Find Someone You Can Forgive and Someone You Can Love and You Will Find Higher Power – Mary S.

We talk to one another too much because we are sisters. We are sister-lovers. Think and feel the same way.
And now I give you this great gal, Mary S.
Didn't you have a short night?
This is the worst spot I've ever been in my entire life.
I've been here and seeing all these beautiful speakers and hearing them
poke this glorious message and everything.
And here it is, just 9.30 in the morning, and I don't even make a fish till noon.
And my heart doesn't start beating till about dark.
My eyeballs are bleeding, my stomach's jumping, the water on my left knee just flashed.
And I'm in bad shape.
But I am so grateful to be here.
Wasn't that sweet, that's so hot.
Bunny, a bunny.
Oh, I must have been, honey. I sure would have been hopping for a few years.
I have been taller, worse than that, in my day.
My name is Mary Sutton, and I'm an alcoholic. Hot dog.
How are you, beautiful people?
I wish some of you would stand up here and tell me this morning.
I wish you could see what I'm seeing.
These are beautiful faces.
And this glow you people down here have.
Oh, it's a joy to my heart.
Oh, God, I'm as nervous as a pregnant owl in a forest fire.
I'm here today because Jim B. asked me to come.
And because I had an old tough sponsor in AA that never allowed me to say no.
A dark jázu said such
..
It was so valuable that he then mer being aș deliberating it.
saw fit to give me this beautiful miracle of 88 and because there were people just like you
that were there and were willing to help me find my way and i have not found it necessary to take
a drink since december the 28th 1951 as my dear beloved franken over there says now that may not
impress you all a bit but you can rest assured it impresses the whole police department in charlotte
north carolina and a lot of preachers and me oh y'all pray i can't get you in 1960 in long beach
california they said i had the privilege of uh talking at the international convention
well
the
the
Girls, believe me, these kind of privileges can just about kill you.
And I was so nervous then, and there was an old dude standing up there talking,
and there was about 18,000 people there.
And they drug me up on the stage,
and this old dude was receiving about a 15-minute standing ovation.
And I'm the next person.
And do you all know who that old dude was?
I won't break his anonymity, but his initials are Chuck Chamberlain.
And when he finished, they propped me up at the thing,
and I threw up all over the stage.
And there was an old Texan standing there,
and I thought he was going to give me a little bit of sympathy,
but he looked down at me and he said,
God, some of us are just thicker than others.
So if the same thing happens to me this morning,
the first three rows better move back.
One of my little Texans at home asked me, he said,
Mary, why in the world did you quit drinking between Christmas and New Year's?
He said, that's a hell of a time to quit drinking.
And I said, well, I don't know.
Who knew it was Christmas?
I thought I was still hot and barefooted.
I want to ask you all a question this morning.
Has anyone told you today that they loved you?
Great.
If they have, I'm so happy for you.
And if they haven't, let me be the first to tell you.
Because without you and your love, I would be dead.
I wish that I could tell you this morning that I came from a family that was well-fixed.
You know, the big book tells me that we tell in a general way.
Praise the Lord for that word, general.
Because some of it I'm going to tell you, and some of it I ain't ever going to tell.
And a heck of a lot of it I done forgot.
I forgot.
But I was standing out in Texas one time making a talk, and I forgot to give my,
well, I didn't know people did this.
I didn't give my sobriety date.
And when I finished talking, this old tough Texas dude walked up to me and said,
Mary Sutton, don't you ever let me hear you get up to make a talk without giving your sobriety date.
Because if you don't give your sobriety date, it's a pretty good indication you don't have one.
And I've never made that mistake again.
But I wish I could stand here this morning and tell you beautiful people that I came from a family that was well-fixed.
Well, I guess I did in a way we were in a hell of a fix.
Nobody wants a menopause baby, do they?
No.
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And there were five big old six-foot-four 200-pound Irish brothers that preceded me into this family.
Now, at a very early age, I knew what alcohol could do, and I loathed it and I despised it.
And due to the fact that my mama just didn't kind of want me, I was a very frustrated and a very happy and a very miserable little girl.
But I had a God, and my God was my daddy.
And my daddy somehow or other got me through my young years, and he decided that the only
way in the world he could get me away from all this bunch of drunken Irishmen, that I
might live a normal life, he sent me to Jaden Crane as a dancer.
And when I was so young, he sent me to New York to study dancing and become a professional
dancer.
Now, I went to New York, and my highest ambition was to be a Radio City Rockette.
Now, for those of you who may not know what a Rockette is, they are the world's greatest
precision dancers.
And I worked very hard, and one day I became a Rockette.
But we have an old saying in show business that no matter how your heart hurts or your
feet hurt, the show must be a Rockette.
So I went to New York.
I'd go on.
And one day I became very sick.
And my friends called in the doctor, and the doctor said I can't give this girl any sedatives.
I suggest you give her a drink of whiskey.
Well, my friends didn't know any more about it than I did, and they poured out a great
big glass full of booze, and I just turned it up and drank it.
And the only way I know, Madez, to explain it, it's like swallowing an umbrella, and
when it gets down there and hits the bottom, it just opens up.
And I look at the bottle and look at the drinking water and the glass, and I'm like, Oh, my
And a whole new world opened up for me.
I was no longer the little introvert, the little shy violet.
But little did I know, my dears, that something that started off treating me so beautifully
and so good could end up treating me so tragically.
But I hung in there with it.
But I'll tell you one thing, it's awful hard to be one of the world's greatest detectives.
I ended up in John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, in alcoholic convulsions, D.P.s,
and bronchial pneumonias.
I just had sick and it's tough making.
They had had to give me a little.
My doctor came to me and told me that never again would I be able to dance because I had
a nervous heart condition.
Well, I had nowhere else and through the years my mother and I had such a very strange relationship.
My mother wanted one of these little Southern Bells so bad, with these big white flowing
gowns and the picture hats, you know, and sit on the magnolia tree and drink mint Dewar.
Well, she had anything but that, doll.
When you drink that old stunk juice and that white lightning, you ain't gonna be no Southern
Bell.
So I had to go home to Mama.
And I don't know how in the world my brothers had managed to do this over the years.
While I was gone, I'm sure it wasn't easy for them, but would you believe that they
had finally married five alcoholic women?
And you know, we believed in togetherness and we couldn't separate.
Can you imagine what 11 alcoholics under one roof must have been like?
It was weird.
It was real weird.
But we were getting with it.
Yeah.
We were hanging in there, but you had never in your life seen so much seething and lying
and carrying on.
Oh, in fact, this is just a part of my life I just don't even like to talk about.
And really believe that we could never be together again.
Now, I was kind of little and skinny and scrawny and sick.
And I was having an awful time with these big brothers and these wives trying to keep
my boo separate from theirs, you know, because they're stealing from me and I'm stealing
from them.
And they were getting pretty tough.
And I thought, well, I have got to figure out a plan to keep my boo with me.
And girls, I found them.
I go sashaying down to Sears and Roebuck and I bought me one of those big old Elk with
a cow bras.
And I bought me two pints.
And I put a pint in each side.
Now, I already believed that I was going to get married, but I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
And I can't believe that I was already being a wee bit angrily endowed—can you
imagine what I looked like?
When I sashayed in the house in front of these beat-up brothers of mine, and all you could
hear were just gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.
And my brother said, my God, look at that.
Look at that.
And I would run to the bedroom.
And lock the door.
And you know, here it was.
This is the most beautiful thing I ever discovered.
do was just lie down and reach down there and uncork and let her go oh that
was great but then the time came you know when you run out and then you got
to get up and you got to go out and go through all this again and when I would
come out stupid nuts and look at me and say oh my god look at there her living
broad just died I guess I was even at this time practicing the definition of
Alcoholics Anonymous cause I show was self-supporting through my own
contribution there was a war going on somebody said at that time I thought the
war I knew about was that much Irishman and my childhood sweetheart was a
prisoner
of war over in Germany and when it was all over he came to see me and he didn't
have any better sense than to ask me to marry him and I thought oh now isn't this
great he had a lot going for him he had a whole lot of money ooh all that back
pay you know coming and he never had a drink in his life and I knew I was in
trouble with this booze my dear but I didn't know what to do about it and I
thought some of him could rub off on me
and he was still in the Air Force he was a hot jet pilot and I could get away so I
marry him and we moved to Dayton Ohio and shortly after we got to Dayton Ohio
I found out I was gonna be a minor and oh my dear's I was so happy I worried
with all my heart to be a good wife to this boy and a good mother for this baby
that was on the way and for nine long months I was sick pregnant and barefooted and I couldn't drink
and for nine long months I was sick, pregnant, and barefooted and I couldn't drink
and I couldn't drink
and I couldn't drink
and I couldn't drink
and I couldn't drink
And to me, this is an alcoholic hell.
And my first little boy was born, and we moved back to Charlotte, North Carolina.
And I know, soon, I learned how to make a formula.
I ain't never been wrapped too tight, you know.
And I learned to make a formula to put on a daddy, and would you believe, I found out
I was going to have another baby.
And we got a law in North Carolina, if you shoot your husband, they put you in that little
gas chamber.
And I didn't know anything else to do about it but just get drunk, because this motherhood
was getting a little sickening to me.
So I got drunk, my dear.
And when I was eight months pregnant with this child, I was rushed to the hospital in
an alcoholic convulsion.
And by the grace of God, this little boy made it, and you'll hear about him later.
Well now, I had two tiny babies.
And I still had no God.
My father was still my God.
And he was still my God.
And this dude I married decided that we were not going to send these little kids to Sunday
school.
We were going to take them.
And I would have to get up on Sunday morning, bleeding his eyeballs a wee bit like this
morning, thinking like an old goat, you know.
And get these two little babies dressed and get to Sunday school and church.
And there was never anybody nice to me in this church.
They'd look at me kind of funny, you know.
And I'd say, what's up, baby?
What's going on?
What's going on?
wear it back so I guess they couldn't smell me. There was only one person in this church that was
ever nice to me and he was my Sunday school teacher. Of course it wasn't their fault. I
hated them just as much as they hated me. I just couldn't cut those little hats and those little
white gloves. And so this precious man would go out of his way, my Sunday school teacher,
every Sunday morning to sort of pat me on the back and tell me he was glad to see me.
Then I would have to go to church and I'd always sit on the back row and my bishop would stand up
in the church and he would say something like this. I had my sermon all prepared this morning
but I believe I'll change it and he'd take off on alcohol.
And I'd put to my cousin, I'd say, oh the bishop's so he's hepped up on that subject, isn't he?
He must have a lot of drops in his congregation. But my dearest thank God because here's where I
heard about AA.
He would stand up in that pulpit and preach AA to me every Sunday that I could make it.
I had a God. He was my father. And my father had been very, very ill for many years with
a heart condition. I had to work. But this summer of 1951, I let him take a job as a little night
watchman just for the summer. And this criminally insane man went in apparently to rob the place
and beat my father to death. And then shot him right in the face.
Well my dearest thank God it was gone. I loved my husband, believe me. And I
loved my children as much as an alcoholic is capable of loving them. But I had nothing to hold on to.
All I wanted out of life was a billion. And I knew how to get it.
And I called them. Now I became a bedroom drinker and this was a suicidal venture.
And someone had said to my husband, if you could just get Mary out of that bedroom
and get her downtown.
and buy a new hat.
This will do something for her morale
and she won't live so much.
So that old dude came in there
and delivered an ultimatum to me about the hat.
So I managed to get up out of the bed,
but, you know, I couldn't face those other people out there,
so I went by a liquor store first.
And I got well-oiled.
And all of a sudden, I don't like hats.
I like shoes.
And I staggered into a shoe store
with all the dignity that goes with being drunk,
and I bought 38 pairs of shoes.
I must have thought all God's kids got to have shoes,
and I was going to have my share that day.
And I had the gold.
As you can rest assured,
that old dude never again ever suggested I buy another hat.
Few people ever felt like this.
Did you ever get the Marta compound?
My little family doesn't deserve me,
and I'm going to do away with myself.
And I go into the bathroom one night,
and I picked up my husband's razor,
and I just splashed both of my wrists.
And I looked down there,
and all that blood oozing out.
I said, my God, I better go tell Howard I could bleed today.
I didn't have a bit of trouble, dear hearts,
with the insanity part of this program.
I knew I was some kind of a nut.
But,
but then, my dears, the day came.
And on the floor, in my nice, clean bedroom lay another victim
of the most cunning and vassaling and powerful disease known
to mankind, and I was that girl.
Alcohol had pushed everything out of my life that was near
and dear to me, and the worst thing it had done to me was
that it had robbed me of my freedom.
And we all know that without freedom, there is no peace.
But the mercy of my illness was that it had brought me
to this point of misery.
There was not one living soul in this world
that cared whether I lived or died.
And my husband had taken my little children and left me,
and I was all alone.
But I knew what to do.
Somewhere, somehow, I was at the turning point of my life.
And my high power gave me the sense that I had to do something.
And I called AA, and it wasn't but just a little while
until three of the most beautiful people I've ever laid my eyes on
walked into my home.
One was a man and his wife and another lady.
Here were the people that I had been looking for all my life,
and I ceased to believe they even existed.
And my husband loved to tell this.
He said that he knew that I was going
to make my departure one of these days, not two.
Better to give me two, and I was not getting married,
but that would be more.
So I didn't want him to make me treated a little differently.
And she gave me a paradigma.
The amount of time that I was trader- legally free going
to Europe.
But in the end, I had to do my business.
I had to be a great, great whore.
And over time, I know now that I'm certainly gonna make my life better at home,
it and drink yourself to death." And I said, well bless his heart. I believe that old dude's gonna
make it after all. Now maybe this marriage is gonna work. I didn't know that damn dingbat was
trying to kill me. But he said that he had to come by my house. Oh and I do hope and pray that you
blessed people down here still do this. When I came to AA, if you got a 12-step call, everybody
went. I can stay on the telephone up there in North Carolina some morning, two and three
hours, trying to get someone to go on a 12-step call for me, and I get the worst excuses you've
ever heard in your life. And I'm gonna tell you one it was an excuse to end them all, for this.
I got a call one morning about 2 a.m. the Blue Richard Tower and this poor gal screaming,
man, I've got to be a man. I have to be a man. I'm gonna be a man. I got to be a man. I've got to be a man.
I'm gonna be a man. I got to be a man. I got to be a man. I got to be a man. I got to be a man. I got
my God, please come help me.
Oh, I said, that's right.
Hold it, baby.
Okay, I'll be there.
And I called one of my pigeons,
and I said, get out of that bed, girl.
We got to go snatch an oven from the grave.
She says, no, Mary, I'm sorry.
I can't go this morning.
I said, why can't you go?
She says, my girdle is wet.
Now, you'd think after a few years in the AA,
I would have learned a little bit
about pacing and pounce, wouldn't you?
No way.
I screamed at that sister.
I said, you better get out of that bed
and come on and go,
because I knew you, gal,
when you didn't know your girdle from your toothbrush.
But she didn't go,
and she got drunk.
Now, I was not allowed to ever turn down a 12-step call,
and to my knowledge,
I have never to this day turned down a 12-step call.
And I hope and pray that when you people
get a 12-step,
I'll call you all go.
Because my husband said a few days later
when he had to come back by the house
to pick up some clothes for my children,
he said he drove up in front of the house
and here were all these cars lined up,
and he said, praise God, she's dead.
I'm home free.
And he bounced into the house
and ran head-on into all those AA's sitting in there.
And he set that old dude down,
and they told him the message.
And they persuaded him to come back
and take a look at Mr. Rigamortis with 51.
And he said, the dirtiest trick I ever played on him,
I looked up at him and said,
Howard, I quit.
But he told me, he said,
well, if you'll just listen to these people,
I will bring the children back
and we'll try it again.
And this he did.
Now, I...
You know, you've heard people talk about,
you carry the message,
you don't carry the drug.
He reached down there,
he put me in that bed
and picked me up in his arms.
Of course, it wasn't too tough on him.
I only weighed 89 pounds, 100 proof.
And he put me in his arms
and go to me.
And we went to meet.
Now, I want y'all to get this picture.
Can you imagine how I felt
when they carried me through that door
and the first person standing there with his hand out
looked at me and said something like this,
get on in here, hot shot.
I've been waiting on you a long time.
Thank you.
It was my Sunday school teacher.
Ain't that weird.
I almost had a cardiac arrest.
Well, they plopped me down
and old man, I was home free.
You people were so beautiful
and you smell so pretty
and you look so pretty.
And then one night,
I was still being carried to meetings.
And we have what we call the chip system up in Charlotte.
I don't know whether you all had it down here or not,
but the person that comes in,
we give them a white chip
or if they have to pick up another white chip.
Well, I'd only been in this beautiful fellowship
a few weeks and all of a sudden one night
my three 12-steppers got up
and picked up a white chip.
And my dear, I thought I was going to die.
Because here were the people that had told me
I never had to take another drink
as long as I lived if I didn't want to.
I had nowhere else to go
and I will never forget the terror.
In my heart.
And I thought, dear God, there's no hope for me.
I had no place to go.
And I said to this Sunday school teacher of mine,
his name is Roland.
I said, Roland, what do you do now?
He said, oh, you just get yourself another sponsor.
And I said, well, baby doll,
if no one else cleans me in the next three seconds,
I'm all yours.
That old dude looked at me and said,
Mary, the world wasn't ready for you, honey,
and I ain't going to get ready.
But I guess he felt a little sorry for me, you know,
and he decided to take me on sort of as a group project.
And he told me, knowing certain terms,
that they weren't going to expect too much out of me.
And he said, now, Mary, you have expressed a desire
to me to be sober, and I'll tell you what you're going to do.
You ain't going to do it your way.
You're going to do it my way.
And my dear, this old dude had been in AA.
He was in the Oxford group.
He was one of the first 50 in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And he was the dearest, sweetest, kindest, most loving,
compassionate, meanest bastard I ever met in my life.
Why didn't he say that?
I'm sorry, honey, that sits down.
Well, they tell me to tell it like it is, and that's what he was.
Anyway, he said, now, the first thing you do, doll,
is you sit down.
And you shut up.
And you listen.
And he said, you get a hold of that big book.
And you read it.
And you read it.
And you reread it.
So I got the big book.
And I'd sit down.
You'd read three or four paragraphs.
And you couldn't remember what you read.
And I went to the old dude.
I said, I'm reading the big book.
But I don't know what I'm reading.
He says, all right.
You just put it in your arms and take it to bed with you,
you stupid nut.
And maybe some of it will rub off on you.
Tough.
Tough.
But they did give me some privileges.
Every night, early every night, meeting night.
This time, I was on crutches and could get around a little bit.
And would you all believe that this went on for three years?
And I said to him one night, you know, I was getting my eyes
uncrossed and everything.
And I said, well, Rose, when are you going to let me participate?
I said, the least you can do is let me read the papers.
He said, sit down and shut up and listen.
You'd foul that up too.
But thank God, my dear, because he was right.
And he told me this, he didn't give me too much encouragement.
He said, you don't get sober overnight.
You don't get sober in six months' time, do you, darling?
You don't get sober in a year's time.
You don't get sober in two years' time.
You just listen.
Do you?
It takes three years to get this thing started to kick in again. And my days are set for three years, and thank God I did.
I see some people pushing these jolly little alcoholics to these platforms sometimes in three months, six months,
and they don't even know where they are, let alone what to say. Let's cut this out.
Because I've seen so many of them get so nervous and upset that they go out and they get drunk.
Let's love them enough to give them a chance to get sober.
Well, I had a longing and a yearning in my heart, my dears, for something that I wasn't getting.
And I didn't know what it was, because you see, I would not accept anything about God.
And one day I almost got drunk, but I had been listening, and they told me,
before you take a drink, call your father.
And I called this old dude, and I said, Roland, please come to me, because I'm about to get drunk.
And he came.
And he sat down at my kitchen table.
And he looked across that table at me, and I said, Roland, my God, what is the matter with you?
He said, Mary, I can't help you anymore.
And right then I fired him.
Y'all ever fire your sponsors?
They get so stupid every now and then, don't they?
I said, no, I don't believe you can help me anymore either.
He said, but I got a friend that can help you.
I said, well, why don't you go in there and call him up and tell him to take a taxi and get on over here right now?
I wanted him yesterday.
He said, well, wait just a minute, honey.
Let me tell you a little bit about this friend of mine.
He said, he's the best friend I ever had in my life.
He's always there when I need him, and he's never let me down.
And he said, Mary, my friend's name is Jesus.
And my dear, something kicked in my heart.
Because you see, when I came to AA, in the 12th step, it said, and Bud will bear this out with me,
it said, having had a spiritual experience,
not a weight in me, it said, experience.
And I told Roland, I said, Roland, my God, find God.
Nobody will tell me how to find God.
He was a very wise man, and he knew what was eating me up inside.
And he looked at me, and he said, Mary, if you can find someone you can forgive,
if you can find someone you can love, you'll find God.
And you know what he was digging at me about?
The hatred and the unforgiveness in my heart was literally destroying me,
towards the man that had murdered my father.
And I said, Roland, I don't know how to pray.
And again, he knew what it was going to take to get a little hot shot on her knee.
He said, well, Mary, I see your two little children in Sunday school.
They have their own little altars in their bedroom.
He said, why don't you go in there and ask your little children to teach you how to pray?
And my dear, that night when my little children were having their little prayers,
I walked in to teach your mommy how to pray.
And this little Billy of mine, the little one, looked up at me.
He said, why, sure, Mommy, all you do is talk to him.
And then he said these words, God, I want you to meet my mommy.
And my dear, if I had a spirit like this, to this day, it is still so precious to me,
I can't even share it.
And my Roland decided that while I had a little trickle of this spirituality in me,
it was retreat time.
So they took me to a retreat.
And here I met a precious Methodist minister that was not an alcoholic,
but he had heard all about me from Roland.
And he said to me, Mary, while you're here at this retreat, we don't want you to do anything.
But we're going to pray for you that you will forgive the man that murdered your father.
And my dear, three days later when I left that retreat,
I can lay no claim to this.
I had forgiven the man that murdered my father.
And you see, somebody loves me and somebody prays.
And then it came retreat time again.
And I was feeling pretty good about myself.
The old ego was rising.
And I went to Dr. Glenn Clark, who to me was one of the greatest spiritual leaders this world has ever known.
And I told Dr. Clark what I'd done.
And he looked at me and he said,
Well, my dear, that's wonderful, but do you know what you have to do now?
I said, What?
He says, You must love him.
And my dear, I remember screaming at that saintly man how damned sick he was in this religion yet.
But deep down in there where it hurts, you know, I knew he was right.
So I prayed.
And this newfound friend of mine, I just turned it over to him.
And my dear, three days later on the 6 o'clock news, the man that murdered my father's name is Earl.
His picture came up in the TV screen and it says,
Criminally insane man escaped from penitentiary.
And I had tried so hard to go to the prison to see him and no one would let me.
They said he was in maximum security.
And so this is when I had to turn it over to my friend.
And I remember standing there saying, Well, thank God I don't have to go anywhere to see him.
God has sent him here to me.
That night two detectives came to my home.
One stayed inside, one stayed outside.
I said, What's going on?
Are you all going to spend the night here?
They said, Oh, yes.
I said, We have orders to shoot that man on sight.
And you and your little family are in danger.
We don't know what he might do.
Well, oh, I heard they made a cup, a pot of coffee and I set this detective down.
And my dears, I poured my heart out to him.
I said, God is sending this man to me.
You cannot shoot him.
And the next morning, about 3 a.m., my phone rang.
And it was this same detective that had been sitting in my living room all night long the night before.
And he said, Miss Sutton, I just wanted you to know that I just caught your man and I could not shoot him.
And he later told me this story.
He said that he was not even supposed to be at the bus station.
He was out of his territory.
But that morning, he and his rider were at the bus station.
And this bus driver came in and said, Hey, that man you're looking for just came in on my bus.
And they ran and had him blocked in a four-block area there in Charlottetown.
And they had all the guns trained and had a bead on him.
And they were going to blow him to kingdom come.
And my dears, he walked right into the arms of the man that had been sitting in my living room all night long.
And some of you may call this a coincidence, but I call it the wonder of God.
And the next morning, I got permission to go down to the jail to see him.
And this big old detective put me on the elevator and took me up there.
And they had him in a cage.
And my dears, may God never let me see a sight like this again.
He did not look human.
He looked like a wild animal.
And I walked up to this cage.
And this detective said, Earl, this is the daughter of the man you murdered.
And my dears, something evil and terrifying came all over me because of the way he looked at me.
And I just started talking real fast.
And I said, Earl, how in the world did you get out of that prison up there?
Did you just get up and slowly walk away?
And he said, Yes.
I said, Well, my dear, I just came to tell you that God has forgiven you and I have forgiven you.
And God loves you and I love you.
And dearly beloved, I saw the greatest miracle of my life other than my survival.
I saw a human being, an animal, in the twinkling of an eye, change into a beautiful human being.
He had the sweetest smile on his face.
His eyes became misty and he looked at me and he smiled and he said, Thank you, lady.
And this big old tough detective, standing there with tears streaming down his cheeks, looked at me and he said, My God, Miss Rutten,
if I had not been standing here seeing this with my own two eyes, no one in this whole wide world could ever make me believe it.
And my dears, if any of you doubt this, they took pictures of him before and after.
And I have them in Charlotte.
And my home belongs to the Lord, so it's your home.
And any time you want to come up there and visit with me and see these pictures, please feel free to come.
I came out of that jail that day and for the first time in my entire life, my dears, I knew what it was to be a child of God.
You see, I wanted so desperately to love you, but I could not love.
And my sponsor knew that I could not love until I first loved Earl.
And then I could love you.
Of course, you gals still got my cork a little bit.
But thank God today I love you.
Now, you have heard me tell you what I was like, which was a mess.
And I ended up a drunken mess.
And now I ain't nothing but a sober mess.
And I'm going to tell you a little bit of what it's like now.
If I talk too long, y'all just tell me to shut up.
Because I do get kind of carried away with all these beautiful blessings God's given me.
My little boy Billy, who introduced me to God, at the age of 14, took his first drink.
And my dears, I stood at the turning point again.
He was an alcoholic from the first drink.
And one night, he fell through my back door.
And he went totally berserk.
I didn't know anything to do.
I was like some of you blessed Al-Anons.
I was doing everything wrong.
And I had to call in seven of the biggest AA men I could find, plus two ambulance drivers.
And would you believe it took nine big men to put that little 148-pound boy to sleep?
148 pounds of alcoholism?
Heck it.
And that little boy was only 16 years old.
And my dears, let me say right here, for God's sake, let's get these doors open.
And let's let these young people come in.
I know I've lived with it.
Where's my beautiful son?
They have experienced more in one year or two years or three years than it took some of us 30 and 40 years to get.
Let's don't turn them away.
Let's open our arms and our hearts and get them in here and let them find this beautiful thing.
That night when we put him in the hospital.
And this precious little 23-year-old alcoholic took me in first.
And about that time, the nurse ran in and called the doctor and said,
Doctor, please get here quick.
This young kid has swallowed his tongue and his heart has stopped beating.
And my dears, I suffered.
And all I remember hearing was this precious little young boy standing there whispering in my ear,
Dear God, have mercy on her.
Dear God, have mercy on her.
And he did.
And in a little bit, they wheeled my baby in.
And he was black and he was blue, but he was breathing.
He stayed in this alcoholic hospital about six days and he came out.
And he came day eight.
Of course, I wouldn't let him come to my group.
I said, go get your own damn group, you knuckleheads.
And he had, and my dears, I'm sure the people in Charlotte didn't mean to do this,
but they told this kid that he was too young to be an alcoholic.
That they had spilt more trying to get it to their mouth than he ever drank.
Oh, my God, you have no idea.
And they convinced my kid he was not an alcoholic.
And he went out.
And he went out and he got drunk.
And somehow or other, he took a college entrance exam for the University of Georgia.
I don't mean this as bragging, but this is just to show you the alcoholic.
He has the IQ of a genius and he went into the University of Georgia as a junior.
And I thought, oh, well, I'm home free.
He'll go down there and everything's going to be lovely.
But, oh, my God, my dears, I didn't know what was in store for me.
You know what he found there?
Drugs.
Drugs.
Now, I don't know anything about drugs.
I don't know anything about pills.
But I do know that an old dude in AA told me, he said, Mary, if you ever pop a pill,
you ain't doing a damn thing but chewing your booze.
And I believe him.
I am terrified of pills.
I'm so addicted.
I'm an addicted person.
I'm so addicted that if I would eat Jell-O,
I would eat Jell-O.
I would eat Jell-O every day at 5 p.m. for five days on the sixth day at 5 p.m.
If I didn't get Jell-O, I'd probably have convulsions.
And thank God I didn't know about pills.
Well, we'll leave Billy right there for a few minutes and I want to tell you about my Bobby.
My Bobby is a beautiful introvert,
sweet, gentle, tender, kind young man.
And the Army drafted him.
And here's a little boy that couldn't kill.
And my dear, within seven months' time, or eight months' time,
he was drafted, been through basic training, was in Vietnam.
And I remember telling this beautiful boy when he went to Vietnam,
I said, my dears, you take the principles of alcoholics in one hand and you take God in the other.
And you'll be all right.
And believe me, I thought that no matter what happened,
I was geared and I was ready for it.
But oh, my dear, somehow you never are.
And the day came when the dreaded terrorism arrived,
informing me that they had shot my beautiful son all to pieces in Vietnam.
And again, I stood at the turning point.
They brought him back to the States,
and they took him to the Fort Bragg Army Hospital.
And I dashed down to see him.
And they packed him up.
And then, my dears, he blew his mind.
And they put him in a straitjacket in this little cuby hole.
And 24 hours a day, he was screaming his little head off.
I'm a murderer, my God, I'm a murderer.
Billy had left college and was back home,
in jail like a revolving door.
And the police would catch him and beat him up so bad
that I would go to Fort Bragg and sit there with my one son,
and I would hurt so bad I felt all smashed and busted inside.
And I would get in the car and drive 175 miles and go to the jail
and pick my poor kid up out of there,
bleeding and beat up, and take him to the hospital and get him sewed up.
Take him home, get in the car, and run back to Fort Bragg
and sit and listen to my precious doll scream.
And this went on for seven months.
And I wanted oblivion.
One night, I couldn't stand it any longer, and I wanted oblivion.
And my dears, I know now that insanity can come with the sober mind
because I experienced it.
And I remember leaving that house.
And I remember leaving that house still at Fort Bragg one night
and getting in my car, and I got as far as the telephone booth.
And I picked up the telephone, and I called my Billy at home.
And I said, Billy, are you sober?
And he said, halfway.
I said, Billy, I can't take anymore.
I'm going to get drunk.
He said, oh, my God, Mama, don't.
Please, please.
Say, you just keep talking to me.
You just keep talking to me.
I said, Billy, I can't take anymore.
And I want just five minutes of blessed oblivion,
and I know how to get it.
He said, Mother, will you hold the phone for a minute?
My telephone's ringing.
I said, all right.
I didn't know what he was doing.
He came back in a few minutes, and he said, Mother, just hang on.
Please hang on.
Just keep talking to me.
I have a precious girl pigeon that lives in Fort Bragg.
And I didn't know it, but my Billy had gone to his phone
and called her and said, my God, find my mother.
She's in a telephone booth on the Charlotte Highway someplace.
Find my mother.
And my dears, as I was standing in that telephone booth,
I looked out, and it looked like an invasion.
All these GIs had swarmed around that telephone booth,
and there they were.
And my little pigeon Mary looked at me and said,
come on, darling.
I'm going to take you home with me.
My dears, this is AA.
And she took me home, and I was in such bad shape
that she and all those GIs and their precious wives
sat with me for three days around the clock.
And that drink I did not take.
Now, I wish that I could tell you
that my Billy is sober and happy, but he isn't.
And I beseech you, I beg you, I plead with you
to pray for my Billy.
My Bobby was released from the Army.
He came home, and the psychiatrist asked me a question.
He said, do you love him?
I said, well, you're under my breath, you stupid dingbag.
Well, you know I love him.
He said, I asked you a question.
Do you love him?
I said, yes, sir.
He said, do you love him enough to throw him out of the nest?
And my dear, that's the hardest job I ever did.
He said, Mary, he'll end up a vegetable
if you don't throw him out and let him make it on his own.
So I got it, and he got a GI loan,
and he bought him a pretty home.
And I want you all to know,
I've even learned how to hang wallpaper.
And I'm having a ball.
When I used to get frustrated and unhappy and confused
and mixed up, I'd call Roland,
and I'd say, Roland, I'm a mess.
He said, hot shot, go wash your woodwork.
I wonder what would happen to some of our pigeons today
if we tell them to get off their dust
and go wash their woodwork
instead of lining up in that bell and pop that pill.
Well, I've washed so much woodwork,
I've washed all the paint off of it,
and started painting.
And now, I don't paint,
and I don't wash woodwork,
but I dance.
As if y'all didn't know as of last night.
And I can get out there and I can dance,
and I can get rid of my frustrations.
Now, my Bobby has been in the hospital again
four times already this year.
And when I left home Friday,
I had not been to bed since last Tuesday or Wednesday night.
When they shot him all the pieces,
it almost was thought he was kidding.
And when I went to the hospital Thursday and Friday,
I said, Bobby, I believe I will have to call Mississippi
and cancel out.
And that dear boy looked at me and he said,
no, mother, you don't do that.
He said, I'm here and I'm in intensive care
and I'm getting the best of him.
And you've got a job to do, mother.
Now you go.
And he said this to me.
He said, mother, you know,
I never said anything about Vietnam.
But did you know that every boy in my helicopter
was killed but me?
And he said, I just wanted you to know
that I thank God I had a praying mother.
And my dear, and I thank God for you.
Now, this is what it's like at my home right now.
I could not have made it if it had not been for people like you.
And during some of my darkest hours, my dear,
I would sit in my den and I would take the 11th step.
And one night when I was sitting there
and I just didn't know which way to go.
And I felt so lonely.
It seemed that, mother, God,
in my understanding,
began to reveal to me
something that my sponsor and my father
used to teach me.
And since I came to believe
that the basis for all human existence
is to love and to be loved,
I came to believe these simple little truths.
And I still have a lot of stripped gears up here
and I can't remember a lot of things.
So I wrote it down
so that I could share this with you
because this sums up the whole work for me.
What kind of a life do I want for myself
and for my fellow man?
Because every human being is somehow touched
by the happiness, the sorrow, the frustrations,
the accomplishments of every other human being,
regardless of race, color, or creed.
It is not enough for me to say
I want the same justice for you as I want for myself.
I want the same opportunities for your children
as I want for mine.
Because these mean nothing
if I cannot feel compassion,
if I cannot learn respect,
and if I cannot give to you,
my fellow man,
the greatest of all human emotions,
L-O-V-E, love.
And my dear today,
I love you.
Now I say this for last
because I don't want you all to run me out of Mississippi
hard and feathered.
But I'm going to tell you something about gossip in AA.
Before we get into that,
two years ago my sponsor, my beloved Roland,
was sitting in an AA meeting
and he had a heart attack
and he died.
And I hit another low.
Again, I was saying the turning point
because I can't make it without a sponsor.
And I asked a lot of these old 30 and 35 year old dudes
sitting up there in Charlotte
with all their puckered up,
with all their serenity, you know.
I said, now I gotta have a sponsor.
And with no exception they said,
sorry babe,
we ain't been sober long enough to handle you.
So I was desperate.
And one day I went to a convention
and there was the dearest man,
a man that saw me, my dearest,
when I couldn't even walk.
A man that throughout the years
has patted me on the shoulder
and told me to be myself.
Told me to have the courage to be myself.
And I've been a nut ever since.
So I went to this man and I said,
hey baby, I need a sponsor.
And he knew what had happened
and he looked at me and he said,
well darling, if nobody else wants you,
I'll take you.
And that darling is sitting on this front row today
and I want him to stand up.
His initials are Bud Rose.
This is my new sponsor.
Stand up.
And he told me just a few minutes
before I walked in here,
he said, now all right, hotshot,
don't you get up there and tell any lies
because I'm going to be sitting on the front row
and I will know.
You see, God is so good to me.
Now you talk about tough.
He's almost as tough as Roland.
But he does smile at me every now and then.
Now get back to this gossip.
It bores the hell out of me at AA.
There is no room for envy, jealousy,
or gossip in the alcoholic community.
Now I have been on the receiving end
of a lot of it and girls,
for three years I cried
because I thought everybody loved everybody else
and I just knew everybody had to love this living dog.
And then one day I found out they didn't.
And I want to read you
what our beloved Dr. Bob said on gossip.
He said, let us remember
to guard that erring tongue,
the tongue.
And if we must use it,
let's use it with kindness
and consideration
and calm.
I know you people down here don't do this,
but if you're ever tempted,
let's use it with kindness, consideration, and calm.
Because the big book in the Bible tells me so
that there is life and death
in the power of the tongue.
And we can literally destroy
with this tongue.
Now, I had a dream
some day to go to the Holy Land.
I'm going to let you go in just a minute.
Don't start coughing,
because I'll start coughing too.
I came a long way to share with you, doll.
This dream became a reality,
and I went to the Holy Land.
I was over there all during the month of May.
Of course, I went to Rome first.
Old girls, you ain't lived
till you've been picked by the Italians.
I was waiting for it, and it happened.
And you know, a gal like me has to,
I kind of appreciate everything I get, you know.
And I turned around and said, thank you.
And for ten days,
I couldn't get rid of that old Italian
to save my life.
He was hanging in there.
And then I went to the Holy Land.
And my dears, I walked the same steps
that my Lord walked.
I went to the nativity.
I saw where he was born.
I saw where he agonized,
and I knelt at the rock
in the Garden of Gethsemane,
and I prayed for every one of you.
And I went to the tomb
where they buried my Lord.
And I stood on the hill
where he ascended into heaven.
And I was having so many beautiful experiences,
I was just about to zap out.
And one day, we walked.
I mean, we were walking about 14 miles a day.
And one day, we had this Christian Arab guide.
And I walked up to him, and I said,
Salem, I don't believe I can make another step.
I wish I had some will.
He said, well, all right, baby.
Just look around there.
There's you some wills.
And you know what it was?
A camel.
He said, you're kicking it, you know.
You don't tell an alcoholic female she's kicking.
I said, get that dude down here.
I said, has he had his hump inspected?
And they got that old dude down,
and I mounted him.
And if you don't believe it,
I got the pictures right in my pocketbook.
I want you all to see it.
And I got up on that old camel,
and I thought to myself,
Mary, why are you so tacky?
Why do you still do just crazier things
sober than you did drunk?
There were 50 of us in this tour.
And I got to be the tacky one to ride the camel.
And this Arab says, get a hold of the front.
And it had a thing like a Western saddle.
And I was holding on to it dearly,
and this other guy was pointing around the back.
I thought he was wanting me to ride him backwards.
And I reached around there,
and the minute I grabbed a hold of that thing in the back,
honey, that old camel took off down that road.
I didn't think y'all was going to have a speaker.
And guess where he took me?
That's the weirdest experience.
I thought I was up on top of the Empire State Building.
But you think I was going to let that bunch of Christians think?
I said, no way.
He took me up to the end of the Good Samaritan.
And a couple of these Irish people went by him
and kind of looked at him and smelled him and walked on, you know.
And here came this good old AA member,
and he reached down that gutter,
and he picked that poor drunk up and slung him over that mule
and took him up there to the end.
And he told that fella, he said,
picked him up and feed him,
and I've got to leave, but I'll be back in a few days.
And you take care of him while I'm gone.
And you know what fixed it for me?
That he was an alcoholic.
He didn't give the any money.
He gave it to the innkeeper
and told him to take care of him.
I hope someday that each one of you
can make that tip.
Because I'll tell you, you'll never be the same.
And you see, God was so good to me
because he knew what was in store for me
and he knew that I needed this great big blessing.
Now you heard me admit and accept
the fact that I'm an alcoholic.
And when that twilight time comes for me,
and I walk down that long corridor,
and at the end of that corridor
will be standing the God of my understanding,
my Lord Jesus Christ,
I think he will say something like this,
Welcome home, my child.
It's good to have you.
I love you.
And your friend is waiting for you.
You're rolling.
And you're Dr. Bob.
And you're dear.
And I will have made it back to my father's house
because there were people just like you
that cared enough
to help me find my way.
And if I have one legacy, my dear,
to leave my children,
it is the legacy of this way of life.
To me, Alcoholics Anonymous speaks the language
of a lonely, lost, broken-hearted people
who are afraid to live and are afraid to die.
May God bless Alcoholics Anonymous.
And may he bless you and keep you always.
And thank you so very much for letting me come
and love you.
For God knows I do love you.
Thank you.
Thank you.