“I really like the Recovery Center. It’s really nice that it’s close to where I live. I just moved over here from the valley, so I’m not from this part of LA. We didn’t have anything like that over where I’m from. There’s no real big center like this. I’m a trans man, and it’s cool to have like gay men meetings that I can go to, just because I don’t really find familiarity with straight men’s meetings or sometimes like queer meetings because of my being a trans man. I feel like there’s not a lot of people like me in recovery, so it’s easy for me to go to those meetings, I think the first time I came to a meeting at the center, it was an AA meeting, and it was really nice. There were a small group of people there, and I knew the speaker because they shared at a meeting that I went to over in the Valley. Everybody was really welcoming to me. I think I went to the newcomers meeting that’s on Tuesdays at like 9 p.m. It was like a young people’s meeting, and it was really cool to meet other people like me that were trying to get sober. Then there’s the trans meeting… I actually just took my one year cake at that meeting. It’s really cool to be around other gay people that want to recover. It’s a blessing. I didn’t know this many gay people when I was out there getting messed up, and now I know so many trans and gay people that are trying to get clean. Honestly–it’s really beautiful.”

— Samuel Del Cid