Celebrating Life in Recovery

Native American At-risk Teens

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Holbrook Academy

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Series Code: CLR

Program Code: CLR00068A


00:10 Welcome to Celebrating Life in Recovery
00:12 my name is Cheri I'll be your host!
00:14 What happens when recovery
00:16 doesn't even look like recovery
00:17 yet? it's too early, no one around me knows
00:20 I'm recovering except for God Himself.
00:21 You are going to love this program.
00:23 It is absolutely amazing, come join us!
00:53 It is nice to have you at the Café.
00:54 Today we are going to do something that I absolutely,
00:57 it scares me to do, but I want you to stay with me.
01:00 We are going to interview people at various levels
01:03 in recovery because our
01:05 first part of recovery looks
01:06 different, earlier recovery looks different than when we
01:10 transition to middle recovery or late recovery.
01:12 There is some of us, and I know I'm talking to some of you
01:17 guys, there are some of us from day one, people around us
01:21 have been strung out on something.
01:24 It is either alcoholics or whatever.
01:27 In my family was funny because, it is not funny, somebody
01:30 is going to call me on that.
01:31 It's not so much funny but it is interesting that in my
01:33 family everybody was lost in their addictions from early on.
01:36 I love them, but they were a party house.
01:40 They were the house that you went to even from another
01:43 country, we have relatives in Canada that would fly into
01:46 my grandmothers in California just to party.
01:49 From the time they're plane landed they would have vodka,
01:54 Orange juice, beer, or what ever.
01:56 They would be partying the entire time.
01:58 They would do lines of cocaine if they were into that.
02:00 They would be doing pot they were into that.
02:02 It would be drinking if they were into that.
02:04 I had people when I was growing up, that behaviorally
02:09 were so crazy that you would just think,
02:13 is uncle Charlie, he's not married to her?
02:16 Is he? Because I just saw them in the bedroom.
02:19 It was they were doing crazy things when they were drinking.
02:22 I remember the first time I saw one of my uncles that I love
02:25 and he was turning yellow.
02:26 His eyes were really yellow and I said to him, uncle Graham
02:33 why are your eyes yellow?
02:34 And he told me he was turning into a duck or something and
02:37 he made some joke because I was this little kid.
02:39 It really was his liver were shutting down and he was
02:42 dying of his alcoholism.
02:43 What happens when you step into recovery the first part of
02:48 recovery is everyone around you is modeling behaviors that
02:54 you can't hold onto.
02:55 When I first found God, I'm in a drug house trying to kill
03:00 myself, a lot of you have heard that story.
03:03 But when I first found God I realize that I can't go home.
03:07 And I'm telling you home I love my sisters and brothers,
03:11 and mom and dad, I loved them but I couldn't go home because
03:15 they are using so much that if I go home
03:16 I'm going to relapse.
03:18 So there is no way to be safe with my family
03:22 at that particular time.
03:24 I can go home now, people can be drunk around me now
03:27 and I am safer.
03:28 There are times that I have to watch myself but I am safe.
03:31 I have been in recovery since 1979, that's been a long time.
03:34 At that time I could not go home, if I did go home I would
03:38 go for just a short period of time.
03:40 Sometimes my early relapses what happened at home,
03:44 when I was home for maybe two or three hours I would
03:49 be using with the best of them.
03:51 I would want to fit in so why would grab a drink thinking
03:54 I'm just going to have one drink.
03:56 Pretty soon somebody is saying let's have some shots.
03:58 I would be doing shots of tequila.
04:01 Then somebody says let's smoke some pot and then I would be
04:04 of and running again.
04:05 So I realized early on the safest thing for me to do is to
04:09 know that my relapse time is about four hours.
04:12 So with my family I could stay two hours, so let me cut it
04:16 way back and I would stay for two hours and then leave.
04:20 When I first had my first child, my family whom I love
04:25 would say you know what, how about if we baby sit Jackie
04:30 and you guys can take off and go to the mall?
04:33 I'm thinking are you crazy, but I can't say that.
04:37 What is really interesting is when you are being raised
04:40 around a lot of people who are drinking and using,
04:43 we have a lot of molest and sexual addictions and my family.
04:46 When you are raised around that is hard to tell people
04:52 that I cannot let you baby sit because I can't take the
04:56 chance that you will give her a drink or think it's fun
05:02 to blow some pot in her face, or think it's funny to
05:06 leave her with one of the molesters in our family
05:10 and not know it.
05:11 I can't say to somebody if everybody acts normal today
05:14 I'll let you baby sit.
05:17 The people that we love, they think they are acting normal.
05:22 Do you know what I mean?
05:23 They think this is how our family is, not realizing that
05:28 normal is not being lost in addiction.
05:30 So what does recovery look like?
05:33 What happens in our families when in recovery our entire
05:39 family is lost?
05:45 Let me just say this, once I left home, I was very young,
05:49 then the community that I was in was mostly addicts.
05:53 Probably because if you weren't an addict I don't know
05:57 if I would have hung out with you.
05:59 Because I don't even know how to do that.
06:01 So most of my friends were in addictions, most of the people
06:04 that I knew, people that I loved, had all that stuff.
06:08 Stepping into recovery and not really having any kind
06:12 of social network and trying to figure out what
06:14 that was all about.
06:16 Now what happens if I'm only 15?
06:21 So I'm going to introduce you to some people that I met,
06:23 that I love because I understand their struggle, I understand
06:27 what happened in their life and what they are fighting in
06:30 their own recovery.
06:32 We are going to hear quickly just 4 or 5 different stories
06:36 that would just say this is where this person is at.
06:39 The reason I want you to hear this is to not only deal with
06:43 your own recovery issues, not only deal with all that stuff,
06:46 but if you are in a place to start mentoring someone else,
06:50 we need you.
06:51 We will be right back and I want you to know that as we take
06:57 on this break, as we leave for this break I want you to
07:01 realize that I am going to quickly present the recovery
07:05 stories and I beg people to listen on two levels.
07:08 On your own recovery story and your own sense of standing up
07:12 and trying to fight against the current almost.
07:15 But also one who are we as a community and can we come back
07:19 and be of service to somebody that is starting this whole
07:24 process, even if you are a day or two ahead of them.
07:27 A year or two a head of them, I'm 30 years ahead of them
07:30 and still can I come back and remember that first step
07:33 and help them out on that.
07:35 Come right back, will be right here.


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Revised 2014-12-17