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Source: Roberta S – Steel City Woodstock (2022) – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: roberta-s-steel-city-woodstock-2022-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:54:07
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Okay, Bill. I'm an alcoholic. My name's Roberta S.. I really want to thank the committee. Isn't that awesome? Look at this. I mean, their dedication, willingness, commitment to bring this together, to work hard so that we can have a place to come this weekend and fellowship and be amongst the miracles. How do you say thanks for that type of service? Alcoholics Anonymous has shown me that giving and giving we receive. And I know that to be the truth today, and that was so far-fetched for me when I got here and how I lived my life as a selfish, self-centered alcoholic from the age of 11.
I knew nothing else but to take, take, take, take. And I really want to thank the committee for asking me. It's an honor, although I don't feel it right now, and I was hoping I could kick my shoes off, but this is a see-through thing. I did have flats on, but I said it's a little street. They were a little street-ish. You know, I'm a street girl. Sorry, but I am. This is like the biggest high heel you're going to get off of me.
I have a sponsor. Her name's Pat Kleeman. I have a home group. It's the Garfield Sunday. It used to be Garfield Noon. On Wednesdays, it's now Sundays at 3 o'clock up at North Pacific and Atlantic Avenues in Garfield. It's a speaker meeting. I've always had a home group. I've always had a sponsor. My sobriety date is May 11th, 1988, and this is one day at a time. I've been around long enough to know and feel it and believe it that this is one day at a time, and I have a daily reprieve, and it's contingent on my spiritual condition.
That's the part that the work comes in because I can easily stay sober and not pick up a drink, but I've been there where I have been miserable and hated myself and everybody else around me, and I don't want to live like that today. So I enjoy being happy. I enjoy loving people. I enjoy being loved by people. I could feel that today. I came up in a house where we – and this isn't to say there's no blame on my family, none of that, but I'm giving you in a general way what I was like, where I came from, what happened, and what I'm like today.
My family thrived and lives – still lives on resentments, and we have people in my family that people – we've just dropped them out of the family and never know what happened to them. Like they've disappeared, nieces, nephews, sisters, my sisters, brothers. People just leave because of resentments and don't ever come back. The amends process was difficult for me because I knew before I set out for amends on this journey that this was not going to be at all understood, but I had to clean up my side of the street, which I did, and I'll get to that in a little bit.
I grew up over in the Bloomfield-Lawrenceville area, Pittsburgh. Pretty much I was on my own from the time I was young. My mother was not – God bless her. I ended up taking care of her the last ten years of her life, which was the gift. I mean an honest-to-God gift. But my mother was a cold woman that didn't hug and didn't talk and didn't nurture her children. That's just how she was. I tried to talk to her about how she grew up, and she wouldn't touch it.
So I never really knew the history of that, but that's who she was and how she was. So I, at a very early age, found the corner, and I went to the corner. I went to the corner and I found friends, and we were smoking cool cigarettes. I was six years old.
[00:05:19]
And we were sipping on beer that people were stealing from their dads, and we were playing ball off the wall, the rubber ball off the A&P wall, and we were hanging out, and I found my crew. And I was young. I started – always was attracted to alcohol, always, always. There were parties in the yards. We lived in row brick houses, and then there were cyclone fences in between the yards, and they would put the party streamers, the paper streamers on the fence, and they would pull the record players out.
They would get out, and they would start dancing, and I just loved it. When they would start dancing, I ran around and finished the high balls. And my mother used to say, I don't know what's wrong with her. She's sick. She must have ate something. My dad said she's loaded. I was a magnet to alcohol. I was a magnet to parties. I was a magnet to alcohols. I was a magnet to bad, just bad, period. Whoever the bad boy was in class, I liked them.
We started going down Lawrenceville. I was 11 years old, no supervision, ran the streets. I hated school. Although I could have been good in school, how do they say – they used to say to a lot of us, she has potential. But I would sit in the back of the room, and my first drug of choice was daydream. And I would look out, and that restless, irritable, and discontent was there way back then, because I would look out all day long, the back of the room, out of the window, and I can remember imagining things going on out there, and I was missing them.
And I wanted – I remember a yearning, yearning inside, I want to be there. Wherever it was, I wanted to be there. I would get there, and then I wanted to be over there. Then I would get over there, and I wanted to be over there. I was always restless, irritable, and discontent. I didn't know what that was until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, but that described how I felt at a really young age. I remember being obsessed. We had a doctor in the family from the South Side. Everyone in the family had a gallon of Paragoric and a gallon of Penicillin under the sink.
I remember being obsessed with that Paragoric. I was a young kid, and the Paragoric, it was a narcotic, a liquid narcotic. It tastes like licorice. And my mother, anything ailment that came along, she pulled a shot glass out, she put some sugar in it, she put the Paragoric in it, heavy-duty narcotic. Put the Paragoric in there, stir it up, and I could taste it as I speak to you today. I could taste it. It tasted like licorice, and I remember obsessing over that Paragoric, and I remember lying to get it. I remember lying, making up sickness and illnesses to get that Paragoric.
So that was all in me. I was just waiting. I was just waiting for it to happen. I was that type of person when I was a kid. I was a child. She would go down into the basement to do the laundry, and I would calculate how long. As soon as she'd start down the first step, I'd hit her cigarette, Paul Molls, no filters. It'd be all lipped up. Smoke her cigarette, pull the step stool over, climb up on the sink, get the baby aspirins, bite them open because they tasted good, and just eat a bunch of orange baby aspirin.
Smoke the cigarettes, and she would come back up and say, were you smoking my cigarette? It's all wet. It's all wet on it, and I did what I always did all my life. I looked her straight in the eye, no. She said, okay, and that's how my mother and my relationship was. I'd lie right to her. She knew I did it, and she'd say, okay. Anyways, so as time went on, I started hanging with the kids. We started our first drink. There's a woman in the program now today. She came in years later.
[00:10:08]
We drank together. Our first professional drunk was in Sapphire Way up in Bloomfield. We were babysitting. She was babysitting for a woman who looked like a normal woman in the daytime. She had her regular dresses on, and she had three little boys. When her husband went to work at night, she put on a miniskirt, hip-high boots, her don-to-here cleavage hanging out. She had the big blue eyeshadow, teased her hair up like this, big earrings, and her favorite song was Love the One You're With. She was my idol.
We loved her. Kathy, we loved her. She left us to babysit three little kids. We were 11 years old in the alley up there in Sapphire Way. She left us to babysit. She bought us five quarts of Boone's Farm mixed. We had apple and strawberry hill and a nickel bag of weed. We were 11 years old, and we invited every bad boy in the neighborhood in the house. They all were passing it around and having fun and listening to the records. We had the kids dancing with us. I remember I grabbed a quart, and I guzzled that quart. I didn't share. They were sharing. I didn't.
I was unmanageability right off the bat, right from the very beginning of the first professional drunk on my own. I broke her table. I blacked out. They carried me to my dad's, to my mother's house. My dad was a city of Pittsburgh policeman. He never talked. My dad never talked. They knocked on the door. Everybody was afraid of my dad. They knocked on the door and left me on the stoop, on the steps. I can remember fleeting memory, getting dragged in. He had a belt that hung on the junk drawer in the kitchen that he would sharpen the straight razor on.
I got that belt that night. He took me upstairs. They put me in a bed. I remembered somebody in that house said, when the room starts spinning, put one leg on the floor. I listened to you then, and I listened to you for 20 more years, and it was always a lie. It didn't work. I threw up all over the place. I got that belt, but guess what I remember, like it was yesterday. It's so funny. I can recall this stuff like it was yesterday. I can remember what I was wearing, what the smell was, what the song was, what the taste was.
Ask me what I did this morning. I have to stop and think, like where was I? I remember this. I remember a feeling very strong of rebellion, and I remember looking at him cross-eyed, and I remember thinking to myself, I'm going to do what I want, when I want, with who I want. I'm going to do what I want from now on, and I'm not afraid of the belt, and I'm not afraid of you, and I'm going to live my life and do what I want. Total self-will run riot. I made the decision that day, the first drunk, and that's what I did.
I commenced to doing what I wanted, when I wanted, with who I wanted, and everything I wanted to do, I did it. By the time I was 14 years old, I had a little boy, dropped out of school, started running the country all over the place, scary places. Had my son in very scary places, with very scary people. Didn't have any ambition to do anything with my life. Just kept running, drinking, running around, ended up in San Francisco, the Tenderloin District with the winos.
Wound up in Florida, getting thrown out of a truck in Lake Okeechobee. Jody and I were just down there last year. It's a big highway now, but it was Alligator Alley back then. Alligator Alley back then. I was thrown out of a truck in the middle of the night there,
[00:15:04]
getting beat up in very scary places. Not a victim. I was a volunteer. I wound up in these places. I went with these people. I did these things. I never identified alcohol as being the problem. I couldn't understand what was happening to my life. I didn't know what was going on. I was doing what I wanted to do. I was being with whoever I wanted to be with. It wasn't working out how I thought it was going to be. I actually believed that somebody was going to come by and take care of me for the rest of my life. They were going to marry me. They were going to have a briefcase. I believed that. You know, delusional. I had my little delusions that my son's father was going to get a briefcase and get a little suit jacket and get a job and put me up in a house and they thrown away in Lawrenceville.
That's what I thought was going to happen. Here was the reality. He was in and out of juvenile court. He was in every juvenile detention center, later graduated to the Western Penitentiary. He just overdosed and died about two years ago. That was the reality. But in my mind I created these illusions that I thought were going to happen and they weren't happening. When they didn't happen, I was getting resentful. I ended up into a detox up at St. Francis when I was 18 years old. I just turned 18. I forget, the police were looking for me or something. One of you guys said, go to detox. That will help you. So I went up into detox and Dr. Twersky was there. I never saw Dr. Twersky before. He used to be up at St. Francis Detox. He worked up there. He took each patient into the room and he would talk to you. He already knew a little bit about you because he had your file. I looked at him and I said, I'm going to work this guy. I thought, my God, what's he going to do? He had a big, long beard. I said, I'm going to work him. I said, Doc, I'm depressed and I can't sleep. Now, I don't know where that even came from. I don't even know where it came from. But we just said things that just, you know. He looked at me and said, let's see, Roberta. You're 18 years old. You're homeless. You have a four-year-old son that you don't take care of. Your mother's raising him. You quit school. You never went back. You don't work. You have no ambition to do anything with your life. You're living on the streets. He said, the police are calling here. They're going to arrest you when you walk out of the door. He said, that's depressing. And your body will sleep when it's tired.
And I looked at him and here's what I thought. Why don't he like me? I used to take off on those geographical cures. I wanted to go to Hollywood all the time. I really thought someone was going to discover me. I really did. I wound up coming back from one of those trips beat up with two black eyes on a Greyhound bus with no money. I was escaping my boyfriend and a nun took care of me all the way back for three days on that bus. At the time, I thought I got over on this woman. I know who that was today. She sat beside me and she gave me her sweater and she fed me for three days on the way back on that bus. I know who that was. I know who it was that rescued me from the swamps the dawn of that night when I was able to get out of those swamps at 18 years old thrown out of that truck. I know who saved my life that night. I know who saved my life when I was getting beaten in an abandoned
[00:20:08]
building in San Francisco. I know who saved my life. And I just kept on going because I was clueless at the time. If somebody mentioned the word God, I got twisted and knotted up inside. I didn't want to hear anything about God. I ended up coming home from California one time and we were in a house and there was a friend of mine there. His name was Chucky. I said, Chuck, why don't we get married? Maybe that will help us. He said, okay. We wound up a few days later taking a jitney to Larimer Avenue to magistrate Tibbs. We got married.
I have pictures of that wedding. Can you believe it? My mother was just as delusional as me. She had a cake at last. She had a cake and it said Chucky and Roberta at last. She was desperate. Listen. I drank every day, every day except for times that I was locked up. I drank every day. I wound up, I was a black eyed drinker too. I was a young woman drinking every day, not in a nice places and blacking out. I hated myself. I hated myself. I would watch the moms go to the ball games with their sons and cheer them on. I tried to go to ball games and I couldn't stop drinking and I would be embarrassing to my son. He was a star ball player. I could not figure out what is going on with me. I wasn't in a place where you could just tell somebody. I couldn't even describe it. I think I started drinking so young that I didn't even know how to talk yet. My whole conversation was who got it, what's it like and let's go get it. People that I grew up with, they talked the same way. Then you had the friends that talked in codes. I had buddies that talked in codes, Ralph. He would talk in a code and you just had to go, uh huh. I was just talking to his sister the other day, we were reminding each other of that. I ended up, my son quit talking to me. I kept saying when he's two years old, I'm going to have it together.
He would turn two, I was worse. When he's four years old, I'm going to have it together. He would turn four, I was worse. Finally I just quit saying it and I tried to wipe him out of my mind like he wasn't even there. I ran the country just running, running, running, running. Whoever wanted to be with me, I was with them for company. When I think about the lonely places, just lonely, afraid, hating myself, desperate, not knowing how to stop, not knowing to stop, not knowing what was wrong with me, I started to convince myself I was crazy. I wound up locked up. It wasn't anything unusual. My son was 15 years old by now. He hated me. My father passed away. I had started a fight at his funeral. I convinced myself, you know this delusional self-centered filter that the thoughts come in and it changes everything around in our heads. It told me my sister was trying to get over on my mother
[00:25:04]
when my dad died. That was not happening, but I believed it was. I started a fight with my sister in the funeral home and my mother had to break it up. I hated myself. I didn't know how to stop. I didn't know what to do. I hated myself. I had been introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew there was kindness here, but I still didn't know there was a solution here. You would ask me, am I praying? And I would say, yeah, I pray, but my mind was thinking, why do they keep asking me that? Why? I would go to detoxes and look around detox for the sickest person and bring them to an AA meeting. This one needs help. She's in bad shape. My God, this girl is on her last legs. Let me get her to a meeting. And I would bring people to meetings and I would say, this works. Have a seat. Here's so and so. She'll help you. I'll see you later. I convinced myself that this could not work for me. When I saw you looking eye to eye, laughing, smiling, talking, I felt so inadequate and so terrified, I couldn't stay. I was still restless, irritable, and discontent and I did not know the solution. I knew this worked, though. I knew there was something in here, and I believed it wouldn't work for me. So I kept leaving, but then when it would get really bad, I would come back, stay for a minute, and then leave again. What I later found out that was terrifying me was the love and the truth that was so foreign to me, I never had it. And I would leave, and I would go back to the gutter. I wound up getting arrested May 10th, 1988. It was nothing out of the ordinary. I went to the county jail and I was in a cell, and it was the end of the road. I didn't know it. It was a jumping off place. I didn't know it. I was in that cell and I thought, if they let me out, I'm going to go right back to this, and I don't want to. I felt extreme powerlessness. I felt it. I didn't want to drink, and I knew I was going back to it if I got out of there. What happened was I was in that cell and some people that I remembered from AA that used to try to talk to me and say things to me, but I couldn't hear it back then because I was going through the delusional, self-centered, egotistical filter, and I was twisting everything to make it fit me. I started to hear them, and there was a guy in the cell with me. He really wasn't there, but he was there to me. His name was Billy Newmont, and Billy helped a million people, and he used to say to me, you don't have to live this way. Don't pick up the first one. Believe it or not, when they would say, don't pick up the first one to me, through the delusional filter, the alcoholic mind, this is what I heard. Don't drink the third day. That's what I heard. When they said, don't take the first one, this is what I thought.
The first one's the best one. Why would you not take the first one? Don't drink the third day. I tried that. It doesn't work. If anybody's thinking it in here, it doesn't work. Everybody's thinking it in here, it doesn't work. So I'm in that cell and he says it to me and all of a sudden it made sense.
[00:30:03]
Then another gentleman that used to always try to help me, I had so many people, oh my god, so many people. Another gentleman that tried to help me said, if you're not praying, you're not staying. Something got me up off that cot, I'm not kidding, and I got up off that cot, I was ready to hang myself. I started to figure out how much sheet, I was ready, I was done. I was afraid to get out because I didn't want to go back to where I came from.
And I made the decision to hang myself and I was figuring out how much sheet and then all this started happening and you guys started intervening in my plan. And what happened was I got up off that cot and I got down on my knees and I didn't know how to pray, but the words came out, whoever you are, help me. Help me. And I got it. I felt this peace and this warmth. It just came over me. I knew I was an alcoholic and I finally knew what that meant.
I knew I needed you. I knew I needed a God. And I knew I was going to be all right. And that was May 11th, 1988, and I still feel that today. I was granted a gift, a miracle happened in that cell, and I know that. My life has completely turned around. I never worked in my life. I got a job. They said, you get a job now. I said, a job? You know, they hook you. They get you feeling all good. They pat you all down.
They have you fixing your hair, putting a little makeup on, going to dances. Yeah, this is pretty nice. Getting little boyfriends and having fun, going to all these retreats. And then he said to me, Bill, he said, well, it's probably time to get a job. I want a job. I said, Bill, how do you do that? And a girl in the meeting said, they're hiring over up in Beltshover. They're opening up a women's and children's rehab facility, first of its kind, women and children.
We think you'd be good there. So I got scared. I got scared. I'm thinking, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I was cleaning houses at the time. I thought, I like cleaning houses. I'm going to stay cleaning houses. I don't want to do that. But I was scared. But the group pressures you. The group starts saying, hey, did you go for that job? Hey, Deb said they were going to hire you if you go over.
Did you go over there? And the group pressure. So I went over. And I really didn't want to be there. And I was scared to death. And they start going through my history. And she gets to the driver's license. She said, do you have a driver's? Oh, no, I don't have a driver's license. I was like, yes. She said, well, what do you need to get your license back? She goes, we'd love to hire you. We think you'd be great here.
What do you need to get your license back? I said, thousands of dollars. Thousands. So she said, well, if you get your license back, call us. We think you'll be good here with the women. I said, OK, I will. Bye. So I left. I went back to the group. I said, they're not going to hire me. I don't have a driver's license. It's too much. Forget about it. The group. The group says, go down to Senator Bodak's office on Butler Street.
Ask Mary Kay, the secretary, to look up what you need to do to get your license back. This freaking group. So I go down to Mary Kay's.
[00:35:01]
I said, they want me to find out what the license is. She said, OK, hold on. She went in the back. She comes out. She said, $42. Got my first job. 11 to 7, 11 PM to 7, I took buses. People in the program start giving me their cars to use for work, to get to work. A woman in AA that was working there, she said to me one day, you need a car, don't you? I said, yep. I need one, but I can't afford one.
She said, pray for a car. I said, I can't pray for a car. She said, you pray for a car, honey. If God wants you to have a car, you'll have a car. She said, knock and the door will be open. Ask and you'll receive. I said, OK. I went home. I prayed for the car. Two weeks later, I drove a brand new Chevy Beretta off of Don Allen's lot up in Bloomfield. A guy in the meetings, this guy in the meetings, everything I've ever gotten, I got in the meetings.
The guy in the meeting comes up to me. I don't remember telling anybody I was praying for a car. He said, I heard you're looking for a car. I said, oh my god, this is too much here. He said, my brother works up Don Allen's. We went up, drove off a couple days later with a brand new car. I thought, wow, this is pretty cool. Start praying for cars, you get a car. And then the payment book came in the mail like this.
I said, well, what do you do with that? You pull the stub off, and you send your money in every month. I was like, oh. I paid my car off. Little by little, my son watched me. Everybody got their kids back. I was watching people get children back. Happy for everybody, you know, women getting their kids back and building relationships. And that wasn't happening for me. And people said to me, are you going to stay sober if it doesn't happen?
And I said, yes, I am. Yes, I am. I knew not to put my fingers in that. I knew not to interfere, because I would have made more of a mess. I just kept turning it over to God. You got this. Whatever it is to be, it'll be. Seven years went by. My son was angry. And I don't blame him. And he gave me every bit of his anger. But I understood it. And I knew I had hurt him deeply. And I knew also that I was making up for it.
I made verbal amends that was nothing to him, nothing. He watched me for seven years. That was the amends. He watched me. And he came to me. And he started to get close. And he was still attacking, though. And it was hurting, because I was doing everything I could to make up. But I knew I'd never make up for everything. But I was trying. But his anger was attacking me. And one day, and I took it, took it, took it, took it, took it.
Some mean words. I took it. And then finally, my sponsor said to me, you need to have a talk with him, Roberta. And he attacked me one day. And I said, you know what? I said, Duane, I understand. I hurt you. If I could cut my right arm off and give it away, I would to take it all back. I said, but I can't. And I'm doing the best I can. And I don't want you to talk like that to me anymore. Do you know that turned it all around?
He began to respect me. When he saw that I was respecting myself, he began to respect me.
[00:40:00]
And we got very, very close. And then he married this woman that just, she didn't want me around him. She knew my past. And she didn't want me around him. But we got very close for eight years. And then recently, he started talking to me again. But anyways, it's just been rocky. But it's the best it's ever been. And it's more than I could have ever hoped for. My mother, I got a chance to take care of her the last 10 years of her life.
Emily S. was rough. She was a rough woman, believe me, rough. I took her on vacations with us. She loved to go with the group. We would go to Ocean City, 12 and 15 of us. And she just loved that. She'd holler at everybody. And she'd pick on everybody for bringing sand and water into the house. But they loved her. They loved her. I had a hard time loving her. But I was doing it. I was doing the best I could.
And my brothers and sisters were scattered. And nobody came. And resentments. When my mother passed, it turned out she wound up right across the street from my house. I bought a house, too, when I was 10 years sober on Penn Avenue, 40th Street. My mother wound up over in Canterbury in the hospice. And I could look out my living room over to her room. And I had friends, friends in here that would go over and sit with her while I was at work.
And I wound up coming the one day. My friend was over there with her. And she called me and said, it's time. You better get over here. So I darted out of the house and ran over. And just as I got to the doorway, my mother had just passed. She just passed when I got there. Do you know I physically felt a cord cut? Like I physically felt something was gone. I physically felt that. And I realized I always loved my mother deeply.
And I was grateful that Alcoholics Anonymous gave me 10 years to take care of her. And I got to take care of the funeral because you guys showed me how. You showed me step by step. And when the door to the funeral home opened up, the very first ones in there was Duke Hanna and a couple people in AA. They were the first ones in the door. And they stayed there. It was packed. My mother's house was open all the time to everyone.
There were junkies in the house. She would feed them. There was alcoholics in the house. She would feed them a bologna sandwich and a cup of coffee. She loved us. And you know, her place was packed. By this time, my son was a cop. He was a narcotics detective. I respect AA. I'm not going to get into that portion of my history. But I was also a heroin addict. My son knew all the junkies. He grew up with them.
He ran with them. And then he started arresting them. I would see them on the street and apologize. I'm sorry, Dwayne arrested you. They said, hey, Bert, he gave us five warnings. Got to give it to him. He gave us five warnings. Anyways, we were at the funeral home. It was jammed for my mother. All my people, all my son's people, somebody said, hey, look, cops and robbers. My life is beyond my wildest dreams today.
The fact that I live obsession free, that I was free from obsession to drink freedom, that I have peace today. I have people that love me. My family is here. I'm not one of the ones that have the happily ever after story with the family.
[00:45:01]
The people in my life are so powerful. They are here and I am here for them. I never understood that. Never understood. It is through giving that we receive. I never understood that. I do now. At my darkest and lowest points in sobriety over things that were beyond my control, always a new woman would come into my life and want to work the program. It's never failed. It has never failed. It charges me up like nothing ever has.
I've worked the steps over and over and over again, first with my sponsor and now with women I sponsor. I love going into detoxes. I love the little socks they wear. I love the little love shots going on in the back of the room. I love it. Billy Newmont took me into every penitentiary for meetings. They started all the meetings up. He was one of the main characters. Ralph Juggins, who he don't mind me saying his name, those guys are some heavy duty guys.
I got some real power hitters in my life and I'm attracted to them. You can just tell, the happiest people, you could tell. They're making the coffee. They're at the group early. They're setting up. They're standing at the door. They're the committee at the table. They're cleaning up. They're the people that I'm attracted to. I always close with this. Oh, I forgot. I had a liver transplant. Like I got a tooth pulled, right?
June, we were at the beach, Jody, me, a couple other girls at the beach. The doctor calls. I had gone for a physical. Never go to the doctors. Never sick. Healthy. Ride bikes. Quit smoking. Don't drink. Don't shoot dope no more. Just really take care of myself now. Work full time. I'm ready to retire. I'm at the beach. Go for a physical. The doctor calls. He says, you have stage 3 liver cancer. We're at the beach.
Jody grabs the phone and starts giving him the third degree. She's asking him a million questions. I hear the phone. I said, here. What do you do? I said, what do I do now? Went through the steps. Wound up getting a chemo treatment. They thought they were going to have to give me several because it was really bad. I still really don't understand it because they kept trying to explain it to me. I said, you don't have to tell me.
I don't need to know details. Just do whatever you're going to do. I'm not good with this. Just do whatever you're going to do. Well, they did. And he did one treatment. And my numbers went down to 17. They thought they were going to have to do several treatments to get my numbers to 500. They did one treatment. Took the numbers to 17. Put me on the list. I get a call. We got a liver for you. A living donor, anonymous, gave me 60% of his liver.
They took my not. The doctor took pictures of it. It was horrible. My liver was horrible. They threw my not and gave me 60% of this anonymous donor's liver. And within 14 weeks, we both have full livers. He wrote me a letter and left it at the clinic. He was a doctor. He came from India to work with AIDS patients. And when they find the cure or treatment for AIDS, he switched over to liver disease.
And he said from watching so many people suffer with liver disease and die, he was inspired
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to donate his liver so that somebody could live. We're not the only ones that have the market on service. This guy saved my life. And he asked me to pass it on. In the letter, he said, just please, all I want you to do is take your meds as prescribed and pass it on that you do not have to suffer and die with liver disease. You just keep on following up. It's preventable. It's preventable today. And I wrote him a letter back and said, I'm in the best place to do that.
We got a lot of bad livers where I come from. And I'm going to do that, believe me. And I can't believe I almost forgot it. And I'm going to wrap up with this story real quick. I always look for new, somebody new coming in, always. So we're at the girls' room, we're all sitting there, here comes the woman in. I said, she's new, I got her. Nancy does that. That's Nancy. I know, you too. I got her. I run and get her.
Long story short, I wind up sponsoring her. Most of you heard this story. Her boyfriend comes in a while later. He got big buck, big buck, big buck, big buck. Never impressed me. Money meant nothing to me. Big buck, he got big buck, but he acts like it. So anyways, she says, I got a problem. He wants me to go, Don, he had two places in Aruba, he owned them. She said, he wants me to go to Aruba with him.
She said, every time we go to Aruba, we get drunk, we fight each other, and we go to Aruba jail. What should I do? I said, hey, I don't tell people what to do. I said, but here's what my sponsor always had me do. Write a pro con, pray, pray first, ask God to guide you, write a pro con list. The pros are going, the cons are going. The pros are not going, the cons are not going. Talk to your friends that you're gathering friends in here, talk to them, and make your decision.
Because I remember how powerful that was to make my first decisions. That was big. She comes back a couple days later, so excited. I made the decision. I said, oh my God, what did you decide? She said, I told him, I'll go to Aruba only if he takes my sponsor. True story. I went like this, that's fantastic. This is great. She said, we hope you don't mind, you're going to have your own condo, because he has two, you're going to have your own.
I said, I like my own condo. I said, can I bring my friend Patty? She's in Al-Anon. They said, sure, you can bring Patty. So we went to Aruba. I had to keep stroking him. Oh, you look so handsome. Can I have the Jeep? Long story short, be nice to the new person, you might wind up in Aruba. Thanks.