Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.com.

Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Oh my god.

Where'd you guys come from? My name is Rachel. I'm alcoholic.

>> And uh I want to thank Merl for asking me to Where'd he go? There he is. I thought you I don't know where I am.

Uh for asking me to come up here and talk. I want to thank uh >> I was supposed to be here twice and uh I couldn't make it a couple of times. I have this thing with cars and uh I remember one uh one night I was driving to Glendale from Bakersville and I got up the hill and the car started rolling backwards and um second time I was headed over here and the car just said I ain't going.

So, uh, I got a little ways, but not far enough. So, I'm really glad to be able to come here and, uh, finally, that way you won't ask me again. I'm so surprised when people ask me back a second time.

I said, "Didn't you get enough?" My sobriety date is December 1st, 1978. And uh I don't know about you, but that's a long time, honey, between drinks. I love alcohol.

I don't know what you like, but I love alcohol. I especially like alcohol when I'm shooting a little speed with it. But um that's a whole other story because you can drink for 10 days in a row.

You know what I mean? I'm mean, baby. Um you quit.

You you like he's identifying too much. He knows. The only problem is you lose your teeth.

I mean, it's just my dog. You lose your teeth. That's what's so bad.

Uh, so there >> I tried a little heroin once, but it made my feet stink. >> >> She knows. She knows.

I was having trouble. I'd get into a trick's car. Oh, you know what that is, don't you?

I I'd get into a trick's car and that finally this one guy said to me, "Honey, I'll give you $20 if you get out." And uh I didn't understand. Well, I didn't know what happened until after I read my inventory to my sponsor and she said, "How did you feel about that?" I said, "Shoot, I was just happy. You know, I didn't have to do nothing." And uh she said, "You didn't know the reason he asked you to get out of his car was cuz you stunk." And uh I started crying.

I thought, "Haha, horrible. That poor girl. I was abused.

>> So, now that we got the specifics down, Pat, now you know, you know, I'm just a sweet street walking, wine drinking pro. And uh, you know, I liked it that way. I didn't know what was wrong with me.

I didn't think there was anything that was wrong with me. I've been drinking all of my life. Uh, you know, um, you're going to hear in Alcoholics Anonymous that it's not your parents' fault that you're alcoholic.

And I'm I'm here to I'm here to tell you that's a lie in my case because I am alcoholic and it's my family's fault. It is their fault. I am Indian, English, Irish, and Mexican.

I'm supposed to drink. And that's not my fault. That is not my fault.

I needed a drink long before I can remember. And I can remember my first drink that I fought for. I was three years old.

I fought my dad for my v for that glass of vodka that he had in his hand. I wanted it. I knew what it was.

I needed it and that was it. Period. Um, so I'm alcoholic from the gate.

And I don't know what it means to take just to have one drink. I don't know about you, but me, if if I'm going to go just have one drink or two, I ain't going unless I can go there loaded. And if I go there loaded and they they won't let me in.

That's just the way that it is with me. So, I I don't I don't take just one drink. And I don't go to places where I take just one drink.

That doesn't work for me. I love alcohol. Alcohol does something for me that I don't think it does to a lot of people in the world.

I take a drink. I don't even have to take a drink. Do you know how special alcohol is?

>> I'm not here. >> Did you remind them that I was talking and they needed to turn off their goddamn phones? >> There ain't much left up here.

Don't mess with me. Where am I? >> Where was I?

>> How special alcohol was, >> you know, alcohol was so special for me that I didn't even have to drink it. I don't And if you're alcoholic of my type, neither did you. I remember knowing that from my house to the store, knowing that I needed a drink right now and all I had to do was get to the store, I already felt better.

Didn't you? Oh, I know what I need. Sounds good to me.

Don't you? I still get them. I still get them.

I think about gallow white port and it just gives me the quivers. Honey, I just love that stuff. I didn't have to take a drink and I knew that I was going to have that thing that happens when you take that first drink.

It's wonderful. I would hold my bottle. I wouldn't just walk with it in a sack.

I would hold it right here. Ain't that good? I don't know how long sober you are, but I know with 29 years, I can still feel that sense of ease and comfort that comes from having had a few drinks.

And I had no idea back then what it was going to do to me or what it was going to do to those around me or how I was going to destroy everything and everybody in my life. I had no idea. Um, like I said, I come from somebody stole my water.

There it is. Was that you, Mr. Lara?

>> Damn Mexicans, you can't trust me. He said, "My name is Chico Lara." Is it Chico? Right.

>> And I said, "I'm Rachel Lara. You might be my brother. I was born in Bakersfield.

I was born to a uh you know, they say alcoholism, you know, runs in my family. It gallops in mine. Uh, I had alcohol everywhere.

My father was a falling down puking drunk and he did that every chance he could. He'd walk he'd walk through the door, fall down and puke all over our green carpet. It didn't look pretty.

My mother divorced him when I was five cuz she just couldn't stand cleaning up his mess. My grandmother was alcoholic. Her family was alcoholic.

Uh, the my we had a Southern Baptist, my greatuncle was a Southern Baptist revival tent minister in Texas, baby. and uh he took a drink one night because his son had been kicked out of the Pentecostal had been kicked out of the Southern Baptist church. He went to the Pentecostal church and uh because they took him in as a deacon and uh he took a drink and went and set fire to the Pentecostal church and moved his tent to another town.

Uh so I have alcoholism all over the place. I have a cousin that stabbed a man something like 80 times uh because he wanted his social security check and he he you know he was doing a little crystal meth with his uh with his booze and I guess once he started he couldn't stop so he you know he killed him. He went to San Quinton.

He was there for many many years. my uncle uh my mother's brother uh asked uh my aunt for some money and she said no I will buy you food I will wash your clothes I will clean your house I will do anything that you need but I will not give you money and he called a family gathering at his house and as they pulled into the driveway and were getting out and getting ready to get in the car. I get into the house.

He walked out of the back door and put a gun in his mouth and blew his brains out because you can't treat me that way. You can't tell me that I can't drink. For me to be standing here tonight with you, 29 plus years sober is an absolute miracle.

But no more than you sitting here with me. I know where we are. When I was about uh 5 years old, my mom divorced my dad and bought a house across the street from my grandmother's house and uh left.

My mother was 21 years old and had three children. She had me when she was 16. And by the time she was 21, she'd had about as much fun as she could stand with these kids.

And she split. Uh she came home occasionally, and I do mean occasionally. I'm not uh exaggerating that she would be gone for three or four weeks at a time.

It was about a year ago that we were talking. I told her I knew somebody in uh Caliente and she said, "Oh, I used to go there and spend a couple of weeks when I wanted to get away from the kid kids." And I thought, "Oh, how nice." You know, she told me I was a liar. That never happened.

But she told came straight out of her mouth. She didn't mean to. She was 21 years old.

She was set free. She wanted to for the first time in her life go party and she did. But as a result of that, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about somewhere in the past I made a decision based on self that would later put me in a position to be hurt.

In step eight in the 12 and 12, it says that uh somewhere an incident quite forgotten put a violent twist to my emotions and colored my perception for the worse. And that's what happened at me at 5 years old. I began to making I began making decisions based on that violent twisted mind that I had.

I knew that I was no good. I spent my whole life believing that I was no good. That I was never going to be any good.

I was never going to be anything without my mother. I couldn't stand I would walk I had two sisters. I would walk into the school bus and then I would walk two miles because I didn't want to stand there with those kids cuz I couldn't stand them looking at me.

I knew there was something terribly wrong with me. I knew I was different. I was separate.

I was apart from and I was afraid. And I didn't know what that was. I didn't know what that was.

All I knew is I couldn't have you looking at me. And then I discovered the miracle. And the miracle was was across the street at my grandmother's house.

I would go find my grandmother in the front yard. And you know how grandmas are. They uh my grandmother had a yard, a big long lot and the house sat in the middle and in all around it was so many flowers and roses and trees and fruit trees and vines of all kind.

You couldn't in the summer you couldn't tell that there was a house there. It was so dense, like a jungle in there. And my grandmother would be in there carving circles around the roses.

And I would go hunt down when I felt that irritability and that restlessness and that discontent and that fear. When I got afraid, I would run across the street to her house because I knew there was an answer for my problem there. And I would find my grandmother and I tell her, "Grandma, you doing all right?

You don't look so good." And she'd get nervous with that one, honey. You can bet on that. She'd grab my hand and we'd run off into her front room and she'd stop in the front room.

And grandma, you know how grandmas have that little basket, the wicker basket with the brocade top and the and the little wicker handle on it. And uh she would pick up that basket and grab my hand and we'd run off into the kitchen and she'd set the basket in the middle of the table and I'd sit down on one side and she'd be sitting here on this side and and uh she'd open up that basket and she'd pull out little white boxes, little white boxes that she got from Kern General Hospital with tranquilizing and sedating medications. And she would open up those boxes and she'd line up her pills and she'd open another and put some more there.

and she'd grab a mason jar where she drank her water and she'd scoop those pills in one hand and she'd take that drink out of that water and she'd do what you and I did with that first drink. Grandma would go and then she'd look at me and kind of smile. fix that real quick.

Then she'd lean back and she'd re reach into her refrigerator and she'd I don't know how she did it, but she did it without looking. She'd go in there and she'd get this bottle of serum 7 >> and she'd hold it right here, kind of stroke that neck a little bit. >> >> I want you to meet my husband.

Baby, I got to tell you, from that point on, it was heaven. Now, you got to know I was raised wrong. So, it don't get no better than this.

I hate to tell you, but I heard something in that first motion that she did that I will always recognize, and I know you will, too, as what they call the music of the spheres. You know what that sound is? The sound of paper breaking on a bottle.

Oh, man. She would unscrew that cap. You could smell it coming out of the bottle.

I'm like this. Ah, I'm just waiting cuz I know I know what's next. And grandma would look at me and smile.

And she had gone into the other room to come out with two cups and two saucers, one for her and one for me. And she set them in front of us. She put some in her cup.

And then she looked at me and she said, "You want some?" Uhhuh. She'd put a little serum 7 in the bottom of my cup and she'd top it off with black coffee and she'd say, "You drink your damn coffee, black, baby. It's a mean world and you've got to be tough." I say, "Okay, Grandma, can you taste it?

Baby, baby, that is such a good deal. Then she'd top it off with another one. And then all of a sudden it turned out to be a little bit like an AA meeting.

Grandma was the main speaker and she'd start to tell me what it was like, what happened, and what we're trying to be like today. Grandma was great. I loved her.

What it was like, you know what I mean? Grandma was uh born and raised in Texas and uh grandma was a carnival girl. She was, you know, she had just enough Mexican to be embarrassed.

You know what I mean? You know how Mexicans are. They're so embarrassed about being Mexican.

I don't really I'm Indian. You know, now I know you guys don't suffer from that here, but I certainly did. And uh grandma would then uh grandma would then tell me about what it was like for her as a kid.

She'd tell me she was in the carnival and instead of and and she had this long hair and beautiful skin and she was a Hawaiian back then. She was a Hawaiian and she in this carnival she'd do the hoola three times a day and she was buried alive for seven days. You know my grandma was a can can dancer in the gold rush in Alaska.

You know, my grandma would start to do the hoola, and I don't know about you, but after a couple of drinks, I'm smart. Don't you get smart when you drink. I got the answers, baby.

You ask me. And um grandma would start to show me how to do the hoola, then I'd show her how it should be done. She'd start do the can can.

I show her how it should be done. And then we'd have another drink. And grandma would say, "Do you hear music?" I get a little bit nervous.

You know what I mean? You know those pills my grandma took? They were because she saw snakes and spiders crawling out of the walls.

Do you know what that is? That's classic symptoms of DTS. And my grandmother's house, the walls had holes in them.

>> >> Uh-huh. Grandma that my my grandpa called them fly holes because every time my grandma saw snakes and spiders, she'd go flying through the walls to get them. So, grandpa got tired.

He says, "I'm tired of fixing this mess. You get you leave those fly holes there. You know, you're going to chase them things.

You're going to chase them with an open door. I'm not going to fix it again." You know? So, grandma, she said, "Do you do you hear music?" I thought, "Oh, God, the party's over.

The snakes are coming and I'm leaving because I have this I have this thing about snakes. It isn't funny, you know." So, I said, "No, Grandma, I don't." She said, "Well, Why don't we have any on?" And I thought, "Oh, scafed again." And uh grandma' fix us another drink and we'd head off to the front room and grandma would uh put on her music. You know that music?

You know that music, baby? It's the best. Oh, good.

said, "She has vibrators." My husband just got out of the joint. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know if he set a fire to the house yet or not.

My kind of man. How's your love life? Smoking.

>> >> It don't get no better than this, does it? >> Grandma put on her music. We'd get in there.

We'd have another drink. We'd get in there and uh and grandma put on browneyed handsome man. We'd start off with Chuck Barry, Baby Doll, Sweet Little 16, and we'd start dancing and carrying on.

It was fabulous. It was the thing that took me away from that experience of irritable, restless discontent. I was no longer afraid.

I felt as if I was loved and cared for. I was wanted. But every now and then something would happen.

There's There it is. Grandma, take that drink. You know that drink, baby.

That drink is why we're here. Grandma, take that drink. And then grandma would put on that other music.

You know that music? My grandma would put on this album for the occasion. She would put on an album called Arthur Lyman's Taboo.

And I can see the cover of it to this day. She would put on that album and you know she had that cut. You know the cut on the album?

Some of you don't know what albums are, but you know it's the part where you pick up the needle and you scratch the first part and then you pick up the needle and you scratch the last part and you put it back to the scratch first part. grandma would put on red sails in the sunset and my grandmother would start to weep and I'm a kid. I'm six, seven, eight years old and my grandmother would tell me, the love of my life would tell me, "Will you play this for me when I die?" >> And I don't know what to do.

I'm just a kid. And my grandmother would start sobbing and she would rock back and forth and I would hold her and I'd rock back and forth with her. And way back then, I started telling her those things that I had to tell people until I died.

And what I told her that day was, "Grandma, please don't leave me. I'll change. I'll be good.

I promise. Grandma, just please don't leave me. And we brought back and forth because neither one of us knew what was wrong.

We didn't know. We didn't know that there was a program called Alcoholics Anonymous. We didn't know.

We didn't know that there was a power greater than ourselves. We didn't know. We didn't know that there were 12 steps.

We didn't know that was recovery that was possible for us. We just didn't know. We just rocked back and forth and I cried and I begged her to please not leave me.

And that's what I did for the rest of my life until I died. If you're alcoholic of my type, you know what I did to get here today. >> >> No human power could have relieved me from the bondage of self that I suffered from until I was 27.

No human power, no thing could stop me. Anything that stood between me and a drink had to go because I needed it like I needed my next breath. By the time I was 15 years old, I was uh walking the streets of Long Beach and starting to turn tricks.

Didn't matter. By the time I was 17 and a half years old, I had moved away from my family. I was making two to 500 bucks a night.

I was drinking anything that I wanted to. But something started to happen to me at 17 and a half. At 17 and a half years old, I took a drink and something happened to me.

I started to cry. I started to cry like my grandmother did, but I didn't know that that's what it was. I started to cry and I couldn't function and I didn't know what was wrong with me.

So, I took another one and it made it worse. It did not get better and it made it worse again. And I love alcohol.

It's been the answer to all of my problems. And that night, uh, I started cleaning my house because I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't stop crying.

I couldn't go out in public. I was ashamed of the fact that I was crying because we don't cry. We don't cry.

That night when I finished cleaning my house, I went into my bathroom and the sink was clean, you know, clean, white, shiny. You could see the porcelain. You could see I could see myself in that porcelain.

And I looked up and I looked into the mirror that was clear and clean and bright. And I looked into my eyes and what I saw that night made me feel so bad and so absolutely powerless at 17 and 12 years old that I opened up my medicine cabinet and I took out my straight razor and I slashed this wrist. I took 25 sleeping pills and I went up five flights of stairs to the top of the building that I lived on and I jumped.

And I jumped because I didn't have any other way out. But as God would have it, and only God would have it, as I jumped, two men came from nowhere. They were police officers.

And they grabbed me by my arms as I jumped and I bounced against that brownstone building with my back and they dragged me back up the side of that building. And that night I began to beg. I begged those men to please let me go because of what I'd seen in that mirror that night.

At 17 and 1/2 years old, I got to tell you what I saw that night was that I wasn't raised to be a I knew what I had become and I was not raised to be that. I knew that I was an embarrassment to my family. I was ashamed to my community and all I wanted was out.

And for the next 10 years, all I wanted was out because there was no way that I could live having seen what I had seen in that mirror that night. And God knows I did everything else I could to make that true, that I would die. I took overdoses.

I found men to kill me. I found people to leave me to die. I jumped out of cars.

I did all of that. And all I ever could do was wind up in mental institutions, in jails, and in hospitals. I remember one time coming out of a blackout, and I'm being raped on the 10th floor in LA General Hospital, and I'm in fourpoint restraints.

And baby, what you do with that is you just have another drink. you just have another drink. And I had no idea what was wrong with me.

I had no idea that I suffered from the disease of alcoholism. That one drink was too many and a thousand wasn't enough. I didn't know that.

All I knew was that when I took a drink, something good happened to me. That all of that crap, none of that was sufficient with sufficient force would stop me from having another drink. It wasn't strong enough.

I love alcohol. It gave me that sense of ease and comfort. What do you do?

Nobody could tell me that I was going to go to the bitter end or find spiritual help. I didn't know that. All I knew is that I'd be better off dead.

By the time all of that stuff was going on, most people in my life wished I was dead because there was no way. No way. At one point, it was easier for my mother to hate me than it was to love me.

I destroyed her ability to love me. And that 29 years later is still in effect. It was easier for my sisters to denounce me and hate me because of the shame and embarrassment that I brought to them.

Didn't matter. And it still comes up 29 years later. >> >> I have a brother that uh put a gun in his mouth and my mother caught him and he said, "I won't talk to anybody but Rachel." And I took him to a psychiatrist that I knew in the program and I said, "Would you please talk to him?

Let me know what I can do." You know what he said at that place? He said, "When I was just a kid, they were so worried about her. I didn't matter.

My brother's birthday is December 17th. Somewhere a few days later, I got drunk. I got drunk and I destroyed all of his birthday presents." And he cried about that.

And I was 17 years sober. And he cried about that. He still hung on to that.

And that brother is so profoundly affected by my alcoholism that he drinks. And he drinks like I did. And he can't get help because he has me.

He says, "If I ever got that bad, then I'll seek help. but I'm doing all right now. And you know, he gets drunk and he carries a sidearm and he pro uh patrols the perimeter of his house with a loaded gun in his hand.

And he's that bad. But because of my example, he's not that bad. What do you do?

When I was about um 25 years old, uh I had met a man and we had spent three years together. He loved the ground that I walked on. You know what I did to that?

I destroyed it. Standing. We lived in an upstairs apartment.

I was standing at the top of the stairs. He was down on the ground floor and he looked at me and he said, "You were a pig when I met you. You'll be a pig when you die." And I just stood there and looked at him because no truer statement could ever have been said about me.

And those last two years of my drinking, it's a fog. I was in a moped accident. Uh I broke my back in two places.

I'm used to be 5'9 and a half. I'm now 5'6. In those two years, I was at my mom's house and I took 125 sleeping pills and a bottle of vodka in front of her.

I told her, "It's your fault that I'm this way. If you'd have just loved me, I'd have been all right." When I came to um my mom said to me, she'd been sitting in a chair for 3 days. She had stopped working.

My mother sat in this chair for 3 days and prayed. She prayed that I would die. When I came to, she said to me, as soon as she knew I was conscious enough to hear it, she said to me, "You know, I'm good with a hanger.

I had nine kids. I should have had nine kids, but instead there was only three. I wish you'd have been the first one to go.

You're killing me and you're destroying my family. Everything I wanted is destroyed by you. If you're going to die, godamn you, die.

That's what my mama told me. She said, "I want you out of my life, and I don't want you ever to come back." That's what my mama told me. And I left her house as quick as I could.

And when I left that that house, uh, it was within a week that I was found in a motel room. I'd been stabbed 17 times. And it's all because I needed a drink.

Those last two years were hideous. And all I wanted was just the relief of one more drink. And it wasn't happening no more.

On the Monday after Thanksgiving of 1978, I kind of came too. And I came to and I didn't know where I'd been or what I'd done or how it had happened, but I came to and I needed a drink. And I went across the street to the store that I used to work in and I saw that they were closed and I freaked.

And I walked for two hours. It was 4:00 in the morning. I walked for two hours trying to find a drink cuz I needed a drink and I couldn't find one.

And I'd have done anything for a drink. Just a drink. I'd have done anything.

I remember when I got that bottle of booze. I was so grateful for that bottle of 100proof vodka. It was about a fifth.

And I had a six-ack of Cole 45. And I had a nickel bag of meth uh mini bennies because I knew I was going to need them cuz I was going to have to do some parading around town to get me some more money. And uh baby, I took I took a drink from that from that 100p proof vodka.

And I took a drink and something happened that I didn't understand. Now, I'd seen The Exorcist, so I knew what it was. But I took a drink of that vodka and it hit my stomach.

Shot straight out and but it went out in a straight line. So, I thought it must, you know, and I'm thinking, "Oh my god. Oh my god." All I can remember is The Exorcist.

I'm thinking, "Oh no, I've had it." You know what I mean? And I took another drink and that kept happening. It kept happening.

The straight line of vodka going 15 feet across the room. It was bouncing on my bathroom walls. >> And I'm thinking, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

And I thought, okay, I'm going to take these bennies and I'm going to uh these meth uh mini bennies and I'm going to take I'm going to take a beer. Now, if you're alcoholic like me, you better not be doing this. I'm telling you, cuz it ain't pretty.

Now, you know, vodka's nice and clean. It goes in a straight line. And I drank that cold 45 with those uh with those mini bennies and uh and it didn't go in a straight line.

It went whoosh. Sh. It went everywhere.

It went foam hit my kitchen wall. It was on everything. And I'm thinking, "Oh my god." And I thought, "Well, I can't drink beer." Uh, so I left about four fingers in the bottom of that bottle when I was finally convinced.

You know what I was convinced of that day? What I was convinced of that Monday after Thanksgiving in 1978, what I was convinced of, and I don't know how I know it, but I know it's still true today, that I will never be able to drink alcohol again. But what do you do with that kind of information?

Where do you go? What do you do? I called an old therapist to mine.

I think I've lost my mind. Will you come take me somewhere? And baby, she ran.

She was waiting for that call. She'd been waiting for four years. Boom.

She was right there. She showed up, Cheryl. And she brought another woman, Willie May.

And her and Willie May walked into my apartment. Do I need to tell you what it looked like? The only thing that was the most unus because it was trashed.

It was trashed top to bottom. And I had the soles of my feet. I walked barefoot all the time and uh I was somehow or another I was incapacitated and my I had picked off the edge of one of my soul.

I remember doing it. I picked off the edge of a sole of one of my feet from the back from the heel and I peeled it and I peeled it real slow and I peeled it and I peeled it. Both feet and I set them on the coffee table and they were there.

The edges were like razor blades and they were hard. So there it is. There it is.

They look around. They see my feet. All right, get in the car.

We're taking you somewhere. And they get me in the car and they put me in the back seat and they said, "Rachel, we're going to take you to Norwok State Mental Institution." And you know, I was relieved that day. I was relieved.

Finally, it was perfectly all right for me that day to spend the rest of my life in a nutouse. It just didn't matter. The thing that I had that stood between me and you and me and God was gone.

I had nothing left. Nothing. Nothing.

I was gutted from the inside out. And it was a relief. It was perfect that day.

When I got to Norwok, they booked me in. They put me in a room with a black lady. Of all things, they put me in with a hooker.

Can you imagine? Poor thing was really sick. She was in a psychotic break.

In fact, it was me, her, and her pimp. And her pimp was killing her. And I'm watching her.

And I'm thinking, "Oh my god, they're going to they're going to send me out of here." I knew I wasn't as sick as she was, and they were going to send me back to the hell that I'd come from. I was absolutely petrified. The next day they said, "Rachel, we're going to move you to another place." I said, "All right." I didn't care.

I figured this is going to be my bed, my bunk for life. I was all right. I didn't care.

And they put me uh they put me in a a room. It was probably about this size. About this size.

It had beds all lined up on the side. There were two women down towards the end. It was a a Mexican lady and this other woman that had a wig hat on.

I don't know what it was. Anyway, and then me and I got in my bed and I laid down. You know that shake?

I'm coming down off of a two month supply of diet pills a week. A three month supply, no three month supply of diet pills a week, a two month supply of sleeping pills a week. Two quarts of 100 proof vodka a day.

Anywhere from a six-factor case of Cole 45 and all the gallow white port I can drink. That's what I'm doing. Try to maintain some semblance of mind.

I'm sick as a dog. And then the rest of them come in and there's guys. It's us three women in a room this size and the rest of them are men.

Now, there was a man that must have been 6' 16. I don't know. He was humongous.

He had a neck like my waist today, baby. He was humongous. And I looked at him in a panic.

I could hardly breathe. And the I I leaned over to the woman next to me and I said, "Aren't you afraid in here?" And she says, "Oh, honey, I wouldn't worry about it. He couldn't get it up if he had a rope tied to it.

I was just fine. I'm telling you, it don't get no better than this, babe. I was there for a few days trying to wash my feet.

>> I couldn't get the dirt off of my feet. You know how that is? Just dirty.

Couldn't get the dirt off my feet. And on Friday, December 1st, around 9:00, this man named Jim Duncan, I'm Take that back. Jim Duncan, he's dead.

That's not him. Jack Delmmont. Damn, he's up there laughing.

Jack Delmmont came up to me and he said, "Rachel, there's a meeting upstairs I want you to go to." I said, "Oh, really? What kind?" He says, "It's the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous." I said, "No, thank you. I'm not alcoholic." That's why I told him, "I'm not alcoholic." He says, "Yeah, but Rachel, you don't understand.

It's a very special meeting. You got a very special speaker there coming." I said, "I don't care. I'm not alcoholic.

Why would you want me to go to an AA meeting? I'm not alcoholic. And I argued with him back and forth.

And then he says, "But you don't understand, my we got a we got the father of a very famous movie star is coming to talk today. It's so special that you're here. You got to come hear him." And all I thought at that moment, I didn't say much, was, "Do I have loser tattooed on my forehead or something?" I mean, I know I'm in a nutouse, but but if I wasn't such a loser, they'd have brought the movie star, right?

But I'm a loser. They brought his dad. Ho ho ho.

And I thought, you dummies. And uh and I said, "No, thank you." And then he said the magic words. All right, Rachel.

Either you go or you go. What's it going to be? Okay.

Now, I got to tell you, I got up that up that flight, two flights of stairs up to that it was a round thing up to the second floor where this thing was. And there was a hundred million people in there. I don't know where they came from.

They didn't look like nuts, but they might have been. They were well-dressed and smelled good. And I found myself a padded chair to sit on.

And it, you know, I got to tell you, I was a vision for you that morning. >> >> I sat down looking at my dirty feet. I had those green sanitized pajamas.

You know what they smell like. Sitting on a chair that somebody urinated on. I have an upper denture because of my adventures before sobriety.

The only problem with that denture was that it was a it had three pieces, a left, a right, and a middle. What's worse than that is it had four front teeth missing out of it. I didn't dare say hello because I didn't want to go crawling around looking for one of my pieces of my teeth.

You know what I mean? I don't know how that happened, but it happened. You know, my hair was a little bit longer than it is right now.

I had it held up in a bun so tight I look Japanese. Held together with a broken pencil. >> >> You just keep coming back.

He's catching the tail end of it. >> >> Baby, this old man gets up behind a podium like this and he goes, "What a fine bunch of monkeys we got here." Maybe I had a knot in my throat and baseballs for jaws. I thought I there must not have been a thing called patients rights because they couldn't insult us like that, could they?

They just called us monkeys. Excuse me. I got so mad I couldn't say anything cuz if I did my I'd lose my teeth.

you know, it just wasn't funny, you know? So, I'm looking at him with one eye, my head going. I was detoxing like crazy.

I was holding my fist. I had sweat dripping from him. I mean, it was I was just a mess.

I was just a mess on on the on the floors like this that we walked on. I would leave wet I paw prints where I walked, you know. I was a mess.

I was a mess. And in that condition, in that condition, I got the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm forever grateful to it because what I found here was you.

He said that day two things that I remember. First thing he said was, "I stood in the doorways of my very own home and I looked in and I saw my wife and two kids." And he said, "What I saw in their eyes made me feel so bad. I needed another drink.

And I remember my mother when she told me she'd been praying that I would die cuz I was killing her and destroying her family. That's what I saw when he said that. And something broke right there.

I felt it and I saw it as it left me. And then he said, "I needed to find people like you." Then I needed to find Alcoholics Anonymous. And I knew if I ever got out of there, I would.

I'd had an experience that I can't even describe. When I sat in that chair that day, all I knew was what he said, that I remembered. And I knew that I needed to find you.

And find you I did. And I'm so grateful for for you. For you.

That man was Chuck C. I will never be able to pay that man or you for what you've given me. As a direct result of you, I have a way of life that I never thought I could have.

I'm no big deal. I'm just a drunk and I'm in love with Alcoholics Anonymous and what you've done for me. You know, when I was new, I found a little old lady and she took me in and she became my sponsor after I begged her for 6 months.

Don't you tell nobody. She walked me through the steps. When I was 17 years sober, I got to talk to my father for the first time in 34 years.

And after we talked a few times, he said, "I love you." And I told him, "I love you too, Daddy." And someone heard me say that and they said, "What did he tell you? He loved you." And I said, "Yeah, yesterday my sister, she's flew in from Michigan this week. Yesterday my sister and my mom, they called me and they said, "Come on over.

We ordered Chinese takeout. Come spend some time with us." And when I left yesterday, my mother put her arms around me and she held me. She knew I wouldn't be coming today because I was going to be here with you.

My sister, she walked me to my car. She touched my back. It's because of you.

Chuck C used to say, "In him I live and move and have my being. I'm not that spiritual. But in you, in you, I live and move and have my being.

I know who you are. I know what you are. You are the hand of the God I was looking for all my life.

When I look in your eyes, I see the eyes of my God smiling back at me. When I'm in trouble, all I need to do is come here and sit down. And you sit next to me.

And I know who you are. And I feel better. In you, I live and move and have my being.

I will never be able to repay to you what you have done for me. You've given me a life that I love and I thank you. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day. >>