Speaker 1: Hi everyone, It's me Stephanie Wilder Taylor. This is Drunkish. Look,
I'm trying to change up this intro, make it a
little bit less boring, but you know what it is.
It's based on my book Drunkish, where I told my
sobriety story, and now I'm letting other people tell their
stories and do me a favor. Watch this on YouTube
if you want. It's under Drunkish podcast and subscribe on YouTube.
It will really help me out. And why not give
the podcast five stars or four? Just don't go below that,
you know, don't be that way anyway. I hope it
helps hearing other people's stories. And today I'm very excited.
I have a friend of mine. Her name is Danielle Mercier.
Her story is pretty incredible. She tells it with just
brutal honesty and it's funny. She's hilarious and charming and warm.
And I've known her for a really long time and
I know you're going to enjoy it. And I am
here with my friend Danielle, who just took off her dahmers.
Speaker 2: Wow, I can't see it. I did have to put
them back on.
Speaker 1: We're you just trying to like, look like, you don't
need glasses.
Speaker 2: I was trying to look less murderous. Yes, they're not murdery.
Speaker 1: They're so not murdery glasses. Danielle knows that I have
my I don't wear them ever on this show because
I can't see my computer with my Jeffrey Dahmer glasses.
But they are I love what they are. These and
my kids them are merciless with me. They're just like, no,
get some cuter glasses. And I'm like, these are not cute.
There's seventies a tip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm might there would be super groovy.
Speaker 1: Really all right, Danielle, I've known you for a long time.
You've been how how long have you been sober?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: A long time longer than me.
Speaker 2: This August eighteenth, it will be twenty years. Wow, how
does that happen?
Speaker 1: You look like you're fourteen, So that doesn't seem that
doesn't seem real.
Speaker 2: Okay, do the math.
Speaker 1: Take me back, because I know some of the stories
from like just take just take me all the way back,
take me through it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, you see, I was a port and I'm
just kidding. I grew up in Cape pod Oh, I
grew up in Plymouth, which is on the way to
Cape Pod actually, and I grew up. My dad left
when I was five, and it would just be my
mom and my sister. My dad was an alcoholic, and
I think I had a really great childhood. I loved it.
We were really I don't want to say we were
really poor, but we were pretty poor. But my grandparents
lived across the street and they like took care of us,
you know. It's they were the village, you know, And
so we didn't really go without anything, but we didn't
have any frills, that's for sure. And my mom was
really bitter about the fact that my dad left, you know,
and I got that a lot throughout my childhood. So
so it was kind of like you and your sister
have to be my other half, you know, right from
the get go. You know, you know, ten, you better
go get a job and start earning that type of thing,
you know. And so I got my first job when
I was thirteen. I was working for a pizza shop
and it was owned by the mob and my grandmother
worked for their hair salon that they also own. They
owned like maybe like eight or nine different things in
the town. And they they got me a job under
the table, you know, because I was too young and
I'll never forget. One day, I was cutting tomatoes in
the corner of the of the shop and a bunch
of the guys came running in with big, huge, heavy
black trash bags, and I was like, what's happening, what's up?
When they started screaming at me, you don't see anything,
you don't say anything, I was like, OK. I just
kept chopping tomatoes. And later on in the afternoon they
came up to me with one hundred dollars bill and
they said, you don't see anything, right, said, I didn't
see anything, and they gave me a hundred dollar bill,
and I was kind of like my paychecks always went
to my mom. That hundred dollar bill was mine, and
it was kind of like the first like sneaky thing
that I ever got away with that. I was like, oh,
I like that. I like being like a to have
my own thing and the excitement that lent with I
guess badnessish. So I had that. And then about fifteen,
I had my first drink. And we used to go
out and drink in cranberry bogs in the woods. So
you'd like go out in some guy this you know,
truck or something and go mudding and bring out a
big keg and drink your boons farm or drink your
kegs or drink whatever, and drink everything you could possibly drink,
you know, that type of bank until you got wasted.
At least That's how I always always always drank. It
was like ready go, and it was like just drink,
just get as much in as you can right from
a Nobody ever said that you were supposed to drink differently,
you know, And every time we drink, I'd get wasted,
and I would be the humorous life of the party.
And I loved that. I loved being the center of attention.
I loved being the cute drunk girl. I like making
out with everybody. I liked same. That was my specialty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anytime. I'm fifteen, when I first started kissing boys,
as soon as I got drunk, I would sometimes make
out with like three guys in a.
Speaker 2: Night, for sure. I remember somebody saying to me really
early on, like, hey, if you want to have a
fun party, and by Danielle to it, and I took
that as the biggest compliment ever, Like I don't know
if that was meant to be a compliment or if
it was mentally an insult. But I took it as Oh,
I get that, I got to fix my lady. Yeah sorry,
So I took that as a big compliment. It was
intended to be. I don't know. So I drank and
drank and drank. I kept drinking, and it was just
always like, oh, there's a big party this weekend. I
don't want to blame it on the East Coast, but
when I was living on the East Coast is me.
I was living on the East Coast, it was very
much where everything was centered around alcohol. We're going to
go to this party, we need to get drunk. I
was a huge concert person. I've always been a huge
concert person. Getting fucked up and oh am I allowed
to swear? Yeah sorry, I start it. Oh okay, I
love it. We we had to get fucked up before
we went. You know, we'd go out into the parking
lots and you know, get wasted in the parking lots
and and you know, make out with as many people
or tease as many people as we could and just
it was really really really fun for a while. You know.
When I was so when I was nineteen, I got
engaged to be mayor worried, and I thought this is
not for me. And every night we'd go to bed,
and we lived above a barn, and every night i'd say,
you know, I want more from my life, and my
fiance would say to me, ah, shut up, ghostleep, and
I come. And every ed probably did this for a
good three months, and every night he'd say the same thing,
and it was just like another stitch in my side,
another stitch in my side. And you know, I never
ever have seen healthy relationships. My dad left when I
was really young. My grandparents just seemed like they were roommates.
I didn't know anybody in good, loving, long, healthy like relationship.
So I always went to the guy who kind of
just said they were interested in me, like, hey, Danielle's hot, okay,
And I just went there, right oh, They all right,
all right, if you want me, you can have me.
And I thought very little of myself, but I also
thought I was like the catch me out. You know,
So I'm living with this guy. Three months in she says,
you know, he says to me, shut up, go to
sleep every night. And then one day my sister had
a U haul and I went come pick me up. Tonight.
She goes, Oh my god, what happened? I said, nothing yet,
but I'm going and a Tit got a fight, you know,
I picked a fight and I moved out. And from
that point, from nineteen to twenty one, I moved in
with my mom and my sister and just didn't haunt him,
know I what to do? I remember I did send
in a tape for the real world during that really
wasted and I would love to see that videotape. You
wouldn't it right in on anybody? Oh? Yeah, yeah, really wasted?
Check like you know. Anyway, I didn't get chosen, but
I did decide I wanted to become an actress. And
I was twenty one and I was waitressing at a
bar in Weymouth, Massachusetts, on the way up to Boston,
and I was cocktail waitressing and some guy left a
sign on the time o'clock that said, Hey, moving to
Las Vegas. If everybody wants to come check me out?
And I did. I was like, you know what, I
got my tax return and I went to the travel
agency and I used to always give my money to
my mom, and I bought myself a ticket to go
on vacation to Las Vegas. My mom was so pissed off,
so pissed, but I was like, I'm just I want
to go see the world. I want to go have fun.
And she was like, okay, go, I guess. I came
to Las Vegas and was absolutely wasted the whole time.
I slept with every roommate in the house. My friend
who I stayed with was so angry at me, but
I just thought, like I thought of myself as payment.
It was always like a payment, you know what I mean, Like, well,
this person was really nice to me and brought me
around all day long. I mean, they deserve something as
well be me, Like, I'll give them me no biggie, right,
So again, it was always it was hitting my moral fiber, right,
it was always hitting my moral fiber. It was just
like more and more of just like oh well, oh well,
that's just what happens when I drank, Like, oh well,
you're mad at me, you'll get over it. So I
get back from this trip and I came to my
mom and I said, listen, I'm moving to Las Vegas
at twenty one, and she goes, wait what And three
months later she said I was ready to go, and
she her and my sister sat me down and said,
do you mind if we come with you? And I
was like first mad and then so thrilled that they came.
It was actually the best trip of my whole life,
and I've been on a lot of trips my whole life.
We drove cross country the three of us, which is
like a national Lampoon's vacation trip. It was like crazy,
ceilings fell in in the hotels and like just insanity people,
the people we met. We got a flat tire, I'm
sitting the homeless people. It was just it was crazy anyway.
And oh, my sister's driving this massive truck, my mom's
driving like two drugged cats, and I'm smoking weed the
whole way in my car cross country, like the whole way,
just jamming out to music and smoking weed because they
thought I wasn't responsible enough, you know, but I was
always playing not card so I could not have to
do anything. You know. Yeah, just seems smarter to me.
Were your parent?
Speaker 1: Was your mom and sister going to move to Las Vegas?
Or were they just wanting to drive you out there?
Speaker 2: Have they decided No? They said, we've got nothing going
on here. Do you mind if we come and live
out with you. And I was like mad at first,
and they said no, let's so we started our life
in Las Vegas. From Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the same America's hometown,
totally America's hometown, to Sin City. The culture shock I
got when I got to Las Vegas was eazy I had.
I had had a degree in retail like fashion merchandising,
which I always told people I had a degree in
fashion design because I thought it was better because I
was never enough, you know, I had to be bigger
and better. But it was for merchandising. So now everyone knows.
And I heard it all myself. Dang it breaking news.
So uh, I went, can.
Speaker 1: We adjust your things so that you're always looking at
it at all?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: That's much better?
Speaker 2: Okay, perfect, Yeah, okay, sorry, that's fine. Sorry. I'm really
bad at angles meetings and I like sit, like laying
down and like. So I got a job at Beattie
and I didn't know what be was still that store, Yeah,
everybody loved that store. I just thought as like, oh,
there's a store and it's girls clothing, and I'll go
see if I can get a job. Well, I became
a local celebrity in Las Vegas because Biebe was like
the bomb apparently, and I had no clue and they
were just opening this brand new store. And now I'm
a big fat liar. I tell people what they want
to hear. I had originally said to the gal who
was giving me the job, Hey, I was engaged, but
he's no longer with me, and she goes, he died. Yeah, yep, yep, yep,
he died. And she was like, oh, so this whole
time I was working at Beatie, I was like a
widow or something, a thing they're sinking and I was
like what. Anyway, I got a great job there, but
my and I got to know everybody, but everybody gave
me perks, drugs, drinks out like I didn't at least
always say don't break stride, don't break stride, and we
just get right in right away. And I had never
even been really in a bar, you know. At twenty one,
I moved to Las Vegas, so I every time I
went out, got wasted every time. Then for a while
there was a guy selling ecstasy and because I worked
at bed and he knew that I was dealing with
all of the gals in town. He would give me drugs,
and for a bit I was like, this is fabulous,
this is great, you know, like it's fatuous. And so
I started doing a lot, a lot of ecstasy. I
mean just a lot of ecstasy. And I decided, well,
I wanted to be an actress, right, So I moved
to Las Vegas, which nobody ever does, but I did,
thinking it was less evil than La crazy, and so
I did. I got my SAG and I got my AFTRA.
One thing about me is when I decided just to
do something, I just do it right. So I got
my SAG and I got my after and I did
my due diligence here in Vegas, and I moved to LA.
And when I moved to La, I was ready to go.
I was ready to act. And they transferred me to
the dB in in LA at the Beverly Center, and
which was a trip. I good stories there too, the
one in La. Let's see moving to La ninety nine
to two thousand, Yeah, it was. It was crazy. I
saw Nicole Richie's like mom and her stepmom and like
this this fight at baby. Like I met Vin Diesel
and went to an award show with him that night,
like one night from there, like just the Beverly Center
was a trip back then it just fun. So anyway,
I moved to LA and decide I want to be
an actor, and I'm in. I move here and moved
to LA and I knew a casting director at a
big soap opera from family, and so right away she
got an into that and I was like, I don't
know why people have such a hard time acting. So
she put me on as like a ton of like
walk ons and like extra work basically, and then she
was like, oh, we'll give you a couple like under
five lines or ten. I don't know what what it is.
And so I was like okay. So one day, so
before this, I'm still doing ecstasy with the ecstasy like
I'm I'll get back to that one other one, but
I'm I'm doing ecstasy. But now I don't know anybody
in LA, and I'm like, yeah, ecstasy. So I'm muling
it back and forth from Las Vegas to LA and
from LA to Vegas. And he would pay me and
he would go take your hands and do this, and
I do this and he goes as soon as one drops,
that's it. I'm like okay, So i'd be like like
trying not to and I would have like a huge
just bowl of ecstasy in my hands. Well, one day
when I'm in La, there was a huge raid and
he got arrested and there was no more ecstasy. Now
I'm like, oh shit, like what am I gonna do?
Like I need my drugs right, Like I can't just
be just drinking, like even nobody can go drunk to work,
but I can go hide to work. Like this made
sense in my mind, and so then I started to
do the invisible line that I drew in the sand.
I started to do cocaine, and I was like, I'll
never do gokay, and that's dirty, s grouse dirty. It
was just fine, you know, it did the deal. So
now I'm starting to do cocaine. Now I get a
job doing under five lines in like this big soap opera,
major studio. So excited that I'm there, but also really
cocky thinking that like everybody gets jobs like this. I'm
in like the holding tank for like extras, and I
take out my cocaine and pour it on the table
and start chopping up lines, and people are looking at me.
They're like reading books and like knitting and stuff. And
I might, you know, like, so somebody went and told
on me and they escorted me out.
Speaker 1: This is the best story ever. Yeah, I love a
good fired story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, escorted me offset And you know I never was
sent I was never asked to come back again. Now
I'm cocktailed. No, I'm hostessing in Beverly Hills this time.
And my boyfriend, who was also total, total alcoholic, I
couldn't understand why I gave up my dream because I
couldn't tell him that, you know, I was doing drugs
at work, because that would be stupid, right, Like I
knew that, but I couldn't say that. I was just
like I just don't want to do it anymore. I
just prefer to stay a hostess and like, you know,
like this is really working for me. And so so
now I'm like a notch lower in my mind, like
well now what now, what are you gonna do, Danielle?
You know, but still feeding this alcohol like and I'm
hostess thing because I'm right next to the bar every
day at the bar is right there, and every day
I just go over and get a couple. You know.
I think it was like Goodkatonics, but I think it
was like that mandarin amandarin vodka or something a nice
sweet cringe now thinking about that. So I would just
drink the whole and I would only give tables to
people who tipped me. So and everybody knew it too,
so they would you know, it was a nice restaurant.
So I got major kIPS, and so I could afford
to do everything this whole time. I had a sugar daddy.
Also because I don't know how to have a like
a true relationship, you know, so I don't lose out
on a lot of like financial stuff. You know, my
house is still fine, I like, But again, my moral
fiber is really picking hits every time, right, every time
I feel less than, every time I feel worthless, every
time I feel like, you know, nobody can see me.
You know. I remember wearing sunglasses everywhere and thinking like
nobody like I was a ghost, like nobody sees me
walking around. I was also higher than you know, a
kite too, But that's the heather here nor there. So
I was of drinking, I'm doing drugs, and I don't
know what else to do. I I just squander for
a bit, go back and forth from Vegas. My family
stayed in Vegas, and I went back and forth. I
came back to Vegas. I say it was to take
care of my dying mom, but really it was to
hide it was a dump demographic and I was trying
to like recapture the glory days. And all my friends
were having babies and married and happy, and I was
the only one here, chubby, drinking wine and reading Harry Potter, like,
you know, it was like sad, you know, my poor
mom's dying in the other room, and I just kind
of was doing my own thing, you know. I moved
back to la and I moved it back in with
my alcoholic boyfriend. And now we're not really good at all,
and we're doing a lot of drugs together, like a
lot of I think. I spent most of my time
naked in the apartment, painting the house, just high on
cocaine and drinking as much as I could possibly drink
and fighting with him. I sent him to the doctors
many times. I had many, many fights with him, many
black eyes. I had a couple miscarriages because of drugs,
you know, just and each time again like what the fuck,
what the fuck's wrong? You know, I'm drinking and reading
self help books like crazy, trying to figure out what's
the matter in my life, you know, like, I'm a
good girl from Plymouth, Massachusetts, Like, what's the issue here?
The blog glog? You know, I just don't understand. My
sponsor always says that it's funny when you tell an
alcoholic that she doesn't understands that. She h it's more
of that she just doesn't like the answer, you know. Yeah, Like, yeah,
so I I move in with him. It's really bad.
We're fighting all the time. We're living on Sunset Strip,
basically just partying and like going from party to party
and living out of bags and just and I really
was your typical party girl, Like I would do anything
in a party, I would act a fool. It was
I thought it. It was cool. Years later, I saw
a good friend of mine and he said to me,
I saw you out at the House of Blues the
other night, and you had so much cocaine on your face.
He goes that I could have gotten high off of
the cocaine on your face. And I was like, what really,
I was walking around like that and he's like, yeah,
it was really sad. And I was like, like, it's
okay for me to say I was sad, but it's
not okay for you to say I was sad, but
it was sad, you know, like I really thought that
like that was my you know, my cards I was
dealt were and that's how life was just going to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, were you like, no, I'm happy? Were you trying
to know you weren't happy?
Speaker 2: I was pretending I was happy. I'm a very happy face,
so I would smile through it all. I thought I
was a great actress. I thought I was a great
actress because I everybody found like I was doing just fine.
But if you talk to me for more than five minutes,
you'd know that I was like scared and sad and
didn't know what to do and like I had no
aim in my life. You know, Oh, I'm gonna try
to time on this lake. Nope, it's all outside anyway.
So so yeah, so I'm sad and lonely, lonely, and
I we get in a huge fight and I decide
to move to Valencia from Studio City. And because I
found a guy on Craigsy, you get in a huge
fight and he was like, you have to get out
of my house. I was like, okay, I own like
a mattress and a few other small things, and I
meet I find a guy on craigslist. We went and
had sack bombs, and I thought, he's perfect, what a
perfect roommate. Well, he's a perfect roommate for right then,
you know what I mean. So I went out to
Valencia and moved in with him, and for about a
week it was fine. It was great, you know. I
slept on my mattress on the floor. And then I
decided to go out one night on a date and
in Studio City. So I drove from Valencia to Studio
City and I remember ordering so many drinks that the
guy's card that declined, and he was like, I'm sorry,
I just didn't know you were going to drink this much.
And I was like what, Like, what a cheap asshole
you are? You can't even afford to pay for my drinks?
God like whatever. So I get up and I go
to the bathroom, but really I walked out. I left
him sitting there, and I went to some other bar.
My phone's blowing up from him, probably most likely, and
I go to a southern bar. Yeah exactly, sorry, sure,
So she So I go to the Southern bar, I
drink a bunch of drinks with other people, and my
roommate calls me at the time and says to me,
why don't you come on out to the Greens in Valencia,
which is like an outdoor party area with this huge
like uh like dance area and like live music and
big bonfire outside and just it's like nice and like
it's like a golfing area. And I was like, okay, yeah,
get in my car. I don't remember the whole drive
at all. I remember the next thing. I remember having
that phone call and then giving my ID to the
guy in Valencia. Totally wasted. I go in there, We
do at least three or four yaeger bombs, and I'm
partying with him and his friends, yeah or whatever. And
I used to be famous for all the heels I wear.
Now I wear my comfortable clerks and my orthopedic shoes,
but I'd wear heels and you know, be as cute
as possible because that was the only thing I ever
had to offer, was just my ass, basically, is what
I always thought, you know. So I get there, I'm dancing,
and I stumble. Everybody knows it's just like drunken, wasted whatever,
And I feel a bunch of people on me and
they are fighting me, and I start fighting them. But
really I had fallen down so close to the fire
that people were putting me out. Yeah, it was, but
I didn't know this at the time. At the time,
I just felt people on top of me on the ground,
and so I'm just beating your shit out of these
people and they're trying to just put me out or things.
And so they pulled me off to the side in
the paramedics comb and I decline any medical whatever because
I'm yelling and screaming and just belligerent. And they kicked
me out because I won't see the paramedics. So my
roommate and his couple friends take me home and I
remember smoking weed with them on the balcony. Now, when
I tell you what I look like like, the idea
of me standing on the balcony, smoke me weed with them,
just so I smoked weed with them, and then I
then I woke up the next morning. I didn't have
any pants or any underwear, and there was no pants
or underwear in my home that were around, So I
don't know what happened with those three guys that were
in my house. I woke up on my only sheet,
on my mattress on the floor, and my body hurt
in every way you could possibly think. And I got up,
and I went into the bathroom and sat on the
toilet and went to go pee and turned on the water,
and the water's heating up, like to take a shower.
And I stood up and I saw myself in the mirror,
and I was just shocked, just absolutely shocked. My hair
from here all the way over here was completely gone
except for a few little wisps. My eyebrow was gone,
my eyelashes were gone. My nails on this hand were
melted onto my hand. My earring, my silver earring was
like stuck to my face. My id stood in black
and everything all over me. And I had like an
acrylic sweater on that's like you do right, a tighter one.
It was burned onto my arm. Here, my underwire burned
my underneath, my my in my bra I had cuts
and bruises and purple and green bruises and dirt under
my nails and face and just and I was just
so demoralized. I was like, what, like I'm a good
girl from Plymouth, Like still again, like it's still saying this,
and I, uh. I got in the tub and I
sat on the bottom of the tub for a good
forty five minutes and just cried. And that day I
had a therapy appointment and I went to my therapist
and I wore I'll never forget. I wore it was
the short the shortest genes very possibly think of, you know,
like the Mudflap Girl. I had a T shirt with
the Mudflap Girl, but she had double ears, and I
had cut it so it hung off of my shoulders,
and I had put my hair offsied and like a
one ponytail, so you couldn't tell that I had fried
my whole face off. And they got in there, she goes,
holy shit, what happened to you? And I told her
and I was like, yeah, you know. She goes, no,
I don't know. And I was like, well, you know,
these things happen. She was no, they don't. This doesn't
happen to people. And I said, well, there's always consequences.
She goes, no, I mean there's not always consequences. I said, well,
there's always been consequences to my drinking. And so we
talked about that for a bit and then she said,
do you think you have a problem with alcohol, And
I said absolutely. Like period, It's like, well, I think
you know what about an AA meeting? And I talked
about this and that, and she gave me the phone
number and I walked around with it for about three
weeks and I just decided like no, no, no, no,
now it's not a good time. No, they're that part
already's coming up. No, this is that. No, I'm not ready.
The thing the reason I went is you know that
small little window that wake what opens up for you,
you know, and uh, instead of it hitting just my moral,
you know fiber, it hit my vanity this time. And
that was always the only thing I had ever had
in my mind. Not that I'm the hottest babe there is,
but like that was the only card. Growing up. My
mom used to say, you're the pretty one and you're
the smart one, and I always thought I was a
total moron because my sister was the smart one and
I only had the you're the you're the pretty one
lean into that.
Speaker 1: And now I feel bad because I opened up our
conversation by telling you you're the prettiest girl I know.
And I want to also add also the funniest you're
super funny and sweet and engaging and smart, very smart,
articulate and a good storyteller.
Speaker 2: Already taken me good. Thank you. It's taken me about
twenty years to figure out that I'm smart. Like maybe, no,
I'd say about ten years. It was like I'd put
pop in that tape such an idiot, You're so dumb,
and I'm like, fuck that, no way, and I just
pop back out the tape and be like, I'm not dumb.
I'm a smarty I've no so but thank you. Nowadays,
now being my age, I'm like, I'll take any time
somebody wants to say I'm pretty, so I'll take it.
U So I go to my first meeting. I decided
to go to a meeting. It's in Valencia, and I
remember I sat outside what felt like forever. It was
probably like five or ten minutes, but it felt like forever.
And this old bitty opened the door and she said, hey,
you gonna sit there forever. You're you gonna come in,
and I was like yeah, like and I walked in
and because I'm so selfish and self centered and you
know whatever, I walked in and I really thought it
was like we're going to read the twelve Steps, Danielle,
We're gonna read rarely how it works, Danielle. Like everything
seemed like, yes, this was for me. I was soaking
it in like a sponge. I loved it all, every
word of it. I was in cook Line and Sinker.
I was like, these are my people. They are my people.
They were the weirdest group of like you know, degenerates,
and I loved every bit of it. Right. I just
was like, yep, yep, I'm one of you guys. I
went to meetings, I did the deal, I sponsored, you know,
I got a sponsor. I got a sponsor. Three months
in my mom died. No, six months in, my mom dies.
But three months in I go to go do my
fourth step, my fifth step with her, like we're talking
and this, and then she goes, I have to tell
you something real quick. I have a crush on you.
I'm oh. I was so mad, so mad. She's like,
I don't want you to tell me all your deepest,
darkest because I just don't think i'd be right. And
I was like so angry at her that like, how
dare you do this to me? You know? But anyway,
I just realized there was a light behind me, who
whatever you need, honey, whatever you need, go ahead, that's fine. Sorry,
that's momming. Oh so uh, I'm so mad at this
right and I was like, okay, well, I guess you're
not gonna be my sponsor anymore. So from well four months,
what a betrayal.
Speaker 1: That's horrible, it is, but.
Speaker 2: Ill, like, I mean, I'm so glad she said something
to me right away. But also I was still mad, right,
but like, come on, like whatever, So now I had
no sponsor. My mom passes away three months later, and
I am just like broken, just broken, and I you know,
I was the person who had to put together all
of her stuff for her, do everything, pay for it,
like but that's the whole every just get your shit
together and like stuff away your feelings. And I did that.
But during that time I smoked some weed and didn't
say anything to anybody for the next like maybe six months.
I don't know the exact time. Think we shaved the
year off, but we'll say we'll say a year. I
smoked weed about five or six times. Just I remember
smoking weed and my friends going this is okay, because
they were all like normanies, and I'm like, yeah, it's
all good. I have a problem without fouls, so it's
totally fine. I'm like, okay and so and we all knew,
we all knew, they knew, and I showed up. I
moved back to Studio City, where I loved, and I
came to the Not Saints meeting and I came to
take a cake for one year Dickens, and I broke
down in front of everybody. I said, I have a
year's sobriety. I have no sponsor and my mom just
died and I don't know what to do. And you
know how many people like jumped on me, and I
just absolutely jumped on me. Liz became my sponsor and
was so wonderful. She was like a surrogate mom to me.
She gave me away, like at my wedding, like you
know years later. I mean, I grew up in AA
and ever since that time. So I kept my mouth
shut for five years about smoking weed, didn't say a thing.
One night we're out of Hugo's having dinner, she was like,
how you doing. What's going on? Like I smoked weed?
She goes when I was like five years ago. She
was like wait what? So we went to Tuesday night meeting,
and I shaved a year and a half off, you know,
And but I've always just been in. I've been in.
I SPA answered, I love a about I don't know.
Eight years into sobriety, I met another UH recovering alcoholic
addict and we got married and hit right from the
get go. His sobriety looked way different than mine. I
don't even take cough syrup because like, I get scared.
I don't take any pills because I get scared. I still't,
you know, eat food that has alcal in it because
I get scared. I don't just love my life so much,
my sober life. I have a direction. I have a
career that AA has given me. I was nothing before that.
You know. I remember starting something in my sponsor saying
to me, like is this a thing? And I was like,
I want to try. She's like, okay, let's go for it.
And so I did. And I've been around the world.
I'm on my ninth passport, and you know, and I'm
known in my industry and it's great.
Speaker 1: You fly. You're a flight attendant on like private jet. Yeah, yeah,
that's so cool. That came about from program.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they've never seen the old Danielle. And so
I've been doing it for almost twenty years now and
I've gotten to you know, they say it's really hard
to be a flight attendant. No, it's not you if
you have a good relationship with your higher power and
if you want this and you make the sacrifices and
go to meetings in different places. For years, I used
to say, I don't know, I go to meetings on
the road, and then I'd get all frenchy and yucky
and gross and and it'd be like, just go, like,
this is my medicine, this is what I need to
take care of me, right. And so I started doing
it and I was like, ohh, I'm my own worst
enemy again, you know what I mean, Like I'm not
recovering because I'm not doing the things they keep me recovered.
So I started going to meetings around the world and
it's lovely and you meet people who are just like
you and me, and you know, in other areas, and
it's awesome. I went to a really cool bomb shelter
meeting in Israel. They're like, go downstairs into this park,
go downstairs, and it's down there, and I was like, Okay,
I go in this bomb shelter. It's like just a
door in like the park. I go down like three
flights of stairs. When I get to like the second
second flight of stairs, I'm like really dark, like what
are we coly? What are they doing? I get to
the third thing and there's all these people down there.
They're like making bagels and like cream cheese down there,
and like I'm like, I'm like, oh, this is this
is insane. Yep.
Speaker 1: So the relationship he's he's doing it different, right, he's doing.
Speaker 2: Oh the relationship, yes, way different. Taking night quill at
night to go to sleep, taking all kinds of medication
has has you know, legitimate pain. And that was the
fights we got into all the time. I have legitimate pain, Okay,
I understand that, but I you know, you can't be
doing this. And then so I had to enroll in
another program because you know, I'm living side by side
with this other person and I know what it's supposed
to look like. But there, you know, I can't run
somebody else's life and program. And also it's making me nuts,
you know, so I have to stay on my side
of the street, right, So I end up you know,
I'm a little older and so is he. And he said,
you know, I've never wanted children my whole life, and
he said I kind of want a kid, and I
was like, I do too. So we went both got
checked out and I was like, yeah, I go for it.
So I was like, oh, it's gonna be some which
fun like I've never not tried. I've never tried to
you know, had a kid like I was tried not
to have a kid. Right first, try right away, first
try sa pugnant, yanks. First try Yeah, we're not even
married yet or like dating. And then he says to me,
you know, oh, before this, I'd already had another marriage
that I picked another wrong guy who was not right
for me. I was married not even a year and
I got divorced because again I still don't know how
to have, even ten years into a relation into AA,
I don't know how to have I don't understand how
you pick somebody who had good stuff. I guess I
don't know, you know, like I still that's what I
most struggle with. You know, I know my worth now,
but back then I didn't. It was like, oh, you
showed me love and attention, great, right and so he
was showing me a lot and attention. I get pregnant.
He says to me, all right, we got to get married.
And I was like, what, No, No, you know he said, Oh,
I'm not going to have a baby with somebody I'm
not going to get married to. So we got married.
Three months pregnant, we get married, and right from the
get go, the minute I gave birth to my son,
which is the best day of my life, he stole
my pain meds that they gave from my C section
and it was game on. He had been using that
whole time, but this time he now, it's like really
affecting me. So I have to be a brand new baby.
And I have a really fucked up partner who is
wasted the whole time. And for years. We were married
for four years, and for four of those years he
was absolutely out of his mind wasted, and I had
to deal with that. He lost my son. One time
I went on a work trip. I was in London
and I got a phone call that said, your son's missing.
We have police and we have canine looking for him.
And we had a helicopter and he was three and
a half years old and he had lost him because
he was in a drunken wasted drug something, you know.
And it was during like twenty twenty, beginning of twenty twenty.
He had gone to a meeting at the park, and
you know, I was like okay with it because he,
you know, he went to the park. He Ben got
to go to the park and then he got to
go to his meetings. I didn't love it, but they
did it. And he was so wasted at the meeting.
Some guy drove them home and Todd just absolutely like
passed out on the couch. And now he's with some
random guy. This guy has no clue about kids, and
he just takes him and puts him in the front
seat of his car, just drives him around La doing
barons and stuff all day, and after about six hours
comes back, tries to wake Todd up, can't get him
to wake up, calls another friend and says, I don't
know what to do. I have a kid, like, I
don't know what to do. And another person comes and
takes Ben. And then I got a voicemail when I
landed saying where like, hey, Danielle, we just want to
let you know we have Ben. And I told the
police when they called me where he was, and they
went there, duns draw on everything, and Todd lost custody
because in his addiction. And the next couple of years,
we're just torture. You know. I had CCSD in CCSD
all over me, thinking I was a terrible parent. I
was trying to be a flight attendant who travels the
world with the child baby, you know I was. It
was during twenty twenty or you know, it's just craziness,
and he's trying to fight me for custody and he's
not able to even do anything. I ended up moving
back to Las Vegas, and because my family lives here
and it's actually become a good, great thing. You know,
my whole you're an idiot, you're dumb. Well, I moved
back here and they said, we're opening up a facility
to teach flight attendants in your the brand new flight attendants.
And uh, now I'm an instructor for I'm still a
flight attendant and I still travel all around, but I
also teach all the brand new uh flight ascendants. So
Sobriety really has taught me, first of all, how to
be a grown adult. UH brought me up, taught me morals,
taught me to love myself, taught me to be kind
to others compassion of so not compassion. I was so
not kind. I didn't think of anybody but me. It
was a lot of just kind of blovering around and
not knowing how to be or where to go, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, of course. Wow.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 1: Your ex uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. He passed away two years ago and even
sadder is he? So he followed us out to Las
Vegas to be close to my son. And at first
I was like, oh god, okay, but also I was like,
all right, show me, right, like show me. And he
had to have monitored visitation because of all of his
you know, addiction, and he just couldn't do He couldn't
show up for them, and he kept getting his alcoholism
just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And he
lived in a gated community one mile away from our house.
In two and a half years, he saw him four times,
and two Christmases ago, I hadn't heard from him for
a while, and finally we did a wellness check and
he was it had been passed away in his home
for a month, and nobody had checked on him because
he had pushed so many people away from him with
his disease, and you know, I was so angry at him,
you know, like all the alan On stuff. I was
so angry at him this whole time, and the moment
he passed away, that went away for me. And now
we talk about Daddy all the time. We you know,
it's coming up on his two years passed away, and
we're going to go out and celebrate Daddy. You know,
he has the same disease I had. I have, and uh,
that could be me, you know, it could be any
one of us. If we decide to not do this
program one hundred percent, it could be you. Doesn't really discriminate, right,
So so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just such a awful but also beautiful story.
Speaker 2: And I have to.
Speaker 1: I I was so angry with my biological father for
so many years, and I just carried these like this
chip on my shoulder, you know. And I do think
that doing my ninth step when I had to write
a ninth step about well, I didn't have to, but
I really was like, well, I don't think I So
ninth step in twelve step terms, is where you make
your amends. You say sorry and clean up your side
of the street, and sometimes to get to your apology.
You know, at first, you can be like, well, I
don't know that person apology. You look at people that
you have still have issues, well, right, And I mean
I do think I had that feeling of like, well,
I'm way more sinned against. You know, my father was
not a good father. He was absent from my life.
He was only cared about himself, and those things are
all true. But when I had to really think about
what I was doing carrying around this resentment to somebody.
This was after he passed away. So I wrote about
this in my book because I have I was keeping
his ashes in my closet and I was angry, and
I was like, I don't know what to do with
these because like kind of like fuck this guy, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and keep him in the dark and there. If
I don't put him out, then I'm not just like I.
Speaker 1: Don't want to be in charge of figuring out how
to like celebrate his life. And you know, I felt
like everybody wanted me to be the one to have
a memorial for him, and I was like he pushed
everybody away and he nobody was really there at the end.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a few years later though, when I was doing
my ninth step. I wrote a letter to him and
was actually able to go, oh, I did do some
things wrong, which I won't go into, but I mean
I was able to go, oh, my god, there's more
nuance to relationships than just he was bad and I'm good,
you know. And I was able to read him that letter,
and I went and scattered his ashes, and it's like,
really a miracle. I never would have done.
Speaker 2: Right, thing to do right, and I don't have any
anger anymore, you know. I became his executor, and so
I'm in charge of everything for his life now because
his family really doesn't want anything to do with it.
They realized they weren't going to get anything out of it,
so they just threw it at me. And he had
all these journals and for the first I don't know
how good it was for me, but for the first
couple of months of him passing away, I read all
of his journals about the times that I hated him
so much and how and his side of it was
like super glaring at some of the things that like, wow,
I'm acting how I'm acting, or how he's perceiving things,
or I could see that I can like I was
so blinded by not getting what I needed or wanted
or whatever. You know that when our name, when our
we're not totally in the game, you know, aa wise,
you know, like on the beam, when I'm just sitting
in righteous anger, that like maybe I am wrong, maybe
I am Maybe I could be a little kinder or
a little bit more compassionate at the pain he's in
or the this or the that, or let him seep
engine in or let him you know, all of these
different things. So you know, we're a work in progress
right always.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but wow, this has been so enlightening and I'm
so glad. I I don't I don't think I've ever
heard your whole story ever from begin I mean i've share,
but I've never heard the whole story. And I loved it.
And I think this is going to help a lot
of people. This is why I do it, you know, good,
I sure hope. So I so appreciate you, And yeah,
I appreciate you. And if there's any way you want
to prom promote yourself for anything, like if you want.
Speaker 2: More, okay, okay, no problem. If anybody wants to be
a slight incident, come see me, Okay, that's about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, love you girl, Thank you so.
Speaker 2: Many years of self promotion. I'm good.
Speaker 1: No no background work on any soap operas these days.
Speaker 2: No, no, if any if anybody wants me in their
green room during cocaine, I'm your girl.
Speaker 1: Okay, Thanks Danielle, thanks everybody for listening, and we'll see
you next week.
Speaker 2: Ye