- My name is Antonio, but people call me TJ.
I was in the Army.
I served from 1974 to 1977 in the regular army,
and then I served in the Reserves till 1981.
I came from the projects, and the reason I joined
is because there was just no future for me.
My brother was a Vietnam veteran.
He came home.
He was into heroin, and, um...
so the influences weren't there,
and I thought that I just needed to get away,
so I volunteered.
In basic training, it was pretty rough,
and I was stabbed in the back by some soldiers
because I was on duty
and I closed the day room and they didn't like that
and we had a fight, and I got stabbed.
So, emotionally, I just sort of backed up
and stayed away from everybody after that.
When I went in, I had a lot of problems.
I mean, I was an African-American,
I was gay,
overweight, low esteem.
I didn't know about alcoholism,
so I didn't think of myself as one.
So we were drinking during the day,
after--you know, we'd go to the PX,
and, you know, the beer was too light
so we'd go get more stuff, and we drank constantly.
You know, when I got out, I continued as much as I could,
as much as I could afford,
and a lot of people bought me drinks.
After that, the drinking just got real bad, you know,
and, um...
I only went to the VA
because I was homeless,
I was drinking,
I had no future.
They put me in an outpatient group.
It was just an outpatient group of veterans
sitting in a circle talking about their problems
and during that outpatient group,
one of the counselors suggested--
they said, "This is not AA. This is a treatment facility.
We think you should go to AA."
And that's where my journey started.
The support I got from the VA
after I started getting sober,
they put me in a program,
and...they followed up on me.
I had a social worker.
I went to the DAV.
They started getting me disabled--disability money.
They started diagnosing everything.
The mental problems
and everything connected to the service.
Until--one of the therapists came up with,
"Every time there's a small problem,
"you bring all the baggage of your past into that problem.
"If one thing happens,
"if somebody does something in traffic,
"you start thinking about being poor,
"being black, being gay,
"being in the service, being stabbed,
being..." and I said, "That's ridiculous.
That's..." you know, and, uh...
and then one day it happened
and I just got so angry and loud
that I realized what she was talking about.
I was--I felt disrespected,
I felt nobody's listening, you know,
and we talked about that,
and that was one of the first breakthroughs I had.
Finding solutions.
Um...I learned that through AA.
Taking action, finding solutions.
Even if it's a small solution,.
I talk to veterans through my acting.
I-I tell 'em my story through my acting
and how I got back from the abyss of,
you know, alcohol, drugs,
and what I tell 'em is:
The empowerment of getting up in the morning,
and that's a basic way to start.
Make your bed up, clean yourself up,
take care of yourself. Clean yourself up.
But we gotta take care of ourselves too,
and we can't take care of anybody else
if we don't take care of ourselves.