Monty's Journey: From Caribbean Hurricanes to Sobriety

Monty I call it. Hi

All I like is my home group. Wow, my sponsor is Bruce

And my sobriety day is February 10th, 2017

When I got sober didn't want to be sober. I never wanted to be sober wasn't even like a thought my head

but it happened and

I'll get to that but I guess I'll just start at the beginning

When I was born I was born in Manan knock Hospital in Peterborough, New Hampshire

And my mom flew to America to have me because she was American and my father was Dutch and on the Dutch island at the time

The father had rights to the child not the mother like they do in America

So my mom flew up here to make sure that I was all good and squared away there and you know

Then we went back and the first five years of my life

I spoke French and English and then was in the Caribbean we had several hurricanes

And I bring this up because my first sponsor before Bruce before I came to quality of life

I'm just gonna say quality of life like every five minutes of this

I'm just gonna but I know my first sponsor told me to you know

Always talk about the first time I felt really powerless and in the Caribbean. I was really having good time

I had on my cousin's life was great

I was running around the boardwalk being a menace with the tourists this and that

And then hurricane Luis hit and that was in 1994 1995. I was a baby. I don't remember it

But I remember the hurricane because I just have memories of my mom like freaking out

we had no power the bugs were coming inside to escape the weather and

She's like trying to push all the water out

Our apartment was flooding and our apartment building was concrete on the first floor where we lived and the second floor was wood and

the lady above us died because the house collapsed on top of her and I remember seeing her dead and

I remember like walking around after the storm kind of passed there was like pieces of wood that would

If it impaled you you'd be dead and it was stuck into like trees and stuff and that wasn't even really when I first felt powerless

I was just like the first time seeing like oh the world isn't great all the time

World was really messed up and when I really felt powerless for the first time was when my mom

Left the Caribbean with me and you know took me away from my dad now

My dad used to beat the living shit out of my mom and I and you know

I didn't care cuz I was a kid and you know, my dad beat my mom

Well, she's pregnant one time and you know

I would I would have had a slimmer that I don't have and so that was the kind of environment that

We were in but as a kid, you don't care or realize these things

And so I was mad at my mom for taking me away from my dad, right?

so I'm five and so I moved to America and that that was when I really felt like powerless for the first time like that that

would like come into America and I start going to school in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, and I'm a little black kid from the Caribbean in

like Hicksville, New Hampshire with a population of like

2,500 and you know

I was called the n-word in like elementary school and all this and that I started to get like getting to fights and

That didn't last long because I would like, you know, cuz I knew violence cuz I'd seen it

So I'd be like, oh well, I don't like what you're saying to me

so I'm gonna hit you and so like that that's how I was when I was young and

It kind of gave me control because it almost controlled how people treated me at least my peers and I would get in trouble

For running away from school. I was in the first time I did it

I was at first grade and it just ran just left school. They're like, where's this kid because I knew how to get home

I was pretty good at going and walking places in the Caribbean. I would go places and like, you know

It's not like I guess it was last year. So maybe it was like that in America, too

I don't know, but I would just leave and I could get home from school

So I just went home and I knew how to get into my house

And so that was a whole thing and then it then the teachers would like walk for me to be running and so they like

Chased me down. I remember laughing while this one teacher was like high stepping through the snow trying to catch me

I just don't think it was really funny and

You know, so that's how it was. I feel bad for my mom

He's a single mom with a menace as a child and you know

I kept acting out and I would steal things there was a whole issue of me stealing kids Pokemon cards

I love from after school club and summer camp

So I would steal lots of cards and then I and then I was like, I can't steal them anymore

I got in trouble. So I'm gonna make trades with them

And so I trade them like, you know for those who know like, you know water energy for Charizard

Those are the trades I was making but you know

So that's how it was and I and then I kind of got code flipped into that society

Like I lost my Caribbean accent. I started talking with a New England accent saying wicked awesome stuff like that

And then my mom got a better job and my mom used to bring me to work all the time

Which you can't afford babysitter. So there'd be times or just like running around this hospital like she worked at a mental health hospital

So I'm just running around like mentally unwell people with zero supervision as a kid running around all the time

And you know that she got a better job. We moved to DC. So then my cultures changed again, right?

So I went from being too black for the white kids and I'm too white for the black kids in DC

And it was a whole other switch up and then I started learning about weed and stuff

And so the first time I ever I guess technically the first I like while I was a kid

I would drink wine and beer just sips in there because family members thought it was funny to see my reaction

But the first time I took a mind-altering substance into my body was weed when I was 11 and I was like, oh, this is whatever

I didn't really think too much about it

But that was when it happened and it was my cousin was like hey do you want some of this? I was like sure

It's like the school whatever didn't really do it much and then did a couple times into my mom found out and then I was also

getting I

Was always getting into fights and I actually got into a really really bad fight when I was in sixth grade and I hope

This kid had to go to the hospital. I think that they were playing it up, but that's not for me to decide

So he I did crack his skull and yet to get staples

so I guess that makes sense actually, but so anyways, I was sent to military school because

The court my uncle helped my mom be the lawyer and instead of doing juvie or anything like that

I was able to go to military school

So I did that and I did really well in military school. I do well with good structure

I like strong leadership and strong direction. I do well with it. It's very easy to follow orders

So I did well with that

And in military school, I smoked some cigarettes and stuff and I you know

I still I still kept getting away with stuff like, you know

I was doing I was I'd been the rules as much as I could to get what I wanted and like I was I

Thrill-seek a lot. Like I wanna I like getting away with things. I've always enjoyed that that's almost like a high and it's of itself

So we'd like sneak out past curfew and go try to get the girls to come out with us and like, you know

Just just got cause mayhem

I used to like hang out in the graveyard because there was an old graveyard from the Civil War behind the military school

It was supposed to be haunted. So we just hang out there and smoke cigarettes

And then, you know, I again like in even in the military school. It was in the DC area. It was very culture

There's a lot of black kids. There was more there was a very more

it was more mixed and a lot of actually South Koreans like a

Sue Kim Sue Kim was my girlfriend in middle school

she was from South Korea and she had made me like a little

Book about why she liked me because she couldn't really like speaking this was a little bit. She could write it

Well, I was like, okay, she's very pretty but that's not here. No there

And so but then that changed because my mom got another better job now mind you we were poor and then less poor and less

Poor my mom my mom worked us out of you know, not poverty poverty, but we weren't like super wealthy, right?

And so my mom worked us up from lower class to middle class and she got another job

When I was going into ninth grade and at that point I was like, I'm just gonna you know

Stay in the DC area maybe right out military school joined the army

Whatever and then we moved to California and we moved to Simi Valley, California

Which is a whole different type of culture and again

You know not having control of the situation and being angry and having a banding banding banding mint issues

I was very upset, you know, I was thought my world is over. I had a girlfriend

I had my I had my friends my cousin my cousin Elijah is like my best friend and we still talk and hang out

But he's lives in the East Coast and he's coming out this summer that it's neither here nor there

But uh, so I was very upset and I moved to Simi Valley, California

And that's kind of where I really went off the rails. I got it's a pump rock and like skateboarding and just being

Degenerate like I met this kid Joey long res

he was a real scumbag and him and I would uh

We would like we would drink and smoke weed and we would we had this thing where we go around the school asking all the rich

Kids for money because again, my mom brought us up

But there are some really rich kids in California and that was another thing too kids in California

They just did not realize like I remember there in ninth grade at least in Simi Valley

I'm sure kids in LA would get it

But it's Simi Valley those kids like well

They talk a lot and they want to like make a lot of noise and no one actually wants to fight and they talk and they

Act really hard and then like dude, I'm just gonna hit you in the face. What are we doing right now?

And so that was a whole thing that happened. I almost got kicked out of seen a C9th grade year

But yeah, so I'm doing all that and I'm having a lot of fun though

I'm not gonna be the one like the reality of

Alcohol and all mind-altering substances is that it feels good when you use it, especially initially, right?

That's why we use it. It doesn't feel bad. I know it's like oh that hurts so much

I'm gonna do it again. All right until it does but initially it was it was awesome, you know, and I remember that's when I

started drinking in ninth grade and I started I was smoking pretty regularly before I started drinking smoking pot because that's just part of my

Story and when I started drinking I was like, oh, this is whatever I like more but as high school progressed

We started doing other things and we would acquire and distribute other things

For other kids as well and you know make a little money on the side. We would steal kids iPods

You're just head lumps. We were not good people in high school. We were really not it's like it's looking back on it

It's like dude, that's crazy

like we were scumbags, but I started to feel more comfortable because as I had access to

Alcohol and other substances because we had people who could buy us booze and other things

People would talk to me more like oh people want these things for me and they'll hang out with me to get them

So I was like, oh this is pretty cool. And I've never been a shy person

I've always been able to like talk to people and alcohol didn't I didn't drink

To be better at speaking to people or like feel comfortable speaking to people. That's not why I drink

I drink purely because it feels really good and I like the feeling of being drunk and it makes me happy, right?

It's not and then or so I thought right and as this is happening

I'm like, I just want to party more. I just want to party more and then I end up certain

I started having consequences. Sorry, I start getting in more trouble. I lose my football scholarships

through my partying and

When that happened, I was pretty upset and the solution was to drink more and I don't know

I can't tell you when I became an alcoholic if it was like for my first sip or whatever

But at some point in my drinking it took over

me in the sense that to deal with stuff I would drink and maybe that was always the case because I always was out of

Control and I always I like to not be in my own head. I like to not think like I love not thinking

I like watching reality TV because I want to think right but my I

Didn't I wasn't able to recognize it. I wasn't able to recognize that so years later

But when I was drinking I lost the ability to cope without drinking and I say I'm an alcoholic and I mean it, right?

I did a lot of other stuff

But alcohol is my favorite thing and alcohol when people don't like to hear this alcohol is a drug

Like well, it's the only reason why it's not a drug is cuz somebody wrote all the things on paper saying well

This isn't a drug and it's now it's law but alcohol is a drug

I would dare say it's more detrimental for you than cocaine is that's what my opinion but it kills more

I mean other than the drug trafficking that cocaine kills people with alcohol probably kills more people

Okay, and if you actually look at it, but that's not in there nor there. I

Lost my scholarships and I was like, I'm gonna you know, it's fine

I'm just gonna get a minimum wage job and sell drugs on the side and the government's never gonna catch on and no one's gonna

Find figure out what I'm doing and I'll be okay and I was like, this is cool

And so I slowly started hanging out with lower and lower quality people except for Joey

He was right there with me the whole time, but I I I was doing actually okay

Like my mom is a hard-working woman and she instilled, you know work ethic with me. Like I'm a good worker

I work hard and I get what I need to get done and so I was able to make money and you know for a

While I did fine, you know, I got kicked out of my house when I was 18

I should also mention that my mom kicked me out because I had younger my brother's 11 years younger than me

My sister's 20 years younger than me and you know

She didn't want to have that around the kids my little brother at the time when I got kicked out

And so I couch surfed and then eventually I ended up in an apartment

I went to a JUCO to play football if you guys don't know what hard knocks is. It's essentially a

system where you go to a junior college, which is a JUCO and you play football and you prove yourself in that system and then

The big universities will take you back if you've proved yourself

I got arrested again and they're kind of like that and the only offers I had were to d2 schools and I was

Too good to be playing at a d2 with my ego, right?

Like I thought that's like I'm a I'm a top tier, you know player like I'm not gonna go to a d2

I'm better than that. So I'm gonna sell made my mind you when I say I was selling stuff

I'm not like a big kingpin like I'm in my head

I thought it was awesome

But I'm like selling minuscule minuscule amounts of stuff and using half of it and not making much money and thinking that I'm doing good

It wasn't like I was like good at it or like had any real connections

So in my delusions, that's that's how I was I did I was able to have an affinity

And I was able to rent a house until I wasn't and then I bounced around a couple more places

I couldn't repair my infinity

So it's all janky and beat up and it has issues and dense from when I'm crashing because I'm drinking is driving all the time

Least of practice drifting while drunk because I thought if you could drift drunk drifts over and so

You know, I was becoming more and more of a mess in the thing that in this whole time

I'm not realizing but I can't now now at this point. I can't talk to you anymore

Let's enjoy like I can't socialize with people once I'm drunk and that was never a thing for me

Like I I did not need liquid courage to speak at first

But then all of a sudden I couldn't talk to you instead of strong

I couldn't interact or deal with anything. That's not strong and I was living with a felon who?

Had gotten he was like he had done some time and like he would he did math

So that was the thing and he was like, hey, dude, I think you got a problem. What are we talking about?

But he made a bet with me that I couldn't stop drinking for 30 days

This is when I was 22 and he uh, he said he'd give me a hundred dollars

I couldn't drink for the whole month

so I didn't drink for the whole month and I had three seizures and literally fell on the floor and

Shipped myself having a seizure one of the times because I didn't have alcohol

Because I didn't have alcohol in my system and I was 22 and I was that dependent on alcohol, but I'm like everything's fine

This is okay

This is normal. This is this normally happens to people

And I just kept on continuing and then I got a job at a brewery

Around that right like right after I got my hundred dollars because I was right

And so I was working at this brewery and I funnily enough actually had to use chemistry for part of my life

You know because you do need to do a little very low-level chemistry

But there is chemistry involved with working in alcohol

I would make it was a brewery in a winery and I actually worked on the wine side

But I'd help the beer guys so I could make wine and I could make beer and then I started dabbling into making hard liquor

and I would like get these little po boys if you know that is it's and then like I'd be percolating all the like gases out so

I could distill grapefruits into liquor in my actually I did that at Joey's house. I don't know if Joey knew about that

I also had the kegs of alcohol that I would just steal like mind you I stole thousands of dollars worth of wine and like

You know just materials to make alcohol from the places that I was working at

So I just always would have alcohol available and but I really liked I just really like to drinking like like cheap beer by

The 40, you know, it's just it's just nice. It's like a casual sipper, right?

Like I drink hard liquor at night for a third of the day all day. I was drinking beer like that was all day

I was drinking beers like walk and and Brett I need to eat

So I continue living like this. I've got multiple DUIs. I

Got one DUI my second DUI happens not mind you I was in and out of jail throughout all this time like going in

You know and I last time I was in I had written on the wall never again

And this is in Ventura County jail and I'm out one night and I get to an altercation

I'm not supposed to be in a bar because I'm already on probation for it and I get to a fight and in my head

I'm like, oh, I can't be here any longer

I need to leave and so I get to my car and I drive away and while I was driving home

I don't remember really I remember flashes of this

But basically I tried to merge lanes and was pretty messed up and just went real hard

Shot in between two cars hit the center on the 118 and spun out. I'm lucky I didn't kill anybody the cops get there

I'm like someone almost killed me someone ran me off the road or whatever and you know

Obviously I get arrested get booked and then the fight gets comes to light luckily on camera

I'm not the one who started it and

You know, it was at a bar and so that that that ended in my favor the issue

I did face though was excessive violence because I was smashing his head repeatedly on the bar and that was where it got

That's where I got into a little bit more trouble because that wasn't apparently necessary

um, but when I and I'm not like I don't think I'm a violent person, but I

hate when I'm sharing my story because I always there's so much violence in my life and like

You know, I saw as young age and stuff, but you know when I'm drunk

There is that possibility and I go to jail and I get out of jail

My mom is I haven't really been speaking with my mother for years at this point

But I was talking to my sister and she had told my mom what had happened and they reach out to me like hey

We're gonna get you the lawyer. So cuz I was looking at doing one to three years in jail and I was like, okay

I'll do that. And so at this time at this point I was living in Joey's living room. That was my room

I had built a wall to wall off my area of Joey's living room and

I go I get out I bail myself out of jail so I can watch the Super Bowl that being said is because of my

Pats I'm a Patriots fan the Pats are the best team in the NFL's history and they were playing the Falcons and I just remember

being so mad because I'm like I bailed myself out of jail to watch him lose and the greatest and then the greatest come back in

NFL history Super Bowl happens and I was like it was worth it

It was worth all that bail money, but Bruce wouldn't really understand it. I guess isn't they won't well, but anyways, um, I go home

I have a keg of hard cider and I had broken my kegerator so I couldn't get into it

Luckily, it was one of those plastic eggs

I don't know if you guys have ever worked at a bar, but they don't only have metal kegs

They have plastic kids are easier cheaper. So I just cut into it with a knife now

She's drinking out of this five gallon keg as much as I could. I did all my other substances as well

I was pretty also that wasn't that was a lit. I was a mess and thank you

I go and go to rehab and I'm in my head

I'm like, I'll be there for two weeks and I don't I have no to be sober

I just don't want to go to jail for a long time or for an extended period of time and

While I'm there I meet this girl her name was Lauren and she was from Texas and had blue hair and I was like

Maybe I'll stay longer than two weeks

And so I did and then Lauren went out Lauren actually went out

But at that point I had made friends with enough the guys there that I stayed and something had started to happen where I wasn't

Drinking so I was dealing with my emotions and my anger and my feelings

but I was able to talk to these other people who are going through the same thing and having the same feelings and

Feeling the same way as me and it really felt good and refreshing and I didn't have to worry about really

My behavior I just got to exist and be at peace almost for the first time in a long time

And I started going to meetings and the first meeting I went to I was very irritable and discontent

And I remember it was every two minutes the timer go off and I was like just text it who's texting right now

We're all sharing our lines

I'm like in my head who's texting the guy and the guy and I'm losing my mind and getting real aggressive the guy next to me

He's like dude, it's the timer that means their time zone for sharing and I was like, I'm not coming back to this me

So I go through all that and I just still didn't really want to be sober us

It's like whatever you guys are called don't talk to me

I'm smarter than everyone around me. No, I don't act like it. But I

Started to enjoy going to the meetings. I started boy hanging out before the meeting and after the meeting and going to

What's it called Mel's diner on Lincoln Boulevard after a meeting, right?

And so we were doing stuff like that and you know

I would hang out with these guys and we'd get into trouble and it was fun, you know

Like we I remember 1/4 of July the year. I got sober. We were skateboarding on

Federal and we had bottle rockets like we're skateboarding the road shooting a Roman candles into the air while skateboarding

And then like we heard the sirens coming we're all like just split up

And so it's just fun, you know doing stupid stuff

But like I didn't have to be drunk to do that and it was fun and I started to have fun

doing things while sober and then what really

Got me is the guy who I really looked up to and was my ended up being my first sponsor

You know, I started talking to was like like how are you so cool and chill and handle these situations?

So that some handle some conversations and I was like, okay

Why don't we talk about it?

And so I ended up working the 12 steps with him and you know

He told he's the one who told me that being sober isn't not drinking. It's really easy to not drink

It's it's difficult to behave the right way and take the right action

so he didn't say the right action but like like cuz it came out because I was stealing food still from the store because the

Rehab I went to they only gave us $50 a week for food and I was like, that's not enough. So I needed to get

So I was like stealing dry aged steak and ringing them up as bananas like you can't do that and say that you're sober

And so, you know, I started doing all that

I would I started going to meetings and I started working this 12 steps and I was about four months sober

So when I started working the 12 steps, it was four months in I do not recommend that

I recommend that you get a sponsor you get a home group and you work the 12 steps as fast as you can if you're

Not already. I didn't do that

It's just my story, but I did have for like four months and then when I started to do that

I was not the first three steps. I was like, whatever. I was almost going through the motions

but the fourth step really and the fourth step really hit me hit me hard and I had to like look at my part and

These resentments that I had and you know, like especially with certain people in my life

like you were like it's my mom in particular really like it made me cry and I'm not like a big crier, but I did and

I started to feel better because I started to like take pride in my actions and how I conducted myself and you know people as

I as I come up upon my first year other people now are like hey, dude, you're doing the sober thing good

How can we like hang out with you and like a lot of people want me to be their sponsor?

but I'm pretty serious on like actually working the program when

like with all my with all my joking and behavior when it comes to working the 12 steps like I take that very seriously and

you know people aren't ready for that and when I got out of rehab, I moved into a

sober living and then from there I wound up getting my own apartment and you know throughout all this I've

Started to become myself again and I ended up meeting this girl and I never thought I'd be married

I didn't know what life had for me because I was like I'm just gonna be a drunk mess my whole life and I

met my now wife Hannah and we are married and we have a house and we have a son and we're about to have us we're

Having a second son coming later this year. I don't know if it's Sun yet, but I have a feeling I have a feeling that it is

But you know

I wouldn't have any of that if I didn't go through what I went through

Because that brought me to AA and I had to reach a level of spiritual bankruptcy

really that made me want to change and want to be a different person and work the 12 steps and you have to you can't

I haven't yet to see someone who can do it without working a program

So again get a sponsor get a home group and get to work and you know with that

I'd like to thank God my sponsor in a is a whole lot. So I get five minutes right Monte alcohol

Yeah, I'm just gonna thank God my sponsoring quality of life. You guys heard me share

I worked this whole steps in because I did that I'm sober today. That's it