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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 856 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: celeste-m-horseback-ride-and-recovery-journey-ca-1994-archive-856.mp3 Duration: 01:00:26
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Hi, my name's Celeste and I'm an addict. Hi, Celeste. Uh, I'm going to be speaking tonight, so I think I should, like, pick a topic and talk about that, but I don't know, I guess not. Um, I suffered a really bad loss this week. Um, I raised pot-bellied pigs and, um, one of my pigs died in my arms. And when I was out there drinking and using, I didn't want to feel. And what the gift that this program has given me was that I was able to be there for my pig, and I was able to hold her and to love her while she died.
And, um, I was able to do the right thing and have her bottom knee cropped so I could find out what it was so it won't happen again. And, um, it's really, really hit me hard, and I know it's so silly, because if you had told me back ten years ago when I was put in the hospital because I was dying of cocaine addiction that, uh, that I would one day be crying over a pig, um, I wouldn't have believed you and I wouldn't have wanted it.
And, uh, it was really special. Um, I say a little prayer to VISA. So, um, it's been real sad. And, um, I am so grateful to be able to feel today. When, um, when I was a young kid, I was the oldest of seven. I was brought up in a family where feeling wasn't okay. And if you went ahead and had a feeling, then you were the target of the abuse. And so I learned to stuff my feelings. I first learned to stuff them by overactivity when I was about, I think I was in second or third grade.
My father sat me down. I was remembering this this morning. And, um, he made a list of all the things I was involved in. And I was in the Girl Scouts, the, uh, Campfire Girls. I was on the kickboard team. I was on the swim team. I did the beaded moccasins for the Explorer Scouts. I did all these. I was involved in a science thing on Saturdays with the museum. And what I did was I ran. I ran all the time because I couldn't stand how I felt inside.
And, um, and everything seemed so miserable for me. Um, I got busy in activity. And I got involved in church groups. And I was a member of five different church groups. And that's where I first found alcohol. And, uh, the second I started doing alcohol, I started doing drugs. Because I had, I had given up the thing. I, I was a good girl. And I was going to be married a virgin. I was never going to drink.
I was never going to smoke. I was never going to do drugs. I was never going to lie or cheat or steal or anything. I was going to be just so good. And I was. I was terminally good. I couldn't stand it. And, um, I ended up drinking when I was, um. It was either my 16th. I was either 16 or 17 years old. It was a New Year's party. And I remember that first drink. And I remember the person I picked to fix it for me.
And his name was Keith. Keith W. Don't know if he's alive today or not. But he's the guy that you pass the hat around. And everybody put a buck in to bet that he couldn't finish the whole bottle of Jack Daniels without throwing up within five minutes. And he's the guy I went to. And, uh, he made me a scotch and water. And, uh, I remember arguing about the ice cubes. Because if you have less ice cubes, you get more booze.
And I knew that. And, uh, I drank it. And I didn't feel like the rest of you looked. So I drank another one. And I did. I got sick. And I threw up on myself. And I passed out in the bathroom. And I came to. And I was humiliated. And I had to be carried home. And I had to talk to my parents through the door. And tell them I was okay. And I felt like I was going to die. And I went to church the next morning with a hangover.
And I swore I would never drink again if my hangover was taken away. I swear it lasted four days. And I drank from then on. And as long as I was drinking, who cared? Why not smoke a little pot? Why not, you know. And then, and then it's like for studying. When you take those, uh, those white crosses. That was really. I was, I was, I was fast. I was alert. I was on top of things. I was in control. I was in charge.
I felt good. I didn't feel like that, that puny little person. That would get down and read the books and not understand it. I understood everything. And I ripped through those pages. And I read it. He asked me a question about what I read. I couldn't tell. I got a gun to my head. But I was fast. And that's what mattered to me. And, um, and so of course I decided that the best way to buy drugs, because they were too expensive, was to deal them.
[00:04:59]
And so I started dealing speed.
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And then pretty soon I was meeting the dealer. And the dealer is the one that introduced me to cocaine. And I first saw it as this white powder on the table. And I thought it was heroin. Because I was, I was a dummy. I didn't know about this stuff. And, uh, they would do it. And they just looked so good when they did it. It would just be so peaceful. So happy. And, uh, and everybody would want to do more.
And it was like, it was like it was a very good thing. And I once again was being this weirdo. Because I wouldn't do that. So I went ahead and I tried it. And it was love at first sight. And when I found out how expensive it was, I said I'd never do it again. And it was probably two days later and I was doing it again. And, uh, I progressed in my life further and further into being able to do more and more and more cocaine.
That was the basis of what I liked. And every once in a while I would say, that's it. No more. It's a waste of money. I'm going to stop. So I would drink. I would smoke pot. But I hated pot. It made me tired, stupid, and paranoid. And those were three things I didn't like. I liked to be alert. I liked to be fast. I wasn't coherent, but I was fast. And on pot, I just was dumb. And I'd just sit in the corner and then I'd think somebody was after me.
And the cocaine turned that way, but it took a long time. Um, I ended up working in a dance hall in downtown L.A. Um, I ended up opening a house of prostitution. I ended up opening a gambling house. I did whatever it took to finance my drug and alcohol habit. And I was always off of something and doing something else instead of. Because I was going to get control of what I was off of. And, um, I remember one time in my life, um, I had a policeman in the bedroom with me.
I had bags of pot up in the cabinet. A guy ringing the doorbell to buy some pot. And I had to get the cop out because the gambling people were due over in an hour. And I had to do the work in four hours. And I just remember laying there in the bed and thinking, this is really crazy. That was the life I lived. I was a cashier during the day. And then a drug dealer, gambling house, you know, working woman at night.
And, uh, that was my cover so the IRS wouldn't get me. I mean, I had all these plans up in my head and they were so stupid. Um, it was also in case somebody asked me what I did for a living, I could tell them I was a cashier. You know, and I didn't dress like a cashier. I didn't look like a cashier. I didn't act like a cashier. I acted like a drug addict. And I always wondered how people knew. Um, I moved to South Lake Tahoe.
I was going to manage a restaurant. I got involved with a mafia hitman. He swore he was going to kill me, so I moved four blocks away. You know, that was far enough. Um, he ended up leaving town. He just realized how cuckoo I was. I mean, just nuts. Um, I got involved in just a series of one bad relationship after another. And it was based on drugs. And what I would do is I would meet a guy who was just getting into dealing and I'd show him how to run his business.
And I'd show him how we could pool some money together with people and buy a bigger amount. And then we could distribute, you know. And I'd set this whole thing up and then I'd just burn him into the ground and go on to my next one. And that's what I did. And I just, I was a pig. I was a pig. I just, drink, use, go for it. Um, I continued at that rate. I got involved with the Sanchinistas in a cocaine trafficking thing.
And I remember that was really thrilling. Um, I was always paranoid and always afraid. You know, I never knew who was after me. I got involved. I turned state's evidence against the Crips gang in Venice, California. And had a, a, um, not a warrant. What's it called when they put a price on your head? A contract. Yeah, they had a contract out on me. So, uh, I decided I better move. So, I think I moved into the next town.
Yeah, I moved from Venice to Inglewood. Um, you know. And I was the only white person in Inglewood in the area I moved into. But it just never dawned on me. I never took a look at things that went on. I, uh, was robbed one night. And I came home. I had been working as a cocktail waitress at the Marriott Hotel. And I was in a pair of clogs. You know, the big, the big heavy platform shoes. And I always wore the same pantyhose with all these holes in them.
And the girls would always go, Celeste, get some new pantyhose. And I'd be like, I'm just going to rip them. So, what does it matter?
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And I'm working at the Marriott Hotel. I'm, I'm, you know, I just. And I'd be in this cocktail dress that wraps around the front. And it's got these little wings on it. You know, so when you bend over, they can see everything. And, and here I am at 4 o'clock in the morning. I've been robbed. So, I come home in the cocktail dress with the lounge shoes. Because, of course, I stayed afterwards drinking and doing drugs.
And I got the bartender to deal coke. He was the first time I ever got involved with a younger guy. He was hard to train, though. And, uh, he just, he was so stupid. I just, I couldn't believe it. It, it bothered me. And, uh, so, uh, I came home at 4 o'clock. That's where I stay after and have a few drinks and wines. Do a few lines. Came home and I'd been robbed. And so I went over a six-foot chain-link fence.
And these platform shoes with a .25 caliber Bercee. It was a handgun that I carried with me. Just in case I needed it. And I'm running down the street chasing these Crips guys. In this cocktail dress. And Dennis. Um, I, I later got a hold of myself. And I, I called, I got in touch with some of the people in the group. Or the gang. And I made a deal with them. I said I would buy back my stuff. And, uh, they said they'd bring the guy by.
And the guy came by and raised the price on it. It pissed me off. So I called the cops. And I told them that, uh, they needed to take everything down. I, of course, had done probably about a half a gram before I called them. And I told them, I said, I want you to write everything down I'm saying. My name is. And I gave my name and I spelled it. My address. My car. My license. My driver's license number.
And everything. And I said, and you can find me if you're not here in ten minutes. Driving up and down the streets of Venice. Shooting every motherfucking nigger I see. The cops came to arrest me. While they came to arrest me. That's when the guys from the gang were high on PCP. Walked in the front door and they arrested them. And they told on the group. And that's how I ended up turning the state's evidence.
I went to the court. And I free based out in the parking lot. During the breaks. During the recesses. And I still don't remember what I said on the stand or did on the stand. All I could think about was that damn pipe. I wanted out to the car just to get away from this. And that's who I was and that's what I'd become. I was a piece of scum. By the time I was 27, my health was down the tubes. I was bleeding anally and orally and my ears.
I was also practicing bulimia for the time that I used. I didn't want to be fat. It's not conducive to getting cocaine. You know, you've got to be a slick chick. And got to be thin and cool and, you know, the whole thing. And looking good was important. And so I went to the hospital. And had a doctor take a look at me. And he told me I was dying. And I believed him. And I still to this day don't know why.
But I believed him. And he was a guy from India. He barely even spoke English. And his name is Dr. Muchi Bhatia. I mean, a weird guy. And I don't know why. I still don't. And he told me that I was dying. And I believed him. And I realized I had a problem with cocaine. I really did. And he said I needed to check into the program. And that I wouldn't drink. I wouldn't use. You know, those kind of things.
And I thought I'll just do whatever. I need to get this cocaine off my back. I can't afford it anymore. It's crazy. The man who was my quote-unquote boyfriend, if you can have one of those when you were in the profession I was in, I told him not to worry because I kissed him and I didn't kiss anybody else. That's what made it special. And I never understood why he was upset about that. As soon as I brought the coke home, then it was okay.
You know. And so I went ahead and, oh, I'd forgotten one part. One night I was just blasted out of my mind. And I was like, oh, it's so late. And I shouldn't have done this. And I blew all the money again. And I did all the drugs. And I was going to sell some of this. And how am I going to pay the guy? So I called Cocaine Anonymous. And they have a tape in L.A. And you listen to it. And it starts with, I believe, Monday.
And it was Sunday night. Yeah, something like that. But I had to listen through the entire tape to get to the meeting. I couldn't do it. I couldn't sit there and listen to, you know, Monday at 7 we have a meeting on such and such and such and such and then the Monday at 12 o'clock we have a meeting. I couldn't stay that long on the phone. But I ended up hearing that there was one at the hospital that was up the street.
[00:15:02]
So I went up there and I walked into the lobby and I said, Hi, where's the CA meeting? And there was this little old lady who was a volunteer. She nearly had a heart attack because here this crazy woman comes running in. You know, and I'm looking for the CA meeting. She can tell that it hasn't been long since I did my last line. And it was it turned out that they didn't have a meeting there. It was the next night. They ended up sending me down to a meeting on Pico. And so I drank a vodka with cranberry juice, no ice, drank the whole thing down and went to my first meeting.
And when I left the meeting, I cried through the whole meeting. I don't remember anything that was said, but I remembered that I identified. I identified with the feelings and I felt like maybe there was hope, maybe. And when I left, there was a bar or a liquor store right next door. So the only thing I could think to do was if I didn't have room to drink or to use that I'd be OK because I didn't have anything left at home.
And so I bought a six pack of diet root beer and I drank it all before I got in the car. And then I went home and that was my idea. And I got home and the next morning I checked into the hospital. And I still don't you know, I turned my badge into the company and my beeper and I made this huge dramatic thing. And the guy was ex-military. And he asked me what my problem was. And I said I was addicted to cocaine.
And he was just like, oh, my God, you know, the big one. Drugs. I can't even believe it. And so he went out and had margaritas for lunch and got so bummed he didn't turn my resignation in. So the company paid for my hospital stay and I had a job when I got out. Not the same manager, though. They didn't do that. But I went to Daniel Friedman Hospital and I was there 26 days. My hospital room was right across the street from the drug dealers that I had gotten the drugs from. So I would sit and watch out my window. Everybody coming and going.
Now, these guys, three years earlier, they were older men, had gotten involved with some real young girls and had taught them how to do drugs. And freebasing was my my love. And that's what they had taught these girls to do. And one of them died. And the brother had come after these two guys had come in their apartment and had wrapped them with telephone cords to chairs and stabbed one of them seven, 47 times. The other one, I don't know how many times he stabbed, but he killed that guy.
And the next day, the fire marshal found the one dealer there that had been stabbed that was tied in that chair. That man spent six months in the hospital. And when he got out, he went right back to dealing drugs. And I went right back to spending time with him. It just made no never mind to me. So that's who I looked at out the window of my room. And I thought, this is not going to be good because they're going to let me out of here and I'm going to go straight over there. And then I will have blown everything. And I didn't have a problem with alcohol. Cocaine was it. And so I just needed to stay away from that place because everybody else was busted.
And at 26 days, they told me it was time to go home. And I remember crying and saying, if I leave now, I'll use. And I could envision them getting the stretcher out and I was going to get on the mattress. I was going to be holding it and they were going to drive me home and they were going to dump me on the front lawn. You know, and I was going to be there holding that mattress. That was the only way I was going to make it. And then I didn't know what I was going to do from there.
And what they said was that her special cases, most of the other people graduated, you know, they got all their books and their little chip that the hospital gives you, you know, and they got to go. But not me. They said, for some people who have special cases, we we suggest a recovery house. And so that's what I ended up doing. I had gotten a sponsor when I was 12 days sober. I didn't pick her out of the pool. Well, yeah, I sort of did. Her name was Donna and I had gone to a Pacific group meeting and it was a room with 650 alcoholics because some guy from AA was this do-gooder and he'd come pick us all up from the hospital and he'd load us in his beat up old station wagon and he'd take us down to this meeting. And his name was Noel and he was this big around and he was weird.
And and he was just an old fart. And I figured he was probably in it to meet the girls. You know, I just I didn't know what it was, but it was a chance to get out of the hospital. And to be locked on a ward for all that time was not a lot of fun. So I went ahead and went and I got down to this meeting and it was at the Santa Monica High School.
[00:20:09]
And the cafeteria just has all these tables lined up and there's 650 alcoholics in this place and everybody's walking around talking and shaking hands. And I'm mad at Glenn. He's one of my hospital guys and he's been stealing my Sherman cigarettes and I am going to catch him. So I put him down on the table and I start to walk away, keeping in mind my Sherman. And I get moving across the room and these people, they shake your hand. They give you their number. They ask what step you're on, who your sponsor is. I before I knew it, I was on the other side of the room and I'd forgotten all about the cigarettes. But I did remember. So I went trucking back over and I found my cigarette. But this lady was smoking one and her name was Donna. I found out later that she had long fingernails and she had long fingernails.
She had real nice shoes and she was in a silk dress and she had long blonde hair and makeup. And she was just gorgeous. And I just thought, wow, you know, she didn't look like an alcoholic to me. But she was smoking my Sherman's and she was clicking her nails, her long nails on my Sherman's box. And she was talking to this drunk across the table. It was a woman from off the street. And this woman had scabs on her body and she sunk. And she was just crying. And I just couldn't even believe this nice woman was touching her because she was holding her hand and then she was doing the nail thing. And I just I was repulsed. So what I did was I tapped on this lady's shoulder and I waited probably two nanoseconds because I was very fast when I got when I got clean.
I used to walk up and down the halls and talk to myself. I'm going fast. One, two, three, four, five. I'm going. And I was sober. I was clean. I was out of my mind. And so I tapped her again and I tapped her again and I tapped her again. And the last time I tapped her, I sort of looked over because you know how your head flies away when you're new. It just kind of does stuff in your body. And you'd be sitting there drinking coffee and then you dump it. And I just oh, I was I was so pathetic. And you try with two hands and that doesn't work either. And your feet, you know, that fly away thing. And my sponsor told me it was the cocaine and the drugs leaving my body. So that made me feel better because I thought something was wrong with me. So every time it would happen, I'd think they're leaving. I was all excited about that.
She told me all sorts of stuff. And and I looked over and I saw my cigarette. So she was she was smoking her own, but I had turned back around. She turned to me and she said, yeah, can I help you? And I said, yeah, will you be my sponsor? It was the only thing I could think to say at the moment. Well, turned out she was a cocaine addict, too. And she had run with all the people that I had run with, except when she ran with them. They lived in Malibu. They had Mercedes. They had the fancy cars. They had the fancy homes. And when I met them, there were four or five of them living in an apartment that was two bedroom. And they had just the mattresses laying on the floor. And it was just it was just a drug house and people coming and going.
And it was disgusting. And I ended up doing a fourth step with her. And she told me that she wanted me to stick real close. This was back July 31st of 1984. And C.A. wasn't, you know, really that it was a group of weird people that met down at the church and you didn't want to go there. And and, you know, and they had very bad sobriety and very bad clean time because you were allowed to go out and use if you went to Cocaine Anonymous. But if you were an AA, you weren't. I now you know, if you ask me who told me that, I don't know, but I knew that that was the truth.
And the other thing was I had joined the Pacific Group, and so there was no way I could drink or use for the rest of my life. Now, there were people that slipped all the time, but it never dawned on me that that could have happened to me. And so I stayed clean and sober for nine months because I just I guess I believe the Pacific Group had the police that would come check me or something. I don't know. They were going to come get me. So I just I couldn't drink or use. And at nine months, I ran to my sponsor and I was like, I could drink or use. I just I couldn't even believe that. And I was terrified. She went ahead and had me do my first step, first, second and third by reading the twelve and twelve. And so I went ahead and I would read that every single night per week and then I would read it and I would write on it.
[00:25:21]
And she said, well, what do you want me to write on it? Because I wanted to do everything perfect. It's like I had I liked extremes. So that's what I'm about. So I wanted to do this thing perfect. And I wanted to know exactly what she wanted me to write. She said, well, when you're done reading, come up with something to write and just write it down. And I was like, you know, you've got to tell me what am I supposed to say.
Now that I sponsor people, that's the same question that I get asked. And it's the weirdest thing. You just read it and you write and you know what to write. And I ended up doing that. She said to continue reading the first step every night and writing until I was finished. And I was like, how do I know I'm finished? And she says, you'll know. And I did. I knew it was really weird. And then I did the second and the third step that way also.
And then I sat with her and I read them and we did the third step prayer. And that was how I did the first three steps. I then decided it was time to do my fourth step. I had heard a person speak and said that when you do a fourth step, anything you write in it, you never have to do again. And I had a lot of things I wanted to do again. I had a lot. I had a giant list. And so I wanted to get on this thing immediately.
And I would ask her every morning at 530 when I called, can I do my fourth step? And she would say, no, not yet. And I look back on it now. And the reason is that my ego would have been completely in there. I would have written down that I killed a man. I stabbed him with a fork. I, we, I've been up for four days doing cocaine. He was one of these drug dealers in South Carolina that used to deal pot, but I got him. I became his girlfriend and I showed him how to deal cocaine because you make more money. And so what I did was I stayed at home and did all the cocaine while he went out and sold it. And I was absolutely obsessed with solitaire.
And I would play cards day and night and day and night and just do, I do a line and play a few hands and, you know, and if I won and I could do another line and I'd play a few more, you know, and I just, and I would drive this man absolutely nuts, just nuts. And he came home one day and he goes, get rid of the goddamn cards. And I was like, fuck you. You know, and I'm sitting there playing away and I'm trying to remember how many times I've won because when I get to seven, I get to do a line and I'm playing away. And, and he came over and he reached to pick those cards up and I grabbed the fork and I stabbed him in his big fat belly. And he deserved that. And it was, it was insane.
So what I did from then on was when I got involved with the man, I would tell him that I killed a man and that would teach him that he wasn't supposed to get in my way because I was that crazy. And that's the kind of thing I would do. So here I was going to go ahead and write a four step about how I killed a man and, and all these other stories that I had invented stories to tell people because of my own fear and my own bullshit and, and my own wanting to be special and wanting to be important.
And I would take any story and make it this big between the eyes, you know, that was my, my way of dealing with stuff. And so she made me wait and I had to wait until there was one morning I stopped asking when I could do my four step because I started getting a little concerned about it. I started realizing that it wasn't so cool to be a cocaine addict. Even though I was in AA, I maintained this elitist attitude that these people were a bunch of drunks. These people were alcoholics. These people were gross. These people were gutter slime.
I hung around with the people with money. I hung around with the people that did things. I hung around with people that flew airplanes. You know, the fact that they had died in an airplane crash the one time I went up with them, you know, didn't seem to faze my mind and that it was a stolen plane and, you know, all the other stuff that goes with it. But I had invented this, I had romanticized my using while I used and even when I quit.
So all of a sudden I wasn't so proud of all the insane things that I did. I started having a conscience and I guess my sponsor noticed it or was waiting for it and she told me before I took my one year cake that I had to do my fourth.
[00:30:02]
And I did a fourth and the trick on the fourth is once you start writing, don't stop. That's what I found and I went ahead and I wrote every. day, and when I finished, it was 380 pages, and she told me not to worry that I would have repeated a lot of things, but I hadn't, because she said, my God, it took three or four weekends to read it to her, and she had moved back in with an ex-husband at that time, and so I read it to her, and we ended up leaving it up in the closet. He ended up doing drugs, and she left him, so he ended up with my fourth step, so maybe he'll have something to read on some night when he's a little on edge and needs something to do, and I remember when we finished my fourth step, my sponsor made me stand up in front of the mirror, and I had to say, I like you, I love you, and I accept you, and I told her, that's stupid.
I can do that. She said, fine, then do it, and I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand in front of the mirror and look myself in the eye, and I couldn't say those things, so that was my project then was to work on that, and what I would do, I was back at my job, and I drove this van, and so I would tip, oh, I had accidents when I first got sober. I ran into a bank teller machine. I ran into a parked car. I ran into a drive-thru restaurant podium. I just, I was still fast, and I still wasn't paying attention. I was more a menace those first few months, but I didn't lose my license then.
I lost it later, and so I went ahead and would pull the visor down, and I said, you know, put a mirror on it, and I would catch myself in the corner of the mirror while I was driving and go, I like you, and I put the visor back on, and then I'd practice. I like you. I love you. I accept you, and I'd pull the visor down and look at myself, you know, and I just, I did really wacky things. Another thing I did is after work, I used to always go to Happy Hour, and then I'd find the guys down in Marina Del Rey, and then we would go do some coke on the boat so that we could drink some more, and then we'd go do some more coke, and then I'd go to the other people because the old farts would fizzle out, and you know, I'd do all that stuff, and so what I did every day after work was I would go by, and I would buy a plant, and I had like 220 plants in the house, and I told my sponsor that this was really getting out of hand, and somehow just by sharing with her that I had done that, I stopped having to do that, but I stopped at the plant store and set up at a bar, and I spent the dollars that I normally spend at the bar before I put my drinks on your tab or your tab or your tab because that was my famous thing. I'd go in and buy myself one cocktail and then drink off everybody else's tab, and I was absolutely cuckoo.
At 30 Days of Sobriety, a girl asked me to sponsor her, and I said, I'll have to ask my sponsor, and I knew my sponsor would say no way, and I went and asked her, and she said, I think it's a wonderful idea, and I was horrified, and I said, what will I do? And she says, what you can do is pay close attention to what I tell you so that you can tell the same thing to the person you sponsor, and what that did was it made me walk like I talked, the best I was capable of doing, because I don't remember most of my first year of sobriety. I was truly a basket case. I came to, the fifth step I read with her, the sixth step, character defects, I didn't have any, and humbly, I don't even know what that is, and the original form of the big book says, we humbly on our knees ask God, and they read it at an AA meeting a few weeks ago that I was at, and I remember standing up in my chair, because I don't think they should have that on my knees part, you know, that was the old version, and it was wrong, and they changed it, and the humbly, the knees, I just am so bad about that. I've got it connected that you just can't do it that way, and it's not true, so I'm still working on that one, that's my toughy, and the eighth step, I couldn't wait. I made a list of everybody I had dragged with, cheated on, cheated with, places, I wrote them all down, and I couldn't wait to go apologize, and what it was about was I
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wasn't going to go apologize, I was going to go down there and find out what was going on. I was going to go down there and take a look at them, and see what it was really like. It was a bunch of nonsense, and my sponsor went ahead and she ripped that list up, and she said, the amends that you will make is by living a good life today, and by never putting your face in those people's faces again. They do not need any more pain or misery from you, and that I was to leave them alone, because that's who I was. I would come and help you, and destroy you, and so what I was going to do was I was going to go back and apologize to the guys, and say, so sorry I got in a romantic involvement with you, I really didn't like you at all, it was just your drugs. You know, that's no amends, that's not what it's about, and by the way, how are things? You know, that isn't what the 8th step is about, and what ended up happening is, I've done my 8th step when people have come to me, things have happened. I'll be someplace, for my 3rd year birthday, my sponsor and I went out to dinner, and the man standing behind the bar was my last drug dealer, and I was able to walk up and say hi to Dayton, and he couldn't believe I was alive, the word was that I had died, and I had, the old me had died, and he said I looked wonderful, and I told him I was an AA, and CA, and NA, and you know, all these things, and he said oh that's great, he said I went to a few of those meetings, and I don't use either, it just happens to be that tonight, I did just a little speed, because I was down this afternoon, you know, I wasn't feeling, you know, and he was loaded out of his mind, he was doing cocaine and speed, still hadn't changed, and he'd gotten married, and he had a 5 year old kid, and it was just, it was just sad, it was pathetic, and he wanted to get together with me, and this guy I had held in my brain, now I was going to get sober and become good enough for him, you know, and how things change, how things change, and you know, I feel sad for him, and I wish the best for him, but, and then I decided also at 3 years of sobriety I was almost 30, and it was time to get married, and I found the guy with the worst story in AA I could find, because I had a bad story, and his name was Paul, and he had red hair, and he was 6 foot plus, and he was a construction worker, and he'd been 86 from the VA hospital in LA, which is a very hard thing to do, and I admired that, I mean, just don't take anybody there, you take people that are brain dead, and they told him he couldn't come there, so I was like, this is, this is my man, and so we got engaged, and we became the AA couple, and I was sponsoring 22 people, and he was sponsoring 18, and then I was sponsoring less, and he was sponsoring more, and the phone rang all the time, and he moved in with me, and I was saving my money to buy a house, and then we decided I'd pay all his debts off, and we'd get married, and it was going to be great, we went camping together, and I sent out an invitation to 650 of my closest friends, I had made no list, and a few weeks before the wedding, he left me for a girl with 30 days of sobriety tattoos, she was 6 foot, and she was from East LA, and I was devastated, and I thought, my God, how am I going to make it, and I didn't think of drinking or using, but I thought of killing myself, and it was as if my hand was going to pick up a knife, and stab me, because I knew not to go in the kitchen, and then I got to the point where I was afraid to be in the house, so what I did was I drove down to my sponsor's house, and I sat in the archway of her apartment, and waited for her to get home, for 10 days, I just stayed doing 12 step things, I went to NA, CA, AA, the whole thing, I just went, and I sat there, and I didn't want anyone to touch me, I didn't want anyone to talk to me, I didn't want any advice, I didn't want to be asked to do anything, but I just needed to be where I was safe, and I was told that one day I would look back on it, and it would be a great moment, and I'm like, right, and I've been taught to replace anything that happens in my life with something
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else, otherwise I have a tendency to go back to it, and what I did was I took up a stained glass class, and within six weeks I opened my first business, and I bought a house, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me, I didn't belong with that guy Paul, you know, we were two entirely different people, and we wanted different things out of life, and so I ended up with a house, and I ended up with a business, and I ended up working, and I was still with the same company, I'd had four promotions, and three raises, and Rockwell International had said that they wanted me to repair their mainframe computers, and that that's what they would like me trained for, and they went to my company, and signed a one year agreement with me as the engineer, and so my company sent me for the training, and I had to get a government clearance, and they sent the paperwork out, and it was 27 questions, they wanted to know if I had ever used drugs, and if so, what drugs, where did I use them, who did I use them with, for how long did I use them, and I'm talking as if, you know, I've smoked pot four times in my life, and done a white cross once, and I was supposed to write this down, and put the date, and who I was with, and I'm like, are you kidding? I, number one, wasn't going to put down who I was using them with, because this is about me, it's not about anybody else, and so I just answered their questions, and they sent me back a denial, that I couldn't have a clearance, and they had 27 charges against me, sales of cocaine, sales of, you know, prostitution, you know, all this stuff was listed, and it said down at the bottom, that if I wanted a hearing, I needed to do such and such, so I did what it said at the bottom of every page, every time, and I just kept suiting up, and showing up, and at five years of sobriety, in front of a DOD judge, and there was two court appointed guys, and a transcriber, and whatever, I went in, and I answered the questions, and they said, where's your attorney? You don't seem to understand this, we're going to be doing a tax investigation, and we're going to do this, this, and this, and I said, I'm just here to answer your questions, and they granted me a government clearance, and I repaired the computers for the space shuttle, and I ended up doing that for three years, and it was an honor, and I couldn't believe it, me, and trying to think, what else was of major importance, during that time. I learned that you can't sponsor a whole lot of people, and do a good job, at least I can't, some people can. I don't, I believe in more personal attention than that, than giving somebody some cliche comment over the phone, or trying to, you know, remember whether it's Patty M., or Patty T., it's not fair, and that what I was doing, was I was collecting sponsorees, like, I was collecting little, you know, tokens, or something, I was thinking that if I collected enough of them, I'd be guaranteed into AA heaven, or something, and it was just, it was a bunch of bullshit. I had to learn to slow down, and take a look at myself. Oh, hmm, I remember another painful time. At five years of sobriety, here I had everything, I had the government clearance, I was repairing the computers for the space shuttle, I had a raise, they were making, I was making more money than I had ever lied about making. I couldn't believe it. I was driving a new car, I bought a house, I had a business, I had, had, had, had, had, and inside, I was empty. I would go home at night, and I would eat a half a watermelon, one spoonful at a time, then go get the other half, and eat it, and it'd be three, four o'clock in the morning, and I couldn't sleep, and finally, when I would fall asleep, it would then be time to wake up, and it was time to go to work, and I couldn't get out of bed, and I called my sponsor, and I told her what's wrong with me, and she told me how ungrateful I was. She said, anybody who had everything I had shouldn't behave the way I do, and I needed to do a grateful list, and I tried that, and nothing worked, and I, I was at the pits, and what I did was, I checked into a mental hospital, and I stayed there for 90 days, and I found out that as a child there were some things that had happened to me that I had blocked completely out. I still don't know exactly what they were, what the incidents were, who it was. When am I aware?
But something happened, something traumatic that my brain has chosen not to remember and if it's time for me to remember, I'll remember. Diagnosed me with severe depression and you know all this
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other stuff. And I left there and I went back out all fixed up and went back to my snappy job and everything else. And at nine, no, at eight years of sobriety, I just realized this wasn't quite it yet. And I decided I was going to buy a ranch and I was going to retire, so I bought a ranch in Norco, California, and I decided to raise pot-bellied pigs. And I opened a ranch called Ham and Eggs, and I bought it, and I raised exotic birds and pot-bellied pigs, and so that I do things to excess, I always do.
I've got 47 pot-bellied pigs, and they're all trained, and they do tricks, and they've all got names, and they all know me, and that's what I do. And I moved out there, and I was out there about six months, and I'd met a lady in the program who also was a cocaine addict, and we would go and do things together, and I'd get real spacey, and I'd just fade off, or I'd change the conversation, or change the topic in the middle of the conversation, or, you know, I had these odd things that I was doing.
And the other thing I would do is I would fall asleep while I was talking. And she said, you know what's really funny? I have a disease, and I'll bet that you've got it, too. And I said, what is that? And she said, it's narcolepsy. And I said, yeah, right. And she says, well, I have to take Ritalin for it. And I'm like, yeah, right. You betcha. I know exactly what's happening to you. And I just kept getting worse and worse.
I was falling asleep during meetings, and I'm in a meeting, there's seven of us people in there. I'm the engineer responsible, and I'm talking, and I just go out like a light. And the managers thought I wasn't being respectful. There was just all kinds of stuff that was going on. I was driving, having car accidents. I was getting tickets for illegal lane changes, or not signaling, because I was asleep.
I was having all kinds of problems, and I was in fear of losing my license. So I finally just said, chill her. I said, fine, I've got great insurance, I'll go in and have one of these sleep tests. And when I finished the sleep test, they had me sign a paper that I would never drive again. And I had my license pulled at that time, and I do, I have narcolepsy. And it can lead to alcoholism and drug addiction.
Well, that's wonderful, and that's all great, but I'm like a cucumber. I've been pickled, and there is no going back. It doesn't matter if the narcolepsy caused me to be an alcoholic addict, or whether I was born an alcoholic addict and ended up with it, I don't even care. I am an alcoholic addict, and I'll tell you, my weakness is cocaine, that's my favorite, crystal meth is my second, and booze is my third.
And I will do those in any quantity you can put in front of me if I'm not in the program, and if I'm not working the steps. And if I don't, you know, I was a pig out there, just a pig. And so the doctor told me I would have to take Ritalin, and I was like, yeah, right. And so we went ahead and fought with that, and what we ended up doing was deciding on a compromise. And what I would do is I would take five milligrams 40 minutes before I drove, and then five milligrams 40 minutes before I drove to come home from work.
And that would be, you know, the amount of Ritalin that I would take, and I would take Ritalin before driving. I drive very little, very little. I use it as an emergency type thing, and I did get my driver's license back. The DMV lost the papers that the hospital sent, like they had done with the feeding up the policemen and totaling the restaurant when I was drunk and on cocaine. I'd been on a four-day runner and went into a grand mal seizure, took out the side of a restaurant, hit the officers' cars, and then beat them up when they came out to find out why I'd hit their car.
I don't remember any of it, but I heard it was quite a scene. And I went back to my car, got the cocaine, took it with me to the hospital, told them I was hypoglycemic, and of course my blood sugar was crazy. I'd been up for four days, and I hadn't eaten. And then I had a guy sit on the bar, picked me up, and they were too drunk. So I had to drive home. The police wouldn't let them drive. So, you know, just insanity.
I never, never want to go back to having that much fun again as long as I live.
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I don't want to wake up in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the back of a pickup truck in a black evening gown buying longhorn cattle with a married man, and his name was Arnold, and I had his brand around my neck. Thank God I hadn't gotten a tattoo. I just, just, you know, let me go, let me have fun. And when I got here, I started going to C.A. and N.A. meetings against my sponsor's advice. And the first one I went to, unfortunately, it was an older guy, and he got up and every other word was mother fuck, mother fuck, and he had tattoos all over him, he was in a bicycle gang, he was in a biker gang, and the whole thing, and he was just, and then he goes to the door, and he's an old guy, and he's at the door shaking hands with people, sitting on his Harley, revving it with a 16-year-old girl sitting on the back, and I went, hmm.
And I was like, I didn't want that, I didn't want the old ways, I didn't want, because I remember a time where I used to be the girl on the back, ha, ha, ha, ha, you know, and I was so hip, slick, and cool, and I was afraid of that, and it was, it took a while before I finally went back, and I started going to those meetings, and I really, really liked them, they changed a lot, changed a lot from what my sponsor had seen, they changed a lot from the first ones that I went to.
And now I live out of this ranch, I've got narcolepsy, so I need rides where I have to walk everywhere, and they just opened a Cocaine Anonymous meeting, and it's two blocks from my house, down at the church, so I'm going and I'm supporting that, and that's kind of neat, because I've really, I've missed it since I moved out to the country, there were things I gave up. Norco has more bars than churches, and no AA meetings, and it now has nine AA meetings, and I've been there two years.
I don't know how we're doing on time. Is it time to go? I'm going to tell one last story. I moved in, I moved to the city to get, or moved to the country to get away from the damn city, and the drugs, and the idiots, and the bad drivers, and all the craziness, and the traffic, and the people that work there that don't care, and I wanted to get spiritual. So I moved out to a horse community out in the middle of Norco, and I got there, and it was going to be hunky-dory, and I bought my little ranch, and the people that lived next door, because I have a corner lot, the people that lived next door were heroin dealers, and they ran a shooter, a shooting gallery.
I had to learn the terms, it's been a long time, they changed, but there's always newcomers to teach you, and then the guy on the other side ran a crystal meth dealing thing, and then the guy on the other side of him had a junkyard, and he was the one that dealt the crystal meth, and then the next family up, there were a bunch of alcoholics and addicts, and the next family, oh no, it was a guy who was an ex-Humboldt County guitar maker slash pot grower, and then the next one was another family that was friends with the guitar player slash pot dealer, planter, horticulturalist, and this guy was just, he was into construction, and he was just disgusting.
He would get so ripped, these two guys come down to my house, and here I am, I'm clean and sober, and I've got all these people around me drinking and using, and I've got helicopters coming on the house next door, lay down on the ground or we'll shoot, and I'm out in the backyard planting tomatoes, and a car comes around the side, and then there's four sheriffs, and somebody evidently broke away from jail and drove to the dealer's house, and it was right next door, and I ran in the house and got in the bathtub because bullets can't penetrate the bathtub.
There are some good things I did learn. I also learned to get out of the way when the police say so, you don't stay, and so I'm just, and these guys would come down, and they'd ask me what I was working on, and I'd answer, and then five minutes later, they'd have another response, because they're so wiped out, and I just said, oh, this is pathetic, but the guitar player guy, he had some potential, and I'm such a sucker for potential, so I lost his place, and I said, why don't you move into my ranch, and you can help me with a ranch, and we'll, pardon me, we'll clean
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you up, we'll get you sober and clean, and we'll fix you all up, and his hopeless, helpless friend, I-86, came from the house, well, the guitar maker just had a belly full of me, and he moved back to Oregon to grow pot, and the guy that lived next door decided to go to AA, and then he decided to go to NA, and he just celebrated the year, and he's got some kids, and his kids went to the meeting, and their kids would come to my ranch to play with the pigs, and so they, on Monday, I would tell them, well, kids, you need to hurry up, because I need to leave, I'm going over to the church, and they said, where are you going?
I said, I'm going to church, and they go, why do you go to church on Monday? And I said, well, it's an AA meeting, and they go, what's AA? And I said, well, AA is Alcoholics Anonymous, and they said, you don't, you know, because they're six, eight, ten years old, you know, pardon me, all these different ages, and I told them, no, I really did have a very bad problem, I did drugs, and I tell them a little bit, you know, my story about how things were pretty bad, and so one day, one of them said, can we go with you?
And I thought, well, sure, okay, so I took her and her sister with me, and their parents were alcoholics, and so they went to the meeting, came back, and told some of the other kids, and so, and their parents drinking news, and they told some of the other kids, so now, I've gotten to a thing where I've got seven kids that go with me every Monday night to the AA meeting, and what that's about is they go there, and there's a lot of the old-timers in AA that are like, get those kids out of here, they're a nuisance, and this is for alcoholics only, you know, and they go through this whole thing, where the kids have been going and stealing the brochures off the table, on, you know, the stuff, and putting it under their parents' pillows at home, and what ended up happening was, we were on our way walking, there was four of us this one particular day, and Andrew, who's eight, said to me, he said, you know, sometimes we have to be quiet, and I don't like that, and Tricia, who's six, said, but it's okay, it's a life-and-death program, and we have to listen, besides, if my mom would listen, maybe she wouldn't have to die of drugs, and she said, and if we grow up and we have a problem, we'll know where to go, and I just burst into tears crying, and so the thing is, I do what's in front of me, and sometimes I never know what it's about, but I took the kids to the meeting, I didn't know why they wanted to go, and there are now three people in the neighborhood that are sober, and their kids brought them home with stuff, and you know, yeah, it was through an AA meeting, but now there's the CA meeting, so they can now go down the corner, they can go to the CA meeting, and that's what my life is about today, is I try to make things better around me than worse, because that's all I did when I drank in years, you had either done something wrong to me, or you weren't fast enough, or good enough, you didn't have enough drugs for me, everything was a problem, and today, everything is a gift, and I just shoot up and show up, and this is wonderful, I couldn't go camping when I was using, I was too far away from a drug dealer, and I was too nervous, couldn't do that, and I didn't have money to do stuff like this, so I called it stupid, and it's not stupid, this is what life's about, and life was about holding that little white pig in my arms, I was there when she was born, and I put the first breath in her mouth, because she was congested, and I named her Lisa, and I loved her, and I was there when she died, and I did everything possible for her, I called the vet, I took her temperature, I gave her medicine, we did everything we could, and we found out that it was something that we had no control over and she didn't have to die alone and she didn't have to die in a lot of agony and I was there with her and I didn't have to run and see I can be there for people today I can be there for the kids and if I'm a grump I tell them kids I'm bitchy today you better go home and they're like it's okay Cassandra says we're used to it when you get bitchy you probably just
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And thank you for letting me be here and be part of this. Thank you.