1
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 My name is Delana and I'm an alcoholic.

2
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 I'm super grateful to be sober because the alternative sucks.

3
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 I'm such a chronic hopeless, I can't save myself even when I try really, really, really, really hard.

4
00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:22,000
 I can't save myself from alcoholism and it's heartbreaking.

5
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 My family did, well, my family didn't mean to raise an alcoholic, but my family did.

6
00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:31,500
 And there's no one to blame, it's just a series of events.

7
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 And probably, you know, my parents, you know, struggle with the allergy as well of alcoholism.

8
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 So I was double dipped.

9
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 And, you know, you can't take a test at the hospital.

10
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 Like you can't make an appointment with your PCP to see if your brain will crave dopamine.

11
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 There's no test available.

12
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 But if you look at me as a little kid, you may wonder, did I have the phenomenon craving?

13
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 And it was set off by attention.

14
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 I was a non-child.

15
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 And so I modeled or mirrored behavior with adults only.

16
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 There were no cousins.

17
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 There was only one child in the entire family, on both sides of the family, and it was me.

18
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 Okay, I was a product of teen pregnancy.

19
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 Okay, my parents were 17 when they got pregnant and 18 when I was born.

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 And I hung out with people that were 35 and 50 years older than me.

21
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 And we watched soap operas, drank coffee, and as a five-year-old, I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to smoke Winston cigarettes or Cool Filter Kings.

22
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 I mean, I was just modeled as an adult, you know, like I did not know what children did.

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 I didn't live in an apartment.

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 I didn't play outside with other people.

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 I couldn't go outside my gate, you know, because these people were afraid for me, you know.

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 And this is my story.

27
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 So I was a little off socially, you know.

28
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 And so even going to kindergarten, I remember it was nap time at noon, and I'm thinking all my children.

29
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 I loved Erica.

30
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 And I drank coffee, and I watched so far.

31
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 And I knew it was time to get ready to get my grandfather's dinner together because my grandmother was a homemaker.

32
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 And, you know, like I did what she did, you know.

33
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 I wrote bills, you know, and we read the Bible.

34
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 Like, that's what happened, you know.

35
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 And so being around other children was interesting to me.

36
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 I knew that I needed to be better than them.

37
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 I mean, that's just how it is for me, better, not the same.

38
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 I don't understand the same.

39
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 I'm either better or feel less than.

40
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 And it's a very dangerous game to play better than.

41
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 But I came from a family that played better than, you know.

42
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 My grandparents, all four of them migrated from the segregated South, either when they were 10 or 20 years old.

43
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 And so they came to Los Angeles in '40.

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 And for them, they worked hard for a little of nothing, and they bought properties.

45
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 They made, we're still living off of the legacy of those people.

46
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 Like, they totally did it right.

47
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 You know, they knew what to do.

48
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 And so there was this thing about, in my mind, my goal in life was to do well in school,

49
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 get a good city job, and work there for 30 years, and retire, and own property.

50
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 You know what I mean?

51
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 And just live a good, go to church, get married kind of life, man.

52
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 That was the, nuclear family is what they called it, nuclear family.

53
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 So I didn't, I don't know if you guys, because I, there's like this format thing that I kind of heard the first speaker say.

54
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 But I'm Delana Zee.

55
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 My sobriety date is 10/21/1996.

56
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 And my sponsor is Brenda M.

57
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 And my home group is Sisters in Separate and South Central Life.

58
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 And it is a meeting of cocaine, but I'm born in alcoholics, anonymous.

59
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 I get my life here.

60
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 And I wanted to introduce that aspect of myself, because I want you to kind of grasp the whole, like, where I'm coming from.

61
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 So here I am.

62
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 And so even this story that I'm telling you about this little kid, it's not why I was an alcoholic.

63
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 It sort of helps you understand why I was maladjusted to life, why I was outright mentally defective.

64
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 Like how I had an off perspective about myself and the world in which I live.

65
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 And I guess everybody does, you know.

66
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 At some point in my life, I compared myself to other people.

67
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 At some point in my life, which I should probably also add that I'm a therapist.

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 So at some point in my life, I understand now that from age five to 12 is where the inferiority complex is built in all human beings.

69
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 And sometimes it hides itself as superiority.

70
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 Superiority is inferiority inverted.

71
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 It's the same thing. I just came up with some type of survival skill to hide that I don't feel good enough.

72
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 So I, you know, the superiority thing is that my family thought because they were homeowners and not renters that we were better than people who rented.

73
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 And in the black culture, if you had browner skin or lighter skin, you were more at a greater advantage, people with darker skin and tighter curled hair.

74
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 Like it's the craziest stuff in the world, what people can come up with to decide that they are better than other people.

75
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 OK, and and whatever the case is, it would have me believe that I was better than.

76
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 But the problem with that is that if that's a true concept of less than and better than, then eventually I walk into a room where I feel better.

77
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 I'm sure they're better than me because I've done the comparison.

78
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 I think it's an actual thing that can occur.

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 So the big book talks about whether it's fancied or real. It has the power to kill.

80
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 There's no such thing as better than. There's only one.

81
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 And I'm so grateful for that. And I learned that in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

82
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 It's 12 steps closer. There is one power and that power is God.

83
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 And it says suggest. Well, it doesn't. It says find him now is the direction. Exclamation point.

84
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 But that that this power is my director and my principal and that that I, instead of seeing myself as better than you or less than you,

85
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 I can begin to start to see myself as a spearhead of God's ever advancing creation.

86
00:06:05,500 --> 00:06:09,500
 But I am one with you and you and we're the same thing.

87
00:06:09,500 --> 00:06:18,500
 And I'm really, really, really it's the 12 steps that helped me get into that eating out process where I'm not a better alcoholic than you.

88
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 Right. I'm not a less alcoholic than you. They wrote one book, one.

89
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 Seems like it's just that. Right. And it doesn't matter what brand I drink and it doesn't matter what substances I use that went along with it.

90
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 Doesn't matter how many nights I stayed up. It doesn't matter how many arrests I had.

91
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 It doesn't matter how many times I hit the 50/50 spot. I mean, it doesn't matter.

92
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 It doesn't make me a better or worse alcoholic than anyone.

93
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 So I'm just really grateful to know that I and you are one. Right. I'm just so very grateful for that. And it helps me in my recovery.

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 And it helps me in my relationship with my children. It helps me in my relationship with loved ones.

95
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 And it helps me in my relationship with clients. It helps me in my relationship for a long time in corporate America as well.

96
00:07:04,500 --> 00:07:08,500
 You know, I began my drinking because I became a cheerleader. I shouldn't have been a cheerleader.

97
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 They shouldn't have let me on the squad. I bullied my way onto the squad and I bit off more than I could chew my mother.

98
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 I wrote a check that my behind could not cash. Okay. And it's like the sweater, you know, and and I started manipulating right away because this is my game, you know.

99
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 And because I was an athlete, I ran track. I was a tomboy. I ran a track. I was working out femininity at that point in my life.

100
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 And, you know, I wanted to be liked by boys. And and I was concerned that it would never happen because I had decided that the shape of my body was not attractive enough.

101
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 Even though I was beautiful and I had amazing hair and I was witty and funny and athletic.

102
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 I did not think for a moment that a boy would truly, truly like me with the shape of my body.

103
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 And it was all a figment of my imagination. And so anyway, I because I'm an athlete and because I'm afraid of embarrassing myself,

104
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 I studied this cheerleading tryout, you know, situation really hard.

105
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 I was at home in the mirror doing it and working on my jumps and kicks, something I had never done before.

106
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 And when the trial day came, I killed it. And I sort of dared them not to pick me.

107
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 I don't think they would have picked me if I wasn't a bully, but they did and on this team.

108
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 But, you know, when you're on the team, you have to go for four. I hadn't considered that really.

109
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 Like literally, I didn't even know that drumsticks, drumstick that when I was a kid, you know, drumsticks and mashed potatoes, fried drumsticks and mashed potatoes.

110
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 I didn't really get that that was chicken. So I'm just trying to get you to understand that I didn't get that I was going to have to go out there in front of people and perform.

111
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 I got in the sweater. That's what my hustle was. And I had to wear it every Friday.

112
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 I went to a high school that had night games. It was like Friday night live, you know, like at this.

113
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 And it was huge. We had a good football team and it was bad for me. And I went out there once.

114
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 And I mean, the anxiety was overwhelming. I mean, I performed, but I felt numb.

115
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 I didn't feel my limbs, if that makes any sense. And then a guy had a backpack and he was walking down the walkway.

116
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 And I was like, what's in that backpack? I was just being funny. And he said, you want some? Well, of course I do.

117
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 I don't even know what it is. And I said, poison? It didn't matter. Yeah, I want some because, you know, who am I to say no?

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 And I think I left my water over there. Thank you.

119
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 And he gave me a sip of his brass monkey at Funky Monkey.

120
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 And it tasted amazing. And it was warm. And I like the effect produced by alcohol. It's not the first time I'd ever taste alcohol.

121
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 I told you I was in the house with all those southern people. So if you had a cough, you got corn whiskey.

122
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 And I really liked having a cough. And you know what I mean? My grandmother was Jesus's little sister.

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 So we took communion, literally. She'd heard everything Jesus said, thought all that. So I figured that they were related.

124
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 So we didn't take grape juice for communion. We took Manischewitz wine.

125
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 So I like communion. You know, I like communion and I like having a cough.

126
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 And occasionally I would get champagne on New Year's Eve because there were no, you know, just adults.

127
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 So they gave me like alcohol. So, you know, when is it going to hurt? Well, so I liked alcohol.

128
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 And then eventually I was piecing up on the weed, you know, and get a darn bag of sesame weed.

129
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 Put $3 in and you hit it as many times as you want. And so this is how Friday started for me.

130
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 And so I was fine and naturally uniformed and I was performing well.

131
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 And this is the beginning of me using alcohol and drugs. But prior to that, I used attention and sex and candy.

132
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 I think I need to say that. I think somebody needs to hear that, too.

133
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 Because once I've been relieved, I haven't had a drink in 25 years. You think I don't still obsess and crave?

134
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 Oh, sweetheart, follow me home. It happens. It happens. Oh, absolutely.

135
00:11:04,500 --> 00:11:11,500
 That's why it's so important to do the maintenance part of this program. We call it unmanageability, as we call it.

136
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 However, when I am not managing the feelings in my body that I'm aware of, unaware of,

137
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 or if I'm not able to manage that feeling in my throat, you know, you know, the one or the one in my stomach, you know,

138
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 the one that you feel. When I'm not able to manage that, I use things to move it. Sometimes I use anger, right?

139
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 Sometimes I use, right, projections. Sometimes I use cake. Sometimes I don't smoke cigarettes anymore.

140
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 I used to use cigarettes. It was just easy. I need a cigarette, you know, but I don't have cigarettes anymore.

141
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 And, you know, cell phone will dull the senses as well. You know, watching a whole series in a night will dull the senses.

142
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 I can't go to bed. I can't do it. I've tried to stop in the middle, but I have something that doesn't let me stop.

143
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 And it doesn't care if it's Hennessy or, right, Breaking Bad. It doesn't care how I've watched Breaking Bad four times.

144
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 I don't know. Like, I don't know what's going to happen. What's that other one with the dragons? Oh, my God.

145
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 What kind was that? Quarantine? Oh, my goodness. So I'm just saying, like, this is what happens to me.

146
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 You have to look at your own experience in sobriety. What is it that I have the phenomenon of craving for?

147
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 Now, those of you that may be new, I want to say and I want to qualify that I had to learn.

148
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 I had to learn and commit and admit to my inner self that I have this disorder.

149
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 I don't. Just because it's been twenty five years since I have activated the alcoholism doesn't mean that I am not clear on step one.

150
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 I concede daily that I have this disorder. I treat it daily because I know that I don't keep me sober.

151
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 I have there are people are dropping like flies in my community. Twenty nine years sober, 30 years sober,

152
00:13:05,500 --> 00:13:10,500
 taking newcomer chips, losing their sanity, not coming back the same.

153
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 So every morning I treat my alcoholism. I wake up. It is about prayer. It is about meditation.

154
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 I'm in 10 and 11 every day. I am asking the creator to please divorce me from my selfishness.

155
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 Please help me be a better human as I exchange energy and conversations with other people.

156
00:13:32,500 --> 00:13:37,500
 Please help me. I sponsor women. I am sponsored. Work life balance.

157
00:13:37,500 --> 00:13:43,500
 I am hiking. I can't get to the hill. I am doing step ups and weight.

158
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 You understand weight? I'm a 51 year old woman.

159
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 That is not in a delusion about where I am even in life, because if you stay sober, you get older.

160
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 Last year in the quarantine, I had a heart attack. Ten years ago, I had brain surgery.

161
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 The worst of them all was hemorrhoid surgery. Thanks to having babies where you shouldn't get a whole bunch of stuff from that.

162
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 But I'm saying around this program, you'll find yourself in situations where you're going to be given painkillers.

163
00:14:09,500 --> 00:14:13,500
 You're going to find yourself in situations where you can be at the brink of your existence.

164
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 Where is my power? Where is my power? When I am in the quarantine and coronavirus before the vaccine and I feel this warmness running down my left arm.

165
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 And I call and have an ambulance call for me and I have to put a mask on and get an ambulance and go to the hospital by myself.

166
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 I'm self-centered. What about me? I want you to change all your covid policy because I'm now here.

167
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 What do you mean I had a heart attack? Check it again. I want to go home.

168
00:14:46,500 --> 00:14:50,500
 My pride doesn't even want me to admit that I was stressed. I want to look bad.

169
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 Don't you know who I am? I'm the therapist. I carried the message from the podium. I'm Delaina.

170
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 I'm not supposed to be down. A lot of things come up in sobriety.

171
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 And if I don't have emotional sobriety, if I don't learn how to manage those things in my body,

172
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 if I don't get honest with myself that I even have them as a result of doing steps six and seven, I start to see I have stuff.

173
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 I have self-righteousness. I practice it. If I'm not careful, right, I will judge you the way I judge myself.

174
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 If I'm not careful, my critical voice will convince me that this life is not even worth living.

175
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 Kill yourself is also a mantra that I know. I'm a survivor.

176
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 I mean, this is just so basically what I'm saying is I know heartache in this program.

177
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 I know facing death in this program is a power greater than me. I didn't send me to this planet.

178
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 I don't know. Maybe you sent you to this planet. There is something greater than me.

179
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 There is something that created gravity. There is something that continues to sustain me with oxygen.

180
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 I don't give me oxygen. And that's how I began to understand my higher power.

181
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 Over the years, my higher power has evolved, has become more infinite, has lost its shape.

182
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 That the realm of the spirit I actually believe is roomy and all-inclusive and includes me with a cold, a very cold, long resume of sin.

183
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 I mean, the list is just ridiculous.

184
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 That has graced me back from the gates of insanity and over, over, and over again.

185
00:16:15,500 --> 00:16:19,500
 I did not save me from the serial killer that had his hands around my throat.

186
00:16:19,500 --> 00:16:23,500
 I didn't save me from that, even though I pulled the $20 out of my pocket.

187
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 The fact that I had 20 and over and over again in sobriety out of sobriety.

188
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 If I don't believe in the thing that created oxygen, man, what am I believing?

189
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 Me with my finite thinking? Me with my redundant emotional self?

190
00:16:37,500 --> 00:16:39,500
 Me with my inability to handle traffic?

191
00:16:39,500 --> 00:16:42,500
 I mean, actually, I handled traffic pretty good now, but there was a time when I did.

192
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 Right? I have a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old.

193
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 I just need you to know, that's my spiritual practice.

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 They are in college in New Orleans sharing a car.

195
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 I mean, I just want you to understand there is a power, oh, there is a power, and it ain't me.

196
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 Because if it were, I'd make you pay for that oxygen. You'd work for yours.

197
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 Do you understand what I'm saying? If you didn't do exactly what I needed you to do in the moment,

198
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 you would lose your oxygen, or I would just take it from you for a while, just so you could act right.

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 Like, thank goodness I'm not your power. Thank goodness I'm...

200
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 Think about Bill. I thought that I was going to be the head of the best enterprise system as well.

201
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 And I, like Bill, you know, started law school and just decided to sell the insurance just too much.

202
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 Because it's in the way of my drinking.

203
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 I started cheerleading, right, and drinking.

204
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 And the next summer, I'm the one that they have to push on the front porch of Rainier-Doreville.

205
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 I'm still in high school. It's just the summer. I'm going to the 12th grade.

206
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 I'm an alcoholic immediately. It manifests itself immediately.

207
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 I didn't work my way up to alcoholism. That's why I believe I always had the craving issue.

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 That's why I believe I always suffered from it.

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 Because I used to sniff rubbing alcohol as a little kid, and pine salt.

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 And when we went to the gas station, I'd leap over to the back of the station wagon so I can get the fumes very strong.

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 And this is a five, six, seven, eight year old. I mean, this is my story.

212
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 So it's just, whatever would have been poured on me is what I would have craved.

213
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 So it doesn't matter if it's alcohol. It doesn't matter if it's malt liquor.

214
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 I mean, how harmless can a corona really be?

215
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 My last run started with a glass of white wine at a wedding reception.

216
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 I don't even know whose wedding reception it was. I don't know who got married.

217
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 I met some dude in rehab. We got married and had a baby because that was going to save me.

218
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 And some people he knew, and we didn't have our kid that night.

219
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 And I said, "I met him in rehab?"

220
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 So how in the world do I sit at this table, see that box of Franzi of wine, and decide that white wine is nearly water?

221
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 It couldn't possibly hurt me.

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 I have the mind of the alcoholic, "Did you hear? Let's put some whiskey in this milk."

223
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 Even though I've lost everything prior to this date behind this and other substances.

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 My head says, "Let's put some whiskey in this milk."

225
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 Or, "White wine is nearly water."

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 I said it to myself and agreed with myself and walked over to the Franzi of wine, not thinking I was being too smart either.

227
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 I learned in rehab number one, and this is rehab number four that I got this husband from,

228
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 I learned in rehab number one that I had the phenomenon of craving and the allergy.

229
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 I was taught the circle and the triangle there.

230
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 I understood that this program affected me in a three-fold nature.

231
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 That affected my body, my mind, and spirit. I knew that at treatment number one.

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 I had a sponsor that taught me we take our body to meetings, our mind, to the big group of alcoholics synonymous,

233
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 and that we treat our spirit by being of service.

234
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 I knew this information, but information is not enough.

235
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 Three rehabs later, I still walk over to the Franzi of wine, and I'm walking back with this little plastic cup.

236
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 Yeah, I'm drunk at work because I can't drink at home, sneaking and drinking.

237
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 My husband thinks I'm in a lesbian relationship with my boss, but that's my drinking buddy.

238
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 So he puts me out, and I'm really grateful.

239
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 Are you a lesbian?

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 Him, my son, the safety of this home, everything, it's in the way of my drinking,

241
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 and I throw a party for being put out of my home because now I can drink like I want to.

242
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 It takes me to the streets of Los Angeles.

243
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 My cocaine addiction helped me identify my alcoholism.

244
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 I put myself in these situations all the time because I'm always choosing right now what feels good right now.

245
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 I'm always surviving.

246
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 I'm always reacting to what I feel.

247
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 There's no responding.

248
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 There's no prayer or meditation, no pausing, agitated, doubtful.

249
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 It's just whatever I feel, I react.

250
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 Whatever I feel, I react.

251
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 Whatever I feel, I react.

252
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 Before you know it, I'm married.

253
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 Alcohol and drugs are not my problem.

254
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 They are a solution to the way that I feel, the way that I perceive.

255
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 A lot of the thinking and perception that I have is habitual.

256
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 It's been handed down to me.

257
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 There's lies most of it.

258
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 It's victim, and it's based in fear.

259
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 The big book says hundreds of forms of fear.

260
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 Self-pity, it says self-pity a lot, a lot.

261
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 What about me?

262
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 What about me?

263
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 That's all self-pity is, is what about me?

264
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 How am I going to, what, me?

265
00:20:52,500 --> 00:20:53,500
 What about me?

266
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 What about what I think?

267
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 What about what I feel?

268
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 What about what I want?

269
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 Why did you think of me?

270
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 Why didn't you invite me?

271
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 Why did you, why do you think of anything else other than me?

272
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 It's self-pity.

273
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 Me, me, me, me.

274
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 I'm the only person on my mind, and I swear I'm the only person on your mind.

275
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 And it makes for a delusional person, and it makes for a person that struggles with illusion,

276
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 and it makes a person that struggles with mental blank spot.

277
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 And it does mean that my perception is off.

278
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 I lack the ability to think straight.

279
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 This is the mental, the mental symptoms of this disorder, because I am only focused on me.

280
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 So of course my, my thinking and my perception is askew.

281
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 Of course I'm now going to struggle to be in relationships with you because I'm thinking about me,

282
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 and I'm judging me harshly based on my mother's critical voice, which I always have.

283
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 And I'm thinking that you're thinking about me in the way that I'm thinking about me.

284
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 And then I project it onto you, and then I fight you and punish you because you thought that about me,

285
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 when it was actually me who thought it.

286
00:21:43,500 --> 00:21:47,500
 So I'm not in a relationship with you. I'm in a relationship with an idea of you.

287
00:21:47,500 --> 00:21:51,500
 We never experience true intimacy and evolution and connectedness.

288
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 And I struggle to be connected to people because I'm afraid that no one loves me and that I'm not good enough.

289
00:21:56,500 --> 00:22:00,500
 And no matter how much I buy you or give you or stretch myself out for you,

290
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 I'm 100 percent convinced that I'm not good enough, and that is the unmanageability that this program talks about on page 52 of the book.

291
00:22:07,500 --> 00:22:12,500
 And that is what has to be overcome, and that is what has to be treated every day, every day.

292
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 Every morning I treat it. I decide that I'm good enough, and I love myself.

293
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 The difference is in the final analysis, after I looked everywhere, the only place that God could be found was within me.

294
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 When I read that sentence, I'm going to tell you it was a relief that I was pissed off, very upset.

295
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 Because I've been thinking that God was in the sky taking notes on my behavior, planning a hell party for me.

296
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 When I found out that the power had been in me the whole time, my goodness, my goodness, but that's the beauty.

297
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 The book also says that my problems begin and end with me, and that gave me choice and hope and faith.

298
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 It's okay if they begin with me. I'm humble enough to accept that.

299
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 The end with me gives me choice, choice that I never had before. It takes me out of the state of power.

300
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 It gives me something to do about the problems that began.

301
00:22:55,500 --> 00:23:01,500
 I realize that the symptomology doesn't really change. Just the subject matter. The symptoms are the same.

302
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 So if I experience abandonment in my childhood, the way that I see things is through the lens of abandonment, if that makes sense.

303
00:23:07,500 --> 00:23:11,500
 It doesn't mean that I'm actually abandoned. I learned how to manage that. I hope that makes sense.

304
00:23:11,500 --> 00:23:17,500
 I still see when you don't call me or you didn't invite me as abandonment. It still feels like abandonment.

305
00:23:17,500 --> 00:23:21,500
 But it doesn't mean you actually abandoned me. I now know how to manage that feeling.

306
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 Does it make sense? I'm a triangle. I'm in shape. I grew up in a triangle garden.

307
00:23:26,500 --> 00:23:30,500
 So some of my edges aren't as sharp as they used to be. They've been filed down a little bit.

308
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 But I'm not a circle, if that makes any sense. I'm shaped in a particular way.

309
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 So things pass through me in a particular way. I just now know that it's not true.

310
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 So I know how to breathe through, process through that feeling, which used to be called abandonment, if that makes sense.

311
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 So I have made conscious contact and I experience inspiration a lot.

312
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 And my intuitive thought guides me and directs me. And most of the time I'm aware of what I'm doing.

313
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 And I'm really grateful for the power of this program and self-aware, self-awareness.

314
00:24:04,500 --> 00:24:10,500
 And even if I wake up from the delusion, which was my second marriage,

315
00:24:10,500 --> 00:24:16,500
 I remember that God is my director. God is my principal and my employee. And I have a way of what it is I've created.

316
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 And I get to make amends along the way. And that is beautiful. Thank you so much for having me out.