Jessica

My name is Jessica, and I am an alcoholic. Hi. First, I want to thank everybody for having me here and for inviting me to be a part of this and participate in my recovery and also yours as well. I believe that my God works through other people and works through things that are higher than me, and I think that God is here in this room right now, so I have a sobriety date of oh, 4-24-24, that's April 24 of 2024. Of course, I had my journey to get there, but my ex, my journey started in ala team. My journey started when I was a very young girl, and I was completely I was a little clueless about what was going on, but I did recognize that my family was part of this group, that they would bring us to this group, they would bring us to this church, right? And I remember was so young, and at the time, I would try my best to get out of it, because I didn't want to go sit in the room of people and express my feelings and talk about the problems that I was having in my own house, because I just didn't I wasn't comfortable with it, but fortunately, I was dragged there enough times for me to understand and realize. It wasn't until later on in my story did I figure this out. But this is where home is. I had a really hard time finding my home, and now that I can look back on it, I realized that AA or alatin had introduced to me my home without me being aware of it at the time. So my stepfather, at the time, was taking myself and my my brothers and my sisters to do Mets. And I would go to this room at the top of a staircase, while my stepfather would go to another room down below.

There would be a group of young children just like myself, and then we would talk about some things going on in the room, and we would share these little sayings. There were little, little things on little piece of paper, let go and let God live and let live, little, tiny slogans, cliches. And I didn't understand it at the time, you know, I would, I just thought that this was something I had to participate in, because this is what my stepfather had to do at the time. So my mom, at the time was also struggling with her own problems. I was not very aware of it at the time because I was very young, so all I recognized were the problems. You know, I just knew that there were instances that would come about and it made me feel very uncomfortable. I would isolate myself. I would almost start to feel I would start to feel very alone. I didn't, I didn't know where I belonged at the time, and it took me very long time for me to find myself. So that's what led me to me starting my own journey. And unfortunately, I had to experience some things and learn, find out the hard way that my way wasn't the right way.

I There were, there were times when I was a little girl and my mom was struggling through her addiction, and my stepfather was working AA, he was an Al Anon, and you'll hear later on in my story how my mom would practice her principles, or what they taught her in Al Anon, and she would, she would do that with me, and I didn't realize that at the time, what I thought that was, was tough love. I thought that was her just telling me to figure it out because she didn't want to deal with me. I didn't. I didn't realize that she was practicing her own there was, there's an outline of living, right? And I didn't realize that that's what she was doing in order for her to not only give me the love that I needed to receive, but for her to have the peace that she needed at the time. So my stepfather would go to these meetings, and my mom was going through her stuff at the time, and I was very little, you know, my mom was still struggling with her addiction, and but made it but made it very apparent that she was participating in AA, clearly she wasn't, because her actions were showing otherwise, and the problems that were going on in the house were not getting resolved. So I would walk home from school, I would be forgotten about at school. I would get home, and my mom would be in bed asleep, and I had to shake her a few times just to make sure she was alive, just to make sure she was awake, and I would ask her, like, are you okay? Is there anything that I could do, not knowing that my mom was suffering from withdrawal symptoms and she was suffering from her own addiction, I thought that this was just me taking the back burner and my mom not realizing that she had to be a parent at the time. I didn't understand what she was going through.

The arguments between my mom and my stepfather at the time were very chaotic. I was the youngest of five at the time. I was the youngest of five. My mom a stepfather this big house. My mom was suffering through her own stuff, so I kind of felt like I wasn't heard. I felt like I was just the last one on the the totem pole. So there would be times I'd be sitting in the living room, and I would be here in Congress, there was, there was a really big argument between my stepfather and my mom at the time, and I was the only one in the house, and, like, banging and and there was yelling, and I had tried to get in the room, and the room was locked, and so I went around, and I saw when I went around, I went to the bathroom, and I had seen some things that a very young girl shouldn't see. I was exposed to things at a young age that rocked me to my core and has unfortunately stuck with me through my entire life. They've been it has caused me to hasn't caused me, but it has led to a lot of the. Work that I work on when I'm with my therapist, or a lot of my trauma, my trauma, I have to resolve a lot of that trauma, so it's kind of, it's kind of contributed to all of that. But there was a really big argument that took place, and I unfortunately saw physical behavior between the two, and it rocked my world. I was a very young girl. I was in fifth grade. I wasn't understanding what was going on, but it wasn't until that moment that moment, did I realize that something was going on and it was out of my control? And I was absolutely scared, because I couldn't do anything, being the youngest of five, being the one that was at home through this, I didn't I there was no solution that I could give, and I was absolutely terrified. What was happening in that argument, just to put it briefly, was my stepfather was accusing my mom of still getting loaded, still drinking, and my mom was swearing up and down that she wasn't.

And being my mom's daughter, I had just wanted to push so hard and fight for her and fight for I didn't understand that I was fighting for something that she wasn't practicing. So my stepfather, unfortunately had resentment towards him because I would argue with him. And I'm like, This is what's happening on my mom, my mom, my mom and mom. And he's like, No, you don't understand. Like, you are too little to understand, you don't get it. There was in and out. He was in and out of the house. There was arguments. So there were also, at this time, I was very young, I'm gonna say like fifth grade. I was in fifth grade, my mom would wake me up in middle of the night. She would say, I need you to use the restroom. I need you to I need you to stop wetting the bed at night. There, there's you're having nightmares, you're having issues. And unfortunately, this is, this is just something we have to do. So I would do that. I would believe her, because I did have a bed wetting problem. And then there was one time that I gotten up to use the restroom, and after using the restroom, I had went to pull my pants up, I turned around and I realized that there was a bowl in the toilet, and I didn't put the two and two together, but I was like, What is going on here? I don't understand what's happening. It wasn't until I hit my own journey of recovery Did I understand that my mom was using my urine for my stepfather saying that she was getting clean at the time and using my clean urine as as as sufficient evidence to back up her story. And so I was put right in the middle, like I was put right in the middle of the arguments. I was put right in the middle of the chaos of her defense.

It was, it was tough, you know, and I and being the youngest with my mom, all I wanted to do was fight for my mom, and I realized I couldn't do it anymore. So there have been an instance where my mom had gotten in a little bit of trouble. My mom went away for a little while. This was the first time that my mom had departed for my life. The entire time that her and I had, my entire life, she departed for a time of nine months. And unfortunately, I was stuck with my step not I was step stuck with my stepfather, who I couldn't have a relationship with, because, of course, my mom was one causing all these problems, so there was a bit of a resentment from him, from me, and there were times that I was left alone, to my own devices, and I just felt so lost, like I just felt so emotionally tethered. I wasn't sure where to start. I knew what she was gone for. I just, I didn't understand why she would let what she why she would leave. I just, I wasn't understanding what was going on. It wasn't until about seventh or eighth grade did my mom come back. And unfortunately, my mom had fallen back off, and I started to pick up the pieces. I was like, You know what? Something's going on with my mom. She's sleeping about all the time. She's not getting up. She's forgetting me at school. She's using my urine. What is happening? And I realized that there was a bigger, bigger issue at hand.

So there was a time where I had go to my father's house. At the time, I didn't have a very good relationship with my father, my father's very mentally unstable. He suffered from an addiction of his own that I wasn't very understanding of either. And he said, like I said, he suffered from mental health, and that would put him in a gravely ill situation where he wasn't able to take care of me, but unfortunately, neither was my mom. My mom was gone. My Nana was getting my Nana was blind and she was hard of hearing, so at the time, she was not deemed fit to take care of us or take care of me at the time, so I went to my father, and I was very disconnected from my father at that same time. Did I have issues with my dad? And so I would go back and forth between my dad, my mom. I spent some time with my Nana. I spent some time with my aunt, my cousin. I was being moved around so consistently. There was no household that I was in for longer than 30 days, and I just felt like, what is the problem? Am I the issue? I don't understand why this is happening. What do I do to fix it? And there was nothing that I could do to fix it at the time. I just continuously thought that, like, if I maybe just make the honor roll, maybe if I just show up to school, maybe if I just stay busy and stay out of the house. Will I not be the problem? So seventh and eighth grade, I was moved to a different middle school throughout my entire lifespan, and the in grade school I had I had gone to 11 different schools. I was moved so often that I was. In and Out of elementary, different school.

10:03 Every year I got to middle school, different school. Every year I found myself in seventh grade at a certain Middle School near my father. My father had just remarried. His wife had taken me in and said, Okay, so your mom's gone again. This is what we're going to do. We're going to find some sort of consistency for you. And I looked at that like, thank God. Like I needed somebody to fight for me. So there was a little bit of consistency there. I stayed there from seventh to eighth grade. In seventh and eighth grade, I found myself dancing. I made the honor roll. I was like, finally welcome. I finally found somewhere there wasn't issues. I finally found somewhere I could find peace, and that was at school, because it was out of the household. There wasn't anybody that I was there was no chaos, and there was routine. The most important part was that there was routine and consistency, and I lacked that my entire life. So I found myself in seventh and eighth grade dancing with my drill team, having the same friends. So my mom came home around the end of eighth grade. I remember my eighth grade graduation, and my mom had made her appearance one more time, and at this time, I'm like, I have resentment because I didn't understand why she kept making choices that affected me. But at this age, I wasn't understanding that my mom suffered from a disease of alcoholism. My mom had to have this repeat offense for her to find that that was no longer her answer. And unfortunately, AA and AA is a family affair, one family, one family member uses, we all get hurt. It's, it's sort of something that I have understood as I grow, as I grew into my own journey. So eighth grade, my mom comes back. She takes me from where I'm living. My father, at the time, was also Dean. Was mentally ill. My father was suffering from so many different things, mentally and at the same time, his wife had just left him, right so my dad went through a divorce right before my mom got out, and I saw this woman leave, and I thought, now what? Like there goes my safe place. Now, what? Where's mom? Where's dad? Okay, so my mom gets out. My mom comes into the house, she grabs her arm, and she goes, You are coming with me, and you were never leaving my side again.

12:13 Thank you, Lord, thank you for this opportunity.

12:17 My addiction hadn't picked up or hadn't started until I was about 13 years old, and that is very young, but at the time, it was all of us surrounded. It was all of us surrounded with I was going into ninth grade with my mom. My mom had just rented a house. My brother was brought in. I was brought in. My mom and my stepfather had obviously separated through that time, because they had gone through their own situations, where my stepfather actually remained sober, by the grace of God, he still is. And my mom had her own journey. It wasn't at that same given moment, but it was at a different time, you know, and it still can, you will find out, is still continuously practicing her her recovery. So ninth grade comes along. My mom says, okay, great, you're going to come home with me. You're never leaving. Thank God. I needed that. I was going into high school. I had already gone through so many years of my life without my mother and so many inconsistencies I had thought what now? So I finally felt this safe, this idea of what safe could be when my mom showed back up and I just kept thinking, like, please just don't leave me again. Like, please just don't, just don't choose something over me. Don't choose a man over me. Don't choose your addiction over me, like just choose me. And ninth grade came along, and we had moved into a house.

I was then about a little bit over a year sober. My mom went through her own rehab. She had completed rehab. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with Oasis. It was open at the time, but my mom had gone through she had went through Oasis, and I'm very thankful for Ann Janae and Barney for for being the tough people that they are on my mom and my Nana as well, because that's exactly what she needed at the time. And unfortunately, US addicts, as myself, in my own experience, I need tough love in order for me to you, I can't take that soft, loving, gentle, because I will victimize it and I will use it to my fullest extent. If given the opportunity, I will, I will absolutely do that. So just one second. So my mom came home living in a house with my brother, my mom and two other sober people. At the time, they were renting a house or a room inside. My mom was then, about two years clean, and it was about Halloween, and my mom had gone out to a meeting. I was left at home, and around me was my brother. He was about 16, all of his friends, you know, and they decided to throw a party. And all I could see around me at the time was Adderall, Xanax, alcohol chaos. I was like, Cool. I fit right in. Like, this is exactly where I feel comfortable, plus the way that I see these people after they have consumed all of this is exactly how my mom used to look. So, like, so like, this is exactly how it should be.

So I saw. Gonna find my comfort in that chaos. And when my mom was out and about, she she had left to an AA meeting. She had come back about earlier. She had just thrown us how she's like, What is going on here? This should not be happening. And my she kicked my brother out of the house. Get out here. My mom was sober at the time. She was practicing her her belief. She was very, being very strict. I was 13. She's like, you are I was almost 14. She was like, You need to go to sleep. You have school in the morning. All this and that awesome. Unfortunately, my brother had snuck back into the house with his girlfriend, and some things happened with her. And I'm just gonna say this. This is part of my truth. The 17 year old woman that had snuck back into our house when my mom and I were asleep was 17 years old. She smoked heroin in the back room, she overdosed and she passed away. This was when I was about 14 years old. My mom had two years sober, and my brother, being the addict that he is, had violated certain things that my mom had put into place, and unfortunately, it cost my mom her freedom. My mom had gone back to jail. I had gone back to DCFS, and one more time, that dream of safety had been shattered, and I was just like, when will it ever stop? So my mom went away for about a year or two, but my mom stayed true. She stayed consistent. She stayed sober throughout that opportunity. She didn't she didn't say, You know what I'm giving up. She said, You know what, this isn't going to continue to happen, and I'm not. I'm not going to live like this anymore.

She She stayed sober. So we went through a situation. I went back with my father, in and out. You know, my mom came back and she goes, Okay, that's it. You're living with me and my no one else can is okay with no one can else, no one else can live with us. Great. But at that time, I had developed an addiction. At that time, I was like, 13 years old, using substances, drinking alcohol, and I'm like, This is what we do. This is an age where it's like, awesome. I feel involved. I feel like I'm just part of the in crowd. We all go to high school, we all go to parties, we all drink, right? Absolutely not like that's not the norm. Unfortunately, I had to find out. So I from high school until about a year and a half ago, I suffered, fighting my own journey, my addiction, and in that, in that journey, did I realize I finally could put all the pieces together? I'm like, oh, that's why my mom did that. Oh, I understand the insanity, like the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization that we talk about, has just remained in my story consistently. And I will, I will, I will stay true to that fact. Well, it my past to stick, to stay true to that fact for a very long time, and I just understand that I have to stick to the basics.

So I never have to go back to the basics, right? So like, my basics at that at that moment was like, well, not my basics, I apologize, but my routine at that time was like, get high, get drunk, get loaded, and then I'm going, my mom, okay, so let me back up. Hold on. I kind of got mixed up. So I had about 20 years old, and my mom was like, I was living with my mom at the time. She was then again sober. Sometime it passed by, my mom still was, is still sober, and my mom has remained sober. But unfortunately, our there was a rupture in our in our relationship, because I developed my own addiction, and my mom has this outline of living, and it is, figure it out, I love you, but I'm loving you from a distance. You know where to go you. This is what since I was a child, this is what alatin had prepared me for. And I had never thought that this is what was when I was sitting in that room with these children all around me. I never understood. I didn't understand at the time that this was my home, that this is where I need to go in case I have an issue or I have a problem. And I remembered that. So I was about 2021, years old, and I'm, like, suffering from this addiction, and I'm like, What do I do? What do I go? My mom's like, you know what to do. And she was absolutely right. So I went to treatment. I had had a few lapses in my recovery before I realized that AA is my home so here and now, about a year and a half ago, I had gone to this place called stairways. It's in Woodland Hills, and it has saved my life. It had given me a home when I didn't have one. It gave me a safe place. It had given me people that cared, that understood, that left my line, the line of communication open for vulnerability, for for trust and for room to grow like I just had so many problems, and I had so many unresolved issues because of my childhood, and I was in and out of The program consistently between 2020 21 years old and 26 to 27 but and I could read the stories, I could I could speak AA, but I didn't apply it. And the fact that I didn't apply it is the exact reason why I couldn't stay sober.

And it wasn't until this recovery, this opportunity, that I had to get sober, did I realize I can know all that there is, but knowledge without application is trash, and they teach me that, and I didn't understand that until just recently, when I'm like, going in and out of the programs, and I'm like, why can't I not stay clean? Well, because I'm not practicing my own program. You know, I'm not finding what's what's working for me. Thankfully, my mom was able to find, find what worked for her, and she. Worked it, and I see that it has a result. So for me, I needed to do the same. And I found stairways. I found stairways. I found a group of women that I could trust, I could get vulnerable with. I found a sponsor, I found a home group. And at this point, my relationships were just messy. I didn't understand how to have a relationship. I didn't know how to be the friend. I didn't know how to be the daughter. I didn't know how to be a partner. Stairway, sat me down, gave me parenting classes, gave me in your management classes. They took the time to work with me through all my issues. I had TMS therapy, like they really dedicated themselves to help me get better, and thankfully and thankfully, it worked, you know, I I have a sponsor.

20:45 She knows she's my sponsor. I have a home group. I go to it consistently. I try to show up as much as I possibly can, and where I found myself able to learn how to recover was immersing myself in the program and the people around me that had suffered from different problems, but thankfully had the same solution. And so, like I said, I had found stairways, I found a group of women. I divulged myself into this group of women and just allowed them to love me. I remained open minded to what people had to offer me. I took suggestions because I was at that moment of time I realized my way was not working. Nothing that I had practiced in the past was was was working. So I thought, you know, what? If I were to just listen to another human being, what would I lose? I lost it already all at this point, I just need something to hang on. I need a little bit of hope to hang on to those suggestions that I took, just saying yes, just showing up, just doing what they told me to, just sticking in those groups, just finding the sponsor, just doing the step work. That's where my recovery really began. Was my one on one work with my sponsor. Thankfully, I was able to find a solution, and my solution to these problems today is my step work. I'm able to sit down with another woman in recovery, express how I'm feeling, and she work. She can work through that with me. And I have learned that my self cannot reveal self to self. So doing this on my own, I will not be successful, but working with other people in AA in recovery will be absolutely successful.

Now, would I have thought that when I was very young, sitting at a table with other people at 13 years old in an ally team meeting? Absolutely not. But did I put the connections and piece that together as I grew up? Yes, I did. And I'm very grateful that God has remained. My higher power is something that I call God. Whether that is different for you, whatever your higher power may be, find hold on to it, and I hope that it works for you. Mine, in my case, is the universe. It is, and I call it God, and I've seen it work and it is, and that's, that's what is important to me. So I rely on my higher power. I rely on my sponsor, and I rely on the people around me to hold me accountable, because I would not be able to do that myself. So I also sponsor. There are a few key things in my recovery today that I work with, that I work on, and I keep at hand, and that's my sponsor, my commitments, my meetings. I work with other women, and I What was it? So I show up to my meetings. I sponsor. I have a community. I there's a few things. There's a few things. It's like a cake, right? We have recipe, we have stuff we put into our cake, and without that stuff, it just doesn't work, right? And so in my case, it's, it's sponsoring other women, because I haven't had another like, I tell you this right now, when I found my spiritual awakening in my recovery, it was like the fireworks at Disneyland, like, and I felt it inside.

And I wouldn't do people come in and I see them and I'm like, you know, if I could just beat you with a sobriety stick, I would, but you wouldn't. You wouldn't feel the same, you know? I just, I suggest that you take suggestions. Yeah, I suggest that you find a higher power. I suggest that you find a sponsor that you are comfortable with, and you see, and you say, You know what I want, what they have. And that is exactly what kept me coming back, was I look around this room and I said, You know what I want, what you have, and I'm willing to go to any lengths to get it. And I remain open minded. I remained willingness. Every day I would pray, God just keep me willing to stay willing. I just need the willingness to be willing. That's it. And it kept me sober one more day at a time. And so that's what I do. I stay immersed in recovery, I say immersed in AA, I now have a job in treatment, and I'm able to watch other people come through the program, get sober, find their higher power, find their true purpose, and then be successful at it. And I couldn't ask for any greater purpose than that, you know, I have a family who was also in recovery, which is great, because at times that I feel alone, do I just have to talk to a family member, and I'm absolutely not alone, you know. And I had felt so alone when I was so young, because I didn't realize that I just didn't have, I just didn't have what I have now. And that's a solution in AA and having a higher power that gets me through that. And you know, I'm thankful. I'm thankful to my higher power. My God, it. And you people, you guys as well, if it wasn't for you guys showing. Up and do stuff like this, I wouldn't be able to participate in my recovery, give back and stay sober one more day at a time, and for that, I am extremely grateful. So my name is Jessica. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you.

25:27 Now it is my second distinct pleasure to welcome Jolene.

25:36 Come on up. Joellen, hi.

Joellen

25:39 My name is Joellen. I'm an alcoholic.

25:43 I would like to thank the Santa Clarita Valley convention for inviting us. It's always an honor and a privilege to come out and share our experience, strength and hope, family style. Thank you to the committee as well, and my daughter, Jessica. I know she did a great job. I stepped out for most of it, you know, her truth and my truth, while they're the same path or different truths, right? Like her perception of what her life looked like, and my perception is different, you know, and and so when we when we share in places like this, we give the each other the opportunity to be honest, right? I don't want to hurt her feeling that she doesn't want to hurt my I have a sobriety date of 220, 2008 and it's the most important thing. Anything that comes between me and my sobriety has got to go, including my husband and my children. And there's been times in my sobriety that that's had to happen. You know, how much time do I have?

26:38 You have a total of 25 okay, I'm going to give you a 10 minute and a five perfect.

26:43 So I'm gonna keep so you know what? I'm briefly tell you a little bit about my life growing up. My mom was a heroin she was a bank robber. We have Hells Angels at her house. The cops were always at her house. You know, by the time I was 12 years old, I was drinking Jack Daniels all the time. I was doing a lot of outside issues. I was smoking a lot of weed. I was just doing a lot of bad stuff at 12 years old. Okay, in my house, we had two rules, don't bring the cops home. And what's the other one? Wow. It's the first time in my I haven't, don't, don't bring the cops home. And there was another one, but that was the most important one, and I can remember one time I was, I was, like, eight or 10 years old, and we were playing this game in the neighborhood. We were jumping on these business roofs, me and some neighborhood boys and and we crawl up to their roofs, and we would go from rooftop to rooftop to rooftop, right? And my brother, my mother's blind. She doesn't see at all, and she didn't see anything, you know, she lost her eyesight about 10 years ago, but growing up, she didn't see at night. And so I was playing hopscotch on businesses at 10 years old, and, you know, and all sudden, the police helicopter comes, and my mom happened to be across the street the 711 with my brother, and I could hear my brother say to my mom, hey, that's that's sissy. And my mom screams across the street, stop, I'll come get you from jail. Don't bring the cops home. And so I literally went to the gas station, and I stood at the gas station, and the cops came up and they cornered you. What were you doing? And we told them we were playing tag on the roof and what's the problem? Weren't hurt anybody. We were just going, we would go business to bit, roof to roof, up and down it, you know, see how far we can get without touching the ground, you know. And that's what I did at 10, you know. And nobody, nobody cared. Nobody knew. I ran away from home twice, and nobody knew. Like, I remember I came I ran away for five days. I came home at like four in the morning, went back in my bedroom. My mom came in at like seven, and she's like, need to get up and go to school. I'm like, I've been home with four days. Just now wants me to go to school, right? And so very early on, I was doing things that, you know, I had kids and I have grandkids, and I think, Oh, my God, you know, it's a different time, but back then it's, it's just crazy to think about. Um, so I started drinking really early, you know, my mom got sober 911 of 95 and I need to say that now, because it's a huge part of my story.

So, you know, she didn't get sober until I was 23 though, right? And so I lived the first 23 years of my life with alcoholism and drug addiction all around me. When I was 14 years old, my mom moved out of our apartment and left me with the neighbor, and there was like, and there were three guys, and they were like, 1925 and 27 I ended up marrying one of them and having my first kid, and my older daughter, Valerie, when she was I was 16, when she was born, and they married her dad, and the I stopped doing everything else, but I drank two margaritas a week when I was pregnant with Valerie. Now, at the time, I was able just to go to the bar, because the health angels owned the bar, and we were allowed to go there. And so I would go there and drink two margaritas pregnant at 16 years old, because there's nothing wrong with alcohol while you're while you're pregnant, right? And nobody told me any different. So, you know? So I got married really young. I had my kid really young, early, really young, and my life was just full of alcohol. Is it just full of bad decisions? You know? I got, you know, he went to prison. And my daughter was born when he was in prison. And you know, when he got out of prison, it didn't work. And you know, Valerie. Once Valerie was born, I was I started drinking every day, and then, of course, I started doing outside substances. And so Valerie was about a year and a half, and she was asleep in her car seat, and I was at this 24 hour storage, and her dad came at like, one in the morning, and he said, What are you doing? Right? And I look, I remember it like it was yesterday, this moment of clarity. I said, I don't know, but you need to take her, because I don't want to raise her the way my mom raised me. And he took that little girl, and he raised her the first 12 years of her life, you know, and she's amazing, but at that brief moment, I knew that if I continued it, her life was not going to be great like it is today. You know? I wasn't capable of doing I wasn't capable of raising her because I didn't have any examples to start from, you know?

31:00 Well, you took it cotton mouth up here. My sponsor calls it podium pinnacle. So, so, so, you know? Let's fast forward. So I get married. I have a bunch of kids, like my oldest one, I can do a dad because I can't take care of her. I have another kid, you know? And then I my son, Justin, was born. They found weed in a system when he was born. This was in 1992 they were like, oh, you know, this is really bad. You need to go to AA. Back then, marijuana Anonymous was only four years old, and so I jumped into ma. And of course, they only had two meetings a week. So of course, my sponsor was from AA, and I was introduced to the big book about clocks anonymous. I moved in with my grandmother, and I got some real sobriety. And my first sobriety, I was taught about, you know, bank accounts and and 401, K's, and how to do your taxes and how to put the toothpaste cap on your toothbrush, right? Like, I didn't know all these things, right? Like, in my house, grown up, we didn't have toothpaste or toothbrushes. We had, you know, hypodermic needles in the bathroom all the time, you know. And so, um, I remember the day that I left the treatment program, and I had to the last day that I drink and smoke tweet, at the time I cried. I cried because it'd been the first time, and you know how many years that I was through a sober breath, and what I found was, you know, that God hole, I started going to AA, and I got a sponsor, and out came the drugs and alcohol. And so I started putting a lot of meetings in there, right? And I put my step work in there, and I put my sponsor in there, and I put fellowship in there, and I put hymns in there, right. And looking back on my journal back then, I noticed the first year that sobriety, there wasn't a god in there.

And what happened was boy meets girl in a campus. Girl is sober for a minute. You know, he's been sober for quite some time. By now, I have three kids. He's got two kids. You know, we move in together because that's a great idea. I give up all my commitments, slowly but surely, money, property and prestige diverted me from my primary purpose, and that hole that I had filled with Alcoholics Anonymous in the 90s suddenly was empty again, and everything stopped working. You know, meanwhile, him and I are taking great vacations. We're buying new houses. We're buying new cars, you know, we have five kids, and we're living this really great life on the outside and on the inside, I was slowly dying, you know, we'll fast forward to, I relapsed after five years, and I spent five years in a relapse. And in that five years, I picked up a bunch of felonies. I picked up, you know, my house became chaotic, right? And at the time that him and I were together, we have this, this good structure, and then my relapse made it a bad Foundation, right? And, and there was a time before I got sober in 2008 that, you know, he was taking the kids to Alateen, he was going to Al Anon, and I was supposed to be going to AA, and I would go to the Friday night AA meeting that was by her house at the time, and I would sit in the parking lot. And then the next week I would go, and I would sit outside. Now I've been to a before, right? And I would sit outside in the hallway, and I'd fold my arms, and everybody walked by, and, you know, I didn't feel a part of I didn't want to go in, I didn't want to make the commitment, because I knew it was going to take work, right? And then I cry. I'd go to my car and I'd cry, and then I'd go drink, right? And he would come home, and everybody would be happy, and I'd be crying, and he's like, Well, how was your meeting?

And I've always fine, you know? But it wasn't fine, right? It wasn't. And I remember one time he came home from zal and, I mean, he looked at me, he's like, you know, I hear all these couples like, you know, they get sober, and they go to Al Anon and and they make it, and they have a great story. And he's like, you know, I wonder what our story is going to be, you know, and in our story is that we didn't stay together. But the good news is, is that we didn't stay together because we both needed to save our lives, right? I was making him crazy, and I wasn't going to get sober in that house, married to him. You can fast forward to 2008 about three days before I got sober, I was in bed. I forgot to get my youngest daughter, Jessica from school, and she walked home, but she came out and she said, Mom, why are you still in bed? And I said, I don't know, Jessica, what? Why get up? What's the purpose? This because I knew the minute my foot hit the ground, alcohol and drugs were gonna have to go in my body. And that relapse, I found Vicodin, and that wasn't that brought me to my knees. And I called my mom. By then, she was sober 15 years she's like, I'm really worried about you. And I said, Yeah. And she said, Do you want some help? And I said, I'm just not willing. And she says, You know, I can't help somebody that's not willing to do the work. When you're willing to do the work, let me know. And three days later, I got arrested, and I went to jail. And prior arrest, I would have been bailed out. And this time, when I got arrested, and I called home, I said, I don't want to be bailed out. I'm the freest person here. You know, my kids were crying, and that ex of mine was like, one more time, and I just said, You know what, I'm the freest person here. And at that moment, I knew that the only way that I was going to not drink and do pills was that if I was locked away and I was okay with it, I didn't care where he sent. You just don't let me go back to that, right? That first night I had my God. It's my first God experience, and I I have a big God, and I had an appropriate dependence on my God.

And I always have. I can tell you a story really quick. Back in my mom's using day, she took us up to northern California. There was all of her friends were growing weed, and she's blind. She can't see my brother's eight. I'm 10. We go hiking. When we get there, we get lost. It starts to rain. It's getting dark. We don't know where we're at. We're two kids. We're crying. We're full of mud. I grabbed my brother's hand. I'm like, kneeled down. We pray, Dear God, please, please help us find our way home. We're lost and we're scared. And I grabbed his hand and walked and within two minutes, we found people. And I knew that was my God, right? And I knew that I have my god would be there when I asked for help. And so in sobriety, or prior to sobriety, asking God for help wasn't an option, because I knew he was going to help me, and I didn't know if I really wanted that help. Right that night when I got arrested in 2008 my my God spoke to me. He said, you know you're going to you're going to go to court, you're going to get three choices, what you do with it's on you. And in my head, I had this dream. So the next day I was getting, you know, I got up and they're like, Okay, we're going for a bail revoking because when I go to jail, my bill goes like $500 million and and I walked in and and they were talking, and my attorney was like, Okay, well, the DA is going to give you a drug rehab one year inpatient, if you'll take it. Blah, blah, blah. And the district for me is like, I don't even know why I'm doing this. And the judge is like, I don't know why we're doing this. You know, I have a rap shit like this and, and, and I looked at my training like, I know why they're doing this, because I have a guy who's really big and I'm asking for help. And, and they did that. They sent me one year mandatory inpatient treatment, they gave me, like this, five year joint suspension.

And they said, Don't pass go, don't blink, don't do all of these things. And I said, That's okay. I got to treatment. And the person there, when I walked in said, you know, I think you're full of shit. I don't think you want to. I think you're trying to get the judge, your husband, all these people off your back, said, you don't want to do the work when you get up every morning. I want you to ask God for the willingness to be willing to do what it takes to stay sober one day at a time. And so in this rehab at, you know, three weeks of sobriety, I'd get up before everybody else in house, I'd go downstairs at five o'clock in the morning. I'd get on my knees, and there's this white surrender flag. Now, my perception that it was like, besides the wall, right, when I went back, like, five years ago, it's like this big, right? In my mind, it's this big, huge flag, right? And so, so I get on my knees, and I asked God, God, please give me the willingness to be willing to do it. Takes space over one day. And what started, what does that look like for me? Was, you know, I get there, and they would say, you know, Jawan, we need you to go do this. And I'd say, but. And they'd say, No, No, buts, or they need to. And I started to say, Okay, pick me, pick me, pick me. I'll do it. What do you need? I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. And I found the quicker my feet moved in, the busier My hands were, the quieter my head was, right? I found that service work is going to save my life. So at 60 days of sobriety, that first husband, that roommate he was on, he ended up drinking a pint of vodka, taking 16 Vicodin, and had a brain aneurysm and a stroke.

And my 19 year old daughter called me and said, I need to know I have one parent that's going to live. And this program became life and death for me, because him and I had been together 64 days prior to that, doing the same exact thing. See, he didn't make it, but I did. How come I get to be here and he doesn't right and and I knew at that moment that I needed to live and I needed to do this program, and that husband of mine, or ex husband of mine, came to that rehab at 90 days of sobriety with a men's letter that Al Anon had taught him, and he said, I forgive you for everything you did to me. I'm packing up all of your stuff that's going into storage. Have a good life, right? And and, you know, I had a resentment for that for five years. For five years, I resented that, and it wasn't until him and I did some things together, and, you know, we had to pack up a few things or whatever, and, and I sat down, and I realized that was the best he could give me at the time, that was him saving his own life, right? And I understand today, at 17 and a half years, you know, I'm married to an alcoholic, and I understand, I get it, you know, basically, he loved. Me enough to walk away. He loved himself more, and I appreciate that. Alan, I'll talk in that so well. Fast forward, my sobriety is not always been easy. How much time do I have left? You have about

40:15 10 minutes. 12 minutes. Yes. All right. You know, I can tell you my first year in treatment, I got a sponsor right away, working my steps right away. I can't take Can I let him? Steps one, two and three. I did my four step. It was very easy for me to write down how you made me mad. Step six and seven. Was it for me. And then the ninth step. Step six and seven finally told me why I did the way I did. It wasn't my mom's fault, it wasn't God's fault, it wasn't the neighbor's fault. Wasn't his fault. It was my character defense, and here they are. When am I going to do different, right? I don't want to be a liar, cheat with me more, so I'm not going to do those things. Well, how am I not going to do those things? First, I'm going to make amends, I'm going to do nine step I'm going to tell you I apologize for my behavior, and I'm not going to do it again, right? And then I'm going to do 1011, 12 on a daily basis. And I don't like making it 10 steps, so I try not to do anything that gets me in a position to have to make amends to you, but if I do, even if I don't think I do and I hurt you, I'm going to make those amends, because I don't ever want somebody to be hurt because of my actions. Again. Right at six months of sobriety, I got thrown out of that rehab for lying. Who knew that newcomers lied? Right? Who knew?

And I went in front of that judge that told me, Don't pass go, don't right? And I remember walking on the stairs the Burbank courthouse and looking up and going, Okay, God, if your will, is for me to go to prison. That's where, that's where I'll go. Just don't send me back to where I came from, wherever I go, I'll be fine, as long as I don't come back to where I came from, you know? And the judge was like, no, go to this other rehab. Don't, don't lie, and don't do this and don't do that. And said, okay, so I went to a program called Odyssey house in Canoga Park, and I walked up and there was a director there. Her name was Linda Elliot and and I got honest for the first time in my entire life with somebody. And I worked that program up until the day she died after I left it a year. You know, I had my daughter, Jessica, with her dad. I after a year of treatment, when I completed, I moved out, and my sobriety story started with just me and Jessica, and she became my sponsor, and she died in 2021 and there's not a day goes by then I don't think of her. Use her words in my head. You know? She would tell me things like, you know, Joellen, you have a part in everything. I don't care what it is, but they know. But you have a part in everything. You know, I learned how to get a job and go to work and and I have same schedule. And the day that I left rehab, I was worried that. I remember crying and doing a discharge with Linda saying, What am I going to do? You know, like, she's like, we're gonna make a calendar. She's like, I'm afraid nobody's gonna hold me accountable. She said, we're gonna make a calendar. What meetings do you go to now? By then, I had already every meeting I did. I did a meeting today for the first nine years of my sobriety. Okay, sometimes two a day, and we made a calendar. And every day I put it Monday, so Friday, first. Tuesday, new start, beginners. Wednesday, home with Jessica. Thursday, gone show Friday, Al Anon Alateen, Dougie Mets. Saturday, random meeting. Sunday home. I had this calendar on my wall that every day I'd see it, just to remind myself that's where I needed to be, right, because left to my own devices, my brain starts to spin. But most importantly, I got into service work.

I started raising my hand early. I started saying, pick me, pick me. And I would volunteer for anything and everything I could get my hands on. You know, I started working that San Fernando Valley a convention when I had 10 months of sobriety as information. You know, I've been on that committee since then, 17 and a half years. And, you know, you rotate through all of them. It's, it's just, it's an amazing feeling. Service work for me. You know, I started doing, I needed to do community service for that problems in Burbank. And I started volunteering at the clinical Park West Hills Chamber of Commerce. I've been already done in menorah. And she did four events a year. And I and I started volunteering with her. And then she moved over a company called Valley Cultural Foundation, and I moved over and started volunteering with her. And she called me up and she say, Hey, will you do this? We do that. And I say, Yes, it was for DEA events, a parade, and it was it just multiple events, like 1314, events a year. And while into my sobriety, I'm raising my hand saying, pick me, pick me. I'll do it. What do you need help with? You know, the busier the hands, the quieter the mind. You know, my sobriety has not been easy. I got arrested at two and a half years of sobriety. They said, Jessica, away from me. It's a long story. I remember thinking on my way to jail that, you know, God, they've taken everything away from me. I'm gonna lose my house, my job, I'm not gonna be able to go to the convention. You know, what have I done? And my god, said they haven't taken your sobriety. And he's right, it's mine. You can't have it. It's mine, and you can't have it. Drinking is an option, but for me, it's not a solution, right? I play the tape on any problem I may have, and it results with either God, my sponsor or some type of action. If there's no solution to the problem, I just keep going until one present itself.

You know, I got married after Jessica. One of the hardest things I went through in sobriety was when my daughter was diagnosed bipolar, and my at my sponsor direction, I took her to Henry Mayo hospital out here and and we walked in, and she then realized that they were going to keep her 5150 and they strapped her down to a chair, and she was 19 years old, and she kept screaming through the hospital. Is all your fault. I hate you. Did this to me or drug addict, and I hate you. And I remember sitting outside that hospital crying for an hour before I could drive home, blaming myself for her disease right now and now and I and I've learned that I can't cure it. I didn't cause it, and I can't control it. But as a mom, it hurts. You know, as a mom, it hurts. And you know, the hardest thing I've had to do is let her go. She had to find her path, right? And I've had to ask her to leave my house a few different times, and I've had to keep her children because she wasn't a safe parent, right? And nobody kept me from my mom, right?

And, and that's hard, you know, they have a God, and I'm not it, but as a mom, it's hard. You know, my son is a 38 year old fentanyl addict who's still living on the streets, and he has a god, and I'm not it. And I talked to my son once, we tell him and I love him. I'm here. If he's ever ready to get help, he knows where to go, you know? I mean, it's okay. I'm going to tell you that I spent the last year, first off, my service work, all that service work I did for years, I ended up getting a job with that company, and now I'm their CEO. And now so all that service work I did for free, they pay me to do, and I absolutely love it. And I got married to a member of Alcoholics Anonymous 10 years ago, and the last year of my sobriety, I've looked at alcoholism through a different lens, because when he relapsed on alcohol, I had a choice to make my sobriety or him right. Anything that comes between me and my sobriety has got to go, you know, and he had to leave for a while. And again, the women and God and Alcoholics Anonymous, save my life every day. Right of a core group of women that I talked to, I have a new sponsor that I talked to every day. I have meetings that I attend on a regular basis. I talked to another alcoholic every single day. At 17 and a half years at least, I don't sponsor right now, my my mother, my brother was killed two years ago, and my he was the caretaker for my mother. My mother's blind. She moved in with me a year ago, and so I take care of her, and she's blind with Parkinson's and deaf. And you know what? I get to be a service to her today, right? So she got sober when I was 23 and when I was going through my disease, she helped with my kids. My kids when I was and I get to be a service to her. Today, I get to do things today that are uncomfortable, miserable and yucky, but by golly, I get to do them. Why? Because I could be dead, because I could have missed it all, because I could be in prison. Not a lot of people make it. You know, all three of my children's fathers are dead. All three or two of them are dead from this disease. I'm the lucky one that's here. They need one parent. You know, for me, this program is all about trust, God, clean house, work with others, right? It's all about unity, service and recovery. I absolutely love your theme this year. I am responsible. My sponsor taught me early on, when you go to a meeting, act appropriate. You're going to be the only message that somebody sees from the A make sure it's a good one, right? And and I heard that, you know, I heard that. So thank the committee for having me. And I just want to end with, you know, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous to save my life. I stayed here to change my life, and now I come back because it's where all my friends are at. So thank you.