SPEAKER_01 0:06

Sorry, I'm having a little bit of audio problems. I'm gonna cut off my camera because I don't want to sit here and stare at me. Okay. Um, I am from New Jersey. I live um near Atlantic City. Um and I am I wanna start by saying how grateful I am.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Um Jersey became pretty Atlantic City. Uh I forgot that I was supposed to stop so that you could translate.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

I apologize. My first narcotics anonymous meeting was in 2004.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Uh meeting Bowl 2003.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

My clean date is January 9th, 2019. It took me a long time to surrender to the fact that I was an addict. I think as long as I've been coming to meetings, a lot of us share similar um can identify with similar things.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

I chcemy o'clock, s kterými som se identificovala za tu dobu, za którym chodil na meetingy. A ja tak som sa cítila sama. A viem, že vždycky jsem si tak prostě nadmerne všímala všetko okolo seba všetky věci okolo sebe.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

That was driven by fear. Um, I don't know if you guys have like McDonald's there, but I know you know what a menu is, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yes, yes, we have, we have.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Okay. So you know when you're a kid, right? The menu you got a chicken McNugget, you've got a hamburger, you've got a cheeseburger, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

This will make sense in a second, just wait. Like you would, if you got chicken nuggets and you didn't like them, you'd never pick them again, right? So my life as a child and into adulthood was finding the things that I didn't like or had a bad experience with and avoiding them at all costs. Until I got a little older and I had to learn how to fit in with everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

A potom keď som už vyrástl a bola som vešiná, tak som sa nejmusela naučiť, ako prostě zapadnúť mezi ludzi.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

So if someone else liked chicken McNuggets and I didn't, I would eat them anyway. Because that would allow me to be around someone else and to feel like I belong. So for me, going to anywhere was like trying to read a menu in another language because I was trying to figure out what everyone else wanted and what everyone else liked. This came from abuse, abandonment, trauma, all of the things that have happened to so many people. But for me, not only could I not accept that these things happened, but it kept trying to travel back in the past and try and change things that it could never change. Over and over I would repeat this cycle. Seven, eight years and a relapse. So there was this um lack of open-mindedness to explore who I was. There was a lack of willingness to ask for help. Um there was a complete inability to be honest. So if I got clean in January of 2019 and I didn't reach out for help until September of 2023, I spent four and a half years clean and that shit crazy. Because I did not want to learn to live life a different way. And I and I earned um a college degree, and then I I earned another one.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

I sound complicated intellectual motherfucker.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

And the reason is because the easiest and the hardest thing you're ever gonna do is surrender. It's gonna it's really hard in the beginning, but then you do it a whole lot, and it just it letting go becomes a part of who you are. I um dug into narcotics anonymous. Within a couple of months I found a job. Because of the mental health and physical issues that addiction causes. I have completed all the way through step six.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Došlo som až do kroku 6.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

And I am about to graduate with my second master's degree.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

A vlastne budem... končí školu, buď dostaneme svoj druhý masters.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I am a straight A student.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Mám same Ačka.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Jednotky.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Jednotky.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

And I work for the federal government doing cybersecurity for the airplanes. Now this is the same person that couldn't make decisions, didn't know who she was, had to relapse three times.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

When I learned who I was when I took the time to discover who I wanted to be pressed to minulost, a miracle.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

I began to be free on the inside. And I found myself to be acceptable. And then I found myself to be likable. And then I found myself to be lovable.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Oslobodila.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

While I had made a lot of progress and done a lot of amazing things, um, things that I shouldn't have been able to do in the short time frame that I did them.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

I guess I remember that I still had some of those character defects that were maladaptive coping skills that had allowed me to survive my trauma. I was lost I didn't know nepoužíval tetto z toho svojho menučka nevidela som vůbec what I learned is that I knew who I was and what I prefer and what I don't stalm and preferem so I learned to take those character defects down and replace them with an asset that I believe in.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

And that the one thing that we're trying to recover is the one thing we truly never got to know to begin with and that's ourselves. Same sebe same sebe I can be my own best friend I can be my own entertainment I can date myself I can well I'm not going to talk about that but still everything that I need I'm capable of providing. So when I approach any situation I'm not approaching it from a lack of you you can you can finish you can finish when I approach anything I'm not approaching from an empty space a lack of I approach it from my cup is overflowing so how can I be there? So if I give it's now something that I have to give because I filled me up first. I took care of me first.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Sponsorship home group and just keep coming and don't use no matter what thanks for letting me share čo hovoríme teda že každý môže zrať pre sebať, ztratiť užbu brať a nájsť a ten nový spôsob života nájdeme na meetingoch v domovskej skupine v službe so sponzorom. A jak to bolo ďalej? A to je to asi tak všetko zabralo, že vracete sa späť a kéš som mohla vzdielať.