Alcohol; 1/1/1991-∞ 30 Years Sober-one day at a time. I am a Trippy Hippy Gypsy sharing peace, love and laughter through words and music.

I was born in Winnfield General Hospital, Winnfield Louisiana. When I was two years old my momma and I took a train from Louisiana to California. We didn’t invite my dad. Momma remarried a man who was in remission from alcohol. I say remission because he just didn’t drink. No program of sobriety to stay sober, so he didn’t. Being raised by two drunks I learned at 14 years old, when the childhood memories surfaced, that if you only took a little Jim Beam out of the bottle, you could top it off with water, and no one would notice. I felt very smart to have discovered that trick. At 16 years old I moved out of my parents home. My mom thought pulling a gun on me was good parenting, I saw it as the systemic racism that it was, so I hit the road. My drinking career blossomed in my twenties and in time I bloomed into a full blown blackout drunk and I drank my way through my youth, all the way up to 37 years old. I drank until my kids caught on to the game, and they started calling me on my behavior. Especially my daughter Jasmine, she said, “Why did you even have us if you are going to drink yourself to death before you get to see us all grown up?” I really wanted a good comeback for that one, but wtf do you say? Soon after that wake up call, I decided that I needed to become a better parent, so I called a recovery center and a retired nun named Kate-I had never met a retired nun before-challenged me. She said, “You don’t seem to have as much of a parenting problem as you do a drinking problem. If you think you are strong enough to make it 3 days without using, you can join our closed group of long timers?” I took her challenge.

December 31, 1990, I bought a bottle of Christian Brothers Brandy, for the eggnog, and a few other items of choice, and loaded my kids in my truck and turned the tires towards my dad’s house, for the New Year Going Out Party! My dad and kids played the game Connect Four while I connected 4 and more, all the way up to the ball drop. Banged shots, drank shots in eggnog, and during my last hurrah, the ball hit bottom, so did I. Everyone yelled, I set down my stuff, and never picked it back up. The recovery group turned out to be older people with 11-13 years sobriety. I got tired of hearing, “Do you really believe that ‘bull’ you just spewed?” And soon I became a real alcoholic. Not a pink cloud, everything is rosy kind of drunk. My recovery got as real as I did. The first few years of sobriety I simply did not drink, I knew it did not work for me anymore. I got a sponsor, worked the steps, walked my talk, got my chips, did service, stayed out of romantic relationships, and created a program worth staying sober for. It worked. Soon I had something worth keeping, me, and something worth sharing, we, and at one year old I became a secretary of a meeting, got into AA service, became a sponsor, etc. At 5 years sober, my 16 year old daughter Jasmine was killed in a drive-by shooting. Here one minute, gone the next. A few weeks after the shooting, I was the speaker at an AA meeting. People were so kind, telling me they did not know how I stayed sober after losing such a beautiful ray of sunshine like Jaz. Some who knew her were crying. I told my story, of being a drunken child of drunken parents, where I learned to drink my troubles into tomorrow while partying today away. Told them about my son Moh, and my recently deceased daughter-11-25-1995- Jasmine. Some shouted ‘how do you stay sober’? I told the group that, “I’d get drunk if it would bring Jasmine back-but it won’t. I am not a hypocrite, I work the steps 1-12 with a sponsor, no 13 stepping, I crack the book, share the message, and I don’t drink to solve problems, I know that would just be another problem.” Then I asked the group one simple question, I said? “Next time you go to pick up a drink, stop for a moment, and think of me and Jasmine, and knowing I stayed sober through it all, I want you to ask yourself one question before your lips touch that drink: (pause) What’s your fucking excuse?” I’ve been to hell and back during my sobriety. Each battle I don’t drink through brings me to another victory win in sobriety. Victory in sobriety brings me closer to the center of who I am. I am a Warrior, and a wonderful sober fun loving person who no longer needs drama to feel alive. A’ho, Debbie Joy