Beth H. at the Luck of the Irish Roundup – 2002

My name is Beth Hartley. I'm an alcoholic and because of the grace of God and the fellowship and steps of AA and sponsorship, I've been sober since June 26 1988. I can relax now I just got the thumbs up from my plant in the audience that's keeping an eye on the basketball scores and Cincinnati won so but I was I had my little TV in the airport today watching the Creighton game so I was trying to be kind of inconspicuous but they sunk that last basket I was like yes and everybody looked at me and I put my TV away for a while But I never did anything very anonymously, so my dad always said I never drank anonymously either. But I am so happy to be here. I know so many people out here, and I have a lot of sister pigeons out here and just a lot OF friends, and John and Shelly, who actually lived in Cincinnati for a while. And so I'd like to thank John for asking me out and Don for picking me up at the airport. And I'm just really looking forward. I'm glad I get to talk tonight so I can relax and enjoy the rest of the weekend. Well, I drank like a pig. I may as well get that out of the way. I was not one of those women who sat at home sipping wine. I really, Wild Irish Rose was my favorite because it was in that square bottle and it didn't roll out from under the car seat. You need to know things like that, you know. So I come from a long line of alcoholics. My father joined Alcoholics Anonymous when I was 7 years old, and so I was at open meetings of AA in second grade because they couldn't afford sitters all the time, so I would be the kid over in the corner with the coloring book, and later in life when AlcoholicsAnonymous was brought up to me, I was thinking it's all old guys that drink coffee and eat donuts because I'd been there and seen it myself, and I'm sure they were 30, you know, but that looks old when you're 7. And, you Know, my dad always told me all the horrible things that happened in his drinking, and if he ever told me he had fun, I missed that part. So when I drank, I just felt bad for him because I thought, You know, if he could have drank like me, he probably could have hung in there a little longer. But, You Know, so he got sober early on in my childhood, so we didn't have drinking in the house. We didn't have fighting. My parents had both gone back to school, so as I got older and wanted more stuff they could afford more stuff. So I really didn't want for much of anything. I was an avid reader as a kid, which was probably my escape at the time. I just would kind of dive into any kind of book I could get my hands on. And school came real easy to me, which I'm sure is the only reason I got through high school once I drank. But I had these things going on even as a kid. There are things I'm sure my parents never taught me, but it was like somebody had just etched them in my brain. And one of them was that it's not okay not to know. You can't let people know you don't know how to do something. And so what I found looking back is things in my life were very, very black and white. I was either good at something or I wasn't. And if I wasn'T good at it, then I just wasn'T meant to do it. You know what I mean? I mean some people are just really gifted piano players and some people aren'T. And it didn't occur to me that my friends couldn't come out and play because they had piano lessons or they had to practice. They would sit down and play the piano, and I would just think, oh, it must really be nice, you know? I didn't put it together that they actually worked. I was telling John at dinner, our daughter, when she was small, I thought she was going to drink for sure, you know? When she was four, we said, you know, some people save for college, and we are saving for treatment, which is not uncommon in these circles, you know. But she, by the time she was 11, it was very obvious that she just thinks different than I think, you know, and I always give this example because it just, it still amazes me. When she was 11 years old, she wanted to be on a swim team, and she hadn't had much experience in the pool, so she wasn't a very good swimmer. We gave her a couple, you now, got her a few lessons, and she went and tried out for the team and the coach said, you can be on the team but you really should practice with the nine-year-olds because you can't keep up with your age group and that was okay with her. Now at 11, if you had told me to swim with the 9-year olds, I would have been like I don't think so, I'm 11. But that was fine with her because she wanted to swim and when she was in her first swim meet it was a big USS meet with heats and they post the results with your first name and your last name so anybody who looks can see how you did. And she was 70th out of 72, and she went back the next day, you know? And we had told her swimming's competitive, but you also now you have a time, you know, so if you beat your time, you've had a successful race even if you don't win. And the whole time I was telling her that, I'm thinking, oh yeah, right, you know? I mean, my parents told me that, but I knew they just told me because they had to. I mean that's just the stuff you tell your kids. She beat her time and she was happy, you know. Now two years later, she was a state double-A swimmer, you know. She was swimming in the Ohio Junior Olympics because she continued to show up and practice. And, you know, she kind of intuitively knew set a goal, work for the goal, achieve the goal. I had to learn that in Alcoholics Anonymous when I was 30. You know, she just doesn't think like we think. I mean, I was 7 years sober when she was 11, and I had a hard time the first week at practice just being the mom of the 11-year-old that was swimming with the 9-year olds, you know, because how's that going to make me look? But... She's a senior in high school this year, And last year, on the first day of school, she came home. And, you know, they get more independent. And she came Home and said, oh, we went to Starbucks after school. And I said, Oh, honey, that's, you Know, that sounds like fun. Who'd you go with? And she said, I went with Lindsay and Katie and Jennifer. And I Said, oh her. And she just looks at me. She's like, for God's sakes, mom, that was sixth grade. Could you let it go? We don't know what to do with her, you Know, I mean, we just Chuck and I just told her, well, you know, there really should be one mature one in the house, and it looks like it's you, honey. And it's been that way for years. Some of you guys know her. I mean, she is just a beautiful child, and she doesn't, I mean who knows what will happen if she takes a drink, but she doesnít think like I think, and She doesnít think like thought, you now, in those younger years, and that was without a drink. I didnít start drinking until I was 15 years old. But I already, you knoW, if I couldnít win, I didn't want to play, and I knew you were all watching me. I was like a spectator in my own life. I could see, I was acutely aware of everybody around me watching me, and if I was talking to you, I had my rearview mirror on here to be sure that they were interested in what we were doing and how do I look, and I always had one good friend at a time because I don't know why, it just was like one good friend, and then don't talk to my friend because she might like you better. And then I'll have to get another friend because you guys will talk about me and you'll tell your friends and they'll tell their friends and I'll tell their friends. And, you know, then everybody will go, oh, there she is, you know. And like I said, this is second and third grade, I'm thinking like this. This is not drinking. And I just couldn't, you know, what I realized later is I had this kind of out of sight, out of mind thing that I was afraid if you got away from me for very long that you would start to go, you know, why do we hang out with her anyway? You know, I thought she was your friend, you know. So my mom always said anybody's day off was best day off, you knows, because it didn't matter what commitment I had if you asked me I would go with you because if I didn't go you might never ever ever ask me again and then you might, you now find out you have more fun without me and all that. So I was real active in school as far as you know, pep club cheerleading, student council, you name it. I was doing it, and a funny thing happened when I drank. That activity just wasn't necessary anymore, you know? And from the outside, I would have, you now, I would look like a pretty normal kid. I mean, I was in the honor society, I was doin' all this stuff, I's real involved, but the root of it all underneath was that I could not, I couldn't sit still. I couldn''t be alone with myself because the voices in my head would start telling me that you were talking about me and you didn't really like me anyway. And, you know, all of that stuff. One of my favorite promises in the big book is the one that after the fifth step that says we can be alone at perfect peace and ease, you know? God, what a blessing that was for me because I just, I couldn't be by myself. I couldn'T, you know, I just had too many voices in my head telling me, God, if they find out about this Beth or if anybody knows you did that or, you know, what kind of person are you anyway? So when I drank in high school, you know, like I said, the activity just kind of ceased and I could drink a lot from the beginning. I loved to drink. Morning drinking never bothered me because in high School, you should drink in the morning so you can sober up before your parents get home. That's the way I looked at it. And I mean, I just I'd love to drink and within the first year of my drinking, everything changed that they tell you, you know, is your child doing this? I was doing all of it. My friends changed. My grades plunged. I totaled a car with three other people in it. You know, my attitude changed. Everything changed. And why I slid through, I don't know, except that I just always did. You know, I mean, I got consequences every now and then, but they were never what they should have been. I always, I love that guy in the cartoon that he'll be walking down the sidewalk and the pianos and the safes are just falling behind him on the sidewalk because that's kind of how my life went and I just I must have intuitively trusted that because I just never really you know I always kind of knew I'd get out of it somehow and when I totaled that car there was no DUI. There was no license suspension. I just got a bill from Butler County for the bridge itemized you know one eight foot piece of guard rail four nuts four bolts two hours of labor and I got suspended from school once around St. Patrick's Day actually they had a wonderful tradition in oxford called green beer day it was a college town and the bars opened up at 5 30 in the morning and the draft beer was green i mean this color green and it was 50 cents a pitcher i mean it just doesn't get better than that you know what i mean and uh we all got caught doing that instead of going to school got suspended it snowed that night there was no school no suspension on my record you know that's the kind of stuff that just happened to me so i just kind of went on my merry way and um i got out of high school i'm sure on the strength of the years that i wasn't drinking i went off to college because i grew up in a college town and that's what you did and i got over to indiana i was a 17 year old freshman in a big 10 school in the middle of a 21 state and uh and i was 17 so that was i didn't do my homework very well it was a long way to any state line that sold alcohol to an 18 year old But I, you know, I flunked out by the way. I went in with 96 percentile SAT scores and I had a .8 at the end of my first semester. I found out later if you go to class it really helps the grades. But I couldn't go to classes, you now? And I was one that when I wrote my first four-step, the only reason I even had fear on it is because the one in the book has fear, fear, and fear. So I thought well if there's that much in that I must have some somewhere, you know it will pop up. But I didn't know until looking back that in college, I couldn't go to class because what do you say after, hi, my name's Beth? I mean, how do people have conversations anyway? You know, I just never, that escaped me. It's one of those things it wasn't all right not to know, you know. And so I couldn'T and I would say, hi my name is Beth and you might say, Hi, my names Scott and then I'd be like, okay, you And then the voices in my head would start saying, you're just staring at him. You really ought to say something. Well, don't. You can't say something now. You look dumber. You've been staring at them three minutes. No, you've got to talk. No, don'T talk. Just leave. No, I can't. Just go. Turn around. Go. Don't run, though. You'll fall down. Just walk away really fast. So I just didn't go to class. And I can remember starting a second semester on academic probation thinking today I'm going to sit by somebody, you know? And I would go in and sit down, and, you know, hi, my name's Beth. And they'd say, hi my name is Dawn, and then, you know, I just couldn't do it. So I would retreat to doing what I knew how to do, which was drink. You know, and like I said, I could drink a lot. I never, I loved to drink. I just loved to drink. We had our share of drugs. It was a college town. But what I found is as the years went on, one at a time as the drugs interfered with my drinking, they had to go. You know, they were certain kinds I just never liked because they just meant I would black out at 8 o'clock instead of midnight. You know? There were other ones that, you know, and we just kind of had a drug of the week floating through Oxford. It wasn't a real big city where you could get anything you wanted. So, you Know, one week everybody would be pondering the meaning of life and the next week everybody'd be drooling and the third week we'd all be home cleaning our houses real good. Those are the only ones I miss. I just keep thinking, how bad can it be? You're skinny, you could drink for days, and your house is clean. I mean, you know. But all that had to go. You know, as years went on, by the time I was 25, I really wasn't doing many drugs at all because I like to drink, you know, and I never, when I came to AA, you know, of course they say hang with the women. And I didn't even drink with women much. I mean, I might have one good woman friend, but I didn't drink with women. I mean in my opinion they fell down or they threw up or they would giggle, you know, the ones that would get giggly or they were trying to hit on my boyfriend or somebody was mad because I was screwing her boyfriend and it was just too hard hanging out with other women. There was too much competition. And plus you never know when true love is going to hit and if you meet him you can't have to take her home first because he might find somebody else while you're gone. So I might meet you there, but, you know. So getting to Alcoholics Anonymous and having them say, oh, you just hang with the women, honey, that was like hearing the gates of hell just slam shut. You know what I mean? You don't understand. I didn't even drink with women. But anyways, I ended up, I moved to Florida abruptly roughly because I had just had enough of the weather. On April 1st, I was outside playing softball in 70 degree weather. April 3rd, it snowed a foot and a half and I just thought this is it. I always knew Ohio was my problem. I was born in California and my parents moved to Ohio when I was two and that was like my first resentment in first grade when I found out what California looked like and I'm looking around Ohio going, oh man, they've done me wrong. But I heard a guy say early in my sobriety, he said, you know, they should just put a sign right at the Florida state line and maybe California and Arizona that says this state doesn't work either. And a lot of us would just go, oh, and turn around and go home, you know. But I moved to South Florida. When I moved down there, it was 1978. It was a small town. There were two Dairy Queens, three traffic lights and a dog track. I had worked in a convenience store in Oxford, so I applied at a stop and go down there. And it was so transient that if you showed up for work three days in a row, you were management material. So by the time I called my parents to tell them, oh, by the way, I moved to Florida last week, I said, but don't worry because I'm assistant manager of this store, you know. And my mom said to me then, how can you do anything that stupid and land on your feet? You know, but I just always did. And by the end of my first year there, it was a small town and I was kind of running out of places to work and running out people to date. And I was really having to look at moving back to Ohio because I just couldn't take care of myself. You know, I just was failing miserably, but that would have violated my second big principle I lived by, which is never, ever, ever, ever tell anybody that you might've made a mistake. And as luck would have it, this guy moved to town from California, and I caught him before my reputation caught up with me. And that ended up just being a kind of a five-year dance of death. I mean, we got married. It was – I always say, you know, who knows if he is alcoholic or not, but it was really easy to look good next to me. You know what I mean? I don't know how he'd stack up next to somebody normal, but next to him he could look like the well-behaved one. And we ended up – we had our son Robbie, And then we moved to the Keys just kind of on a whim. We went down Fourth of July weekend when Robbie was six months old. We liked it. We came back on Tuesday, moved on Friday with a six-month-old baby and $400, you know. Oh, hey, Mom, by the way, move to the keys. But don't worry, I'm assistant manager of this restaurant, you Know. And that was a great place. I don't know about you, but there's a couple of spots back in my life where I look and it is so surreal that it's like, you go, did that really happen? I got a job at this oceanfront resort in the Upper Keys, and I ended up going in to be their night auditor from the restaurant. I didn't even know what a night auditor did, but I got there the first night, and they doubled my pay, and they gave me the keys to all seven bars on the property. And I thought, you know, all of our security guards were bikers, you Know, and my job was to ring out the bars every night so I'd have a drink at the Tiki Bar, and then I'd Have a drink At The Quarter Deck, and then I'd have a drink at the, you know, and then we would just do cocaine off the bar at the last one because we could lock the elevators. And I was getting paid, you knows. Oh, God, it was a wonderful place to work. But so, you Know, when Bill Wilson said I had arrived, I knew what he meant because this, I mean, this was, you Now, and people were spending $100 bills. Finally, all the drug money came to our hotel. Like the old money went a mile down the road to the other place. But we had fast boats and fast cars and $100 bills, and it was just a great place to be alive at the time. I ended up getting fired because I went at happy hour at 5 and I was still there when I was supposed to clock in at 11. And so I went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. That was probably 1983. And I went TO the Key Largo meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous on Tuesday night and it was a nice little group of people and their chairs were on a circle, you know. I had been to some meetings with my dad periodically, but I always just said, My name's Beth. I'm with him. But this time I stood up and said that I was an alcoholic because up to that point I was real careful to never say that A word in the same sentence with my name because, you Know, you grew up with AA. If you even think I might be alcoholic, somebody would hand you a meeting schedule. So I went to an AA meeting down there and said I was alcoholic, and I called my dad when I got home And I said, well, you know, I went to an AA meeting and I said I'm an alcoholic. And within a week I got a box from him and it had a big book in a 12-in-12 and an each day a new beginning and a 24-hour a day book and a one-day-at-a-time book and a tape of his lead and a couple of bookmarks. I don't know how long he'd been gathering it up, you notice me? Oh, here's a new one, you now. And I went my boss and said, I know I have a problem and I'm going to AA. And as usual, you know, they had put the weekend girl up to full time. She didn't want to work full time, everybody hated her, so one AA meeting and I got my job back. You know, this AA stuff works, you now? So I went to the Friday night meeting of Key Largo Alcoholics Anonymous and told them I got me job back, and that was it for me in AA. And, you kno, we had a little part-time job going at that point. I thought it was a part- time job. It turned out Monroe County thought it trafficking drugs. but so I didn't drink for eight months after that but it was not a real big challenge to not drink with free drugs you know what I mean but ultimately we after we got arrested we you know we just had to clean out our house and what I would have told you at the time was I remember thinking you know I haven't had a drink for 8 months I could probably get a good buzz off two drinks again because even back then it was expensive for me to drink I had a huge capacity and I drank half a bottle of rum the first day I drank I was just going to have one you know, and I drank half a bottle and thought, I just can't do this. And I poured the other half down the sink and went and sat on the couch, and five minutes later, I was loading my two-year-old son into the car to go get a six-pack of beer because that's what happens when I drink, you know? Growing up in AA or not, I did not understand that once I take a drink, something physical kicks off in me that demands that I have another one, and that's alcoholism, you know? That's the physical deal. And once I take a drink, don't be between me and the next one. And that included my children, you know? I ended up getting divorced and moving back to Cincinnati. And within a year, my kids were removed from my custody. Because bottom line is, I would rather drink than spend time with them, you now? They were asleep. I had nothing to drink in the house, so I walked down to the corner. And they were one and three. I left them alone. And my son woke up and couldn't find me, and he came outside, and then he couldn't get back in. And he cried, and somebody called the police. And they, you know, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where I was. My car was right out front, so they called the bar and said, you Know, would you like to come home or in your living room with your children? I was thinking, No, not really, but I had a few. I didn't think I probably had a choice, so I went home, and I was arrested for child endangerment, and the children were placed with my mother. And for a long time, I said, You know, when my mom took my kids I did this but she didn't take them you know the county took them and uh and it hit me a few years back that if she had not wanted to raise them the county wouldn't have said oh never mind Beth you take them. You know I mean they would have been gone into the system so it's just the grace of God you know that my mom was there and willing to take them and it turned her life upside down you know I means she was 58 years old with three-year-old in a one-year old no 53 with the three-year-old and a one-year old. And, uh, and I didn't care, you know, I didn'T care. I went through treatment because somebody said, if you go through treatment, maybe you won't go to jail. So that sounded like a good plan to me. And again, I DIDN'T do my homework and I ended up in an all woman treatment center that was six weeks long. So when I was back in treatment six months later, I made sure to, you Know, be sure it was coed before I went in. But, uh ,you know,I went through your treatment and I was the one that counselors would come get to talk to women who didn't want to leave their kids for six weeks you know and I could give them the party line about you know better six weeks now than forever later and if we're not sober we can't be good moms and you know I could give him the talk but I was there knowing knowing I wasn't done you know. And maybe had that misfortune of growing up with AA and thinking well it's always there if it gets bad enough you know, and I would tell you oh yeah I want my kids back. Of course I do, and I want to be a good mother. But inside, I knew that was a lie, you know, because I couldn't do it. It was too hard. I just couldn't doing it. I could not do the single mom thing. I couldn t get up on time. I coul dn't get them to daycare on time, and you know what? My moms, they had clean clothes, and they had a hot meal every night, and got to day care on time dressed appropriately, and bathed, and fed well. And I knew I couldn d do that, you know? I knew. But I would tell you, oh, of course I want sober. So that set off a year or two of just lying. You know, and again, the book talks about having that reputation that we want the world to see but no one on the inside who we really are. And my dad died while I was in treatment the first time, and being an only child of divorced parents, guess who got the insurance money? And so that really set me up for the next two and a half years. I got to drink the way I wanted to drink, and I'm grateful for that, really, because I was tired. You You know, by the time the money was gone, I was tired. I always kind of suspect $10,000 more and somebody else might be standing here talking, but I ran out right on time. And, you know, for the next two and a half years, what my kids heard from me, if I bothered to show up to pick them up for the weekend, was, yes, I love you, go away. Of course I loveyou. No, I don't want to play. No,I don'twantto color. No,i don't wanna go to the zoo. Go play with your sister. Go clean up your room. Go watch cartoons. Go do something. Yes, Iloveyou. Go away. you know that's what my kids heard from me and that was absolutely the best i had i mean that was it and uh or i would be so far into my own head just thinking you know that they could be sitting right next to me talking and i wouldn't even hear them i could be looking right at them and i was looking through them you know because that's what alcoholism does you know now i thought i was but it's like you can't tell people you don't want your kids because they're going to think you're a bad mom you know and i don't like to look bad and uh but my kids were invisible because a lot of times they were between me and a drink and that's the bottom line you know when i was drinking i had to drink and it didn't matter that i grew up with aa it didn'T matter i'D been through treatment twice you know one of the things the big book says is that we suffer from delusion you know and delusion is that i believe i have to believe those lies to function you know i can't like know it's the truth and ignore it. I have to believe it, and like I said, I'd been through treatment. I could be the star. I'm a test taker, so I could Be the Star in treatment every time, but it wasn't getting through. You know, they would take us out to AA meetings, and I would hear somebody talking about pacing the floor because he couldn't get a drink, and I Would think, that's so sad, you know, forgetting that I left my kids alone because I had to drink you know I just those they just didn't match up to be the same thing and I heard people talk about you know pee in the bed and I would just think god you ought to be here you know but two years sober I remembered a whole month where my husband was like waking me up screaming every night and I just thought I was really tired that month you know but but I mean so some things didn't even come back to me. I heard women talking about you knows resorting to prostitution to support their drinking and I thought oh thank god well you know at least I never did that And about a year sober, I was hearing a fist-up of somebody who did. And I heard how much money she made. And I thought, Jesus, I wasn't giving it away for a beer, you know? Who's the principled one here? You know, because, I mean, I couldn't stand to be alone, you know, and thank God my kids were gone for that, too. because it was an endless procession of, you know, I can remember looking around at last call just being panicked because I didn't know who I was leaving with. And that's not the kind of thing I ever want to sit down and talk with my daughter about. But, you Know, I need to remember. And I also don't ever wantto be at a meeting where a new girl leaves thinking I don't belong here either because I'm too bad to even be here. You know, I did some horrible things drinking. I was a horrible mother. you know if you just bought me a drink I would go with you I did whatever I had to do to drink and that's just the bottom line and I wasn't raised that way and I had that whole conflict going and every now and then I would stop drinking for a couple of days but I'll tell you what when you quit drinking with no solution a lot of guilt can creep in in 24 hours you know and I couldn't sleep my head would be almost to the pillow and the voices would start again yeah Beth but you know if anybody finds out you don't even want your kids my god wasn't you know and I would just go drink again to quiet the noise. And by the end of 1987, I was just tired. I mean, I-I was 29 years old. It would be gray out, you know, November and December, real gray, and-and I was sleeping. I didn't even have an apartment now. I was sleepin' on somebody's couch in their attic, and-And I would wake up and look out the window, and it would be 5.30, and it wouldn't be dark. It would just be gray. And I just-I would watch people trying to figure out, okay, is it a.m. or p.m., you know? Because I didn''t-it was just too heartbreaking to think of getting dressed and getting up to the bar and finding out it was 6 o'clock in the morning. So I would go back to sleep thinking, well, when I wake up, it'll either be light or dark, you know? And I would sleep for what seemed like an eternity, and it would be 545, and it Would Be Gray, you know? And that just, I mean, I was 28 years old living like that. My kids would come over, and I can still remember sitting huddled under a blanket. I mean I'd been in this attic apartment since August. I hadn't unpacked. You know, there was just kind of a path to the couch and the TV in the bed, sitting huddled under a blanket with my kids in a space heater in a bottle of Wild Irish Rose watching Nutcracker on Ice for Christmas and thinking, you know, in the back of my mind it was starting to sink in. Something's just not right here, you now? I ended up not drinking the first part of 88 just while I was dating a guy that had pain pills. So again, it went a big stretch not to drink. But in June of 1988, I knew that everybody in Florida had been saying, God, I wish Beth would come back. You know, I really miss her. So, so I went down where they loved and appreciated me. I'd been gone for four years and left under the cloud of a cocaine arrest, but I forgot all that. I just knew they missed me. And, uh, and by the end of it, I took mom's credit card because I of course had no money or credit. And by the End of a week, the credit card was worn out as was I. And I was, I was in fort myers airport on june 26 1988 and i was going to fly home and the credit card wouldn't take a plane ticket and i just had you know i had one of those hangovers that said if i went and sat in a bar until somebody bought me a drink it would be obvious that's what i was doing and even as bad as i felt i couldn't i just couldn't stand the thought of being asked to leave because we don't want your kind here because i didn't even have a dollar you know and i thought about mugging an old lady and taking her purse because there's a lot of retired people in the fort myers area and you know a lot old senior citizens and but i just had one of those hangovers and i knew you know i just knew it would be my luck that the one i picked on would be the 70 year old who was still doing aerobics twice a week she'd run me down and take her purse back you know and uh beat the crap out of me and i'd look bad so i just called mommy instead and uh she uh she didn't really want to fly me home. She told me later that we didn't really fly you home, we just, I flew the children's mother home because we were afraid we'd never see you again and I don't know that that wasn't true at that point but she dropped me off at the local detox which I was real unhappy about. I just wanted to go home and chill out but she said, you know, we're just done. I'm done. You know, I got you back to Ohio and you can go in or not go in but you're not coming home with me and that was June 26, 1988, and I had no idea that I would be sober from that day to this. I was laying in bed the next morning trying to figure out what to do, what was my plan B, because I always had plan B. You can ask an alcoholic when things are going good, how's it going? Good, but if it hits the fan, here's what I'm doing. We always have an escape route and uh everything i could come up with that day i had already tried and it had failed miserably you know i just had i had no plans i didn't have one better idea on how to live that day and i still had no idea i kind of had this fleeting thought that you know whatever those people in aa are doing it's working for them and your way is not working for you and i had no idea that i was surrendered at that point you know I had no Idea I had become willing Somebody said something about going to Halfway House, and I kind of thought, what the heck? I have time. And before that, I was way too busy, you know what I mean? But I couldn't – so I made arrangements to go to a Halfway house, but I couldn'T get in for a month. And this detox center wouldn'T let me go through their 30-day program, which really offended me. I thought they would want us, you Know, to do well. But they said, You know what, Beth? You know What we're going to tell you already, so go do it. Somebody else needs the bed here. and uh thank god because it was the first time i was ever accountable for my own recovery you know one of my favorite games was always to make it your problem to see that i got my work done i did it to teachers in school i did heto employers and i tried to do it with sponsors because like you know i floated through aa i mean i i was not a person who walked through the doors of alcoholics anonymous and said oh thank god i'm home i want what you have You know, I mean, this was a last resort for me. It was my parents' solution. I didn't want it. And plus the thought of not ever drinking again kind of horrified me. So anyway, I went up to 405 Oak Street, which is kind of a historic clubhouse in Cincinnati, just because I wasn't going to go. I'd been going to meetings every day all week and detox. I thought I could take a day off, you know. But this voice in my head just said, you Know what? If you don't go now, you're never going to Go. And I got on a bus and went because my car was impounded, and I had charges pending. I wasn't sure what they were yet. And it was Fourth of July weekend. I couldn't even do anything about getting my car until Tuesday. And I knew if I went to the town where I lived, I would drink. So I got a hotel room in a different part of town that was right on the bus line where I could just walk out and ride the bus down Redding Road. And I pretty much, thank God it didn't rain that weekend or who knows, but it was nice, and I would just sit by the pool clutching my big book because they're having a Fourth of Juli party down at the other end. and then I would get on the bus and ride to Oak Street. And the first night, a girl was given a talk that I'd met in 1984, and she was four years sober. And she sat at the podium, and she said, alcoholism took me to the place where I didn't want to work and I didn' t want to take care of my daughter. I just wanted to drink. And I couldn' t believe it because I had never, ever heard anybody say they didn' d want to tak e care of their kids. I mean, that' s how I'd felt for years, but you can' t tell people that. And here she sat saying it to a room full of people, you know, and that it was alcoholism, you know,and that she had been given a solution. And I got her number that night, and the next day I was going to call her, and it just was the whole, she's probably busy, you know, oh, she'll say my biggest fear, Beth, who, you know? And finally, again, this voice in my head said, you know, you never called anybody last time, and you drank. So I dialed. And and when she answered, I just said, I'm practicing using the phone because I mean, what a conversation was never one of my skills. And and she just laughed and said that's what she had to do. And she became my first sponsor. And I just started showing up every day. You know, I could I'd made arrangements for this halfway house, but I wasn't going in for a month because I had to find out what the charges were that were pending and that kind of stuff. And I started showing Up every day to meetings. And the second night, you know, I went back to Oak Street. Now, I still don't like to look bad, and, you know, when you're new, you just look bad most of the time. So I really didn't want anybody to know I was new. And, of course, if you sit in the front, people are going to talk to you, and if you seat in the back, we know you're knew. So I sat kind of in the middle, you know, and there was a wall right here. I sat on the end of the row, and when it was time to say the Lord's Prayer that night, you know—there's no hand to hold over here. god I am never going to be able to do anything right here and I just hung my head it was pitiful you know and somebody in front of me turned around and took my hand and I just started to cry I couldn't believe it you know I couldn' believe it and I have never found out to this day who that was that did it but they're the reason I came back the next day and that's the kind of stuff I have to remember that you know we get especially out here there's a huge sponsorship ethic out here as we have you know at home, but 12-step work is not just sponsoring 80 people. You know, 12- step work is doing what that person in front of me did, you know, being sure the person behind you has a hand to hold, remembering a new person's name. God, I just wanted you to know who I was, you know? I just want you to know who I was. And when people would say, hi Beth, you know, God, that was like music. And 60 days, 60 days is a long time, you You know, that is such a long time. You know? I don't ever want to forget that. Ten days is a long time without a drink for somebody like me. So I kept showing up and the next Friday they passed the basket because somebody's nine-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver. The following Tuesday he was in a new meeting that I'd been going to and he said that he had to believe that it wasn't for nothing. It happened right outside a hospital where they sent people to do their three-day weekends if they got a drunk driving charge. Those people were outside on break when it happened, and he said maybe one of them saw it and got sober. Who knows? And I was leaving that day, and I just was thinking, what if that had been me? What would my kids remember about me? You know, what have my kids had been in that car? You know what their last thought had been? You know. What would they think? And I realized, you know, that I just had a chance to call him right then and tell them I loved them, you know, and that I couldn't undo all the damage I'd done, but that from that day forward I could build some kind of relationship with them. And I might never ever be a normal mom. I might always be a weekend mom. But if I was, I could be a good weekend mom I could do what I wanted to do I could go home. I could stay there when I was supposed to be and my word could begin to be worth something to them because it was worth nothing. And I didn't know it at the time, but again, that was another surrender, you know that was taking life on life's terms which was never a skill of mine and I did you know I heard this voice in my head say God you've been given this gift and I just remember thinking where did that come from because I you know I wasn't grateful by nature either you know and you know when you're in treatment they always send the perkiest people in to do the meetings I mean grateful people just made me want to puke most of the time you know and really my overwhelming thing when I came in was I don't want what you have but I just didn't want what i had you know and that was enough and i kept showing up this noon meeting i went to was a big book meeting and they read a whole chapter every day they go through the first 11 chapters start over at the forwards and uh i went because i knew you were supposed to read your book every day and i figured that would count so i wouldn't have to read at home you know if you're new take notes here this works and they lead the whole chapter so maybe you don't have to talk during the meeting you know because it chews up half of the hour so you might not get called on and uh and i figured i had my whole day free after one o'clock you know and i would have kept my commitment to go to a meeting every day now what i didn't count on was that god has a sense of humor and um people who go to big book meetings regularly on purpose tend to read the book and do what it says so i had you know out of sheer laziness plot myself down in the middle of the most active people in cincinnati aa and uh i had figured i'd read all the chapters ones and kind of graduate to a discussion meeting. But I had such a good time the first time through, I thought, well, I might have missed something the first time, you know? I'll go through one more time. And what I started to find out was that when I read, I don't hear it. You know? Especially if I was reading my brain was just mush when I was new. And I would read a paragraph and close the book and I would think, what did I just read? I mean, I just couldn't do it. And even in a big book meeting, I'd be reading, you know, following along and they'd be, you know, reading, oh, rarely have we seen a person fail. I wonder how much it's going to cost to get my car out of impound. You know what I mean? I would just drift right off the edge of the page and then I'd hear the pages turn and I'd be, you know... And I'd just, you now, I'd be good for about three sentences and I'll be, I wonder if he's got a girlfriend, you know? I just couldn't stay on the page. But because I was hearing it read to me every day, for one thing, I started finding out where you guys got all that great stuff you were talking about all the time, and so I just thought you knew, and I didn't, you know. It was all in the book, and, uh, and i don't know, my brain has always kind of had a running conversation going up here. They still talk. I just don't check in to see what we're talking about very often anymore, but I would, you Know, I'd walk in somewhere, and I'd stop up, you Know, to see What we were talking About, and one of the voices in my head would be saying, wow, that was pretty cool What Guy said today, or I didn t know that was in the book you know so even the committee up here was reading the book a little bit and so it just started to sink in and and I just I kept going that the other thing is that I forgot I had no life so you know my day was free at 1 but by 6 o'clock I was pretty antsy so I would just go back to Oak Street so I did two meetings a day for a long time I did speaker meetings at night I did the big book meeting by day and again what I didn't know was that I had put myself into the solution twice a day you know I I was fortunate enough to not stumble into meetings that insist on talking about the problem for an hour they were reading to me out of the book and I got the solution and I just kept showing up and things just you know somebody said why don't you do an inventory Beth you've been around before and I thought yeah why not so I was three or four weeks so I didn't know I could say no or I'm not ready or you know I just sat down and wrote it and shared my fifth step, and I was, I don't know, three or four weeks sober, and I've never looked back. You know, I worked on through the steps. I started making my amends. And God, you know, what a miracle taking a one-year coin. You know? What a miracle. And things were happening. Like, my mom asked me to go to a basketball game with her just because she wanted me to do it. She wanted me not to go, you now, just because he wanted me go. And this was a woman that I hated. I hated her because she was doing all those things I couldn't do. She was taking care of my kids, you know? And we made a decision that the kids would stay with her for a while because they'd been there for four years already. They were in a good neighborhood. They'd had the same friends. They were In a safe neighborhood. I was living in a crummy part of town by the AA clubhouse, and it just didn't seem like it was feeling the greater good to pull them out of somewhere they'd be in for years to come live in my efficiency apartment. So for the next few years, they spent more and more time with me, weekends and holidays, and I gradually kind of caught up to their standard of living. By the time I was probably 15 months sober, I had a car, an insurance, and a driver's license all at the same time. There is a promise for a newcomer. I talked somewhere when I was a year sober, and I talked in my home group when I had been a year sober, this girl, I'd run into her right before, you know, so I took her, I used to drink with her and I took her with me and when I was dropping her back off at the treatment center she goes oh Beth you gave me so much hope tonight and I'm like an idiot I go oh really you know what makes you say that and she said if you can do it I know I can and she went so three days later somebody else says boy I have my new girl with me and you just gave her so much help and it's you know like I didn't learn the first time I went Oh, really? What part? And Leslie said, all the way home. All she could say was, she really got her driver's license back? You know, so who knows what they hear. But by Thanksgiving, the second year I was sober, I started thinking that, really, I mean, by now I did. I had the car, the driver's licence. All the car doors opened and closed. You know? All the windows went up and down. I head a little job. I headed a little apartment. My kids were spent a weekend with me, and I thought, you know, here's my poor Robbie. He's seven years old now, and he's got all these women in his life, and really my life is pretty much complete except for there's no man for Robbie. You know, he needs some male influence, so I should probably start looking around, you Know, and Oak Street does a big Thanksgiving thing every year at one o'clock, and we went up there at noon, so i went to the noon big book meeting because that's what i do at noon, and when I came out from the meeting, I couldn't find Robbie. And somebody said, well, go look across the street, Beth. And there was a school across the Street with a, you know, a field. And here was Robbie and another seven-year-old boy and four of the guys from Oak Street who were 20, and they were playing football. And I just, it just hit me, you know, where else should a seven- year-old be on Thanksgiving Day except playing football with a bunch of guys? And what really the grace for me was, you know, every now and then I just feel like God parts the curtains just enough to let me get a little look and what I realized was that I had had absolutely nothing to do with setting that up you know. I went to my meeting and Robbie got what he needed too so I just kept going to meetings and called off the manhunt and a couple months later I fell over Chuck so it worked out okay. I said actually I heard him talk when he was a year sober I'd never seen him before and I always joke, I said to myself then, I want what he has and I'm willing to go to any lengths to get it. But actually we didn't even start dating for another year and we were not married for another year after that and we're going to celebrate 10 years of marriage in July. We got a house pretty close to the kids and my daughter actually came to live with us before Robbie did And, you know, things just started to normalize. And we bought him bicycles one year, you know. And I guess the other thing, oh, I know what I always try to talk about too is, you know, Chuck, he got sober because he knew if he took one more drink, he was going to die. His body was shutting down and he knew he was gonna die. If you had told me, Beth, you'll be dead in six months, I would have kept drinking. I was 29 and a half years old in June of 1988, and I never expected to be 30. I just never thought I'd live that long. Consequently, I had no plans for being 30, you know? And laying there that day in detox, what I realized was that I was probably going to live 30 or 40 more years whether I drank or not, you know, that if I was dead, if I were supposed to be dead, I would have been dead. I bartended in places where people shot at each other. I had my own Harley Davidson. I rode drunk when I couldn't walk, you now. The list just went on. I should have been died many, many times. and that day, it's like this voice just came down and said, people like you don't die, Beth, you know, and I knew I was going to live. I knew I was gonna live, and there were depths of bad I hadn't even thought up yet, and that's why I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. If you had told me I'd be dead in six months, somebody else would be standing here. The only reason I really never tried to kill myself is I knew I'd live. You know what I mean? I knew that I would live and be maimed and look bad and, you know, get that whole cry for help thing they give you when you try to kill yourself. And so I just knew it wouldn't work. And so Chuck and I got the kids bicycles for Christmas, and they were pretty small, so we got ourselves bicycles too. And I didn't think much of it. You know, by now we're kind of out in the suburbs, and it was the first warm spring day, and we all got out our Huffies, you Know, and we're getting ready to ride down the street. and I still wouldn't think, I'm just thinking how cool is this? And we ride down the street and a guy's out mowing his grass and it's first warm day and you know how they are about their lawns in the suburbs and he waves to us and as I raise my hand away the old Zoom camera came back and I got a look at where I was and I just thought oh my God. I used to own a Harley Davidson for God's sakes and I am on a lavender huffy in the suburbs. How did this happen, you know? I mean, if you had told me when I was new, guess what, Beth? When you're four years sober, you're going to be seen in public on a lavender huffie. I would have said, oh, yeah, right, you know. What you really couldn't have told me about it, though, was right then there was nowhere else I wanted to be, you know? There was nowhere elsewhere I wanted to be, but on that bike with those kids. And what a miracle that was because, you know, every now and then drinking would give me that sense of being where I was supposed to be in the right place. You know, Every now and then the plan is just aligned right. And I was at the right party with the right people or the right, you Know, it just was all okay. And the rest of the time, I just chased that feeling. If I'd just gone with him, if I'd gone with her, if we'd come earlier, if we left later, if We'd gone to a different bar, I should have gone to the party. And I rarely, rarely could just get that feeling of peace and ease that comes with knowing where you're supposed to be. And that's one of the biggest gifts I've gotten here is like that day that Robbie was playing football, knowing that I was where I was supposed to me and all I had to do was show up and go to a meeting and knowing thatI was supposedto be with those kids on that bike that day. You know? And it's just been like this. I have really never not done AA since June of 88. You know, I've never wanted to test it and see how little I can do and not drink I have I have been sponsored, you know, which is different than having a sponsor. I have bin sponsored I'd go to meetings, you now I sponsor other people. I just showed up. I ended up going back to school and I Have initials after my name which just cracks me up I still I you know I think if these people knew who they were handing all their financial information to, they would just turn around and run the other way. But, I mean, I'm sober 13 years, and I still laugh when I hand people business cards. I just, you know, I just—I don't know. It's just such a miracle. I was unemployable, you Know? I got custody of the kids back. Chuck and I did. In 1993, when the kids started school, they were starting from their home in the suburb where they grew up with just a mom and dad. It was just a normal kind of life for them. And we went to our home group and passed out candy because, you know, when we got married, a lot of people remarry and have another set of kids, and so people were handing out candy, and they said, hey, you're having kids? And we want, yeah, they're like 9 and 11. Isn't it cool? But where else can you do that? Where else can go share that kind of joy of getting your kids back and wanting them back? That's such a change of heart. And what the book says is that change of heart can't be brought about by me alone, you know, that it's God. And when I was new, you knew my God was – I'd always believed, but I didn't really trust him to do anything for me. And I heard people who had been sober a long time talk about this wonderful God, and I think, well, that's nice for you, you know, but they never understood again that they had gotten to where they were by showing up and practicing, you know and and what the big book says actually is that you know a spiritual awakening is just being aware of the presence of god so if i take i'm in like a you know as one of those math people so i you know to me it's kind of algebraic that you just okay step 12 says having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps so if I just substitute you know the definition then what it says is having become aware ofthe presence of God as aresultofthesestepsyouknow and that was the key for me. I had no idea how to have a relationship with God, and if I could have turned it over in step three, I would only needed three steps, you know what I mean? It was that process from four to twelve where things started to happen, and it's always kind of bad news for the new person, you Know my book says this means we're going to talk about God. I mean, it's right in the book, and you know, the other part of step 12 is we try to carry this message to alcoholics. And I always need to be real careful to be sure, you know, what is this message? You know, this message, as I understand it from the book, is that I was beyond human aid. They read it tonight. Beyond human aid, that means no human power, even my sponsor, is going to keep me sober in the end. And that God could and would have he were sought, and that there's one who has all power. You know? And the book does say, you now, let the new person get a god of his conception. but that's not the end of the sentence it says provided he may you know provided it makes sense to him and uh i read a great article that clarence snyder wrote called my higher power the light bulb and uh one of the things he said was he said it was it was really tragic because what he saw happening was in the quest to not offend anybody and in the request to not scare anybody he said we are abandoning new people to create their own god instead of helping them find the one that's there. And, and so for me, you know, I need to be sure I'm carrying this message and not my message. And, you Know, if you're new, I mean, the bad news is it's all about God. But if you keep coming around, it ends up being the good news. You know, it really is. I just, I remember two months over thinking, now, is this really God? Or am I just thinking more positive this time, you know? And I just thought, Oh, get real, Beth, you know you would have gotten sober when you were 18 of thinking positive did it um it just wasn't until i was willing to submit my will to somebody else you know i just had to be surrendered and uh and i guess i have stayed surrendered by continuing to show up you know and remembering where i came from and uh and carrying the message to others you know somebody said uh i was out in st louis and she said you know step 12 doesn't say having had a spiritual awakening we say thanks and take it home you know um it says that we carry it to others and that's why you know a lot of us do what we do um one of the other things appendix the spiritual experience says is that the newcomer will find out he went through a change what's this a profound alteration in his reaction to life and i never gave much thought to what that meant and when i was a couple years sober there was a girl in the big book meeting that was like eight weeks sober. And she said, she talked, that's what we read. And then she talked and she said you know the first seven weeks were just great and I was just floating on air and the whole last week had just sucked really bad. And by that morning she was in so much pain that she didn't know what to do. So she got on her knees and prayed and came to a meeting. And I almost fell out of my chair because you know being in pain my normal reaction to life was not get on my knees, pray and go to a meeting. You know, I don't know what your normal reaction was, but mine was head to the bar. And she didn't even realize what she had said. You know what I mean? She had no clue. And I couldn't wait till after, you know, to just go tell her, look, it says right in here what you're doing, that your reaction to life has changed. And when you didn't know What to do, you prayed and went to a meeting. So even if you don't know what's working, we see it, you know, and when you keep showing up, you see it in somebody else. And then you go, Oh, when did that happen? I didn't know I'd started turning out the light and going to bed until I heard somebody else talk about it at a meeting. And then I went, wow, when did I start doing that? So somewhere between six and nine months is all I can tell you. If you're new, please come back. 90 days is better than 60. And a year beats nine months hands down. There was an old timer when I got sober and he said every year was better than the last. And that's just what I've come to expect. You know, I just expect every year to be my favorite phrase is expect a miracle, you know, because I just do. I just do. And if you're new and you had a really crappy week and you're here, it is working even if you don't see it working. So I want to thank John again for calling me. Thanks. Thank you. . . . . . . Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.