Amends Is a Change in Conduct, Not an Apology for Hurt Feelings – Frannie S.

Hi everybody, my name is Frannie and I am an alcoholic. And you give me anything more than three times and I can get addicted to it. I'm CIA, Catholic Irish alcoholic. You don't need to know anything else. Yeah, born in New York. Let me see. Get some statistics out of the way here. My home group is the South Bay survivors. My sobriety date is February 7th, 1970, which means I'm 40 years old this week. So I just want to thank you all for coming to my party. You've been most kind. I really appreciate it. I want to thank Jan for being my friend when I was living in Hawaii and coming here from Virginia today to keep me honest. And I want to thank Clarice for coming from Washington to keep me honest. And I want to thank Annie for coming from Grass Valley, California to keep me honest. I need... Somebody in the crowd. And of course, Rosemary, thank you so much. It's been so much fun. You made it that way. And the committee, God bless you gals. I know you must work like dogs through the year because this is just great. Okay. Let me see. Oh God, shut up, Frannie. Get on with the story. Okay. My father and mother are alcoholic. My grandparents are alcoholics. I've been married four times. First one was sober. God, he was such a nice guy. He bored the hell out of me. The next three were alcoholics. The first one was a wet alcoholic. I found out something. I just love alcoholic men. And he was a wet alcoholic. And I found out you didn't have to have a wet one. So the next two times I married sober alcoholics. So I have a couple of friends who are alcoholics. And I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to tell you a story. So I have been married four times. I got four kids. Three of them by the first husband, one by the second. And all four of those kids are sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got to tell you something. The world is a better place because those little bastards are sober. I mean, I loved it. I loved it that you told me, you know, that you said that it was a wonderful relationship between me and my daughter. And today it is. But she was my oldest child. And then I had the three boys. And she was another queen bee, you know. And she used to say to me, Mom, you tell those boys when you're not here, I'm in charge. I didn't have to say a thing. She wrangled them into line and kept them going, you know. And she was a great woman. We fought. Oh, my God. I was so afraid of when she got to be as tall as I was because I didn't know how I was going to handle her, you know. And she solved it. She said, fuck you and left, you know. So it worked out real well. Listen, this is a women's meeting, you know. And I know you're taping it, but so what? You know, how often? You know, my sponsor said to me, Frannie, don't change your story. Because one time we were at a meeting and we started talking about it. After the meeting, we used to go out for coffee an awful lot. And she said to me, don't you dare change your story. I said, why? She says, do you realize, she said, when a man gets more sober, the more interesting his story gets. And when women get sober, the more boring their story gets. Because they stop talking about what caused them to die. They stop talking about what caused them to drag their sick, sorry butts in the air in the first place. They stop talking about it. You know, so I want to tell you something. You are going to hear, not necessarily unvarnished, I've had some practice, but you are going to hear the truth. You know, I'm not going to talk about being struck with intense rage. I'm going to tell you about the time I threw my brother-in-law through the window. You know, I don't know what these euphemisms mean. I've never been too impressed by them. So, if you're delicate, leave now. It's the best thing you can do. Just, anyway. First time, I drank four times before I was 21. That's all. Four times. First time I drank, I was a little kid and my father was having one of his parties. And he used to put the drinks on the trays. And my sister Ann and I used to drink. And my sister Ann and I used to drink. And my sister Ann and I used to serve the trays because we were cute. I was six years old. She was five. And coming back, going into the living room, I tasted one of the drinks. And I liked it. So, I said to Annie, taste that. She tasted it. She said, it's good. So, we served the drinks and we went back to my father. I said, we can carry more. And we took those drinks. And instead of making a right turn into the living room, we walked straight into the closet. And she and I sat on the floor of the closet and drank everything on entrees. They found us the next morning. Now, what are you going to do? You've got this little six-year-old who just got drunk and is not feeling too hot. You're going to pick her up. You're going to put a little bony butt on the thing here. You're going to look her right in her beady brown eyes, and you're going to say, Franny, you've got to cut it out. You drink too much. So what my family did was they simply turned it into a funny story. And in my family, being the I part of the CIA, we bust each other all the time with these stories about each other. And if one of us doesn't remember it, the other one does. And, you know, strangers that come to our house sit there and shake their head. But we're all on, and we're all just, you know, cutting each other to pieces, and everybody's laughing. And it really is pretty funny. I do have a basically funny, horrible story. You know, it's like that. Anyway, family. Okay. I don't know why I'm going to tell this, but I am. I'm going to tell you a Christmas story. You know that intelligence test they give men around Christmastime with a Christmas tree and a tree stand? You know? And it's an intelligence. It's a dexterity test at the same time. You know, you've got to go like that, and then you've got to go like that, you know. And the whole idea is to stand the tree straight up and have it look straight from any angle. Well, my father was, of course, drunk. He was always drunk. My mother was drunk. She was always drunk. And so my mother had one wall, and my sister Ann had one wall, and my sister Pat had the other wall, and I had this wall. And we're standing around the living room watching my father putting the... doing the... thing. And my mother's saying, no, no, no, Frank, a little more this way. And I'm saying, that looks pretty good, Mom, but it really needs to go a little more that way. So he's trying to adjust, and we're snickering because he's not making it. And he looks up, and he catches us laughing. And he got so mad, he pulled the tree out of the stand, took it over to this big corner that we had like an alcove, and nailed the damn tree to the floor. So there. It's not over. So then my mother's mother comes over, and like I said, the grandparents are all drunks too, you know. And so my grandmother sees, we got the tree maybe about half decorated, and Nana is drunk. And she looks at the tree, and she says, oh, isn't this a gorgeous tree? Look at that tree. And she's laughing, and she's jumping around, and in mid-flight, she passes out. And I don't know how she did it. I swear to this day, I don't know how she managed it, but she rolled behind the tree. Okay. Okay. Now, this woman was about five foot, and she was five foot in either direction. You know, she was like a little ball, big blue eyes, white curly hair, just as cute as she could be. And we're trying to figure out how to get her out from behind. And she's like, oh, she's behind the tree. And so Annie grabs her legs, and my mother grabs her head, and, you know, and we can't, we just can't. We pull it this way, and she's dragging everything. We pull it. So finally, my mother said, well, she says, let's see if we can roll her over the tree. So we sort of like got her up, the four of us, and my father's passed out in the back room by now. And we got her. She smashed all the ornaments that were on the tree coming out, right? And then when she reached a certain point, the tree snapped back against the wall and smashed the rest of the ornaments. This is Al-Anon. My mother's standing there looking at this, and she says, well, she says, I guess this is the year we get to decorate the tree twice. Now, that is so Al-Anon, you know? If it's alcoholically, the only thing I could think of doing was taking a gun and shooting her, you know? But my mother only focuses on decorating the tree twice. So, okay, now you know what kind of a family. I have. The second time I drank, I got drunk, and that's the first time I saw the Al-Anon face. You know, where they look at you. And, you know, inside, the squirrel wheel is going like crazy, right? What do they want? What do they want? God, what does she want me to do now? Oh, God. I can't say anything because I don't even know what she's mad at me for. Was it this? Was it that? Was it? You know, it could have been any one of five things. So I'm not going to cop. I may be talking about the wrong thing, and I'm not giving out any extra information. And, you know, it was always, it was a strange thing. I'd gotten drunk the night before, and I was sitting on my bed the next morning, and I had a headache, and I'd thrown up all over the floor. And my mother came into my bedroom to, Saturday morning, I had a little job at the library in New York. Public Library. And she stood there in the doorway looking at me with that look, and she just went like that, turned around, and walked away. Not a word. And, you know, I don't know. I never did figure that out. So when it came time for me to do my fourth step, there was stuff that came up, and I didn't know whether it actually belonged in there or not. And I asked my sponsor. She said, listen, if there's anything that you have a question about, she said that seems to have something to do with this pattern of yours, put it down. Better to put it in than leave it out. I said, okay. So I wrote that incident down as part of my fourth step. And then when I took my fifth step with my sponsor, she said to me, Frannie, do you understand what happened there? And I said, no, I still don't. She says, Frannie, look, because she knew me. She knew me. She knew my family. She wound up sponsoring my mother. She said, you know, Frannie, she says, here's the thing. She said, your mother's watching your father die of the disease of alcoholism. He's on the slippery slope, man. He is on his way down. And she comes into your bedroom one Saturday morning, opens the door, and sees you sitting there with all the evidence and the symptoms of the same disease. That's killing her husband and the man she loves. And you're her oldest child. I said, yeah. And she said, the agony of that kind of information is inexpressible. There are no words for it. And, you know, when she said that, I suddenly realized that making amends was a lot more than, hey, gee, you know, if I ever hurt your feelings, gee, I'm really sorry. That amends, I looked up amend, it doesn't mean apology. It means making a change. And I thought, okay, I owe her. And I told her I owed her. And I made a true and sincere amends with my mother. But she and I had always been rivals. Rivals for my father, rivals for space, rivals. I mean, you know, again, two queen bees. And she much preferred my two sisters to me. She got along with them. She didn't get along with me. We were always at it. So anyway, that's the second time. The third time I drank, I got drunk, and I got pregnant. You don't need any details. And the fourth time I drank, I got drunk, and I got married. So if somebody said to me, Franny, you know, you drink too much, I would have said, wait a minute. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly in the beginning. I'm just learning how, so leave me alone. Get out of my way. Because what I found out when I drank was that I would drink the booze, and you would get better. When I drank, I drank, and I drank. I drank. I could tolerate you. When I didn't have anything in my system, I hated everybody and everything, and I just knew solidly that I did not belong here. I was some kind of alien that had gotten here by mistake. This wasn't even the right planet. And, you know, I had a death wish my entire life. I didn't hang. I used to take chances, and they were the kind of, you know, chances that people who care for life don't take lightly. You know, I also have to tell you, that didn't stop after I got sober. You know, I married a man. My husband today is the kind that jumps out of airplanes and skis the big waves on the North Shore and, you know, climbs the Himalayas, you know, spends six weeks with the Dalai Lama in Vamsala. You know, he gets an idea. And he's going to go for it. His next plan is going down the Amazon from the headwaters. I told him, have a good time. You know, I finally got old enough and sober enough and smart enough not to have to prove I wasn't afraid. I am no longer afraid of being afraid. That's what this program has given me. So, thank you. Anyway, this guy and I went out to North Hollywood, California. They wrote a book about it. It's called The Split Level Trap. And we were there, a Korean vet, and we wound up, I wound up with 3.8 kids looking around wondering wasn't there anything else. So, I went over to one of my other friends, Shirley Schwartz, who had 3.8 kids at the time. And I said to her, Shirley, isn't there anything? I mean, is it just this? She said, yeah, Franny. What else do you have? What else do you want? So, I knew where the answer was. I would go up to St. Genevieve's and talk to one of the priests up there and find out what was going on. You know, they have the answers. That's what I'd been told. So, I went up and I said to the priest, not that I'm getting hostile by this time, please, but I said to the priest, if the only thing you want from me is to just breed thousands of little Catholics, why do you guys bother educating girls? And he said, so you won't raise ignorant boys. And the only people who can really understand what I'm saying here are the ladies whose hair is as gray as mine. You young things, we fought the fight, and you better just defend it, you know? Thank you. So, I thanked him for his input. And I, I walked away from him. And in walking away from him, I walked away from the Catholic Church. And I walked away, you know, let me tell you something. This is so silly, but we do it. Have you ever had anybody get up here and say, I'm a recovering alcoholic and a recovering Catholic, and everybody starts laughing? What's so goddamn funny about that? And why are you laughing and supporting a resentment? And a resentment that might kill somebody? Think about it. It's supposed to be funny because it's a little onomatopoeia, but it's not a funny comment at all. It just means his place, his pain is not taken care of. He hasn't made amends in an area where he has to make amends so he doesn't have to say stupid stuff like that. You know, we can talk about that a lot, but I wonder how many we kill. Sorry, but that's the truth. You know, and I was sitting in a meeting one night and a guy did that, and the guy, he was in agony. You could smell it. And he got up and he said, my name's whatever, and I'm a recovering alcoholic and a recovering Catholic, and everybody went, ho, ho, ho, ho. And then he finally smiled, and I realized, my God, this man is in pain. And that's when I realized it. And I've asked other people about it, and they said, you know, it's true. You know, people die. Carrying resentments, there's something, you know the book about saying resentment is a number one offender. See, so I don't support resentments anymore, any kind like that. I just don't. I just don't. I don't get up in their face either, for heaven's sake. I just simply don't support it. So I'm living out in the valley and trying to be decent, and the only way I can tolerate the day is to drink the cream sherry that I used to serve whenever I had the coffee clutch. And all the ladies would drink it and get a little tiddly and go home, and I would finish it, and I would lie down on the couch checking my eyelids for light leaks, you know, and my husband would come home, and mommy was on the couch with a headache, and he would take the kids over to that new place called McDonald's, and they used to have hamburgers, and gee, wasn't it fun? And I didn't realize already, already, that was the beginning of my alcoholic behavior. My behavior concerning alcohol was starting to affect my family. And it may happen in the most innocuous, but it's still the beginning of a pattern that is impacting other people. You know, and then he and I, we just wanted to be big kids. I didn't know how. You know, I used to clean my house so that at night it was immaculate, and then I would open the curtains on the front room just a little bit so that anybody passing by could see what a lovely home we had. The only problem is we lived on a cul-de-sac. Nobody walked by. It was only us, you know. But I never saw that. I was trying to live the way the magazines said that you live. And one time, I told my sponsor about that. She said, Franny, she says, you know, a lot of those magazines are written by gay guys that can't stand women. And I, I, uh, I don't know, I sort of found out. Bit by bit, thank God for my sponsor, but through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I've learned to be comfortable with me. I don't have to be you. I don't have to be her. I don't have to be anybody but me. My sponsor had a bird. It was a canary. And it was her husband's favorite thing. And the bird got sick. It got a tumor. And it, um, it was going to die. And I asked them, I said, can't, can't you drown it or something? I mean, it's getting ugly. And I was very new. You're going to have to excuse me. And my sponsor said, Franny, just let everything be in its own life. You just worry about yourself. I said, okay. So I watched that bird, that sick, ugly, molting, tumorous bird. And, you know, I thought to myself, how can it do? That because every once in a while it would try to sing. And I would stand there and I'd be looking at it. And it just disgusted me. And it was an, it was an affront, you know? And anyway, the bird finally, finally died. And you know what happened? My, my sponsor's husband was going to put it in the trash. I said, no, you have to bury it. He said, what? I said, yes. I said, we have to give this bird a funeral. And, you know, I'm like whacked, but they humored me sometimes. So he found a shoebox and he put some stuff in it and we put the bird in it, the bird and the tumor, you know, and we covered it up and dug a hole outside in the rose garden. And we put that stupid bird with that stupid box in the dirt. And covered it up and he said, okay. I said, no. Now you have to say something. And he said, oh God. I said, all right. He says, Tweety was the best bird. He knew how to be. And I started crying. And I couldn't figure it out. And suddenly I realized I had about three months of sobriety. I was actually starting to get interested in being alive instead of dead. And I started to think that I was a human being. And that if anybody buried me and they put she was the best human being she knew how to be, that that would have been enough. I suddenly realized what I wanted to live for. Just to be the kind of human being I wanted to be. And I'll tell you something. I don't think that story is a story of me being alive. I don't think that story is a story of me being alive. I don't think that story is a story of me being alive. It's on any of my other tapes. So I don't know why I told it today. But somebody here needed to hear it. Okay? So I give it to you. You know, Clarice knows this. There's a speaker's prayer. It goes, Lord, fill my mouth with worthwhile stuff and nudge me when I've said enough. And there's another prayer. And there's another prayer. And there's another prayer. And there's another prayer. And there's another prayer. Lord, I shall be busy this day. I may forget thee. Please do not thou forget me. And as Rosemary said, she Googled me and found a lot of theater stuff with my name connected to it. And that's my prayer when I'm on the job. And it goes like this. Hey, God, don't let me get us into anything you can't get us out of. You know? Because as a designer, as a set designer, which is what I worked in, I've got my MFA in set design, technical theater. And sometimes you've got to make decisions. Lots of times you're really saying, okay, let's try it. I don't know whether it's going to work or not, but let's try it. So, you know, you've got to sort of like run on the edge a lot. And I've really learned to trust my instincts and I think that really means trusting in God's inspiration. You know, I've really come to trust God. I have. But what happened was, back, get it in some kind of chronology here, we moved to the beach and that was in the 60s, in the late 50s. Late 50s. And I'm down on the beach one day and there's these people and the girls look like Russian peasants and the guys have vests on with no shirts and they have hip huggers on and they're barefooted or they've got these cute sandals and their hair is longer than mine and they've got hair bands and they're running around going, peace, brother. And I'm fascinated, you know. I mean, I was raised in a convent. I was raised properly. You know, yes, please. Thank you. No, thank you. Blah, blah, blah. And here's these people that are just free. You know, and all I am is tied up in knots and drinking just to stay sane, not knowing where the hell my life is going and not much caring either. And the only thing I ever cared about was my kids. Nothing else. I didn't give a damn for anything else. So anyway, I walk up to these people and I introduce myself formally, of course. Hello, my name is Franny. I was a writer at the time. And I live right over there and I'm a writer. You are, you know, and I got my hand out. I guess they thought I was a fool, but it doesn't matter. They liked me because I lived right near the beach and I gave them a place to sleep when it got cold or rainy. So they made me their friend and I'm running around with them and I wound up throwing my high heels away and I wound up throwing my little hats away and I wound up throwing my gloves away and I stopped shaving my legs, you know. And in that period of time, you know, I'm running around hairy happy and hippie too, you know. Just as pleased with myself as I can be. And so, you know, my husband came to me one time and he said, I don't know who these people are, but they're not your friends. They're just parasites. But you see, in spending time with these people, I had learned a new vocabulary, a new universal vocabulary. We had questioned the universe and arrived at the answers. And so when he said, and I don't know who these people are, but they're not friends, I turned around to him and I said, hey, don't go getting heavy on me, okay? And that poor man didn't know what was going on because, you know, so he backed off. Now here's the deal. He's an L.A. fireman and the L.A. fire department doesn't raise any wimps. But I was able to make that man cry. He was nothing but a good Catholic kid and he was trying to save his wife. He spent more money, he spent more money on psychologists, psychiatrists, marriage counselors, group therapy. You name it, I was going because he was trying to fix me. Neither one of us knew what this disease was. Now the interesting thing is, is we both had alcoholic fathers. We both had alcoholic relatives. We knew the pain of what the alcohol did to a family, but it never registered on us that there was such a thing as alcoholism. We didn't know. We were the ones who were going to die. We were the ones who were going to die. We were the ones who were going to die. We were the people that lived with the elephant in the living room and never talked about it. It didn't dawn on us that I was an alcoholic. I was a slut. You know, I was a negligent mother. I was an improper wife. I was whatever else you wanted to call me. But he and I never, as far as I know, used the word alcoholic. So anyway, my oldest son was celebrating his birthday. It was right around his birthday. It was a weekend. Anyway, and we were supposed to have a birthday party. Ray was going to come home early from work and we were going to celebrate. He was eight. Buddy was eight. And my aunt, my daughter Ann was nine. The kids were down the beach where they always were. And I was up in the bar where I always was and I was getting drunk. And my husband came and got me because he came home and found no party. So he knew where I was. So he came down to the bar and got me. And I stopped at the end of the pier and these kids are watching, you know, what daddy and mommy are going to do now. And I said, wait a minute. And I pulled money out of my pocket. I always carried a lot of change for the kids. And I pulled the money out of my pocket and I handed it to Annie. I said, here, you guys buy some ice cream and walk home. We only live two and a half blocks from the beach. By the time you get home, we'll stop and get a cake and we'll have the birthday party. Ain't no big deal. So by the time my husband and I walked into the house, here is as I remember. The phone was ringing. I picked it up and my daughter said, mommy, come back down here quick. But he was sitting on the railing and he was eating his ice cream. And I don't know whether his hands were slippery or somebody gave him a push, but he went over the side and he went into the water and we can't find him. And I handed the phone to my husband and I guess she told him the same thing. And I watched him shatter right there. And I put it on the phone. I put him in the car and I'm drunk. I drive us down the beach and I'm running down the beach into the water because I happen to be probably the best swimmer in this room. And this big fat Samoan friend of mine grabs me, pushes me down in the sand and says, God, Franny, don't you find him. And he kept me there kneeling in the sand until one of my friends came walking out of the water holding the body of my birthday kid. And the next thing I remember is being in the hospital. And my husband's standing, we're standing in the hall outside the emergency resuscitation and he's holding up his wall and I'm holding up my wall and we got our arms folded and we're standing there looking at each other like that. Now, let me tell you something. In a situation like that, human beings walk over to each other, put their arms around each other and give each other strength, consolation, pity, love, whatever it is that we can pass to the person, you know, pass back and forth, whatever. But, I have had no feeling for my family for a long time. For my husband, anyway. And no human beings, really, except the kids. And he had no feeling for me, finally. So the two of us stood there staring at each other until the doctor came out and said, I'm sorry, he's dead. And then we walked away and when we walked away, we didn't touch each other. We just walked down the hospital corridor and went out and got in the car and did whatever we did. That's what my drinking had done to that family. You know? And I never intended to hurt anybody. I just needed to drink. I just, when I wasn't drinking, when I wasn't loaded, and I have to tell you, I took a lot of speed, too. And when I wasn't loaded, even the ends of my hair hurt. My teeth hurt. You know? My nails hurt. I couldn't stand being not altered in some way. So anyway, two months later, we sort of did that two months in, like, silence. My husband came to me and he said, Franny, here's the deal. I talked to the priest. I talked to the nuns. I talked to his teachers. I talked to the psychologist. I talked to the psychiatrist you were going to. I talked to the group therapist. I talked to everybody. I told them what was going on, and they all told me the same thing. So he said, I want you to know I'm divorcing you, and I'm taking the kids away from you before you murder another one of my kids. And I said, you know, that's probably good thinking. And after he left, I thought about it some more, and I realized, wait a minute. I do love those kids. I didn't think about what was for their benefit at all. I have to be absolutely honest. The only thing that I knew absolutely was I was not going to give up those kids. Not because I thought people thought if I did, I would be a poor mother. I didn't give a damn what any of you thought. It was because they were the only connection I had with humanity. They were the only thing that weighed anything at all in my value system. I was not going to give up those kids. I was not going to give up those kids. I was not going to give up those kids. I was not going to give them up. So I went out and found a lawyer who smelled like a newcomer. I interviewed lawyers until I found a drunk. I hired him. I seduced him. I blackmailed him. And I forced him to provide false witnesses in a court of law who testified that I might not be much of a wife, but that I was a good mother. These were people I had never seen in my life. And I got those kids. And I thought I was so hip-flicking cool because I got those kids. Man, look at me. Look what I did. Oh, jeez. Yes. I'm great. And the other thing I want to warn you about, concurrent with that, is you have no idea why things happen in your life. I thought I had gotten those kids because I was hip-flicking cool. But ten years later, I've got to tell you, I look back, and I realize the reason that those kids went with me is so that they could watch their mother hit her bottom and find Alcoholics Anonymous so that when it was their turn, they could do the same thing. It didn't have a damn thing to do with me being hip, slick, or cool. You know? Okay, I got the kids. Now what? Get a job. All right, I went out, and I found the best job that I could with this keen intellect and this fabulous education I've got. I went out, and in one week, I was a barmaid in a beer bar. And I learned how to shoot pool, and I learned how to be a pool shark, and I learned how to turn tricks in the back room, and everybody else is drinking beer. Man, I'm drinking whiskey and coffee. I'd drop a load of bennies. The way I'd get up in the morning, I'd drop a load of bennies, and then I would drink, drink a half a cup of coffee and fill it up with a half a cup of scotch and drink that and go back to bed until the nightmares drove me out where I was so efficient I would clean my living room with a toothbrush, you know? Speed makes you efficient, but it doesn't make you efficient at doing anything. It's just efficient, period. So you do nothing very fast, you know? That's about the way it is. And that's where I was at. And one day, I'm cleaning up the bar efficiently, and this guy comes slithering in, and man, he slithered. He was an Anadarko Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma. He had a German accent that he had acquired because he knew that German waiters made more money. He even had the accent in his sleep. I've got to tell you, it's very clever. And he danced the way I did. He played pool the way I did. He was a liar cheating a thief just like I was. He was a con. He was a hustler. He and I saw each other in our eyes, met across the room. You know, we started hanging out together, and he stole a credit card, and he came to me and he said, let's go to Las Vegas and get married. Oh, God, when you get an offer like that, what can you do? So I went happily off to Las Vegas, got married, got drunk, got thrown out of a couple of casinos, but we had a ball. It was great. Great honeymoon weekend. And we came home, and you know, within a year, I had another kid. And six months after that baby's born, this man that I had carefully chosen as my life partner is standing in the doorway looking at me saying, I'm sorry, I can't take your game. I'm gone. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, I've got to do something. I had to do something to save that sick relationship. I did. I wanted, you know, I didn't ask much of men. They needed to be good looking enough to be arm candy, smart enough to hold a job, and stupid enough to put up with my shit. That was all I asked. You know, and he's going. So anyway, I remembered my mother used to call AA on my father. He always got away just before they got there, but. I'm gonna turn him into a man. I'm gonna turn him into a man. I'm gonna turn him into a man. I'm gonna turn him into a man. I'm gonna turn him into a man. So I'm drunk. Of course, from now on, whenever I make a statement, we're gonna save a lot of time, gonna get a lot more story told. Just assume I'm drunk, okay? So I don't have to keep saying it. So I call the operator. I can't read the book, the telephone book. And I call the operator and I say, listen, I need Alcoholics Anonymous. She said, oh, sure. Now this is in 1967 and not many people knew much. So she gave me the Manhattan Beach Club in California, in Manhattan Beach, California. So I get the Manhattan Beach Club and you know how newcomers love to be helpful. Well, this guy was newcomer and he answered the phone and he says, hello, this is Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, hi, let me talk to the boss. I'm not dealing with any clerks, man. I got a problem. I go to the top. So he took me to the top. He turns around and I hear him say, hey, this lady wants to talk to the boss. And the next thing I hear is, give me that. No, no, you have it. No, give it to me. And they're fighting over the phone, you know? So this guy grabs it and he finally says, hello. My name is Alex and I'm an alcoholic. And our higher power is $1.90. And I said, well, I'm not dealing with any clerks. I need to figure out what to do with you all. He goes, which can I get for $2. And I get him 10 cents she takes in, he sees me on the phone forこちら, speaks well the contract song prized by special effects, where you're not really Gonna learn a lot how to watch these calls, isn't it? Got it. OK, calm down now. Is she anyway? The truth is, I haven't found any work in my life, you know? So she's beautiful. She's pretty rich. And again. doing that. But this guy's not on the phone with me for five minutes when he knows. Yeah, right. We got one out there, but we got one right here. You know, I'm drunk as usual. So he offers to send a call for me. I was so impressed, but I wanted I didn't want him to do that because I wanted his respect. Because, you see, I did love my husband, but a girl's got to look out for herself. And and he might be plan B. You know, I never knew. So I said, no, you tell me where you are and I'll come there. So he made me promise that I would show up and I promised. And and then I got ready to go to my first meeting and I put on my seventy nine cent Zori's from Zody's and I put on the camel colored hip hugger bell bottoms that I found out in my backyard after a party. And I don't know who owned them, but they fit me. That made them mine. I had I had a size sixteen and a half man's shirt. There was a that I bought from Goodwill for a dime and there was a button missing right here, but I pinned it from the inside for propriety's sake. I had a if any of I had a camel colored sweater that I stolen from Goodwill because I couldn't afford to buy it. I had a broken nose and two black eyes from the heated session the night before and my hair was in an Afro. Now this is in nineteen sixty seven and the Afro didn't come in until seventy five. And I want to tell you something. If there's anybody in here who's planning on drinking again, beige, beige is the color camel color. Perfect. You puke on it. Don't touch it. Let it dry and then brush it off. You know, and it. And it works pretty well. You know, the first contribution I ever made at a meeting was this one girl was talking about. I don't have anything to wear at meetings. And I said, hey, I got it. And the leader was obviously fascinated. He said, what? I said, you wear a sweatshirt with a sweatshirt. You got front back inside out front back for days. No problem. That was my first contribution to Alcoholics Anonymous. Some some fool came up to me and said one time and said, listen, you find the people you identify with and you hang with them. Oh, please don't tell a newcomer that I went and I found the people that were hanging around outside the club, man. And pretty soon I'm out there popping my fingers and dragging my heel and say, oh, that's cool. Yeah, man, this program's heavy. I mean, that was a pretty good pitch in nineteen fifty nine or nineteen sixty nine. So anyway, what happened was I took I turned into a good bad example. See, I wasn't going to tell you who I was. I wasn't going to tell you on the lady who killed my kid. I wasn't going to tell you that I stood in a liquor store trying to bargain my body for some booze. And the guy looked like a. And he said, Franny, you're not worth a half a pint of scotch. I'm not going to tell you that I'm the lady that sat under the pier with a big stick keeping the rats away from me because the tide was coming in and the rats come in with the tide. And the reason I had to stay down there sitting on that rock with those rats was because some other two legged rats were up on the pier looking for my ass one more time because I'd stolen something and eaten it, snorted it, stole it, sold it. Lawyer. Lawyer. I lost it. You know, whatever you do with other people's stuff. See, and I wasn't going to tell you that because you used to tell me your stories and then you sit there and wait for me to tell you mine. And I knew if I told you mine. That you would go have one of those committee meetings and you would send a couple of bad people back to talk to me and they would say, Franny, listen. Alcoholics Anonymous is the best for the recovery of alcohol from alcoholism. But you see, honey, we work with sober. We work with human beings to get them sober and you're not a human being. So you got to go. I was afraid to tell you my story because I had no place else to go. And I felt at home here. But I knew I didn't deserve you. And because I didn't deserve you, I really didn't belong. And I knew that if you knew me, that would be the end of it. So I never told you. I stayed a secret. And the thing that happens is you're only as sick as your secrets. And I was pretty damn sick. So I just kept my mouth shut. Pop my speed. Drank a little bit. Tried to stay. But I didn't. And I'll tell you what happened. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on a regular basis. Almost every night for three years while drunk. I became the club joke. I remember sitting there in the half measures room one time. And some lady walked by and she said to this girl that she was obviously sponsoring. And she said, look at that. They looked over at me. She says, you better start working the steps. And, you know, I would have said, yeah, you're right. But I didn't feel like it. So I didn't. And they used to come and tell me when it was time to go to the meeting. I would go up. And then they'd tell me, okay, go downstairs. We've got to clean up the chairs. And, you know, they used to push me around a little bit. And I would go from here to there. And they would come and pick me up if I called up for a ride to the meeting. But nobody tried to 12-step me anymore. They just came and got me. And took me home. That was all. And there was this one lady that I just absolutely hated. And you know why I hated her? Because I couldn't have what she wanted. Well, I couldn't have what she had. She was laughing. She laughed a lot. Her name was Dottie McCafferty. And she and her husband Dan had a whole bunch of people hanging around them that were always laughing. And having fun. And good times. And, you know, I would look at them and I would hate them. Because I didn't seem to be able to grab it. So one time she was standing by herself at the end of the young people's meeting. While everybody was putting chairs away. And I was going to confront the bitch. I was going to let her know. I knew she was a phony. I was going to let her know what I really thought of her. And I walked up to her and I said, Dottie. She says, yeah, Frannie. She knew me. Everybody knew me. And I said, I need to talk to you. And she said, yeah, what do you want? And I said, I want you to be my sponsor. And she said, I swear to heaven, I have no idea where that came from. But she looked at me and she said, oh, God, Frannie, I don't know. You're such a loser. And I said the thing that saved my life. Probably hadn't said that word in 15 years. I looked at her and those laser blue eyes. And I said, please. She said, well. And she put her hand out. One of her lieutenants put a directory in her hand, you know. She pulled it around. She says, you got those dragon ladies out here, too, huh? She starts marking it and she says, these are the meetings I go to. I'll see you there. And she walked away. Oh, my God, I had a sponsor. But I'll tell you why. I didn't know what to do with her. And when I don't know what to do with anything, I don't know what to do with it. I stay away from it until I can figure it out. So I stayed carefully away from her and went around to all the meetings telling people that Dottie was my sponsor. And I was misquoting her left and right. And I did stop drinking booze, but I didn't stop taking speed. And one day, one day, maybe about three weeks later, you know, she told me, she said, listen, I don't want a damn thing you have. She said, if you want what I have, she says, then you call me. You come after me. I am sure not going to pursue you. She said, so if you want what I have, you come after me. I said, okay, that's, yeah, great. So that's why I stayed away. I knew she wasn't going to bother me. At about 7 o'clock one morning, I'm not even awake. The phone rings on the headboard. And I pick it up. Hello? She says, hi, this is Dottie. I said, I'm Dottie. This is Dottie. She lied. I said, hi, Dottie. She says, how are you? I said, fine, fine. She said, have you stopped taking speed yet? How did she know? Because I never told anybody. I said, yeah, yeah, I did. She said, well, when did you quit? And I went, this morning. And I said, well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. She said, good. She said, come on over to my house. I'll see you over there. Take a shower. She said, put some decent clothes on. Come on over and start hanging out at my house. Because you don't know how to do sober. And I got a bunch of people coming in and out of the house day and night. And she said, and you can watch them and you can learn how to do sober. So that's what I did. And I hung out at her house. And I started reading the book. And they let me go to the movies with them on Friday night. And wow, gee, that was like heaven. Wow, gee, that was like holy cat. That's remarkable. And one day I was reading the big book and it said, there are people who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are born that way. You know? And I read that. And I went, oh, my God. And I grabbed the book. Ran out of my house. I went to the bar. Drove over to her house as fast as I could. Went into her house like thunder. It's the only way I can describe it. Slammed the book down on her kitchen table and said, God damn you. I'm finally wanting to be alive. I finally want to be like you. I want to be a human being. I want to be sober. And you're telling me in this book that I can't do it. I had been declared a sinner. I had been declared a sinner. I had been declared a sinner. I had been declared a psychopathic deviant by two different medical boards and she knew that. So why is she telling me, a compulsive liar, that I can have it? We both knew I couldn't be honest. She says, will you sit down and shut up? She says, will you sit down and shut up? So I knew how to behave there. I sat down and I shut up. She said, I'll be glad when you start reading the black part of the page instead of the white. She said, I'll be glad when you start reading the black part of the page instead of the white. I said, oh, what a fool. I said, okay. She says, Franny, She says, Franny, She says, it doesn't say you can't have it. It just says your chances are less than average. It just says your chances are less than average. Oh. Oh. So you mean I can? So you mean I can? She said, yeah, but she said, you're going to have to work twice as hard as anybody else. She said, you're going to have to work twice as hard as anybody else. She said, because you're so sick. I said, I can do that. And I said, I can do that. And I tried to stop lying. And first I would say, oops, wait a second, And first I would say, oops, wait a second, let's rewind that. And then finally one day it stopped right behind the teeth and I didn't even have to say anything until the truth started becoming automatic. until the truth started becoming automatic. But it was not easy. Because I had so many reasons to hide. Because I had so many reasons to hide. And I wasn't hiding anymore. But it's like trying to nail jelly to a tree. But it's like trying to nail jelly to a tree. Because things kept sliding. Because things kept sliding. And I would have to pick them up and say, wait a second, that's not what I meant. And I actually got into the habit of telling the truth. And I actually got into the habit of telling the truth. And you know, she helped me. And when I had nine months sober, this really sick cookie comes up to me and says, Franny, I want you to be my sponsor. And I said, oh my God. I said, Becky, because I always went to meetings with my sponsor. I said, Becky, stay right there. You just stay. And I went over to my sponsor and I said, Dottie, Becky just asked me to be her sponsor. What should I do? She said, Franny, you stay one step ahead of her. She'll never know the difference. So I started sponsoring Becky. So I started sponsoring Becky. You know? And I continued working the steps. And I kept sponsoring people. And I went to Hawaii. And I met wonderful Jan. Well, actually, I met her before Hawaii. But we've been friends for a long time. Both Hawaii is our common ground. And I just kept hanging out with sober people and sponsoring people and going to meetings every other night and going to the movies on Friday. And my life was really small and really safe. And because I was unemployed and unemployable, they sent me back to school. And I found out that actually I'm an academic pig. I have a degree in sociology with an emphasis on deviance. I have a degree. I felt right at home. I have a degree in psychology and with a focus on the abnormal. And I had a degree in theater arts. Now, do those not go together? You know, and then I went back and I got an MFA in theater and I wound up teaching technical theater and teaching people how to build sets and lighting and welding and sound and all that. All the rest of the stuff that you don't get to see. The only thing I didn't do was teach acting. As a matter of fact, I have very little patience with actors, but that's another story. So what happened was this friend of mine who's also, this is the last bit, this friend of mine who is also a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, who I happen to have 12 stepped, was my senior professor. I had to get him sober. I needed to graduate, you know, and that's a fact. That's what it was anyway. Rex and I, we put this program together and I started, I was undercover. I got a job at Compton High School. And if you ever want to make a movie about bad schools, you go and study Compton High School. See, and Compton High School is the school where the bars are curved in. And there's armored police on the campus at all times with riot trucks. And the whole thing. And I got a job there teaching theater arts because they had a tremendous auditorium to these kids. And the whole point was not, yeah, I taught them theater arts. They got jobs in the industry. But what we were really doing was trying to expose them to the university experience. Because these are kids at risk and we wanted them to figure out that they could go to college too. You know, it wasn't all just body work and street cleaning. That there's other things you can do with your life. So anyway, our thing was that two classes out of the week were held over on the Cal State Dominguez campus. So everybody would get on the bus and go over there and I would meet them over there and we would work putting productions together. These kids out of the inner city were learning. And how to be riggers. They were learning to paint. One of them wound up getting a full four-year scholarship to the Savannah School of Design. You know, I mean, that's just a little bit. A lot of them, they went to Cal State Irvine. They went to UCLA. They went to Cal State Dominguez. I mean, we were getting them in schools. And I have to tell you the truth. We were lying to do it. Because a lot of them, their parents were illegal immigrants. And it was very important for them to keep their heads down. And they weren't. They weren't going to sign any school papers. So we used to sign. Salt, slow rocks. I don't care. We used to sign. We used to sign the parents' names. We had to because it was the only way to get the kids started in the process of applying to the colleges. And what happened was one day, Javier came over to me. We were working on something over on the campus. And the boys would love to just walk down to the coffee shop. I mean, can you imagine? I mean, can you imagine that these kids walking down to the coffee shop on a college campus and looking just like everybody else and buying their coffee just like everybody else and standing there looking important just like everybody else? And then walking back if someone said, who are you? And, hey, I'm in the theater. And, you know, and back to the theater, you know. The guards used to stop them occasionally because they did look a little weird. But they learned how to fit in. And one time. And one time. And one time. And one time. And we were we were doing some work on some set. And Javier came over to me and he said, hey, Miss Franny. I said, what? He says, you know what happened just to me right now? I said, what? He says, I was down in the coffee shop right by the bookstore. And I saw one of my homies in there buying some textbooks. He said, damn. He said, if he can get through this school, so can I. And I went, yes. Yes. Oh, good. Good. Yes. You know, like that. I was just so turned on. And another time, Alex, you can't you can't play hooky once you get on the campus. Everything is locked down at 830. Locked. You're locked in. The teachers can't take their cars off the campus. We're locked in. And so if you want to play hooky from your class, you just have to go and harass another teacher. So one time one of the boys brought one of his friends from another class. And, you know, this kid was sitting there looking for trouble in my class. And he had his big clod hoppers up on the table, you know, and he's sitting there defying me to do something. And in the meantime, I got a diagram of a Roman temple or something on the on the board. And I'm thinking to myself, I know what's going on and I wonder how this one's going to work out. And I'm busy writing something on the board. And all of a sudden I hear slam. And I turned around and Alex is standing. Standing over this big kid. He's only half the size. Alex is only half the size of this big kid that invaded my classroom. And he's standing there and he knocked his feet off the desk and he's looking at him and he's saying, hey, man, I don't know what you do in your classroom. But in this classroom, we're professionals. So keep your feet down. I didn't say a word. I just turned around and kept writing. You know, I don't want to stay out of it. So that's the kind of thing. No. Out from under. Redondo pier. Trying to teach kids words like integrity, respect, responsibility. These were words at one time I couldn't even spell. And I'm standing there one day. And we're talking about integrity. And. I had 42 of them were standing around on the stage and we're talking about the integrity of the rigging. And they knew what integrity was. And they knew what integrity meant. It meant it will not fail. It that it was true to the way it was supposed to be and it would not fail. And we're talking about integrity and these kids are discussing it. And I stood back for a minute and I started crying because God damn, you know, they somehow or other the universe let me be a little piece of this. And one of them walked over and he said, it's okay, Miss Franny. He says, sometimes. Sometimes I'm impressed, too. Yeah. And so that's my life right now. My husband and I are taking meditation classes down to Terminal Island Prison. I'm the only woman, but the guys like me. And and we've got a meditation every other Sunday morning in our living room, you know, and I don't know. That's that sounds sort of spiritual, doesn't it? I mean. Me meditating. I'm the one that used to lure bartenders down to the beach and knock them out and steal their money. So I don't know. I don't know how you get there from here, but I know that there's 12 steps that we all know about. You know, I know that. And I know that a lot of people say that, you know, I'm only one drink away from a drunk. Let me tell you something. I'm 12 steps and a lot of sobriety away from that drink. You know, don't don't knock that. So. So. So. So. So. 40 years sobriety. You know, I can't believe it. My girlfriend on Wednesday at my my women's meeting said to me, hey, you alter Kaka. Happy birthday. You know, and I wouldn't give her a piece of cake. So there I you know, and I still have my sponsor and she's on this side and she's holding me. Betty Horowitz. She lives up near Lake Tahoe. I got her and I got it all. I have such gorgeous babies. They're all crazy, but they're gorgeous on this side hanging on to me. And, you know, the truth of the matter is when you go through life with your hands like that, you can't fall down. Thank you.