Feeling Everything Since Age Five and Building an Entire Identity to Prove You Feel Nothing – June G.

When a good personal friend and a great friend of AA, for the invocation the chaplain of the US House of Representatives Dr. Ford. Ed, before I give the invocation I want to say that as I said that when I came in with a crowd like this every preacher wants to take a collection. We never let it get by. May I also say just briefly how pleased I am to be invited. I had the A's and A's group here had their first meeting in the Capitol two years ago in my office and we found a better place than that but Ed was in on that, Craig who's here, and I've been a supporter and I mean an enthusiastic supporter of the work of AA all these years and let me take this personal time to thank Ed too who is a phone call away in my work when I want help and assistance that phone is there and Ed is in my office and we've got help and I appreciate what he does and what AA does so I'm pleased and honored to be invited to be here today. Thank you. Let us pray. We thank you, O God, for this day and for the opportunities and responsibilities that are ours. We are especially grateful for your many gifts to us. The gifts of understanding and tolerance, knowledge, and reconciliation. The gift of family, friends, and colleagues. The gifts of faith and hope and love. The gift of life itself. We are thankful that we can gather this day in freedom. May your blessing be upon our nation and its leaders and may we continue to know the liberties that have been our heritage. Your word has commanded that justice should roll down as waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. May we labor for justice that people can live in respect and dignity and may we use our talents and abilities for righteousness so all people may live in peace. Now bless this food to our people. May we serve the Lord. May we serve the Lord. May we serve the Lord. May we serve the Lord. And us to your faithful service we pray. Amen. Thank you, Dr. Allen. Now the lunch is served. We will start the program promptly at 1245. Enjoy your lunch. 1986 Congressional Luncheon. My name is Ed Chandler and I'm an alcoholic. I wonder if there are any other alcoholics in the room. Any Al-Anons? Maybe you all heard this. I didn't until a couple days ago. When an Al-Anon dies, her husband's life is ruined. Her ass is in front of her eyes. We also welcome Alateens, Alicots, Alapets, whatever. This is the fifth Congressional Luncheon and the crowd gets a little bigger each time. And it's sponsored mostly by the Yeas and Nays groups that meets in the U.S. Capitol at 8 o'clock every Tuesday morning. And there are occasionally some empty chairs. If you would care to get up early enough to come down, I'd be delighted to have you. Thank you. The luncheon has developed some people who are not members of AA but who have some interest in alcoholism or more specifically recovery from alcoholism come and join us. And some today have brought employees. Some have brought their boss. And we're delighted to have the non-members of AA come to this forum. Primarily it's to have a great AA meeting. But we're delighted to have other people from the non-AA community come and be with us. I'd like to recognize a couple in the audience at this time. The Federal Aviation Administration has, I guess, one of the finest alcoholism programs ever anywhere. And due in large part to a man who's with us today, the chief psychiatrist at FAA, Dr. Bart Packel. Dr. Packel. Dr. Packel. And Fulton Caldwell, NIAAA, is here. Fulton? Fulton. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. The regional trustee to general service office in New York, Garret Taylor. Garret, where are you? And anytime there's a group gathered on Capitol Hill of any sort, if he's present, it's more than appropriate that it be introduced a long-time congressman from the state of Arkansas, former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Honorable Wilbur Mills. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. Fulton Caldwell. I could probably introduce him another way if I wanted to. I'm also delighted to have from the, the dugout from the Virgin Islands, the Honorable Ron DeLugo. Ron, good to have you here. Tapes of the speaker will be available at this table on my left as soon as the meeting is over. It is appropriate that... Is it any time a group comes to Capitol Hill to be formally and officially welcomed by a member of Congress? And we've made provisions to have you, uh, those so done today. And to make some, uh, welcoming opening remarks, I'd like to call on the congressman from the 8th congressional district, the state of Washington, the Honorable Rod Chandler. Thank you very much, Cousin Ed. I... I can't begin to tell you what an honor and a privilege it is to have this opportunity to greet all of you to this luncheon for the second year, uh, in a row. I have, uh, had such a warm place in my heart for all of you since I came here in 1983 and made that telephone call to Dr. Ford and, uh, had him say, yes, there's a fellow named Ed Chandler, and he will see to it that you get to some meetings. And, uh, boy did I ever. And, uh... I'm afraid to miss now. Uh, and the warmth and, uh, the feeling of love and friendship and to get to know Wilbur and Ron and all the rest of you has just been a delightful experience in my life. Speaking of life, let me also, uh, with that reminder, introduce to you the Al-Anon in the family, my wife, Joyce. I want to be serious, of course, but I think we also have to, uh, uh, provide a little bit of levity and maybe, maybe I can accomplish both in the same way. Uh, Dr. Ford and I think, uh, all of us in the fellowship certainly are sensitive to that third step premise of God's will. And I have a story about God's will for us today. It seems that there was a man in the 1930s. Who was suffering along with the rest of this great nation, the terrible depression that had struck. He was not an educated man and he didn't have many skills and he was having a terrible time to find a job. He had no money. He hadn't eaten for a while and he had tried every possibility in the town in which he was located and found nothing. One day he was walking through the town, dejected and in total despair, and he happened to see one last place that he had not been to look for work. He walked in and it was... A house of prostitution. And he explained to the lady that he would do anything there that needed to be done. Sweep the floors, clean up, whatever. And she said, well we have a fellow to do that, but she said, I do have one need. We need an accountant, a bookkeeper. Well, he dropped his face and he said, well I've never been to school. I don't read, I don't write. There's no way I could handle a job like that. And she felt terrible, so there was an apple sitting on her desk and she said, wouldn't you take this? Take this apple and have it as yours. So he walked outside, still dejected, kind of flipping that apple, looking at it. And a guy walked up to him on the street and said, hey, I'd give you ten cents for that apple. She said, alright. And he sold him the apple. And he walked down the street and he noticed this little stand selling apples for a dime. And he said, hey, this ain't bad. So he bought a couple of them and went back up where he'd been and he peddled them for a dime a piece. And he did that for a while and the first thing you know, he had a pretty good dinner. And it wasn't long before he started buying apples. He started buying apples from a wholesaler. Got a little cart. Went out on the street. Business got so good that he had to get another cart and hired a man to run that. And then he got a whole fleet of carts around the city. So he didn't work at that at all. He just managed all those people. Then he got some trucks to deliver the apples. Then he got a warehouse. Then he bought an orchard. And first thing you know, this man is into juice, into fresh apples, into pie. I mean, he had built an empire around the purchase or the gift of that first apple. Well, it came time for him to go. It came to retire. He was up in his years and he got the lawyers and everybody all together. And they were ready to sign the papers. And they said, sir, if you'll just put your signature right there at the bottom of the page, that will complete this transaction. And he said, well, this is kind of embarrassing, but I'm only going to be able to mark with an X because I don't know how to read or write. And this lawyer said, my Lord, here is a man who has built millions, an empire in the apple business. You are into juice, into pie, into fresh apples. You own trucks and warehouses. What would you have been if you'd been an educated man? He said, I've been a bookkeeper at a whorehouse. With that, let me say how welcome you are to be a part of our life here in this nation's great capital, Alcoholics Anonymous, right where it belongs in the capital of the United States, every Tuesday morning at 8 o'clock for the Yeas and Nays group. If you haven't been there lately, it's the most positive meeting in the country. Usually there's standing room only. I think we're going to have to get a bigger room or graduate some people. And I think the latter isn't possible. We'll get a bigger room. So welcome. I know you're in for a real treat here in June today. And thank you very much for being a part of my own sobriety. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. I'm real eager now to see how Dr. Ford cleans that up for Sunday morning. At this point, it is customary at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous to read a portion of our book called Alcoholics Anonymous, How It Works. And for that, I'll call on Alma. Hi, my name's Alma, and I'm an alcoholic. How it works is that we have a book called Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's a book about alcoholics. How it works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these, we balked. We thought we could find an easy way. We thought we could find a more easy or softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol. Cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry that out. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Many of us exclaimed, what an order, I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything that we have done wrong. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after made clear three pertinent ideas. That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. That probably no human power could have relieved us of our spiritual needs. That God could and would if he were sought. The speaker part of the program, which is outstanding today. I'll call on, to introduce the speaker, I'll call on Hal Elm. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Hal Elm. I'm a very grateful alcoholic. And for those of you who don't know me, I try to live an attitude of gratitude, because I've got so much to be grateful for. Today my gratitude cup runneth over. Those of you who have been around long, you know that these conferences or lunches like this don't just happen. It takes that horrible, dirty, four-letter word, W-O-R-K. A word that I have assiduously avoided for 71 years. However it takes it. And I would like to thank Ed and the committee here that have done an outstanding job. And it was work, work, work to make this possible. Ed, thank you. I'm grateful to all of you for showing up and making it the biggest and best. Every year it gets bigger and better, just like AA all over the world. Better all the time. And on top of it all, we have this charming young lady from, all the way from L.A. I met June in 1975. She was a Saturday night speaker out in Palm Desert, right next to Palm Springs. At that time, as I remember, she was 16 years old. Had three years sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous. And she had just completed her GED, her high school equivalency. And she was pleased. She had been working hard on this program. This program was beginning to pay off. Well, that's been 11 years ago. And I'm not going to say what's happened in between. I wouldn't dare presume to deny you the privilege of hearing from June. I wouldn't dare presume to deny you the privilege of hearing from June. I wouldn't dare presume to deny you the privilege of hearing from June. But not because of how strong she is. None of her words or experiences have taken great value in this 13 years of work. But none of her words or experiences have taken great value in this 13 years of work. In fact, it truly rings a bell Please help me in welcoming June. June? Thank you. My name is June. I'm an alcoholic. Hi. I really want to thank all of you for inviting me here and letting me be a part of this with all of you and for giving me a chance to see Ed and Hal again. They're two real special people in my heart. I kept thinking this morning. I've had such a fabulous trip so far. See, this is going to be a long talk. I just thought there's really no way you can get from where I come from to where I am today. It takes a lot more than a plane ticket to get from where I came from in Venice, California to where I am today. I don't know exactly how it's all happened, really. It's been a lot of meetings and a lot of people sharing their experience, strength and hope in my life. I'm so grateful for this. I'm so grateful for this. I'm so grateful for this. I'm so grateful. I thought, too, I just thought it's so incredible. When I came through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, by the time I got here, my own family would not allow me in the home or to call under any circumstances. I'd been thrown out of a number of different places at that point, and I really had no place left to go. I came down here last night, and Ed invited me out, and I went out with a lot of different people that I got a chance to meet, I guess maybe about 10 of them. Every one of them has offered to share part of the next couple of days with me. I can't believe it. I don't want to be seen by color then. It's just so special to me. I feel like I'm most likely here in my life. It's just so special. Herb arranged a tour for us this morning of the Supreme Court. And Ed took me over there and Hal took me last night and showed me just how beautiful your city is. And I kept thinking about that this morning too. I thought it was amazing. I mean, you guys, many of you have never even met me before. And I tell you that 13 and a half years ago my own family didn't even want me. And here you all are and you're inviting me to do things and share a part of your life. And God, I can't be anything but grateful. Well, I want anyone to know who might be visiting or new to Alcoholics Anonymous, I am not an expert on alcoholism or on Alcoholics Anonymous. I am not an authority. I'm not paid to get up here and share. I know when you're done you're going to think, thank God they didn't have to pay her for that. I'm just another member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I came here to share a little bit about my experience, strength, and hope. I love it. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. And I can't help but be tremendously impressed with what it has accomplished in my life. And I think the thing that impresses me the most, and even more so the longer I stay sober, is not only what it has accomplished with my life, but that it has given me a life that I never would have wanted any part of. And what's interesting about that is that the life that I've been given that I never would have wanted any part of is the best life I've ever had. And it's sort of an interesting paradox, one of the many that happen in our lives here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I am... I had an obsession before alcohol, and that obsession was with suicide. And it began at the age of five years old. And from the time that I was five years old until the time that I came through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, there wasn't one day in my life that I didn't do something to take my own life, put myself in a position where someone else would take my life, or pray to a God that I was slowly losing faith in to please take my life. That really was my number one goal. It was what I wanted the most. And obviously I wasn't very successful at it, but I want you to know I gave it a good try. Fortunately for someone like me, I started to use drugs at the age of seven years old. I began to use alcohol on a regular basis about a year later, and by the time I was nine, I was fine the combination that was to work for me until I came through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that was barbiturates, or downers, or reds, or yellows, whatever you might know them as, and alcohol. I very rarely altered that combination at all because the combined effect of those chemicals got me exactly where I wanted to go. And that was complete oblivion. I was never a party girl. I was never a social drinker. I already told you the main interest that I had was to try and kill myself. And in not being successful at that, there probably wasn't hardly anybody out there in the world that needed something more than I did. And I'm grateful that I found the chemicals that I did because had I not found alcohol when I did, I honestly believe I would have had to have been locked up in an institution because I really just couldn't handle living out there. I just didn't know how to cope and how to do it. I know certain things in staying sober and in learning a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous and looking back on my life. I can tell you a little bit about the way that I saw the world and the way that I saw life and I guess the way that it sort of formed my opinions and my old ideas which I've had to since work on getting rid of. But when I was a little kid, I grew up in an alcoholic home. My mother was a bar drinker. And so I learned a lot about alcoholism firsthand. I knew about the violence. I knew about the broken promises. I knew all about what alcoholism was going to mean and I knew I wanted no part of it. But as I was growing up, I was an only child and so I looked around a lot at the people that were around me to sort of see what the world was kind of like. And the only people that I saw were my mother's friends and they were pretty much all alcoholics. It seems to me in the way that I saw the world that men never felt anything. And to the best of my recollection, before coming into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't ever recall seeing a man cry or show any emotion at all with the exception of anger and rage. And I thought that that meant that that's all men ever feel. That the only thing that ever gets to them or that ever changes the way that they feel inside is when they get angry or they get mad. And I thought maybe if they care about you, you can get them to slap you once in a while. But outside of that, I really didn't believe that men had any sense of what it was like to be a man. I didn't think that men had any emotional reactions at all. And although the women in my life also acted with a tremendous amount of anger and rage and violence, I knew that they felt things. I knew that things hurt them. I knew that they cared. I knew that I could make them cry or I saw some of them even having nervous breakdowns. And I looked at those two different groups of people and I decided immediately which one I wanted to be like. And I spent my whole life before coming into Alcoholics Anonymous and for some time afterward trying to be what I thought a man was. And to me, a man was someone who cared about no one, who felt absolutely nothing, and if they did happen to feel anything, never let anyone else know it. Now the interesting thing about that is that those being my goals, I was completely unsuccessful in those. In fact, I seem to be one of those people that Clancy talked about who was born with no insulation whatsoever for my emotions. And when I would go out there in the world and I would be five and six years old and I'd go to school and those kids would tease me about being tall or having curly red hair or being skinny or whatever it was, I could tell you today if I really wanted to think about it, who said it, what they were wearing, where I was. And I remember the pain that I felt inside. I remember how much it hurt. It was like I was being cut up inside and sometimes I wanted to cry and sometimes I even would start to cry. And so at the age of five years old, I found out something about myself very quick, something I was never to forget. I found out that I was a weak person. I found out that I couldn't do this thing that I wanted to do more than anything else. I couldn't control my emotions and that other people, people I didn't even care about, had the ability to upset me and make me cry and make me hurt inside. And those feelings of self-hatred were never to leave. I'm not one of those people who was going to tell you about the fact that as I was out there drinking, I lost my self-worth and I lost my self-respect because I honestly am one of those people I think have to say that before coming into Alcoholics Anonymous, I never had any self-worth and I never had any self-respect. The only feelings that I've ever had for myself were self-hatred. I never liked the way that I looked. I never liked where I was living. I never liked what was happening in my life. And most of all, I never for one instant liked the way that I was feeling. And for someone like me, that's why it was so important that I found alcohol when I did. In growing up, when I was a little kid, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I told them a boy. And it wasn't as easy back then as it is today to do that. And I was very serious about it. And that's when my mother first started taking me to the priest. He wanted the priest to explain to me that I couldn't be a boy. And later on, they began taking me to psychiatrists and psychologists. And I was very serious about it. I can't really tell you what the diagnosis from a psychiatrist or a psychologist was, because I'm one of those people like my friend Patty, who always thought that those people should have to work for their money, and I never told them anything. When I finally accepted the fact that I could not be a boy, I had to settle for the next best thing. And in Venice, where I grew up, it's a beach town, and the way that I saw the world, the next best thing, if you couldn't be a boy, was to be a tough broad. And so I spent my time before coming into Alcoholics Anonymous trying to be what I thought a tough broad was. And I bet in Washington, D.C., you probably have different standards than we have in Venice, but we had them, and they were very important. I joined a gang, and I did a lot of fighting. I have never won a fight in my life. However, I never fought a group of less than five people at a time. And I learned when I got to the program, after I'd been sober for a while, my sponsor explained to me that the reasons I always fought groups from five to fifteen was because it wasn't worth it for me to take a chance and fight one person, and perhaps I would be able to win. And perhaps lose, because somebody then might say I was a lousy fighter. But if you go ahead and you fight five to fifteen, nobody expects you to win, and they think, gosh, you must be awfully tough, or why would that many people have to jump her? And I was one of those kind of people who was willing to walk around with my face beat in a lot so that somebody else out there might think that I was tough. I would stand down in Venice with my gang, looking tough, and sometimes tourist-type people would go walking down the beach, and they'd see us. And people usually did notice me and my gang. And when I'd look them, I'd look them right in the eye, and I'd take my cigarette, and I'd throw it down on the sidewalk. And of course, we never wore shoes if you were a tough broad in Venice. And I would put my cigarette out with my bare feet on the sidewalk, and these tourist-type people would poke one another and whisper back and forth. And of course, I knew what they were saying. They were saying, wow! That is one tough broad! And I was very impressed. And I knew that they would be. It wasn't until after I was sober for a while that my sponsor convinced me that maybe what some of those people were saying to one another was, did you see that? That person just put flesh to fire. Why would anybody do anything so stupid? But I thought it was very tough, and so I knew everybody else would, too. Of course, just being able to step on lit cigarette butts did not really mean that you were tough. You were only truly tough if you were then able to walk upon those feet as if it did not hurt. And those are the kind of things that kept me busy before I came to the program about tough broads. That's what I was doing out there. I'm very grateful that tattoos did not become popular until a little while after I was sober. In fact, many of my women friends in Alcoholics Anonymous, some before coming to the program and some after, have gotten wonderful little works of art, little tattoos, you know, little flower or little butterfly or little panda bear or bunny, you know. And if tattoos had been popular when I was on the streets, I'd be standing up here today, I'd have a shark on my arm, and it would swim around the street. And I'd be like, oh, that's a good tattoo. That's a good tattoo. And it would swim whenever I did this. And I would have gotten something like a battleship on my chest or maybe a canoe in my case. But if I had thought it was tough, I have no doubt in my mind I would have done it. I knew a lot. I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know if I knew a lot about it, but I certainly knew that it existed. My mother had been in and out of the program since the time that I was six years old, and with varying lengths of sobriety in between. So I certainly knew that the program existed. I wanted to know part of it. I didn't have a problem. I wasn't anything like my mother, who really was an alcoholic. And yet one night I was brought to a meeting by my mother. And I was brought not because I asked for help, not because I wanted help, but simply because she was afraid to leave me alone. She thought I'd get her evicted from another apartment. And I went into the meeting, and that night at that meeting, the miracle of this program began for me, even though I didn't get sober at that time. And the miracle began in a way that I know many of you may not be able to identify. It was a miracle. It was a miracle that I didn't know how to identify with. But there was a man in that meeting that I admired and that I respected very much. And I didn't admire or respect a whole lot of people, but this guy was really it. He was the most important person in my life. And I saw him, and he was sitting in this meeting, and I admired this guy for a lot of different reasons. I'll share some of them with you. I admired Paul because he'd been in prison, because he carried a knife and had it with him at the meeting that night, because he rode a motorcycle, because he was extremely hostile and violent. And because a lot of people were afraid of him. Now, if I had to tell you what I wanted in one sentence when I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, what I really wanted out of life, I wanted the ability to be able to walk into a room full of strangers and have everyone there back away from me in terror. Now, when you're 87 pounds, that almost never happens. But this guy Paul was somebody I had seen. You know, he was a friend of my mom's, and I had seen him walk into bars, and I had seen him walk into parties. And I'd seen people like him. I'd seen tables just clear so that he could have a seat. This guy had achieved everything I wanted. People were afraid of him. He'd done it. And he was sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it made a big impression on me that this guy had done everything I wanted to do and had it all, and he was sitting in this meeting. And I thought to myself, wow, I just never knew great people like this came to AA, you know? I thought it was for just weak people like my mom. And I went out and I got drunk the next night, and then I came back to some meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I did not raise my hand. I did not tell them. I didn't join. I just went to lots and lots of meetings, and I followed Paul around. And in between the meetings, Paul and I talked. And Paul was newly, getting newly sober at that time, and he was going to lots and lots of meetings, so I did too. And in between, I explained to Paul all the reasons why I wasn't an alcoholic. I explained that I was too young, that I had my whole life ahead of me, that I wasn't anything like my mother, who really was an alcoholic. And I just sort of went on and on. I later found out that non-alcoholics don't have to spend any time trying to convince other people they're not alcoholic. They already know that. But Paul finally turned to me and he said, you know, June, they tell me in Alcoholics Anonymous that I can't diagnose anybody's disease but my own. He said, but in your case, I'm going to make an exception. He said, I've seen the way that you drink, and I happen to believe that if you don't come into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and take what these people have to offer you, within a period of six months or less, you're going to be out on the streets, you're going to be shooting stuff, and you're going to be selling your ass. And I knew he wasn't trying to scare me. He wasn't trying to make up some story like maybe your teacher might do in high school. He was talking about facts. He was talking about things that had happened in his life. He was talking about things that had happened in a rebrand. He was talking about things that had happened in my life. Things that were beginning to happen in mine. And I thought a little bit about what he said, but I did not want to join Alcoholics Anonymous. I did not want to join any organization that was allowing my mother to be a member. I found, during this two-week period of time, that absolutely every choice but Alcoholics Anonymous was removed from my life. During this time, as I was going to meetings, I was living with my mother. By the time I got to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, the only person that I hated more than my mother was myself. And in this period of time that I was living with my mother, there's no point in telling anyone I hated more than my mother. of time that I was living with her I couldn't control the rage and the hatred that I felt for this woman and I would attack her physically and because she was sober at this time she no longer felt guilty enough that she had to be subjected to my physical attacks and she asked me to leave her home and I did my family hadn't spoken to me for two or three years I was not allowed to call or come by under any circumstances and I didn't bother to try I had been in and thrown out of six foster homes at that point none of them would consider taking me back and so at that time I started to try and find an alcohol recovery or a drug recovery home that would take me there weren't as many in the Los Angeles area certainly as there are today but there were a few none of them would take me some because of my age and some just because of my attitude and then I thought well you know what who needs all this stuff who needs this family stuff and needs these programs and everything nothing really matters to a tough broad except for your game and that's all I need I just need my game that's the only thing that's really important and then one day as I was walking down an alley all five members of my own gang beat me up and I found my stuff sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I found myself sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I found myself sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I was 87 pounds. I didn't have any money. I didn't have any place to live. I didn't have any family that would speak to me. I didn't have any friends. I didn't have any food. I didn't have any shoes and wouldn't have worn them at that time if I'd had them. And I started to raise my hand in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. You can see where it was really a pretty clear choice. It wasn't like, would you like to go to Hawaii or join AA? It was pretty easy at that point. And when I started to raise my hand, there were some people, I think, in the program at that time who really weren't aware of the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. And in particular, the third tradition, the one that says the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking, a tradition that has particular significance for me, but I think it really does for each and every one of us when we give it a little bit of thought. But that particular time, the reason I think maybe they didn't know about that tradition was when I started to go to meetings and raise my hand, some of the people came up to me after meetings and they told me that I was too young to be an alcoholic and that they didn't want a little kid sitting in their meetings while they talked about serious things. And they told me if I came back, they would throw me out. And I didn't know Alcoholics Anonymous had traditions. And that they couldn't do that. I just figured Alcoholics Anonymous didn't want me either. And that didn't really surprise me because I didn't want me either. And I had it for a long, long time. And so I fell back on my number one answer. I went over to a friend of my mother's house. I went into the bathroom, which is the first place I went at anybody's house I ever visited. I found the kind of pills that I needed and I took an overdose. And before I passed out that day, I went to a noon meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. When I got to the meeting, I wasn't able to stand or sit anymore and I had to lay down in the meeting. And I don't know about where you guys attend meetings here. I watched in D.C. But I'll tell you, in West Los Angeles, where I got sober, they almost never called on people to participate who were laying in the meeting. For some reason, that particular day, they called on me. I can't tell you really what I said. I think that they were able to tell that I had taken something I shouldn't have. And the next thing, I woke up in a hospital and a doctor was giving me medication to make me throw up and explaining to me that the pills I had taken were to slow down my heart. And had I been there five or ten minutes later, I would have been in a coma. That they probably couldn't have brought me out of. And I really don't know why that overdose was any different than any of the others that I'd inflicted upon myself over the years. I just know that it was. I know that because since that time, I haven't taken anything that affects me from the neck up. And that's how I personally define sobriety. If I continue to do that one day at a time, as I have been, I'll celebrate 14 years of continuous sobriety the 13th of July this year. I know really what I was trying to say in that meeting that day, no matter how incoherent what I actually said was. I think really what I was trying to say is, you know what, maybe I haven't gone as far as some of you people have. And then again, maybe I've gone just a little bit farther than some of you. But I don't really think that's the point here. Because the point is, I don't have any place left to go. And I don't know if I want what you people have. I don't even know what you have. All I know is I can't stand what I've got anymore. And you don't have to tell me that if I go back out there on those streets, I'm going to die. Because dying doesn't scare me. Dying is what I've been trying to do since I was five years old. What scares me is maybe I can go out there and live for another 20 or 30 years, like some of you people have. And that's why I can't stand. I can't stand living out there that way anymore. So please let me stay. And the people of Alcoholics Anonymous have let me stay. That's not to say that everybody all of a sudden decided to accept me and that I was an alcoholic. I'm sure there were people then, and there are probably still people today, who will never believe that I was an alcoholic. That's really not important. The important thing is that fortunately for people like me, we have a third tradition. It says that the only requirement for a membership is a desire to stop drinking. And it allows me and anyone else who has that desire to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And there were still people who'd come up to me after meetings and they'd say, you know, kid, I spilt more booze on my tie than you ever drank. And of course I'd turn and explain to them that if they hadn't spilt so much, they may have gotten sober younger. Now, it's interesting as I stay sober, I have to, I guess, be more, I am more and more grateful to the people who tolerated me when I was new. And I choose the word tolerate rather than love because it's more appropriate in my case. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous with a bad attitude. Now, I don't want you to think I got sober and got a bad attitude because that would be misleading. I came here with the only attitude I'd ever had and it had always been bad. When I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, I had a very limited vocabulary. It consisted almost solely of profanity, the exception of a few other words like the and mother. And that was about it. There were a lot of people who were offended by the use of that kind of language in Alcoholics Anonymous and I tried to make it a point to use it more when they were around. I was terrified of people. I didn't like people. I didn't want anybody getting near me or getting close and I didn't participate in any of the hugging or kissing when I came into the program. I continued to wear my motorcycle jacket that on the back said, Do unto others and then split. I also wore my motorcycle chains to meetings. I kept that black eye for a long time because I was so thin. I didn't wear shoes. I wore them most of my first year to meetings or anywhere else. I just didn't believe in shoes. And I started smoking three packs of cigarettes a day when I got sober. No one ever lit one of my cigarettes. Occasionally someone would hold a match and I always allowed them to hold it as long as they liked. But they never lit my cigarette with it. After I'd been sober a short period of time, I took up smoking cigars in a pipe and that seemed to offend a lot of people too. And there were times in fact where I could sit in a meeting, certainly not this large, but in a fairly good sized meeting and have an entire row all to myself. They made me the greeter at one of my regular Tuesday night meetings. And I would stand at the door with my motorcycle jacket and chains and cigar welcoming the newcomers as they came to AA. Sometimes as they walked by I'd hear their sponsor whisper to me, See, to keep drinking you can end up like that. When I got sober people were guessing my age at 37. I was 13 at the time and I looked closer to 37. I got very active in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've stayed very active in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I found a home group right away. It was the Monday Night Venice group, the greatest group in the world, as it's got to be if it's your home group. And they made me the literature chairperson. And so I knew I had to stay sober sometimes from Monday to Monday when I was having a little trouble with the one day at a time. I knew they needed me. They never thought that the meeting had been good. I knew I was going on 20 years before I ever walked in to set up the books. But I really felt needed and I felt like I had to be there. And I got really active in that. My sponsors were very active people. I was fortunate in finding sponsors. I found two sponsors. One was a guy who'd come from a background very much like mine, only he'd been at it a lot longer than I had. And when he thought I got too vulgar or too out of hand or too crazy or too hostile or too whatever, he would grab me around the neck and threaten to kill me. Now, you're never going to find that in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. You'd never see that. And the guy says now the sponsor should grab the baby around the neck. Because I look. But he could always get my attention and explain to me what meeting I'd be going to next when he did that. And I also found a woman who became my sponsor. And that's probably one of the biggest miracles that I can imagine happening at that time because I didn't like women. I didn't like me. I didn't like my mother. And if there was any other woman in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I figured they had to be like one of the two of us and I didn't like them. I didn't sit next to women. I didn't like to listen to women's speakers. Something that always makes me feel a lot better when I'm asked to share, because I know there's never as many people listening to me as it looks like. And I ended up, I would go, I went, most of my first two years in Alcoholics Anonymous, I went to 21 meetings a week. And it seemed as though a woman named Gail Wilson spoke at about 18 of those meetings every week. And so I thought to myself, perhaps if I ask this woman to be my sponsor, I can find out where she's speaking and then I won't have to go hear her all the time. And that's how I got a woman for a sponsor. Now Gail and I were the type of people the big book was talking about when it says we are people who normally would not mix. Gail was, she was older than I was. She was from Kentucky. She not only didn't use the same language I did, she didn't know what most of the words I was using meant. And Gail would see me at the meeting and she'd come over and she'd say, June, please, don't sit next to me at the meeting tonight. Because I can't take the cigar smoke. And I'd say, that's fine. And she'd say, and not only that, please, don't tell anyone that I am your sponsor. And that was fine with me because I didn't want anybody to know a tough broad like me was hanging out with somebody lame like her. So Gail and I would meet secretly after the meetings and talk about AA. I had been stealing longer than I'd been drinking. And stealing was a big thing, it was a very important part of my life. It was one of the few things I thought I was good at. Although I was certainly losing my abilities because I was getting caught more and more as the time was coming for me to come into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And when I got to the program, the Monday night Venice group secretary used to stand up and say, now the most important thing you're going to do here tonight if you're new is you've got to get the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. We're going to sell it to you for exactly our cost. We're not trying to make any money on it. If you don't have enough money, you can talk to the literature person. And we're going to make liberal credit arrangements for you. Nothing down and nothing a week until you get on your feet. And then you can pay for it then. No hurry, you've just got to get that book. And then they'd throw in at my group, not all the groups, but just mine pretty much, they'd say, and if you're too afraid to talk to somebody or you don't want to talk to somebody, you just steal it. And I thought about that. I'd been stealing longer than I'd been drinking. And as far as I was concerned, those were two unrelated activities. So I'm going to sit here and write this. Speaker 1 I thought about that. And I thought, man, I'm getting out simply because each of these people have something really interesting in their minds and feelings and issues and support, but as far as I was concerned, we were mostly which areas of the story we were getting into, and we were not talking to mitä% to she'ai'our rub' Ja' твор' brown. I was concerned those were two unrelated activities. I saw no reason to stop one just because I was stopping the other. But I did think that maybe if I stole the big book from an AA meeting, it would jinx my sobriety. And so instead, I went to the library in Santa Monica, and I stole the big book of Alcoholics Not. And while I was there, I stole a copy of the 12 and 12, because I heard a lot of people talk about that, and I thought it must be an important book, too. And I didn't feel bad about it at the time, because I thought, you know, the library has lots of books, and I need these, you know. And if they'd stopped me, I probably would have said, the secretary at the Monday night Venice meeting told me to steal this, you know. I was sober a couple of years when I realized that I really wasn't comfortable with the fact that I'd stolen these books. And I honestly don't think it was, I don't remember somebody telling me that. I was just, at that point, I was trying to work on my amends, and I was realizing that not only had I stolen those two books, but I had stolen about 50 others over the years. I had them all in my closet, great classics like Misty the Seahorse. We were talking about that. The things you steal when you're six and seven years old. And I loaded these books up, and I took them down to the local librarian, and I explained to her that I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, that it was necessary for my sobriety to return those books. And I asked her if it was okay, though, if I made payments, because they wanted three to five cents a day, and I'd had some of the books for 11 years. And she said that would be fine. She said it was sort of funny, though. She said she used to work in a library in Laguna Beach. This man had come in with a big book, and she said he'd had it for 37 years. She said, I guess. I guess you guys do this all the time. When I got sober in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I had a seventh-grade education. I had dropped out of school, and I was unable and unwilling to go back to school, and instead I got a job. I was very fortunate. I found an apartment that somebody was using but was out of town, and so I was able to rent it for $35 a month, and I moved into that apartment, and I got myself a job working at an answering service. And it was an interesting job. If they weren't nice to me, I just hung up on them. I was always surprised I never got fired, you know, but I did that job, and it was great because of the flexibility of the hours. There was a graveyard shift, and there was a split shift, and there was all these different shifts, and so I could just run out in the middle of, you know, my shift and go to a meeting and then come back and just work a little extra at the other end or whatever. And it was the perfect job for someone like me. I did that for most of the first couple of years that I was sober, and at the end of that period of time, I got an opportunity to go to a business college and learn how to be a secretary. If there's anything in my life I never wanted to be, it was a secretary. It was just not the kind of thing that tough brides did, but it was something that my sponsor told me I was going to try, and I did. I went to this school. I started out typing 17 words a minute with nine errors. I stayed there. I typed one day at a time for 14 months. At the end of that time, I was typing, typing 37 words a minute with 19 errors, and they told me I wasn't going to make it as a secretary, but maybe I could get a job working in an office with some of the other skills that they taught me to do. And so I thought, well, okay, I was going to go ahead and try all that, but before they told me I could do that, I'd have to take this test in order to be a high school graduate. So I took a GED test, and I went down to take this test. I thought it was, you know, going to be on the five different areas that you learn about in high school, and I studied for a little bit. I went down there, and all the answers on the test are A, B, C, or D. I got the first four parts. And I did okay. The fifth part was math. And I hadn't had very much math. I can still only add and divide and multiply and subtract, and that's about it as far as my math up to this point. And it was the same at that time. And they handed me the math test, and they started out with algebra, and then they started doing things I couldn't even pronounce, let alone do. I remember they had a bunch of these kind of things where they had a rectangle, and then they drew a line across it to make it into two triangles, and they wanted to know how many feet were in one of those triangles. So I said, I sat there, I drew a bunch of little pictures of feet in there. I have no more idea now what you're supposed to do to figure that out than I did then. And I turned to my higher power. I was at the bargain stage of my sobriety. And I said, look, God, I'll tell you what I'm going to do here. I'm going to go through this test. I'm going to pick lots of A's, you know, for AA. And I hope you know your math. I'm afraid I have to tell you all that God's as bad at math as he is at typing. But we still managed to pass the test. And a lot of different things were happening in my life at that time. The Monday Night Venice group got this big group together and we were going to a convention. And the convention was going to be in San Francisco. And I grew up in Venice. It's at the beach. I ran away once. I made it six miles east to Culver City. And that was about as far as I had ever been. My family, we never had a car or anything, so I hadn't really traveled much. I didn't take many geographics. And so this was a big trip. And so we loaded about, you know, 27 people in a car for three, you know, typical AA gathering. And... And we drove to San Francisco. And the convention was being held at the St. Francis Hotel. Now, I know Hal was there because he was talking about it last night. I don't know if any of you else have ever been there. I've never been back, so I can only tell you the way I saw it that particular day. We pulled up at this hotel and I had never seen anything like this hotel. We had lived in hotels, you know, when your mom's a drinker, you know, you do, you move, you know, when they put the padlock on, you move to the next hotel. But they never looked like this one. And we pulled up and there were these other guys who were going to park the car, you know. And then I looked inside. There were these long red velvet drapes, these big, you know, red carpets. And inside I saw women wearing long dresses and men wearing suits. And it was daytime for Christ's sake. So everybody, you know, they start getting out. Okay, we're at the convention. Let's go. And I said, I'm not going in there. And they said, well, this is where the convention is. I said, I am not going in there. People like me just don't go in places like that. I knew what I was. I knew I was nothing but a dirty little Venice bride. That's all I had ever been. And that's all I ever was going to be. I knew Alcoholics Anonymous was never going to be able to change that. And I knew that people like me were not welcome in a place like that. And I knew if I walked in there, they were going to come over and they were going to say, excuse me. This is a nice place. We want nice people here. You're going to have to leave. And I didn't want to put my friends through that. And I didn't want to put myself through that. And after a couple of hours, they finally convinced me that I could go in the hotel. And I snuck in the hotel. At least that's how I saw it. And I went into the room. It's the only convention of Alcoholics Anonymous I've ever attended, but I didn't go to one meeting. Because I just stayed hiding in the room. Because I knew that I just wasn't good enough to come out. And at the same time, it was right about the time that I was finishing the school, and my sponsor was telling me now I had to go out and look for a job. And I didn't know how to look for a job. I didn't know anything about the citizen-y type world. That's what I called it. Where you work Monday through Friday and people dress up in suits and stuff like that. And I didn't know how to dress and I didn't know how to talk. I didn't know when you're supposed to brush your teeth or how many times or how many days when you wash your hair or any of that sort of stuff. We didn't talk about that. In my gang. Do you use Crest or Colgate? It wasn't an issue. I was trying to learn all these things and some women in the program took me out and they gave me some clothes and we went to Salvation Army and we bought me some other clothes and I put these clothes on and it was like Halloween. Like, look at the little Venice bride in the citizen costume. And I felt it was so obvious. I expected people at every interview to offer me candy and send me away. But they told me I had to do this so I did it. I did the footwork and that's what I did. I kept throwing out these applications and going on one interview after another. It seems like I went on hundreds and I finally got hired at this place. I was so excited. I got hired in an insurance company. It was so square. I knew my sponsor would love it. I went to work. I worked real hard on the seventh day they called me in the office. I figured maybe they were going to give me a raise. And she fired me. She told me I didn't have enough experience and right before I was leaving she said, you know what, dear? She said, you don't seem to have any common sense whatsoever. And I didn't even know what that was but I knew I was being insulted. And I went across the street and I called the Los Angeles Central Office and I told them, I said, this is June G. I'm a sober member. I've just been fired. What are you going to do about that? And they laughed. I couldn't believe it. I'd been sober for a while. I had never heard of a sober member being fired. I didn't think we were going to let things like that happen. I thought we'd picket or something. I remember I told my sponsor that night, I said, you know, I never got fired before I came to AA. And he reminded me I'd never had a job. After I got fired, it was time for me to go out and look for another job and I certainly didn't help my self-confidence a lot. I put my costume on and went out looking again and one day I found myself filling out an application in a bank, which I thought was just hysterical. I'd never been in a bank and I'd been a thief all my life. I just thought it was sort of funny. As I was filling out the application, it gets to this one part that says, due to the fact that as a bank employee it's necessary that you be bonded, we're going to do a thorough background check. And I said, oh no, not me. I don't want anybody looking into my past. First of all, they call one library and I've had it. You know? And then I thought about what they said about doing the footwork and so I went ahead and I turned in this application and I got called back on a series of interviews and not only did they hire me to work in the bank, they put me to work in the vault. And I didn't even know if the program worked that good. But it did. I didn't steal anything when I worked there. And after, I worked there for a while. I ended up getting laid off and in the time that I'd been working there full time, I was taking a class at night at City College and when I got laid off, I ended up getting a job working in the cafeteria at the school and taking some more classes. And I started to go to school full time and not really for any reason that I, at least that I can remember, but just trying to go and trying to do it one day at a time. And at the end of, I guess, I think it was closer to three years, maybe two and a half, they called me in the office at the school and they said that I'd completed the requirements for what they called an AA degree in college. And I thought that was a nice name for a degree. And when I was going up there and they had the ceremony, most of my sponsors came and some members of my family and a couple sets of foster parents came and I, you know, I had the cap and the gown on. I'd never worn that before and as I was walking up to get my gown, they were announcing that I was graduating third in my class out of 485 students. And all I could think about at that time was, you know, when I used to be the greeter at the meeting, they used to have me stand there and somebody would walk up and say, hi, I'm Mary and I'd say, hi, I'm June and somebody else would walk up and say, hi, I'm Kathy and I'd say, hi, I'm Mary because I could never remember which name was mine after I heard so many. And although I had known how to read, when I got to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I would try and read the big book and I couldn't carry a whole sentence in my mind all at once. It was probably close to a year. Do you need, do you need to make an announcement, sir? Okay. Okay. When I, you know, would walk up there, that's what I was thinking about, how I used to not be able to read a whole sentence and keep all those words and how I never tried to be third, you know, in the class. It was nothing I wanted. Believe me, when I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, if they'd asked me whether I wanted a switchblade or a college degree, it would have been a very easy choice. It was just not even on my list and yet it was something that I was happy about being able to do and that I knew Alcoholics Anonymous was the only thing that could have made something possible like that in my life. I went ahead and I continued with school and I did that one day at a time and two years later I graduated from the university. Somewhere along the line I'd come about this dream and I don't know if I'd always had it and I'd forgotten it or whether I got it after I got sober. I honestly don't know really. But I went ahead and did the footwork as I'd been taught by my sponsors to do for those dreams and turned in all the papers and I got a telegram I guess pretty close to five years ago now telling me that I'd been accepted as one of 300 out of 3,000 applicants to go to law school. Now I'll tell you when I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous I had always planned on spending a lot of time in court but never on that side of the table and that's what I've been doing over the last five years or so. I started law school and it was one of the hardest things that I've ever done and hard in a lot of different ways. I still had to work on my image and thinking about and trying to learn in the program that I was just one of God's kids. I wasn't any better or any worse than anybody else and that meant nobody else there was any better or any worse than anybody else. I wasn't any worse than me either and trying to remind myself of that and it wasn't always easy. There were a lot of times where I started thinking I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not dressed right or whatever it was and I had to just try and get back to the real simple spiritual principles of this program and when I'm able to do that I find that I'm an awful lot happier in my life. When I start looking out there and comparing myself to what you got and what you're doing and how things are going in your life I can't be happy. At least that's the way it is for me. I've just never been able to be happy when I'm looking at you and your life. If I'm only looking at mine and where I came from that's what's so important for me about Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm one of those people I believe that without Alcoholics Anonymous and sometimes even with it I have the gratitude span of an ant. I could walk out of here today and I could look down and I'd find a $20 bill and the first thing I'd say is thank you father this is going to help. You know I can go buy a couple postcards with the cherry blossoms or whatever extra or pay some bills. This is really going to help and the second thought in my mind wouldn't be five seconds behind it would be you know it could have been a hundred. And um... laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter It's just the way that I am and that's why it's so important I stay close to Alcoholics Anonymous so I remember where I came from and where I should be. Uh I um... anyway uh I uh I went ahead and uh and I went to law school and I tried to do that one day at a time and I had a lot of doubts. There were a lot of times where my heart said you're supposed to be a waitress and my sponsor said no you're supposed to study more and I thought my sponsor was wrong but I went ahead and I did it anyway and uh I um I kept moving towards it during the um I was scheduled to graduate to graduate in May of 1983 and uh in early 1983 about February uh I got a phone call and uh it was a very close friend of mine telling me that my sponsor Gail Wilson was dying of cancer. Um Gail was 48 years old and uh she had I had known that she had cancer but she had lied and told me that it was um in remission because she didn't want to worry me and keep me from uh from studying and doing my school work and uh and they told me that it was very serious and that she was really dying and so during these last two months of Gail's life I spent a lot of time in that hospital room we spent a lot of time talking and uh and we talked mostly of course about Alcoholics Anonymous and we talked a lot about about what was going on in my life and all the fabulous things that had occurred in hers. Uh I um as I would sit there you know many people were taking care of Gail she was pretty sick and she had a lot of nurses and doctors and a regular staff of people coming into the hospital and they were taking good care of her but she never missed a chance to introduce me to these strangers who had no interest whatsoever I assure you in meeting me but she would introduce me anyway and she would say nurse I want you to meet Junie I said Junie's like a daughter to me and she's going to be an attorney and uh I would sit there and I'd think you know this is the same woman who about ten and a half eleven years ago used to say don't sit next to me and don't tell anyone that I am your sponsor and Gail and I talked about that a lot while we were sitting there and she said you know Jun she said when you came into the program you asked me to be your sponsor I said yes because it was the way I was trained in Alcoholics Anonymous I mean clearly I was not baby of the year um she said you know I looked at you and I talked to you for a little while and she said I thought this kid with her attitude and her background is going nowhere there's just there's just no way and she said but I sponsored you anyway because that's how I've been taught in Alcoholics Anonymous and she said I remember when you were a couple years sober and you said something about wanting to go to college she said I thought she'll never finish she'll never finish one class let alone college but she said but I didn't say anything and she said and then I remember after you were a little way into college you'd been going maybe six months or maybe a year you said that you know you wanted to go to law school someday she said I almost laughed out loud she said I just knew that wasn't possible she said but I didn't say anything and we talked about it while we were sitting there we talked about the fact that Gail Wilson never believed in me she never did but she always believed in Alcoholics Anonymous she always knew that Alcoholics Anonymous could accomplish things in our lives it just couldn't happen any other way I uh Gail did pass away she um she passed away in April um and uh I went ahead and I graduated in May and uh I graduated from law school and I guess I'm sure all of you know but in case any of you don't I didn't really understand what happens once you graduate from law school you still have to practice um pass the bar in whatever state you're interested in taking it in and uh and so I picked California naturally and I began to study for the California bar exam and I studied very hard I uh I gave it every effort I possibly could went to lots and lots of meetings I tried to keep a good spiritual foundation in my life and I tried to do everything that the teachers instructed us to do took the examination in July of 1983 in December of 1983 I received a telegram telling me that I did not pass and I absolutely could not believe it I had enough money in the bank to pay my rent for December and that was it I didn't have any more money I had many many thousand dollars worth of loans that began beginning due December 1st that they wanted their first payment and uh and I just didn't understand I just thought this just can't be and the way I saw it and the way I looked at that telegram was it was God writing me a letter saying you're not supposed to be a lawyer you've got to be a waitress and I went out with two of my best friends and they told me that it meant no you have to take the exam again and uh I knew they were wrong I thought what the hell and I borrowed some more money at that point it didn't really matter and uh I went ahead and uh and I took the examination again and I studied as hard as I possibly could and I did everything that was asked of me and I went to lots and lots of meetings and in uh June of 1984 I received a telegram telling me that I did pass the exam and uh I'll tell you having had both telegrams I liked that one better and I guarantee you my spiritual program was much better when I passed than it was the first time around the interesting thing is when you get this letter that tells you that you've passed there's still another thing you have to do before you can actually practice you have to be sworn in it's really just another way of getting a couple hundred dollars to do it and I'm not sure I'm not sure from you but the letter was there and it said that my swearing in ceremony would take place on June the 13th of that year and uh and that was Gail Wilson's AA birthday she would have been 21 years sober that year if she had lived and uh and sometimes I think maybe that's why I didn't pass the first time maybe so that I could celebrate it on a day that meant so much to Gail I um I'll tell you you know in being sober and Alcoholics Anonymous my life hasn't really been a um a a pink cloud and uh and I know sometimes when I share I'm talking so much about the perspective of where I came from to where I am that sometimes I think maybe it does sound like it's been a pink cloud I don't really want to mislead anyone here who's new or going through one of those hard times um I think all of us have it I think it's just a part of life you know and uh the important thing I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous is there is an experience is not an experience yet that I have had or am going to have that there isn't someone else in Alcoholics Anonymous somewhere that has had and stayed sober through and um And that for me is the hope that belongs here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm going to just tell you one other story very quickly. I, when I was a couple of years sober, or maybe a little bit longer than that, I got emotionally involved. And you probably don't do that here, you just get married. But in L.A., in L.A. we still get emotionally involved. And they run about 30 days out there usually. Most people are in A.A. If it's 90 days, we give them a chip and have a party. Anyway, though, I did get emotionally involved at this time. And when I did, it was really sort of my first boyfriend. I always thought you should either have a higher power or a boyfriend. I really didn't think you should have both. And so when I had my boyfriend, he was easier to talk to than my higher power, and so I sort of didn't talk to him. I didn't talk to him as much. And anyway, I was working with my boyfriend and stuff, and then we broke up. He left me for a younger woman. And when I was sitting there that day, I was thinking, you know, and I just thought, A.A. is not going to work because that pain started coming. I mean, you've got to know from the kind of person I've told you that I was that I never waited around for pain. I never got in any situations that could possibly cause you emotional pain. And I had learned from experience I would much rather have you punch me in the face than call me a name or try and hurt me emotionally. And that was sort of how I tried to direct my life while I was out there. And as I sat there that day, I started feeling pain like I hadn't felt ever before, and I didn't want to feel it. And I started to think maybe A.A. couldn't work for me because I had never been able to cope with pain like that. And so I started to think maybe I was going to have to kill myself even though I was in A.A. And as I was sitting there thinking about killing myself, the knock came at my door, and I went over to the door, and there was this guy named Bob. And I went over, and I said, How are you doing, Bob? And he says, Okay, are you ready to go tonight? And I said, Go where? And he said, Well, remember about three weeks ago I told you the central office had asked us to go over to your house? And I said, Well, I'm going to go over to this high school and talk to them a little bit about Alcoholics Anonymous, and you said you'd go with me. And I said, Bob, I'll tell you, experience, strength, and hope I really don't have right now. I was just going to go kill myself. And he said, Oh, have you had dinner? And I said, Well, no. He said, Well, I'll tell you what. He said, Why don't we go? We'll get something to eat. He said, Well, go over to the high school. He says, I'll just talk for a little while. You don't have to say anything. He says, And then I'll bring you home, and you can kill yourself. And I said, Okay. And I said, Okay. And so we went out, and during the evening, I wouldn't talk to Bob at all because I was in too much pain. And, you know, if you start talking to somebody else, you can forget how much it's hurting. So in order to really be in pain, you have to concentrate on pain. And so that's what I was doing on the way over to this high school. I was feeling the pain and thinking about the pain and thinking not only of this pain, but knowing not only had this guy left, but there would never be anyone else. And you have to concentrate to feel that. You don't just say that. You have to feel it. So I was working. I was working on that very hard. We got to the high school, and as we were walking into the room, this girl who I'd never seen before came up to me in the parking lot and said, Excuse me, do you know where room 214 is? And I said, No. She said, Well, could you help me find it? And I thought, Well, I'm going to lose my place if I do. But I went ahead, and I took her around the school and got her lost. And as we were walking around the school, she said, What kind of class are you taking here tonight? And I said, Well, I'm not really taking a class. I came here kind of to talk a little bit about alcoholism. And she said, Really? For it or against it? And I said, Well, I guess you'd say against it. I've never heard of any talks for alcoholism. And she said, Really? She said, I'm on the wagon. And I said, That's great. I said, I know a lot of people on the wagon. They usually fall off, but I think that's great for you. And she said, Well, why would you be giving that kind of a talk? And I said, Because I'm an alcoholic, and I stay sober one day at a time through a program called Alcoholics Anonymous. Would you like to go to a meeting sometime? And she said, Yes, she would. Obviously, I couldn't go home and kill myself. She'd think AA didn't work. And the next night, I took Kate. I had meetings, and I took her to several meetings. And Kate didn't stay sober, but I did. Although Kate is, I think she's going to be 11 years sober in August this year. I learned something then, and it's not a lesson that I remember constantly. It's one that I've had to be reminded of several times in the years that I've been sober. But it talks about in the big book, in the very first lines of the chapter, working with others. When all else fails, try working with another alcoholic. When all else fails in my life, all I can usually think of is it's all failing. It's all just failing. And fortunately for me, my higher power or my sponsors or my friends have always managed to direct me so that I can find someone else and remember where I came from and do what it suggests in the big book. If you're new or in one of those dark hallways that all of us seem to have to have in our sobriety and in our lives, I hope that you'll keep coming back. I hope that you'll wait for the miracle that's going to happen in your life. I have no idea what the miracle is going to be in your life. I've been more than surprised at those that have happened in mine. But I'll tell you, if you do keep coming back and you don't give up, it's going to happen. You're going to find that what the promises say in the big book where it says we will be amazed before we are halfway through is really going to come through for you. Maybe not every day, but it really is. You're going to look around and you're just going to say, I have no reason to believe I'm anywhere near halfway through and I have to say I'm amazed. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of your week. Thank you. If this thing has a downside, it's the 1986 Congressional Luncheon is over. But I feel that I know I will and you too will. You've got something to carry until next year. At least. For the rest of the afternoon and for the time to come. Great talk. Another reminder, tapes of June's talk will be on sale as soon as we dismiss. And I can think of no other announcements. It's customary in AA and visitors, the chair to join us to pray the Lord's Prayer. O Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. We must do this. Amen. We must do this. Amen. We must do this. Amen. We must do this. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.