hello welcome to a very special segment of truth today with gloria thomas i am glory that i'm your host and i'm really really really excited and grateful to be here my heart is very full right now and exactly one week from this very day i will celebrate twenty six years free from active addiction and  i'm always reminded this time of the year about how the massive distribution of drugs in my neighborhood in the late sixty's and seventy's i'm always reminded of how the devastation of those actions just just virtually wiped out many families many families and you know on october recovery process and you know i'm going to try to keep everything a simple as i can so it's understandable by the you know masses just a television show lots of people are going to are going to see it's on the internet worldwide but my god my prayer is that in my desire my hope is that anybody who sees this show who may be suffering from anything that outside of themselves that has them compelled in a way that their life is is tragically unmanageable that they've lost control of their lives and of their that might because in your life pain and agony to the degree that you find yourself at a loss with what to do i hope the show encourages you i hope this show and my life will say to you that irregardless of how low your behaviors may have caused you to have to sink there were garlands somehow separate you might be from the person you were before the addiction to cost  i'm hoping that my life and the story i'm getting ready to share will make an impact on new this very day if not today maybe in the future and maybe it's not you who suffer a maybe it's not you who is having such a hard time right now but maybe it's somebody you love maybe it's a sister or brother or a cousin a friend maybe it's your mother your father who is suffering from active addiction right now and if that's the case i want you to know that recovery is available recovery is available recovery is a possibility and you might hear the term relapse is a part of recovery i want you to relapse prevention i mean i i thought operate a program that has relapse prevention included in the way that i live my life because i don't want to one day gets so caught up in life on life's terms and so caught up on the things that are going on that i forget that i for get that taken a drink would be the most tragic thing that i could do that i forget that smoking a joint or taken a medication that's not prescribe for me would be the most tragic thing i could do in this life because thanks to the process of recovery i've been afforded a second life a second chance at a first class life and i'm a talk about that so it will make more sense but i'm going to start off with a moment of prayer i love to pray to pray i love how energized i  when i pray when i focus my heart in my mind and my attentions on god's love and grace and mercy in the power dead in the energy in the love that god has for me and all of when i focus on that and i pray my life feel so much better i'm grateful for my grandparents and my great grandparents and my mother and father who prayed for me who prayed for me  and they they had to pray for me because i didn't understand and know enough to pray for myself but i'm thankful for those prayers because those prayers covered me until i could come to terms with how much i needed to pray for myself and to pray for my children and my grandchildren so i'm praying right now for my family but i'm praying for your families too and i'm praying for your families whether it's your biological family whether it's your family through marriage whether  family through loves i'm praying for all families my prayers aren't segregated i don't pick and choose i'm playin for every family system that's at work today for the good of one hold and i'm sending out a prayer that i hope will have an impact on your life and so because i'm christian i pray in my faith and i start their prayer by declaring lord jesus father god i come today praying for families father at large praying for my family all the families of the people i love my producer cynthia baker her family her children i pray for her sisters her brothers her grandchildren i pray for all the families who are represented in the studio this afternoon probably got in there are many i pray beyond the countdown to the studio throughout the city of berkeley an o richmond a san francisco of powell out in petaluma danville dublin castro valley san leandro i pray for all of the families in those cities father god and i pray that whatever families may have a struggle right now that it angel will come with a word with a kind deed that will reduce the suffering for just long enough for the family to catch a second when father into come up with a plan that will get their family through just one more day sometimes father i'm guilty of take it for granted the gift of one more day so today i'm honored that confusion that i sometimes operate in that keeps me from the understanding that i've been blessed with just one more day and i give thanks for that one more day i pray for all the soldiers that that i have met along the way of my life in recovery soldiers we have lost recent and past i pray for the comforts of their souls on the other side i pray for their grace in the love of the mercy for their families who are still here who will be trying to comfort their own hearts in their loss i pray father god for those families are prayed for families at large who lost family members and war i specially pray for families who've lost loved ones through addiction and from drugs and alcohol and gambling i pray father god that the hearts that are left behind are comforted and i pray that those souls and those lives were not in vain that somebody learned something from them that they would not have learned had that person not come to the planet and i pray that those people who have gone before me have touched somebody share some love that this world is a better place as a result of ice in this prayer through your son jesus i declare that it will not combat void i declare that every human being seeking for recovery process today will find it f god a need not die suffering a practicing drug addict i send this prayer i declare that it will not come back void and i say thank you thank you thank you shay a man  because a lot of people who were born after me they didn't get to see a community void of the tragedy of drugs and the tragedy of guns and violence they didn't see the world that i grew up in and unfortunately unfortunately a lot of adults act like these children are growing up in a world that they grew up in which is not true our children are growing up in a world that has a level of devastation and trauma that we know nothing about unless we've experienced it and so i i love to remind people to help educate people on the fact that our inner cities and our outlying areas did not look like they look today there was a lot of work in orchestration and money invested in the massive distribution of drugs so that somebody with a s could make more money and in let me be perfectly clear it's not the young children who are suffering no child in any inner city neighborhood flew to a foreign country and loaded up an airplane full of drugs and brought it back here so be careful when you condemn our children and when you blame our children or young men and young women for the condition of our cities today because they are victimized far worse than we are because those of us who are adults we've seen the progression of how damaging drugs have been to our communities and we know the world and how it was before the massive distribution of drugs takes place so when you're looking at young people and people suffering remember there did not make it possible for those drugs to get here and nobody was sitting around as a little girl or a little boy santa who i can't wait to grow up and be a tragic drug addict nobody does that  so but i grew up in a neighborhood that got flooded and you know i grew up at the time where i was in san francisco during the summer a love of which was not love now that i love back there was a lot of devastation and rage an and hurt at work and all of those emotions running rapid those are the emotions that drugs medicated and drugs sued in people so they thought at the time and the money that was spent to purchase drugs was got bigger and bigger and bigger and when we looked up you know we had a nation thought it would drugs and guns and and the devastation that i've seen take place for myself and other families as a result of that some some people say that the devastation of the massive distribution of drugs and guns in our neighborhood has taken a bigger toll than the enslavement of african human being than that in slave in process for african human beings and i pray that i keep living so that i can see if i believe that and i can help educate people in a way that the children and my family come of behind me don't have to be injured because of the history of the enslavement process on african human beings or don't have to be injured by the massive distribution of drugs and guns in our neighborhoods so that's my prayer for me and you know what i say about god my prayer is nothing forgot to pull off god is able to do the  unknowing things that i don't even have enough sense to know to ask for god cannot only allow the creation of can show me that you know my little prayers were really nothing really they were nothing for god to do they were big for me they were they they might have seemed monumental to me but really it's god's desire and god's intention that i would come here and that i would live a life that is whole and complete and free and that i would allow god's loving grace and mercy to manifest in my life and that everybody come in my space everybody who crosses my path while i'm on this planet everybody will know that god is alive and well because they've experienced the spirit of god in me that even in my worst day that i have a smile i can share that i have a kind word  energize somebody i pray every day that my place here on earth is one that when people come into across my path even if no matter how down they may feel no matter how down they may be they may be broken in their spirit they know god is alive and well and work in their lives because i have allowed god's love and grace and mercy to flow through me i've allowed love and peace and harmony to be embodied in me and i'm willing to share that with myself and others no matter where i go so let me back up a little bit because growing up i suffered some emotional injury and emotional trauma i was very confused about who i was and what i wasn't you know as it as a young teen i you know wanted to fit in and that's how i first met marijuana and alcohol and those gateway drugs led me to cocaine and eventually let cocaine lead me to a spirit that was so broken i couldn't even look at myself in the mirror and it was so broken that i knew if i didn't do something about myself or my condition that i was going to live i do not believe the lies that i was told when i was growing up that cocaine is not have it for me although i think we all know better today i was told oh don't worry about it is not habit forming in even if it is you'll never have enough money to get hooked on it so don't worry about it well i lived long enough to learn that that's a lie and i also learned are many things that you can become addicted to that are relatively cheap but that can destroy you life can destroy your life your children's life your family's lives even the people who love you their lives can be destroyed by just looking at you suffer so if you are suffering right now and if you fell for the lies that i did all come on have a have a puff you know no big deal please do not stay on that train until you feel you're not here anymore addiction kills no matter what people say no matter what people think the reality is it kills and if you don't believe me you go to an emergency room on a saturday night go to a homeless shelter right now and you'll see the condition you can be dead and walking you can be spiritually dead you can be emotionally dead you can be cited psychologically dead and you can still be breathing and if you don't believe me you go to any homeless shelter right now and you'll see people who lives have been destroyed some of them suffering from mental health conditions that have caused their lives to deteriorate in a way that they can't take care of themselves some of them have family that took care of them and were able to keep them stable but you know i'm i was going to tell  age i'm older and to say that and many of the older members of my family have passed away so there are a lot of people who are in their forty's and fifty's and sixty's whose families have died off and they don't have a mother or grandmother who can make sure they eat a warm cook me a home cooked meal every day they don't have it and are all go who can say baby here go take a bath put on the stretch clean clothes where people are suffering from mental health issues somebody needs to help them somebody needs to love them and he's to care for them and he's to help them and a lot of people you see on our streets or in our homeless shelters are people suffering from mental health issues they're suffering from addictions they're suffering from post traumatic stress you know a lot of our vets are homeless of on the streets and these are people who served our country and  let me say we've all served the country we've all paid taxes we've all gone to work in some form or fashion and we've all contributed to the betterment of our country unfortunately you know there's a group at work that want to make sure we all die off discouraged and pity listen and homeless you know but god's not in the p homeless business so you know we're not going down that road and that's another topic for another show but just for today i want to focus on the beauty that a recovery process  can afford somebody is life and so you know i had to go and get myself some help and and i started attending twelve step meetings throughout the bay area and my life changed now initially it changed for the better just because i wasn't using so you know i was paying my rent i was buying food i was taking good care of my children and even though when i cleaned up my children were young and you know the two older ones kind of knew someone right with their mother but the younger one stayed they didn't know and to this day they say god you know mom i don't i have never seen you drink a beer and never seen you have a glass  and i said no and honey let's pray you never do because what our recovery process has given me is a whole new outlook on life outlook that i would not have have had i've been have my had my judgment continued to be impaired with alcohol or drugs and so i began a recovery process of my life i tended twelve step meetings throughout the whole bay area san francisco which is where i was been to conventions of people practicing recovery programs all over the place all over the place different states you know all up and now california especially in northern california  practicing their program of recovery has opened up a world to me that i never knew was there and as a result of all printing up a whole new world i found that i had love in my heart that i had not even  amazing i get a i get to give credit where credit is due for that i was listening to some chambers brothers music recently and one of their songs said i have love in my heart that i've never used and that's what recovery gave me i learned that i had little to no love for myself so if you're suffering from lack of love for yourself today maybe you can't say the word self hatred don't worry about it act and say it but if you're suffering from lack of love for yourself because you did not learn how to love yourself properly or something has gone on to separate you from your love for yourself hold on my dear sister and brother hold i learned how to love myself i didn't beat myself up anymore cause i didn't love myself i limited i didn't i couldn't have what the way that i treated myself i learned how to love myself and guess what i get to be an instrument in helping other people learn how to love themselves i get to be an example of how loving yourself can play such a major role in a quality and a high quality of life i get to show people that god is real just because i love myself i have i have found love that i've never used in my heart love for god love for myself love for my children grandchildren my family my friends my fellow man i have that today i have a today i didn't buy it i didn't steal it i didn't pretend well yeah maybe idea partizan i had it until i got it maybe i did fake it till i made it but that's the power of love if you don't have it in you know you don't have it you can pray for it and every day just take a baby step towards learning i love yourself to look in the mir your own arms patch own legs hug your own self and theos god fill god's love and embrace for you and and start watching how your friends in your loved ones treat you i was very very blessed when i started a life for recovery i had a family in place who loved me and even when their behaviors looked a little unloving i got to say oh oh could you please stop that don't feel good that don't sound good and i gotta stop myself when i was true to myself kylie one of many new friends one of my girlfriends because i used to beat myself up so bad because i felt in i don't want nobody to think i was stuck up conceded because that's a very bad trade and one of my girlfriend said you know a gloria i got to tell you something you are beating my friend up so bad and i hate it when you do that to my friend i love you gloria my prayer is that you will one day learn how to love yourself like i love you now i still get tears in my eyes when i replay that experience but many times we're going to be called on to love somebody more than they love themselves because at that time we'll have love that we haven't used and we will know that their love needs to be used right then and there and that poor and that lov to that person who's hurting and really doing a number on themselves given themselves the business there that our love that we pour into them may be the very thing they need to learn how to love themselves and so you know i love myself i love god i love my family i love you i haven't seen you i may never see you but like i said i have that i never used i love you i want you to live i don't want drugs and alcohol to want to wipe you off the planet you came here to love you came here to do something that nobody else can do that's why you're here you came to love some people who would not really receive unless you were here to give it to norm that's why you're here you came to be an example of how you can come from the back of the for your children celebrate your love for your family your church if you don't have a local church start looking around the get one because findin out about how much god loves you may be an experience that you can have in a church if you go to a church and you find is not there are no problems the world has plenty there are plenty churches but good with some people who are not just talk of the talk but walk in misuse and poor treatment and call it love because you desperately need it don't move that i did it it don't work don't do that learn how to love so that you can love yourself