1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,000 My sobriety date is September 3, 1994. My mom was a lawyer for a separate position at Burbank. 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:15,000 She joined us with a great team. Go to Bellflower because you'll see her there. So those are my stats. 3 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:21,000 So I grew up in North Miami Beach. I always had a great family. I didn't have any issues. 4 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:26,770 We always had everything I needed. Didn't always have everything I wanted. 5 00:00:26,770 --> 00:00:33,770 You know, my dad was a lawyer by education, and he did what he chose to do. 6 00:00:33,770 --> 00:00:37,770 He was owner of a liquor store in Miami. And so there was always alcohol in my home. 7 00:00:37,770 --> 00:00:44,020 There was no, there was nothing special about it. My father drank Dewars. 8 00:00:44,020 --> 00:00:49,020 When I started drinking, that's what I drank. I drank with my father. It wasn't a big deal. 9 00:00:49,020 --> 00:00:56,020 I can't say he was an alcoholic, but he would do stuff like, you know, the little airplane thing. 10 00:00:56,020 --> 00:00:57,020 Yeah. 11 00:00:57,020 --> 00:01:01,020 So he would always have one on the drive-thru door from the store. 12 00:01:01,020 --> 00:01:06,020 And when he was young, it was my sister and my dad, they'd get his drink ready for him. 13 00:01:06,020 --> 00:01:08,020 When he opened the door, we should have it ready for him. 14 00:01:08,020 --> 00:01:12,020 Well, he would do things like fall asleep at the dinner table with his coffee. 15 00:01:12,020 --> 00:01:13,020 Yeah. 16 00:01:13,020 --> 00:01:16,020 I can't say he was an alcoholic. You know, he would stay at home. 17 00:01:16,020 --> 00:01:18,020 You know, he was just an orange man. 18 00:01:18,020 --> 00:01:25,020 Well, my sister was the bad actor in the family. She was the one who started doing drugs early. 19 00:01:25,020 --> 00:01:26,020 She was the one who got caught. 20 00:01:26,020 --> 00:01:27,020 She was the one. 21 00:01:27,020 --> 00:01:30,020 She was the one who, you know, always got in trouble. 22 00:01:30,020 --> 00:01:34,440 And so nobody ever noticed what I was doing, which was good. 23 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:36,440 I started smoking pot when I was 14. 24 00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:37,440 My sister turned 19. 25 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:38,440 So that's you. 26 00:01:38,440 --> 00:01:41,440 You're 11 months older than I am. 27 00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:43,440 Anyway, so we started smoking pot. 28 00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:46,440 And, you know, alcohol was just not that big of a deal. 29 00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:49,440 Back in, you know, I'll tell you, I'm 63 years old. 30 00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:51,440 So that was like in the late 70s. 31 00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:53,440 You know, everybody was doing drugs. 32 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:55,440 It was just a lot easier to get caught than it was. 33 00:01:55,440 --> 00:01:59,440 If I would have, you know, nipped stuff from my father's alcohol, he would have noticed. 34 00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:01,440 So I never did that. 35 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:04,440 So what I did was, you know, graduated school, stayed out of trouble. 36 00:02:04,440 --> 00:02:06,440 But I was kind of with this double life. 37 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:09,440 I got straight A's in school, but I was smoking dope on the side. 38 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:14,080 I'd come home for dinner, and my mother would be angry, but nothing would ever happen. 39 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:16,080 So I did well in school. 40 00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:17,080 I stayed out of trouble. 41 00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:18,080 They were all good. 42 00:02:18,080 --> 00:02:19,080 Went away to college. 43 00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:23,080 And college, you know, now I'm out of the house, and now I can start drinking. 44 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:25,080 And I remember my very first drink. 45 00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:27,080 I can't remember my first drink. 46 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:28,080 But I'll tell you. 47 00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:29,080 Let me just tell you this. 48 00:02:29,080 --> 00:02:33,080 When I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't think it was an alcoholic. 49 00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:35,080 But I had never gotten in trouble behind alcohol. 50 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:37,080 I get arrested every day. 51 00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:38,080 I get drunk plenty of times. 52 00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:39,080 I don't know why. 53 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:41,080 I never got in trouble behind alcohol. 54 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:44,080 I knew I was a drug addict, and that's a big part of my story. 55 00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:46,080 So if you don't want to hear about drugs, I'm not going to. 56 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:49,080 But I knew I was a drug addict. 57 00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:52,080 So when I came in, I identified as an alcoholic. 58 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:54,080 And then I was an alcoholic addict. 59 00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:56,080 And then I was finally just an alcoholic. 60 00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:59,080 As an alcoholic, because I found all of those other things. 61 00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:01,080 I was an alcoholic and a drug addict. 62 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:02,080 That separates me from you. 63 00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:04,080 And I wanted to be a part of you. 64 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:05,080 And I needed to be a part of you. 65 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:07,080 I needed to get through it. 66 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:08,080 So I went to college. 67 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:09,080 And I did all the college stuff. 68 00:03:09,080 --> 00:03:10,080 Got drunk. 69 00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:13,080 You know, we had keg parties and did all that stuff. 70 00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:14,080 Became a nurse. 71 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:20,080 And that's significant because I was out of nursing school maybe five minutes when I learned how to smoke a drug. 72 00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:21,080 Where they kept them. 73 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:22,080 They kept them. 74 00:03:22,080 --> 00:03:23,080 You know. 75 00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:25,080 It was just kind of one of the perks of being a nurse. 76 00:03:25,080 --> 00:03:30,080 You showed the pockets with the tissues and the hand lotion and the bag. 77 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:31,080 You know. 78 00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:34,080 You know, nothing ever happened. 79 00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:37,080 I just liked to get loaded and that was it. 80 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:38,080 You know. 81 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:40,080 So that was in Florida. 82 00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:43,080 I went to school in Tallahassee and I worked there for a year. 83 00:03:43,080 --> 00:03:47,080 Then I think about the things that I did with guys. 84 00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:51,080 But I met a guy at a party in Tallahassee. 85 00:03:51,080 --> 00:03:52,080 He was away for a minute. 86 00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:53,080 Really. 87 00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:54,080 And we spent some time together. 88 00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:55,080 We went on a trip together. 89 00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:56,080 And then he came back here to California. 90 00:03:56,080 --> 00:03:57,080 And then I worked in Italian for a year. 91 00:03:57,080 --> 00:03:58,080 And I just didn't want to go back to Miami where I was from. 92 00:03:58,080 --> 00:03:59,080 So my first choice was to actually visit a guy in Colorado over here. 93 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:00,080 So I talked to the guy in California. 94 00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:01,080 He goes, hey, come on here. 95 00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:02,080 You know, for vacation. 96 00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:03,080 So I came here. 97 00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:04,080 You know, from San Francisco actually for a couple weeks. 98 00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:05,080 And I decided I wanted to move out here. 99 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:06,080 So I said, hey, if I move out here, can I stay with you? 100 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:07,080 And he said, no. 101 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:08,080 He said, no. 102 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:09,080 He said, no. 103 00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:10,080 He said, no. 104 00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:11,080 He said, no. 105 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:12,080 He said, no. 106 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:13,080 He said, no. 107 00:04:13,080 --> 00:04:14,080 He said, no. 108 00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:15,080 He said, no. 109 00:04:15,080 --> 00:04:16,080 He said, no. 110 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:17,080 He said, no. 111 00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:18,080 He said, no. 112 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:19,080 He said, no. 113 00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:20,080 He said, no. 114 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:22,080 So I moved to San Francisco barely knowing this guy. 115 00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:23,080 I moved in with him. 116 00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:24,080 I lived with him for, I don't know, maybe a year, a year and a half, whatever. 117 00:04:24,080 --> 00:04:25,080 And moved into the city and started working in an ICU there. 118 00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:26,080 And again, I did my SANS thing. 119 00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:27,080 I've done my companions. 120 00:04:27,080 --> 00:04:28,080 I don't know that I've called them lower companions. 121 00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:29,080 They were all great people. 122 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:30,080 I always come in with my, you know, my best companions. 123 00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:33,860 and moved into the city and started working in an ICU there. 124 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:36,040 And again, I did my same thing. 125 00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:39,340 I told my companions, I don't know that I called them lower companions. 126 00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:40,360 They were all nurses. 127 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:42,620 And I don't know, I worked up to the 11th shift. 128 00:04:42,620 --> 00:04:47,800 And so what we did was I worked with this guy for about a year. 129 00:04:47,900 --> 00:04:51,060 Then I moved into the city and lived with a girlfriend who was a nurse that I met. 130 00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:53,060 And we were both working 3 to 11. 131 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:56,820 So we would get up in the morning, I don't know, 10 o'clock, whatever, 132 00:04:56,940 --> 00:04:59,580 read the paper, drink a cup of coffee, do whatever we did all day, 133 00:04:59,580 --> 00:05:02,140 go to work at 3 o'clock, get out of the living room, go to the bar, 134 00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:04,960 hang out at the bar until the bar closed at 2, come home, 135 00:05:05,180 --> 00:05:07,160 take whatever, get up the next day, do that. 136 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:08,480 Every single day we did that. 137 00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:10,540 We had a bar that we went to and we had a bartender. 138 00:05:10,540 --> 00:05:12,580 They knew us, you know, we felt safe there. 139 00:05:13,020 --> 00:05:15,360 But I still wasn't really having any issues with alcohol. 140 00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:18,020 I have to say that I was going to be an oxymoron, 141 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:21,760 but I had a couple of blockouts that I think I remember. 142 00:05:22,460 --> 00:05:23,920 You know, I kind of remember. 143 00:05:24,300 --> 00:05:26,540 But it wasn't like my blockouts were gone. 144 00:05:26,720 --> 00:05:29,540 Like I never woke up, you know, like I heard somebody saying, 145 00:05:29,740 --> 00:05:31,780 I never woke up saying, lover me. 146 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:34,100 I always woke up in my own bed. 147 00:05:34,180 --> 00:05:35,440 I always knew where my car was. 148 00:05:35,860 --> 00:05:37,880 You know, I drove drunk plenty of times, never got caught. 149 00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:39,880 I just thought everybody drank like that. 150 00:05:39,980 --> 00:05:42,600 I did all the stuff that alcoholic women do, you know, 151 00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:44,340 especially in the 70s. 152 00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:47,820 It was like, you know, people were, we were just, I slept around, okay? 153 00:05:47,820 --> 00:06:03,850 I never stole drugs that I could get because it was nice to be a man. 154 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:10,710 I would just feel, you know, like, I don't know, 155 00:06:10,750 --> 00:06:13,950 the heart unit, if you ever, if you ever get your brain to be, 156 00:06:14,170 --> 00:06:15,960 it is, sorry. 157 00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:18,350 Because if you were my patient, 158 00:06:18,550 --> 00:06:19,870 I would hear you, you're certain. 159 00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:26,300 So, I would just, I think it's a focus that, 160 00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:28,780 oh, if you want, I would order my coffee. 161 00:06:31,350 --> 00:06:33,330 And then I would, boy, I would, I would, 162 00:06:33,530 --> 00:06:34,650 I would call your parents. 163 00:06:34,870 --> 00:06:37,410 And 90% of the time they said, oh, much better. 164 00:06:37,410 --> 00:06:38,930 I was like, oh, I'm sorry. 165 00:06:38,990 --> 00:06:39,790 That's what I did. 166 00:06:40,170 --> 00:06:41,710 And I'll tell you, when I was there, 167 00:06:42,070 --> 00:06:49,080 and I, and she got fired. 168 00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,020 And, and that didn't scare me and it didn't stop me 169 00:06:52,020 --> 00:06:53,960 because I thought, well, she did an awesome work 170 00:06:53,960 --> 00:06:54,800 and she didn't have to do it. 171 00:06:54,880 --> 00:06:56,160 And I know, I don't want to talk to her. 172 00:06:56,420 --> 00:06:57,280 I don't want her to go. 173 00:06:57,420 --> 00:06:57,680 All right. 174 00:06:57,720 --> 00:06:59,140 So, then I kind of thought, you know, 175 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:02,240 I've worked in the, in the, in the restaurant for 20 years. 176 00:07:02,500 --> 00:07:05,160 And, you know, oh, and so that's why I started dating doctors. 177 00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:08,640 And this is when I got introduced to more drugs 178 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:11,140 because instead of just an alcoholic that I was dealing, 179 00:07:11,140 --> 00:07:11,940 I was like, okay, this guy, 180 00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:15,900 I didn't, he was all about Quaaludes and cocaine and all that stuff 181 00:07:15,900 --> 00:07:17,500 that I had never been introduced to before. 182 00:07:17,820 --> 00:07:18,960 And he introduced me to that. 183 00:07:19,060 --> 00:07:21,020 And I thought, well, since he's a doctor, it must be big. 184 00:07:21,140 --> 00:07:21,960 I'm not going to do it. 185 00:07:22,040 --> 00:07:22,640 So I would do it. 186 00:07:22,820 --> 00:07:24,160 But he didn't like me to drink. 187 00:07:24,300 --> 00:07:27,480 And so my first experience starting to hide my drink, 188 00:07:27,700 --> 00:07:28,840 he didn't like it when I drank. 189 00:07:28,960 --> 00:07:30,000 So I would have to sneak. 190 00:07:30,220 --> 00:07:31,280 And so, and I did. 191 00:07:31,460 --> 00:07:33,320 And he was also living on Quaaludes and cocaine 192 00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:34,240 that he never noticed. 193 00:07:34,500 --> 00:07:37,660 But, you know, it was my first, I, I wanted to drink. 194 00:07:37,740 --> 00:07:38,500 I wanted my scotch. 195 00:07:38,580 --> 00:07:40,360 And that was kind of what I needed to do. 196 00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:43,500 Um, so I, you know, dated him for a little while. 197 00:07:43,740 --> 00:07:46,620 And then I decided I needed to do something else with my life. 198 00:07:46,700 --> 00:07:48,860 So I, I was looking around, well, what am I going to do? 199 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:50,840 And after some research or whatever, 200 00:07:50,940 --> 00:07:53,340 I went, came down to LA to go to graduate school. 201 00:07:53,500 --> 00:07:55,080 And the graduate school that I chose. 202 00:07:55,640 --> 00:07:58,760 So here I am, a nurse who steals drugs, 203 00:07:58,900 --> 00:08:00,260 who's going into anesthesia. 204 00:08:00,520 --> 00:08:00,740 Okay. 205 00:08:00,820 --> 00:08:02,300 Like the perfect setup for me. 206 00:08:02,400 --> 00:08:03,480 Um, so I go to school. 207 00:08:03,620 --> 00:08:04,820 My graduate program was two years. 208 00:08:04,940 --> 00:08:07,840 And I come down here and I immediately find my people. 209 00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:09,940 I find my bar to drink in. 210 00:08:09,940 --> 00:08:10,180 Okay. 211 00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:14,020 I find my cocaine connection and my sister lives here. 212 00:08:14,320 --> 00:08:16,660 And so my sister would continue. 213 00:08:16,660 --> 00:08:18,400 She's a makeup artist and she was in LA. 214 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:22,540 So she continued for her partying ways when she was here. 215 00:08:22,780 --> 00:08:25,000 But right before I moved here, she got so drunk. 216 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:26,240 And I was so bummed. 217 00:08:26,500 --> 00:08:29,560 She was going to be the one that was going to get me going, you know? 218 00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:33,600 Anyway, so I come down here and I go to school and now I'm in school. 219 00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:36,720 So I don't really have the opportunity to be stealing pills anymore. 220 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:40,040 So, um, what happens is, um, I, 221 00:08:40,360 --> 00:08:41,680 I really was, I don't know. 222 00:08:41,680 --> 00:08:45,100 I was just drinking and doing other kind of, you know, cocaine and all that weird stuff. 223 00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:52,760 But then I, I got to get out and I go, I'm in anesthesia and there's not really any opportunity to do all the stuff that I like to steal. 224 00:08:52,760 --> 00:08:54,860 So I have to clean until I read an article. 225 00:08:54,920 --> 00:09:05,880 And what the name of the article was the premedication of infants and children, supentanil, um, the sublingual or buckle, which is under the tongue or in between the cheek and the gum, this narcotic, it's called supentanil. 226 00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:08,260 I'm sure everybody's heard about fentanyl in the news lately. 227 00:09:08,500 --> 00:09:09,920 So you have more famous. 228 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:15,620 Standard and then you have fentanyl 10 times more potent than morphine and supentanil 10 times more potent than fentanyl. 229 00:09:15,980 --> 00:09:20,000 And so I read this article and I went bingo because I didn't have to inject it. 230 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:20,300 Right. 231 00:09:20,640 --> 00:09:27,680 So, um, so I tried it and it worked and that started my descent into hell really. 232 00:09:27,740 --> 00:09:38,800 So I'm still drinking and I'm still partying and now I'm feeling this drug and I'm, you know, slipping under my chug and I'm going to tell you, you know, time goes by and I realized that I'm addicted. 233 00:09:38,840 --> 00:09:39,920 Now I'm physically addicted. 234 00:09:39,980 --> 00:09:43,020 I said, Oh, this is bad. 235 00:09:43,020 --> 00:09:43,540 I got stuck. 236 00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:47,220 So I go to my sister and I tell her what's going on and she takes me to a meeting. 237 00:09:47,220 --> 00:09:51,300 So I started, I think I went to my first meeting in like, I don't know, 89 or 90. 238 00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:56,700 I realized that I was physically addicted and I was not able to stop using the drug. 239 00:09:56,800 --> 00:10:03,200 But what I did do is I was able to stop drinking and I thought, well, okay, I can stop drinking and I'll just stop using. 240 00:10:03,540 --> 00:10:07,000 And I started going and what happened for me was like, I wound up in a specific group. 241 00:10:07,040 --> 00:10:08,140 I kind of bounced around the meeting. 242 00:10:08,140 --> 00:10:11,940 I wound up in a specific group, which as you know, is a lot like this group, very structured. 243 00:10:12,680 --> 00:10:19,360 And up to that point, I had been honest about, I would go to a meeting and I would say, I'm new, I'm new, I'm new, I'm new, because I just couldn't stop. 244 00:10:19,400 --> 00:10:23,340 What I do when I went to the specific group, there's a lot of peer pressure to get them to stay sober. 245 00:10:23,500 --> 00:10:26,940 So that didn't make me get forced to stay sober, which is starting to be lying. 246 00:10:27,100 --> 00:10:30,920 And so when you said about being in the rooms for three years, that was me. 247 00:10:31,060 --> 00:10:34,540 I was in the rooms for three years, in the specific group, going to meetings, not drinking. 248 00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:36,340 Literally, I would go to a meeting like this. 249 00:10:36,360 --> 00:10:37,120 We're going to be a break. 250 00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:37,960 I'd go in the bathroom. 251 00:10:37,960 --> 00:10:38,480 I'd get loaded. 252 00:10:38,600 --> 00:10:41,160 I'd come back and I'd sit in my junkie and drink a cup or something like that. 253 00:10:41,300 --> 00:10:43,140 She's like, hey, any junkie on here? 254 00:10:43,540 --> 00:10:44,900 And I did that for three years. 255 00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:50,280 And so what happened for me was God, what happened for me was God blessed me with sleep. 256 00:10:50,540 --> 00:10:51,140 I'll tell you how it happened. 257 00:10:51,160 --> 00:10:52,940 I was so done. 258 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:54,480 I was so out of my mind. 259 00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:55,880 I didn't know what I was going to do. 260 00:10:56,200 --> 00:10:57,240 I was out of my mind. 261 00:10:57,320 --> 00:10:58,640 And so what I did was I started drinking. 262 00:10:58,640 --> 00:11:05,800 And as soon as I took that drink after not drinking for three years, I felt like my shoulders had been up like this for three years. 263 00:11:05,900 --> 00:11:07,940 And I took that drink and I was like, like that. 264 00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:10,040 I just, I knew I was a drug addict. 265 00:11:10,160 --> 00:11:11,400 I never thought I was an alcoholic. 266 00:11:11,580 --> 00:11:16,620 But when I took that drink, everything just kind of relaxed and everything was just going to be okay. 267 00:11:16,960 --> 00:11:18,720 And I thought, I'm not going to get sober anyway. 268 00:11:18,860 --> 00:11:20,120 I'm just going to die a drug addict. 269 00:11:20,280 --> 00:11:21,020 I might as well drink. 270 00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:23,400 And I felt, why didn't I just drink the whole time? 271 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:24,520 I wasn't sober anyway. 272 00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:36,440 I thought that if I didn't drink, I could use, you know, I could, I could get clean. 273 00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:39,340 And then I could tell everybody, so I'm lying the whole time. 274 00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:41,040 I took a dirty pick for a year. 275 00:11:41,340 --> 00:11:42,460 I took dirty chips. 276 00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:43,760 I did all that stuff. 277 00:11:44,500 --> 00:11:46,300 And I thought about it. 278 00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:47,800 I was like, I hated myself. 279 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:51,000 I thought the dirtiest dirt on the floor because I was such a liar. 280 00:11:51,640 --> 00:11:53,460 And now I'm drinking again. 281 00:11:53,680 --> 00:11:54,940 And now I'm hiding my bottles. 282 00:11:55,380 --> 00:11:56,880 And I'm like, where am I hiding my bottles from? 283 00:11:57,220 --> 00:11:58,220 Nobody's coming over. 284 00:11:58,460 --> 00:11:59,360 I have no life. 285 00:11:59,580 --> 00:12:00,500 I have no friends. 286 00:12:00,800 --> 00:12:02,300 My sister doesn't even come over. 287 00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:05,340 Just like I'm completely isolated in my house. 288 00:12:05,340 --> 00:12:06,060 With my. 289 00:12:06,440 --> 00:12:07,940 And now I'm not even drinking scotch. 290 00:12:08,140 --> 00:12:11,640 I'm drinking vodka and coke or something, just to get it down, right? 291 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:13,480 Just the sweetness, just to get it down. 292 00:12:13,680 --> 00:12:16,840 And and I'm just, you know, but I'm going to work every day. 293 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:20,320 And every day I would wake up in the morning and say, today's the day I'm not going to do it. 294 00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:25,840 And as soon as I got in there, it's like being a bartender, being a drunk and being a bartender. 295 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:27,760 I couldn't not do it because I would get sick. 296 00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:32,720 And so what I would do to cover my tracks is I, we had a few patients, you know, 297 00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:34,640 the drug that I stole and the drug that I gave. 298 00:12:34,840 --> 00:12:36,400 And so this day what I did was I signed 299 00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:40,160 the same patient's name at two different places, knowing that I was going to get caught. 300 00:12:40,360 --> 00:12:42,200 I just knew, didn't do it on purpose. 301 00:12:42,400 --> 00:12:46,480 I just knew I went to bed that night, thought to myself, OK, tomorrow's the day I'm going to get busted. 302 00:12:46,680 --> 00:12:47,520 And I was OK with it. 303 00:12:47,720 --> 00:12:50,480 Sure enough, my supervisor came up to me that day and said, I'll talk to you. 304 00:12:50,680 --> 00:12:52,080 And I go to the book, he goes, what is this? 305 00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:52,800 And I couldn't lie. 306 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:55,160 Well, I know I'm the one who bought the patient's name or whatever. 307 00:12:55,360 --> 00:12:57,320 Did we have the right types and balances at that time? 308 00:12:57,320 --> 00:12:58,800 You just wrote down what you wrote down. 309 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:00,320 And I looked at him and I just shrugged. 310 00:13:00,520 --> 00:13:05,040 And this my supervisor really liked me and I was still a good worker. 311 00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:06,040 Forget it. 312 00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:08,040 He really cared about me. 313 00:13:08,240 --> 00:13:11,440 And so that started my journey of sobriety. 314 00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:16,200 And so my my message is that I kept thinking that I could just get I'll just 315 00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:18,920 get sober and then I'll get on it, I'll get sober first. 316 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:21,680 And then I'll tell you all what I wasn't going to change my faith. 317 00:13:21,880 --> 00:13:22,240 Right. 318 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:24,680 That's my work. I'm going to have to get honest. 319 00:13:24,880 --> 00:13:29,880 And because I was able to get honest with him, of course, they pulled me off the job. 320 00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:32,520 They sent me to the lab. I got drug tested. 321 00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:33,960 I got sent to treatment. 322 00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:36,400 I went into the diversion program at the Board of Nursing. 323 00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:37,640 The diversion program. 324 00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:41,080 And I say and I hope you don't mind this for a bit. 325 00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:42,880 I was their bitch for five years. 326 00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:44,640 I did whatever they said. 327 00:13:44,840 --> 00:13:46,640 I did everything that they said. 328 00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:49,040 And, you know, it was really, really hard. 329 00:13:49,240 --> 00:13:52,720 I was so, so, so grateful for the structure of diversion. 330 00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:54,400 I don't think that I would have been able 331 00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:58,040 to get sober if I hadn't been able to go into that program. 332 00:13:58,240 --> 00:14:00,600 And I was very lucky because the culture 333 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:04,360 at my hospital then was I was able to go on disability. 334 00:14:04,560 --> 00:14:06,040 I was off work for 10 months. 335 00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:09,840 And I said for five years when I was able to go back to work. 336 00:14:10,040 --> 00:14:11,880 It was very, very gratuated. 337 00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:14,040 I was able to go back and not feel any meds. 338 00:14:14,040 --> 00:14:15,960 And I could go back and only have one meds. 339 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:17,840 And then I could go and have a narcotic 340 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:19,320 because somebody else had to hand them to me. 341 00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:21,440 And then eventually I had full privileges. 342 00:14:21,640 --> 00:14:23,360 And that's how my career thing went. 343 00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:25,920 So I was very lucky that I could do my job. 344 00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:28,960 But for me, it was all about getting honest. 345 00:14:29,160 --> 00:14:31,080 So here and now I'm in the Pacific group. 346 00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:32,520 I'm finally sober. 347 00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:35,600 And they have this Saturday night meeting called The Way of Lycania. 348 00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:42,560 And the person who is leading the meeting calls on me and I come up and I go, oh, 349 00:14:42,760 --> 00:14:46,320 you know, you know, I used to like to share because I like the attention. 350 00:14:46,520 --> 00:14:48,200 But this was like, no, no. 351 00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:50,200 So I just got up and I told them what happened. 352 00:14:50,400 --> 00:14:56,240 And I said, I didn't want to tell you that I'm a liar. 353 00:14:56,440 --> 00:14:57,600 I can't tell you the truth. 354 00:14:57,800 --> 00:15:00,320 I tell you the truth. You're going to kick me out. 355 00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:01,600 You know, why are you out? 356 00:15:01,800 --> 00:15:04,800 And of course, I got a round of applause. 357 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:07,800 And everybody was still kind of a lot like you guys up here. 358 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:10,640 The energy here is so friendly and kind. 359 00:15:10,840 --> 00:15:12,760 And I know that you guys are awesome, too. 360 00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:15,040 And so that started my journey in sobriety. 361 00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:17,360 And I'm looking at the clock. 362 00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:18,640 I'm like, I have 20 minutes. 363 00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:20,760 I don't have a lot more to say. 364 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:23,960 But what happened for me, I got my job back. 365 00:15:24,160 --> 00:15:25,520 I got full privileges. 366 00:15:25,720 --> 00:15:31,320 And I was invited to speak on something called the Physicians Wellbeing Committee. 367 00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:34,400 And the other name for the Physicians Wellbeing Committee used to be 368 00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:38,040 your position, which is an idea of what we did. 369 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:46,240 Only non-physician women have been told this year, because I'm a retiring assistant and I'm giving up, you know, 370 00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:51,040 I'm so blessed to have been at that job for 30 years. 371 00:15:51,240 --> 00:15:55,560 So, sobriety has been the greatest blessing for me. 372 00:15:55,760 --> 00:15:58,720 And I'll tell you, if you're new, if you're a woman, or even if you're a man, 373 00:15:58,920 --> 00:16:01,600 if you're new, my sponsor said to me when I was brand new, 374 00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:05,200 is that I'm on a dating restrictor with no one to date for a year. 375 00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:06,200 And I'm like, a year? 376 00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:09,560 And I'm like, a year? Now, nobody was asking me that question. 377 00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:21,320 And what that did for me was, it didn't have to be a year. 378 00:16:21,520 --> 00:16:25,280 I didn't have to worry about who was he talking to, where was he sitting, 379 00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:28,520 what was he doing to me, you know, how did I look. 380 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:31,960 I didn't have to worry about any of that. 381 00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:33,840 So it was a blessing. 382 00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:36,960 And then a year and five minutes. 383 00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:45,660 And so I met someone, and literally, you know, did what I do. 384 00:16:45,860 --> 00:16:48,380 And that's OK. 385 00:16:48,580 --> 00:16:49,860 I mean, that's just what I did. 386 00:16:50,060 --> 00:16:51,500 And it wasn't a boyfriend. 387 00:16:51,700 --> 00:16:52,660 I just kind of met him. 388 00:16:52,860 --> 00:16:54,100 And I went surfing. 389 00:16:54,300 --> 00:16:56,020 And I said, I'll take care of you. 390 00:16:56,220 --> 00:16:59,740 And then I had this long distance relationship with a student in Oregon. 391 00:16:59,940 --> 00:17:01,980 It was not a long distance relationship. 392 00:17:02,180 --> 00:17:05,180 He didn't come down anymore while we were dating. 393 00:17:05,380 --> 00:17:07,020 He had a girlfriend. 394 00:17:07,220 --> 00:17:08,220 And I told him that I know him. 395 00:17:08,420 --> 00:17:11,180 And I didn't know that until the last time he told me she was there. 396 00:17:11,380 --> 00:17:13,060 And, you know, and it never stopped me before. 397 00:17:13,260 --> 00:17:19,180 Because for me, you know, your boyfriend, if you like him, he won't be OK. 398 00:17:19,380 --> 00:17:20,860 So if you like him, he won't be OK. 399 00:17:21,060 --> 00:17:22,260 So I want a boyfriend. 400 00:17:22,460 --> 00:17:27,020 It just made me want to be a little bit more, you know, a little bit up there. 401 00:17:27,220 --> 00:17:30,300 And so, like, you know. 402 00:17:32,500 --> 00:17:35,030 Well, I have a list of things. 403 00:17:35,230 --> 00:17:39,410 Anyway, I used to go out to coffee at meetings. 404 00:17:40,050 --> 00:17:41,290 And the guy used to walk up to me. 405 00:17:41,490 --> 00:17:42,890 We had a big table with ten people in it. 406 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:44,600 And there was a guy there. 407 00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:47,040 And he would say something real. 408 00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:48,080 I wasn't trying to pretend. 409 00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:51,640 Was there anything that I liked or wanted them to come by to his phone? 410 00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:54,080 But then when we got to the next meeting, they said, what's up? 411 00:17:54,280 --> 00:17:56,720 Yeah. 412 00:17:56,920 --> 00:18:00,160 So then once in a while, I was riding my bike along the ramp there. 413 00:18:00,360 --> 00:18:03,480 And we stopped by a couple of people that were playing volleyball or whatever. 414 00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:05,040 And we just hung out and then we left. 415 00:18:05,240 --> 00:18:08,240 And at the way of life meeting, this guy comes up to me and said, hey, we both have a bike ride. 416 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:10,240 And I said, how do you know I have a bike? 417 00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:11,920 Oh, yeah. 418 00:18:12,120 --> 00:18:13,280 And I didn't even notice him. 419 00:18:13,480 --> 00:18:16,120 And the moral of the story is we started dating. 420 00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:21,240 And so, you know, just first friends like to do stuff like go for a bike ride or go for a hike. 421 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:23,320 Yeah, well, I'm going to do one. 422 00:18:23,520 --> 00:18:25,480 And first perspective, I was like a 40 mile 423 00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:30,640 migrant the whole time he was talking, asking me about how do I know if a girl likes me? 424 00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:33,440 And I thought, OK, he was talking about some other girl. 425 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:34,680 We were just friends, right? 426 00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:36,800 So we didn't date for a while. 427 00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:39,160 And then we started dating. 428 00:18:39,360 --> 00:18:40,240 But I didn't. 429 00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:41,440 I did it completely differently. 430 00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:44,000 I didn't look at the phone while I'm at Doreen. 431 00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:45,680 I didn't obsess on him. 432 00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:48,800 I didn't think about him all the time, like, why isn't he calling me? 433 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:51,600 And then all of a sudden, he's also trying to make whatever. 434 00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:53,480 And, you know, things just kind of progressed. 435 00:18:53,680 --> 00:18:56,200 And we've been married almost 20 years. 436 00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:58,800 And the moral of the story is, do you think it's a negative thing? 437 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:00,000 And that's what I have learned. 438 00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:00,880 That works for me. 439 00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:07,800 If I, my character, these ones are the things that used to protect me from whatever. 440 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:10,200 And when I got sober and I wrote my 441 00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:15,040 commentary and I did my fifth step, my sponsor said, OK, these are defects. 442 00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:19,520 These were all of the things that I used in my life to help me live. 443 00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:23,080 And so if I don't have those things, what am I? 444 00:19:23,280 --> 00:19:25,240 And who am I? And how am I going to survive? 445 00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:29,240 And what I found was that those were things that no one was certain. 446 00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:33,840 And I had to learn how to take those defects and turn them into assets. 447 00:19:34,040 --> 00:19:37,840 So, for example, I found that I was really controlling. 448 00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:39,840 So if I just do what I tell you, 449 00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:43,120 I'm going to be fine because I'm right. 450 00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:51,920 And so I'm very organized and I will organize you. 451 00:19:52,120 --> 00:19:58,220 I'm sorry, I'm working. 452 00:19:58,420 --> 00:20:00,300 Meetings give you relief, that's true. 453 00:20:00,500 --> 00:20:03,260 And that has been, I have found that that is true for me. 454 00:20:03,460 --> 00:20:07,460 Working the steps have been the absolute magic of the program for me. 455 00:20:07,660 --> 00:20:11,820 So we, my husband and I have a sober home and, you know, we don't have any kids. 456 00:20:12,020 --> 00:20:14,260 We have dogs. Our dogs have never seen us drink. 457 00:20:15,140 --> 00:20:16,620 We don't have any puppies. 458 00:20:16,820 --> 00:20:19,000 We have a new puppy and a new dog. 459 00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:21,800 And, you know, I go to four meetings. 460 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:23,400 I sponsor others. 461 00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,200 And, you know, I know I'm really, really early. 462 00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:32,680 I'm like, I know I'm really early. 463 00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:47,180 And so I know I've left out, look, stop it. 464 00:20:47,380 --> 00:20:48,220 Yep. 465 00:20:48,420 --> 00:20:50,020 Like, like, 466 00:20:50,220 --> 00:20:51,500 you know, it's like a 10 minute super set. 467 00:20:51,700 --> 00:20:52,940 This told me everything. 468 00:20:53,140 --> 00:20:55,020 And and I am so grateful. 469 00:20:55,020 --> 00:20:56,380 And thank you all for asking me. 470 00:20:56,380 --> 00:20:56,980 Thank you so much.