 27, 2010.

I have 15 years of sobriety, thank God.

I grew up, I was born and raised,

I was born in the old East LA hospital

where they fell blood in, blood out.

And I was raised in the Pico Union area

near MacArthur Park on 18th and Hoover.

And I was raised by two loving parents.

My dad is from Mexico.

My mom's from El Salvador, I'm first generation here.

So my first language was Spanish.

I was born in America, but there's a lot of confusion

trying to learn two languages as a kid.

And as a young baby, I remember at two, three years old,

I remember they're translating for my mom in the market,

you know, and I'm a kid.

I remember that as a three-year-old, you know,

and it was a trip, but you know,

my parents were the type that they drank at Hanukkah,

Chinese New Year, your birthday, someone's funeral,

you know, they drank more if it was misery, right?

But I didn't think, I didn't know about alcoholism,

but there was always alcohol at home.

And I just want to point something out

that I don't blame my parents for what happened to me.

Today I take responsibility for my actions, right?

That's what the step work allowed me to do,

see my side of the sidewalk.

And I'm grateful for that.

But there was alcohol and there was chaos at home.

And I grew up with spirituality.

My mom was a devoted Catholic and my dad's side of the family,

they were devoted after this Christian.

So I was drank everywhere.

Plus there was alcohol and chaos and they worked a lot.

They were trying to learn the language.

So they went to night school, they worked all day.

And I took advantage of that.

Imagine Nintendo just came out, Atari's out,

Jordan, football, baseball, all these little things.

Parents are always working or at night school

'cause they're trying to get their citizenship.

And so before my drinking, before my alcoholism,

I was already doing, like I was stealing from the purse.

I knew where they kept the red one.

I wanted the pair of shoes my classmate had.

And it started with those behaviors,

with the lying, the deceiving, the cheating,

the stealing, the manipulation.

And I knew that there was alcohol and liquor at home.

So my dad paid no attention.

So culturally, I didn't think I had cultural issues

till I got a sponsor.

I didn't believe that 'cause my role was this big, right?

And I didn't think I have cultural issues.

And now I believe that I have them as a kid

due to the fact that I couldn't see myself

out of the area where I grew up.

Our brother here mentioned that he went to college.

Where I grew up, we look forward to going to prison.

And not only what prison, it's what specific prison.

That was the mentality.

Every time growing up in the project,

you open the door, in the 80s,

there's nothing but gang bangers.

Some people hear the word gang bangers

and they perceive it as bad people.

Those people, they took care of me when I was out there.

When my mom and dad were working,

they would take care of me.

Kids didn't go missing where I grew up.

Those such gang bangers were the ones

that protected the neighborhood.

And they shaped and molded me.

And they knew that my parents worked.

And they knew that my dad and my mom kept alcohol at home.

So we would go hang out over there.

Now at a young age, nine years old, I'm ditching school.

I'm ditching school.

I'll go watch Jerry Springer with my friends,

eat all the TV dinners, right?

And hang around with people that were older than me.

I wasn't even interested in the girls my age anymore.

Yeah.

And I'm like, man, my parents.

So you see the behaviors, right?

And I'm drinking now behind my parents.

When they drank, they allowed me to drink and sip

a little bit.

But now I'm doing it behind the back.

And my dad doesn't, he didn't keep track

of how many bottles we had.

There was always 30 packs of Budweiser.

Yeah, and they drank Budweiser, came to beers.

So they're not back then, you know?

Yeah, and they kept it by the caseload.

And I remember my dad got hired.

We went to go look at motorcycles in Lomita

at Harley-Davidson one day.

And I have to translate.

I remember building this resentment with my parents

'cause everywhere we went, I had to translate for them.

Kids are mean.

In the '80s, there was real bullies.

I had to deal with that.

I had to defend my mom's honor and my dad's honor.

I experienced racism at school because of it.

Kids were really mean, even some teachers.

I've experienced that as a kid.

So I started to have this outlook with like society

and life at an early young age.

And I started to build this anger and resentment

towards the outside.

And I remember me and my dad went to Harley-Davidson

that day, and they were fixing a bike.

And my dad went up to the garage and helped.

And I translated, and I got angry.

And I'm like, "Why am I feeling this one?"

But I didn't know what anger meant.

I didn't know what resentment meant

until I did the step work.

And my dad ended up walking out of there with a job

because he helped someone fix the bike.

So my dad was a mechanic in the Mexican army.

And he knows how to fix anything if he puts

any little thought or moment to it.

He was a really bright man.

He was like a handyman.

In Spanish, they call it al vanil,

like a person that could do anything.

And he was really handy with tools.

And so I remember he started working at Harley-Davidson.

We started to have, my parents started to have

a lot of issues at home.

Family were really concerned about their relationship,

and family would come and ask me.

Like we heard there's issues at home.

You could tell us what's going on.

I didn't really pay much attention.

I knew that they argued.

So an aunt of mine told me that if I had seen my dad

putting hands on my mom, I never experienced it.

But I did experience it.

It was one evening.

It was like October or November around there.

I was nine years old.

And my dad put hands on my mom in front of me

and my little sister at the dinner table.

They were in the kitchen.

And that was the last time my dad put his hands on my mom

because my mom cracked them with a skillet over his head.

And he was passed out and the cops took him.

And my family hit us for a couple months.

And then I think he started to fight for rights,

the legal issues, mediators and all that,

of them getting divorced and him fighting for rights

to see us within like months,

like let's say eight, nine months.

I got to see him again.

And by then he was living in Englewood.

And then I wasn't really getting in trouble.

My mom knew that I was ditching school at a young age,

that I had been drinking, experimenting with other stuff

that I'm not gonna mention here.

And hanging out with the fellows.

So my mom decided, hey, there's no gangs in Englewood.

So you're gonna move over there with your dad.

And I moved over there, but they were the same thing.

Gangs and my dad drank more.

And I found out that the issue that they has

because my dad had another family with other children

and my mom found out.

So I have a bunch of stepbrothers and sisters

because of that.

But I live with my stepmother and my dad,

getting more in trouble,

not going in and out of the system through juvenile hall,

camps, placements, boys' homes with a juvenile system.

I got in trouble.

In school, something happened with me and a teacher.

With me, another student, and a teacher, something happened.

And I ended up getting arrested.

And I was in juvenile hall fighting a case for six months.

And at the end of the sentencing,

the judge sentenced me to deal with a psychiatrist

and be on meds for at least one year.

And I started my rounds of psychiatry and counseling,

and I would tell them what they wanted to hear.

I didn't understand.

I couldn't, due to the cultural stuff,

I wasn't allowed to talk about what went on at home.

Not with the alcoholism, not with the abuse,

not with the issues with my mom and my dad, nothing.

It was like, you couldn't talk about things

outside the home.

And I couldn't trust people like that.

I wouldn't even talk to my parents about it.

So growing up with the see no evil, hear no evil,

talk no evil type of mentality,

that street mentality, we had that at home.

And plus, my mom started drinking more.

My dad started drinking more.

Their alcoholism progressed.

In the beginning, they weren't alcoholics.

They did drink a lot, but I think as they separated,

my dad was with my stepmom,

and my mom ended up dating a new person, another alcoholic,

my stepdad, Raymond.

The difference between my dad and Raymond

is that my stepdad, Raymond, didn't beat up my mom.

And he really loved those, and he really tried.

He also died in his alcoholism in 2012.

But I was sober to bury him, rest in peace, Raymond.

But he tried.

I learned how to drive because of him.

He'll be drunk, I'll be on the motorcycle, you know?

He'll give me $20, and where we live,

in the neighborhood liquor store,

they sell you liquor and cigarettes.

You know, it was that type of liquor store, you know?

And even, there was this lady that sold alcohol

and liquor from her garage.

After like 12 p.m., no 12 a.m., so midnight, right?

So a normal bottle will cost you like $10.

At night, it'll cost you $25, right?

So here we go, my stepdad sending me over there,

and there was a jack-in-the-box by where I live.

He was like, "Here's some money.

Go buy yourself some food.

Steal a couple cigarettes.

Take a couple of liters from the liquor."

And my disease, it gradually worsened, you know?

I didn't know what alcoholism meant.

Heard about it.

I know there was an AA meeting

by where we lived in Inglewood.

There was a bunch of churches.

And by then, by the age of like 10, 11,

I knew that those places meant well,

but I didn't know.

I didn't have the motivation to go there.

Well, I didn't know anyone that had the guts to go in there.

And by then, I stopped going to church.

Fast forward, something happened.

My mom sent me to El Salvador.

She thought that I was gonna get better over there.

All my uncle and aunties were alcoholics over there.

Yeah, over there, they sell you liquor too at the store.

And my mom sent me $100 every month.

$100 for a little kid.

In the early '90s, that was about 900 colones.

So it was 872 per dollar, colon.

Over there, it was colon at that time.

So I would have like $900

'cause the dollar had like eight times the value over there.

With $100, I was tearing it up over there, right?

And I didn't have to spend on nothing.

My family loved me.

They treated me like a king.

So to them, I was like an alien over there

because I'm not born over there,

but I'm half Salvadorian and I'm American and half Mexican.

They couldn't understand the chemistry over there, right?

But they knew that I was my mom's child and they loved me

and I loved them back, even though I didn't know them.

And they drank and they allowed me to drive their vehicles.

And I was really like on party mode.

This is me, I'm on party mode.

I learned how to party with my parents,

partying with the homies, with my friends.

Now I'm partying in El Salvador.

And I fell in love with the culture over there.

And my disease got worse.

And no matter where I went, juvenile hall,

those boot camps that I've been to in the juvenile system,

I moved from my mom to my dad's house,

to another country my disease went with me.

But I didn't know that I had a disease, I didn't.

So after like two and a half years, almost three years,

my mom said, "Hey, you should come back."

I'm like, "No, how about I go to Mexico with my grandparents?"

And I went over there to see my grandpa.

And my grandfather, he's a fisherman.

I went over there for like less than a year,

learned the culture there, the foods,

even the way they speak, the way people speak Spanish,

it's completely different how they speak over there.

In El Salvador, Mexico, Central America and South America.

Right here, Spanish over there.

So learning the food, the culture, everything was beautiful.

Come back, my mom thought that I was fixed.

Uh-uh, it was worse.

I picked up where I was at.

Everybody missed me and I missed them back.

I felt like I needed to make up time

without a homeboy, zero.

And here I am, I'm in high school now

and I'm getting into more trouble.

And fast forward, I started my base of prison terms

and I was in prison October 13, 2009.

I just want to point something out before I share this,

that I grew up with family,

that they were all overachievers.

We're cocky, I never knew what depression meant.

Anxiety, stress, we're the opposite of that.

We're egotistic, controlling, micromanaging.

I've always been micromanaged

and I continue to micromanage, even at work now.

Yeah, I'm high-pitched.

I don't know how to slow it down.

So growing up with a family

that they're always on the move, trying to achieve more,

wanting more and more and more,

I always felt like I had this void in me

'cause I was a kid.

Like, okay, one girlfriend's not enough.

Bam, let me have two, let me have three.

One bottle of liquor is not enough.

That 30-pack, I'm worrying about that the liquor store's

gonna close at a certain time

and I need to go get two more 30-packs, you know?

That's how my mentality works.

That's how I do math.

So this is my disease.

This is how I think, this is how I behave.

This is my perception.

Crazy, right?

So I'm in prison and a pastor that used to chase me

around my neighborhood pulled me out.

He flew all the way over there

and he asked permission from a warden.

I was at a prison called High Desert State Prison

and it was close to me up in Susanville.

I found out that my mom passed.

My mom passed away October 13, 2009

and I wasn't out to be there for her, my family,

and I still had a few months left before I grow old.

By then I was married with a child already

and another little girl that she considered me her father,

I never called her my stepchild,

but I love her the same as my own child.

I had a wife, someone had fell in love with me

and married me because of cultural issues.

We got married because my family believed

that I should get married with someone.

I was forced into marriage and I went, "Wait, why?"

'Cause I was always drinking.

I was like, "Okay, that's gonna man me up.

"That's gonna fix me."

But the reality is the job never fixed me.

Sex never fixed me.

Having children never fixed me.

Having good jobs, cars, apartments, good homes, nothing.

I couldn't maintain anything in my life.

I couldn't love my children the way they needed to.

I couldn't love my parents no more the way they needed to,

or my siblings, or my wife, or her parents,

and her family that took me in.

'Cause the fact was I didn't love myself.

I was empty on the inside.

There's a story in the big book about that.

You should read it if you haven't.

I was emotionally dead.

Bill Dovey talks about emotional sobriety, right?

So I get out of prison May 25th, 2010.

I go hang out with my stepdad for two days

and we got drunk for two days.

Oh, and I never stayed clean and sober in prison.

There's more drugs and alcohol in prison than out here.

And I'm not boasting about that.

I'm just stating facts.

Where I was at, people tracked me at all times.

So I partied with my dad for two days

with the person I consider my dad, my stepdad Raymond.

And then I go see my parole officer.

I ended up committing to treatment that day, May 27th, 2010.

And that's where I started my journey.

I had a counselor named Rene.

He's my mentor now.

He's like, you should go to AA, you're an alcoholic.

So he asked me the 20 questions.

And out of like 20 questions, I identified to 19 of them.

And the last one I think I lied, you know?

(laughing)

So yeah, I accepted that and then I knew about AA.

It's just, I never attended AA meeting.

I had been to treatment before as a kid

and he was an adult, but I never stood there long enough

to hear the message.

I was spiritually dead.

I was emotionally dead.

And so I went to my first AA meeting, like two months,

two, three months in when I was in treatment,

just to show them, to show my parole officer,

because I'm my ego and false pride,

I'm gonna prove to them that I could do these 90 days.

And after that, we'll see what happens

just to prove them wrong.

'Cause I'm that guy, I wanna prove everyone wrong.

I'm gonna show up on time, I'm gonna do my job.

I'm gonna, I'll work you, I'll thank you.

Let's see. - Thank you.

- And so I did the three months

and then by the third month, I had met,

I went to my first AA meeting and the guy leading,

he's like, you guy, but the readers have come up and speak.

And I'm like, hi, everybody, my name is Art, alcoholic.

After the meeting, like 20 people walked up to me,

gave me their number.

One of them, the most important number, was my sponsor.

He continues to be my sponsor to this day.

Jay has helped me in many different ways.

He was, he's always been firm with me.

We started doing, we started reading from the big book.

He started teaching me about Bill Dovey and Dr. Smith.

We've read different types of books,

but we started doing the step work.

And I didn't have an issue with AA, I wasn't resistant.

I wanted something new, I was heartbroken, I still am.

My mother's death shook me.

I started to experience depression sober

'cause I knew the party was over.

I started to experience anxiety sober

and I still do it, like panic attacks.

I never experienced panic attacks

with all that trauma in the street,

but now that I'm sober or in prison or in jail

or another country, I started to experience depression,

anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, hopeless, worthless, sober.

This is my story, sober.

So my sponsor's like challenging the perception,

the behaviors.

One other thing that I learned while doing the step work

was about my character defects.

I'm impulsive, I could name you like a thousand.

I'm still working on it, I'm not perfect.

But I started to identify these behaviors.

My sponsor's like, "Look, Art,

you don't have a children abusing problem,

you have a thinking problem."

I was like, "Hey, man," and I did.

The way I perceive stuff, the way I react,

how do I act like a child when things don't go my way?

I wanna have the last argument with you,

even if I'm wrong.

Yeah, that was my perception and early recovery.

And so my sponsor, he also works in treatment,

he's a psychologist, you know.

So I think that was a godshot.

For me it was, it was like a higher power shot

where I ended up with a person that I had a lot of time.

He was known in the rooms.

I'm also PG from West High, from West LA,

and also reading hall over there in Gardena.

So I started doing the step work,

I started getting commitments, going to more meetings.

By the time I finished doing my step work,

he's like, "Art, you're gonna start sponsoring people,

but you're not allowed to sponsor people

that come where you come from."

So basically, no Latinos that gang bang, you know.

He wanted me to get out of my comfort zone,

sponsor people that's out of my race,

that come from other walks of life,

so I could build friendship and fellowship with them.

So he challenged me that way.

I needed to be challenged that way,

'cause I grew up, my world was this big.

And I did, and I still have a sponsor,

I continue to sponsor people, I still have commitments,

and I've been going on meetings ever since.

And I'm grateful for that.

On my second year, I got a job as a truck driver.

That same pastor gave me a job

as a sober living manager my first year of sobriety.

He told me if I did good,

he'll pay for me to go to trucking school.

So just to prove him wrong, right,

he goes my ego on false pride.

Here I hit the second year mark,

he sends me to trucking school,

I get my trucker just to make everyone look bad, okay?

Right?

Yeah, that's my perception.

I become a truck driver, and then I get off parole,

and then my stepdad passed away,

and I had the opportunity to make amends to my family there,

'cause I hadn't seen a lot of 'em.

Also, my ego and false pride didn't allow me

to reach out to my family in early recovery.

And we had a dinner after we buried my stepdad that day,

right, and they cried, they made me cry.

The first time I cried, in my surprise,

they're like, "Art, why you didn't call us?

"We would've helped you.

"We would've went and visited you," you know?

And I'm like, "I needed to do this alone."

'Cause I never did nothing really bad to my family,

but I put 'em through a lot.

And behind the pain that I put my parents through,

it's like they're holding me accountable,

and I don't wanna hear it.

And it's kinda the way I ran from it,

but God allowed me to make my amends

to all of them in a room during that dinner,

and then in private with each one.

And we're on good terms with my family now.

I love my family.

They're supportive now.

They're not worried about where's Art at,

what prison is he at, where's he roaming around,

is he on the street, you know?

What couch is he sleeping on?

I remember my sponsor told me in early recovery

that us alcoholics and addicts don't have relationships.

We hold people hostage.

I held my family hostage with my behaviors

and my perception and my belief system.

Once again, some of us,

yeah, I understand that we suffer from alcohol, though,

but it was beyond that, right?

I needed to learn about my behaviors, my perception,

and me being spiritually sick.

So, you know, dealing with a sponsor that I have,

he taught me about Bill W. and his walk, you know?

Something that attracted me was that book, "Pass It On."

I don't know if some of you guys have read it.

It teaches you about Bill's passage

and how AA was formulated, right?

I think Bill went to Akron.

I think he had like six months of sobriety,

and he felt like drinking.

And then he got on the phone,

and somehow he got connected to Dr. Bob Smith, right?

Dr. Smith, and he's like,

"Look, Art, that's what you're supposed to do.

"Bill W. demonstrated what we're supposed to do.

"So when we're feeling a certain way,

"you need to pick up that phone."

And I've been doing that.

I've been doing that.

Today, I wasn't expecting no one's call.

I wanted to relax.

My fiance had gone out,

and I'm playing video games at home.

All I knew that I was gonna iron this friend-wife shirt

to come to Quad.

That's all I knew, right?

And I was waiting for her.

So I'm playing video games, watching movies,

and then a buddy of mine calls me,

and we talk for like two hours, person in recovery.

You could tell who cares about you.

I talk to more people in the rooms than my own family,

and that's what God has gifted me with,

with a support system, a fellowship, another family.

I'm around you guys more than I am my own real family,

and I'm blessed for that.

I moved here four years ago.

I live with my fiance now.

I work as a counselor, a licensed counselor

at a treatment center not that far from here.

My plans are to go for my master's in psychology,

do something out of the realm,

but I'm not gonna do it just to fool people around.

But see, the thing is, even though I'm a perfectionist,

my mind tells me, can I do it, right?

I create this stuff.

That's how that disease works too, right?

And I really do it.

They're all young and fresh college students,

and you're old already.

You and your 40s are.

This is the disease, 15 years of sobriety.

And here I have my fiance telling me,

"You can't, or you already work in treatment."

I've been working in treatment for years,

and I believe that it's God's, or my higher power's,

purpose for me to continue to help people,

not only in treatment, but outside of treatment,

in the rooms, and outside the rooms as well.

I think it's God's purpose for me to maintain my sobriety

and practice these principles.

That's what I've been doing, and I'm blessed.

The issues that I used to have 15 years ago,

I no longer have.

But I need to be swept by my toes

and continue to maintain my sobriety.

There's three things that I do on a date.

It's I trust God, clean house, and help others.

Listen, I do that.

And I moved here four years ago.

I have my own place with my lady.

I'm part of USR, Unity Service Recovery Meeting Hall.

They have the Tuesday Big Book Study Meeting

and the Men's Stag on Thursday.

I'm also part of the Caprulo House, Jensen Hall,

Men's Stag Meeting there on Mondays.

Also, I'm a part of the Valley Club,

and recently, two months ago,

I was invited to be a board member at a solar living,

and I don't get paid for it.

I just do it.

And I just want to point out

that if I'm supposed to post about anything today,

I'm supposed to post about what God and AA

has allowed me to do.

The same prisons and juvenile halls

that I used to visit as a kid or as an adult

are the same places where I go talk about AA,

and I don't fear it.

People tell me, "How can you do that?"

I'm like, "I wasn't fearless in my alcoholism.

I'm not fearless now."

So it's been amazing.

Sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes when everything's going good,

the disease attacks me in different ways.

I think it was like six, seven months ago,

me and her are on our way.

Me and my fiance are, we're on the 118 on the 170.

We're on our way to a meeting

'cause I was gonna speak there too

in North Hollywood at Union A,

and I started getting a panic attack while I was driving.

Keep in mind, I started experiencing panic attacks

when I sobered up, not before.

It's like the disease don't want me to go to the moon.

That's the way I interpreted it.

So we're stopping at gas stations

to get aspirin or something, right?

Taking deep breathing exercises, and she talks to me.

So it's just different methods on how I deal

with my anxieties, with my depression today,

and I don't have to drink over them.

I don't have to put any substances in my body.

There's different things that you could do.

Sometimes there's a meeting calling a brother

and sister in a fellowship.

I'm not trying to preach about therapy or psychiatry,

but if you need that, do it.

Why not?

I did therapy in early recovery.

It helped me.

Now I understand a lot of things about myself.

There's a lot of things that AA couldn't help me with too.

I want to point that out.

Like the deep emotional and mental issues.

I was able to work on those things with therapy,

but I'm very grateful.

And if it wasn't for AA and the fellowship,

then he'd be in snowboard.

I probably would have never had the opportunity

to address the emotional, mental, and physical realm.

So the most important thing that I could do today

is being TMI's bride, right?

I have a long story and sometimes I plan it a certain way

and try to pitch it a certain way,

but it never goes that way.

I remember in earning my first two years,

oh, when I became a truck driver,

my sponsor was worried about me going to meetings

outside of like LA.

I think it was the first week that we stopped

at Amarillo, Texas, and I just got out of the shower

and I was drying up and I was about to shave

and a guy walked up to me.

He's like, "What's up, man?"

I'm like, "Hey, my name's Richard something was,

"something was in your name."

And I'm like, "All right, I'm from LA."

He's like, "Yeah."

They're like, "Hey man, there's an AA meeting

"running in 10 minutes, come and join us."

And that, in Amarillo, Texas,

that became my first home group outside of LA.

Second home group, I ran into another AA trucker

in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Then my third meeting hall was in Portland, Maine.

So I had a dedicated route from LA

all the way to the Northeast.

And God had a purpose for me to meet people.

I still text and talk to a lot of those people

that I've known in the rooms for a very long time.

I just got back from Hawaii.

My disease has taken me to prisons and jails

and I've even mental hospitals, right?

Places that I never been, wanted to go to, right?

But because of my sobriety and my higher power,

I just got back from Hawaii.

I had never been to Hawaii and I thank God for that.

I'm able to do that.

I'm able to have benefits at a job

because I show up on time.

Since I've been sober, I haven't lost a job.

I haven't lost a girlfriend, you know?

And I didn't think for a while either.

I just want to end this by telling you guys

that I'm very grateful for today.

I want to thank Kwa for having me.

And for everyone online, God bless you guys.

Stay focused, trust God, clean house and help others.

Thank you.