The Stereotype of the Alcoholic — Ann P.

Hi, my name is Ann and I'm an alcoholic and it's good to be in the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd like to welcome all new people here that are here for their first convention here this weekend. It has been absolutely awesome. It's been the best weekend I've had in a long time. And it's really hard to come and talk with a lot of people that are in here that know me. and know how badly I behave sometimes in meetings. I really would like to thank Barbara, the chairlady, for asking Babs to ask me to come and share with you. I want to thank Babs for calling me. And when she called me, I was in the middle of starting chemo and I wasn't sure whether I'd be here or not. But I'm so grateful to be alive. I've had a lot of years of being above ground and living on a lot of our time a lot of guys gave me a lot of money this weekend in order to mention their names I made a killing but I lost my list i am i'm so grateful that my sponsor's here i looked around for her when they did the names or the countdown and i was stretching my neck to see if she was here she's a very very very important lady in my life and there's a lot of people in this room that are very very important in my life because when I came to you 29 years ago I never dreamed I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be standing before you on a Sunday morning at the closing meeting sharing my experience strength and hope because for a long time nobody wanted what I had even in sobriety those old timers used to get those newcomers and move them away from me they were afraid I was going to contaminate them there's people in this room that have molded me and gave me a foundation and i remember when i met pat i've known pat since i came to we used to go to peaks and she used to say if you get in here you won't get over there that was the funeral home and i remembered she used come up to me and she would i would back away and i'd say please don't touch me don't put your hands on me i couldn't stand anyone put their hands on me when I came through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I've had so much love and so much hugs, and I just love to hug today. God, I love to have fun today. You know, I really do. And, I want to thank my friend Carol who has been so patient with me, who sat with me, listened to me, we laughed and giggled and cried. And this morning when I was getting dressed I had my... what did I have? I had a banana and some yogurt and I put my clothes done, I said, now I'm going to the gas chamber. That's how I felt coming down here to be with you. And of course my friend Laird said, dead woman walking, you know, out loud in front of everybody. And my friend Debbie who I love so dearly who's just got a wonderful spirit and who's such a wonderful lady and there's so many people, my friend Betty and some other women in here to agnes everybody just all means so much to me i don't always tell you that and i don' t always appreciate you but i want to thank you for my life you know i got sober on june 16th 1968 and i tell you how long i'm sober because norm alfie my favorite favorite speaker in alcoholics anonymous he was so fast talking he was the only guy i could keep up with because I was fast in those days. And Norm always told me how long he was sober because he said with all the changes that were happening on Alcoholics Anonymous, that one day you might get a pension plan going here and he wanted to get a full benefit. So I always let you know how long I'm sober because in case you get a pensions plan going here, I definitely want my full benefits. Two years ago, I got to talk at one of the biggest things that i ever dreamed to be asked to talk it was for the i'm shaking so bad you know i hope god didn't go to hawaii this weekend i hope he's here orange county because if he did we're screwed i am for the 50th anniversary of alcoholics anonymous they called me from Akron, Ohio for Founders Day and I got to go back there to talk at their Saturday night meeting. And I'm not bragging about that. It was just an awesome, awesome experience because in Akron Ohio, you know, only the men get to stay sober and they're not too particular about the women. And they also asked me to be their Saturday night seeker I really had felt right come full circles in my life I felt it I'd gone through a divorce that I had tried very hard to work it every way I knew how Lois will tell you she had to listen to it for a lot of the years I tried that chapter three someday somehow I was going to enjoy control him okay It didn't work. I had gone through that, and I felt I had made peace with myself, and I thought that I could go. I could do it. I could get to the other side if it was necessary. And I felt really good. My kids were all doing good. Everything in my life was just really good." That was in June. In October, I was diagnosed with cancer. And I said, gee i was just kidding you didn't have to take me so serious you know i thought boy be careful what you say you know you might just get a little thing here my sister died of breast cancer 13 years ago and it wasn't a very very pleasant thing the only memory i had anybody seen somebody with breast cancer and i know this is not breast cancer group but i got i lived here most of my life and i shared all of my life with you and this is part of my life today and i know there's women out there that are going through a lot of stuff but i want you to know there is hope and i want to know if there is a divine god and he's there for us if you really want it and he will see you through anything you want to get through now if you told me that 29 years ago would have told you you know where to go i went through and i can't tell you Enough for the people, my friends and Alcoholics Anonymous, my family, my three children that have been there for me and that walked me through it. I thought I was all the way through and I was going to go in and get those big tits. My friend Scotty can't wait till I get them. And I kind of thought maybe I would be a dancer and god forgot to take a look at the rest of me i needed to have my butt tucked in my tummy tucked and my face lifted all the way to top of my head and so what happened was i had reoccurrence and i had to go through some more treatments and i went through that treatment it was a little harder treatment because i my body had accumulated some stuff from the first chemotherapy and again I did it and I didn't do it on my own I did it with the power of God and the people in Alcoholics Anonymous again you were there for me and again you carried me when I couldn't carry myself I am ever I was so grateful. And this Tuesday, I get to go get those tits. So next year when I'm here at this convention I want to wear a very low-cut dress. I am going to be very, very slinky. So look out. I am so grateful I stayed here for the miracle to happen for me. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1967. I was 23 years of age when I came to Alcoholic Anonymous. I didn't know I was an alcoholic. I didn' t know what an alcoholic was, but I most certainly wasn' t one of those. My idea of an alcoholic was an old guy down on Anaheim Street his name was Eddie Reinhardt and Eddie used to wear a big long black coat with a rope tied around it and his hair all slicked back with oil and he was panhandling for money to get some wine and I knew Eddie real well because I was down there too for a little while but I wasn't like Eddie. Eddie really had a problem and those people I ran around with down there on Anaheim Street they didn't want anything to do with me because I Was A Trouble Drunk and I was loud and not drunk and I did things and said things to people that I shouldn't have said, but I did. And so I came here to you and I thought, I'm not an alcoholic and God, I don't want to be an alcoholic. And sometimes today, I don' t like being an alcoholic because I think different than most of those people out there. I even think different than most people out here. Most of you in here. And that is really a very scary thing. I looked around at that time And Pat got here young, too. And they were old, weren't they? Really old. I mean old. They were so old. They looked like they were going to die any minute, you know. And I just thought, my God. I don't know why I picked 40, but I picked 48 and I thought, I can't sit here. They didn't have nice soft chairs like these here are this morning. They had those old hard chairs. And I thought I can'T sit in these hard chairs until I'm 40 years of age. gotta be kidding i didn't know that they called that projection and i projected immediately to be 40 years of age and i immediately decided that alcoholic synonymous was not for me they did tell me to do something for somebody else and i did i went home i put my husband in the hospital he had a bad back and i went out and i drank and i met my sponsor at that time that first little introduction and she was so pregnant i did not want what she had definitely you know she'd not wantwhat she had she was oh just as big as a house and i looked at her and i thought poor lady i don't want what you have this kept saying if you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it i looked around around i thought well he's got a nice car you know probably got some money i want what he has and they kept saying That's not what we're saying, Annie. That's nicht was wir sagen. So I left Alcoholics Anonymous and the gals made the 12-step call on me. When I called AlcoholicsAnonymous that time, they sent out an English woman and I was so... I hated being Irish. I hated it. And all of a sudden I thought, how dare they send me somebody from England? Don't they know that I am Irish? You know? And she had a cockney accent like she just got off the bloody boat. Yeah? and she didn't go to night meetings because she had some kind of night blindness and she said i don't know what you're going to do and so then she got a hold of this other girl carolyn c who was sober a whole year and carolyne came and got me and took me to some meetings and then i left but in that eighth month that i chose to go out there and drink i am so grateful to those women that take the time to pick up the phone to check on newcomers. I'd love to stand up here this morning and tell you that I'm one of those, or not. I'm not going to lie to you and tell You I am. Unless I know You a little bit, I will call You and check on You. And she called me in that eight months, and she would call up, and I would say, I just had a cup of drinks. And she'd say things like, I'm no longer interested in You drinking any. I want to be Your friend. And God, I longed for a friend. I needed a friend, but I didn't want to be her friend. Being her friend meant that I would have to come to these lousy AA meetings and I was not an alcoholic. So I got one of those brainstorms that are talked about in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I decided what it was. It was a recruiting thing. I would recruit somebody for you and get you off my case. So I called Eileen up, who is one of my friends down on Anaheim Street. And I said, Eileen, you're an alcoholic. And you ought to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And she said, okay. And I was so happy. And I called Carolyn up and I said I found somebody for you. I was just so excited. I can't tell you how excited I was. I just figured she would take Eileen and leave me alone. and how do you tell somebody with a whole year and a half sobriety that you just want to take your friend and leave you alone? And she said, good, I'll come and get both of you. She came and got both of us and took us out to the old Anaheim Club in Anaheaim and after the meeting there was another gal there and she came up to me after the meet and she said Annie, when are you coming back? And I said, I'm not an alcoholic, she is, look at her. And I walked out of that meeting And every time I picked up a drink from that time on, I'd hear that woman say, when are you coming back? So, you know, Pat and I were talking yesterday at lunch. And you never know, you never knows when you're planting seeds and you never notice when you've given somebody a message in Alcoholics Anonymous, whether it be in these rooms or out there on the sidewalk. I, on June 16th, after drinking for eight months, I was malnutritious, my liver was shot, I weighed 85 pounds. and I sat in my living room with that husband that really never knew what to do with me with his head hanging down and my little girl who's 31 years of age who's given me two of the most beautiful grandchildren you'll ever want to see and who is the finest, finest young lady you'll never want to meet and I'm not just saying that. She's married to a doctor. She graduated from USC and I'd love to take credit for all that but I don't. I give it to you because it was the women in AA that taught me how to be a mother because I was not a real good mother. And that young lady has been very, very good to me. But that morning, she stood by the end of that couch. Her little legs were all black and blue because I abused my children. I didn't mean to. But I did. And her little eyes are kind of sunken in her head. And my husband, his head over there, wringing his hands. And someone had beat the hell out of me the night before. And I said, I'm going to call that girl who wants to be my friend. And he said, you go ahead. You've never completed anything in your life, and you won't stay there either. And I thought, I don't care. I've got to go see. I've Got to Go See What They Have Because I Can't Live Inside of Me Anymore. I don' t know why I'm so emotional. I was so grateful when Marianne called me Friday when I got here. And just right when she called, I was crying because I was so overwhelmed that Orange County would even ask me to be here. I can't tell you what an honor it is. I've got to knock this shit off. And Carolyn came that Sunday morning, and she took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want you to know, newcomer, that I would have sold myself real short. Because on that Sunday evening, I was in the car, and on that Monday morning on June 16th, 1968, I sat by the door, and I sat in my hands, and I shook, and it wanted so bad. All I wanted that morning was stop my head from racing, take this terrible knot out of the tip of my gut, and make these shakes go away. and the man stood up here like I am this morning and I don't know who he was to this day I don' t know who it was and I do not hear anything else but I hear what he said to me if you don't take the first drink you won't get drunk and he told me that I had a three-fold disease it was an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind and he taught me I could get sober and I could stay sober the same way I drank I was a daily drinker and a periodic drunk and I went out of that meeting and I wanted to drink I wanted to drink more than anything in my life I wanted to drink because you hadn't stopped my head from racing and you hadn's taken the nut out of the pit of my gut and you didn't make the shakes go away. But I hear the man say, if you don't take the first drink, you won't get drunk. And I went to another meeting and I went through a lot of meetings and I met Agnes was my first person that I ever met and Agnes gave me her phone number and I looked at her and I said, I'm not calling you, I can't help you. Agnes didn't want me to help her, but I thought she wanted me to help her. And I met Lois. And Lois has become everything in my life. She became my mother. She became our sister. She came everything. And Loise was the very person that I needed because I was very angry, full of hostility and full of rage. And when I got involved with a group on Friday night, the old Lennox group we used to call it Save Your Marriage Group. and I got involved down there with a bunch of us a lot of good sobriety old John Mack Walt Stiles I could give you names of some of the most wonderful people in the world that just made me who I am today I've got a little piece of each and every one of them old Argo from the Garden Grove Club used to say to me Annie, it's not a chip you've got on your shoulder honey it's a log just keep coming back So I got involved with this group down there, and I got very... I used to tell them I walked around my first year of sobriety. I'm sure Frank Albertson never wanted me to talk at Orange County Convention because he figured that I would swear a lot from the podium. I cussed a lot. I couldn't put a sentence together without using four-letter words. I would give them definitions of the words that I said. I walked about my first day of sobrietty. I gave everybody the finger. I cushed you up one side and down the other. I was waiting for you to tell me I could leave and you kept coming up to me and said keep coming back and I was so disappointed when I found out you were telling everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous I used to tell them that God sent me to teach them patience and tolerance and a lot of them believed it but those are the people that talked about the big book of AlcoholicsAnonymous and those are they and those were the people who talked about the 12 traditions of Alcoholic Anonymous and those were the people who talked about our 12 steps of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous and those are the people that said get into service and be active in Alcoholic Anonymous. They talked about cleaning house. I want you to know I had to clean a house in Westminster until they found out what I was doing and they said that was not the kind of house cleaning they had in mind for me. The kind of housekeeping they had In mind for Me was an inside job. lois's husband of many years ago ex-husband john brown came up to me when i was probably 10 months sober first of all i gotta tell you about jerry jerry foley i love jerry jerry very very dear friend i spend a lot of time at jerry's house jerry is home today he's blind he's had several strokes i go to his house i cut his hair we talk we laugh i have so much history with so many people here you know i have a lot of history and i uh ran into meeting jerry used to be afraid of me a lot people are afraid of m e i didn't always have gray hair folks i was supposed to grow back red and it didn't this is how it grew back i just had flaming red hair bright red with a mouth to go with it and jerry kind of never was too i mean he was nice he said jerry was a construction worker but he wouldn't say if he had a mouthful and uh and i said a lot more than that and so i ran into meeting one night i was about four months over i ran up to jerry and i said where are the steps and how often do i have to run up and down them i had visions of 12 stone steps from whether i had to run off and down and jerry looked at me and he said annie did you go to a lot of meetings honey and he says those steps are read at every meetings that you go to in chapter five and the house stands for honesty open-mindedness and willingness and willingness is the key and willingness has always been the key for me and i went home and i tried he told me that night he said i tell you annie he said if you apply these steps to the best of your ability he said I guarantee you your life will change he didn't say it might change maybe it would change he guaranteed me my life would change and if you're new here today If you apply the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in your life, I stand before you this morning and I guarantee you, your life will change. It may not change the way you want it to change, but it will change I am not one of those AA's that believe that you do the steps and that's all, you're done. I used to think that way at one time. I don't believe that anymore. I don' t believe that the last three steps are the maintenance steps. I've had to go back many, many, many times and redo those steps. And every year I have to go back and redo those steps because I am not the same person that last year as I am this year. I've had to do a lot of research within my own soul. When that man told me that I was spiritually sick, I did not know how spiritually sick I was. And I know today that any time I have problems here in Alcoholics Anonymous, there's where it goes to that I am starting to shut off the sunlight of my spirit and if i shut off the sunlight of my spirit i am bound to die and die a horrible death and believe me it was said here very well this weekend that this disease is progressive and it progresses and it progressives even as i stand here before you today it is progressing and i don't know where it is i was one of those who ran around aa and said why me why do i have this why didn't so-and-so have it and those old timers they were mean they looked at me and said Why not, Annie? There's something about your face that pisses God off. So if you're new, don't ask why. Just do it. So I've had... I don't have to ask why today. I just do it." I was probably about 10 months sober and John Brown, who's Lois' ex-husband, came up to me and he said, Hey, kid. He said, Have you done the fourth and fifth steps? and I looked at John very right in the eye and I said no John and I'm not going to that's for those of you who drank for 15 or 20 years I only drank for 11 years of my life and you are much sicker than those of us who only drank for 11 year and he looked at me and he said if you don't do the fourth and fifth step he said I am going to announce it all over Huntington Beach and I didn't have a real good reputation in Huntington beach as it was that you're not working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and not to listen to you and I went home that night and I was terrified and I thought oh my god I can't do this I have to be an exception to the rule because my case is really different and I decided I'm not big on suicide the only time you ever hear me talk about suicide I'm going to jump off the curb I'm nothing to hurt myself I'm more apt to kill you than I am going to kill myself and I went home and I thought how am I going to do this and I got in the bathtub and I said I'll drown myself that is the only answer I mean don't you love the thinking I mean talk about how you think the solution to a problem kill yourself I'll slide down the bathtub and I'll drowned myself and everything will be okay and I won't have to do that fourth and fifth step and I remembered when they read chapter five they say grave emotional and mental disorder and I always knew they were looking right at me and I remembered that came into my mind I said and there are those who have grave emotional and mental disorders and I thought I am not I slid right back up and I said I'm not going to give those assholes a satisfaction they'll be going around AA talking about me saying well you know why Annie committed suicide she had grave and emotional mental disorders So I went out to Thrifty Dragon. I picked up a lot of stuff, a lot different colors of pencils which this sponsor that I had did not appreciate it and I got over to her house and didn't drive for the first four and a half years of my sobriety because I couldn't take that stupid little test and for those of you who don't have a license and can't drive I'm going to tell you how to get to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. You hear a lot people whine about not being able to get to a meetin. I never had a problem getting through a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous I learned very early in my sobriety we come in here and we're loaded with dill loaded with it whether it be real or imaginary we've got it and so they give you a little list of names of who was there you know and they always put a little sobriety behind it who there were 30 days or 20 days and I call those newcomers up and I kind of say if you don't come and pick me up and if I die from this disease that's going to be your fault I got more rides than anybody could tell I had rides and then I would get down to the meeting and i pick out all who was going to take me home and who wasn't going to take me now i want to tell you don't do that with old-timers because somewhere along the line they lose that guilt they'll tell you walk take a bus or ride your bike if you've got one so i go over to losa's house and you got to remember losses we got five children they're all very little and i got their house and i brought all this equipment and my papers and pencils and i sat down on their kitchen table and and she looked at all this stuff and i said we're going to do my inventory and she said we are and i said yes and so i kind of pushed it over towards her you know you beat a lot of narrow-minded people here in alcoholics anonymous and she says what is this for i said well i'm going to tell you all about it you start writing yeah and she kind of looked at me and she said honey i've done my inventory and i say well now you get to do mine you know And the only emotion I knew when I got here was I was enraged. I had a lot of hostility and a lot of anger and a bad attitude. I got home, I left, left there angry, hurt, so misunderstood, you know, just couldn't get her to do it. Got home and for the next month I would call her on the phone and this was way before machines and she'd say, right, right, left, right. And I would hang up the phone and I was a great pacer I loved to pace I used to put the big book under my arm and I'd pace back and forth back and fourth I used think all this knowledge from the big books was going to go through my arm and up into my head and that's how I was going get there I wasn't able to tell Lois that when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous it's got absolutely nothing to do with my disease nothing to do with my disease it's gotta do with the setting I came from where I came from and there wasn't much value put on a lot of things. And I did not know how to read, and I didn't know howto write when it came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's because I came from Ireland. And that' s because people in Ireland don't knowhow to do it. My parents were not educated, and I had not got to learn it. I didn' t go to school till I was 7, and I left school when I was 13 years of age. But I am so grateful. I am truly, truly grateful. I always said to me, Honey, you do whatever you have to do, but you do that inventory because it was the first time that i was going to be disciplined and may do something for myself and i did that inventory and i went to her and i gave her my fifth step and i want you to know i know how to read i know what to write and i wish and it says in step six in the in the 12 and 12 that wishful thinking is a character defect and i wished to this day that I've kept that inventory because there's no comparison to the woman that stands before you tonight, to that girl that did that inventory many years ago. I found out a lot of things about me and that inventory. And as anyone here today, I was a great blamer. I blamed everybody. I couldn't take responsibility for any action for a lot, a lot years until I came Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went back into, I was born with tremendous, tremendous fear. Tremendous fear. I just was so full of fear. I was brought into this family and I blame the family. And I want you to know both my parents are gone. My mom died two years ago right before I was diagnosed. My dad died in 81. I love these people. It took me a long time to love them. And they gave me as much as they were given, which was very, very little. And I hope that through you and through my program that I get to break that chain and that my children got more than I got because of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was raised, born into the family of 10. I was the 8th child out of 10, and we were not very wealthy. who were very poor and my dad had a problem with alcohol i didn't know that and i was also brought up in the school of alcoholic synonymous but you do not label somebody else an alcoholic but i've listened to enough men here in alcoholics anonymous to know that my dad definitely had a problems with alcohol he not just had a problem with alcoholic he had a probelm with gambling and he had problems with women and And my dad would go out and get drunk. And my mother, who never did anything, never grew up emotionally, just had one kid right after the other who was kind of a little neurotic. Not quite as neurotic as our Al-Anon speakers yesterday. So, neurotic, he'd go out on Saturday night and come home and he'd pour out of that bed, and the fight would start. And as a young child, if I go back when I was about six, and I tell you this part of my life because it's real important for me to tell you This Part of My Life, and I put the pillow over my head and I really prayed to that God that I was terrified of him, and I'd ask him to please let him kill her or maybe she'd kill him or maybe I would die. And I got up the next morning and until I came to you, I didn't know what I felt except I felt really bad And what I felt as a young child was I had guilt, remorse, and I was a very, very bad person for thinking these bad thoughts of my parents. I went to Catholic school not because we're rich, simply because that's all there is in the part of Ireland I come from. People used to say to me, how come you didn't get an education? My pet answer was I frustrated Irish nuns. I used to have psychiatrists cry about my not having an education and what those walking nuns did to me. And Mary Reagan, who most of you know here, Mary is not doing well. And today in the closing prayer, please hold her up. Mary did play a part in my sobriety at one time. And Mary, I was talking to Mary one day and I was crying about what happened to me as a child and what these walking nun's did to mean. And Mary looked at me and she said, Honey, you really had it bad. She said, You know, I had German nuns, and they were trained by Hitler. So the moral of that story is there's always somebody in Alcoholics in Ireland who's going to have a taste a little worse than you. I got my first brainstorm in second grade. I decided I was so tired. I was not getting just abused at home. I was also getting abused in school. And I was tired of this nun always asking me for that catechism, and I couldn't memorize it. I could not memorize it because there was so much stuff going on in that house. There was always a lot of negative energy, a lot hostility, a lot anger. There wasn't enough food. There wasn' t enough money. There wasn''t enough of anything. And I could n' t... I didn' t know that I couldn' t hold the thought. And I tried to memorize it and for this one morning I decided I was going to get her before she got me. And she asked me the question and I could' n't tell her and she grabbed ahold of me and she pulled me out of the seat And I often slap her as hard as any little second grader can hit somebody across the face. And Mother Superior just happened to be teaching in the other room, and she just happened turn her head, and she happened to see me do it. And she came running into that classroom, and she grabbed me by the back of the neck, and you know she had all those big long black gown on, you know, the rosary beads are just flying all over the place. And shakes me like a puppy dog. And I stood there just as defiant as anything and said, I didn't do it! dirty kids mother superior and this nun felt that slap in my face and i stood there and told him i didn't do it they took me out of there and they moved me to another grade and i said i'm supposed to pray and i uh got tired of being on those hardwood floors because they wanted me tell them i was sorry and i went back up to that classroom three weeks later i would say three weeks about like three weeks and stood in front of all those kids with my head lowered my eyes lower down with that sister with that round pointer sticking on my back and wanted me to say I'm sorry and I said I'm fine and something else happened inside of me and what happened inside with me was you against me and it was always you against me from that time on I even when I was out there drinking until I came to Alcoholics in Ireland is no matter what I got caught doing I would stand and look at you and say it wasn't me because I couldn't take responsibility for my behavior I left school when I 13 years of age I went to work in a factory. I worked there until I came to this country. And I had all those hopes and dreams that every other girl had. I still have them. Right, Carol? I was going to find me a nice Irish fella and get married and have children. And, I am truly, truly grateful that God does not answer stupid prayers. But, I found boys and I found alcohol all in the same week. and my first drink was a half-ball of cognac. It was at the Abby Baldwin Dance in Drodda in the hometown I came from and this guy told me that if I drank this half-boll of cognack he would give me a pound note which was equivalent to three dollars in your money at that time. That's a lot of money. And I drank that half-voll of cognak down and I didn't stop and I went into the bathroom and I got very, very, sehr sick and I came back out and I said, Give me my money. I didn' t know until I came to you that I sold my soul for a lousy drink that night at the Abbey Baldwin and I went up to the bar and I ordered me another drink because if you're Irish and you know how to order it they will serve it to you there's no questions about IDs or how old you are there was nothing none of that goes on over there if you know what to order they will service and I order a drink and I continue to drink that evening and something magic happened for me and you heard it all through this weekend the magic the thing that hits into the pit of your gut and the cake that's not out of the pit of the gut. And it doesn't matter whether your father is a drunk. It doesn't mater whether your mother's getting beat up. It doesn' t matter whether there's no food in that house. It doesn''t matter whether you have no education. It doesn ''t matter wheter you can''t read or write. You found the secret to living, and I found the secret to livin. I didn''t drink every day from that time on, but I drank at every opportunity from that tim e on. I got to mention Mary Jane. I've got to tell you the miracles that's happened for me. And Betty knows Mary Jane or knew Mary Jane. Mary Jane was a schoolteacher from Costa Mesa. There's people in here that knew her. And Mary Jane and Carolyn C. were both teachers. I came into a very high class group when I came in to Alcoholics Anonymous. We had lawyers and judges and bank presidents who robbed the bank later. We had all kinds, and they had me. And Mary Greene took the time with me and found out what was wrong. She was a special education teacher, and she took me out to Orange County, her and Carolyn, and they took me to some psychiatrist out there who dealt with people like me that were in the educational field, and they tested me. And what they came up with, they said that I wasn't wired right. I have known all my life that I was not wired right I didn't need a doctor to tell me I wasn't wired right and they said I had a thing called dyslexia and I went to school with Helen Helen I went to school we cheated a lot but we went to schools we both graduated together and that was a miracle I sponsored her Helen for a short time and that's the only reason she came into my life was to give me that gift of going to school I thought she was crazy enough to do it I could do too. I am, I'm truly grateful that alcoholism does not choose its victims. It doesn't care whether you have an education or you don't have an eduction or you're overeducated or you're undereducated. If you have the disease of alcoholism, you have a disease of alcoholism. It's just that simple. On that time when I was that age, by the time I was 17 years of age my father made the decision for me. I had nothing to do with this decision. He decided I should come to California. I'll be here 35 years and still looking for those streets paved with gold. I also didn't know that the way my head was running at that time was that it was going to be different, and you hear that a lot in alcoholics now, and if I didn't know that that's alcoholic thinking, it was going to be different. I was gonna get away from this family and I was never gonna tell a soul I was Irish ever. I couldn't understand why any one of you would ever want to be Irish. I couldn't understand. I thought, you ought to go to Ireland and live there for a little while and find out what it's all about. I like being Irish today. I have dealt with all of those things, and I really believe that if it wasn't for Irish, you could hold your AA meetings in a phone booth. I also know that some of you don't like to hear that. You don't have to be Irish in order to become a member, but it helps. It just helps. My sponsor told me years ago the reason why God created whiskey He was afraid the Irish were going to take over the world, so he thought he'd slow them down just a little bit. I had an aunt, several aunts, but this particular aunt took me up to Dublin and filled out all these papers. I had never been anywhere in Ireland, ever. The only place I ever got in Ireland was Dublin to the zoo, and that was as far as I ever went up to Ireland, all the 70 centimeters to the other end of the earth. And I was not very well emotionally or education-wise equipped to come to this country. And it was very easy to get into the country at that time. It was 1961. and I ended up, my aunt still had all these papers and got me ready and I remember getting on that plane I remember drinking champagne and I remembered the feeling and the feeling was freedom I wanted to be free I wanted it to be more than anything in my life I wanted a false feeling of freedom behind alcohol and I was never to feel that feeling again until I came to you and my freedom has come real slow today I can tell you from the bottom of my heart where I truly am a free spirit in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous I got here and I lived in Palisades for the next couple of years. It was a very, very nice family. And these were people I did go and I made amends to. And these weren't people who were very, very grateful to write down the fellowship called Alcoholics in Oklahoma. She had four sons and I would take care of those boys. And she had a beautiful liquor bar in her house is what she had. And she used to drink that 108 proof vodka and I used to drank that 108proof vodka. and I'd fill it up with water and then when she drank and she couldn't understand how come she couldn' t get a bug she was drinking all that good water when I drank I was really highly allergic to alcohol when I got drunk I used to break out all over my body in great big wells and I shook a lot and I shucked a lot from what I drank and I shrugged a lot because I had a lot of secrets and they tell me here in Alcoholics Anonymous we are as thick as our secrets and I couldn't tell that woman she would take me down every time she wanted me to go to school and I couldn't tell either. I couldn' t go in there and I could' n't write my name and I cou' n' t definitely I could not go in there and I co' nn't go in and be with my peers. I coud' nt stand to be around my peers I always ran around a lot of people a lot older than me and most of those people that I ran around had all died and they all died horrible deaths of alcoholism and as I'm standing outside that door I can tell you today was like I was experiencing I'd gone into a catatonic state of mind with absolute sheer fear that somebody was going to find out something about me That's one of the greatest gifts I've got here in Alcoholics Anonymous, my life's an open book. I don't have to run down alleys. I don't need to keep secrets. I can tell you and I can tell you who I am when I need to tell you. And if you ask me, I will tell you and that's a freedom for me. I slid down that door and she looked at me and she said, you don't know how to do it because I was going into a catatonic state of mind with absolute sheer fear. And she said, You don't have to do this, Annie. And I didn't have to do it. I started running around down the beach pier and a lot of people used a lot of hard drugs, and this was in the 60s, and I never got involved in drugs, and the only reason I didn't get involved in drug was because I was absolutely totally terrified that if I was caught, I would be deported back to Ireland, and my father would meet me at Dublin Airport and he would kill me first and ask questions later. My father caught me smoking when I was 10 years of age. That was my first drug of choice. I still have a hell of a time with it. I, um, my grandmother turned me on. My poor grandmother, I loved her very, very much. She was an invalid. She had a stroke and she was all paralyzed down on one side and she lay in bed for seven years. And I used to stop by there after school this year and she'd ask me for the bedpan and I wouldn't give it to her unless she gave me a cigarette. When I tell you I have nowhere to go back to, I don't have anywhere to go to. This is it. This is as good as it gets for me. and so my dad caught me smoking and as I tell him I'm not smoking I ate the cigarette he literally shoved it down my throat and he took a dog's leash to me and he whipped me and he kicked me on my mother I can still see her coming in and she said oh my god Jack you're going to kill us and he said yes I'm going to tell her she's no good I never will be any good I remember they couldn't let me out of that house for a couple weeks because I was so badly beaten and that memory stayed with me and I knew if I was deported out of this country because of drugs that he would kill me first and ask questions later my dad had tremendous tremendous power over me for a long time into and even into my sobriety i couldn't i i had a lot of problems in that area i listened to women talk about their mother i didn't have a problem with my mother i felt sorry for my mother and i never wanted to be like her you know because she just lived in a lot self-pity and i never wanted to be like her. And my dad was the power in that house. And I ended up, I left those people, she went down and told all these places to have them close up to do some stock serving me, and I moved on uptown. The other thing that I am so grateful for is I got up this morning and I had a shower. My eyebrows are in the right place. This is not black and blue marks from somebody hitting me. This is eye shadow, folks. My clothes are clean. This is not always the way it was. I don't ever want to forget where I came from. I don't never want to get so big in Alcoholics Anonymous that I will be so small. You've got to stay small here. You got to say small because the highest you can get here is silver. That's it. You don't get any higher than that. And that's how my life, I drank everything and anything anybody ever gave me. But when I bought, I bought Ripple. God, I loved Ripple, you know. I never felt cheated when I drank Ripple ever. You know, I would throw that stuff up and I would hold my nose to get it down. And you'd get two drunks for the price of one when you drank Ripples because you drink water the next day and you get drunk all over again. I used to carry that ripple in a paper sack. And I don't consider myself a wino. I guess I would be a winex. And I used walk along Kathleen Avenue and give all the cars a finger, cussing at everybody. I hated everybody. I hated the Americans. I thought, you know, all you guys ever did was talk about education, not whether you did or you didn't. This is what my head was telling me. And I didn't want anything to do with those bloody Irish because all they did was change addresses and they behaved the same way here as they did over there. And who the hell wants to be Irish? and so I didn't want didn't know who I was or what I was or where I was going so I took the left of two evils someone told me not to call you Mexicans Spaniards he said tonight don't be calling them Mexicans I got involved with a group of Mexicans over in Torres Bonita my friend Angie who is a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous who is Mexican and many, many, many years ago we sat down and we dissected the two nationalities and what we came up with the only difference between the Irish and the Mexicans is that we ate potatoes and they ate beans that drink hard, love hard to beat the hell out of you and Saturday night whether you need it or not. And this was a very, very, very exciting time in my life. I was jumping out of cars. Anytime you ever see a Mexican going fast is when the cops are following them. Jumping out of cars and chasing and running and this guy was real strange. He drank in the morning. I was just drinking in the afternoon and he introduced me to the morning drink and I didn't have a big resume for a job. It didn't work for some reason. I just didn't seem to be able to show up. My grandmother have died so many times at this particular job. I was always taking trips to Ireland. I didn't have two nickels to rub together. This guy said to me one time, he said, how many grandmothers do you have? I mean, I was just a bot. You know, I had so many. And I couldn't go to Ireland, I couldn't even get out of Gardena. Never mind, go to Ireland. So I got to thinking one day that this guy ought to marry me and it wasn't even leap year. And it took a half a gallon Red Mountain wine and Norm Alfie always said, when you drink, don't think. Don't think it's even dangerous to think today. My sponsor, when I was new, got a big sign and I said, but it says on the wall, think, think. And she said, that's for other people, not for you. You do not think. Oh, okay. Don't thank. Because I get the thinking and I was all along kind of thinking. So I got the thinking that this guy ought to marry me. I got out on the highway. I did a lot of hitchhiking in those days and hitchhiked a ride over Torrentonita and I found him now you could smell me long before you could see me and I proposed to him and him looked at me and he said I wouldn't marry you if you handed me on a silver platter I don't know how you handle rejection I don'T handle it real well my next thought was I want to kill you son of a bitch because one less Mexican in this world we'll all be better off now I told you I didn't know him to have a driver's license so I was four and a half years sober but I used to do a little driving in California and so I got him on the freeway the harbor freeway probably the only freeway there then and I had the blind between my legs and I got them in the car and I turned the wheel of that car on the harbor freer and I took 25 feet of guardrail went down 30 feet in the bankman's and I thought I killed me a Mexican and what I learned out of that folks is if you're going to kill one Mexican you got to kill the whole family for some strange reason they don't take you kindly to you messing with their people even if they do call you annie the irish mexican i also learned that when you're one of the mexican people you don't ever yell cop and i'll cop one day downtown long beach used a telephone booth in california at one time and i went out to the telephone booth to call the cops and on him and he came out after me and kicked the door and he kicked me and i yelled uncle now i have no illusions There's not something wrong with me, and I don't know what normal is. I don' t run around with normal people. If there's anybody in this room that claims they're normal, I don''t even want to talk to you. Most of my friends in Alcoholics Anonymous are fourth-low, and I love them very, very much. And I don ''t know what normally is. I think my oldest daughter probably comes the closest normal person I've ever met, and I keep telling her husband that he better save his money because she's my daughter, and she probably needs a good psychiatrist by the time she's 40. and the only place I ever get I get out of that phone booth I go back into the bar and I guess normal people don't do that kind of stuff but where I get to see normal is on my washer and dryer it says normal cycle and that's the only place I ever get to see normal because I don't get to see normal in these rooms I like to think I'm delicate as John B. used to say I'm sensitive and I don't suffer well he always said that he was quite a man, John B I've had the pleasure of knowing some great, great people here in Alcoholics Anonymous that guy went back into that bar and I said let's have a drink and we were disgusted, and we disgusted and got drunk. I had some real, real, really damaging things going on inside of me, and what they were was that if you didn't hit me, you didn' t love me. You know, in the 29 1⁄2 years that I've been sober, nobody has found it necessary to hit me. But if you'd like to get together with my sponsor after this convention, she'll tell you about some of the phone calls she got to get me thrown out of Alcoholics Anonymous. She used to get a lot of calls about my behavior. i um i also had a thing that went on in there was that i wanted somebody it talks about me in step 8 and the 12 and 12 it says that we antagonize and bring out the final character defects in other people and i would antagonize you and i Would antagonize you till you had no other way to go but to hit me and i wanted you to hit me hard to kill that part of me that kept screwing up. That 5% of me. And if you had killed that part in me, you would have killed all of me because that's the part of me you love here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I ended up in Arizona and I almost got that wish. I was in Prescott, Arizona. It took me years to remember where I was. And this guy, I said something to his wife. His wife, I couldn't tell you to this day what I said but I went out to the back seat of the car to pass out we've been on a three or four day run and I went off the back to the car pass out and four Mexican guys came out after me and they pulled me out of the backseat and they talked in Spanish and this one guy said I'll go get the truck we'll run over her and I ran got the truck and there's three guys that got me down in the dirt road and as the headlights come I don't know where to this day except I had to be a God in my life even then where I got the presence of mind to roll off that dirt road. And as those guys jumped off of me and that truck came towards me I rolled off the dirt road I grew up off of that dirt roads and I need a drink. I need to drink more than anything in my life, I need drink. And I'm the type of drunk I live by four mailboxes at Rocks Market or some sign on how I'm never going to get back to Los Angeles. And the guy comes along and he picks me up and we go to a dirty motel and we got his liquor store and he took out the bottle and that's how I learned to solve my problems. I had no idea how to solve my problems until I came to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. When I came through the Fellowshiip of Alcoholic Anonymous you talked a great deal about dying. I know what it's like to die. I know what it is like to die when you're new in AlcoholicsAnonymous and for me they would get to that part in the Big Book of Alcoholism and they'd say, you have to let go of all your old ideas and I would get this thing inside of me and it would come up to my throat and I'd kind of choke and I, I'd swallow hard and I think I can't. There's absolutely no way I can let go of all my old ideas. I knew what my old idea did for me. I knew what would happen to me. I didn't know what was going to happen to me with your new ideas here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I am so grateful that the people in Alcoholic Anonymous knew how far down that scale I'd gone and knew that they would have to spoon feed me the Alcoholics Anonymous, a little at a time. Because I would have missed a whole lot. I lived in this little room and I died a thousand times in this real room. And I had a hot plate and I had to sink and I got cockroaches and I was a gal named Annie. And you had to go down the hall to take a shower and I didn't take too many showers in those days. Because the only time I was ever free of what was going on inside of me was when I was under the influence of alcohol. I'd start drinking to get past this fear, to get down the halls to take the shower and I always overshot the mark and I never got down the hall to take the shower. I remember in this little room, I remember lying on this bed, curled up, sucking off a vodka bottle, screaming like a banshee, I want somebody to understand me. There's got to be somebody in this world that understands me and I knew there was nobody that could ever understand me because I was different. I was told all my life I was difference. I got out of that bed and I put on those old rubber guy hats and that old t-shirt and that little jeans and I headed out in Western Avenue and I always found somebody. And it all was laughter for a very brief time and it always ended up the same way. I got beat up and thrown and left to my own self. If you're new here today, I want you to know that I have been understood beyond understanding in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have being loved beyond anything that I ever imagined in the fellowship of Alcoholic Anonymous And that did not happen for me in my first 90 days. It has happened very slow through the process of me letting go and me allowing you to love me in order so I could learn to love myself. I have so much love in my heart today that it overwhelms me. I ended up on Anaheim Street while I was down on Anoham Street. I know they're probably getting nervous and you're all probably tired of sitting, but they paid a lot of money for me to be here this weekend. I know. I, um, ended up in Anaheim Street. While I was on Anaheaim Street, I met my husband. And while I was down there in Anahaim Street he didn't have a job and I said, he asked me to date him, he said no. He asked me if I had a job, and he said, no. And I said well, I said you get a job or I'll date you. And, I ended up, he got a job. And he worked. And I had three children to this man, and all my children are doing very, very well. And they're doing well because of Alcoholics Anonymous. And when I got here, I couldn't put two and two together because of the sponsor who would come and get my children and take them out of my house. And many times there's people in this room that would take my children, I would take them to the meetings, and they'd take them from me because I did not get well. I did now stop doing some of the things that I did before I got to AlcoholicsAnonymous. I really, for me, I had to. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says we cannot transmit something we do not have. And I could not transmit to those children something I didn't have. When I was two and a half years old, they were sending me to Schizophrenics Anonymous. I ended up at Orange County Psycho. I didnít stay at Orange Country Psycho, but I want you to know that I found something, something very, they didnít believe in going to psychiatrists at that time and AlcoholicsAnonymous because so many of them had paid so much money to psychiatrics They were not willing to listen. They wouldn't even talk about it. But I found a doctor, and they were glad that I was gone, and they encouraged me to go. And that man told me that I wanted somebody to love me, and I knew there was nobody in this world that could possibly love me. And he said, There's got to be somebody that loves you. And I said, No, there isn't. And he says, There've got to somebody. And he goes, What about those people in Alcoholics Anonymous? And I told him the only requirement for any membership is a desire to stop drinking, and God only knows. They know I have a desire of stopping drinking. I went home that day, and I called that woman that was my sponsor, and I call her up, and said, Lois, do you love me? and she said i love you very very much lois had told me for three years on a daily basis that i was a child of god and god loved me and that she loved me and i couldn't hear it i really believe we're here when we're ready to hear and we see when we are ready to see i found something within myself through this doctor i got in touch with that power that you talk about here in alcoholics anonymous and my life has never been the same i'd like to tell you that i've walked hand in hand with him for the last 29 and a half years it's been a struggle but i've walked hand-in-hand with him very, very close in the last two years. I'd like to close because I know they're running out of time and I ran out of times and my time is over. And I want to thank you one more time for my life and for my sobriety. I always like to pause with Gabon. Gabon always says, and it helped me so much, that those of you who are raising your children, you will raise your children and your children will be fine when you grow and you stay in Alcoholics Anonymous and you try to do the best of your ability and walk this walk here in this fellowship. And the bond says that our children come through us. And my children came through me. They're not of me. They're unknown to me. And I'm so glad they're unknown to me, but very, very precious and I love them very, Very much. And I came through the people I came through, but I'm not of those people that I came through. I'm of the people of Alcoholics Anonymous because you are the people. You're the ones who walked the extra mile with me when nobody else could walk with me. You're sat and held my hand when nobody would sit and hold my hand. You're seen in that nobody else could possibly see. And she walked tall today with dignity because I am a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you one more time for my life. God bless each and every one of you.