I Took the First Three Steps Before AA Then Spent Seven Years Avoiding the Rest – Harriet R.

Good morning. My name is Harriet. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a member of the Carl Gables group. I live in Miami, Florida. Some of you people who are here for the first day, two days, newly married, and I congratulate you. I wish you happiness. I wish you sobriety, because without that, you won't have happiness. The gentleman with 42 years and the young man with two days, the length and the breadth of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm so happy to see this spectrum of sobriety. My sobriety date is January 14th. We do differ a little bit on the years. The year was 1956. And as you see, when we were standing up, and I like to get little things out of the way, that was 36 years ago. And I took my last drink on my 39th birthday. And I'll give you time to digest that, and then we'll forget it. One of the, I want to thank the committee, Julie, and the entire committee. And one of her committee members referred to me as his roommate. I'd like to set that straight. We were very close neighbors. Sam. And it was real nice to know he was there. But every committee, Shirley sent me some money so I could get here. And go home. Home, too. So I thank each and every one of you. But I particularly want to thank Julie for assigning a hostess named Callie to me. She called me once, and then she called me again. And then I met her friend David, and they've been wonderful to me. And she's just touching and caring. You know, I was never a touching person or really a very caring person, except about me. And I've learned that in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I've learned that in Alcoholics Anonymous, to like to touch people, but also to be touched, and to be hugged, and to be kissed, and to be kissed back. And it's nice. I went home, home, home, home to Pennsylvania a few years back, and I hadn't been back in a long time. And there was a family reunion going on. And I started hugging and kissing everybody, and they looked at me as if I was crazy. And my cousin asked me, she said, when did you start all this hugging and kissing? And I said, well, I thought we always did that. And I said, I've been doing it now for 30 years. She said, we never did. Kids hug like that. I said, oh, yeah, I guess you're right. And I thought to myself, well, they don't know what they're missing, do they? When we got here Thursday afternoon, we came into this room out here and started meeting people. And one of the first persons I met was also a committee member. And he really made my whole weekend. He said, we expected an older woman. Thank you, Cotton. Don't let this old white hair fool you. I've been there. You don't get this. I've been there without having been where you are. And I've been where you were with two days. And I've been with a 10-day lady, a 9-day lady. And I watched her standing there so straight and so tall. Probably shaking inside and wondering what's going to happen next. Right? Yes. Okay. I was born in Pennsylvania. I'm an only child. A lot of us are. I don't think we have any statistics on that. But I hear a lot of the... Some speakers say that they're only children, or they're the favored child. And I was not only the only child, but I was very favored. I was loved. I was adored. I was daddy's little girl. My mother loved me. I know that. But she was a disciplinarian. And sometimes I thought I didn't like her because she was the one who spanked or scolded. And daddy always held me and said, never mind, I love you, and gave me something good to eat. I was... I'm told that I stayed on the bottle for a long time. And that even after I had been weaned from the bottle, my father carried one in his pocket just in case I needed it. And mother in later years said, by golly, she just got off one to get on the other. We lived in the country. What was country then? Today, of course, it isn't. But it was a long ride into the main city, into my father's business. My father was not an educated man. He had very little schooling. But a bright man, and made his own way. And my mother, on the other hand, had all the education that many women in those days did not. She had been to college in Washington, D.C., and had a degree, and was a piano teacher. And as a consequence, each in their own way wanted me to have a good education. And so I did. I was given all the benefits a little girl could ever have. Private schools, pretty dresses. Being chauffeured back and forth to school. And after school, I would go and play at the business which my father owned and operated. He owned a bakery. He was the oldest of a poor family. And his mother had taught him to bake. And my father could bake a pie crust that Mrs. Smith and Lloyd Harris would envy. And so my father was known as Park the Pie Man. And from there, he graduated. From there, he graduated to owning and operating his own bakery. And I was played around that bakery as a child. And I still love the smell of warm bread coming out of the oven. And I was Park the Pie Man's daughter. Went to school with the children of our social level, as it were. The institute and the seminaries. And the boys went to the boys' school, the Hillman Academy. And we all went to dancing school together. We learned to our manners. We learned to curtsy and to stand up when our elders came in the room. And to wear white gloves. And I can remember the first time I was forced to wear little earrings. Because earrings were not big in my day. And the same time that I was forced to wear the earrings, I was told about the little dab of perfume. And always when I get dressed now to come to speak, I put my earrings on and that little dab of perfume. And I say, okay, Mama, now I look like a lady anyway. And that's what I always wanted to be. My mother and daddy said that I was going to be a nice little lady. And so the white gloves and the black patent leather Mary Jane shoes, remember? And the frilly little dresses that I hated because I liked to be a boy. And so, in fact, one of the memories I have was I was dressed like a little boy one morning. And I don't really think I remember much of this, but enough that it made an impression. And my mother sent me a letter. And my mother sent me a long ways away all by myself to walk. Turned out later it was a half a block. And I went up to the door of this great big old schoolhouse. And I said I wanted to go to school. And they said, well, you can't. You're not six years old yet. But I didn't hear that six years. They just said I couldn't. And I thought it was because I was wearing knickers and looked like a boy and they wouldn't let me in. I remember it, though, as a first rejection. Because I wanted to go to school and play with those little kids. And I was rejected. So I started to grow up and my parents loved to entertain. And because we lived in the country, sometimes their guests would stay overnight. They would come maybe on Saturday and they'd play tennis or whatever. And then they'd play bridge. And about 11 or 12 o'clock at night they'd say, okay, let's go downtown to Ray Hoddle's and have some lobster. And this is midnight. Of course, I'm the only child. There's nobody else in the house. And they'd pack me up and we'd all go to Ray Hoddle's for lobster. And I still like steamed clams and lobster at midnight. And if I were going to be here tonight, I would be available to you. And I can remember at that age, nine or ten years old, somebody handed me a little thing like this. And it was full of brown stuff. And they said, drink this. It will help your indigestion. Well, I was an obedient child. I didn't know I had indigestion, but I drank it. And it went down. And then the fumes came up and a whole new world opened up. I was grown up. I was an adult. And I was sitting with the big folks at the big table eating a big lobster. And I was in another world. And the stuff was bitter and it left a little white ring on my lip. And I thought, oh, that's good. And I never forgot it. I believe that the phenomenon of craving was instituted in my being at that very moment. I believe I'm an alcoholic from the very beginning. I did not drink too much too often and too long and become an alcoholic. I don't know what you mean when you say you crossed over an invisible line. I don't know that. What I know is that I had to drink the way I drank because I was alcoholic. And the moment that alcohol went into my system, it just blossomed and bloomed. And from then on until the day I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, it never left my waking thoughts. When I was about 15, I was getting ready to go away to college that year. And in the meantime, between those three or four years, I can remember my mother planning parties. My father was a very popular man. He belonged to all the clubs, and my mother did too. And I can remember my father saying, Oh, so-and-so is sponsoring me into this club, and we want to invite him to our next parties. And then mother would say, Well, I've been asked to sponsor so-and-so, but I don't want to do it. I don't like the way she lives. I don't like the principles that she uses. And my father would say, I don't like to do business with Tom, Dick, or Harry because he's not an honest man. And I grew up knowing what principles were. And I knew that sponsorship was someone who examined your principles and looked into your bank account and decided whether or not you were fit to join that particular organization. And sponsorship was a bad thing. And so when I came to AA, sponsorship was a very peculiar situation for me. I'm not over it yet. I believe firmly in it today, but I still have some old ideas. And so I was brought up on this. And so then I was getting ready to go to college. And in the meantime, I would always listen to these parties being planned and if there was going to be booze or liquor. And I heard someone say one time, If you put two aspirin in a glass of Coca-Cola, you'd get a high. And I had to try that. And I did. I didn't know I had a disease that was mental, emotional, and that someone tells me, I'll put two aspirin in a glass of Coke, I'm going to get high. I tried it and I did because that's what I was supposed to do. I got the measles that summer. And I'd never had any of these childhood diseases. It was the one and only one I ever had. And our family doctor prescribed a little port wine to get my strength back. And I want to tell you, it will. Because my daddy didn't know what a little port wine was. And he brought the bottle. I was 15 years old going off to college. I was a big girl. I was a young woman on the outside. And so he and mother went either downstairs, or next door, or someplace. And when they came back, I had drunk the bottle. I had vomited. I had passed out. I was sick. And there was vomit all over the bed. And when I came to, I said, oh, isn't that good? I wasn't a falling down drunk from the age of nine. But that thought of booze was always in my head. The craving was there in a very moderate way. Four years in college weren't too bad because I had, it was a Methodist school. There was not a lot of drinking going on. It's no longer under the Methodist church, but it was at that time. And many of our young men were studying for the ministry. And like a lot of young ministers, they wanted to get everything done before they got their church and had to be good. And they wanted to experiment. And I was ready to help them. And I can remember, particularly those last two years when we were having the junior prom and the senior prom, and somewhere they'd be, it was still prohibition time, the law of the land, no alcohol was served, was available legitimately. And so somewhere they'd find a bottle. And I know that those bottles weren't bigger than a pint. Maybe they were only half pints, I don't know. But we would split it four ways, two couples in a car. And we'd pass it from the front seat to the back seat. And I was the one who started to giggle as soon as they started to unscrew the top. It was mental, I know that. I was drunk mentally before we ever got that bottle open. And when I got mine, it just went down so smooth. And I didn't know until I came to AA what happened because I looked back and after intermission, when this little bit of drinking, you know how far a half pint or a pint goes with four people. I would be dancing with David. And all of a sudden, I'm dancing with Cotton. And I couldn't understand what had happened. And it wasn't until I came to AA, I realized I was having blackouts at the age of 18 on one or two little sips of booze. And those blackouts were to come more and more frequently as time went on. It was a progressive illness. And I didn't know I was sick, let alone having one that was going to get worse as every time I drank it got worse. And as I got older, it would get worse. It never gets better, never. You don't have to have blackouts to be an alcoholic. But it's one of the symptoms. It's one of the many symptoms of alcoholism. And I had them. Very short duration. How long is this dance set? Probably three minutes. And probably that was how long I was utter blacked out. And yet at the same time that that was happening, over the year I graduated, I started running with an older crowd. I went back to home base and started running as an older, really old, they were 24, 25 years old. My goodness, and sophisticated people. They were. I'd been to Lehigh and Lafayette and Washington and Lee and they were just, I'd gone to a small Methodist school and I felt very inferior, of course. I always had that inferior feeling and yet we'd all been brought up together, same social background, pretty much the same amount of money and we were all pretty much the same. And yet I always felt a little inferior. I sought out lower companions even then. I tried to find somebody I was superior to. And so I was running with this older crowd and that's when I started going back and that's when I started going to Scranton, Earl. And we'd go up there on Saturday nights to dance and drink at the Casey Hotel. And then they'd say, well somebody's got to drive home and this was before the days of designated drivers but they almost always said let Harriet drive. She can hold her booze. Look at her. She's got a hollow leg. Now you don't have to have a hollow leg and be able to hold your booze at age 18 or 19 but it's a symptom. It's a symptom. The tolerance was high and I could hold my booze and I was the one that would drive people home. It was the days of the rumble seats and we would pack a couple in the rumble seats and a couple up front and I would just drop them all off at their homes, you know, and it was like a delivery van. And it was fun. It was fun. A lot of fun. And it was about that same time my father introduced me to somebody and he loved me so much and he was so proud of me in so many ways and this particular day I remembered he said, this is my daughter Harriet and he says, boy can she drink. She drinks like a man. And even then I cringed. I thought what does that mean, she drinks like a man. They brought me up to be a little lady to go to dance at school and wear the white gloves and now she drinks like a man. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't take it as a compliment. I don't know what daddy meant. What he meant was I drank a lot. I was going to be a schoolgirl. I was going to be a schoolteacher. I hate to keep saying back in my day but it was back in my day. Young ladies didn't have much of a future. You became an old maid. You got married and had children or you became a schoolteacher. Very few women were able to get into business and so I was being groomed to be a schoolteacher but it didn't pay so good so my parents again told me what school to go to. They said go to a secretarial school. And so I did and I became a very good secretarian. And so with a college degree, a Bachelor of Arts degree and a secretarial course, I ventured out into the world. Now up to this time, I was 19 years old when I graduated from college and my parents had dictated where I went to school. They dictated pretty much which boys I would bring home the second time and which boys not to go out with again. And the teachers had told me what to study and so my whole life, my whole life had been dictated by parents. I had managers, my teachers, my educators. And so I got my first job with the federal government and the federal government chose to send me to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, not too many miles from home. And my parents put me into, took me there and just like they were taking me off to school someplace and they found me a room in a private home. A lady rented out a few rooms in her own home. And I had kitchen privileges that I never used because it was too far to go to the kitchen. And the only thing I used the kitchen for, would have been for, was my beer. Because I got a new manager when I moved to Philadelphia and my parents went back home and there I was alone. And my new manager took over and told me exactly the same things my parents and educators had been telling me for years. They told me which boys to go out with the second time. My new manager told me what dresses to wear. My new manager told me where to go on the way home from work. My new manager was alcohol. And alcohol managed my life until the day I came to alcoholics. Alcohol was synonymous. Alcohol was my higher power. The power that led me into every bit of problems that I ever got into. I was drinking weekends and usually stopped off for a couple of beers on the way home. I had a bay window. I was in the front of the house and it overlooked the roof of the front porch. And I can remember, I had, we used to go over to Camden, New Jersey to drink on Saturday nights and Sunday because of the blue laws in Pennsylvania and you couldn't drink to get booze. So then I was going over there too much. I said, well, I think there's something wrong here. I shouldn't have to be running over to New Jersey all the time to get a drink and staying late and coming home half boozed up. I was still having fun. But I was trying to change my drinking patterns and it wasn't working. Never occurred to me not to drink at all. That never occurred to me in all my drinking time. So I thought, I need a hobby. And so I went to the dime store and I bought me a dime store hobby. I became a painter by the numbers. And sometimes I couldn't read the numbers too good and sometimes I couldn't read the colors so good and I don't know what color my sky was or what color the, you know, I suppose they were terrible. But I was attempting to not drink at that point. Or to not drink so much. And yet I was reaching over to the windowsill where it was cold and kept cold air on the windowsill for the beer. And I never bought a small beer in my life. They were always the big ones. I don't know what it is today. It was Gretz beer. And young Carl was in the army down there in Philadelphia and I knew Carl and I thought I was being very patriotic by drinking Carl's beer, you know. It made sense to me. And in earlier years in Pennsylvania we drank Stegmaier's beer because we were friends of the Stegmaier family and we also drank Bartell's beer because we were friends of that family. And we always had a case of each in our home. And I didn't care which one I drank. It was wonderful when you have friends like that. And so I reached over for this beer this particular evening and it was snowing cold outside and I was very comfortable. And by accident, believe me by accident I knocked one of the beers out and it ran down the roof. And it was down there in the gutter. And, you know, I'm 19, 20 years old, thin, young, you know, and agile and I went out after it. And I got slid down there through the snow and got the beer and I had to round a claw my way back up through that snow and the ice and it occurred to me that this was not social drinking. Soon after that, it was in 1941, the outfit that I was working with the quartermaster of the school was moving to Petersburg, Virginia the quartermaster school of the United States Army and some of us ladies were invited to go along and they moved us at government expense. And everybody was so wonderful to us and young, single officers. And I guess some of the young married ones too showed us marvelous times. Our parties were all on the base. There were several swimming pools at the officers' clubs and it was party, party time. And I was always the one that had to be carried home or helped home. I was the one that occasionally had to be picked up off the dance floor and escorted home. And when Monday morning came and I couldn't make it to work they didn't bother to call me. They just said, she'll be here. And I had to do sloppy work. My boss said to me one time, he said, do you think today you could possibly type more than one page? Because I had filled the wastebasket full of ruined pages. I was no longer productive. We were having so much fun together and it was hard for my bosses to discipline. It was hard for us to discipline anybody because we were having, we didn't realize it was 1941 on December the 7th Pearl Harbor had not yet arrived. But I was the one who was completely oblivious to what was going around with me. I had no idea that we were coming into World War II. I had no idea what was going on in Europe. I watch public television today and I try to learn the history that I missed. Because really, the book tells us that selfishness, self-centeredness is the root of all our problems. And I fought that for a while because I was not a selfish person. I had been taught by my parents and my educators to be unselfish. To share everything, my toys and my little money and my clothes. I was taught to share. But the self-centeredness is what got me. Everything centered around me, the whole world. And here I was in the middle of the Army working as a civilian and everything was, the world was coming to one of the biggest crises of all times. And all I cared about was me and having a good time. And would I get enough to drink? Would there be enough for me? And would there be enough fun going for me? And my dates would say, you're a grand sport and we love you, but don't drink so much. And they'd say, oh, for God's sake, take a drink. And I'd say, okay, okay, let's go, yeah. I had plenty of warnings, but it didn't take. And so World War II did come on December the 7th, 1941. And I came back in on that. It was a Sunday afternoon. And I went to work on Monday and I thought again it was a big movie put on for my benefit. And I'd say, oh, what are you doing back from Christmas Eve? And they'd look at me as if I were a numbskull and I was, just ignorant. But I began quickly to see that something had happened to me and I might as well get out of this situation and I'd better join one of the women's services that was coming along. And so, being so patriotic, the first thing I looked over were the uniforms. I wanted one that would make me look patriotic. And so I decided against the Women's Army Corps, the WACs, Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, I decided against that. Not so much for the uniform as for the fact that in my inflated ego, out of this inferiority complex, this magnified ego, came the thought that if I joined the Army, they would certainly ask for me to come back there to Camp Lee and help them run the camp. You know, and I just didn't want to do that. And so I looked over the other uniforms and I decided that I would like to be a lady Marine. Because I loved red. I was a brunette and I still love red. But they had a red ascot tie, really. I could have gone to Dime Storm, and bought one. And around their hats they wore a red silk cord. And I just thought that was snazzy. It was. And so the morning came when I just couldn't make it to work. I was so sick. And I had to get to Richmond from Petersburg, Virginia. And I went by bus. I don't know why. Probably it doesn't matter. But by the time I got to Richmond to enlist in the Marine Corps, I was so sick and shaking and I needed a drink very badly. And yet I didn't want to take one that morning because I was going to be on the radio. And I wanted to not be rejected. I didn't want anybody to know I was a drunk. And so I didn't take that drink and my hands were beginning to tremble and my arm was shaking. And they had me signing all kinds of papers. And, uh, have you ever tried to sign a piece of paper and your hand just won't do it? And you go shooting off, particularly if you're signing a bad check, you know? And so I was concentrating on making my hand do what it was supposed to do. And he's asking me questions and he said, do you want to go to Officer Candidate School? Look at this way of education. And I'm saying, no, no, I don't want to go. And yes, yes, yes, you'll make us a fine leader. And then he swore me in and then he said, welcome to the United States Navy. And I stepped back and I said, sir, I came here to join the Marine Corps. And he said, I'm sorry, honey, you got off the elevator on the wrong floor. You are in the Navy now. And they sent me to Officer Training School and I became a Supply Corps officer. I was an ensign and then I became a junior grade lieutenant. And, uh, God knows why. We had a, they sent me to an ammunition depot. There was an explosion on base, but I had nothing to do with it. They assigned to me eight seamen. They also gave me a jeep. They gave me a pickup truck. And wonder of wonders, they assigned to us a forklift truck. Now my seamen were supposed to operate the forklift truck and they did most of the time. But after the two, three, four martini lunches, I was the driver. And I would get in my forklift and I would toodle down the warehouse and those forks would go up whether there was anything on them or not and we'd go around and around. And for a while my seamen would lay on the floor and laugh and they just thought that was the most fun they'd ever had. And then one day one of them said, and he muttered and he mumbled and he said, what's the matter with you? We don't like you anymore. Where'd you learn that kind of language? You talk like us. We don't like you anymore. And I pretended as I was to do now for the next few years, I pretended I did not hear him. But what I heard loud and clear was that I was turning into what I already felt like on the inside. I was turning into a drunken woman. No such thing, ladies, as a drunken lady. You're either a drunk or you're a lady. And I was a drunk woman. And I was to become more than that, a drunk tramp. I was wearing the uniform of the United States Navy and I was awful proud of it and I loved my country and I was really as patriotic as anybody. And I was disgracing it and I was disgracing myself and the upbringing of the family that I'd had. And I couldn't live with myself and so I would drink some more. I would take another drink to cover the pain and the hurt. I got out of the Navy on points without causing too much trouble to anybody except myself. I heard a lot of people and there were a lot of amends that I could make and they're on the list of people should I ever, ever run into any of them. That's the marvelous thing about our eight step. It says we become willing to make amends to them all. And being willing is so important because jumping ahead quite a ways, I had my first husband that I had a little problem putting him on the list of the eight step list. I was one that thought he did me more harm than I did him. I didn't read that page on the right hand side down there at the bottom. It says we got to clean our own street off first, you know. And so I was reluctant to put him there. And then all of a sudden one day I said I knew I had to put him on there and I became willing to make amends to this man that I was married to for a while. And I was eight years sober when I walked into the Coral Gables meeting and there he was. And I didn't have to turn around and go down to the nearest corner and get a drink. I didn't have to run and get a gun and shoot him. I didn't have to do anything except stand there and stare at him and he winked at me. And we had a long talk, you know. I was willing to make amends and had been for eight years. But if that had happened in the first few weeks of sobriety I don't know what would have happened. But I was willing to make amends. And by the same token there was a back there in those early days of growing up and the fellows that went to the Hillman Academy and I was going to the Institute we had a big dance. It was the biggest dance of the year at the Westmoreland Club. And I kind of embarrassed this young man. His name was Hal. And he uses his full name now. We knew him as Hal when he was a kid. And so he's very dignified today. So I embarrassed him. And we were not particularly good friends. We were just pals. I mean we ran in the same circle. But I embarrassed him and I knew it. And so he was on my eight step list. And I thought I'll never see Hal again. But I'll put him on the list. I'd be willing to make amends to that guy. He was a nice fellow. And five years ago I was thirty years sober. Thirty one years sober. And I have a part time job today in a theater. And I was in the subscription department looking up a subscriber and there he was. He was a subscriber to our theater. In fact a donor. Hi. You know I'm a lot of money. And I said there he is. I said when the right time comes I'll be able to go into my ninth step with Hal. And I thought I'd put it aside. And one holiday. And I don't know whether it was an Easter Sunday like today or Christmas. I volunteered to work the box office so the young kids could have the day off. And I'm in the box office on a Sunday afternoon and the phone rang. And I said Coconut Grove Playhouse. And he said this is. And he said his name. And I said this is Harriet Parks. Do you remember me? And we immediately and we made arrangements to meet that week. And we had a long talk and we were able to. 31 years later you know that you can make an amends. Making amends in a case like that isn't the routine way of doing things. But it's the best you can do sometimes. And it makes you feel good that you've been willing all these years and all of a sudden you get the opportunity. So when you're making out your eight step list and you say oh I'll never see him again. I won't bother to put him on the list. Put him on the list. Because you may run into him in the strangest places and at the strangest times. I got out of the Navy and I went down to the Pentagon building one day to see some old friends. And there was another recruiting sign. I love recruiting signs. And so I signed up and the next thing I knew I was in Algiers in North Africa. And it was still not quite as civilized as it I guess it's not too civilized today. But I was there before Humphrey Bogart. I paved the way. And that's where I met my Arab. My Arab wasn't just any ordinary fellow. He's like the ones you see on television with the fancy dresses and tents and running around trying to run the country. The world. And he had a title. He was called a Cahid. Now that's like being the mayor. Like the mayor of Eureka Springs. He was the Cahid of an oasis called Busada. And so we we rode our camels into the sunset of the Sahara. And in my fantasy world I thought I was going to dwell forever in the tent with Oriola rugs on the floor. A little boy fanning me. And someone feeding me grapes. And I want to thank the committee for the lovely fruit basket. The State Department frowned on my mode of living in the Sahara. And they sent for me and I, we started riding our camels back into the Busada. And my Arab was riding, and I wish I could remember his name. He was wearing a garment that's called a burnous. It's a cape like a fair with a hood on it. And it just flowed so gently. And it wafted along and I wanted it. And he liked my he liked my navy raincoat. So we traded. And I got back into Algiers and the State Department put me on board ship and sent me home. But I wore that burnous as an evening wrap. And I thought I was a spy. A glamorous spy. And I would wrap this garment around me and I would hold it up over here and I'd peek out over here. And I'd get into corners and peer out. It was very weird. In a moment of truth I looked at that thing and it wasn't made of white silk at all. It was made of brown wool. It was full of moth holes and gritty with sand. And it had been wrapped around too many sick animals, goats and pigs. And it literally stunk. I don't know whatever happened to that thing but I never went to jail. I should have many times. I was taken to jail once in a paddy wagon, the Black Mariah. Most humiliating memory of my entire life. I cringe today when I think of it. It was black in there. I was all alone. And I'd picked up for a traffic violation and breaking somebody's window trying to get, oh God, I don't know. And I remember them looking at my badge and my identification and it was High Muckety Muck Central Intelligence Agency. And I can remember them looking at it and shaking their heads. Looking at me. She? She's CIA? I don't blame them. And they in a blackout, I made a phone call to the city manager of Alexandria, Virginia. His name was Dutch Willard. Dutch had been the adjutant to Camp Lee and we'd been friends. In a blackout I called him. And he came and he got me. But I had time enough within the confines of that jail house to look inside the cell. And I saw there that terrible vacant, you know that toilet with no seat on it, no nothing. Naked. Like Clara says, it's just a terrible looking thing. And I said, what's a nice lady like me doing in a place like this? And Dutch came and years later I was to speak at a program with a young man who was out on a weekend pass from a jail. And he told me that in jail and prison sometimes they can get anything they want to drink. But if they can't get what they want to drink, they get the Macon's. And they mix it in those toilet bowls. And I had forgotten about that naked toilet bowl until he told that story and it was a flashback then that I could remember. I know there are a lot of things back here that I haven't been able to remember. God's been good to me. He let me remember things a little bit at a time. A little bit at a time. And because maybe some of these things I couldn't have handled when I was only a few days, a few weeks, a few years sober. And as I get more sober I can remember more. I went to London when I was about 15 years sober. And things came back to me when I saw. I was in New York in 1977, 78. Somebody said to me, you want to go up the Empire State Building? Have you ever been to the Empire State Building? I said, I don't know. Now most people know when they've been to the Empire State Building. And when we got there I saw that bank of elevators and I remembered not only that I had been there but who I was with and why and how and I cringed because it had not been a pleasant time. I was with somebody else's husband, you know. And so I got called Dutch and Dutch took me home and he put his arms around me and I promised him, he said, promise me you'll not drink like that anymore. And I promised him and I promised my parents and I promised everybody I knew that I wouldn't drink like that anymore and I didn't know what that meant because I didn't know any other way to drink. I was alcoholic and not the only way I knew how to drink. I made a lot of hospitals. And my last one was in 1953. I had been asked to resign from the Central Intelligence Agency. I hadn't known any secrets in years. An ex-CIA man says, you shouldn't tell people you're in CIA. I said, well not only was it so many years ago but I never knew anything when I was there. And so they asked me to resign. And I made my way to Miami, Florida. I had married a well that's another story, I met him in Italy. He was a merchant marine captain and his purser got sick in Italy and he was looking for a purser to get out of Italy. And he found out I was in the Navy and decided I'd make a good purser. So he signed me up on a liberty ship which is strictly against maritime rules. He was court-martialed for it but we got out of it. But I married him, you know. He was a good drinking buddy. And so I'm on my way to Florida now to divorce him. And on the way I got drunk, of course. And in Jacksonville, Florida, I made a phone call to my cousin in Miami and she in turn called Alcoholics Anonymous, the San Marco Club in Jacksonville, Florida. And two ladies from the San Marco Club, I don't remember which group they belonged to, but they came from the clubhouse and I was to later attend many meetings in that San Marco Clubhouse in Jacksonville. And they called on me and they saw how sick I was. In fact, the doctors wrote to my parents later that I was dying. And I have those letters today. And I haven't read them now for several years. I used to read them at least once a year. But I still have them. And it tells about what were going to be my last days on this earth due to alcoholism. And I know that it was only the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous, which in itself is a miracle from God, that they reached me in time. As several of our speakers said yesterday, just a few minutes before it would have been too late. And the miracle happened. And I began to understand a little bit about Alcoholics Anonymous. But they saw how desperately ill I was and they sent me to the Veterans Hospital in Salisbury, North Carolina. And I was there starting about Labor Day of 1955 until January the 9th of 1956. And I have to tell you the most exciting part of the whole time was the Christmas play. Now if you have, I was in the mental ward, you know. Where else are they going to put a drunk? Because I was so sick. The first week I was there I was in Ward D, which is the violent ward. I had a little reputation as a suicide. And I never meant it. When I did the suicide bit I was just looking for attention. For someone to say, I love you. Don't go. We need you. They never said that. They just slapped me and said, Come out of that! Come out of that! And so I was in the violent ward and I know a little bit about that. And I saw some of the ladies come out of the electric shock room, like robots. I had insulin shock. I never had electric shock. I saw some of the ladies put in the straight jackets and put in the rubber rooms and come out subdued and quiet. I saw them give in shots and pass out. And I knew them when they were happy and we'd play some cards and we'd go bowling. I was not a very good bowler. They let me set the pins. I'm a good pin setter. But we started rehearsing for the Christmas play. Now you've never been in a Christmas play with a bunch of loonies. And in between rehearsals we're making our ashtrays and our leather belts. And I fell in love with my psychiatrist. I did everything I was told to do. And I was King Herod. I didn't have the lead, but that's a pretty good part. And we all had nice costumes. I had a red robe and a crown. And the exciting part about it was that two of our shepherds escaped on Christmas Eve. And I've seen 36 Christmases and I never missed thinking about the people in Salisbury, North Carolina looking out their windows waiting for Santa Claus and they see two shepherds running down the street. I believed in Santa Claus for a very, very long time. My mother said later that she was ashamed of me. I'm a walking around pretty big girl and I still believed in Santa Claus. I also believed in the Easter bunny. And I don't know how many years ago today that I found at least two dozen Easter eggs because my daddy would hide those six over and over again. And I would keep finding those Easter eggs. And I believed in the Easter bunny. And I believed in Santa Claus. And when I came to AA, I believed in you. And I believed in you today just as I believed in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. I knew it was real. I'm not sure yet about Santa Claus. Because I saw him one time. Never saw the Easter bunny. I saw him last week at the Dayland Mall. He was grungy. They released me on January the 9th and they told me don't drink like that anymore. And I still didn't know how to not drink like that. And so I drank like that on Monday, January the 9th, 1956. And I took that first drink out of what was to be the last drunk. The last bottle. There probably were two or three bottles but I think of that one as the last one. And I took the first drink and I was in the ladies room in some place up there in North Carolina on my way back to Jacksonville, Florida. And I watched myself in the mirror and I watched myself change. The lines, the drawn lines began to go away and I began to smile at myself because that alcohol went into my system. And I said you must be crazy. You've been in somebody's mental ward for four and a half months and you're drinking again. You must be crazy. And when I read that page in Bill's story, I must be crazy. I said yeah, that's me. That's what I said back there on January the 9th. I must be crazy. And I said the bottle is bigger than I am. And I could see that bottle like Alice in Wonderland saw it. It was this big and I was this little. And if any of you have seen the fairly new pamphlet with the 12 steps illustrated, that's exactly what it is. The first step is the big bottle and the little tiny person. The bottle is bigger than I am. And I knew at the first step when I was powerless and my life was a mess. I was going to be 39 years old and a few days and my life was a complete shambles and I was beaten. I knew it. And I must be crazy and I knew I made a decision right there on Monday, January the 9th. I made the decision. I'm going to find those AA folks and let them tell me how to live. I'm going to turn my life over to those AA people. I made that decision. But I had taken the drink. It was there and that phenomenon of craving had set up and I could not stop it and I drank against my will. I had no defense against that first drink and the prayer didn't help because I didn't know how to pray. And so I just fought it and that last week from Monday the 9th until Saturday morning January the 14th was the worst week, the worst drunk, the worst time and the best because it was the last. And on January the 14th I came out of the sleeping car in Miami, Florida and I had been drinking all night long and crying because every time I needed a drink I had to go down to the end of the sleeping car and the car was going this way and the warm warm water came out of that terrible tank that was full of disinfectant and you have to get those little tiny paper cups that are flat and you have to open them up and you have to use six hands because you've got to get the bottle open and you've got to open that cup and drink that whole terrible stuff and I was crying and I was miserable and I had gained a lot of weight. I was very fat and I was it was awful and at 6 o'clock the train pulled in and I got off the train and I needed to drink so badly and I started to take a drink and I said, please God no more and I never took another drink. That was the end of this moment. Over and over we hear from the podiums something happened, something happened, something touched me, I felt something and I think every time we say that we're saying the hand of God touched us because that's what happened that morning. I didn't know I was having a spiritual experience. I didn't know that I was doing something with God's help that I had been unable to do by myself and that to me is a spiritual experience and it was the beginning of the many many many spiritual awakenings I have over these next 36 years. I've never had any big flashes and I I know people who have, not too many but the awakenings have been so beautiful and so I began my life of sobriety and it didn't start right there because I was so sick that morning and I called my cousin, she came and got me and it was my birthday I was 39 years old and she knew that and she baked me a cake and if you've ever been suffering and needing a drink and kind of wanting a drink and yet not wanting the drink and somebody presents you a birthday cake with gooky old pink roses all over it and you want to vomit in the middle of it and then she had a couple of young kids and the next thing I knew we were waking up every morning to Captain Kangaroo and I'm an only child not used to children and here's Captain Kangaroo waking me up every morning and I was fit to be tied but I didn't have to take a drink and I started going to meetings a man lived near my cousin and he'd pick me up and he took me around to the different places and we went into one club room and there was an awful nice little fella sitting there and his name was Bob and I put my eye on him and pretty soon I joined that group and the reason I joined it was because they asked me they said would you like to be a member of our group nobody had asked me to be a member of anything for years and of course I said yes because I wanted to be a part of and so these are the people that I looked on as what we today call sponsors I was afraid of that word sponsor but I had some people that I used as my role models one of them at that time was the dean of everybody in AA a 16 year sobriety his name was Ed Ed's been gone a long time but his sponsor was one of the original hundred and he was our old timer and Ed was my sponsor for a long time I didn't call him a sponsor but he was and so I would say I've got to get a job and they'd say no not yet I'd say I've got to get my own apartment I was staying with my cousin and he said no not yet and I'd look over there and I'd say look at that cute fella and they'd say no not yet and if you're in that group of people under a year we mean it and we mean it with love because we know from experience this whole program is based on experience and our strength and our hope but when we share experience with you we're not just kidding we mean it so remember and listen and I believe in sponsorship and get yourself a sponsor and do what that person says um I married my fellow and I had known him I met him in late January up in February and by the middle of May I knew I was going to marry that fellow and um I invited him to dinner for Easter Sunday 36 years ago today with roast lamb leg of lamb I make a mean gravy David and we had mashed potatoes real ones out of real potatoes and I don't remember what else but it was a good dinner and the next week or so we went on a picnic to Crandon Park and on the way back well while we were there we started to talk we were sitting on a sea wall and this man began to ask me questions he told me he'd been around AA for 16 years and I was too new and listen to this very carefully you new young people being around the program is not being in the program when he told me he was around the program for 16 years I didn't know that meant white chip after white chip after white chip being around the program is not being sober in AA with this AA program this is what you put into your life and being around it is just coming here for fun and to meet people and dating society and so on that's not what AA is all about and so I married this man but on that particular day I took a fifth step with him not knowing what a fifth step was and I don't think he knew he was doing it but I did get rid of a lot of garbage and I've been grateful for that all my sobriety I believe in getting garbage out of the way quick and I believe in getting into that fourth step quick and I just ran into the first three steps because I'd taken those first three steps in those first few days right there on the ninth before I even came to AA so I had gotten into these steps immediately but then I began to jump around which is okay I stayed sober and I began to learn my steps but there's a paragraph in in a letter that I like to talk about it's called Three Choices and it was a letter that Bill wrote and I found it first and this is the one I have in my book A.A. Way of Life as Bill sees it and it's item number 327 he talks about the three choices it says when we come to AA our immediate object is sobriety freedom from alcohol and without this freedom we have nothing at all but we can achieve no liberation from the alcohol obsession until we begin to be willing to deal with those character defects which have landed us in that helpless condition it says we're always given three choices a rebellious refusal to work upon our glaring defects can be an almost certain ticket to destruction and some of us go through that we think there's nothing wrong with us and I thought that way for a little while I thought nothing wrong with me except I drank too much and it took me a long time to get into that but this is where I and we were talking about this at breakfast this morning it says perhaps for a time and this was me and I would like to recommend that you not do it this way perhaps for a time we can stay sober with a minimum of self improvement and settle ourselves into a comfortable but often dangerous mediocrity and none of us likes to be mediocre but I settled into that dangerous comfortable mediocrity with seven years I didn't have any desire to drink the desire had been removed from me by a power greater than myself and so I didn't think I needed these steps because I had no desire to drink and I was comfortable in this mediocrity and I didn't know it until all hell broke loose in my life closer together our business was getting into trouble a little business that I had joined and things were going to hell in a handbasket as they say and I began to pay attention to the book, to step meetings to discussion meetings I had been pretty much to open speaker meetings and one day I finally had to I decided to divorce Bob legally I had to cancellation of insurances the hospitals wouldn't accept him he was getting into trouble with the law and I didn't know it for a long time but my husband