Roy Lopez and Dr. Roger Martinez
Senior academic advisor and recruiter, Roy Edward Lopez talks with Texas A&M colleague Dr. Roger Martinez about how he fought his way out of alcoholism and continues to work on improving himself. The 1982 A&M graduate also discusses his family’s longtime friendship with music star Selena Quintanilla-Perez.
- [Roy] When I met my wife, I met her at a night club when she was 21, she was turning 21. And I saw her and she was on a date with someone and a friend of hers. And I asked if I could dance with her. And I owned the night club at that time. And it was called La Emiliano's Night Club. And I got to dance with her and then we exchanged numbers and then later on I started calling her and we started going out. And then I introduced her to a good friend of mine that I knew personally and got to know personally. And got to know the whole family and everything. And her name was Selena Quintanilla los Dios. And they used to play at my night club all the time. And they would always come to my night club and pray, I mean play. And so I got to meet Selena and so I asked my wife, hey, I'm going to introduce you to somebody. And that time, Selena wasn't very famous. She was coming in. But later on in life she became, just recently, they did a star on Hollywood. The Hollywood stars. Didn't recognize and everything. But there's so much stories that I could tell you about Selena and myself and everything. But I won't go into that. But I got to knew Selena very well. And Abraham, and Suzette, and Senor Quintanilla. And Chris, and Rick, and Pete, and Art. The whole group. We were always friends. To this day we still communicate with each other that comes in. But that's how I met my wife. But, you know, the thing about it is she had a life of her own because she had a challenge with me. And as you know, Dr. Martinez, and my kids know, Chris, Alex, and Nadia and myself, that was a challenge in my life where when I got married I still played and I still did the stupid things in life. It was a tragedy in my life that I can't forget. And while I'm on there, I'd like to say I'm sorry to, and apologize to my kids. Especially Chris and Alex. Nadia, you never did see it, but a big apology to my wife Myela. She saw the part what alcohol could do to you. I was an alcoholic. And being an alcoholic and I was being an alcoholic. I gave my wife hell at that time. Being where I was at. And my parents, my mom and my dad. Because they experienced a part of me that was a monster inside of me and the alcohol was something that took over in my life. And so my kids grew up to see that. And I remember Chris coming up to me and telling me that, dad, you always got to have alcohol in your hands and things. And so that part I would like to forget about. But it's still a part of my history that my family went through. And I'm so grateful to the man upstairs, my heavenly father that I call God and Jesus Christ. That he took me in his wings and I went into a rehab center and went to an outpatient treatment center. And I did what I needed to do to get where I'm at today. And I am so grateful to my higher power that he listened to my story, he listened to me, and to this day I've been drug free and alcohol free and that's the best thing that I could ever imagine in my life. But they went through a period and my wife went through a period where I was about to lose everything in my life.