You told me in 2006
that my boss will become the president of the United States,
I would probably have told you you were crazy.
(Laughter)
Most people met me in 2006 when I became Miss America,
and more people met me later that same year
when my cocaine test dropped positive.
But what they did not know
is that I have been silent for a terrible addiction since my 14th year.
I would like to share with you a split of my struggle with addiction.
My life was the perfect combination of bad circumstances to develop addiction.
I survived the incest with three years, my parents had a cliché relationship,
Alcoholism and mental health problems were very present in my family
I grew up in a very small town in Kentucky
with a church on every corner,
that type of town where you could throw the Bible
and she would probably hit the priest in her head,
and they assured me that if I drink, smoke or practice pre-sex,
I go straight to hell.
I remember how I thought how unfair it seemed,
because my uncle did not make any choice whatsoever.
To shorten, when I had 14 parents were passing through a nasty divorce,
my grandfather, my patron
and the only person who has ever expressed my unconditional love dies.
The pain and loneliness I felt were really unbearable.
When I was on the go with the cheerleaders – in Gatlinburg, Tennessee –
juniors and senior men get a gallon of vodka from a young man from a nearby faculty,
I was thrilled when they offered me a little
because I wanted to feel desperate as part of something.
So I ate my first drink.
There were 75% of vodka, 25% of orange juice
and I had a drink of it, as I saw in my family.
Then I went back to the counter
and smeared 75 percent of vodka, 25 percent of orange juice
and I took that shit because I wanted to look like I was already doing it.
Is that right?
My next memory is about my contribution to the Porcelain gods,
(Laughter)
I am in the middle of this room, and the room looked like this:
Two girls were banged in the corner,
some sexual acts were played on the bed,
and there was that poor girl crying in the bathroom in the bathroom,
she ran, and I just thought,
“Opa! I found my people.”
(Laughter)
Because, the chaos in that room looked just like chaos in my mind.
By the next day, when I woke up with the worst mumurluk in life,
spraying vodka through their pores.
I was a small lump that would blow up
who would be jumping back and I was terrified
that I will be flattered by the exorcist-style audience.
And my coaching fan was president
A community of Christian Athletes, so God was there.
(Laughter)
I was so afraid that he would catch me that I prayed to God,
for which I really believed she did not want to have a job with me,
so I said, “Hey, team.
If you can save me from this, I swear I will never do it again. “
That’s what I thought.
I made a firm decision that day that I would never take a drop of alcohol again.
But by the end of the year, I got caught up in morphine.
You see, I did not know my first drink would be 14 years old
bring up to 40% closer to becoming addictive.
I did not know that my brain was going through an accelerated development,
so if my parents looked at me and said, “What did you think in your head?”
“I am not!”
My brain has not yet fully developed.
Is that right?
They would bring the cops to school and try to get us out of fear in the bones,
with eggs in hot pans, and that was not terrible either.
It seemed to me even good.
(Laughter)
The average age when children start drinking today is 11.
They play Russian roulette with their lives, but they do not even know it.
There is no effective preventive program funded by the government at the national level.
Now I would like to show you something.
If an old man is dependent on heroin, lives in a poor neighborhood,
people assume it’s his choice.
When Charlie Sheen gets tired of being hit,
“It’s a famous person who has the right to it!”
Is that right?
When Miss America falls into a cocaine drug test,
It’s a bad pattern, is not it?
But when the 14-year-old dies from overdosing?
It’s a tragedy.
Now I would like to talk about stigmatizing this disease.
When I dropped my cocaine drug test and Donald Trump sent me to rehabilitation
I was directly confronted with a stigma.
People called me “Mississippi Miss America.”
TMZ has designed “Mess (America’s Mess)”, which is very clever,
and I will use it as the title of my first book.
(Laughter)
Thank you.
(Applause)
Note: this is also my nickname in Call of Duty
for all the players you are in the room.
(Laughter)
When I got out I had to do a media tour because it was normal
and one man asked me, “Do you think your crown has lost its glory?”
(Sigh)
All I could see was the 14-year version of me
who was abused by an uncle, whose parents had been divorced,
who has just lost the only example of love she had,
who sought shelter in drugs and alcohol,
to whom they had put a lip on their mouth,
because she had seen Miss America on the national television due to her illness.
I was not a bad person who tried to do good;
I was a sick person who was supposed to recover.
And that was the fire that triggered my journey towards activism.
I knew there were so many people who were suffering the same thing as me.
And I suffered most of my life
because I did not know what that was what I was suffering from.
I was so excited to share and share my experience
with the help of what I have learned to treat
because I really felt that I found immense wealth.
Is it?
Addiction is one of the biggest health problems in this country,
and kills more people than diabetics, heart disease and tumor together.
It’s an airplane full of people every day falling from the sky
and this is a health problem that is least funded.
People are closing because they are sick;
80% of prisoners suffer from abusive substance abuse disorders
and almost half of them were taken to drug offenses.
They must not be held as prisoners; they need long-term recovery.
(Applause)
Thank you.
In schools, where our children spend most of their time,
there is no effective preventive program funded by the government.
And addiction begins in adolescence.
Science tells us that prevention and treatment work.
It is estimated that the misuse of the substance of our society costs
approximately $ 442 billion a year.
That more people have access to treatment
and that there are better preventive programs,
required, that they are established,
we could take part of our national debt.
We do not have to close people or build a wall;
drugs are already there.
(Laughter)
I found her in a medicine cabinet.
(Laughter)
In November last year, the US Minister of Health
has produced an unprecedented report on drugs, alcohol and health.
He has issued a new appeal for action.
At present, 20 million Americans are fighting addiction,
much more than those with diagnosed cancer
and only 10% of them will have treatment.
We all sensationalized the problem.
And I’m guilty of it, are not you?
But we rarely hear that Miss America has marked a decade of sobriety.
(Applause) (Applause)
Thank you.
Dr. Vivek H. Murthy said that we are responding to the crisis of addiction
is a morale test for America.
Over 20 million people are on a long-term recovery.
That’s a lot.
I will take out my dirty laundry, whoever wants to listen to,
but I challenge those who are on a long-term recovery
and all the families whose lives had been redesigned for recovery,
to join together and get up to gain.
Then maybe we can take away shame from those in the shadows
and encourage them to get out in the light.
I know I will.
Thank you.
(Applause)
”
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