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Hi I'm Niko, I'm an alcoholic, I'm super grateful to be here, I've never been to an

Oakland meeting of alcoholics anonymous so thanks for having me.

My sobriety date is March 26, 2016 so I just celebrated six months.

Thank you.

I have a sponsor and I go to about eight or nine meetings a week and I always sit in the

front row and raise my hand and share and I have four commitments and I do all of that

not just because my sponsor tells me to but because this program has transformed my life

in ways that I never even thought were possible for someone like me.

So what it was like, I picked up my first drink when I was 14, maybe I was 13 but I was

somewhere around there and by 15 I was getting arrested at the school dance for being drunk

and I came to and I had a breath visor in my mouth and there were cops and I really had

no idea what was going on and for any normal person standing in front of your entire school

and getting arrested would be really really humiliating but I'm an alcoholic so even though

I cried and like played the like poor me I'm in trouble part I actually felt really really

cool and really powerful and I was like yeah I'm fat ass like look at me like everyone

knows I'm in trouble and I totally denied that I was drunk, my mom was driving me home

and I can just remember being like mom I'm not drunk I swear so if my mom's listening

...