I Set Out to Drink Men Under the Table as My Irish Birthright and Achieved My Goal – Mary Lee H.

You know, I'm so privileged to have spent a lot of time with our speaker this evening.
She's one of the really fun, great alcoholics that I've known for years and years,
and she's been a large part of my sobriety.
With no further ado, I'm going to lock this down and introduce you to Mary Lee H.
Thank you very much, Megan.
My name is Mary Lee.
I am definitely an alcoholic, and I'm also from Sedona.
Really glad to see Dulce.
Dulce is my sponsor, so I asked her, especially here tonight, to make sure I tell the truth.
Also, my husband, John, who read the Chapter 5, is also sitting facing me,
so I have no chance or opportunity to.
Embellished, like I used to.
My sobriety date is June 8, 1987.
God willing, and the creek don't rise, and literally that is true this year.
I will have 33 years.
That is truly, truly by the grace of God.
I started this journey out in your neck of the woods.
I was...
I was born at Cedars of Lebanon, as it was called in those days, Cedars-Sinai,
and my mother was an RN who worked for Cedars.
Mom was a German Catholic.
My dad, Patrick Bailey, was an Irish Catholic,
so I was destined to spend quite a few years in that particular religion.
The first home that I actually lived in was in the San Fernando Valley,
what is now the middle of the Hollywood Freeway.
This was in the days before there was a freeway,
and the Coinga Pass was the only way you got from the valley into Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles.
My father worked at Universal.
In those days, he was the assistant supervisor.
He was also the superintendent of labor,
which meant that he did all kinds of things all over the lot,
and it was a large, large lot as it is today,
and it was totally and completely devoted to making movies.
They had nothing to do with tourism.
Forget about that.
I learned to drive on that lot.
I learned to ride a bicycle on that lot.
I worked...
Uh...
The summer between...
high school and college in the fan mail department on that lot.
Much of my life was spent there.
My memories of it are nothing like it is today.
That's totally beside the point.
I had a very, very even, even childhood.
I was an only child.
Dad was one of seven. Mom was one of six.
And...
Uh...
Who knows why?
I...
Well, actually, I do know why.
My mother had a tubular pregnancy and practically died when I was three.
Uh...
Dad...
Uh...
Had...
Uh...
Cancer.
Skin cancer, actually.
He bit his lip and it didn't heal right when I was about six.
He was one of the first people in the United States that received radium treatment for
his cancer.
I ended up an only child.
Uh...
I was spoiled.
Um...
I didn't know anything else.
I didn't realize that I lacked anything.
Went to a Catholic grade school for eight years.
On to high school.
And I attended high school.
I attended high school in Burbank, California for three years.
Uh...
All of this was Catholic education.
And then the Irish biddy in me took over.
Uh...
I decided I didn't like some decisions that were being forced on me by some of the teachers.
And, um...
I rebelled.
And they didn't particularly care for that.
And...
Uh...
I remember the summer between...
Uh...
Junior and senior year.
I had...
Um...
Been granted through a testing thing a full scholarship to the high school.
And, um...
When this came up and this started actually it was in the spring of my junior year.
And I determined I was not going to go back.
And there were quite a few that were with me and decided they weren't going to go back
either.
It gets closer and closer to school starting.
And finally mom sat me down and said, what do you want to do?
And I said, well, I'm not going back.
So I went from a school of approximately 250 where I knew everybody and everybody knew
me into a school where my senior graduating class was over 600.
Uh...
Strangely enough, I've been beset, if you will, by coincidences all my life.
The young man who was my companion going up the aisle in eighth grade graduation, uh...
When there were 90 of us, ended up my companion going up the aisle to get my high school diploma.
Robert Alexander.
My name.
Last name.
My name was Bailey and we went alphabetically.
So I went to public high school and that is where I got my first taste really of theater,
of drama.
I had completed just about every requirement I needed to get into college.
Uh...
And so I could take electives.
And one of the electives I thought might be a little bit of fun was drama.
Uh...
I made a lifelong friend with my drama teacher and, uh, found my lifelong passion.
And, uh, this is something that Meek and I both share.
Uh...
When I graduated, uh, I took that high school, uh, that SAT test and so on.
And, uh, I passed it.
And I was able to attend.
And, uh, register, uh, at UCLA.
What I decided I wanted to do with the rest of my life was teach drama in high school.
So they have what they call language arts in those days.
And off I went.
Now up to this point, um, I learned to smoke my senior year of high school.
Um, drinking was never a big deal in high school.
Um, Catholic school, busy doing theater and so on.
And then I got to college.
I lived on campus.
Uh, I lived in a very large all-girls dormitory.
And, uh, I was never there for meals.
I was always busy with the theater department at UCLA.
It was very large in those days.
It still is.
And, uh, I learned to really, um, that alcohol was a very good substitute for, um, having fun on weekends.
And I decided that with my Irish heritage, um, one of the things I wanted to attain was to become capable of drinking anybody, mainly males, under the table.
Well, I achieved my goal.
Wow.
Um, I attended UCLA for two years.
Uh, the drinking got heavier and heavier.
And my grades got lower and lower.
And my attendance in classes got less and less.
Um, I was very involved in the theater department, of course.
Uh, that was my love.
I didn't see any need, why I needed to take those English classes or those history classes.
Or any of that stuff.
And, uh, unfortunately, UCLA didn't agree with me.
So, when I got my fourth semester, uh, grades, uh, I found out they flunked me.
So, I decided, okay, fine.
I don't need them.
I don't need you.
Um, I would work for a year and then decide what my life was going to be.
Um, I had several jobs during that period of time.
And, um, I kept in touch with, uh, my friends and my cohorts, if you will, at school.
Uh, the drinking continued.
Um, I had, had a very long relationship in my senior, junior, senior year of high school.
Um, and that young man, that did not last.
And, uh, I decided while at UCLA that why not, you know, be the butterfly that flitted from, yeah.
Anyway, uh, had no steady.
And if they couldn't drink like I did, I wasn't interested anyway.
Um, continued to do theater.
Um, several small theater groups that I was able to, uh.
Participate in and with.
And, uh, and was totally enjoying my life.
I then, uh, decided, well, maybe I better get back and be serious about this and go back to school.
And so I, uh, enrolled at, um, UC Northridge.
And, uh, in theater, of course.
Uh.
I was very, I found my people there.
I thought.
And, um, became very active in the department.
And, uh, uh, did a lot of things that, um, involved drinking.
And did not connect the dots.
Did not see why my life wasn't going the way I thought it should.
It was about this time, uh, that, uh, my dad had been going through a great deal of stress and strain, um, through his employment.
He had become the superintendent of labor and, uh, at the studio.
And the studio was going through transition at the time.
And he ended up, um, with a, from a department of more than 300 men down to, I don't know, 25.
Or 30.
And finally, uh, they closed down his department.
He, uh, did some, um, freelance work.
Um.
And worked on some television shows and so on.
And, uh, wasn't feeling well.
He was, uh, he even went on a location, which he hadn't done in 40 years.
Yeah.
He came home one night from, um, on the lot.
And come, came down out of a building.
And it had some, like, three or four steps.
Anyway, he missed a step and he fell.
And he hit his shoulder.
And, uh, it was no big deal.
And then several months later, it was still bothering him.
And my mother, the nurse, insisted that he go and get it checked.
Well, my, seems my dad now had, uh, cancer.
Lung cancer.
Um.
We figured later on that he probably had broken a rib.
And it probably had rubbed against his lung.
Dad had had a history, other than that one lip incident, of, uh, skin cancers.
The, uh, you know, the pale, interesting Irishman.
Anyway.
Anyway.
Dad became very, very ill.
And, uh, was at home.
Um.
School had, uh, I, I wasn't doing well one more time.
Same reason.
Same doggone reason.
And so I decided that, uh, dad was at home.
Mom was trying to take care of him.
So I dropped out of school.
And, uh, decided to go to work.
And, lo and behold, I ended up going to a goodbye party for a good friend.
A fellow that I had known for a while.
And at the party, um, of course I was drinking.
And one of the fellows there, his wife had had a baby that day.
And he's handing out cigars.
Well, here we go.
Mary Lee insisted that she wanted a cigar, too.
So I lit it up.
And as I'm huffing away, in walked a couple of fellows into the room.
The one turned to the other after looking at me and saying, now that's somebody I'd like to get to know.
Well, uh, that was in, if I'm not mistaken, August.
Uh.
And, um, a year from that following September, we got married.
Of course.
Um.
Come to find out, he'd been married before.
And he had two children.
And that was a real interesting thing for me.
Um.
The first time I saw these two babies, they were not quite two and not quite three.
Uh.
I had talked to both of them in the last week.
Their father is no longer here.
He died several years ago.
Uh.
They still call me mom.
Uh.
Those were my two stepchildren.
My oldest two children.
Uh.
That marriage was a very interesting marriage.
Um.
Mom
had
decided that she and I had, um, a weight problem.
She was right.
And she was working in a small hospital in Burbank.
And, uh,
decided that what we
needed to do
to control our weight
was to use diet pills.
Commonly known
as speed.
Uh, wasn't known then.
That wasn't what we called it then.
It was diet pills.
So, the first year of my marriage,
I was maintaining weight
as I had the
hurt several years before
with the diet pills.
And I was working a full-time job.
And, um,
Pat,
Patrick,
was an L.A. county fireman.
And he was working this particular day
and he was coming home.
They normally work 24-hour shifts.
He was coming home early
that late afternoon.
And Saturday morning
I got up and I
was going to clean the apartment.
So,
uh, I went in to
brush my teeth and take
my energy.
And, um,
as I went to take the
diet pill, I thought,
no, I'll wait till this afternoon
and take it late afternoon.
So I have a lot of energy and I'm wide awake
for the party and I can drink more.
I got to the door
and I turned around and I looked at the bottle
and I said, I am not going
to live my life
based on a plastic bottle
any longer.
And, um,
illy-illy, I went to the toilet
and flushed the entire
bottle of pills down
the toilet. That was the last
time I ever
had
speed or
thought about taking them.
So when I say I'm
an alcoholic,
I got other problems too.
Uh,
at two years
married,
I delivered,
uh, I was
pregnant and delivered a set of
twins. During the
time I was carrying
the babies, I didn't know that
I was having twins.
Um, that
was told to me in the
delivery room after
Amy was born and the doctor told
me to lie down. I was delivering
a set of twins and I
asked him what he was talking about and he says,
no, you've got two of them.
And, um,
I continued to
drink some. Not a lot, but
some. And I smoked.
I mean, everybody smoked in those
days. That was the thing you did.
Uh, I can remember
if you really wanted to be sophisticated,
you had to have a little black dress,
a martini,
preferably vodka
martini with two olives,
and a long
cigarette in your hand. You were
sophisticated. Yeah, sure.
Um,
delivered a set of
twins. It was a surprise to everybody
including the doctor because
he was not my regular doctor.
Uh, my regular
gynecologist had the flu.
And, um,
the delivery
room nurse, uh,
insisted that I,
labor room nurse insisted
I wasn't ready.
Amy was almost here. Anyway,
they were
very, very, very small.
I was supposed to deliver
in, um, January
and this was the 13th of
October. Um,
the doctor had listened
for heartbeat and had been listening to her
tummy, or
bottom. She was born face
down, bottom first, and she
weighed 1 pound 10 ounces.
Dan
was born 20 minutes later
and weighed 2 pounds 3 ounces.
Um,
he came home
from the hospital on October
13th, um, December 13th.
She came home
the day she was supposed to be born,
New Year's Day
of, uh,
1962.
Those, uh,
babies are now in their
fifties and have children of their own.
Uh,
I was totally
unprepared for twins.
Um, no twins anywhere in the
family. Uh,
and
things kept
going. I beg
your pardon? John
is giving me cues. Oh,
well. Uh,
it was
an interesting, interesting experience.
Uh, all
I can say about my life is,
uh, I have lived in
interesting times.
Um,
the marriage, my first marriage
lasted approximately,
uh,
seven or eight years.
Uh, what
became important to him was no longer
important to me, and what was very
important to me was
absolutely, totally beyond
his understanding.
Uh, we separated and
divorced. Um,
at one point I had all
four kids, the two
stepchildren and, uh, the
twins. And,
uh,
my way of coping with
life on my own
was to drink.
Yeah.
I drank. And,
uh, I maintained
uh,
I can't say that there was
often, um,
I can remember, uh,
things that I wish I hadn't said or done,
but I wasn't
absolutely obnoxious
drunk most of the time.
I never had blackouts.
I had brownouts.
You know, that thing where you get up
in the morning, you're not quite sure what happens,
and then somebody says something to you
and it all comes back.
Yeah. Um, that was
my experience with the alcohol.
Again, I never
connected the dots.
I never understood
why I was
by myself.
Oh, gosh. Look at my
life. Have another.
Okay.
This went on for several
years, and, um,
I did some things I'm not
particularly proud of, and I'm not going
to ever share with any of my children.
And,
uh,
then, uh,
about 1975,
uh, I met him.
And this was an
interesting experience.
Um,
I'm older than my husband,
and that
was a
no-no in those days.
My mother was, uh,
a widow, of course,
and by this time, Dad had died
a number of years before.
And she
and I were living together, uh,
because of finances, and, uh,
she was a great help. She really was.
And it was during this
time that I discovered
I was,
I had been raised
by a, uh,
an alcoholic.
Yeah, this, this
wonderful woman,
this intelligent,
bright, funny
lady,
who was such a
really brilliant nurse,
had, uh,
been drinking,
secretly. I was teaching
night school. We were living in
Simi. It was just
the twins, Mom and I.
Big house. And I
was teaching, uh, night school.
And
I found out later that
I would, when I would come home
about ten minutes before I was due
home, Mom
and one of my best friends who would come
over and sit with her,
Sandy. Uh, Sandy
would carry the half gallon of scotch
back up to Mom's room.
And they'd be drinking coffee
when I got home.
Um,
I don't know why they
were hiding it. Uh,
Sandy later joined the
program. My mother
didn't. Um,
there were several times when I
didn't. And then, uh,
it got out of hand and she drank too much
and I realized
she was drunk.
And, uh,
it was an, again,
an interesting time.
Now, I was drinking too, but my drinking
was different.
I was all on my own.
I was trying to raise these kids.
I was, uh,
contending with this woman
who wasn't behaving the way
she was supposed to.
I was trying to have this
relationship,
this good relationship
with this man who
had been married and had a child
and had left his wife.
And, uh,
uh, so here we were.
And what was the common
denominator with all the adults
in this triangle?
Blues.
Yeah.
Well, um,
um,
John and I were
involved with a good friend
in a project, uh,
that she had going. And we were
away from home. And it was,
uh, Christmas
of, uh,
87. No, of
76.
Christmas season
of 76, December.
And we were away from home.
And, um, we were
at a high school in Simi Valley
and we were living in Thousand
Rivers at the time.
And, uh, my friend
who was the
director of this project
came up to me, um,
I don't know,
8 o'clock, and said,
uh, your son just called.
I said, what are you talking about?
She said, Dan just called.
Your mom is in trouble. You have
to go home.
Well, John and I drove, I think,
20 miles back.
And it seems my mother was
had had a heart attack.
She was going to,
um, she was babysitting
the twins. They were, uh,
10, 11.
And, uh,
when we got there, she said, fine,
I'm gonna drive home.
And after a few minutes
of arguing with her, we got
her in the car and took her to the hospital.
This was a Thursday
night. Uh, I went
to see her, uh,
every morning. Uh,
through the weekend. Monday
morning, I took, uh,
Amy to school. Dan decided he
wanted to stay home. And,
uh,
um,
I went to see mom at the hospital.
And, uh, they were thinking of
taking her from ICU
and putting her in the general
population, and everything was fine.
And I went home,
and I got a phone call about
half an hour later.
And it was the nurse.
Saying, you better get over here.
She's had another heart attack.
Um,
my mother was a
interesting lady. And,
uh, very well spoken.
I went into the ICU
and she was out flat,
like they do, and they'd given her the last
shot of morphine.
And, uh,
she looked up at me
and she smiled, and she said,
ain't this the shits?
That was the last thing my mother said
to me.
Mom died the very beginning
of December. And,
um, several
days before Christmas,
Amy was at a friend's house,
and Dan and John and I were out for dinner.
And between the
salad and the entree,
and several drinks,
uh, John leaned
over and rather quietly said, you know, I think we
gotta get married. And I started laughing.
And Dan
says, what's so funny, Mom?
I say, well, John just proposed.
And in a voice I know
half the restaurant could hear,
he hollered, we accept!
We accept!
Anyway, the day after Christmas,
John and I went up to Las Vegas
and we were married.
And this was in
76.
Uh,
the next
11 years, the only way
I can describe them is
lots of speed bumps,
lots of bottles of booze,
lots of arguments,
lots of
making up,
lots of chaos,
lots of alcoholism.
I didn't
connect the dots.
I absolutely could not
connect the dots.
All kinds of things happened during
this time. Son became,
I think,
addicted to
drugs.
Daughter
couldn't
overeat, became
an overeater.
Children
came to live with us and then moved
away. And
John's son from his
first marriage came to live with us.
And chaos
ruled. And I didn't
connect the dots.
And the glass stayed full.
And I drank. And I drank.
And
one night in
June,
actually it was that afternoon,
I was in our
master bedroom and
the
Dan of the
twins
had followed me in and was talking to me
about something. I don't even remember what.
And I was making our bed.
And I leaned down on John's side
of the bed and
leaned under the bed and picked up
this little straw
that was cut at an angle.
And I knew what this was. Now I wasn't
doing this stuff. But I
knew what that straw was. And
I turned around and I was
going to tell that son of mine
what I thought.
And when he saw that
straw and I saw the look
on his face and I realized
it wasn't his.
That started
forming into this picture.
Now, not about
me.
Good grief,
no.
So John finally came home
from his
work. We had
gone through two businesses.
I was
in a family business
wherein
brother-in-law and father-in-law
were involved and all of
us were drinking, boy.
And at each other
and at our various
spouses and
blaming each other
for the way our lives were ruined.
Anyway, John
came home from work
and I told him
what I had found.
And
out of my mouth came
I've come to a
decision and it's this.
I will not live with cocaine
on a daily basis in my life.
It's in your ballpark
now.
So he said I'll stop.
And I said I don't think you can.
He said well you'll help me.
And out of my mouth came something I don't
think I've ever said before.
I don't remember very often saying
it since.
But I was able to say
I don't know how.
So he went to the phone
and called a very, very
good friend of his
from college.
And
he and his wife came out to our
home.
She sat with me in the house
and he and his
friend sat out on the
patio.
It was a dark and stormy
night by the way.
We had thunder and lightning aplenty.
John was always the
drama queen.
Anyway,
she brought me
my first copy of the big book.
And I looked at it and I thought
well what's this? And she said well
there's a chapter in there maybe you
can relate to
to the wives. Anyway they
stayed for a while and talked
and then they left.
I stayed up all night and read
and underlined
and wrote
and
the next morning
John and Kathy appeared at the
house and took John to several
meetings during the day. I went to work
and called
the next
evening, Saturday night
and told Kathy
I felt totally abandoned
and punished
and she said
I'll be out.
She came out and grabbed me
and we went and grabbed a bite to eat
and she took me to one of those other
meetings.
At the
end of the meeting
it was very interesting
we then went and met
our husbands and
attended an AA meeting.
This was Saturday
night.
Sunday
I had found another
on a meeting
and I went to the meeting.
John was off at an AA
meeting. I got home
and
I was thirsty
so I looked around
and well
I didn't have a problem. He did
so I went to the refrigerator
and there was an open
no it wasn't open yet. It was a full bottle
of champagne.
Well that couldn't hurt so I opened it up
and I started drinking this glass of beer.
About
11 o'clock
our son Dan came home.
He was still living at home at the time.
One of his
passages in and out.
And he was eating and
we're sitting at the dining room table and he
said to me, Mom do you think
I'm an alcoholic? And I said well
hold that thought. And I went into the
kitchen to refresh my glass.
Now I do not remember
pouring
anything at that
point beyond that first glass
of champagne. It was
in a cut glass
yeah container
by the way glass.
And when I took the bottle
out of the refrigerator there was only an inch
left.
I finished that
and I am
very very grateful to tell you
that that was the last drink I had
my entire
life.
I'm really really
really glad
that coming in June
I will have 33 years
because of this program.
Thank you Dulcy.
You've been a lot
part of it.
I started
attending AA meetings
in my own right.
John was attending meetings
so
the secret is he has two more days
than I do. So even
today he still calls me
newcomer. Isn't that cute?
Yeah.
We got sober at the same time.
We did not get sober together.
I went
to a very very
large large meeting in my
hometown.
And then
also I thought
until the
leader of the meeting got up and started
sharing. Now that woman
that we had been
at the high school
that night that my mother had
had the heart attack who came
and told me to go home.
She had gotten married
she had actually gotten sober
12 years before I did.
And she had gotten
married about 5 years
before this night
that I went to my first meeting
by myself.
And
I was her
matron of honor.
The best man was standing up at the
head of this
300 member
AA meeting.
His name was Jim Hawkins
and Jim was from the south.
And Jim asked for all the newcomers
to stand up and identify themselves.
Well I stood up
and I said my name is Mary Lee
and I am an alcoholic.
And he looked over at me and he says
I care for you.
He looked swell.
He came up to me. We had
breaks in those days
many years ago. Smoke breaks.
And he grabbed me and he says
come with me I want you to meet somebody.
And he sits me down next
to Nancy Keller.
Well Nancy and I
chatted for a few minutes and she was
delightful and anyway
several days later I had been attending
meetings and Jennifer
the friend from the high school
whose wedding I was her matron
of honor picks me up
and is taking me to a meeting
and she
says do you have a sponsor yet?
You know I can't be your sponsor. We know each other
too well and we have too much
of our drinking histories. And I said yes
but I think she's too busy.
And she said well who is it?
And I told her and she said fine.
And you tell her, you ask her to be your sponsor
if she says she can't say fine
I'm going to go out and drink again.
Well that didn't happen. Nancy said yes.
Nancy became a member
of our family.
My kids ended up calling her
our Nancy.
Holidays would come and if she wasn't there
they would rag on me
why I hadn't insisted that
Nancy was there.
Nancy is at the big meeting
much easier to get in touch with her
these days.
Life
continued to be
...
The only way I can
describe it, they weren't mountains that I was
climbing. They weren't even foothills.
They were speed bumps.
Yeah.
Children going
through things that I was convinced
I had all the answers for.
Husband
having
problems. Me having
problems.
With work, with
finances. All of the
things that happened.
And all I can say is
I didn't drink.
I wanted to.
Funny enough, two nights
ago, I don't know
how long it has been,
I had a drinking dream.
I drank.
I drank.
And I was
very, very ashamed
of it. But I wasn't going to tell you.
I was going to just fake it through.
And when I woke up in the morning
that feeling, oh thank God.
That's a dream. Yeah.
Yeah.
Life is interesting today.
We moved to Sedona
28 years ago.
It has not been
peaches and cream.
I am still
married to the same man. You know,
a few statistics.
I will have
33 years
in June. John and I
on Christmas,
day after Christmas
last year,
celebrated
44,
43, 43 years married.
That is
because of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I had the
length of sobriety I have because
of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The thing of becoming
responsible for my own life.
Of understanding
that I am where I am
because of choices and decisions
I have made.
Nothing anybody else
has ever done or said
has ever been happened
or nothing has happened
to me. Every
event in my life has happened for me.
And to embrace
that, to understand that,
and live that way.
Today,
I live in interesting times.
I have been in this house
for three weeks.
The reason is,
on Monday,
day after Christmas,
day after Easter,
I will be 82 years old.
So therefore,
I am very, very aware of
my vulnerability to what is going
on in the world.
I don't have to worry about it
though. I practice
steps one, two, and three
on a constantly, daily basis.
Life is interesting.
I am still here.
I am really, really
glad.
There is a way I close
every time I share.
About 20 years ago at a
Sunday morning meeting here in Sedona,
there was a young lady who shared
and I knew a little bit of her
past and it was horrific, let me tell you.
Her childhood was
a horror story
and she
did not like to be touched
and I understood why.
There is a lot of abuse in her family.
Anyway, I went up to her after the meeting
and I asked her
if I could give her a hug.
I normally just grab you
and I asked her this time
and she said yes.
So I gave her a hug
and I leaned back
and I took her by the shoulders
and she got this skeptical look across her face.
The speaker is an 80 year old
bitty.
You're right.
Anyway,
I said to her
you don't get to vote on it.
So all I can say tonight
especially to Linda R
is I love each and every one of you
and none of you get to vote on it.
Thanks for letting me share.
Thank you, Mary Lee.
Okay.
So
another wonderful meeting.
One more time for Mary Lee.
Thank you.
We've got Lisa
who's going to lead us out
in a vision for you
and the Lord's Prayer.
Yeah.
Hi, I'm Lisa
and I'm an alcoholic.
And this is
you.
Our book is meant to be suggestive only.
We realize
we know only a little.
God will constantly disclose more to you
and to us.
Ask him in your morning meditation
what you can do each day
for the man who is still sick.
The answers will come if your own house is in order.
But obviously
you cannot transmit something you haven't got.
See to it that your relationship
with him is right
and great events will come to pass
with others.
This is a great fact for us.
Abandon yourself to God as you understand God.
Admit your faults to him
and to your fellows.
Flare away the wreckage of your past.
Get freely of what you need
and join us.
We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit
and you will share with us
as you try to achieve
happy destiny.
May God bless you
and keep you until then.
And after a moment of silence
would you join me in the Lord's Prayer?
Alright.
Our Father
Our Father
who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name
thy kingdom come
thy will be done
on earth
as it is in heaven
give us this day
our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
who trespass against us
amen.
And lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil
for thine is the kingdom
and the power
and the glory
forever and ever
amen.
Keep coming back!
It works!