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Hi, my name is Christy, and I am an alcoholic.

I've never done this before, and on the way over here, I was wondering what I could say

that would be relevant to the topic,

happy, joyous, and gay.

But actually the topic is alcoholism, so I wanted to talk a little bit about what it's like to be a gay alcoholic.

Back when I first

discovered that there were other gay people besides me, the only place you could go to meet other homosexuals was the bar. And I started going into gay bars from the time I was 15 years old.

My first phony ID was inoculation papers from East Africa.

They got me in everywhere, okay?

Because nobody knew, what the hell is that?

So alcohol became a part of my life from that point on.

I mean, everybody in the bar was drinking,

and drinking was a part of the mating ritual.

You know what I mean?

When you walked up to somebody and you introduced yourself,

or they walked up to you and introduced themselves,

what's the first thing they come out of the round?

Can I buy you a drink? So, being predestined for alcoholism and homosexuality, they kind of went hand in hand.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about rigorous honesty being a part of this program,

...