Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Holbrook Academy
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00068A
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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. |
Revised 2014-12-17