I'm an alcoholic. Thank you so much, Diana, for inviting me to your new hometown to speak today. My sobriety date is June 24th of 2011, and I'm coming up on 14 years in June, which is kind of crazy. It seems like just yesterday, 14 years ago at this time, I had some big ass problems in my life.

I'll tell you how that happened. I'm a nice Irish Catholic girl from Boston, Massachusetts, like most of us from Boston. Oh, and Lisa, you're from New York, right? East Coast girls, whoop, whoop, whoop.

Like most of my people, a seat in A. A. is basically our birthright, and I definitely earned mine, and so did my father and his father before him and all the priests and nuns in our family that just did their thing. Some of us got sober, and some of us did not.

My dad, well, first of all, my first experiences with alcohol were my uncle, Father John Hanley. He's the pastor of a parish in Lowell, Mass. Every once a month, for whatever occasion it was, we would go to my grandmother's house, and he would say Mass, and the drinks would come out. People would be drinking during Mass, because you can do that at grandma's house, not necessarily at church, although I'm sure people did.

After Mass, we'd have dinner, and adults would have more drinks, and then Uncle Danny would get behind the piano, and everyone would be singing and laughing and busting each other's balls. It was great fun, and I, for whatever reason, knew that the alcohol had something to do with it, that the drinks were giving people a louder laugh, a more in-tune voice. Whatever the case may be, I made a strong connection between family and happiness and booze. My father's alcoholism escalated, as it does.

If you're the real thing, at some point, the progression of the disease is going to get you. My father started going into rehabilitation centers in 1984, something like that. In that time, my mom became an Al-Anon Ninja, and she decided that I, her eldest daughter, also had a problem with booze, and so I should go to rehab, too. In 1986, I got sober.

I was in high school, and I was sober for senior prom. A lot of kids my age in Boston at that time were getting sober. I went to prom with a kid from the Southie Project who was also sober, and he was my age. I graduated from high school sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I sponsored teenagers, and I turned 21 sober. Then, just around 22, I was like, meh, I probably overreacted. I probably overreacted, and I went out. I went out for 20 years.

It talks in our literature about being able to stop when you're a potential alcoholic. It was very obvious that I could not drink for shit, and I shouldn't do it, ever. But I wasn't a daily drinker. I wasn't even a monthly drinker.

My mom was a really strict, religious, Catholic mom, so I didn't get to do very much. But whenever I drank, I had no idea what was going to happen, and I would drink piggishly. The first time I drank, my older cousin took me to the St. Paddy's Day Parade.

I think I was like 12 or 13 years old. St. Paddy's Day Parade in Southie, and her and her older friends were already drinking. I'm so sorry that I'm going to do this to you, but I'm going to tell you what we drank that day.

Peppermint schnapps and Pepsi. I blacked out. I didn't even make it to the parade. My older cousin and her friends dumped me at Salvin Hill Station.

I know I'm talking like you all know where all these places are. I think about it now, if I were to see a 13-year-old child passed out, covered in vomit on a train. But no one stopped to help me or anything. I somehow made it home, got caught.

I was like, wow. It was horrible. I was miserable. I was so sick the next day.

I blacked out. I didn't remember. My father told me that he filmed me. I didn't remember what I did, but I knew that whatever it was was horrible and it shouldn't be filmed.

I doubt he did that because we didn't have a video camera or anything, but I believed him. My father was sober. He was sober. Well, he has his own story.

I went out for, as I said, 20 years. In that time, I knew that I was an alcoholic because I had been in AA. But I thought, oh, the trick is to just like, if you know you're an alcoholic and you know that you drink every day and then you go into the music business, you can just do whatever you want. You can drink all the time.

You can drink at lunch. You can drink in the morning. You can get in fights at the bar at night. And you don't get fired for that.

You get rewarded for that. So that was the trick. Just acknowledge that you are an alcoholic and become a musician, which is what I did. I probably would have stopped a lot long before I did, were it not for the career that I chose.

I got married. We had two beautiful children. We moved from Boston to LA, which is something I swore I would never, ever, ever do. But I didn't want to tour in a band anymore.

I wanted to go behind the scenes and write for other things and produce music. I had a thing that I really wanted to do, and moving here seemed like the right choice for me and my young family. My kids were four and seven months at the time. I still hadn't hit the progression.

I was having some problems, but getting pregnant and being a mother of young kids, I was able to, it talks in the book, being able to stop or moderate if you have sufficient consequences or if you are faced with it. And I just really was able to kind of, and not for nothing, I still drank every day, but I drank a half a bottle of wine every day, which for me is just like, that's breakfast. So it was, but I had no problems. It wasn't affecting my life in any significant way until it did.

And like my father before me, the progression began to kick in around 2006 or 2007 when I had a little, I stopped off for, I mean, booze is definitely my drug of choice. I'm just like a garden variety drunk, that's what I am, to my marrow. But I also love every, I'm just like, just give it to me. It's garbage.

I'll ask you what it is later. And I'm a, I just, I love to change the way I feel. I love to feel the shift into something else. Like this feeling that I have right now is not good enough.

I need, like this feeling will be better or that feeling will be better. And I still suffer from that occasionally, not as much, and I definitely don't treat that feeling with booze and drugs anymore. But I had a stop off with, had a significant drug problem for a couple of years, and I got clean from that particular drug. And what happened at that point, that was in 2006 or 7, I had become accustomed to taking my medicine in the morning so that I wouldn't be sick.

So I wasn't doing that anymore. And, but I still kind of like had that, I wanted, I felt like I needed something first thing in the morning. So just to get to the point, what ended up happening was I, oh, thanks Diana. Thank you.

I would have this fight with myself in the morning. We moved to a house in Studio City so the kids could, so we could walk the kids to school. And, you know, there's a great public school in Studio City. And my son was in like first grade and I think my daughter was in the fourth.

And in the morning I would be like, just don't, you don't have to have a drink before you walk the kids to school. Just wait until after you get back from walking the kids to school and have a drink then. And, you know, sometimes I could do it. Sometimes I couldn't wait.

And then I, most of the time I couldn't wait. And then at some point, you know how like we, we draw a line in the sand, the line that we're just never going to cross. And then we cross it and we're like, whoa, but I'll never do that. And then we do that.

And then we, you know, keep redrawing the line and come up with justifications for why we do that. And I really had no justification for why. I mean, I could explain to myself why I would erase other lines. But to me, it was like walking my kids to school drunk at 7.30 in the morning seemed unreasonable.

And it was something that I could not stop doing. And at that point, my husband started finding bottles of vodka around. At one point, I was hiding a bottle of vodka. And this is crazy because I never had to lie about my drinking.

I never had to, like, if I wanted to drink at lunch, I drank at lunch. I was a drinking lady and that's what I was known to be. So for me to be hiding my drinking, this was different. Something was different.

And I remember I was hiding my vodka in a in a boot in the back of my closet. And my husband was looking for something. And he I see him like kind of on his knees in my closet. And he's backing out.

He's like with a like a handle of vodka. He's like, OK, what the fuck is this? I'm sorry for this. I shouldn't be swearing.

And I was like, oh, I don't I don't know. Like I didn't I wasn't ready with a lie. I was like, I don't I don't know. And he was like and I think that he didn't want to know either.

Like I think he was so like new, but just did not want to know. And so so we just were like, OK, we're just going to we're just not going to talk about that again. And and things went. So that was adorable compared to what started to happen after that, which was like not good.

So one night after a particularly horrific incident in my home that was witnessed by the kids. The next morning, I woke up and my husband asked me to leave. This was in October of 2010. And and he said, I called your parents.

He called my mommy and daddy. I was 40 something years old getting tattled on. And and he's like, I bought you a plane ticket. You can get on the plane.

You don't have to get on the plane, but you can't stay here because I have to protect myself and the kids from you. And this is like I'm an A student. I'm a perfectionist. I'm like like there's nothing I want more than to please you and to make you think that everything is like totally like I have been really my part time job was talking myself out of a jackpot.

Like I was really good at that. And and all of a sudden it's like, oh, that's not working anymore to the extent that I'm being kicked out of my home. And and so at first I was like, I'm not. And then to like a half a second later, I was like, I'm I'm I'm going to die.

And that didn't I wasn't necessarily bummed about that. Like, I kind of was like, that would be fine with me. But I had made such a mess of everything that like and I just didn't want to die with things such a mess. I wanted a chance to like clean it up and like get an A again.

And so anyway, that that also did not work out the way I hoped it would. I I went home, went to detox, went to rehab, came back to L. A. , sober living, relapsed, ended up in it.

It was just it was a nightmare for I was institutionalized, hospitalized. I think seven times in the next seven months before I finally got sober in June of 2011. And by then I was not allowed to see my children alone anymore. My my husband, who, you know, he he could have he could have if you wanted to hurt me as badly as I had hurt him.

He could have gotten the courts involved. Whatever reason, he decided not to do that. And and so I just kind of like signed a contract with my family that I would after my last rehab, that I would not return to L. A.

for a couple of months, that I would come home with three months sober and that I would go live with mommy and daddy at the age of 43 on Cape Cod in the fall. And I I needed I needed to do that. I really was I was absolutely broken. And and my writing partner said, I don't want to work with you until you're two years sober.

And I was like, two years sober to that's a long time. You won't work with me again for two years. And it's funny because it worked out that the project that we had been working on after my last relapse did not we did not go back. We didn't get offered the job back.

We didn't go back to work on that project. Or we got the call when I was 18 months sober, which is wild to me, like how the universe is just like if I just don't try and control things, how the the universe is conspiring for my success. You know, and like I just I still cannot wrap my head around that. If I were writing the script for my life, I would like come back from my last rehab and like do the three months and then I come back and then I'd apologize to everybody and just like get my job back, get my car back, get my career back, get my marriage back.

And like and like within six months, it would all be done and then we'd all be just moving along. And it's like it did not go down that way. It was like I actually lost everything. I lost my marriage.

I lost my career. I lost my relationship with my children. I'm about to lose my head. I think.

Thank you. So I all of my worst fears came true. And if you're a newcomer, I'm sorry to tell you this part of my story. But stuff actually got worse in the first year and a half.

And and that was because and that's not everyone's story. Some people like really have that pink cloud of like they get sober and like that life gets better right away. That was not me. That did not happen to me.

But there was one thing I did correctly, which I got a sponsor who how much time do I have, Diana? Seven minutes. 17 minutes. Oh, OK.

All right. I can get it done. OK, so I'll tell the story about my first sponsor then. So when I came back to L.

A. after and I had my three three months of sobriety, I guess. And someone introduced I went to I was going to Third and Gardner in Hollywood at it's 1130 a. m.

on Sunday mornings. And someone introduced me to this woman and said, oh, like Louisa should be your sponsor. And I was like, OK, fine with me, you know, but I looked at Louis. I mean, I was like I said, 43 marriage falling apart.

Kids not wanting to kids afraid of me, not able to spend time with them alone. Like and she was a 25 year old like techno DJ who like was from she was like a rich kid from Manhattan who had a coke problem. And she was like and I was just like a booze bag from Boston. Like 43 years old.

And just suffice it to say we had nothing in common at all. And and but she had me meet her at the Tropical in Silver Lake at six o'clock every Tuesday night. And we started going through the book and then we sit for an hour and I'd get like a Cuban sandwich and like five coffees. And and then we'd go to the 12 and 12 meeting in the back room at 7 p.

m. So I did this every and one of the things that happened just because of that. And this is kind of like instructive of how it worked for me. Like I was never on time.

Like if you if I said I was going to meet you somewhere like I would. But like I wouldn't be on time. And I thought you'd have to remind me like 20 times. And I forget I forget your birthday.

I forget where I was supposed to meet you. I would forget you know I I just wasn't thoughtful of other people's time and I wasn't dependable you know. And and so having to drive from the valley to Silver Lake at 6 p. m.

on Tuesday night like I had to learn how to budget my time. And it sounds like it's like a who cares like other people you know it's Russia. I really could not figure that out. I did not know how to be on time for things.

And and I had to learn how to care about someone else's time because she was making time for me every Tuesday night. So I learned how to be on time like big whoop. It was a big whoop for me. Another thing started to happen which was oh and the other thing about Louisa.

The reason that I wanted to work with her was because like she the way I like to describe her is that she looked like when I met her. She looked like she was just like had this shimmering orb around her. And that like she just put her peaceful empty head on a pillow at night and just fell asleep. And like and I was like oh my God.

So I totally want that. Like I just I want it like to me the idea of just like falling asleep with an empty quiet brain was like wow. I mean that was like real like that was sort of like pie in the sky to me. And so I would meet her and that was the only thing I did right is I didn't drink.

And I met Louisa every Tuesday night. And then and we got to the fourth step. And and she said and now I had been going to meetings over on the east side because I thought that was like where my people were like the rock and roll people and the artsy fartsy people. And I was like I don't have any friends.

Why don't I have any friends. Because they weren't my people. But I didn't know that until my sponsor said I'm moving to Paris. To pursue my DJ dreams.

And I can't sponsor you anymore. And I was like oh my God. So so she left and she she moved to Paris. And I was like damn.

And I heard this woman speak at I decided to go to a women's meeting in the valley and like just suck it up. Go to a meeting in the valley. And and I heard this woman named Barbara Diner speak. And I was like what.

And like I just made a beeline for her after the meeting. And and I was just like will you sponsor me. And she was like oh honey I would be honored to sponsor you. And and the next thing you know I'm not going to meetings in West Hollywood or on the east side anymore.

I'm going to all meetings in the valley and I'm going to all women's meetings. And and then the next thing you know I'm like telling on myself at this women's meeting. And I Diana you were like a regular at that meeting. And I'll never forget you for that because it was like it.

The night that changed my life happened at that meeting when I like I put up my hand at this women's meeting. Wednesday night on that Moorpark in Studio City. And and I had just been coming to meetings and like sitting in the back and just like not. You know and like don't look at me.

And but not like the don't look at me but like please look at me. It was like don't look at me. Don't talk to me. Don't I really didn't mean it.

It wasn't being it wasn't being coy. And I put up my hand and I said that you know I said I'm really lonely. I don't I'm a year and a half sober. I don't have any friends.

And I I don't you know I lost my marriage and I'm in a relationship or I was just in a relationship with a horrible person who I broke up with. And and I just called the IRS and told on myself. And which is a whole other story. But it was an important part of the story.

And and I don't know what to do. So you know what happened. After the meeting all the women were just like and they immediately put me in the door as the greeter for that meeting. And within like a couple of weeks I knew everybody's name.

Everyone knew my name. I was just like hey blah blah blah and like hugging everybody and like and it was like instantaneous when I really really grabbed hold of this program. When I allowed myself to be seen by other women and alcoholics synonymous. It just it it changed everything almost overnight.

And not to say that I mean things circumstances in my life didn't change overnight. But the way I perceived myself changed and I saw I had hope for the first time. And Barbara Diner did not make me do my fourth step over again. Thank God because it took everything I had not to.

I'm not thinking about this at all. I'm just totally fine. So she she let me do my. She just did the fifth.

She let she heard my fourth step. We did the fifth step together. And then we did six and seven. And that is about you know of course it's about your character defects and all of that.

But but the thing that absolutely blew my mind was like I had no I you know I always thought like that inner child work and all that like you know sort of like fairy stuff was like I just wasn't into it and I and I just didn't believe in it. And through six and seven I was able to see that you know that that the thing that had you know not led to my drinking but contributed to the behavior that took me down was all rooted in you know these survival skills that I had learned as a kid in my alcoholic home. And not you know like one of the first things I learned was like don't make too much noise. Don't rock the boat.

Don't poke the bear. You don't want dad to get angry. Just like make sure that everybody else is quiet too because we don't want dad to get pissed. And like and so I was a perfectionist and I was like I was.

This is really exciting. This is really exciting actually. I swear like a like a tornado. I was saying to Diana it looks like a tornado could really literally break out at any second.

How fun would that be? We would remember each other forever. We'd always have this moment. Remember when we almost got killed by that tornado in Castellet?

Next to a fire camp? Thank you. I'll just wrap it up maybe. Okay I will wrap it up.

Thank you. Thanks so much for sitting here you guys. This is like amazing. I wouldn't I don't know if I would do that for you.

Yes I would. I would go anywhere for alcoholics and unrest. Literally. What was I saying?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, my inner child. Yeah, so anyway. Oh God. I really, I really accepted this idea very early.

Yeah, you weren't drunk, either. Never. No, I really, I really accepted this idea that my character, these character defects, and not for nothing, being an Irish Catholic, I couldn't wait to dig into the fourth column of my fourth step and just really dig into all the ways that everything was my fault. I had the opposite problem of a lot of people that I had, like, everything was everybody else's fault.

No. Everything was my fault, and I couldn't wait to really just figure out even more ways that things were my fault and that I was terrible and that I deserved everything bad that happened to me, which is also equally, like, that is egomania. That is dishonesty, too. It's just as dishonest as, because if everything is my fault, then all I have to do is like, oh, I'll just apologize, and then we're done, right?

We don't have to, it's over, right? And that is not going to work, either. So for me, it was like working in six and seven were like the magic beans for me and working on, you know, these, and I heard somebody call them character defaults. Like, these are the behaviors that I default to when I'm in fear, when I'm hungry, angry, lonely, tired, when I'm, like, at diminished capacity.

Like, I will act a fool. I will, you know, get mad at people. I will lash out at people. I will do things that lead me to have to make amends later.

And I, to me, this all made sense, that my perfectionism created dishonesty in my life. Like, a deep, deep, like, in there, like, cellular, biological, imperative dishonesty that kind of controlled my life in the interest of being perfect and of, like, making sure that no one knew what was really going on. And I began to, like, lie about everything and constructing this house of cards. One thing that I don't have in my, that I have such an appreciation for, like, I don't have any secrets.

Like, I really, I literally don't have one single secret. And I mean, like, there's stuff that I won't tell my husband, but, like, but that's because, like, there are certain things that is not for him. But there's, for everything in, like, there is someone who knows. You know what I'm saying?

Like, there's nothing that I'm keeping from, not every bit of information is for everybody in my life. And I once heard, with this woman, Quincy, say this at a meeting, like, I don't bring the crazy where it doesn't belong. And what that means to me is that, like, I don't try to work stuff out with, like, if I'm having trouble with a friendship or, I mean, I don't bring that first to the person who I'm having because I don't really know what the truth is. I really need someone else's eyes and ears, like, on the problem.

Because I'm, I'm dumb. Like, I will just, like, I will make up stories about what's happening, what is going on in a situation. And that was also what I learned in what 6 and 7 is all about, is about humility. And humility is not, contrary to my earlier belief, it's not humiliation, it is reality.

Like, humility is seeing you for who you really are, seeing me for who I really am, and seeing the situation for what it really is. And for me, finding that, that reality, that truth, that is, that is where my higher power is. Any time that I don't say the thing that I just, like, want to pop off on you because whatever, you know, and I don't, and I just, like, pause, that's where my higher power lives. Whenever I pause, that is, like, that is, you know, God's will.

As opposed to, like, acting on that, like, hot feeling in my belly of, like, I have to say it, I have to do it, I have to whatever, eat it, whatever the case may be. It's, like, that hot feeling of, like, urgency, that's my will, that's how I know, that's my hack for, like, how I know it's my will, it's, like, if it has to get done right now. It's definitely not God's will. So, and it's, so, just to kind of wrap things up, that marriage that I talked about did not, and now I'm going to cry because I'm looking at Gemma, who looks like a trucker in a, that marriage did not survive with my husband, the father of my kids.

But what I always try to say is that the marriage didn't survive, but my family did, and we have a new version of our family. He has a partner, you know, that he married, and she is a step-mom to my children, and she's a good one, and, like, we're not, we don't hang out, we're not, like, friends and stuff, but we have, like, this warm relationship that, like, we communicate with each other, and, like, and it's not, it's, I don't bring, like, if I'm having a problem with them, like, I don't bring it straight to them, because I do, frequently, but not frequently, sometimes. And then I met someone, I reconnected with a former colleague, someone, you know, a man who's a normie, and he's had the same six-pack of beer in our fridge for, like, literally someone bought him his favorite beer that, like, you can't ever get, or whatever, and it's been in the fridge for, like, a year, and I'm just like, when are you going to drink your favorite beer, your favorite beer? But you know what, the beer in the fridge, like, I made fun of him for it, but, like, honestly, my goal in everything is just that feeling of, that feeling of neutrality, of, like, I look at, and neutrality in everything, really,

but it started with booze, like, I see it, I acknowledge it, I'm not mad at it, I'm not scared of it, I just, like, I kind of don't care.

It just doesn't, it's nothing to me. And any time that I'm in obsession, I know that there's work that I can do to find a space of neutrality, because I did it with the thing that I was more obsessed with than I could ever, ever, ever be obsessed with anything, and that was, like, my best friend, booze. Like, if I could find a place of neutrality around that, using the tools of, you know, the 12 steps of AA, and my relationships with the people in this program, I can do it for anything. And I'm just really happy to be here, and, you know, Diana and I go back such a long way, and I'm just so grateful for you kind of leading the way for me, and, you know, in all of the ways, and if you're new, coming back, if you're hurting, if you're great, I'm just really glad you're here, and I'm glad to be doing it with you.

All right, thanks.