Brandy's Journey: From Foster Care to Sobriety and Relapse

- Hi, my name's Brandy and I'm an alcoholic.

- Hi Brandy.

- Welcome to Anyone That's New.

And thank you so much for your lead before mine.

It was really good to hear your story.

My sobriety date is June 7th of 2020.

It is not my first sobriety date.

Before that I had two years and two weeks

and then I relapsed during the pandemic.

I drank for a day and by the grace of God

came back into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous

the next day.

And just kind of like they say,

it's like really hard to drink

when you have a head full of AA.

I remember sitting in my kitchen drunk

literally like writing out the 12 steps like crying.

Like I was like, how did I get here again, right?

But like, that's the illness.

Thinking that I could just take one

and I proved to myself that I could not.

But yeah, so, you know, like what makes me an alcoholic

is very much so like what you talked about too, right?

Like what's in the book, what's in the doctor's opinion

is once I take one, it develops that phenomenon of craving

and I cannot stop like on my own willpower, right?

And so like during that relapse, I really learned that

because I really thought I was just gonna have one beer

and then it escalated to another beer and then another beer.

And then I was like reaching for vodka

and I just was like, how is this happening again, right?

And so anyways, also like I think everything

I'm about to share is just like my own personal experience.

I don't think any of it is like

what made me an alcoholic or not.

I think what makes me an alcoholic too is just,

I like the effects produced by alcohol period.

But I will share kind of like what it was like

and what it's like now.

I was born in Santa Monica.

I drug tested positive for opiates when I was born.

I immediately got taken away from my biological mom

and put into foster care.

I got put into foster care in Santa Clarita.

My foster parents ended up adopting me.

Thank goodness, I didn't have to go from home to home

like some of my other siblings had to.

I grew up with an older sister and two brothers.

I was the only person in my family that was adopted.

I had everything I ever needed.

I grew up in a four story house

with a basketball court and a pool

and we took family vacations

and I was very much so loved by my family.

But again, I always felt very different.

My whole family is blonde hair and blue eyes.

They're all white.

I knew from a young age that something was kind of different

and I noticed when I went to kindergarten,

yeah, I came home and I asked my mom,

I'm like, how come I don't look like you

or anyone in this house?

I was really confused.

She always was honest with me.

She told me you didn't come from my tummy.

You were adopted.

I didn't know what that meant.

I later on learned what that meant

and she sat me down and told me the reason

why I was adopted much later in life.

I think I was in high school when we had that conversation.

And yeah, so I don't know.

I grew up and had a really good childhood.

I got into seventh grade,

I think was the first time I smoked weed.

Again, just like trying to fit in with everyone,

didn't feel a part of, felt uncomfortable in my own skin.

Smoked weed, I drank a little bit,

but I didn't like the taste of alcohol.

I didn't like the taste of beer.

I thought it was gross.

I didn't understand why people did it.

Fast forward, I get to high school

and again, just like trying to fit in with everyone.

And I drank with some people

and I got completely blacked out.

I drank a whole bottle of Jaeger and red wine.

It was the first time I was drunk.

I blacked out and threw up all in this guy's car.

It was terrible.

My friends didn't know what to do with me.

They just went and dropped me off at another friend's house.

They had to carry me in and my friend's mom

had to put me in the shower and hose me off.

And it was just the most embarrassing thing.

I got grounded right away.

I got my cell phone and everything taken away.

And I didn't touch alcohol after that for a couple of years.

I didn't think it was fun.

I didn't get it.

I was like, obviously this is not for me.

I didn't have that feeling that some people have

where they're like, ah, I didn't have that right away.

And yeah, so I didn't touch alcohol for a while,

but I did start messing around with drugs.

I started doing acid and smoking more weed and taking ecstasy

and going to a bunch of raves.

And that was back when EDC was still in LA.

And I just like, that I loved.

I definitely felt that ease and comfort

from taking ecstasy and doing drugs and things like that.

And yeah, I was off.

I was doing it every single weekend, couldn't stop.

And then I think by the time I was 19, I was smoking meth.

It escalated very fast.

And yeah, I got too high one time.

And again, had this spiritual experience kind of.

I had this outer body experience.

I think I had been up for a couple of days.

I thought I saw myself from above

and my friends were shaking me to come to.

And I thought I died and it was just this whole thing.

And again, it scared me so bad that I was like,

oh my God, not touching that again.

I literally just thought I died.

So there's all these signs too, right?

God was trying to tell me, stop.

But again, so I stopped for a little bit

and then switched back to,

okay, well, let me try drinking again

because it's been some time and let me start doing that.

Just all the things it talks about in the book,

switching and justifying and trying to make sense

of all of it, right?

And yeah, so I started drinking again

and completely fell in love with it.

Fell in love with beer, fell in love with hard alcohol,

you know, was just like out partying

and just was off to the races.

And during this time, my brother,

who I watched my entire life go in and out of treatment,

go to multiple rehabs, multiple seizures,

you know, he in 2014 got into a car accident and died.

And he, you know, was one of us,

he was drinking and driving, he was leaving work.

He had just like lost, you know,

he lost like this job that he had for a really long time.

He was a chef and, you know, he lost his job.

So my parents were living in Palm Springs at the time

and they thought it would be a good idea

to move him closer to them so they could try to watch him,

I guess, or help him or,

they didn't know what to do with him at this point.

And so he was leaving work

and he had someone else in the car with him

and he went over like the median

and then tried to like correct himself.

And another car came and hit him and teebowed him

and he died on impact.

And the other person in the car lived.

Thank God, thank God the other person lived.

And yeah, they said his body was unrecognizable.

The only thing they could recognize him by

and identify him by was a tattoo that he had on his back.

And yeah, I was 24 when that happened

and it was absolutely devastating.

Like my family did not know how to handle that.

And I didn't know how to handle that.

And so if I wasn't already like an everyday drinker,

I quickly, quickly became one

and my disease just went even higher

than I thought it could, right?

And you would think that that situation would scare me,

but I didn't even like put it together

that like, oh, because of his drinking,

because he was under the influence,

like I didn't even think of that.

Like, oh, maybe I should slow down my drinking.

Oh, maybe I shouldn't drink and drive.

Oh, maybe I shouldn't be driving around with a tall can

and then having another tall can in my glove compartment.

Like that thought never occurred to me.

It absolutely never occurred to me.

And my other brother,

I remember right after my brother Trevor had passed,

my brother Kyle came up to me and he goes,

you're my brother now.

And I said, okay.

And we partied, like me and my other brother,

like, and again, like not even the thought of like,

maybe we should slow it down or, you know,

we just like, we did not know how to handle this grief.

Right?

We did not know how to deal with life on life's terms.

Like we had to watch my parents go through this, right?

Like I lost a brother, but they lost a son.

And it was like, it was so devastating.

And me and my brother, you know,

didn't know how to handle it.

And we just, we were using together.

We were drinking together.

We were, you know,

and it wasn't until the end of probably 2016

that then I was again using drugs every day,

drinking every day.

I was, you know, getting kicked out of bars,

not getting invited anymore.

Just all these things, you know,

no one wanted to hang out with me.

And my brother sat me down.

Him and this guy I was dating at the time,

who the guy I was using with every single day,

him and my brother sat me down and they were like,

"Hey, if you don't get help, like we are so scared of you.

"We don't know what to do with you.

"If you don't get help," like my brother was like,

"I'm gonna go to mom and dad.

"Like, I don't know what to do."

And I said, "Okay, all right."

You know?

And that was like one of my like first kind of rock bottoms

was like hearing it from my brother, you know,

it like kind of was like, all right,

I think I need to do something about this, right?

And so I was like, I'll go to therapy.

I was like, I'll go to therapy and I'll figure out

like why I'm like this or what's going on

or why I can't stop.

And so I went to therapy and after my first therapy session,

she gave me a homework assignment and she said,

"You need to go to an alcoholic synonymous meeting."

And she said, "And then when we meet next week,

"we can talk about it."

And I said, "Oh, okay."

And so I did, I went to my first AA meeting.

It was in Hollywood on Sunset.

It was at the Rainbow Room, which is a bar,

which I thought was very interesting.

And I walked upstairs and I was like,

I don't know if I'm in the right place.

And they were like, "You are."

I sat in that meeting and I don't remember too much.

I do remember this person shared

and it was so sad what they had shared.

And I remember sitting there and being like,

"Why am I here?

"This is sad.

"People are talking about sad things.

"I'm already sad and depressed.

"I don't wanna come here about other people's problems."

And I remember walking out

and I don't know if someone came up to me or what,

but someone handed me the big book.

And it's the same big book that I have today.

And I didn't read it then at all.

It sat on my shelf for another year.

But yeah, I left there crying.

And I was like, "I'm never going back there again."

So again, I tried to do the whole therapy thing.

And I was trying to wean myself off of cocaine.

And so I was doing Adderall,

but then I was still drinking.

But I was like, "Oh, I'm 30 days off cocaine."

I was just the insanity of all of it.

And so me and the guy I was using with,

we broke up, it didn't work out, shocker.

And I immediately got into another relationship

like a few weeks later.

And same thing happened, right?

This guy sat me down and he said,

"Hey, you have a serious drinking problem

"and you need to stop and you need help."

But he also said, "I think I have one too."

And he's like, "I'm gonna stop."

And I was like, "Oh, okay."

And so at this point too, right?

I needed to have a little bit more experience

'cause I did end up dating this guy

and I ended up in the hospital.

I had to like, I was riding one of those bird scooters

and I ran into a pole and bashed my whole face open.

And I tried to fight the paramedics.

They were trying to put a neck brace on me

and I ripped it off and threw it at them

and was screaming with blood dripping down my face.

And I don't know how I didn't get arrested.

But like things like that were like happening.

And again, that's when he sat me down.

And so I said, "Okay," I said, "Fine."

And his dad had passed away from cirrhosis of the liver.

And so he had seen where this illness can take us.

And so that's why he was wanting to stop

'cause he knew he had taken it too far as well.

And so, you know, we tried to do it.

Like I cut like cold turkey and I got really sick

and it was really, really hard.

And again, still was not gonna go to AA,

but I got a gym membership

and I was reading all these spiritual books

and we were going to the gym like every single day.

It was all we were doing.

And it worked for a little bit.

It did, it worked for about 10 months.

And I was miserable.

I was so miserable.

And I could not remember why I stopped.

I was like, "Why are we doing this again?"

And, you know, but I was gonna prove to him

that I could not drink for a year, right?

That was like my whole goal was like,

"I can do this," you know, just...

And so thank goodness his mom was a member of Alcoholics

Anonymous and had 13 years sober.

And I remember sitting in her kitchen,

he was from the East Coast from Boston.

And I remember sitting in the kitchen and talking to her

and just being like, "Yeah, like, you know,

I have like 10 months and, you know,

I think we're doing good, but like,

I don't remember why like I'm even doing this."

And she was like, "You need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous."

She was like, "You have no solution."

She's like, "That's why you feel this way," you know?

And I think she got out her book

and was like reading some stuff to me.

And I just said, "Okay, yeah, you know what?

I'll go."

And so I was living in Santa Monica at the time.

And I went to another meeting.

It was like a Monday night meeting at the Marina Center.

And I walked in and there were like people my age there.

And there were like all these girls there.

And they were like all, you know, had tattoos

and they all worked in recovery.

And they all had like three years of sobriety.

And I thought they were lying

and I couldn't even believe it, you know?

Like I was like, "What?"

Like, "You guys just look cool."

Like I was like, just like, I was like, "I don't know."

And so, yeah, they just kind of like

took me under their wing and I sat in the meeting

and I feel like I actually listened

and like heard what people were saying.

And I was like, "Wow, this whole time, you know,

I just thought I was like crazy

or like I was acting this way because I was adopted."

Or like all these things that I like made up in my head

of like, "I have trauma.

This is why I can act this way or be this way

or do whatever," you know?

And no, they explained it to me and, you know,

they told me like, "You need to get a sponsor like right away

and you need to work these steps."

And they invited me to go to In-N-Out with them afterwards.

And I was like, "Wow, I feel a part of something," you know?

And so I did, I got a sponsor like the next day.

My first sponsor, Haley, she's absolutely amazing.

She's not my sponsor anymore.

She moved to Tennessee.

I still call her for things.

We still talk pretty much daily.

She's amazing.

She's the first woman to take me through all 12 steps.

And she gave me direction, you know?

And I think my first time around,

what happened was I still thought

I was very much so in control.

You know, if you ever asked me to share at a meeting,

I always said no.

If you asked me to read chapter five or anything, I said no.

You know, I was not taking direction really.

I was in the work and in the steps,

but I just like was still only like picking

and choosing what I wanted to do.

And I really was only going to like one meeting a week

and didn't have a commitment, you know?

And all these things were suggested to me.

Like you should raise your hand and share.

You should get a commitment.

You should probably go to like a women's meeting too.

Like all these things were, you know, suggested.

And I was like, no, I'm okay, I'm good, I'm all right.

You know, I got this, I'm good, you know?

Like, and then COVID happened and everything shut down.

And like my one meeting that I went to got taken away.

And that was like where I got to hang out

with all my friends, you know?

And I refused to do Zoom meetings.

And I was still a little bit in the work,

but I just don't think I was like fully ready.

And I think it was also because somebody else

was telling me I needed to.

And so I was still trying to prove a point,

I think, to other people.

And that like frothiness of other people's like emotions

of them telling me, you know, it didn't work.

'Cause I wasn't really fully ready to stop.

And I still had reservations.

I still kept being like,

oh, but once I hit this amount of time,

or, oh, well, once I get married,

or, oh, well, once I'm retired, you know?

Like I still thought that I could manage and control it

maybe one day.

And I think I was probably at like step six or seven

when I relapsed.

And yeah, again, like I remembered it was when

like all those riots and everything were going on

in Santa Monica and I was like super scared.

And I remember I had gotten into a big fight

with my boyfriend and I was like, you know,

drove back out to Santa Clarita because I knew

that there was alcohol at my parents' place.

And so I drove all the way from Santa Monica

to my parents' house in Santa Clarita

because I knew there was alcohol there

and I knew I could hide it 'cause nobody was there.

And I, instead of calling my sponsor,

I called my one friend who she might be one of us.

And I called another friend who he might be one of us too.

And I told them, "I think I'm gonna drink."

And they both 100% validated and said,

"Yeah, I think you could just have one."

And I said, "Yep, that's the answer I'm looking for."

And so again, that's what I did and I drank, yeah.

And guess what?

I couldn't, I couldn't just have one.

And like I said, you know, in the beginning,

I was reaching for the bottle of vodka

when then my boyfriend I was dating at the time

then walked in on me.

And that's the only reason I didn't touch it

was because he grabbed it out of my hand and set it down.

But I was going for it, you know?

And I knew like if I drank that,

I probably then was gonna pick up, you know?

And like fentanyl wasn't as big of a thing as it is now,

you know, back when I was using.

So who knew what could have happened, right?

And so I called my sponsor the next day

and you know, told her that I had relapsed

and she was like, "Yeah, I get it."

You know, she's like, "Well, you missed something.

So let's go back."

I said, "Okay."

I was so embarrassed.

And she was like, "Girl, I've been to rehab 13 times.

You're good."

Like, that's like, she literally was like,

"This is like your experience."

Like this is, you know?

And I was like, "All right."

And so we got right back into the steps.

We got into the work and I really did absolutely everything

that she suggested this time.

I sat in all these new meetings.

I messaged people for their numbers.

I called people.

I did all of the stuff, right?

I worked these steps.

And I would say it was when I got to about step nine

and I made my first amends and I was like,

"I think this is what everyone is talking about."

I was like, "I think this is like the spiritual experience."

And I think like this awakening is like starting

to happen to me.

And it really opened my eyes, right?

And then, you know, things started opening back up.

I moved back out to Santa Clarita.

And again, I just got super, super involved.

I joined, you know, young people's committees.

I secretaried meetings.

And again, like in this past like five and a half years,

I've did everything opposite.

I did those first two years, you know,

like my life depends on it because it does.

It absolutely does.

Like this is a very serious thing.

And, you know, I continued to work with others,

like throughout this entire sobriety, you know,

and I always say yes to helping others,

to speaking at meetings, you know.

I've constantly had a commitment in this sobriety.

I've had multiple commitments, you know, at a time.

And again, I'm like not trying to say all this

to be like on this like spiritual high top

or anything like that, you know,

where it's just like, this is just again,

what has been suggested to me.

And so it's just like, I've done all of it, you know.

And I don't know like which part's working more

or which part's working less or, you know.

So I'm just going to continue to do all of it

because I'm too scared to like stop one over here,

do this or pull back, you know.

And again, I don't do this perfectly at all.

Like there's been times where I've been a little bit dry,

you know, where I've been like,

I don't need to go to the meeting

or I don't need to pick up the phone

or I don't need to drive all the way to Malibu

to meet a newcomer to read, you know,

like there's times where I'm like, do I still have to do this

you know, but I do.

I absolutely need to because I am selfish

and I am self-centered to my core.

Like those are my default settings

and what's been suggested to me

and the best way to get out of self is to help others, right.

And, you know, I got this new sponsor

that I've been working with

and I heard her speak at a meeting this past summer

and she just carried this message of like depth and weight

and she talked about doing the steps very quickly,

very quickly, immediately putting someone on a third step

and immediately putting them the second week on a fourth step

and she's very big into pages 60 to 63

and had me reading those every single morning

and she really like has been going through this book with me

line by line, multiple third step book studies, you know,

has me call her every day.

How are you helpful towards others, right?

Did you read your pages?

And if I'm like, oh no, I haven't read the pages yet

but she hangs up on me.

I'm like, oh, she's like, call me when you read them.

Like, okay, I read them every day, I just didn't yet.

And she's like, cool, don't care.

Call me once you've read them, you know, like,

and she's hard on me and she's like nothing personal, right?

Like she's just like, this is life or death.

And it is, it's a very serious thing, you know,

and I needed that, like I needed that.

Like, you know, I've had a couple of sponsors

throughout this sobriety and she's just kind of like

what I need right now.

And it's been like a really good experience, you know,

and again, like I think what has helped again,

like this whole time is always just reading

with someone like that is the best way to get out of self.

And it's just such like a spiritual experience, right?

Like sitting down and reading the book with someone

and you're like, I don't understand

how this is gonna help me, right?

But then you're like in the first three chapters

and you're explaining this illness to them

and how it centers in our mind

and you're having them like go through the steps

and do the readings and sharing your experience.

And like, you know, it's like the whole point

of this thing, right?

The whole goal is like I want to have that obsession removed

'cause why else would I do this

if I didn't want that, right?

I don't wanna be like sitting in a meeting, you know,

still thinking about drinking and using with time.

That's crazy.

And so, you know, like I've had that obsession be removed.

I can go places that normal people can go, right?

And I don't even ever think about it, you know?

And again, it's because I'm constantly in the book,

constantly being of service, like,

and just like always relying on my higher power,

like always like knowing that there's God in everything,

you know, like even coming to speak here tonight,

like my sponsor was like, you go.

And I'm like, yeah, of course, whatever, you know,

like whatever you need.

And so, yeah, I don't know.

I'm just like super grateful for, you know,

everything I've gotten in sobriety.

Like again, my life isn't perfect, but you know,

I left my nine to five job to follow my passion

as a hairdresser.

I am running the LA marathon with BitShuva

and get to fundraise money for them

and they're, you know, amazing recovery group

on the west side.

And, you know, I just got my Pilates certification

and like, I just like things I would have never

dreamt about, right?

Like things I didn't even know I wanted to be goals,

like are things that I'm doing now.

And it's just, yes, it's just, it's a blessing.

And I'm just so grateful for my sobriety

and my life today.

So thanks, that's how I got it.