Picked the Dalai Lama as My Higher Power Until Someone Asked What I’d Do When He Dies 🤦 – Yvonne H.

Hey everybody, let's have an AA meeting. My name is Tim and I'm an alcoholic.
Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the Napa Club where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story.
This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship with God.
These give a fair cross section of our membership and a clear cut idea of what has happened in their lives.
We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste.
Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight.
And listening later on AABlueChipSpeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker and we believe it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, yes, I'm one of them too.
I must have this thing.
I'm often asked, how do we come up with a new speaker every week?
In this case, I'm one of them.
In this case, it was a gift from God.
Yvonne came a few weeks back.
She asked, how do we get our speakers?
And I whipped out my phone and plugged her right in.
And she showed up.
Amazing.
I can tell you that she has been in the U.S. 22 years.
And she's going to tell you about that and where she came from.
And how.
She got sober and came to ask, how can I help?
She showed up tonight.
And that's the first step for me.
I'm sure she's taken all 12 steps and she'll share that with you.
Hi, I'm Yvonne.
I'm an alcoholic.
And my sisters in solution is my home group.
My sobriety date is.
May 19th, 2016.
Thank you all for coming.
I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous.
So my mind's going a little blank.
So hopefully we'll come back to where it's supposed to be.
Someone told me a long time ago, they shared these words with me in sobriety.
And that was the best word they ever heard.
To walk through the fear.
So that's what I'm going to try and do tonight.
And do this.
I just want to.
You know, I had written everything down, like notes and everything.
But it's in my head.
It's in my heart.
I probably want to say this.
So I'm just going to do it this way.
December 1st, 2013.
I went to a speaker meeting in Buford.
And it was the first meeting I ever went to.
Walked in there.
With so much shame.
Feeling very much alone.
And that was.
Just stuck in my head.
I was like, what am I doing?
And I remember hearing this lady talk.
And I just remember how well-dressed she was.
And, you know, you would have no idea that she went through what she went through.
And it stuck in my head that, you know, after hearing her speech, there was no shame there.
So I promised myself, no matter what, I would one day do this.
What she did for me, I hope to do it for someone else.
So I'm going to start at the beginning.
Which is a good place to start, I'm sure.
I'm originally from a place called Dundell, County Loud, Ireland.
It is.
Actually, as Irish people in that town, we were really proud of the fact that it was.
It's the biggest town in Ireland.
It's not a city, but it's a town.
And they used to call it the Wee County.
Because apparently it was a small county.
I'm not really sure how all that worked.
But it was known as the Border Town.
Because it was located.
It was located 12 miles south from Belfast and 50 miles north of Dublin.
We were just right on what they called the Invisible Line.
And Dundalk, even though we were proud Dundalk people, and, you know, we had beautiful green.
I believe they call it the Shamrock Green, but Austin Green.
And plenty of water, you know, the beach.
Dundalk sat right by Dundalk Bay.
And beautiful, you know, just everybody knew everybody, you know.
They knew everybody's names.
And there was like two banks and a post office.
And a lot of towns in Ireland, for some reason, there was always a lot of pubs.
You know, so probably maybe five, six, seven, no, maybe five or six pubs.
But Dundalk was always readily available.
But behind all of that, deep behind all of that, Dundalk was a safe haven for the provisional IRA.
Basically, they considered themselves, at that time, because, and I'm sure I made sure, in the 70s,
it was a paramilitary campaign that was set up to get the U.K. out of the way.
And it was a big deal.
You know, to get the British out of Northern Ireland, because Northern Ireland belonged to the U.K.
So you had the Catholics who wanted a united Ireland.
And then you had the Presidents who wanted to keep Northern Ireland part of the U.K.
So I'll explain all that, got that out of the way.
My dad was a bank manager.
My mom was a stay-at-home mom.
And I had, I mean, I have.
Older brother, middle sister, and a twin.
Ten minutes apart, my twin and I.
Extremely important in those days, those ten minutes.
My mom considered me the baby of the family, those ten minutes.
You know, those ten minutes followed me for the rest of my life, I swear.
And it was a good thing and a bad thing, because I was always treated as the baby of the family.
So.
So.
My dad was a really, you know, I want to be careful here, because, you know, I do love my dad.
I get a little confused about it sometimes, but, you know, I love him.
But he was a really angry, abusive man, both physically and emotionally.
I was an undiagnosed ADHD kid, so I was a little bit of a problem.
Um.
He.
In the early 70s, he was working in the bank as a bank manager, like I said.
And the IRA went into the bank and held up the bank and put a pillowcase over my dad's head and put a gun to his head.
And he never got over that.
You know, I mean, I don't know, back in the day, there was, I don't know if therapy existed or whatever.
But.
But he, he just held it in, you know, I always remember as a child, I just wonder how could
he have so, how could he have so much anger and fear in his eyes at the same time, whenever
he talked about the IRA.
I won't use the words he used to use about them.
But my dad worked really, really hard.
And him and my mom, they loved the wine.
You know, my dad made the wine at home.
And.
You know, they drank a lot of the wine.
And when my dad was stressed out, you know, whenever he lost his temper, it was usually my brother or myself.
Um.
He had a habit of liking to just locking you, locking the, sounds so dramatic, locking the rooms.
And, you know, if you act out, put you in a room, lock the door and whatever, which kind of made me a little claustrophobic about being in a small room.
I hate it even to this day.
So in 1982, uh, to add more stress to my dad, um, my sister was in a bicycle accident, um, was hit by a 18 wheeler, huge truck, you know, just sent her flying on the main Dublin road.
And she, um, basically she landed on the ground and realized she couldn't get up.
And, uh, you know, the neighbors, they kept running to the house.
To my mom and, and saying, you know, something's happened to your daughter.
My twin sister and I were in school and, um, I remember my brother coming to the school and, um, with his, uh, boss and I, I, I was in one class.
My twin was in another class and I remember, you know, there was a, it was a convent.
The head sister, you know, came to the classroom with my, with, with my brother and the gentleman there.
And it was wet and it was all go and, you know, she was, she was kind of mean, you know, and here she was like putting her arm around me and saying, you know, come on out here.
And I looked down this long corridor and I could see my twin being taken out of the other classroom.
You know, I was 11 or 12.
And I remember looking at her and I, I, it just, our eyes met and I knew something was wrong, you know, um...
So they brought us to the office and they told us that, you know, my sister was, uh, in the hospital.
She was three and a half years older than us.
It was in an accident, and it was bad.
My brother took us home.
My sister was in the hospital, and they explained to us that we couldn't see her because we were underage,
and that a helicopter had to take her to the capital, Dublin, a rescue British military helicopter.
Due to the troubles that were going on at the time in Ireland,
there had to be a temporary ceasefire that day for the helicopter to take her to Dublin.
I don't remember sitting in the house at this dinner table.
We were sitting down eating dinner like it was supposed to be normal,
and just hearing that helicopter just go over the house and how loud it was, it just stayed with me.
It just stayed with me for years.
And, you know, my sister, she ended up being paralyzed.
She was paralyzed from the waist down.
She didn't die, but she never came back the same.
I felt for me, personally, I don't know about anyone else in the family, that I lost my sister.
You know, to me, as a kid, she was my hero.
I looked up to her.
You know, she taught gymnastics.
You know, she worked in a restaurant.
She and my brother were both, you know, substitute parents in a way.
My sister, actually, Carol, was five years.
She was in a hospital a year and a half in a plaster of Paris, a cast that went straight from her neck down to her waist.
She was in a rehabilitation for a very long time.
By the time she came home, she didn't want me anywhere near her.
You know, she wanted my twin was fine.
My brother had already left.
But me, it was like, stay away.
I don't know what it was.
What was it that I did?
I couldn't understand.
And I remember crying.
And my dad, you know, saying, you've got to be a big girl.
You've got to be growing up.
You know, look at your sister.
Look what she's going through.
I could never get it.
I spent, I'm 48 years of age now, and I spent, you know, that day, it was just stuck.
And my, you know, that was my only thing.
My existence was to get my relationship back with my sister.
You know, make my dad proud of me.
Because, you know, I didn't finish school or all that.
And I was so tied up in that.
But I have to admit, though, when my sister came home, a year later, we left.
My twin and I, my older sister, we went to Dublin.
And I always remember my twin in the car crying because she was going to miss mom and dad.
You know, I hate to say it.
I'm in the car going, yeah, I'm free, you know.
And we went to college.
And we got to.
And do what, you know, do what 19, 18-year-olds do.
We partied, you know, had fun, drank and drank and drank and drank.
But when we came out of college, there wasn't any jobs.
And it was more of, because it was a time of bad economy.
And the thing was to go to America.
And we, you know, my sister, my older sister and my twin went to America first.
I was there.
And left in Dublin.
I was like, oh, my God, I'm on my own, you know, for me and all that stuff.
But I was going to go, too.
And I waited behind.
And a year later, I went to the embassy and, you know, did all the paperwork.
And everything got turned down the first time.
And I remember going home devastated, thinking, oh, my God, I'll never be with my sisters, you know.
But I went back a second time.
And was approved to go to America.
So I actually did get to America in 1996.
And I was so proud of this.
Arrived in Hartsfield Airport with $500 in my pocket.
Bought a bicycle a week later.
I used that story in a lot of cover letters for jobs.
It worked.
It worked.
It worked.
It worked.
It worked really well.
But it was true.
And it worked really, really well.
And I literally rode around the corner and saw this restaurant called Le Madelin.
And it was French, you know.
I'm like, well, that's kind of close to home, you know.
And I went in.
I met this guy.
His name was Kevin.
And he was fascinated with the fact that I was Irish.
And he kept saying he was 100% Irish.
And when I asked him which part, he said,
my great-great-great-great-grandfather, and I was like, okay.
And he decided to give me the name Whiskey.
I don't know why.
I mean, he just met me, you know.
But in his mind, he had decided that all Irish love their alcohol.
And I kept trying to convince him that's not true, you know.
Maybe he just had figured me out early.
But that was basically what happened.
And that's how I started in the restaurant business.
And decided, I had an opportunity to, I felt, to be somebody, you know,
to have a title, to say, you know, call my dad back home and say,
hey, dad, I made it.
You know, I'm a manager.
And at that time, myself and my twin sister, Liquid Carol, my older sister,
and, you know, we took care of each other.
And it was a great start, you know, in America.
But there was times that when I got home,
at night, my sister, I mean, I remember one time in particular,
Carol, you know, sitting in the armchair and having a, you know,
she had already finished a bottle of wine.
And when someone is paralyzed, instead of the legs going, obviously,
all over the place, the top part of them, it goes like this.
She was very angry.
Very, very angry.
And, uh...
You know, even, I mean, I'm not even going to judge that.
If I had, you know, lost, uh, um, the use of my legs and, and, uh,
we ended up in a wheelchair, I'd be pretty pissed off, you know.
Um, I don't know where about, I think it was right about there.
It's like I started getting into this habit of wanting to fix things.
I wanted to fix it for her.
I wanted to help her.
I wanted to, you know, make it right for her.
And, uh, that wasn't, that wasn't going to work.
Um.
This time, uh, my mom and dad had come to visit us in America.
Um.
And they, I mean, I hate to say it like this, but they still, again, they loved their wine.
And, um, I remember one night coming home and I was the only one working.
I came home, my mom was, you know, everybody, they had a lot of, some kind of alcohol in the air.
And my mom was going through her bag of medication and, and, and just like, you know, taking her medication.
She was having an argument.
She was having an argument with my dad.
And, you know, I told my mom, I said, Mom, you got to be careful.
Don't mix, you know, don't mix your medicine up and all that.
Um.
Whatever argument she was having with dad, I don't remember.
But I do remember my mom being outside, totally, I hate to say it, wasted, and crying and saying she didn't want to go on anymore.
And, again, I wanted to fix it, you know.
I was like, Mom, you're going to be fine.
You know, I'm thinking she's going back to Ireland, you know.
You're going to be fine.
You know, why, you know.
How can my mother be fine?
She's saying she doesn't want to be here anymore.
Um.
So, that was in, uh, 2001.
Actually, it was right before, um, the Twin Towers.
So, it would have been 2000.
And I actually didn't see my mom and dad again for, like, seven years.
Um.
So, actually, that's a great place to go, seven years.
So, I'm just going to, let's go a little further on to seven years.
I mean, during that time, I continued, during those seven years, continued working.
Working my way up in the restaurant business, coming a manager.
You know, there was plenty of parties to go to.
Um.
Um.
Had a thing.
You know, whenever I drank, you know, if I ever was with a guy, it was like the next day I was, like, gone.
I was like, you know, see you later.
Um.
I just didn't want to end up in any kind of relationship.
I think it was really more because I was, to be honest, I was afraid of men.
And that was because of my dad.
Um.
So, um.
What happened after that was that, um.
Things just, you know, my sister and I, my older sister and I had a falling out.
And during that time, and I left, you know, my twin had moved out.
And she was going to get married.
And I moved out to an apartment.
And I was on my own.
And I continued to drink.
I remember being scared about living on my own.
And, you know, just having, I used to have panic attacks when I was younger.
And it just, it scared me.
And what helped me, if I went home and I drank alcohol, you know, then I'd be asleep and everything would be fine.
Um.
I focused so much on the job because I just wanted to be successful.
And, um.
I just, like I said, I kept drinking and drinking and drinking.
Um.
One day, um.
I was doing my usual thing.
I was coming home.
And went to the gas station.
And, you know, you know those cases of beer.
They've got 30 cans of beer in there.
And, uh.
It was like, let me get one of those.
You know.
And I, I remember just picking that case of beer up.
I'm going, I hope to God one day I just stop doing this.
I hope to God that somebody can help me.
Um.
There was plenty of times I went to, you know, I never went to work drunk.
But I went to work hungover.
And I'm pretty sure I went to work smelling of alcohol.
I was just naive about it.
I thought I didn't, didn't, you know.
You know, I didn't smell of it or whatever.
But I'm pretty sure now that I did.
Um.
That help did come along.
Um.
In 2000.
And I moved into that apartment in 2002.
So that help came, came along, uh, nine years later.
Um.
I met, uh, a friend of mine in, at a dog park.
And.
And had a habit of just, you know, sharing all my troubles with everybody.
And, um.
But, you know, my wish had finally come true.
Actually, that, I think someone was listening to me that day.
There was a higher power that said, you know, for crying out loud, just send her somebody to help her out.
And they did.
And, um.
Good Lord, this lady was so annoying.
It was like every time I opened an email up.
It was an article about ANA.
A, A, A.
You know, so I was like, so, like, I don't think I have a problem.
That I went online and I paid, I don't even know, it was justanswer.com.
You can pay a mechanic or whatever to give you an answer.
So I paid a doctor.
Um.
Legit, you know.
And his name was, uh, he went by Dr. Seuss.
So he asked me, you know, to the email.
It wasn't anybody weird.
It was, you know, regular guy.
You know, he said, how much do you drink?
I said, I don't know, about maybe, uh, like, I think I might give him a low number.
Like, I said, 15 cans of beer a day.
And, uh, he said, well, I can't remember how he worded it.
He said, well, you've got the basic regular drinker.
You've got the moderate drinker.
And then you've got the severe one.
He said, you're on the moderate severe.
You're, you're, you're, you're just doing this sort of seesaw thing, you know.
So I said to my friend, I was like, you know, he said, this is where I'm at.
So if I just cut down the beer, I'll just go back to where I was.
I'm supposed to be.
She was probably thinking, oh, Lord, you know.
And, uh, she just was persistent and persistent and persistent with these, these damn emails.
Excuse my language.
But, I mean, so I said, okay, I will go, um, to a meeting.
And I picked a speaker meeting, like I said, as I started.
And, uh, I went there and, um, I, I really did feel alone.
And I honestly felt alone until I heard this woman speak.
And it was quite a number of people.
Um, and at the end, you know, they had all these colorful chips, you know, just like in the basket.
And, you know, finally someone said, you know, they picked up the white chip and said, anyone, 24 hours or, you know, um, you want to come pick up this chip?
And I'm like, okay, me.
So I get up and I go pick up this chip and this person hugs me and I'm like, what, why is all this happening?
And I'm just like, everyone's saying congratulations.
It was applause.
And I'm like, first.
Bit of attention.
I'd gotten in a long time, you know.
So, um, I, you know, I continued working long hours and I went to a couple of meetings here and there, but I, I really didn't take it seriously.
But my next goal was apparently to get a sponsor.
So my friend kept telling me, uh, I couldn't get a sponsor.
And I think part of the issue was that I kept, you know, when it was time to speak in a meeting, I kept saying, I need a sponsor.
I just kept saying I need a sponsor.
And I kept going to all these different meetings in my area.
Do I like this one?
Do I like this one?
Do I like this one?
Do I like this one?
Then finally I came across, uh, Sisters in Solution.
And I walked into that room.
I was hoping no one noticed me, you know, and I kind of hid, uh, went way into the back, but you know, they really did notice me.
It was a woman's meeting and, and they just were like, they noticed me.
There was a lady there, she no longer goes to the meeting, but she would always, always, always be like, if I didn't speak, she'd be like, yeah, you know, say something, you know.
So, I did.
And, and, and I couldn't, I ended up, I figured out that I liked that meeting because if you didn't want to speak, they made you speak.
And, uh, I felt better, you know, after speaking.
So finally, still my friend kept at me about getting a sponsor.
And, uh, one day there was not a lot of people in the meeting and there was a lady there and I went after her.
I was so nervous.
I said, can I, can I ask a quick question?
She said, yeah, sure.
I said, uh.
Um, would you be my sponsor?
Absolutely.
And, uh, I, I, tears just came into my eyes.
I'm like, oh my God, someone's going to be my sponsor.
This is so amazing.
Um, so that lady, um, the sponsor, she, and I still know her today, she started the steps with me.
Step one, omit your prowess over alcohol.
Uh, no, I wasn't just going to do that.
You know, uh, I had to do my research, Google everything.
Um.
So, until I finally got this book, Under the Influence, and it talked about binge drinking.
I actually thought I was a binge drinker.
And, um, in the book, I can't remember exactly how, how they said it, but it was, how many do you need a drink to be considered an alcoholic?
You know.
Next meeting I went to, I said, you know, hi, my name's Yvonne and I'm an alcoholic.
I said, you know, that book did it for me.
I was like, I said it now.
There's no going back.
Um.
So, I went.
I went from step one, step two, step three, and none of it was making sense to me.
Uh, after being nine months sober, I think it was, uh, I relapsed.
And, um, I had this really bad habit when I relapsed was just getting mad at everybody.
And I did it all through email.
It was like, look what you did to me, or look what you did to me, and even my dad, my mom.
You know, I make fun of it, but it wasn't funny.
Um, because the next day I read what I wrote, and I was like, oh my God, what did I just do?
And, uh, I tried to avoid, you know, having a conversation about it.
I was like, I said it now.
Well, that person's probably never going to talk to me again.
You know.
And there were still, you know, some of them were still around, some weren't.
But my sponsor still stuck around, and I went back, and she goes, you're going to start
steps all over again.
I'm like, huh?
So, I did.
I started again.
Step one, step two, step three.
And, uh, it still didn't sink in.
It still, it's nothing.
So, my meetings probably, I might have just done one here, one there.
Uh, might have just dropped it a little bit.
And, uh, relapsed again, uh, one day before a year.
And I actually said this the other day to someone.
I went, who does that?
Well, apparently people do, do do that.
And, uh, what slowly happened after a while, it wasn't the, the, that being hung up.
over that was the worst feeling in the world it was the shame the shame was worse than the hangover
um and then suddenly this friend that was sending me all the emails told me I needed to get a
therapist I needed to set up and six appointments or uh she was never going to be a friend again
and I'm like okay you know you know be my friend again that's fine you know but then I realized
I didn't have any friends so this was the last person who was going to help me and I got a
therapist uh who kept saying uh-huh all the time uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh I was like I think I had three
appointments with her and I'm like I'm not going back to her again so I went back to my dear old
friend Google and I looked it up and I was going through the thing and I saw a recovery experience
like okay I want to try this person and um
I
I might have tried two or three but this was the only person to call me back
and uh so I set up to have an appointment with them and the first thing I said to her I always
remember is that I'm complicated and uh but she never gave up on me on um I the fact that I chose
a therapist that had recovery experience uh is what helped me a lot um but I went ahead and
relapsed again
and I did that at nine months I think I don't remember anymore so many times um and still she
didn't give up on me um I decided that um I was going to do it um one more time after that
and uh you know I didn't plan to do it I just uh there was a lot going on um
I didn't handle first I was in a job I didn't like I hated it I hated what I was doing and I was in a bad situation uh working at the most stressful restaurant in the world shake and shake and I had an awful boss and you know I think even when I sponsored at the time there was times I was in the parking lot around I'm gonna go over to Kroger and get like I need to get some beer uh I think my friend at the time had tried to tell me about meditation and I was like what's this
I didn't get it I couldn't understand it so um
then um well what happened was I uh let all the feelings and everything whatever you do
get to you get to me and decided um I needed one more lap relapse and I did
and uh decided again I was going to lash out everybody again through email
and the next day was like oh
I'm sorry I didn't I didn't mean to do that you know and I meant it um you know I'd always pray
when I woke up I was like oh I didn't email anyone oh thank god I didn't email anyone and I'd come in
I'd look at sent emails oh my god um but that last time that I had relapsed I was just like I'm not
good at this anymore this is not nice I don't like it I don't want to do this anymore and I knew at
that point that these people that were helping me you know they weren't going to be there anymore
for me um so I uh contacted those necessary people my sponsor uh fired me and she so
rightly did um and I was on my next mission get another sponsor
um and it worked out the way it was supposed to I did get another sponsor
and she had me do the steps again so I started step one step two
and step three and I had been through all these three steps before and there was something about
step three that just caught my attention I remember sitting outside and I was on the deck
and I was reading it and it was this little paragraph that I wrote it down I'm going to
read it to you step three is three is like the opening of a door which to all appearances is
still closed and locked all we need is a key and the decision to switch the door
open once unlocked by willingness the door opens almost by itself I read that paragraph
and I'm like damn why did I miss that before and something about that paragraph allowed me to
continue um with the steps still hadn't figured out my higher par um I just knew I had to have one
um I thought I was supposed to figure out who somebody I did I did the Dalai Lama at one point
and uh someone said to me what are you going to do when he dies
so we had a lady um at our home group um she um heard me talk at a meeting one day and I was busy
feeling sorry for myself like oh my god nobody loves me and all that stuff and um she came up
to me at the end of the meeting and gave me a hug and said you're not alone and I really appreciated
that and and three weeks later uh she passed um she died
uh I was I was like shocked you know I didn't know her that well my home group you know they
knew her for years and you know I was like busy thinking to myself how can she tell me I'm not
alone and she goes ahead and dies you know of course I had to make it about me we did go to
her funeral the home group and I was amazed about the support uh these people had for this lady um
I knew I was in the right home group you know all these women went to this funeral I went and and
the reverend said at the beginning of the uh service he said uh you know can everybody stand
up and he said uh um anyone who's lost someone close to them um I can't remember shake shake
someone's hand or whatever and we and we did everyone whoever did and and then the next thing
he said was you're not alone
and the fact that he might have said you're not alone because he knew his people from AA there
might have something to do with it I don't know but I took it was like oh crap oh my god that's
what the lady said to me before she died um it was that moment I believed in in a higher part
I didn't have to say what it was who it was I believed and um I that's when I um found my
awesome sponsor Rachel and uh just went through the steps with her and uh I was like oh my god
it's not easy to try doing what is the right thing and I did but it worked I mean like things
started going wrong I I realized that it worked and starting I started to notice it was working
everything they said keep coming back it works you know um a few times I might have dropped the
ball and forgot about my tools and I forgot to mention my therapist actually um showed me how to
um to keep on track with things you know i also am adhd and i think i mentioned earlier
and trying to get the balance take this medicine about medicine you know everything meetings
whatever it's like it's part of life but it keeps me sober and it keeps me living life for myself i
did get an opportunity to go back and see my dad in ireland after 20 years my dad and mom
my dad has parkinson's and dementia now uh my mom is uh has dementia too
um i was very nervous about going back and i did have an opportunity just to be with my dad and my
mom went out with my sister it's it's uh
when i think of my dad i think of him locked inside himself you know and and and you know
You know, it makes, it just, it's confusing for me how angry I can be for him.
But at the same time, I want to jump inside him and save him, you know.
I just remember how he, you know, sat there slumped in the chair.
You know, this fine, good-looking businessman once was just, you know, nothing.
He's just like, I can't even explain it.
And I remember I tried to wipe the drool away from his face.
And I saw a tear, literally a tear come from his eye.
I said, Dad, what's wrong?
He just said, I'm a bad man.
And he said, he said all men are bad.
I didn't inquire until he said that.
I said, at that point, my anger for him had subsided.
It just stopped.
I said, Dad, you're not a bad man.
I never want to hear you say that.
I wanted him, you know, I realized that, you know, he's locked inside his body.
And I don't want him to think that he had failed everybody, you know.
I mean, it wasn't just me.
It was also my brother.
I hate the fact that I put my life on hold to get his approval.
I put my life on hold to get my sister relationship back.
I put my sister relationship back.
I put my sister relationship back.
I put my sister relationship back.
I put my sister.
You know, when I was a child, I was a victim.
But as an adult, I volunteered it.
You know, I volunteered to be a victim.
Poor me.
I now, I forgot to mention, I don't work in the wrestling business anymore.
I work with kids.
I used to do it in my 20s.
And somehow I got back into it again.
I'm going to tell you right now.
I said this to someone the other day.
By leaving the wrestling business and working with kids, I believe helped my recovery.
Because not in a million years was I going to be able to do it again.
I wasn't going to drink and then go work with a child.
I wasn't going to do it.
And then you have a 20-month-year-old, you know, look at you and smile and want to hug.
And, you know, he falls and he hurts his knee.
And more importantly, to have the opportunity to go and look after twins.
One of them had Down syndrome.
20 years ago, I looked after a child with Down syndrome.
And, you know, to pick up this child and have them hug you.
And have that so much love, you know.
For the first time in my life, I knew I was in the right place.
I hope.
What was really important for me, why I wanted to do this today, is the steps.
The steps is what allowed me to meet my higher power.
I found my higher power in my steps.
The steps is what made me turn that page.
I'm still there.
I'm still at the beginning.
I'm two years sober.
I still have a long way to go.
But I'm really, really happy to have an opportunity to come and share my story today.
I hope I was able to do something for someone like that lady did for me in 2013.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Give me some time to receive
The message of being free
Give me some time to receive
The message of being free
Give me some time to breathe
It's not that I don't want to see
I misunderstood your words
To go ahead and forget my world
Oh, and I will remember you
To Envoy your love
And then even darkness could be a light
And I'll remember
That all the dreams I made in the night
And I tell myself
Not to cry
I feel like a long lost child
He's not by hand stronger than mine
I misunderstood my world
Oh, when I surrender
And even darkness will be alive
Oh, and I remember
That all the dreams are made in the night
And I tell myself
That I am fine
My way of life
Oh, and I surrender
Oh, and I remember
Oh, and I remember
Oh, and I remember
Oh, and I surrender
And even darkness will be alive
Oh, and I remember
That all the dreams are made in the night
And I tell myself
That I am fine
My way of life
Oh, and I surrender
And even darkness will be alive
Oh, and I remember
That all the dreams are made in the night
Oh, and I surrender
And even darkness will be alive
Oh, and I surrender
And even darkness will be alive
Oh, and I remember
That all the dreams are made in the night
And I remember
That all the dreams are made in the night
Oh, and I remember