I Memorized the Big Book Like a Chemistry Formula and Couldn’t Tell You What It Meant — Becky

This is a lady from, I just met her today, but we hit it off right away, from Georgia.
And this lady has a marvelous way of sharing her strength and hope and experience with you.
So I want you to put your hand together and let's give her a big welcome.
Because when you come, you know, they talk about service,
and all of us, I suppose, do a little service, like cleaning ashtrays, you know, making coffee, setting up chairs, stuff like that.
But when you come from Georgia to Florida to share with a bunch of alcoholics, that's service.
So come on up and share with us.
Good afternoon. I'm Becky Bullard, and I'm an alcoholic.
You know, it's only because of the mercy and grace of God and the love and the support of you people
that I'm able to stand up here today sober.
For that, I am eternally grateful on this Gratitude Day, too.
And I mean that.
You're just going to have to bear with me for a few moments.
You know, uh...
Tina shared with me that, you know, she always seemed to get a little nervous before these things
and that it was nothing but her pride and her ego coming out.
Well, it takes a few minutes for God to kick in.
So give me a minute to calm down, you know.
I do get a little nervous, but usually he takes over and he helps me share this story, you know, with you.
And it's just a story of my life.
I know I can't screw it up.
I already did that, you know.
You don't know what I mean.
I'm telling.
But, uh, just bear with me if I seem a little nervous this afternoon.
Has anyone told you they loved you today?
Well, I'm glad.
I want you to know that I love you.
And, you know, that was something that was so very important to me.
That was the missing ingredient that I had in my life that I had looked so far.
You know, I used to say I was looking for happiness.
I was looking for success.
I was looking for, and I think when it all boiled down, I was looking for love.
You know, I didn't know how to love you, and I didn't know how to love me.
And it took me quite a few years, and I finally stumbled over the threshold of AA.
It took a lot of drinking, hard enough drinking, whatever that was.
It took a life that was totally unmanageable.
Well, you know.
You knew that I was in the right place.
You know, you'd been there.
You had experienced a lot of what I had experienced.
You knew it took what it took to get me here.
And, you know, it was just amazing.
There was something truly special after I finally raised my head in the rooms of AA,
because I couldn't do that right off the bat.
But after I finally looked around, I could see that special gift that y'all had.
I mean, you know, your eyes offered hope for me.
Your head said you understood me.
And your heart gave me a lot of love.
And it kept giving love until I began to love myself.
I'm grateful.
You know, my sponsor reminds me every time I go away to speak.
He says, now, Becky, there's some real important things.
You're just sharing your story.
But there are two very important things.
There are two things that you should do when you share your story with someone else.
Number one, be honest.
Well, you know, that is one of the things the program starts off with.
You know, that honest comes up in that first sentence.
And she said, remember, be honest and just keep it simple.
You know, I've had a way of complicating things all my life.
If I can just remember to keep it simple, it's usually okay today.
So I'm going to try to keep it real simple.
Keeping it simple just sort of makes me want to start at the beginning then
and give you just a little brief background of myself.
Fifty-five years ago, I was born to a very loving couple.
I was the second girl.
And there was another one to follow many years later, another girl.
And, you know, it's real funny.
I used being that second girl.
I can say second girl today, but used to.
I call myself a middle child.
Middle child gave me an excuse for a lot of things that I did, you know.
You know, it seemed like you're always too young to do what the oldest one does,
but you're old enough to know better than to do what the youngest one does.
You know, and it just puts you in the middle all the time.
And I'd think, I've got this middle child thing.
I heard other people talking about middle child, so I thought it sounds like a good excuse to me, you know.
But I was born to a very loving family.
They loved all of us girls and did the best they could with us.
I was very fortunate because I feel like, you know, there was no alcohol in our family.
We didn't have any drinking.
I can remember, I think, my daddy saving up grapes.
He was a small-town grocer.
And he would save up grapes, or maybe grapes didn't go too well this week,
and they would be beginning to get a little ripe.
And I can remember that.
And I can remember that.
And I can remember that.
And I can remember that.
And I can remember him getting a 10-pound bag of sugar, and I don't know what else it took,
but he would give it to a friend, and this friend would make him homemade wine.
Do you know, I can never remember even seeing the end product.
I don't know if my daddy drank it or if he gave it away or what.
But that's how much alcohol impressed me growing up.
I wasn't around it, didn't particularly think about it when I was younger.
My sisters and I weren't real close age-wise.
So, you know, we were sort of growing up in different little worlds.
My oldest sister was six years old.
Well, by the time she was dating, boy, I could have cared less for boys.
You know, I might have been shooting marbles with them.
But as far as dating, they weren't, you know, very good for anything at that age.
My youngest sister, she was just always our baby because she was even nine years younger than I was.
So, I mean, we had three different families.
It wasn't like that I had to compete for attention or compete for love.
You know, I had plenty of it.
My mother and father brought us all up in the church, in a small, you know, church at home
where there was a lot of loving people in that church.
And I was introduced.
I was taught a lot about God.
And I say it in that respect because for many years I think I was pretty close to God, you know.
But I could probably tell you...
I could probably tell you more about him than I could tell you of the things that I had experienced with him.
I could just tell you what I had heard.
Consequently, I got the wrong perception a lot of times about what the God thing was all about.
I really thought he was sort of one of these people that set down rules.
I was used to adults being the ones, you know, okay, they set down the rules and they make you abide by them.
Don't always make sense.
But, you know, you get to follow.
And I sort of thought of God as the rule maker.
I thought he was a pretty stern disciplinarian, too.
You know, all I could think back is, Becky, you break the rules and you're going to get zapped.
Or you get punished in some way.
So, you know, the older I got, I'm talking about on up through the teenage years,
I'm afraid I sort of built this little wall of fear between me and God.
I was really sort of scared of him.
You know, because they say if you don't keep the rules...
you're going to get punished.
Well, I didn't like some of the punishments that I heard talked about, you know.
And so I'm afraid.
I was really afraid to get to know him.
Even though I stood by, you know, and I showed up where I was supposed to show up.
As a child, I can remember feeling sort of insecure from the standpoint of...
and I've heard this mentioned many, many times.
And I...
Hey, meetings.
Insecure, not quite as good as, didn't measure up, you know, always just a little different.
Or you certainly didn't feel, you know, like you thought everybody felt on the inside.
I didn't feel comfortable in crowds.
Didn't feel too comfortable around strangers.
Now, if I knew you, I could sort of, you know, be okay, be myself if I knew you real well.
But I had those feelings of insecurity.
Uh, I found out through listening to others, and here again, maybe a wrong perception,
but, you know, if you've got a strong enough willpower, there is nothing in this world you can't do.
That's what I was taught.
If you just, you know, really get in there and work hard at it, you can succeed.
Okay.
Also, look at...
Willpower is being stubbornness as far as Becky goes, because I, I, I, right along developing this willpower,
I was developing a wide streak of stubbornness.
In other words, if you say, you can't do this, watch out, because I was going to kill myself to show you I could.
You know, it didn't matter how small or how big it was.
I was going to prove to you I could do it.
And so, you know, I began at a much younger age.
Developing.
This real strong willpower of mine.
Which, you know, I am not sitting here today saying that my willpower has been all bad.
There is a right time for it, and there's a wrong time for it.
But when it gets to controlling your life, you know, and making me want to control everybody else's life,
I think I'd taken it a little bit too far then.
But, you know, there were just many things that I can now look back and see as a child that maybe,
as Tina was saying, maybe I had this.
I had this all the time.
Just hadn't put the alcohol with it yet, you know.
And so the isms was, they were there.
All of those things that made me feel different or less than or, you know, didn't measure up to.
They were already there in the making.
I can remember, you know, thinking of, I can do anything I set my mind to.
I made excellent grades in school, you know.
That's another way to win praise.
when recognition. I was an all-A student and I graduated valedictorian. Oh, I can go on and on
and on. But you know, it's real funny, none of those things ever quite gave me that feeling I
expected from it. The end results never really, you know, it was there and but yet something was
missing. Like everybody, I guess I had my dreams growing up. I might age myself again. My dreams
at the time, at least I had decided that I wanted to further my education when I left home. I wanted
to go in the medical field. Always, always been fascinated, you know, with medicine. Didn't feel
like that my family could quite afford me being a doctor and number one, that's a pretty big thing
to tackle.
You might not, you know, I might prove a failure if I stepped out there on that limb. But so I
decided to go to nursing school. Part of my dream was once you get that degree in nursing, then you
can set on the hunt, find that man to marry and raise that family that you're supposed to raise,
you know. That was just sort of right, that was my little dream world, you know, of setting those
goals for myself. And I did, you know.
Set out on that trail. It was after I got off and here, y'all, I've lived in South Georgia all my life
and I think the town I was raised in had about 6,000 people. The town I live in now has about
12,000 people, so at least I'm double size, you know. But here was this little small country girl
headed for Atlanta, Georgia, you know, really to be enlightened what city life was all about.
But I went off to nursing school.
And that's where everything in my life seemed to just really change. All in a matter of three years,
I'd met the man I was going to marry. I had my first drink, my first drug, and my first drunk.
You know, it doesn't take us long once we get started.
I never will forget, I did meet this fella that just really
knocked me off the hook. And I said, you know, I'm going to get married. And he said,
hey, I'm going to get married. And I said, you know, you're going to meet your first
wife, right? And he said, you know, is that you last one ever think that you're going
to meet your first wife? And I said, no, I'm going to get married. I said, no, we'll get
married. And he said, no, I'm going to get married. And he said, no, we'll get married.
And he said that he loved to talk about it. He was kind of gray around the temple. He
smoked a pipe, which made him really distinguished-looking, you know. He seemed to have his feet on the
ground. He loved to talk. In fact, he talked so much, he rarely ever gave you an opportunity
to say anything, but that's what I needed. Because, here I told you now, I was a little
on the quiet side. I've come out by the way. I was on the quiet side so I didn't have to worry
about saying anything because he did it all for me. He never knew if I had anything to say or
you know or not. I was very comfortable with that. Very comfortable and he was pretty settled so you
know I didn't have to do a lot of thinking. He was there to just take care of me but it was after I
got started dating him and one afternoon we were sitting around just visiting and everything and
he says how about a drink of beer with me and I said I owned up. I've never drunk beer before
you know. What would you like to try? I mean it was not that he was going to force me and I thought
why not? You know this was that forbidden thing I'd heard about all my life. I just didn't know
what this stuff had that was going to be so bad for me you know. Well number one it had a terrible
taste that first time but I couldn't drink enough
the first time.
To say that it really affected me you know mentally or physically or but it did emotionally.
I didn't get drunk. I didn't get a buzz on. Didn't get anything but it changed my whole life.
I feel like I thought I have finally arrived. I'm old enough now that I can do what I want to do
when I want to do it and how I want to do it. You know I was away from mama and daddy.
I was in this big city of Atlanta. Nobody knew one way or the other you know. So it truly did
something you know to my feelings. It made me okay. I didn't pursue my drinking career in school
because it was pretty threatening. We had pretty strict rules when I was in nurses training
and had they caught me they would have kicked me out right then you know. So that was sort of a
one of those things.
You know that sort of limited what I did at the time. We didn't have a lot of free time. We worked
45 hours a week and went to school the rest of the time and was supposed to nap in between you know
somehow in there. But I loved it. I loved my training. I said also at this time that I had
tried out my first drug and I do mention drugs because I used drugs a long time that helped me
drink a long time after I had begun my drinking. It helped me space out my drinking and it helped
me go to work. I was able to go to work. I was able to go to work. I was able to go to work. I was able to
go through some dry spells if you know what I'm talking about you know. And I found out that you
know that too could give me a feeling that I was looking for. But my first drug you know I don't
know. I don't know how many people you know have forgotten their first drug but I could never
forget my first drug. It was during our training while we were training for psychiatric nursing and
we had to start drinking. We had to start drinking. We had to start drinking. We had to start
drinking. We had to start drinking. We had to start drinking. We had to start drinking. We had to
stay at a state hospital for three months. Well before the three months up I about thought I was
a patient there you know. I mean that really wasn't my favorite part of nursing I might say.
Scared me to death. But we were away from Atlanta at the time and now I've already told you I've
already met the man I love. And you know how love is. You just don't want to be away and you don't
want to miss any weekend dates and all of this stuff. And so we were there were several of us
that were sort of sitting around on our own. We were sitting around on our own. We were sitting
around on our pity pod scene before we had the drink you know thinking poor us poor us our
boyfriends are in Atlanta. Here we are down here with all of these crazy folks. Don't have anything
to do. Nowhere to go. You know just just doing nothing. And we have a much older experienced
girl in our group. And she'd been around just a little bit more than we had. And she says
I think I can do something about this.
And she went out.
got a fifth of gin. Now, at this particular point, I had never had any, quote, hard liquor.
You know, I really didn't know what they were talking about. But did you know you can dress
that stuff up real well? And you can actually drink it. In fact, it actually went down a
little bit easier than that beer did in my book. And there were four of us. And we sat
there, and I said, not that I know that this girl is an alcoholic, the one that went and
brought the bottle, but she and I definitely had the potential to be many years ago. And
two of the other girls that were drinking with us probably don't even have a problem
today. Who knows? At any rate, two of them sat down and had a drink. That wasn't me.
Two of us sat down and had the bottle.
Well, everything was fine that night, so I thought. I mean, you know, through a lot
of poor me's, and then to the point of, you know, you reach the tears. I don't know how
many women of you finally go down to the tears, you know. I just got it so bad. But you talk
about pain. Pain is the next morning. And it's Monday morning, and you've got to go
to class, and you've got to be at class at 7.30.
And I'm sure I'm not the only one standing up here today that has thought the thought,
I'll never do this again as long as I live. I really thought I was going to have to die
to get to feeling better. I told this story for about four years the way I honestly remembered
it about my first drunk. And I met up with my roommate a couple of years ago. And I said,
you know, I'll go to class, I'll get my bottle. And I said, well, did I make a mistake? Did
I drink too much? Did I drink too much? Did I drink too much? And my roommate, she was
sharing with her that I was finally in AA, you know. And was a recovering alcoholic,
and she was relating back to some of our drinking that we did do. Not that we did a lot of it
in school, but she remembered this first drunk. And she said, you do remember what happened
on your first drunk? And I said, oh, yes. I can remember how bad I felt and how ashamed
I was. And I went into class, and there were not but about ten of us in this class. And
classroom and I and I says I remember sitting down and keeping my mouth shut not wanting to
say a word because I was so afraid everybody knew and she looked at me real funny and she says
I don't think that's how it was and here I had already shared with y'all that that's what I did
my first drunk you know but it's it's amazing more is revealed if you keep coming around she says
Becky what actually happened is you did have a hangover you know you did go in class and you
might have wanted to stay quiet but I finally had to go get you from the front of the room and sit
you at the back by me so I could keep my hand on you so that you would keep your mouth shut
she says by the way you remember who was speaking to us that day don't you
and I said no not really she says it was a guy from AA
AA
AA
AA
AA
, here I have been introduced to AA and I was drunk right through it you know did not even remember that that was my first introduction I missed the whole point there are a lot of things that I missed the whole point by drinking all my life you know but you know that was just the way it was supposed to be I guess got on through school my husband and I did get married right after school we started off our family we ended up with
a son for the oldest and two girls sort of scattered mine out to didn't do quite as bad as mother but I do have a family that's just finishing up in college right now but you know it's it's so funny when I look back at how truly cunning baffling and powerful alcohol is probably the first 15 years of our marriage we did what we call our social drinking
you know on the weekend we'd get together and cook out with somebody and have a drink or two if he got in you know late Friday night because he traveled he was gone five days a week you know we might sit down that night to unwind and have a drink before we went to bed and in all sincerity I don't remember drinking causing us any problems right at first if we had a problem I will share with you which he would too if he were here we thought he might drink a little bit too
much at times you know and and and and like I said I could you know say as I understand social drinking I don't really think I still understand social drinking as I understand social drink but that's sort of what I was for a while but you know I relied on alcohol then to do all of those things that I told you in my
head it did from the beginning you know it made me like one of y'all I was a lot more comfortable talking to you it gave me the courage I needed to step forth and and show you that you know I could do some things on my own it didn't take somebody else thinking for me I really used alcohol from a backbone and I can see that today I can even go back and think it was so much fun going over to someone's house last night having several drinks we had
several drinks we had
such a good time and you know I did have some good times during my drinking years I'm not going to sit here and say that I did but alcohol being as cunning as it is I don't know when I stepped over the line either you know it's it's so subtle and yet so strong and and this time is passing by slowly my children are growing up
I look back and I think my husband was the first one because you know aren't we usually the last ones to know my husband was the first one to notice that he stated I can remember just as clearly where he was one weekend we were sitting down in the den and had been having several drinks he says you know I'm a little concerned he says I think we're drinking too much
I look back and I think my husband was the first one to notice that he stated he was a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned he says he's a little concerned
now you know by this time we have probably been married 15 or 20 years
and I thought your 10 years older than I Michel you had a 10 years part on me
this time we have probably been married 15 or 20 years
and I thought your ten years older than I Michel you had a 10 years part on me
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I'm grown I don't think I'm going to have anybody telling me when I can and I'm grown I don't think I'm going to have anybody telling me when I can and I'm grown
telling me when I can and when I can't drink.
There's that stubborn streak I told you that I was developing.
You know, you will not tell me when I can and when I cannot drink.
And he went on and talked and talked a little bit about it.
I think we're going to slow up.
Well, he still traveled at this time.
Well, you know, you don't have to slow up nearly as fast if he's not home.
I don't remember saying yes, no, anything to that conversation, particularly the night.
I know I thought a lot, you know.
He went on his way Monday morning and probably emptied out the booze cabinet.
I don't know.
But I can remember thinking, as soon as you're out of town, you know, I'm old enough now that I can buy my own.
And I proceeded.
We have to go out of county, even to this day, to buy booze.
But, you know, that's not a problem to have to go out of the county to buy your booze.
So, you know, I proceeded to go ahead and get my stop.
Well, I look today at the things that were happening in my family, you know.
I can see how I had built up this man that I truly loved.
I had begun to build up a lot of resentments to him.
Do you know?
Do you know what it's like to be a mother of three and you have the daddy to go off on Monday morning and not come back until Friday?
And you have the washing machine that breaks down or you have a flat tire when you go out on your car.
You know, you have four ball games this week plus, you know, three Girl Scouts and whatever.
That's a lot for one person to have to work on.
And he was never around when it came time to, you know, fix something.
Do something with the children.
You can really build up resentments over that, I found out.
And the kids at this time and what they were going through.
My son, when I look back, my son was probably, he was in the teenage years.
Not saying there's a thing wrong with teenagers, but they're pretty self-centered.
They're pretty wrapped up in themselves at this time.
And everything that they're doing is the most important thing, you know, that's going on in this world.
And in all sincerity, he didn't worry about what I did.
And it was just before he went off to college.
Now, I can remember him being around several drunk episodes of mine.
But it was almost like, ah, this was just an accident.
You know, it won't happen again.
And he sort of brushed it right on off.
But then we have this middle girl who's four years younger than him.
She was not of the same temperament that that oldest one was.
And, of course, she was taking on a lot of responsibility herself.
She was playing my, she was picking up the mother role, you might say.
And she was my snooper.
It's not very nice to have snoopers around the house when you're wanting to drink in peace, you know.
Her daddy would call during the middle of the week after being on the road and he'd say,
he'd say, let me speak to your mother.
Well, she's asleep in the chair.
But daddy, guess what?
She's doing it again.
She's doing what?
She's drinking.
He would get me on the phone.
What are you doing asleep?
Well, I'm tired.
I've had a hard day.
You know, I was just laying down resting.
Now, what do you want?
Well, Susan says, and he would proceed, you know, what the little tattletale had told.
And I'd say, who are you going to believe?
Are you going to believe me, her mother?
Well, are you going to believe this child?
You know, I feel real guilty today on how we did pit this middle one against each other, literally.
You know, you look out for me.
You be my lookout, was what my husband would say.
And I'd say, don't you dare tell or I'll, you know, frame you within a half an inch of your life.
I have a lot of guilt.
You know, I had a lot of guilt over that for a long time.
And here is my baby.
My baby is...
Seven years younger from the middle one.
And she was more the quieter type.
She was, I can see now, after somebody described it to me, she was my abandoned or lost child.
Once Susan, the middle one, got off to college, it was just Pam and I.
She was very accommodating to me.
She would come in in the afternoon.
She would go upstairs, leave me alone.
I could do whatever I wanted to do.
If I wanted to drink and get drunk, I could drink.
If I wanted to drink and get drunk, she just wouldn't have anything to do with it.
You know, and there became quite a bit of distance between the two of us during my last few years of drinking.
This was a slow process for me.
It didn't happen overnight.
I'm sure it probably didn't happen overnight to a lot of us.
But it was happening, you know, in spite of whatever I did.
I did a lot of the quick cures.
You know how that is?
I'd stayed home for 16 years.
I hadn't worked.
I didn't work but about three years out of college in nursing.
And then I stayed home and, you know, raised the kids and got to do all the things that I really enjoyed doing.
But, you know, after 16 years and I noticed I was drinking a little more, maybe I needed to go back to work.
Maybe I needed to make myself feel better or needed or, you know, just be okay with me.
Going back to work was going to be the thing that I needed the most.
And I went back to work and would y'all believe it worked for over a year?
I didn't have to have a drink for a year.
I can't say that it was a happy year.
But I didn't drink for a year.
And it's just amazing how sneaky alcohol is because, you know, it doesn't take but one good little excuse to go out and say,
I deserve a drink today.
It's been a bad day or it's been a good day or it's been whatever kind of day.
And to take that first drink.
And I was off to the races again and I had more little quick cures than just that one.
My husband and I had ended up going to marriage counselors, you know, he had a problem.
I can remember how I was not very honest with this marriage counselor.
I can remember that just as if it had happened yesterday.
You know, if only he would do what he was supposed to, such as be home, except part
of the responsibility of the church.
The children, you know, I wouldn't have to be the way I was because that's the only place
that I wanted to look for the problems to be, you know, I wanted to look out there.
I wanted you to be my problem.
I didn't want to be my problem.
But things do happen.
I can remember, you know, toward the height of my drinking.
I had physically.
I was a wreck.
I weighed less than a hundred pounds mentally.
I was about crazy spiritually.
I was bankrupt.
It had been a long, long time since I had been able to, I started to say, get on my
knees and pray.
I fell on my knees several nights.
The falling wasn't voluntarily, but when I ended up on my knees many a night while I
was drinking.
I knew, you know, something was wrong.
I didn't want to say that I was an alcoholic.
I could say I might have a problem, but I didn't fit that old definition of what I thought
an alcoholic was.
Besides, I had taken those quizzes in the ladies home journal.
Do you know how that is?
You're sitting in the doctor's office waiting and you come across this thing and says, do
you have a problem?
You might have a problem if you answered ten of these questions with yes, you know.
Well, honey, I'd count my answers and go back and change a few to be sure I didn't have
ten yes answers, you know.
I didn't drink first thing in the morning.
I knew people that had a problem with alcohol drank first thing in the morning, and I didn't
drink first thing in the morning, thank you.
I still had my family.
We hadn't gone through any separations, divorces, you know.
My bills were paid.
Thank you.
Of course, I didn't bother to turn around and realize that it was my husband paying
the bill, you know, and he was the only one sticking it out with me.
He was, you know, he was really trying to do what he thought was the best thing to do,
and that was to live with me in spite of myself, but it was getting to the days that it was
getting near impossible to live with me.
I never will forget.
I'll never forget.
I will forget my last drunk, and it was over, here again, situations, you know, situations
used to really get us into the bottle real good.
It used to get me into the bottle real good.
My best friend's mother was dying, and I couldn't fix it.
I couldn't fix it, and she was my best friend, and you know, I love to fix things, and I
love to fix people.
Here's the nursing part of me, you know.
I'm a caretaker.
I will take care of you, and I will make it all right, and it was beyond my fixing,
and I got so upset, and I finally just had to leave my friend at the hospital, and I
headed home because I knew what would take care of those feelings that I was having,
and I would go home, and I would certainly have a drink when I walked in the door, but
unbeknowings to me, another friend was waiting on me when I walked in the door, and I still
proceeded to get on with my drunk, and she says, Becky, you're not going to do this.
You're not going to do this.
You're not going to do this anymore.
She, too, was a nurse, and she had spotted some symptoms.
You know, I told you, I used drugs later in my drinking career.
Well, you know, it's not very professional for a nurse to walk in and have alcohol on
her breath when she goes into work in the morning, but you can pop a pill, and they'll
never smell it, and that's how I learned to use the pills, you know.
My problem was alcohol.
I couldn't just take one drink.
I couldn't.
I never knew.
I never planned to take just one drink.
I wanted to drink all I wanted.
You know, I look back at my alcohol career.
I started off drinking to be friendly.
When I ended up drinking, I was isolated.
That's sort of on the end of the, you know, the spectrum from each other.
I wanted to be around people right at first when I was drinking to enjoy their fellowship
and be, you know, enjoy the time with them.
And when I ended up drinking, I wanted to be by myself, because that way, nobody could
limit on how much I drank.
I didn't have to watch how much I drank.
I wanted to drink to be courageous and brave.
When I ended up drinking, I was the scariest person on this earth.
I had so much fear in my life.
I can remember listening for the doors to open, listening for cars to drive in the driveway.
You know, you had to hide it.
You certainly couldn't let anybody see you in the condition that you were in.
You know, you had to hide it. You certainly couldn't let anybody see you in the condition that you were in.
You know, you had to hide it. You certainly couldn't let anybody see you in the condition that you were in.
I remember saying if I have a drink, it makes me better able to say what's on my mind.
You know, it gave me, well here again, courage.
And yet, I can remember, you know, all drinking ever did for me toward the end of my career
was lies after lies after lies trying to cover up what I was doing.
I had honestly become...
I had honestly become a very, very miserable soul.
I knew I hurt so badly on the inside that I couldn't stand it.
My best friend sat with me that last night.
She watched me shiver.
She watched me shake.
She watched me sweat and then wrap up with blankets.
I didn't know what I was going through.
Here I am a nurse.
I've taken people through the DTs before, but did I want to think that's what I was in?
No way.
No way.
I didn't want to be a part of that.
After my husband got together my doctor, two of my best friends, and sat me in the middle
of everybody.
I think you call this an intervention maybe.
He made a statement to me.
He had made several times before in our married life.
He had threatened sort of, you know, if you don't straighten up, I'm going to leave home.
But this morning he came.
He said, if you don't straighten up, you're going to leave home.
I will not let you back here.
I will keep the children, you know.
And he was hitting everything that was dear and precious to me.
That was my life, I thought.
And for some reason, this time, I thought he meant it.
Well, I didn't see any alternatives.
I didn't, I still couldn't sit there and say that I was an alcoholic.
I could sit there and tell you I had a problem.
And that's all I could say.
But I saw that, you know, about the only way out at this time was to go into treatment.
Treatment was not a total solution for me.
But it did help me clear out the cobwebs in my head, you know, and get me to the point
that I could listen a little bit.
I heard y'all, them say in treatment, they went over the first three steps.
They thought we were real stupid in treatment.
Because that's all they would read, is the first three steps.
I didn't realize there was so much to grasp in three little sentences.
That's, you know, that's where I was.
But they went over those first three steps over and over and over again.
And I kept hearing them mention the word God.
God.
And you know, I've already told you about this time, I felt so unworthy and so guilty
of breaking all of those rules.
God.
I didn't feel like God would even care to hear from me.
But they kept saying, all you've got to do, Becky, is ask for help.
And I tried many times praying once I got there.
And y'all, it wouldn't leave the room.
It wouldn't leave the four walls that I was in.
It would just stay there with me.
It was an emptiness.
It was a void.
I kept listening to what they said, you know.
I kept feeling so torn up within that first two weeks on the inside of me.
And out of the clear blue, and I don't know what happened, but out of the clear blue
one night, I can remember going in my room, looking out my window over the skyline of
the city that I was in, and it was a beautiful, quiet, peaceful night.
And I looked out over there, and just out of the clear blue, I said, God, help me.
I can't do it.
And those few words left that room.
And it was a difference after that.
It was a difference to me.
They said, Becky, now, you can leave treatment after so many days.
And those were quite extended days for me.
I thought I was going away for 30 days, and of course, it turned out not to be so.
It was quite a few more.
But that's neither here nor there, you know.
But they said, you can leave treatment and take what you have with you.
This is not going to keep you sober.
And I thought, now, wait a minute.
Boy, when my husband heard that, he about flipped out.
He said, Becky, you can leave treatment.
He said, you mean I've been paying like $1,000 a day to get her sober and get her well, and
you're telling me this hadn't cured her?
He was not a happy camper.
In fact, he delayed me coming home.
He said, I want you to keep a longer.
I want to be sure this thing works.
During this time, he also had sort of an awakening, too.
He found out that there was a program called Al-Anon, and that he was as sick as I was,
and he sat there.
And he said, Becky, you can leave treatment.
I said, no, I can't.
He said, no way.
Am I as sick as my wife is, you know?
But you know, I don't know why, I can't sit here and tell you why I was ready to do some
of those things.
But for some reason, I listened.
And once I got out of treatment, I took that very hard step.
There are about 15 steps up to the AA room in Sylvester, Georgia.
Those are the longest steps in the world.
But I made it.
And this was the second time I'd walked up those steps.
The first time I had walked up was about a year before that, because my husband kept
saying, maybe if we go to an AA meeting, it'll help you.
And you know, you've got to get them off your back sometime.
And I said one night, okay, I will.
I'll show you that I don't have a problem with alcohol, you know.
And we went up there, and I didn't lift my head the whole time that I was up there.
I wasn't about to look at anybody in the eye.
I do know it was a speaker's meeting.
I don't know if there was a speaker that night.
I don't know where I was.
But you know, I can remember staying up there.
I can remember the laughing and the visiting and all of that.
And I can remember when they finished that meeting of me grabbing his arm and walking
out of there and said, see, I told you I didn't have any trouble with alcohol.
I'm not like them.
Of course, here I am saying, I don't know what they said.
Well, I didn't want to hear what they said.
I didn't want to hear what you said, you know.
But I walked up there that second time, and it was different.
It was scary, but it was different.
You know, today, looking in here, I see some of the same looks that I saw that first time
I went to an AA meeting.
And it was real funny.
You know, my husband was born and raised in the town that I live in now, that we live
in.
And all I could think about was all of these people that he knew and were going to see
me walking up in AA.
And what they were going to think about me, you know, and what they were going to say
about me.
And in a small town, word travels in a hurry, you know.
You can't have secrets.
Those people walked in, and I was amazed at some of the people I saw in that room.
Couldn't believe it.
Here I'd seen them at the post office, and, you know, here I'd sat by some of them in
church.
And I'm thinking, and y'all are up here?
I still had so much to learn about AA.
I didn't know what it was all about.
But I was trying.
I was told that's what I needed to do.
So that's where I was starting.
I came in, and y'all says, okay, Becky, you got to go to a lot of meetings.
You got to read your big book.
Need a sponsor?
Definitely need a sponsor, you know.
And work on some type of conscious contact with God.
Because I still had this little bit of God hesitation in my heart, you know.
I still hadn't gotten on real good terms with him yet, because I was afraid he still didn't
love me too much.
Some of what you said.
And I kept coming back so I could hear it again and again and again, and it took all
of that repetition.
That first year, y'all, I got to say, I was going to get the jump on you.
You know, my willpower had taught me, if you work hard enough at it, study hard enough
at it, you can do it.
So I was going to take that big book, I was going to memorize that sucker.
I was going to learn those 12 steps, be able to quote them to you, and I knew everything
was going to be all right.
You know, didn't know what living them meant, but it's real funny, I says, God took care
of that, because my head didn't, my head honestly really didn't clear up that first year.
I would sit here and I'd sit here and I'd read and I'd say, you know, okay, this is
the first step.
And I would look away from the book and I'd go and I'd try to think, now what was that
first, I couldn't tell you in the, the words that it was written in any form, fashion.
I could give you an idea.
I couldn't give you an idea of what I had read.
And of course, that's the way God planned it for me.
He didn't want to make it easy for me from the standpoint of being able to memorize something,
because he knew if I ever memorized it, I wouldn't know how to, you know, I wouldn't
try to apply it to my life.
That's the way I had always done anything.
I could memorize the chemistry, you know, formula.
Tell you what it meant?
No way.
But I could memorize it, you know.
So, but you know, there, there were some elder statesmen.
Yeah.
Around when I got there, and they had so much patience with me and tolerance, I'd come
in fussing or griping or saying I had a bad day, and they'd smile, keep coming back.
I got so tired of hearing, keep coming back that first year, I thought, you know, I really
want to scream, tell me something else.
I want the answer to my problems, I don't want you to tell me to keep coming back, you
know.
Let's get this thing, you know, get down to the nitty gritty of it.
Yeah.
But my sponsor was just that loving to me, though, and, and I did learn to run to her
with all of those little things that aggravated me on a daily basis, you know, and she was
loving and kind, and all she would do is share her experience, strength, and hope with me.
And it's real funny, during all that sharing, I would say, you know, I feel that way, too,
because I knew I was so unique and different that, that y'all couldn't feel some of the
things that I do.
And I hear people that will tell my story almost on a regular basis in bits and pieces,
you know, not all of it, but in bits and pieces.
You gave me something to relate to.
I look at the events, well, no, I want to, I want to stop right here a minute.
I want to tell you what I do today on a program.
I've told you sort of the first year, and I tried to, you know, work it all out by memorizing
everything.
What I do.
What I do.
Is nothing more than what you told me to do at the beginning.
Today I go to a lot of meetings.
Today I not only read my big book, I actually go to big book studies.
Somebody out there has some experience to share with me from the big book.
Not only do I use my sponsor, I am a sponsor.
They told me I couldn't keep what I was getting unless I learned how to give it away and share
it with somebody else.
So, I try to sponsor other women today.
And I keep coming back.
And I tell the girls that I work with, keep coming back.
And they don't like it a bit better than I did.
But it works.
It works.
There are many things.
I look at the last few years and I must comment now, I really feel like a babe in AA after
looking around at some of the years of sobriety in this room.
I feel like I'm the one that is, you know.
I'm, I'm, I'm really, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I, I'm really standing in awe today
at all of the numbers of years of sobriety.
But, now I've lost my train of thought.
It happens all the time, too.
You know, there have been many things in my life that have happened since I've been
sober and they've not all been real wonderful.
They've not all been real easy, but you were there to support me through them.
Now, you know, it did get easier.
when I kept coming back to stay sober I can remember saying how do I stay sober
and this is that's easy Becky if you don't drink today you won't get drunk
gee awesome you know all I had to remember was just not drink today just
for today and I think but you know what those people out there still aren't
doing what I think they ought to be doing and you say let go and let God and
I thought you know I'm not supposed to have control over this you keep giving
me these sayings and they still work today it is just amazing my husband got
did get into his fellowship and he was a wonderful support for me of course we
did try to help each other's out on on our programs you know how you
have to share with one another occasion and you think you can help them work
their program a little bit better but I God saw us through it he did help us
build a relationship back with one another and that was not easy because I
had pulled myself way apart I'm glad to say today that I sort of got a two-for-one
by coming to see y'all this weekend I got to come visit with y'all and I also
got to come see my son and my two grand my two grandsons that he has which is
wonderful
my middle child who is the schnooper she lives back at home she still has to
check on her mom and that's okay she also became very active in Al-Anon I'm
ever so grateful I still would like to work her programs sometimes today too
she's married and they're expecting their first baby and as I mentioned my
baby I'm so proud I've she will be graduating from all надо's MARC and I had murderes and they Raised me Right at the al non meanwhile the white people get kicked in the Triune God chose meанV woman I finished by watching and I had committed suicide just to remember all she saw on the note there's verse and I deny that in God's grace that I'm perfectly free in God's autnenity I was excited to die and I clones after she came down I still
college this year, and y'all, you just can't imagine what has been given to me through this
program and the relationship with my youngest child. I have cold chills when I even think about
it, but these are two people that couldn't talk with each other. She didn't want me to come home
from treatment. She wrote me a letter and told me she didn't care if she ever saw me again in her
life. She was hurt so deeply, and this is a child today that, you know, through time comes to me and
shares with me and says, Mom, let's do something together, and, you know, she actually asked my
opinion, and she includes me and thinks it is just beautiful. It's nothing that I have done,
I assure you. Y'all made it possible for me.
I'm sorry to say that I have lost.
I've lost two of my best friends in here, one of them being my husband. I lost him a little over a year ago, and eight months after he died, I lost my dad, and that's two of the best friends in my life, and it's still sad today. I miss them terribly, but, you know, you have stood by me through this. You have shown me how I can deal with this on a daily basis. I could have never done it without you, never.
I didn't.
I didn't know how.
This program is just amazing.
Today, before, as we were getting started, and Tina was up here saying, let's have a moment of silence,
followed by the serenity prayer, you know, today that is one of the most humbling things in the world to me.
That moment of silence gives me just a moment to invite God to come with me wherever I am right now.
I can take that moment at our meeting, or I can take that moment at work. It doesn't matter.
And then when we start with the serenity prayer, all this is is opening my heart to God's guidance, His love, and His knowledge.
And then back when we finish up our meetings, you know, that circle of hope is completed in my life because we say,
everyone stand in whole hands, and let's close with the Lord's prayer.
Well, this circle of need is gripping one another's hands.
That is the hope that I received when I got here.
You grabbed my hands.
We have a special bond.
Alcohol got us here.
We accept each other for what we are.
So this special bond of acceptance is going to give us both strength.
We can receive it in one hand and give it with another. That's part of it. That makes the completeness.
When we sit there and hold each other's hand.
This is the greatest love in the world, and this is what makes me complete today.
I'm going to share one quick something that I want to share with you today.
This is a song that I want to read.
Y'all, I heard a popular song recently.
And the first thing, of course, my children say I adapt everything to AA, but that's okay.
This is on the charts today.
But when I heard the words, when I listened, today I've learned to listen.
And it's amazing what you can learn when you listen and keep your mouth shut.
These are the words that I heard.
And if it doesn't speak of y'all, I don't know what does.
You are my strength when I was weak.
You are my voice when I came.
You are my strength when I was weak. You are my voice when I came.
You are my voice when I couldn't speak.
You are my eyes when I couldn't see.
You saw the best there was in me.
You lifted me up when I couldn't reach.
You gave me faith because you believed.
I'm everything I am because you loved me.
All I ask today is that you help me pass this love on to someone else
who is walking in the door.
Thank you so very much.
Applause
I truly want to thank Betty for sharing her strength,
her hope,
her strength,
and her experience with us.
And I know I speak for everyone in this room.
I know that.
And we have a gift for you.
In fact, we have two gifts.
This is from us.
And this is from Dottie.
Dottie is one of our oldest members.
And she likes to make gifts.
So this is from Dottie.
I appreciate that.
If you want to open it.
Let me share.
Can I share?
Sure.
I do believe I've heard this before.
Beautiful, Dottie.
Easy does it.