Getting Good Was the Obsession — Getting Well Was the Program – Virginia M.

right now I wonder why I said yes my name is Virginia Melton I'm a member of the Queen City
Al-Anon family group in Charlotte North Carolina hi I want to ask thank the committee for asking
me to come and share with you tonight I want to thank you for providing a nice room and for a
tray of goodies to nibble on that Craig won't get a chance at and for the lovely flowers I am
grateful I'm not one of those Al-Anons that was sweet and loving and gentle spoken and everybody
said she's the saint I don't know how she puts up with him I frequently was the one that was
asked to leave so when I receive an invitation I am truly grateful but when I receive an invitation
I am truly grateful but when I receive an invitation I am truly grateful but when I receive an invitation
to return where I have been previously, I am doubly grateful. Someone told Carter
earlier tonight that they had heard Beck and I before and that I had talked too
long and hadn't given him enough time. Well, he's tomorrow, so sit back, folks.
Buck's sponsor has been sober since before God, says his mind can
absorb no more than the seat can endure, so I shall try and keep that in mind
because I'm standing and I don't suffer sitting pains like you do. Should there
be anyone in the room that has not attended a convention before and has not
heard the anonymity statement read that Nancy read, I want to share with you
something that I think every time I hear it and that is the anonymity of Al-Anon and
Alateen, in my estimation, is even more
important than that of the alcoholic. And before the alcoholics rise in mass and
massacre me, let me explain. You see, I don't know any alcoholic whose life
would be threatened if their anonymity was violated. Their livelihoods, yes, but
not their lives. But I know Al-Anons and Alateens that suffer physical abuse and
verbal harassment because their membership has been disclosed. And I
would ask you, when you're introducing people like me to somebody, or my
husband, we've been introduced as Buck Ann and Virginia Melton. Now I'm very
fortunate in that the anonymity from the standpoint of a job being threatened or
anything of that, it does not present a problem. But just think about it a minute
later on, or the next time you hear the anonymity statement read. I'm nervous
about the anonymity statement read. I'm nervous about the anonymity statement read. I'm nervous
but I'm not afraid. You see, I know that all of you
either got drunk like him, or were raised hell like me so I'm not afraid
of you, but I am nervous because there's a part of me still that would almost go
down to length to be loved and accepted. And I'm always concerned that my ego and
my needs, my human rights are in danger. If that's how you could describe it to me,
then who did you sorry to use that to describe that to me?
Okay. And what am I most concerned that my ego and my needs, my human rights,
would be冷 trying to indulge somehow and living this 9-sadness out of my shape but separately
needs will get in the way of being honest. And I know that honesty is not
something that I pursue for any reason other than I like the freedom from a
guilty conscience. I'm not one that embarks upon the pursuit of various
things that our program has to offer because I'm so wise or so holy. I do it
simply because I got sick and tired of hurting. And they tell me in the program
there's not much spiritual growth in giving up what hurts you, so you know
where I'm coming from. I know we're supposed, we too, are supposed to tell
what it was like, what happened, what it's like now, and I'll try and do that. I was
born on the eastern shore of Maryland to a
relatively well-to-do family. My father didn't find it necessary to go out
every day and earn a living. There was adequate income. I don't remember my
father and my mother ever touching me. I don't remember them ever putting their
arms around me. I don't remember any demonstration of love. I remember very
much my daily needs being attended to by servants. I remembered that it was a
partying family. I remember resenting
resentment. All this is in retrospect. I didn't know it at the time. I was the
youngest of four children and I recognized through continuing Fourth Steps
resentment at an early age because as a family was having parties, we children
would sit on the stair steps and the eldest got the lowest step down and got
the best view. And as the youngest, I got the fourth one up and never did get to
see the people's heads. I grew up knowing about, we live right on the Chesapeake Bay,
about...
Well it was made of aloe and boron. Let's see...
boats run aground people hurt in diving accidents burning mattresses being pushed out of the upper
bedroom windows and i thought everyone lived that way i don't suppose any of us ever think
that anyone else lives any differently as we're growing up we think everyone lives the way we're
living every summer it was a custom that we visited our maternal grandparents in western
pennsylvania for one month and the summer that i was seven i went to pennsylvania on that visit
and i didn't return to maryland and i didn't know what happened
my father had become an invalid and died very shortly thereafter and my mother left now for
a long time i said my mother abandoned me and with time in the program i've come to realize
that isn't what she did that's what i felt abandoned i know today that she loved me as
much as possible
but what had really triggered that had happened that summer was
that depression that i know some of you in here remember had hit and this family didn't have any
money anymore now i started developing reverse snobbery then too because i thought that they
were shallow and vain and so people with money and education and social position i didn't want
to be like you see it took me until i was after 40 years of age to realize what was really happening
then they had no inner resources on which to rely and that's what i was rebelling against
i lived with these grandparents until they died within seven months of one another when i was 11
and i became a ward of the orphans court at age 11 i was as tall as i am now i wasn't as wide but
i was as tall i remember changing schools and they thought i was the new teacher i loved to dance and
every man five foot likes to dance with me and that's very awkward i'm here to tell you you dance
i never fit in i was different the orphans court gave me a dollar a day to live on
and the good parents in the community didn't want their dear children understandably going
to spend the night with someone that was unsupervised
now i want you to know that i was a very proper person i was so full of fear and inhibition
and just playing a dumb dora that i didn't get into any trouble but i was different and you know
how when somebody's different you just leave them alone so i grew up very lonely i grew up with the
feeling that there was something about me that was bad if i could ever get it good i would qualify and
all the bad things i would do for me were the things that you said that he did for you and i
was to spend a number of years trying to get good i came in the island and i found out i don't have
to get good i must seek to be well and i found out that good follows well just like dawn does dark
when i was 17 i approached the orphan's court and asked permission to leave pennsylvania
to go to college in southern california now i wanted to go to southern california because that
was as far as i could go and i wanted to go as far away from pennsylvania as i could you see
i equated unhappiness with pennsylvania and i felt that if i could get away from there i would be
happy i was socially mature i was physically mature i was emotionally obeyed but i got
permission and i left when i got off that train in october in la i didn't know something that all
of us know that are in this room you know who got off the train with me i did and i didn't know that
in the next few years i was to do a considerable amount of drinking now i didn't start drinking
in southern california i had been drinking ever since i could remember and i didn't like it but
because of my size and the circumstances of my life i frequently was with older people
and i drank to fit in and not be different
i couldn't stand to be different and i hated my size because that made me different
i was angry at god the controller of life and death
and of all people that he would put me in a position to be so alone
and i felt very very sorry for me and i tell you this only to give you background you see i used
to think if i'd stream the tragedies in my life like beads on a chain and hold them up in front
of you you would say
oh poor virginia no wonder she's like she is and then i came into allen on and i strung my
beads and somebody said so what oh thank god they did because one of the things i
hated the most was self-pity i remember praying to god to be relieved of self-pity
and he didn't do anything about it and i hurt so bad over it and i was talk i talked to anyone
about it how do you not feel no you know and somebody told me he said you start being grateful
You can't be grateful and feel sorry for yourself at the same time.
So I started a gratitude list, which was very time-consuming, and I didn't like it.
But I also started reading everything I could on gratitude,
and I found out that the self-pity slipped away.
And this, to me, is my understanding, part of my understanding of the God of my understanding.
He could, I believe, have removed the self-pity,
but I would not have learned anything about gratitude.
And I don't think God will do anything for me that he has a way for me to do it for myself.
And for whatever I'm to do, he'll give me what I need to do it.
I went to California, as I said, and I was out there some period of time,
and I met somebody from North Carolina, and I ended up in North Carolina.
And very shortly thereafter, I met, oh, Buck.
Kind of keeping in place.
I mean.
He says I asked him, and I say he asked me, but it doesn't matter.
We drank together, and we dated, and one night I wrote a script.
And I thought, I'm going to say, I'm going back to California.
And he was going to say, oh, no, don't go.
So I said, I'm going back to California.
And he said, when are you leaving?
And I said, I'm going back to California.
My false pride was such, again, I didn't recognize it at the time.
I couldn't say.
I was kidding.
I went downtown Saturday morning.
I bought a ticket, and I went back to California.
And I sometimes forget to tell it, and it's too delicious.
I've got to always remember to tell.
But Buck came to California for me.
Sober.
And we came back to North Carolina.
Now, 40 years ago.
Somebody that wasn't from North Carolina was a foreigner, and I was a foreigner.
And lest anyone misunderstand anything I might say, let me tell you right now, straight out.
I had the finest in-laws that anyone could have.
I had a good mother-in-law.
I had a good father-in-law.
I truly did.
And perhaps they were right.
There were years I came to believe that I thought they were right,
that they didn't want their boy to marry somebody from,
then, you know, I don't know.
I knew nothing of.
But at any rate, we were married.
Now, we hear a lot about miracles in the program,
and some people say, you know, a lot of questioning and all.
I'm going to give you a miracle in one sentence.
Quote,
Buck and Virginia are still alive and married after 38 years, period.
End quote.
That's a miracle.
Thank you.
Unless you get the idea that this is a hentai,
brow-beating old boy,
I want to tell you that we deserve one another.
Oh, dear.
We damn near killed each other.
Now, I had the reverse snobber.
I was not interested in money, position, clothes, fine cars, homes, any of that.
People that had that were shallow and vain,
and I didn't want to be shallow and vain.
We were dirt poor.
I went down to the Army-Navy store, and I bought a...
This is right at the close of World War II,
and I bought a bag of surplus linen,
and one sheet was stenciled Grabowski,
and one was stenciled Brown,
and Smith was on a towel,
and some other name on another.
I know when I hung the laundry out at the wash shop,
the neighbors must have thought I was ready to rip.
I went to Five and Dime,
and I bought two plates and two cups and two frosters,
two spoons, two knives, two forks, two glasses,
a tin skillet, and an enamel pan.
We lived in one room,
and I could lie in bed and cook breakfast at the same time.
And it was fine.
It was fine.
Oh, God.
Washed the clothes in the bathtub.
And we were happy.
Bought groceries,
depending on how much money had left over after we paid the bill.
Some of the weeks we had,
we would eat meat.
We were happy.
Occasionally, we would get together with other couples,
and we would buy a bottle,
and we would drink,
and we would party.
And occasionally, the next day,
the partying didn't end for Bucks.
And for a long time, I didn't think much of it.
There never was a sober Christmas until we came,
until he came into Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I didn't know what was wrong.
And when I was drinking drink for drink with him,
out of the same bottle,
sitting in the same joint,
and I didn't get into the trouble he did as the years progressed,
I started figuring it was because I was more intellectual,
stronger character, higher morals.
Now, that's fertile ground for I-Know-It-All-ism.
And I became I-Know-It-All.
And I was scared to death inside.
That dream of that day we married,
now I have someone to love,
and someone to love me,
and everything is going to be fine,
wasn't coming true.
And that Sunday school teacher that led me to believe
that you take a bath every day and go to Sunday school and church,
and you're honest and clean and decent,
and pay your bills,
and live an honorable life,
you will live happily ever after,
had lied to me.
And there's God that loves all,
and cares for all,
that had taken me, in my estimation,
dripped and dipped in self-pity,
from one hell to another,
and didn't love me.
We'd been married about four years,
and we had an opportunity to go into business for ourselves.
And we moved to South Carolina,
and we went into the drive-in restaurant business,
and we were very successful.
Now, two things happened primarily at that time,
one to Buck,
and one to me.
With this small business,
I became very important,
and I could run it,
and I was boss,
and I called the shop,
and all of a sudden,
I felt great about me.
Now, you know where I'm coming from,
when running a two-bit business
makes you feel like you're something.
Now, with my willingness to run this business,
and with the money that we were earning,
Buck had both the time and the money
to pursue his favorite pastime.
And if any of you think I'm going to tell you a story,
you're wrong.
You want to hear the other side of this deal,
come tomorrow morning.
The day came when I no longer felt any sense of fulfillment
or satisfaction in running this business.
And that has been my experience,
that when I do feel
whole, complete, fulfilled, satisfied,
based on the wrong thing,
it won't last.
It's terminal.
It won't last.
And that didn't last.
I remember Buck was gone,
and I decided when he came home,
I wasn't going to have anything to do with him.
I wasn't going to talk to him.
Now, this is after a period of time
we've already been through
when he came home,
we're going to talk about this.
We'd already been through this.
We'd already been through this.
We'd already been through this.
We'd already been through this.
We'd already been through this.
We'd already been through that.
Where have you been?
We'd already been through that.
He walked in the door,
and I slammed out the door
and drove around for hours during the night.
We'd been through all of that junk.
And I decided,
well, I've been running the business
and taking care of the children
and everything in his absence.
When he returned,
I'm just going to ignore him.
He returned.
Six weeks later,
I went to the doctor,
and he told me I was pregnant.
That's failure.
That's failure.
Now, if you don't understand that,
I'm not going to explain it.
Buck would be gone,
and I wouldn't know where he was.
That's what damn near killed me,
the unknown.
You know, I'd walk the floor
and wring my hands.
Oh, God, where he is,
if he isn't,
he'll be all he's dead.
Quicker than I can say it,
I would think it.
And then I'd feel guilty.
And one of the children come up,
and I'd think,
this is their father.
You know, the terrible,
the quick,
backwards and forwards,
love, hate,
hate.
I used to think I'm going to,
and I'd get in the car,
and I'd go looking.
I'd look for his car.
And I'd have a hammer
and a screwdriver
and a wrench with me.
And when I found the car,
I was going to take the hammer
and knock out the windshield.
I was going to lift the hood,
and whatever the screwdriver
and the wrench would attack,
I was going to attack.
And then I visualized myself
waiting for him to come back
to his car.
And when he did,
I was going to see,
say to him,
that's what you get
for treating me like you do.
And I would go,
and I couldn't find his car.
And oh, I'd go home,
not angry,
mad,
mad.
But oh, the failure
when I'd find the car
and couldn't go through with it.
And wouldn't do a thing to the car,
but go home.
I many times thought
it can't get any worse.
Of course, you know,
I didn't know what I was talking about.
But I did.
I did.
The time came
when the successful business was gone.
And I bring you to Christmas Eve of 1958.
My husband was gone
as a result of his illness,
alcoholism.
By this time,
we had three children
and in this small town,
I could not get a job.
And at that time,
I would have told you,
and for a long time
after I came into Alamon,
I would have told you,
it was because of my husband's reputation
I couldn't get a job in this town.
That's part of it, but that's not all of it.
I wasn't very employable either, because if someone would call me and say,
Bucks at Papa Nash's at Myrtle Beach, 200 miles away, I'd go and see if he was.
I never thought in terms of priorities and first things first, but a job.
To my shame, my children, my home, my community, my church, never were first on the list.
Where is he?
Who is he with?
When will he be home?
What is he doing?
Is he in the hospital?
Is he in jail?
Has he spent all of his money?
Is he gambling?
My husband enjoyed the total realm that alcoholism offers, and I don't choose to explain that.
If you understand that, you do.
And I used to sit and dwell on all of that.
That Christmas Eve that we moved, three years prior to that, for us it was a lot.
It might not be to any of you.
But three years prior to that Christmas Eve, we'd paid taxes on $85,000 a year income.
That Christmas Eve day, I borrowed $100 and moved enough furniture to furnish a small
apartment for the girls and I.
And that Christmas Eve afternoon as we were loading up,
my husband came home.
And to show you how sick I was, he'd been gone since October.
When he drove in the drive, I thought, he's going to be mad at me.
That's sick.
I remember him coming in the house and telling him I wasn't leaving there to leave him, because
I wasn't.
You see, I'd made a decision then I didn't know I'd made.
I knew that I'd rather have 10% of his time than none at all.
And I was settling for that.
It wasn't until I came in down on I learned about alternatives.
But I remember telling him I was leaving only because I'd got no work in Charlotte and I
was going back there and had a place to live.
And I told him he could go with us if he wanted to.
And I waited.
And he said, yeah, I believe I will.
And I thought, he still loves us.
Oh, I'm so glad I don't always know the truth.
It wasn't until I believed I still loved him.
It wasn't until I actually got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous.
The truth is, and he told it, so I have to believe it, that he was broke and I already
loaded the bed, so he had no choice.
But you see, I rode on that feeling that he still loves us and he isn't angry and that
was all right.
And I then thought, it can't get any worse.
But it did.
In the next years, I, too, learned to live electrically.
I'm an alcoholic, so I think I'm the only one that ends up in psycho ward.
I woke up one November morning and I couldn't stop weeping.
I wasn't crying, I wasn't making any sound.
And as the children said, mother your eyes are always wet.
I couldn't stop weeping.
And I went to the doctor who had treated Beck after an automobile accident, to give him
an examination for possible brain damage.
And he had given me his card.
his card and said if i can ever be of service to you come see me and so some months later that
november i went to see him and i was suffering from chronic depression and i went in and i was
treated now i don't know if i'm better or worse because of that maybe where i felt afterwards the
way i was always supposed to feel i don't know but there was a period of time after that i just
didn't care anymore about things i used to care about terribly i just didn't care and i lived for
a while suspended i've seen and you have two of these i believe they call them mobiles that hang
from one string and the wind will blow them different ways that's how i felt suspended
aware of what was going on around me but totally out of touch with it and no control over me or it
so
you
during those years if you had asked me what my life was like i would have told you that
i had been knocked out and locked out and kicked out ridiculed rejected shamed and embarrassed
it's true but i wouldn't have told you but i'll tell you now i did all those things to him too
and i'm not a drunk
i didn't succeed in knocking him out but i gave it a good try
and i don't tell that to entertain you or to shock you
but if there's anybody sitting in this room that's had those feelings or done those things you have
a right to know you're not alone and i have nothing to hide from you because where it really
counts it's already known because the god of my understanding knows it all and even more than i
have yet become aware i'm going to jump in here and i'm going to jump in here and i'm going to
now
until i debated on this i really did i thought about it i don't often think about what i'm
going to share i just ask god to put the thoughts in my mind and the words in my
mouth that someone needs to hear fully aware that i may be the only one needs to hear them
but i thought about this one tonight is my husband's aaa birthday
applause
Isn't that neat?
And tonight I know it's a miracle.
That night I didn't even know what was going on.
About ten days later from now will be the day I went to my first meeting.
It was a Monday, and I'm in the kitchen going to fix lunch.
And one of the things on one of the first inventories was I was thrifty.
I knew I was thrifty.
I saved bags of tinfoil and ribbons and string and boxes and tinfoil and dresses I couldn't
wear and shoes the kids couldn't wear.
You know, I saved everything.
Of course, from now on they've told me, that isn't thrift.
It's a fear.
You know, I have to be a clutter.
You know, I've got all that clutter.
You do what you're supposed to do one day at a time with common sense, and leave it
up to God.
You can have what you need.
You don't have to save all that junk.
Clean it up.
God, when I embarrass myself, that's bad.
Help.
Help.
Help.
Anyhow, I'm in the kitchen. I've got to get on with this. God, I forget the time, and whoever told that to Carter is going to be right again.
I went in the kitchen. I'm fixing lunch, and I go in the refrigerator, and I get out an old mayonnaise jar, because that's what you keep leftovers in.
You don't buy Tupperware in the house. I use mayonnaise jars with Tupperware.
And I get this mayonnaise jar, and to show you the extent of my thrift, it had leftover salad with oil and vinegar dripping off.
And I poke it under my arm. And when you're tall and you're getting things out of the refrigerator, you don't just reach in. You have to reach over.
And I put this jar under my arm, and I leaned over to get something else. The lid wasn't secure. It came off. It goes all over the kitchen floor.
And I reacted in my normal voice. Now, my normal voice still, I suppose, certainly always then, would not require a microphone.
They could hear me in the lobby. I spent years developing that voice.
At the top of my voice, angry.
God!
What else do you expect of me, that damn drunk, and now this man?
Like that, it hit me. He was not drunk.
He was sitting in the living room waiting for me to fix lunch.
Plantic, right away.
How long has he not been drinking?
That afternoon, I can't remember everything, but I remember a lot what I thought.
Where is it he said he's been going?
Who's been phoning him? I know they're not drunk. I can smell a drunk on the phone. You can too.
I know they're not drunk.
Well-dressed, clean people have been coming by the office to see him.
But here was the real shaker.
He'd been going out every night and coming home when he said he would come home sober.
I have often thought, for me, living an act of alcoholism was like being out in a small boat.
Have you ever been out in a small boat and stand up?
You don't stand straight-legged.
Your knees bent and you roll with the boat.
You know, with a snag, a big wind, a tree branch, you're prepared.
That's me living with a drunk.
He gets sober and I'm still going like this.
And I thought, I bet he hasn't told them what a good wife I've been.
How I've stood by him through sick or sin.
Stood by that hospital bed, my feet so swollen the nurses put a pillow under each one of them.
How I worked.
Four o'clock in the morning go out and open his business up and go to the office at eight and work until five
and go by the hospital and then back out and run that place to two in the morning and go home and kiss the children
and go to bed for a couple of hours and get up and go again.
You see, I meant it when I said we're damn near killing each other.
I thought, I went to jail with him.
I went to the bootleggers with him.
I went to beautiful places with him as well.
And after all I've done, he's gone off with a bunch of people I don't know.
And he's not been here.
And I got mad.
Anger has been the underlying emotion for me for everything.
In the past, when I've been touched and very deeply moved, I'd react in anger.
When I've been fearful, I would react in anger.
When I'm undecided or confused, I become angry.
I got angry.
I'm glad I did because I thought, well, he hasn't asked me to go with him, but I'm going.
Well, then I had to come up with my reasons why I was going.
I'm your wife.
I have a right to go.
I want to meet these people.
And I'm thinking, and I want to tell them not to let you snooker them too much, you
know, and all this kind of stuff.
So I get ready.
And about 7.30, Mr. Serenity, that's my husband, he's right in his pipe.
And he says, well, I'll be back about 9.30 or 10.
And I said, I'm going too.
And all my reasons ready.
And he said, all right, come on.
I could have killed him.
I could have killed him.
Now, I told you that I was a know-it-all and why I was a know-it-all.
So when we went out and got in the car, I couldn't say where we were going because then
he would know I didn't know and I didn't want him to know I didn't know.
So as we drove across town, I was like a blowfish out of water.
You know, we got over there and we walked in and he pointed to a stairwell and he said,
they meet down there.
And I didn't know who they were, but I'd have died before I'd asked him.
And that was my first meeting.
And isn't it wonderful to laugh about it?
But let me tell you the ringer.
Let me tell you the good part.
You see, God was working in my life.
I wasn't 12 steps.
I was a little put out about that for a while.
Especially when I hear an alky get up at a mic and say, I never go see a drunk that
I don't tell the family about Al-Anon.
And I want to get up and say, the hell you did.
I know God was working in my life because it was closed AA and Al-Anon.
I'm so glad I didn't get an open AA meeting before my husband did.
I would have been one of those non-alcoholic members of open AA meetings.
We've got a jillion of them.
They're not in Al-Anon and they're not in AA.
And they sit on the damn fence and they cause a lot of trouble for everybody.
They ride on the coattail of the alcoholic sobriety.
And everybody's sitting around a coffee room, a place like this.
Somebody will say something way out there.
And somebody will say, well, honey, how long have you been sober?
And they'll say, oh, well, I'm not an alcoholic.
And they'll say, well, it's just like an Al-Anon.
And I want to say, no, that's not like an Al-Anon.
A marriage license doesn't make you an Al-Anon member.
You know, it just does not do it.
If you think it does, then every drunk out there on the street tonight is AA.
Same deal.
I also know God was working in my life because I went in.
I know they opened with a surrender prayer.
I know they read the preamble.
I know they read the purpose, the steps, the whole deal.
I don't remember a thing.
All I know is a little lady got up and she shared.
I did not get a newcomer welcome.
She was a visitor to that group.
She thought I belonged to the group.
She was the only one I'd spoken to.
Because I was talking to her, the members of the group thought I'd come to the meeting with her.
But I got something better than a newcomer welcome.
I got a meeting that stuck to the purpose of Al-Anon.
To welcome and comfort the relatives and friends of alcoholics.
To learn to understand and encourage the alcoholic in how to grow spiritually yourself.
That's what I got.
And it attracted me.
I know God was working in my life.
I've never seen Ann again.
It was sufficient that she was in one room for one hour of one night and was willing to share.
I don't know what she thinks of the program.
I don't know what slogan means a great deal to her or what step her in is.
But she shared and I was attracted and I started going to Al-Anon.
And I've been going ever since.
And my God, the time.
The most important part isn't the qualifying.
I think it's necessary.
Because so many times somebody will come in and they'll say,
But you don't understand, Virginia, it's my daughter.
Or you don't understand, it's my son.
Or you don't understand, it's my brother.
Or you don't understand, it's my father.
We've got to get beyond the relationship.
The illness is the same.
The circumstances are different.
That I am no longer a teenage white woman.
If you take a knife and cut me open and inside you would see the scars of alcoholism.
Then take the knife and cut yourself open and you'd see the same scars.
I don't care who you are or what the relationship.
I don't care what the circumstances.
I don't care how long you lived in it.
I don't care what religion you are or what politics you are or what economic level or educational level or anything else.
It has nothing to do with any of that jazz.
But I started going to meetings.
Now I was more comfortable than I've been.
But I wasn't real comfortable.
They were so good.
Oh my God.
Nobody said damn.
I'm not supposing that everyone should curse.
Sometimes there's no other way to say it.
And if I'm a pauper when it comes to vocabulary then that's the case.
If I'm a moral weakling, if I'm whatever I am.
But you know my profanity doesn't shock the God of my understanding one day.
And if it shocks you, that's not my intention and I truly am sorry.
And I ask you to pray for me.
And also pray for yourself.
I went to a pastor's workshop one time and I started talking and I thought, oh, how am I going to talk to them?
And it was a presentation and we went into workshops.
And this one very fine gentleman said, Virginia, you have a great deal to say, but your language concerns me.
And I said, sir, are you truly interested in helping alcoholics and their families?
And he said, I certainly am.
And I said, then the next one that calls, you ask someone else to go.
Because if you can't get beyond the language, you'll never be able to help them.
And I believe that.
If you can't get beyond the car places on the kitchen floor and no sheets on the bed and the garbage is not taken out,
and kids in dirty diapers, and that smell that cannot be duplicated no place else in the world,
then don't go on cross-step calls.
Unless you are one of those that selects your cross-step calls.
Anyhow, I started going to meetings and I wasn't comfortable.
I was more comfortable than I'd been.
And they never talked about anything being wrong.
It was kind of like, since John's been sober in AA and I've been in Al-Anon, we haven't had a crossword.
And I think. . .
What am I not learning?
What am I not doing?
Because it wasn't hot there that hot.
And for a long time now, I believe when anyone says that, they'll lie about anything.
You know?
We've had some wonderful years.
And we've been closer to divorce and sobriety than we were in active alcoholism.
I love that old boy.
I love him good.
But there are still days.
There are still days I want to pinch his head off.
And I believe it when he says he loves me.
And I believe it when I. . .
I believe there are days that he ought to pinch my head off.
But I heard another woman talk.
And she talked about going to meetings just to have the chance to dump her garbage.
And this woman would always say to her that would listen to her was, you tried the steps.
And she said she got tired of hearing that.
She said, I'm going home to do the steps.
And she asked me.
And I said, yes.
And they don't work.
She went home.
She started on the steps.
And they did work.
And that really fired me up.
And if my watch is right, I have 15 minutes.
Is that right?
Okay.
Go for it.
A minute.
A minute of stopping.
I want to tell you, if we had 15 hours here, 15 days here, 15 years here, and you had
the most eloquent. . .
Speaker is in the world to share with you.
You're not going to get it all here.
You're going to be lifted here to. . .
We can be so damn good at these things.
It's just a crime shame.
But then when we go home Sunday night and all that stuff starts caving in and Monday
morning comes, you know, we're different.
It just comes like, you know, like a pearl develops from a grit of sand in an oyster.
And just a little bit of time, layer upon layer upon layer, and then a beautiful pearl.
Well, I've got one layer on the grit right now, but I'm not going to share with you.
See, I found out how I started studying the steps.
Now, I'm not the kind of person that I'm. . .
This is the kind of person I am.
If I'm uptight and you say to me, easy does it.
Don't tell me that.
Tell me how.
You say to me. . .
You say, I pray meditation every day.
Easy does it.
Easy does it.
Easy does it.
I pray meditation every day.
Tell me how you do it.
You know, tell me what you physically do.
Helen, up there in the mountains, Moorestown, Tennessee, she told me.
She said, I have a chair, and I go and I sit in it, and I tell everybody around me
to leave me alone until I'm through, until I get out of that chair.
I do not want to be disturbed.
I will not go to the door.
I will not answer the telephone.
Nothing.
And she told me what she did.
How I study the steps, I get everything.
And there are going to be some whose hair is going to come up on their necks, but this
is my story.
I get all the AA literature and all the on and on literature, and I read everything on
step one, and I close the books, and I come to conclusions about that step, and I go on
to two.
And I do that over and over and over.
Now, I've been doing that about three years.
I realized I was ready to start working on stuff.
You know, I had a lot of stuff to put together, because I really was.
I'm not so sick.
I have to be sicker than any of you, but I was a pretty sick cookie when I got here.
I was pretty fractured.
I had no sense of self, no self-identity.
I thought of myself as Joe's sister, Phoebe's daughter, Buck's wife, Barbara's mother, Mr.
Carson's secretary.
That's how I thought of myself.
I never thought about Virginia.
I remember one time, this doctor that I went to, he said to me, if everything that you're
responsible for in your life is taken care of, your children are taken care of, your
home, your job, money is no object, and you have to have a job, you have to have a job.
And I said, well, I don't have a job.
I don't have a job.
I don't have a job.
I don't have a job.
I don't have a job.
I don't have a job.
I don't have a job.
I don't have a job.
I gave up my job.
I didn't have a job.
I didn't have a job.
I didn't have two weeks.
What would you do?
What will you do with these two weeks?
I did not know.
I did not know.
There was no me.
There was no me.
So I started working on the steps.
The first step says, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
I had a little bit of trouble with that, because I thought I can drink and leave it alone.
I rejected people that said, we're powerless over the alcoholic, because that's not what
the first step and the second step did.
That's great.
Thanks.
I started admitting I was powerless over alcohol because AAs and LLs were killing me, I was.
And then the time came, and I believed that for a long time I admit that I am powerless over alcohol,
but I'm also powerless over time and place and circumstance.
I'm powerless over you, and I'm powerless over me.
And that is not failure.
It is truth, and it's facing the truth.
And I make the comparison between driving a car.
When I'm on the highway, I have no control over other cars.
And if they have a wreck, I don't feel guilty.
If they get in my lane, I'd be a fool not to get out of the way.
But I do not feel responsible for those other cars.
And that's how I see my powerlessness over things around me and myself.
But the self is still there, and what do I do with it?
My life was unmanageable.
I thought that was during certain periods of time.
And then with time and the program, I realized my life had always been unmanageable until I got here.
I came to understand and to know some things.
And my life today is powerful.
And it's unmanageable when I lose contact with my higher power, or when I think I can do it by myself.
The second step says, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
I came to believe in AAs and Al-Anons.
And I came to believe in them.
And then I came to believe I could be restored to sanity.
I had no question, no qualms, no.
Remember, they have a second thought to the need to be restored to sanity.
And lots of times people will say, they're not insane.
To me, I was not whole.
And to me, if you're not whole, you're not sane.
And I'm still not.
But I'm better than I was, and I'm closer to it.
There are more pieces together.
And I know that.
And in my heart, I know it.
And I know God knows it, too.
And so it's better.
I'm on my journey.
I came to believe that.
That a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.
I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand it.
And this came to me really, I looked at it from all different ways.
When I used a prayer that you may be familiar with, when it says,
God remove from me my defects of character that may be evidence to others of my power.
And I was praying that one day, and I thought, God, if it will serve you for my defects not to be removed, that will be all right.
Because I knew that I will.
If I was doing what God wanted me to do, no matter what it was, it was the best thing for me, and I'd be all right.
And faster than I can share that with you, I knew it wasn't necessary.
I knew it wasn't necessary.
And I also knew that it was a step out into the unknown.
But it wasn't an unknown alone.
And I knew that it was going to be a thing that would have to be repeated over and over again.
And it wasn't something I could do.
I knew that I was going to make a decision and then never think about it again.
That it was done for life.
You know, if that was true, I could decide the day that, or could have decided the day I weighed 120,
that's what I'm going to weigh the rest of my life.
You know, same kind of a deal.
These three steps tell me where I'm starting from and how do I make the journey.
See in the third step to me, I make the decision, but how do I live the decision?
How do I put the action in it?
I have a journey.
I have a task.
some things and what's the fourth step made a searching and fearless mall inventory of ourselves
i believe in a written inventory i believe that there's an exercise in self-condemnation
you need to take one of those sheets inventory sheets we have and cut it in two and just use
the asset side and if you find nothing on there that you can use then strive to do things that
you'll be able to check yes yes be patient with somebody you don't want to be patient with and
once there's patience you'll be able to say yes and be compassionate be loving be considerate
be trustworthy do things so that you can check it and leave it live the other side alone
a friend of mine told me that when taking an inventory if you were inventorying a jewelry
store and in the back room you found a bushel of onions you can't say well that doesn't belong in
the jewelry store i won't put it down if you find those onions in the jewelry store you've got to
put it down on the inventory of the jewelry store so whatever
you find put down to me it's a search for truth i don't think it's a search for right or for wrong
i think that we can look at it after we've written it down and determine
if it's something we want to have nurtured and grow stronger in our lives or something
that with god's help we would like to have removed i learned a lot about words in the
inventory i found out people use words they don't know the meanings of and i i had to know what you
meant and so when you use the word i'd look the word up in the dictionary and i'd say do you know
what do you know why do they use those words and i'd look in the dictionary and i would say do you know
mean so and so and sometimes you would say yes and sometimes you would say no but then i i had
something i count on because the definition was there and this helped me i learned a lot i learned
the difference between joy and happiness pleasure and happiness you know pleasure is an outside
influence in this room right now if we wrapped up in a floor-length mink coat we'd be mighty
unpleasant wouldn't it be too warm but in the heart of winter it would be very pleasant but
happiness is an inside job and the weather and the circumstance have nothing to do with it and
they'll go and happiness can go with us through eternity i learned the difference between standards
and principles are a big difference there principles will go on throughout time standards
are constantly changing fans at one time would not allow women to wear slacks or be in public
without hats and all that sort of thing those are standards may change principles never do
i took this written inventory and after several attempts with different people for different
reasons i don't have to
time to go into i sat down with a lady and it was seven pages single space little sized paper
and i shared with her and sometimes i would reach the point where i couldn't go on
and she would share with me and i was not one of those that was disappointed because
i didn't hear music or some evidence of god i was grateful he didn't zap me you see i was still
i still was so immature that i didn't realize that god knew more than what i spoke
am impressed
this lady told me what to do and i went apart and i prayed and i started on that
sixth step which to me has always been the beginning and it says i'm entirely
ready to have god remove these defects of character i think in the fourth step i became
aware of my god-given instincts for love and acceptance and security i found out that it wasn't
virginia and greed and all of that but they were god-given instincts i could find ways to make them
instincts but i also found out that we should pursue these instincts in a healthy way and not
an unhealthy way in the sixth step i realized that it would be in god's time the sixth step
and the thing i told you about self-pity and gratitude trickled made a lot of meaning made
a lot of sense to me but because i'm ready to have something moved doesn't mean it's not
it's the term whatever is in my life whatever has been what is today and what will be
i am convinced there is a learning in it there's a lesson in it something for me to learn in every
bit of it if i'm willing to learn it i am grateful my husband is a sober member of alcoholics
anonymous i can't stand up and say to you i'm grateful my husband's an alcoholic to me that
doesn't say it i wasn't grateful when he was drunk and i don't think i would be today but i am grateful
that he's a sober member of alcoholics anonymous and it is because of him that i'm in alan on
that
i came down and on i stayed for myself
the seventh step says we humbly ask god to remove our shortcomings
to me humbly means honestly people that say if you mention humility you have none
i just love for them to say something like i'm very grateful i say no you're not
so what do you mean you say you say you're grateful you're not what do you mean you say
if anybody mentions humility they have none you can't isolate that emotion and say it's
okay about others but not about humanity because to me humility is honesty i don't know about you
but i know about me i know i have not earned nor do i deserve the right to be standing in front of
you obviously well fed well clothed money in my pocket a home every need that i have in life
materialistically met not all my wishes we ain't rich we ain't rich we ain't rich we ain't rich we
ain't got it not that's what i'm talking about our needs are met in an abundance
but even more i have a source it's mine just like it's yours
unearned and undeserved
and that humbles me
the eighth step says we made an
the persons we'd harmed became willing to make amends to them all. My list started in my fourth
step because the people I was angry at and mad at and fearful of and resentful of, names got put
down. And I found out usually the people I hated most were ones that were most like me. I hated
what I saw in you because what I saw in you was me. And I didn't see very many people I loved
because they didn't love me either. I want you to know that I now have some of my some of my best
friends are women five foot tall and I hated them. I worked in an office for years and we had
a woman named Margaret was five foot tall and weighed about 102 and I'll give you a typical
thing. Virginia would say I need to move the typewriter. Margaret would say I need to move
the typewriter. To Virginia they would say where are you going to put it? To Margaret they would
say where do you want it? And I hated it. And I don't have that hatred.
anymore. But I made a list and I became willing. I didn't do anything but become willing.
Just like on the third step I didn't do anything but make the decision.
But after the decision I had to do something and after making the list I had to do something.
And I made that ninth step. I made direct amends whenever possible except when to do
stuff within each other. And sometimes I think that we think we have a right to ease our guilty
conscience.
At someone else's expense. How many people have I heard weep
over the fist that somebody has thrust through the heartstrings
because they dumped their garbage and called it making an amends?
In the name of honesty and truth we can be so cruel.
I made those amends and then the time came
when I knew that they either accepted it or they didn't.
I made amends in public and in private to my husband and to my children because that's where
I harmed them and in public and in private. That's where I shamed them and embarrassed
them in public and in private. And then the time came when that was passed
and what they did with it was up to them. And I also knew that I'd done it for the right reason
because it didn't matter how they'd received it. I knew I'd done what I was supposed to do.
And so I knew that I was supposed to do it and I knew I was supposed to do it.
And I knew that I was supposed to do it. And through these steps I've been on my journey
and to me how I try to keep current starts with 10, continue to take personal inventory
and when we're wrong promptly admit it. I try to review my day and if I've been up one hour
and my day's going crazy I stop and do a 10th step. And most of the time I find it because I
jumped out of bed and answered the phone at the door and didn't say, this is the day the Lord has
made. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. I use the word rejoice and be exceedingly glad. I'm not going
Or I didn't say, God help me, I didn't start my daylight, I boggled into it.
The 11th step says, which I call the happiness step, sought through prayer and meditation
to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand him, praying only for knowledge
of his will for us and the power to carry it out.
I'm told these steps were written in retrospect, in past tense, and for me to use them, I should
bring them into present tense.
So seek through prayer and meditation, I say to myself.
I'm so grateful that they didn't write found through prayer and meditation, because that
would mean I'd get a handle on it, and I thought I'd never gotten a handle on it.
Sometimes I see the handle and I'm reaching, and sometimes I've touched it, and sometimes
I don't even know it's there.
But I seek.
Through prayer and meditation, knowledge from God of his will for me and the power
to carry it out.
I like to think of this as the open prayer.
If I'm thinking, and I am, about buying a new car, I don't ask God for a car.
I ask God for the guidance to do what I should do, and I ask God for an obstacle to prevent
my doing it if it's not what he wants me to do.
12th step says.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message
to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
I have had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps.
Had my obituary been written 17 years ago, and I were to die now, you could use it.
Nothing's changed.
As far as what would go in my view like that.
But I've changed.
You may not think I have.
Some of you have known me a long time.
And it really would be nice if the changes that I know are, are apparent.
If God knows, then I know.
And I know there's more to come.
And I do seek knowledge from God.
And I do try to carry the message.
And I don't always do it in this manner.
I'm starting a beginner's group, 1st of December.
I empty ice trays, I carry literature, I go on T.I. meetings, I call up the T.V. station
and say, thanks for running that plug about Al-Anon, that, that Al-Anon really works.
I write to the newspaper and say, thank you for that script on Al-Anon, it's, that, that
Al-Anon really works.
Carry the message at night, when I get down on my knees, those nights I get down on my
knees.
I don't have to lie to you, I hope one day that I'm together enough that I will every
night do what is important to me, go down on my knees and pray.
I hope that I will someday, every day, read some Al-Anon literature, but my, my days will
get clicking and I forget.
But I carry the message when I pray and I ask God to take care of me.
I pray to God.
I pray to God.
I pray to God.
I pray to God.
I pray to God.
I pray to God.
I pray to God.
I pray to God.
Some places it's written in a bigger book than we read or study or know of that the
last shall come first, and the last is practice these principles in all your affairs.
The word practice means to teach yourself through repetition by doing repeatedly.
So baby, if you're bored at meetings and you're tired of hearing about the steps, you're not
tired of meeting your steps, you're bored with life.
because that's how we learn
through repetition
I've done it again
I've talked over
we have three children
that couldn't wait to get away from home
and then they move right back
not in the house with us
but in town
every Wednesday night
they're at our house for dinner
and we talk
not mother daughter
we talk as friends
we talk about our problems
we talk about our fears
we talk about our joys
and it's good
I came home the other day
there are other people in the house
I came home the other day
and there were beautiful flowers
in the middle of the dining room table
and there was a card
and it said thanks a million mom
and the daughter that had sent them
is a beautiful blonde
and she was a beautiful child
and I remembered the day
I struck her across the face
I'm grateful
that what has happened
has happened
that she would send me flowers
there's some
so many things have happened
there isn't time
and I know that
and I know that
and I know that
if it hasn't happened for you
it will
it's a promise
not from Virginia
but from the people in this room
and other meeting rooms
all over the world
it doesn't happen by our time schedule
it doesn't happen the way we think it'll happen
a daughter that I was most alienated from
a daughter that I was most alienated from
because she was diagnosed a cancer patient
and she had no one else to turn to
because her father
her buddy was in the hospital
turned to me
through that tragedy has come
the strongest relationship
tragedy is never a tragedy
there's always something in it to learn
there's some experience
I don't understand why some of the things happen
I won't pretend to you that I do
I just know that some place down on the other side of it
there's going to be a point where I'll know
it was a turning point for the better
somebody else wrote some lines I want to close with
I know not what the future holds
of marvel or surprise
I'm assured alone that life and death
God's mercy underlies
and if my heart and soul is to be saved
and if my heart and flesh are weak
to bear an untried pain
the bruised reeds God will not break
but strengthen and sustain
no offering of my own I have
no works my faith to prove
I can but give the gift he gave
and plead his love for love
I know not where God's islands
lift their fonded palms and air
I only know I cannot drift beyond his love and care
and if my faith is vain
and if my hopes betray
pray for me that I may find a surer safer way
and thou Lord who knows thy creatures as they be
forgive me if too close I lean my human heart to thee
thank you very much