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 Now, I'd like to introduce our main speaker, Claudia.

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 Hi, Claudia, alcoholic. I want to thank Alex for asking me to participate in my sobriety.

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 Let's see, Monday, I celebrated 22 years and it's not my first sobriety, but I'm hoping it's my last.

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 I remember babysitting Alex at Life's In Session, him and his sister. Remember that?

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 How old are you? I mean, I didn't know Alex then. No, I'm just kidding.

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 Wow. This meeting, well, not this meeting, the other meeting, Life's In Session,

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 what is that? List, okay, has a very special place in my heart. A lot of people in this meeting

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 were there back then when I got sober in 1992. Clearly, that didn't take, but so there's a lot

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 of people here that have helped me along the way, and I'm just going to share in a general way what

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 it was like, what happened, and what it's like today. Can I tell you guys a secret? Your bathroom

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 smells like weed. I love that. It's probably why I wasn't in there 10 times. I'm like, "Oh, my."

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 I'm all, "It almost smells so good." Anyway, I am 22 years sober. Pacific Group is my home group,

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 yeah, and Sharon is my sponsor. For those things, I'm forever, ever grateful, and definitely

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 overpaid. I am a completely different person than when I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous,

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 even this last time 22 years ago. That was on, what was that? Yeah, Louise at Life's In Session.

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 We'll get there. I'm just going to share in a general way what it was like, and what happened,

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 and what it's like today. I grew up in the valley, and usually people go, "I'm a valley girl," still

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 am. I grew up privileged, and so I had every opportunity that you could have. I did not have

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 parents like Greg, so my dad didn't tell me to go punch people and do that. Thank you, Greg and

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 Veronica for 10 minutes, and welcome you if you're new. My parents immigrated here from Chile when

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 they were really young. My father's sole purpose in life was to make money and provide a good life

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 for his family. He was very strict, and he was very verbal. He was verbally abusive. He would

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 call us stupid, and do that right. I have always been the type of person that was, "No, you're

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 stupid, and you shut up." My older brother just would take it, and take it, and take it, and I

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 just never took it. I did every single thing in my life to annoy that man, from the minute I woke up

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 in the morning until when I would go to sleep. I definitely brought my parents to their knees.

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 My father, again, was really strict, so there wasn't a lot of ... I never saw drinking and

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 drugs, not like Veronica's story. We were a pretty normal family. We would eat dinner together every

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 night, and we would go on a lot of family trips. I have a lot of cousins. We're Latina, so

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 my cousins are more like my siblings, wasn't like regular cousins. We did everything together.

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 I thought I had such a crappy childhood until I came to AA, and realized it was not that bad,

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 actually. Then you come here, and you're like, "Wow." I could never listen. I remember being

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 really young, probably in the second grade, and my teacher saying to me, "You do realize there's

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 other people in the universe, right?" I'm like, "I really was like, "I don't get what you're saying."

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 Very self-obsessed. I never drank because I wanted to have friends. I always had a whole bunch of

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 friends. I had a very social life. I was just very disrespectful, entitled, and I did not like

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 authority. We lived in a really nice neighborhood, and I was constantly sneaking out of my house.

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 By the time I was 13 years old, I was smoking weed on a regular basis. We were getting drunk

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 every weekend. It wasn't like you can get just drunk every single day when you're 13, but we

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 did manage to smoke weed every single day. I know this is an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but

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 drugs are a little bit part of my story, so we'll get into that. We would drink, and my parents

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 would go out, and they would leave me in charge of my younger brother with my friends, and then

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 we would get into their alcohol. I have stories like that for days and days and days, and by the

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 time I'm 14 years old, I've crashed two of my parents' cars. I'm a thief. Stealing is my most

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 favorite thing to do ever, and I love it. If I could steal today and be sober, I would totally

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 do it. I loved it. It's like the thrill. I don't even know where I learned that because I did not

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 grow up like that, but I loved it. We lived in a really nice neighborhood, and I was constantly

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 sneaking out of my house every single day. My dad put bars on my windows, but you couldn't

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 really put bars up because we lived in a nice neighborhood, and it wouldn't look good. He had

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 a carpenter come and build these wood shutter things, so it would look good. I saw them out,

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 and I would sneak in and out, and I would get caught with mud coming into my house, and my

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 dad would say, "What's wrong with you?" It wasn't me. I didn't do that, and I was just out of

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 control. By the time I was 15 years old, my parents put me in a rehab, my first rehab,

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 but by this time I had gone to shrinks. By the time I was 10, a little bit of a crazy person.

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 I go to this rehab, and my boyfriend at the time that I met when I was 14, which turned out to be

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 my husband, Matt, as some of you remember, and tried to break me out of this rehab. I mean,

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 it was just a whole thing. In that rehab, I was there for two months. It's a 30-day program,

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 but I'm in there for two months. In a structured environment, I do really well. I do well in a

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 structured environment, just like this is really a structured group. This is awesome. We went to

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 your guys' marathon meeting at the convention, me and a couple of girlfriends from PG. If you don't

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 know PG, it's also a cult, but not like you guys. You guys are gnarly. When we left, my friends were

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 like, "Oh, my God. That's crazy how they are." I said, "You have no idea." You guys have a rep

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 now for being very strict. I thought it was pretty funny. Anyway, I don't even know why I just said

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 that. He tried to break me out. I was doing really well in a structured environment. The minute I get

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 out, I'm out drinking with my friends. For me, my drinking wasn't ... I mean, I didn't think it was

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 bad. I thought it was we just go out with your friends, and you get drunk, and you get high,

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 and everything's fine. I could have qualified to come to Alcoholics Anonymous at 15, for sure.

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 By the time I'm 17, my father didn't really know what to do with me, so I left home because he had

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 way too many expectations. He wanted me to go to school and clean my room. I left home, but this

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 time I have a different boyfriend that my father hates because he doesn't have the right family.

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 I left, and he was a really good kid. I mean, he's a good man to this day. He just came from

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 just not the right person, he thought. We were off on this little ... We got an apartment. I'm

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 17 years old. I really don't know how to do anything. I mean, I've had my mom and house

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 keepers doing everything for me my whole entire life, so I don't even know how to boil water,

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 really. I didn't. I still don't, kind of, really. My mom would get mad at me or something,

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 and she'll all say to her, "I didn't come out domestic." She's crazy. Anyway, so I get pregnant

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 young. I'm 18 years old. All my friends are going away to school, what you're supposed to be doing

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 at 18. Here, I get pregnant with my son, Anthony. I had him when I was 19, and I really ... I didn't

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 drink while I was pregnant, thank God. I didn't do any drugs, and I tried to be a good parent,

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 but my friends started coming back home from school, and it was on. It was fake IDs and going

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 to this club and that club. That's when everything was really fun. Alcohol, we had a really good

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 relationship then. We were having fun. Alcohol was my friend, and it didn't get bad until after,

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 but we're doing all this stuff, and I grew tired of him. I'm at a party or at some club,

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 I can't remember, and I run into my 14-year-old boyfriend, Matt. I ran into him, and we picked

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 up right where we left off, right where we left off. We were infatuated with each other, and I

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 loved him with my whole entire heart. He was beautiful, and I thought, "Oh, this is it."

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 But he drank different. He was doing things that I'd never seen before. He would go out

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 and stay out for two or three days. We don't live together at this time, so I don't really know

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 the depth of his alcoholism at that point. I get pregnant with my son, Matthew, and we move in

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 together. I always do everything backwards. I never do anything like you get married,

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 and then you have a baby, and then you buy a hat. I don't do anything. I always do it backwards.

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 He would do things like, "I'm going out for a pack of smokes," and end up in Guadalajara,

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 Mexico for three months. I'm serious. You can't get back if you lose your passport,

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 and whatever. It's a lot of drama. He comes back. My son's born, and he's about nine months old.

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 I told him, "You're out of control." I'm out of control, but he's out of control worse than me.

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 I said, "You have to go to AA." We ended up at Life's in Session. That's so weird.

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 Lies? What is it? Lies in Session. Not really. We go to Life's in Session. I remember the first

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 night we went there, it was Nolan's watch. I thought these people were so bizarre. I thought,

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 "What are they doing?" I remember Steve Sterling was the secretary at a meeting. He looked like

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 Alex a little bit with the suit and the tie. I thought, "Oh, he must be the president of AA."

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 I literally had no idea. None. I knew nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous,

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 even though the seed had been planted when I was 15 years old. I was so clueless.

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 I became an alcoholic. I really wasn't going to Life's in Session because I wanted to be sober.

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 I really didn't believe that I had a problem. I really didn't. I was really sick. People would

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 call me Typhoon Mary because I would tell newcomers, "You don't have to do that. You don't have to go

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 to 90 meetings in 90 days." They would go out and drink. Bad crap would happen to them. I'm like,

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 "Do do do do do do." It was ugly. I'm basically there because Matt's there. I want to make sure

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 that he stays sober. A lot of you have been to Life's in Session. It's very active. They do the

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 watches and the parties and camping and softball and all this stuff. Matt really got into that.

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 I think his first sponsor might have been Bruce. Maybe it was Sterling, Steve Sterling.

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 He's doing what he's supposed to be doing. He has a sponsor. He's working the steps.

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 I have a sponsor that I never talked to ever because she was annoying. She told me a bunch

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 of stupid shit. I'm like, "No, I'm not doing that. No, no, no." I was just not listening to her.

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 I got sicker and sicker and sicker. If you're an alcoholic of my type and you're going to meetings,

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 you're not drinking, you're not working a step, you have absolutely no connection with God or any

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 spiritual program, I commit felonies. That's what I was doing. I was robbing people's mailboxes.

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 I know. It's so crazy. I was doing a lot of credit card forgery. I was straight up robbing

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 people at the stores. I would go to the mall. I would wait for someone to try on a pair of shoes

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 or something. I'd just walk away with their purse. Then I'd go and use the credit card.

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 I don't even know where actually I learned any of that because my father was pretty straight. He

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 worked really hard. He had a really good work ethic. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. I was doing

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 all kinds of crazy stuff. I would go to Target. Nobody knew. None of you guys knew what I was

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 doing because I had a lot of secrets. A lot of secrets. I would go to Target. I would fill my

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 card up with VCRs and boomboxes. That's a radio you used to keep up here. A lot of Legos. I don't

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 know what that was about. I really don't. I have a daughter. I got pregnant at license

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 session while I was sober. We had built this nice little life. Matt, my husband at the time,

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 was in the movie business. He had a really good living. It was nepotism. His dad was an

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 Emmy-winning sound mixer. He had a lot of roads that were open to him that most people wouldn't

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 have. He had a lot of advantages. He was making a lot of money. Life was good except for I had

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 this whole secret life. I get busted a couple times. This is like in a three and a half year

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 period. I get busted a couple times. The last time, I was on my way to take the kids to Chile.

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 We had our passports and our tickets. We were ready to go. I decided I was going to go do one

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 last robbery. I went to and I got in trouble. This time, I got in trouble with a bunch of different

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 IDs and credit cards and evidence. That's what they call it. Evidence. I had to go to court.

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 It was like this whole thing. It was funny too. I was thinking back of how the judge would look

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 at the paper. He would look at me. He would look at the paper. He would look at me. I didn't fit

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 the profile, I think, because I didn't really look like a criminal. It was being charged with seven

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 felony counts. Oh my goodness. I had a really good lawyer. They decided it would be a good idea if I

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 went to the mental institution so that my case would look good, even though I was definitely

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 mental. I go to the mental hospital. I was there for two days. Then I thought to myself,

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 this was a bad idea. People are just being way too dramatic. It's not that serious. I need to go home.

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 I checked myself out, but they had run all these tests on me. I was diagnosed with being bipolar

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 and blah, blah, blah, and something else. Then I decided to go home. In that period of two days,

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 Matt has decided, my husband at the time, had decided to go out and use and drink. He was gone.

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 That just started a whole mess of problems. I knew my mother-in-law was coming over. I took all these

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 pills that the doctor has prescribed me. I really didn't want to die. I just wanted to create my own

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 drama. I put all the pills out so that she would definitely call 911 because I really don't want

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 to die. I'm such an ass. But she doesn't call 911. She calls my family. Bad idea. A bunch of

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 chilanes, all dramatic. It was not pretty. My aunt's slapping me. My uncle's trying to walk me.

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 Matt just happened to roll in at that exact minute and said, "We got to get her to the hospital."

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 Had they waited a little bit longer, you'd have a different speaker here tonight because what I took

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 makes your heart stop. I got my stomach pumped. I was very familiar with getting your stomach

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 pumped. I got my stomach pumped when I was 13 years old for alcohol poisoning. Normal people

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 don't get their stomachs pumped at 13 years old for alcohol poisoning. It just doesn't happen.

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 They were just about ready to release me after they pumped my stomach. My mom says to the doctor,

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 "You cannot release her. She's dangerous. She's hurting herself." She was scared.

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 He's like, "Well, I can't keep her." She says, "Well, she did it with the kids at home."

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 Done. Locked down. Off I go. This time, I can't check myself out because clearly I'm insane.

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 I'm in the hospital for 45 days. I get out at three o'clock. At seven o'clock, I was drunk.

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 Just like that. Just like that. This time, my alcoholism was a different animal.

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 It was no longer about just having fun and getting dressed up and looking cute. This was straight up

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 drinking seven days a week, 24 hours a day. I was doing a lot of smoking crack. I know. I'm sorry.

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 Not sorry because it just got me here faster. I was doing things that I don't even know how

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 I would do them. Veronica parked her car at Wendy's because she didn't realize you had to

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 pull in all over here. I was horrified. I thought, "That looks so dangerous. I'm afraid to go walk

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 around my neighborhood at night even though I live in a nice neighborhood." By this point,

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 and why I tell you that story is because of how different it was back then. I would go

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 to Sepulveda in the middle of the night at three or four o'clock in the morning by myself to go

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 score drugs. I sold all my jewelry. I sold all my stuff. I only had one thing to sell left. Thank

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 God I didn't sell my ass, but that was coming. I have TVs that I would haul down to Sepulveda

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 to go get what I needed to get. This is pre-flat screen. We're talking regular, regular TV. Who

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 does that? Now, I can't even imagine doing that. My kids suffered a lot. It was crazy,

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 crazy times. We're both doing all this stuff, and it's going back and forth. I tried to get sober.

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 I tried to go back to Alcoholics Anonymous, but I could not stay sober for longer than

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 20 days. I just couldn't do it. I had taken all the mirrors out of my house. I woke up one day,

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 and I thought, "You know, I got to go back to Life's In Session because that's the only place

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 that I think can help me because I couldn't get sober." I came back to Life's In Session,

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 and somebody would walk up to me because clearly I looked new. They'd say, "Hi. I'm so-and-so."

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 I'd say, "Hi. I'm Claudia." They'd say, "Oh, my God." They were really mean.

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 I don't know who it was, but it was one of you guys. One of you guys said, "We should take a

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 picture of before and after. What happens when you go out and put Claudia's picture up there?"

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 So funny. I'm like, "How rude." I was, let's see, a whopping 200 pounds.

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 Yep. I was yellow. I had sores all over my face. I was completely 100% unrecognizable. My family

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 members, if I would run into them, would not recognize me. I came back to Life's In Session,

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 and I was sober for six months. Every single day, I wanted to drink and use. Every single day,

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 I had this big hole in my gut. But this time, it was different. I had made friends. I got a sponsor

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 that I was actually working with, but I still wanted to drink and use. Matt was working on a

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 show, and he would stay sober during the week, and then he would drink on the weekends. I had somebody

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 from Alcoholics Anonymous sleep at my house every single weekend, all weekend, for six months

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 straight. That's the love that that group gave me because I needed it. I was in really bad shape,

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 and my kids suffered, and everything was just crazy. So I drank one last time, and I remember

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 calling my friend, Susan Martinez, and I said, "Can you cover my cake? Because I'm a cake

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 commitment person at the Monday night meeting." She said, "Why? Why can't you go?" I said, "Because I

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 drank, and I just can't do it." She says, "Well, I'm not going to cover your commitment, and I'm

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 going to make sure nobody else covers your commitment." God, I mean, wow. I thought,

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 "What a bitch." But at my ego, of course, I'm like, "No, it has to be cake there. I mean, hello."

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 I didn't even have 11 hours of sobriety. The whole meeting, she kept nudging me like, "You better

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 start telling people. You better start telling people, because you got to raise your hand."

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 Anyway, when it came time to newcomers, I raised my hand with 11 hours of sobriety, and then the

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 next day is February 24th, 1998, and I have not found it necessary to drink in you since then.

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 The desire, the obsession was lifted that day. That day was lifted when I raised my hand with

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 11 hours of sobriety, and it's a lot easier to stay sober if that's been lifted. It's really hard.

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 I mean, you can do it, but it sucks. I just did everything that I was supposed to do here, but

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 what happened for me is that I needed to go somewhere where there was a lot of women with

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 a lot of sobriety, and we really didn't have a lot of that license session at that time.

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 I still kept my commitments that I had here, like I was the secretary of Friday night meeting,

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 and so I was part-time license session, and so I went to Pacific Group, and I got Sharon to be my

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 sponsor, and I'm doing the deal over there, and they're just like you guys. They do the same,

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 except for they don't write it down, but whatever, but they do the same stuff that you guys do here

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 at Quality of Life, which- Quaff.

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 Quaff, yes. If you're new here, you're in a really, really, really good place. This is an awesome

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 group of people that you should be lucky to be around. I'm doing the whole Pacific Group thing,

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 and I'm Little Miss PG, and I'm going to all my meetings in the yard and doing all this stuff,

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 and no, we don't have to pick up dog poo or horse poo. That's a lie. It doesn't even exist.

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 He didn't even have any horses, okay? No pony. I never saw no pony at the yard. It's funny.

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 I was doing all this stuff. Meanwhile, Matt, when I got sober that second time after I went

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 out after having six months, I needed to go. I needed to leave that relationship because I knew

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 that I would not stay sober in that environment, and a lot of members from this group helped me

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 move. I got my own little apartment, and it was really hard because, again, I love that man.

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 You guys were here. I love that man. I got an apartment. I went to the welfare department to

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 try to get food stamps, and then the line was too long, so I thought, "I'm just going to get a job

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 because it's got to be easier than that." I was like, "Oh, that's a lot." I got a job at the

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 grocery store in the flower department because I knew that they paid well, and they had good

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 medical benefits. I needed that for my children. At this point, it's all about my kids. I'm doing

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 the flower thing. I have a little side hustle. I always have a side hustle on all kinds of stuff.

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 I still have a side hustle. I'm in sales today, so I do a lot of hustling. It's a perfect job if

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 you're an ex-thief. Go into sales. So good. You can literally steal for legal stuff. Not really,

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 but you know. I had this flower business side hustle, and I'm able to provide for my children.

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 I never got any child support. I didn't really do it all by myself, like Eddie told me when I

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 walked in here. I had a lot of help from a lot of people throughout. I always used to say I was

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 a single mom, but I have never had to do anything by myself as long as I've been an Alcoholics

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 Anonymous with this group, with License Session, with Pacific Group. I was doing that, and I'm

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 again four years sober. Matt was in and out doing whatever he was doing. I think he might have been

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 locked up a couple times. I'm not really sure. He had resurfaced, and he had moved in with his

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 parents. I thought it was good for the first few months, and then he went into a drunken stupor,

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 and he shot and killed his father. When you think that you're only affecting yourself,

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 you're affecting a lot of other people around you. My kids are a victim of a violent crime.

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 Before he shot and killed his father, he had strangled his girlfriend.

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 We're talking about a person who's just like me. He was never a career criminal. He was funny

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 and cute, and he was smart, but alcohol took him. I'm pretty sure, and he loved his father. He loved

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 him. I'm pretty sure he didn't wake up that day and think, "I'm going to drink today. I'm going

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 to use today, and I'm going to kill my dad." He's never going to be able to come to a meeting

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 and listen to the 12 traditions and the steps and Chapter 5 and listen to somebody stay sober. He's

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 done. He got two lifetime terms with no possibility of parole. His life is over, over. He's not going

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 to walk his daughter down the aisle. He didn't get to see his kids graduate from any school. Done.

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 I was pissed. I was really angry. That happened on a Sunday. On Tuesday, I was at my regular Tuesday

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 night Ohio Street meeting. Thank God for strong sponsorship. Thank God for strong sponsorship

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 because my sponsor didn't let me change anything. I'd walk around the meetings crying, and I was

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 angry. You see people get sober, and then their families get back together, and everything's happy.

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 That just wasn't my plan. That just wasn't what happened for us. Again, thank God for Alcoholics

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 Anonymous because I was able to just work through that with the grace of God. God has always given

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 me every single thing that I've needed. Had I not left that relationship, I probably would have been

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 the one that got killed. That's clear. I probably would have because I have a big mouth. It would

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 have been me. It's gnarly. When you think this is a revolving door, guess what? It ain't. It's not a

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 revolving door. How many people have we seen come in here and then die because they go back out

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 thinking it's going to be different? It's never going to be different. It's never going to be

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 different. It's going to get worse. I did that flower thing for a while, and then little by

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 little, I would just get better jobs. I met a man in Alcoholics Anonymous 18 years ago, and we're

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 still together to this day, which is so crazy. Other than being sober, I really don't do things

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 for that long period of time. I'm super ADD, so I go to the next thing real quick. He was able to

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 be a father to my kids, and they love him. They call him dad. Little by little, my kids never

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 walked around here acting like they were victims. I didn't walk around here like I was a victim

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 because I wasn't. I was a willing participant in every single thing that I've ever done.

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 I had a lot of different sales jobs. I left the flower business because my partner

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 his house burnt down, and he died in the fire. God, my life is so tragic.

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 It's not really. I have a really good life today, but that just happens. I'm life's in session,

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 right? Things happen. Just because you're sober doesn't mean it's always going to be the sunny

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 side of the street. Just things happen. I decided that was a lot of work, and it was a backbreaker,

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 and I never had any holidays. I was always working, working, working. I started working

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 at this company, and I really didn't want to start working there, but my sponsor, thank God,

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 she's smarter than I am, and she said, "We'll just do it." I was there for almost 12 years.

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 I was the number one rep in the whole entire country out of thousands and thousands of

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 employees. Why? Not because I'm so great, because I would suit up and I would show up.

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 It's everything that I've learned here, commitments. Everything that I've learned

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 in Alcoholics Anonymous, I've been able to take it out into the real world, because we can all

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 act nice when we're in here, but it's how you act when you're out there that really counts.

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 I tried to do that today. The owner of the company, about three, almost four years ago,

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 decided to sell that company. My boss retired, and then we got some douchebag new manager.

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 Because I'm the queen, so I think that I can do whatever I want, I reported him, and it was a

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 whole thing. Three months later, my contract was terminated. Because I was an independent contractor,

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 they can do that, and it's not a regular job. I was really running on a lot of fear. I'm like,

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 "What am I going to do? I'm going to sell my house. I'm going to have to do this."

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 You know how we get. Everything is going to just go down the toilet. I might as well drink.

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 About a week, maybe a week and a half after that, the old owner of that company had bought a

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 different company. He's like, "Oh my God, it's awesome that you got let go, because now you can

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 come work for me." That's a God shot, not because I had this new job. There's millions of jobs, but

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 because the quality of my life and my old company. The quality of my life was really not that good,

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 because I was working a minimum on a slow week, 80 hours a week. I got to my meetings and I did

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 all that, but I was work, work, work, work, work, work, work. I was like a fiend. This new job has

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 able to give me a different outlook. I can be home for dinner and I can go to my regular meetings and

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 not have to be running on fumes. God did that for me, because left to my own devices, I would

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 have never done that on my own, for sure, 100%. Again, God has always provided for me for everything

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 that I've done. I'll talk a little bit about my kids and then I'm pretty much done, but my oldest

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 son, my kids have grown up in Alcoholics Anonymous. We had childcare at Life's In Session. We had

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 childcare at Way of Life, which is our Saturday night meeting. I have a lot of family, so I've

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 always been able to go to all my meetings. I'm lucky like that, again, God. They've grown up in

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 Alcoholics Anonymous. My older son just won an Emmy at Fox Sports in the editing department,

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 and his team, I know, so happy. He might be the only one in our entire family that actually loves

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 to go to work, because he loves his job. My job is okay, but I don't love it. I wish I would win

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 the lottery and not have to go there ever again, but that's not going to happen. My kids are all

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 happy, healthy citizens. They're not stealing my cars. They're not stealing my stuff. I'm not

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 picking them up from the police station, which is really crazy because their gene pool is not that

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 great, especially my ... No, it's not good. My middle son, Matthew, he could probably come

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 into these rooms. He does drink a lot, but his life, he hasn't gotten to the point where it's

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 affected his life yet. I'm going to say yet. He went to U of A. He graduated with a biochemist,

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 and that's kind of hard to do, and now he does home loans. I don't know why I paid for all that

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 school, but yay, Matthew. He's like me. He's a hustler, and he works. I can't really figure out

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 what his deal is, but he knows where ... He'll joke and say, "Don't worry. If I need to go there,

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 I'll get Clancy to be my sponsor." Stupid. Then I have my daughter who is ... She's a millennial.

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 Well, they're all millennials. Millennials are very rough, and it's like, "Where can I make

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 a million dollars without having to do anything?" Yeah, but she's still in school, and she is

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 hopefully going to graduate at some point and leave my house. She's 24 years old, and she's

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 never ... I mean, I got 22 years, so she really has no idea of how it used to be like. She really

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 doesn't. Matthew a little bit, and Anthony a little bit more because he's a little older,

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 but anybody who knows me today knows that I live for my children. Every single thing that I've done

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 has been for them because they had it the worst, and I'm at the point now where I'm sober longer

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 than I ever drink, so they tried to use that guilt thing on me at first, but that doesn't work

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 anymore. Bob, I'll just talk about my husband a little bit because it's hilarious. He's a really

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 good man, and if you know Bob, he is literally the most conservative human on the planet,

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 like really conservative, and more than Bruce-y. He's very conservative, and a banker. He's a

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 financee guy, and about a year ago, he decided that he was done with corporate life and that

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00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:48,480
 he was going to become a bodyguard for a rapper. Yeah, bodyguard for a rapper. He has no experience

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 being a bodyguard. I don't even know if he knows how to fight. Nothing, but the reason he got that

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 job is because he's 6'5". He's a big dude, and when you meet people in AA, you know this guy,

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 this guy does this. There's always the guy. You always know a guy, and so I told my sponsor,

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 "This is definitely not going to work out." We're talking midlife crisis, but like old

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 midlife crisis. Usually, you get that at 40, not 50, and so I'm like, "Dude." So bad, but I had

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 to keep my mouth shut and mind my own business and do what I needed to do, keep my side of the

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 street clean, and it turned out really, really well for him. He is doing really good, and he

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 is traveling super, super first class. Not like regular people first class, but rapper people

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 first class, and he's going to Italy and Paris and all these fabulous places. Meanwhile, my job,

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 I get to go to Beaumont and Victorville and Paris, California. How does that even happen? It's like

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 it should be reversed. I should be going to these fabulous places, but how it happens is by being

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 sober. If you're new today, I really welcome you, and I hope that you stay here. Not everyone's

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 story is so crazy like mine, but if you stay here long enough, then it'll just happen for you.

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 Remember, this is not a revolving door, and I really hope that you get some friends because

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 sometimes, for me anyway, it's hard for me to go and tell myself I'm my sponsor. I got to tell

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 them a couple of my friends first, and then they're like, "You're an idiot, so you should

339
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 do that." I get that a lot. I'm sober, but it doesn't mean I'm not ... I'm always trying to

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 hustle. That's my thing. If I can hustle you, I'm going to try to do it because that's just my

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 nature. I can't help it, but the things that I do today are different. How I talk to people are

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 different. How I treat people are different. Again, if you're new, I hope that you find

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 some friends here and find a sponsor and stick around and stay a while. Thanks.