I Want to Never Have Another Expectation — Only Great Expectancy That a Higher Power Will Meet My Needs – Mary L.

hi everyone I'm Mary and I'm an alcoholic I really want to thank Wally and all of those
of you on the convention committee and all those who came before you on the convention
committee to pave the way all these years one day at a time for this moment and for this weekend I
think this is a weekend about love affairs I've been noticing everybody who's in love somebody
just told me that he and his wife are spending their 23rd wedding anniversary I believe that's
what he said 23rd wedding anniversary here this weekend and I thought my god what a
beautiful way to celebrate the love that has been able to flow through us because of this program
I would like to also thank you for the beautiful gift I had a basket with some beautiful goodies in
it and that was just wonderful Dave and Cheryl have have just made themselves so gracious and
available to us as all of you have really I just I can't say enough thank you it's such an honor
Wally this is going to be a week and I will always remember yeah
I knew it you all have dirty minds
you know I mean I should have known it right off the bat Friday night I was trying to weave my way
and then I came across a man who had his arms on both chairs his hands on both chairs next to him
on either side and I said I'm going to give you a gift and he said I'm going to give you a gift and
I said can I just get through and I promise I'll give you your chair back I won't try to take it
and he said he lifted his arm up and I I got through I hustled poor George through and I
turned around to him and I said okay you can put your hand back there
naturally somebody heard it made a big deal about it
I suppose you'd like to meet old George and poor
George this is poor George
I'm 58
I was born in 43
George is only 46
so you can see that it's been kind of rough
being married to me.
Ed knows why.
He caught me trying to do Armando's job for him Friday night.
Hey, you guys, this is really swell.
I'm originally from, well, Chicago
and then Duluth, Minnesota,
so I'm going to tell you an Oli and a Sven joke.
Oli and Sven decided they were going to go to the tavern
on a Friday night, and Hilda wanted to go along.
And Sven said, oh, Oli, do you mind?
And he said, all right, good God.
Anyway, they got there, and you know what happened.
They got very, very intoxicated.
All of a sudden, Sven was looking around,
and he couldn't find his wife, Hilda.
Not only that, or, yeah, Hilda.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
That's it.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
No, I had it before I got here.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Not only that, but he couldn't find his best friend, Oli.
And he just started frantically looking around in the tavern.
He went in the washroom.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Out the front door, nothing.
Out the back door.
And he was just about to come back in
because there was nothing out there
when he heard a funny sound coming from the back of his pickup truck.
And he went over there, and oh, my God.
There's Hilda.
And there is Oli going to it.
He staggered back through the tavern in the back hallway,
and the bartender looked up, saw him coming,
and he says, Sven, you are drunk.
Sven said, you think I'm drunk?
You should see Oli.
He thinks he's me.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Now, just as a way to qualify,
I will tell you that I'm the Hilda in that story,
and I never knew that I was not Sven.
You could have fooled me.
The other thing is that that's kind of my story.
I mean, it's a story of mistaken identification.
I'm a woman who has had terror ever,
well, ever since I was two years old.
That's what I think I put it at.
Now, I thought I was terrified until last night in the lobby.
I met a young man, and I said,
holy mackerel, you must be scared to death.
And he looked at me, he said, why?
I said, because your hair is standing straight up on end.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Several.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
What a beauty.
What a beauty.
My sponsor taught me one God, many faces, one life common to all.
That's why I love to go somewhere where I'm not from,
because I see God.
Every time I look around, I see Sherry, and I see our birth grandmother.
Now, I want to say something about that.
We are an adoptive family, George and I, and parents of four children.
And their mother is still a child who had children,
and their grandmother is still a child.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
And so, Sherry, you don't remind me of a grandmother in terms of age.
You remind me of the, oh, that's wonderful,
of the love that shows forth through these eyes here in this room.
Thank you.
I'm sober since January 15, 1972,
thanks to the grace of God and the power of the 12 steps,
as well as the fellowship of the Spirit.
I have two home groups.
One is the Mustard Seed Women's Group on Monday evening at 5.30,
and the other is the Rise and Shine Group at 6.30 a.m.,
and both of those are wonderful meetings.
And so when you're in Great Falls, Montana, or in the area,
just look up Mary Huntington Lennar or George Lennar, L-E-H-N-E-R,
in the phone book.
You can stay with us, and you can go to meetings with us.
That's an open invitation.
Thank you.
I wasn't in trouble.
I'm Mary, and I'm an alcoholic.
I was not in trouble, as I say, until about the second year of my life.
Up until then, I think I just came out of my mom's chute,
eager, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed,
and I just knew that life, this world, was my oyster,
and everything in it was mine.
And about the age of two, I made my first decision based on self
and that self-centered fear that this was all fine and good,
but it wouldn't last if I didn't prepare.
And what I really needed was somebody's approval.
Now, if you're the first child born to a mom and a dad,
and your mom is already skittish,
she already knows she's got a handful having been married to this man,
and she's never had a baby before,
so I didn't want to bother her.
In fact, I just said,
Hey, Ma, don't worry about it.
I'll take care of you and me both as I was coming out.
So at the age of two, I said,
I know if my dad accepts me, loves me unconditionally,
approves of me 100% of the time in 100% way,
then I'll be okay.
The selfishness, the gall.
I didn't tell him, of course, so he didn't even know that was his job.
I didn't know that he was simply a human being trying to do the best he could.
And so we were off to a bad start, he and I.
In 81, when George and I married,
I said to my sister and my mother in the living room of my youngest sister's home in Youngstown,
Mom, did you marry me?
Dad and I always have a war going on.
And she looked at me like I was crazy.
I was 37 at the time and nine years sober and clean.
And she said, Mary, you were the apple of your father's eye.
And I knew she was telling me the truth,
that I had been lying to myself up until then.
Changed everything.
Also, the first, fourth, and fifth step I did changed everything.
When I wrote down the fact that I resented my father because he was uncooperative,
unaccepting, intolerant, judgmental,
I found out in the fifth step process
that the only way I could identify or recognize any of that
was because it was within me.
It hurt my feelings.
Which is another really hard thing for me still.
I can remember one of my, the first speakers I ever heard in Duluth, Minnesota,
a woman with black hair, just, you probably know her,
I can't remember her name, but I know that she was well known.
And she said, you know, I don't think I'm ever going to move beyond having my feelings hurt.
Or looking for your approval.
And so she gave me permission, I think, right then, along with my sponsor,
to be a human being before I'm anything else.
And that has saved my bacon so many times, to tell you the truth.
I mean, I understand that the fact of my alcoholism
is probably the most powerful, important fact of my life today,
in addition to the fact of a loving God that works and operates in a daily way
and gives me 12 steps to follow based on spiritual principles
so that I can meet whatever count.
And I'm not going to lie to you today.
And the fact of the matter is, I never knew I was a human being.
That was the other thing I lied to myself about.
I thought I was the worst of the worst and the best of the best.
And that all started from the age of two on up.
So my first unhealthy dependence was to approval.
My next unhealthy dependence was probably to excitement.
Because something happened to me when I got excited.
It was like a tension reliever.
And so that was the beginning of learning to live from crises to crises.
And then I suppose the next, I'm trying to think the first time I was sexual,
either self-pleasuring or with another person.
And I think it was probably, I'm just telling the truth.
I'm trying not to lie.
I think it was before I had my first drink.
So I learned that that kind of a sexual pleasure
was absolutely stress-reducing.
And freedom-producing.
And so that was another unhealthy dependence.
It wasn't unhealthy, it was just the way I sought it
that got a little unclever.
So you can see that when I reached for my first drink,
it's only 25 after 6.
Oh.
When I reached for my first drink,
I was like,
something,
something absolutely miraculous and magical happened.
And I don't know if it was a first,
if I had one or two beers that day.
We had moved from Chicago up to the northern suburb of Wilmette.
I was now at New Trier High School
in the middle of my freshman year.
I think that's what made me alcoholic.
And I've heard other people say,
that is very traumatic for us.
You know, oh.
Anyway.
Anyway.
I, um,
I just wanted to be included.
I couldn't figure out why people were kind of giving me some distance.
I think it was because up there where we moved,
all of the girls had beautiful little, um,
peroxide streaks in their hair.
And a little flip up or a little flip down.
And they all wore, dyed to match,
wool Angora skirt and sweaters in pastels.
Either pink or light blue.
I'm green or yellow.
And the men were jocks.
And, uh, and I had black.
I, I had my black sweater buttoned backwards.
It was on my back.
The buttons.
And a long skirt.
And I walked, you know.
And I was a hoodlum.
All of a sudden, one day, I'm walking home because there was a, uh, it was,
we had, uh, this week of tests and they had breaks in between each test.
So I'm walking home and a carload of people come by and they say,
Hey, we're going to a party.
You want to come?
It was the first time I had been included in that new community.
And I said, you bet.
Oh yeah.
And so we went down to an Al Capone casino that was in ruins on Lake Michigan.
And somebody broke out a beer and handed it to me.
Did I drink too?
I don't know, but I do know this, that when I drank that beer immediately, I felt full, whole.
Not only that, but I was smart as a whip, clever as can be.
And I didn't stammer or lisp on a, on top of that.
I didn't give a rip what you thought of me.
In fact, I wasn't sure that I approved of you.
And it was the most freedom producing miracle I had had in my life up until that moment.
And I knew intuitively that it was something, another lie I could control.
That whenever life got a little rough, I could just take a little bit of that liquid courage,
liquid serenity, liquid thrill and bliss.
And that's what I made my commitment to.
That was really my very first real.
Love affair.
And all went well for a couple of weeks.
And then I started doing silly things, you know, really silly things.
I can remember being sexual when I didn't intend to be sexual, running away from home,
making an absolute commotion, developing these terrible tales about my wicked father.
I'll tell you, our kids are getting even for my father.
Wicked tales about my father.
And.
And I just created more and more stuff so that I could justify continuing to take a drink.
And then you wouldn't get on my back because you were starting to get on my back.
You were starting to not complain or criticize, but you were pointing some things out.
And of course, I got good about that.
You'd say, oh, you were really funny last night until about 10.
And I'd say, oh, you thought so, huh?
What did you like the best?
And they say, well, when you got on top of the table and started dancing, that was pretty hilarious.
Oh, uh-huh.
But then when you jumped on Harry's shoulders and broke his back, that wasn't funny.
So I learned to interrogate you to find out what I had done because I was having blackouts on a regular basis.
I was drinking more.
And, of course, I didn't know that was a red flag for alcoholism.
I just thought I was just too cool to move.
I could drink all of you under the table.
And little did I know.
But towards the end of my drinking, I would take a little thimble full of vodka, and I would be totally drunk on that little.
Because my body wasn't metabolizing anything.
I was a daily drinker, and I drank a lot.
And my body was no longer metabolizing.
So I was really pitiful.
You know, the other thing, too, is I must tell you, I was in professional circles.
It's called a hero child because I was the first to make my family.
I was the first to make my family.
My parents have family.
And I was also a scapegoat because I was developing alcoholism.
And so I was always running around asking if you'd like, oh, a cup of coffee.
Can I get you anything?
Do you want me to help you get into the next room?
Can I do your homework assignment for you?
What can I do for you?
I'm just here to please.
I'm just here to be helpful.
And I kept getting absolutely crucified everywhere I go,
which has also been a pattern that I have experienced up to,
including through today.
So I kind of get kind of praised and slapped around.
So it's not alcoholism.
It's just an identity crisis I'm going through.
I am a chronic relapser.
I would have a day or a minute or a week or maybe even a month,
never any longer than that, before I'd be back drinking again.
My first experience with alcohol,
Alex Anonymous, a man who was deeply in love with me,
a man who was so in love with me that he told me he thought I had alcoholism.
He was a year ahead of me at the University of Maryland School of Social Work.
And he said, I think you need some help.
And I'm going to make sure you get to a meeting.
And he took me to a meeting.
It was in a church basement.
And man, you people were just beautiful.
Shiny eyes, great smiles, the enthusiasm,
the spirit was just intense.
And I said, and I meant it truly.
I was so grateful you had found this miracle.
And if I ever got that bad, you know,
by the time I got back to Alcoholics Anonymous,
I felt, I believed truly that I was too far gone,
that I was too bad,
that I was not capable of this beautiful thing
and that I would never, ever,
be able to get it. You knew differently because you knew that we just live on the basis of hope.
We don't know. What do we know? I know nothing. That's the other thing I've lied to myself all
my life about. I thought I've known so much. I have known so little. I ended up in a place
that was an institution. And the first time I was there, this was about my 15th or 16th
treatment center and detox center. And by the time I ended up there, the second time
I was there for six months, they saw fit. It hurt my feelings. They saw fit to refer
me on to a women's halfway house program in Duluth, Minnesota called the Marty Mann
Halfway House. And I called my mother and I said, Mom, do you know what? They want me
to go on up. Instead of coming back to Chicago like I did the last time,
because you and Dad were having marital difficulties, they want me to go to Duluth, Minnesota
to a halfway house for alcoholic women. And she said, Oh, Mary, don't you think you've
put in enough time? With that, my dad was on the other extension and said, They haven't
led you astray yet. I think it's a mighty fine idea. So I knew my goose was
hooked. I knew I'd had it. So at about 98 pounds, with skinny hair, gray skin, a falling
down alcoholic, I still fall down a lot, by the way, a falling down alcoholic, I went
to a halfway house in Duluth, Minnesota. And I was there for another 14 months. So I was
institutionalized.
20 months. I know it's hard for you to really even imagine that. You believe me, don't you?
It's you. Anyway, so I had a lot of time. And I'm going to really focus on that a lot
this morning. Why? Because that's where the foundation was laid. I mean, it was just an
incredible thing. I mean, it was my first year and really my first two years that I think have been
absolutely the springboard for the rest of my life. And I told myself, of course, and I told you
that the problem with me was alcoholism. Once I got the message, that was a lie. I told myself,
and I almost set my first sponsor straight, Marion. She said that alcoholism is a physical
compulsion. No, the treatment center told me alcoholism is a physical compulsion to drink
because of a psychological problem. And I said, Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I
don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't
know. I don't know. I don't know. But in a sense, that was it. complications are the right
word for a psychological obsession that condemns us to die. If we do, Marion said, alcoholism is a
self made excuse to bring us to our knees to say yes to a spiritual journey. We've been trying to
avoid. And I said, Oh, no, it isn't, it's a it's a psychological obsession matched by. But I was
that I was too smart for my own good for a long while.
And I really didn't think I could use my mind.
I really, I was so terrified of using my mind
for so many years in sobriety, which was probably good.
I try to use my mind in a healthy way.
I suffer from a malady that has attacked me
and is waiting to continue to attack me,
body, mind, and spirit.
And so what you've taught me is that I really need to nurture
and to feed and to accommodate my body, my mind, and my spirit.
And so I try to do that.
So I do use my mind within certain parameters.
The 12 steps, sponsorship, my home group,
living just one day at a time.
Imagine that.
I remember Tommy B. from Winnipeg said,
I loved it, he was such a hero of mine.
He still is in spirit.
And he said he went to Florida.
My sponsor said, never mention anybody.
Never mention anybody's name, ever, at the podium.
And I said, why not?
And she said, because whose names you don't mention will be offended.
I said, oh, so I hope I do this right.
Anyway, Tommy B. looked around the room
and he saw people with 32 years, 31 years, 27 years,
and he said to himself,
wouldn't you think that by now
they could live life two days at a time?
No, even they have to live life one day,
at a time.
And that's really kind of a saving my fanny right now.
I must tell you that I was so hungry.
I was so hungry.
I didn't even know how hungry I was.
And somebody put a pen and a notebook in my hand
and I followed Marion around everywhere.
She ended up, oh, this was a pitiful story, I'll tell you.
You already know my father's position on my recovery.
Follow directions, he said.
And so here I am,
and I'm at this halfway house for alcoholic women.
And Dorothy is the director,
and she's just loving me and says,
I think I was just here long enough for you to come,
now I've got to get out of here.
Why?
Because her three daughters were still furious with her
because of her alcoholism.
And so she came up and she took over
a women's halfway house program
where everybody in the house, all 12 women,
were absolutely, or 11, furious with her.
Because Lorraine, the founder of the halfway house,
had left.
And nobody could be furious with Lorraine.
It's like you can't be furious with your mother directly.
So you do it indirectly.
And so everybody was furious with Dorothy
because Lorraine had left.
It's a little bit like our big dog got neutered
because Callie got knocked up by Barney,
who was our Bassett-Biggo-Terrier mix little dog.
I mean, it made...
I'll tell you another thing that makes a lot of sense.
Well, there was a lot of commotion.
I knew what to do about commotion,
get that big dog neutered.
Now you know why I say, poor George.
I'll tell you another conflicting thing
that I cannot even believe to this day.
My sponsor, Marion, said to me early in my sobriety
after she took over the directorship of that,
that halfway house program,
which was not Alcoholics Anonymous,
but where AA was spoken,
she said to me,
women sponsor women in Alcoholics Anonymous,
and men sponsor men.
And my sponsor is Chuck C.
Well, I couldn't challenge her
because I was...
I was only a minute and a half sober.
And she was quite sober.
So it's, you know,
and I had a resentment right from the get-go.
You asked me to make sense out of all this.
Right from the get-go.
Be tough on yourself and gentle with others.
That was another one that I really hated.
So you didn't have a rule book for how to live life.
I mean, I kept looking for the right answer.
Okay, when this happens, what do you do?
Which is how I went through graduate school, by the way.
I was drunk.
And so I would go, I would pile.
Make piles.
And then I'd get ready to study,
and I'd realize that the piles weren't right.
So I'd repile.
And that's how I've been in sobriety, too.
All right?
So, anyway, I wrote everything down that she said.
I followed her.
I just...
She would oftentimes come in the room at night,
and she would...
Take the pen out of my hands, turn off my light.
Because I had fallen asleep while I was writing.
I still do that.
I was on the plane the other day going to Chicago.
My mother and my father are both 88.
And, you know, it's so cool to be there for them.
And my dad and I just have a great relationship.
He said to me the other day...
He's untreated.
He said...
He said the other day,
your brother and I had a very long talk,
and I've decided, even though it's not my responsibility,
I'm going to pay for your mother to live in assisted living.
And I said, have you checked it out with her yet?
She wasn't buying it one bit.
Anyway, it is such a privilege.
The night before I go anywhere,
I think this was true long before we got children,
but certainly since we've gotten children,
I usually do not go to sleep the night before I go somewhere big,
especially if I have to fly,
because then I have to sort,
and decide what I'm going to take.
If we take a car, I can take everything.
But if I have to fly, I have to kind of discern.
And so on the way to Chicago two months ago,
a month and a half ago,
I was a little tired.
I got on the first plane, and I fell sound asleep.
I got on the second plane,
and I fell sound asleep after I ordered my cup of coffee.
And all of a sudden, I felt something very hot.
And I realized that I had to go to work.
I had dumped my coffee over while I was sleeping.
And you know, you can't make a big deal on an airplane,
because you know what they think,
that you're going to try to cause trouble.
So I was very good about the whole thing.
And I still do that.
I still drop coffee.
I still fall asleep while I'm reading at night.
My favorite time is bedtime.
I love it, along with morning, because I get to read.
And after, if George wants to fool around,
then we've got to do that.
But after that, I get to read.
And it lasts all of about two minutes, you know.
I drive with him.
When he drives, he loves to drive.
I fall asleep at the wheel.
But I try to help him do my part, and I say,
this time, George, I am going to stay awake the whole time
and keep you company.
And before we're to Belt, Montana, I'm...
You know, and he just says, oh, he just gives up.
Then when we get to Duluth, we've driven straight through.
I get out of the car, and I say, oh, my God, I'm so tired.
You just don't get good rest in a car.
And he's falling over, you know.
He is really out for the count.
He's driven 22 miles straight.
And even though I know the answer, I say to him,
what's your problem?
Get it?
I always know what his problem is.
A woman said to me the other day,
oh, she was talking.
And I said to her, do you know what your husband's problem is?
And she just lit up.
Her eyes got that big.
And she said, what?
She was finally going to get the answer,
even though she had been telling me the answer for months.
She was finally going to get the answer from a source.
And so I said, the problem with him is that you don't have a life.
She trusts me unconditionally.
I wouldn't say it to you.
I would never say anything like that to you yet.
And what I meant was, you know, what did I mean?
I meant you don't have a program that's working for you right now
because you've gotten distracted and confused.
You're not living in the now moment.
For some reason, you've lied to yourself,
and you've told yourself this is not a spiritual journey.
You are not in God's lap.
You are not enveloped with his love.
And so that's your problem.
So I went home to George, who is always living on the edge.
And I said, do you know what I realized today again?
The problem with you
is you don't have a life.
I mean, I don't have a life.
The problem with you is I don't have a life.
And he said, with all of the graciousness of 29 years of sobriety,
are you asking me for a divorce?
I said, no, no, no, honey.
It isn't about you at all.
It's about me.
And that's what I keep having to learn,
that I keep lying to myself and telling myself,
even in sobriety, it's about you.
It's never about you.
I remember my sponsor.
I was sharing this this week,
and my sponsor said to me,
there are no such thing as personality conflicts.
It's all about spiritual lessons
that we're needing right now
so that our rough edges can get smoothed out.
She also said to me,
the audience, and I shared this last night,
the audience will pull forth from you
what you need to say.
What it is they need to hear.
And I try to remember that.
It still doesn't take away my nervousness totally,
but anyway.
So I'm walking around.
I'm writing these things down.
And then she said to me, somewhere along the line,
to all of us women,
one God, many faces,
one life common to all,
and?
As the wave is one with the ocean,
so am I one with God.
And I knew she was telling the truth.
I knew I had been lying to myself.
And I still start lying to myself
and still tell myself
that this is not about unity
and this is not about differences.
Until I read in the big book
or somebody reads it,
at the beginning of every meeting,
thank God,
there is one who has all power.
That one is God.
May you find him now.
In that period of time,
early in my sobriety,
we walked through the steps
as a group of women.
And so I understood in the beginning
that the first step basically
was an invitation for me
to accept myself unconditionally.
That it was not going to do
for me to accept myself
when I learned how to drink like a lady.
It would not do
for me to accept myself unconditionally
when I had figured out
how not to have saggy boobs
and a flat fanny.
Okay.
It would not do for me
to accept myself
as soon as I was situated in life.
Just as soon as I got around
that next corner,
whatever that next corner was.
That I must accept myself unconditionally
just as I am right now.
Unconditionally.
Without any reservations.
My last, you know,
my next to my last relapse.
You know why?
There were three elderly women
living together.
I believe they were sisters.
One of them was getting out of bed.
And her sister was watching her.
She was sitting on the edge.
And she said to herself,
was I getting into bed
or going out of bed?
And the first sister thought,
oh my God,
I hope I never get that bad.
All of a sudden she looked up
and she saw her other sister
coming down the stairwell
on the first landing.
And her sister was saying,
was I going upstairs or downstairs?
She said, oh, now I know.
They're just over the hill.
I hope I never get that bad.
And all of a sudden,
I can't remember the punchline,
but was that the front door
or the back door?
What's the punchline?
Oh, I know.
She said,
go back two seconds.
She said, I hope I never get that bad.
Was that the front door
or the back door?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Then my last relapse today,
which I know is just one drink away,
when I was getting really smart-alecky
early in my sobriety,
my sponsor turned around
and she looked at me and she said,
do you know you could drink again?
I mean, she was going to straighten me up
right now.
And I said to her,
with a moment of truth,
I said, you know what?
I know I could.
I don't believe I will.
I believe something is different this time.
And I know I could.
So today I tell you
that today I am alive,
and sober in Alcoholics Anonymous,
and I don't believe I'll drink today,
and I know I could.
Okay?
The last time I got drunk
was because of the second half
of the first step.
I'd come back from that particular institution
to Chicago,
and my man flew in from Baltimore.
This is interesting.
He, you know what, did me.
You know what I mean.
I mean, he screwed me.
And then he told,
this is the guy that told me,
if you will just get help for your alcoholism,
I will be there for you.
And I believed him.
And I also was lying to myself,
saying I couldn't live without him.
So he said, okay, so it's over.
And then I went to work.
My dad took me to work.
I was 28.
My dad drove me to work,
back to work.
And the people,
the juvenile detention home
where I worked in Chicago said,
we think,
it's better you not come back here.
Well, they hurt my feelings.
They told me if I would get help
for my alcoholism,
they would hold my job open for me.
And they said,
we think it's better that you not return.
Can we have our keys back?
And I died.
I died.
I couldn't believe it.
I was willing to go to any lengths
for my sobriety.
And what I found out later
was I had two reservations,
provided I get my man back
and my job back.
And it didn't happen.
Nine years later,
I realized that that man
who was living in Baltimore
screwed me
and then took off
and that he was the screwer
and I was a screwy.
I thought I had wrecked his life
with my alcoholism.
I thought I had wrecked our chances
with my alcoholism.
And so I blamed myself.
That was just the way it was.
So I got,
I got in trouble
with the second half of the first step.
And if you have any reservations,
don't worry about it.
That's what we're supposed to have,
our reservations.
What we're not supposed to do
is to keep it to ourself.
We're supposed to share it.
That's what we do.
When we have drunk dreams,
we're supposed to share it.
That's what I believe.
And I don't think for me anyway,
this is my opinion on myself,
that I have a drunk dream
because I'm not sincere
about my sobriety.
I think I get drunk
in my dreams
because I have reservations
that are coming to the surface
to be touched by the spirit
and healed.
I'm always in process
of being healed,
which reminds me,
this is out of sequence,
I just really want to say this
because I think it's
the most important thing
in the world.
The sixth and seventh step
says God is the change agent.
God is the healer.
So no matter how much
I identify my old patterns,
my character defects,
my whatever,
that get in the way,
no matter how much
I try to be careful
not to repeat old patterns
from the past,
I can't change me.
So what I've learned today,
29 years later,
in terms of my wake-up call,
is that I must enjoy right now.
And then I turn the results over
to God's handiwork.
That's another thing
that my sponsor said.
My job,
my job is to be willing
to go to any lengths
for my sobriety.
It's God's job
to take care of the results.
What does that mean?
It means if I say to myself today,
yes, I must have this thing
that you have.
If I say to myself today,
I am willing to give up
everyone and anything.
Do I think that God
is going to ask me
to walk away from joy?
No, if George was in the way
of my sobriety,
much like I've gotten
in the way of his,
I would walk away.
I would do anything
to be sober and clean today.
I know that unconditionally.
I've known that one day at a time.
And when I forget it,
you remind me
because I'm an active member
of Alcoholics Anonymous
and I go to meetings
on a regular basis.
I'm of service
on a regular basis.
All the time I'm of service.
You know, that's the other thing.
Marion said to me,
of him who has much,
much is expected.
And so I knew that
I had been graced
with the most beautiful gift
in the whole world
and I could never, ever, ever
give it away enough.
And so I've had to learn
to say sometimes,
not at this time.
That's only because
a couple of times
I've burned out in sobriety.
I just hit the wall.
I just hit the wall.
I just hit the wall.
I just hit the wall.
The first time, by the way,
was about nine years sober.
I realized that
I had really let myself
lie to myself
about how my life was over
when that happened to me
in losing that man
and that job.
And that indeed,
in many ways,
at many levels of truth,
my life had just begun.
So that's where I was
at nine years.
And I was free.
A new level of freedom.
And then I married George.
I was 37.
He was,
he says,
you tell everybody
how old I am.
I said, oh, I know.
It's just neat.
He was between 55 and 56.
You should see our pictures
from the wedding.
George had just been widowed.
He had married
his childhood sweetheart.
And they had birthed
and raised six kids.
And George was in
a terrible depression.
I didn't,
I couldn't call it
by its proper name.
I didn't know
what was wrong with him.
All I knew was
that I could fix it.
So in our wedding pictures,
I'm like this.
And he's like this.
You know,
anybody looking at
that wedding picture
would say that poor guy.
She really took advantage of him.
And what I walked into
in that year,
the first year of marriage,
obviously was a huge change.
And six kids that were
devastated that their mom had died.
Absolutely devastated.
And a man who didn't even know
if he wanted to live anymore.
And so when those kids
were lined up with baseball bats
ready to beat,
the minute I walked into his life
and their lives
and our marriage,
I took it personally.
I had tiny bad feelings.
And what I've discovered then
was that my easily hurt feelings
are one of my most
severe character defects.
Because I just do weird things with it.
I tell myself so many different lies.
How could they not love me?
Everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous loves me.
This is incredible.
And I just got down to their level
and fought back.
And I got punier and punier.
And punier in terms of my heart
and my mind and my spirit.
Anyway, what I want to say to you about that
is that nine years sober and clean,
I experienced another surrender.
I was surrendered again.
I went into a terrible depression
and dark night of the soul.
I became suicidal.
My first step was
I was willing to go to any lengths
for my sobriety,
for my life in sobriety.
Because I,
I intuitively knew
that a drink of alcohol
or a mood-altering drug
would no longer be an option.
But I wasn't sure
that I might not want to kill myself again
in sobriety.
So my commitment had to be
to life in sobriety
with my first three steps.
So I was thinking suicidally.
And what happened was
I was just reduced to sit down.
I was terrified of sitting down.
I was afraid if I ever sat down,
I would never get back up again.
I was forced to sit down.
And it was during that period
that my bulimia was lifted.
God will do for me
what I cannot do for myself.
I fulfilled the conditions.
I named it.
I sought outside help.
Da-da-da-da-da-da.
But I couldn't make it go away.
Why?
Because I couldn't make me go away.
Why?
Because I'm not the change agent God is.
My bulimia was lifted.
Powerful dark night of the soul.
Terrible dark.
And the most beautiful
sunlight of the spirit
came from that.
Time passed and
we decided we would become
an adoptive family.
And we adopted
no, of course not one.
Are you silly?
We adopted four children.
Four hard to place children.
Chippewa Cree, Spanish American, and Greek.
Hard to place children.
Hard to place because they were ages two, three, six, and seven and Nikki had cerebral palsy and didn't walk on her own.
And the social workers said this is probably the closest you're going to come to having a baby.
I'm sure I'm infertile because of my eating disorder, not because of my alcoholism and so I had to grieve all of that.
So here I am saying to George, promise me you're not going to do this just to please me.
Only do it if you want to do it.
And he said,
I want to, I want to.
I've been a dad all my life, Iris and I.
I've birthed and raised six kids.
I really want to do it.
Well,
I, um,
I must tell you it's been
a tremendous journey.
I've had this ego squeezed out of me
every day in ways
that you couldn't even imagine.
You remember the
Red McGinnis surrender?
I had the Tommy surrender.
T-O-M-I.
That's a girl, one of our daughters.
Or the kids surrender.
One night, they stole everything.
They stole
everything!
One night, I went downstairs
and my top was missing.
A beautiful top, southwestern
design, da-da-da-da-da-da.
And I said, that's it!
I've had it!
And with that I took off every stitch of
clothing, every piece of
jewelry. It was 10 o'clock at night.
The other three children were
in bed. Just Tommy and George were up.
And this was nothing new to them.
This kind of a scene.
And I proceeded
to empty the garb. I said, you can have
everything. You
can have everything.
Take it.
And I emptied the garbage outside
in my birthday suit.
And I just
walked around.
But you know what? And it was
the most powerful surrender.
Because I let
go absolutely again.
Time
passed. The kids have a
lot of unresolved grief, as you can
well imagine. Why are they adopted?
You know why they're adopted.
They're adopted because their biological family
is ill.
Wrecked with this disease.
And
they're
angry. Everybody
says in AA to them, oh
you are so lucky to have
Terry and George as your new mom
and dad.
I say, lucky? How can they be
lucky?
What would it be like not to be
raised by my own biological mom
and dad? I don't know.
Because that's been my life. My experience.
So
they've been a challenge
to say the least.
There's one redeeming feature. The children
would run away. We have an open adoption
so we have interaction with the birth family.
And they're related to
a lot of people in Great Falls, Montana
and the Rocky Boy
Reservation and
because
Native American people are nomadic.
I didn't understand. They're nomadic.
And so they move.
They move. That's just
biologically internal
and in
is part of
about the
So the other kids
all the time
the
just
look back
and
they don't
remember
who
and
want
to
have
any
money
to
be
you
you
I mean I could they were treating me as poorly as I had treated my father I could not believe it
and I went into a terrible depression I wasn't sure that I wanted to live
I became extremely compromised and during that dark night of the soul my nicotine addiction
was lifted that which I had been trying to do for myself
for years absolute years another dark night of the soul led to the sunlight of the spirit
and it was absolutely phenomenal so what I want to say today is that if you're in a dark night
of the soul you already know this if you've been in a dark night of the soul you definitely know
this that as you move through and out not overcome not get around not understand as we move through
the dark night
the soul in sobriety with the 12 steps, the help of
sponsorship, regular attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings,
we will come back out into the sunlight of the spirit
more intensified and glorified than we've ever
known before. Why? Because the big book says we claim
spiritual progress rather than
spiritual perfection. I said to
my physician at the time that my
smoking addiction was lifted, after he told me
you have an anxiety disorder and depression. Those are called
mental illnesses in some circles.
I said to him,
you mean, you mean to tell me I'm
alcoholic and drug addicted? I'm bulimic?
I've been addicted to nicotine?
Now you're telling me I have an anxiety disorder and depression.
And he looked at me like I was
crazy.
Actually, what he wrote, the diagnosis he wrote
in his chart was FAC. Flat-ass
crazy.
What he said to me was,
Mary, that's what makes you so special.
And I knew he was telling me the truth with a capital T.
I had been telling myself all these years, one day at a time,
that that's what made me sick. That's what's wrong with me.
That's why I'm bad. That's why I'm stupid. That's why I'm crazy.
That's why I'm not good enough. That's why I'm too much.
You know the routine. It goes on and on and on.
What you have taught me is that that which is, quote, wrong with me today
is that which is holy and sacred and designed to help me see
what is holy and sacred about who I am as a child of God.
You have helped me to see that different is good,
that there is a unity that is unspoken at times
and always felt when we're open to the Spirit.
You have taught me that a God of my understanding
will manifest itself one day at a time in exactly the way I need,
which has really taken George off the hook.
Because I thought God was supposed to manifest himself as George.
And one day finally, in order to not beat him up anymore,
I had to say to him, I don't know if you won't or can't meet my expectations
and hear my needs.
But what I realize, I've been doing you a disservice all along.
I have put expectations on you, and I want to set you free,
and I want to never have another expectation to the extent that I can do that as a human being from this day forward.
Great expectancy I will have, great expectancy that God will meet my needs each day,
and that when those needs are being met through George or through you or through someone,
someplace, something, some situation, some circumstance,
I will be able to have passion and bliss and know that it is right,
however God manifests in my life today.
Those are the things that you have thanked me for coming here to share.
I thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.