Mom Said Don’t Drink Alone or That’ll Make You an Alcoholic — So I Drank Socially 😂 – Pat F.

Hey everybody, I'm Kat, I'm an alcoholic. Let's have an AA meeting. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chips speaker meeting at the NAVA Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way that they establish their relationship with God. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what has happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on, aabluchipsspeakers.org, desperately in need, will hear our speaker, and we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, Yes. I'm one of them, too. I must have this thing. And Rusty is going to come up and introduce our speaker. Yes. Thank you, Kim. I'm Rusty Jones. I'm a very grateful alcoholic. Hey, Rusty. And I heard Pat speak at Clarkston several months ago, and it was exciting to hear somebody, particularly a female, who has been around a long time, a very solid, courageous young lady who's, well, first of all, I'm just saying to have a hell of a story, you've got to live a hell of a life. And Pat has done that. Pat, come tell us your story. My name is Pat, and I'm an alcoholic. Hey. I have notes because the older I get, the harder it is to remember stuff. So, first of all, thank you, Tim, for asking me to speak, and thank you, Rusty, for asking Tim to ask me to speak. And I'm going to start my talk the way I like to do it. I'm going to start with a story that I learned back in Toledo, Ohio, and I'm going to end it the same way. The person I heard my first couple of weeks had been sober since God was a boy, and his sponsor had been sober even further back than that. So, we were in Ohio, and I figure it may actually have some connection with the Founders. And he said it like this, don't drink, go to meetings, read the book, and pray. And he said it like this, don't drink, go to meetings, read the book, and pray. Don't drink, go to meetings, read the book, and pray. Right? Don't drink, go to meetings, read the book, and pray. So I was born in 1959 in Toledo, Ohio. My father was a graduate of Westpoint and he met my mother who was much younger than he and came from a poverty stricken family ... ... And they got married and had us and they moved up north. He left the area... he was a flight instructor for the Army Air Force and they moved up to Toledo and his father owned Corey now alcoholism goes back at least four generations in my family and that's just because I don't know what the fifth was like my first eight years of life were blissful I had lots of friends I did well in school I was very happy seem like the sun was always shining and my father started drinking heavily when I was about eight years old nine years old and he also began 20 plus year affair with a woman named Jackie and my parents stayed together but she was sort of always in the background and my mother became increasingly unhappy and so around fourth grade a year and my mother became increasingly unhappy and so around fourth grade and my mother became increasingly unhappy and so around fourth grade I started missing a lot of school I was very sick much of the time I was in and out of hospitals getting unnecessary testing and I won't say what I think but you can follow the dots so right around seventh or eighth grade I think I was about 13 years old I met a group of kids I mean I was so lonely I was that kid that you invited to the party and they said you know why'd you invite her you know I just get so excited to be around other children for a change I just spazz out and so I met a group of kids who would accept me and those were the wild kids and I think my parents were so happy that I just had friends that our house became this open door and we had no rules so I went from a tiny little cocoon of never-ending never be around people to just no rules I was staying out at fourteen years old staying up until 4 30 at night as long as my friend Sei dad who really was just x Vis ruling between Carol and the family but they all sort of thought of me as a sister and as long as I was with him actively anything I want I drank at home I spoke we smoked oh fucking garage and there's no way they couldn't have known this when I was 14 or 15 years old I stopped my best friend from being at the time from being gang raped it was like and we were home without parents and it wasn't that I had a party because my parents were out it was I had the party and my parents left because it was too loud so they left this group of drunk 14 year olds alone and things happened Bill Wilson tells us to talk about our first drunk and our last drunk my first drunk was when I was about 13 years old everybody I knew was starting to drink and I thought I'd better give it a try and so I didn't experiment at home because I wanted to make sure I didn't make a total fool out of myself I didn't make a total fool out of myself while drinking and I really needn't have bothered because yes yes I did but I took a can of Hawaiian punch and I took a fifth of vodka broke the seal nobody was going to give me a hard time about that and I proceeded to take the first drink and the first thing I remember is this warmth coming up my legs I remember a feeling of relaxation coming over me and I thought wow this is this is this is a really good drink and I thought wow this is this is a really good is wonderful this must be how other people feel my second thought was I don't want this feeling to ever stop so I continued to drink till I drank a half a fifth of vodka I maybe weighed 88 89 pounds at the time I had my first blackout during that drinking experience and for me blackouts I know some people have different types of blackouts there are other people over here on this side of the room ok other people have different types of blackouts but mine was like the light is on the light goes off the light goes on and I'm somewhere else doing something else you know as I got older it was getting on airplanes and going across the country and getting sort of semi sober on the way to see my friends but at any rate um my mother came in and I was talking on the phone to some man I called not a clue as to where I found him whether it was just random had I made other calls not a clue but he was trying to find out where I lived and could he come and get me and the minute he heard my mother's voice he hung up and no caller ID back then or anything like that um I don't know so my mother said to me oh Pat don't drink alone that'll make you an alcoholic don't drink alone ok so I started drinking very socially and by the time I was 17 every of my friends knew I had a problem with alcohol they were actually saying things to me like Y'know this really isn't your drug ……. maybe you should try cocaine things like that I mean I was just not fun to be around when I drank one of my favorite things to do would be to go into a bar with all these big guys and I don't know why I thought this was hilarious but I would find some big guy in the bar and if he I would talk to him and he said something I didn't like I would throw my drink in his face and he would go jumping towards me and all my big guy friends would come and beat him up and I just thought this was great fun when I was 16 or 17 I met a guy named Danny and he was a coke runner I met him in a bar in Fort Lauderdale I had this little blue card that I used it was my sister's card from when she'd stayed at the Medical College of the Ohio which is where we lived and it had her name and it had her birthday and I would go sit up at a bar and order a drink they'd ask for my ID and I'd show him this little blue card and they would say oh honey you know we need a driver's license or a picture ID and I'd look at them straight-faced and say I have epilepsy and I'm not allowed to have a driver's license so the Medical College of Ohio gave me this so I would have an ID and nine times out of ten it would work and the ten percent of the time they never confiscated it because they weren't really sure and you know who wants to take an ID away from a poor epileptic kid by the by I don't have epilepsy Sandy finally, I'm sorry, Danny finally left And I managed to scrape it together enough to graduate from high school And I managed to get into a pretty good school Better than I deserved It was a very small school up in Michigan And I just, you know, I did fine academically But socially, I mean, I was just constantly embarrassing my friends And humiliating myself And falling out of my chair at 8 a.m. in the morning In the middle of chemistry class And climbing back up onto my chair So I just left And I went to the local university Which was not, you know, a highly ranked university But it was probably better for my major And while I was there You know, every time I went to one of these places I thought, this is going to be different Like, when I went to the college You know, I had this hair that went all the way down my back And I dressed in hippie clothes Because I was a hippie wannabe And I got my hair cut short And I got the little Farrah Fawcett do Does anybody remember that? Yeah, and I bought a bunch of little sundresses And I joined a sorority And I thought everything was going to be okay And I took me with me And I took my drinking with me So I went to the local university And after I'd been there about a year, a year and a half My friend Sandy sat me down Sat down with me at her kitchen table And we'll mention Sandy a little later And she said, do you know what you did last night? Nope Do you remember what you said last night? Nope She said, I really love you, Pat She had a quiver in her voice I mean, people have been telling me for years to stop drinking But there was something about the way she said it Because I could tell she wanted to be anywhere but where she was Right at that moment And she said, you're going downhill fast And I'm not going to let you take me with you Wow So I stopped drinking that day It never occurred to me to go to Alcoholics Anonymous To me, Alcoholics Anonymous was just a No women, in my mind And guys with, you know, they're You know, they have a rope to close their coats And that's about it, you know So I call that a partial sobriety Because I didn't work any steps or do anything like that And I used cocaine during that An outside issue during that point in time And I used cocaine during that point in time And I used cocaine during that point in time And I thought I was having a heart attack one night And so I took a shot of whiskey To lower my heart rate Because I really didn't feel like going to the hospital And explaining why I was maybe having a heart attack But other than that, for about 18 months to two years I didn't drink And then I let somebody needle me I let somebody push me into it I let them bully me into it And I was ready You know, I was sitting next to a girl I'd gone to high school with her Everybody knew she was an alcoholic Everybody knew her mother was a notorious alcoholic And she starts saying things like What, you can't just have one? What are you, weak? You know, and I thought, well You know, I used to be really neurotic And I'm not neurotic anymore So maybe I do have a heart attack I drank the way I drank Because I was neurotic And now that I'm no longer neurotic You all know, right? Okay, so as I'm taking my first step I think to myself Well, you know, if it turns out that I am an alcoholic I'm going to, you know, I'm going to have this Gradual decline And I'll be able to have a little bit of fun And I'll know what the red flags are And I'll just, you know, immediately be able to stop drinking No It was like falling off of a cliff And within six months I was in really, really big trouble I had managed while I had that partial sobriety To get into a graduate program In counseling And it was not working out for me So I'm going to fast forward To my first step To my first step To my first step To my first step To February 17th, 1983 And I'm sitting on my kitchen floor And I'm crying And I decided I needed to die And so I'd gone and I'd taken all the pills From around the house And I couldn't find any of the good ones They were all gone So I started thinking Well, you know, all I'm going to get is You know, some sort of brain disorder Important to hear this, okay? My second worst fear Is being brain damaged And having someone have to take care of me Okay? My first biggest fear Is public humiliation And I still I still wrestle with that today So my higher power knows this about me And my higher power Has a really good sense of humor So I went to the medicine cabinet And I thought, well You know, I'll get in the bathtub I'll slice I know where to slice on my leg And whoever finds me Won't have much clean up to do And all I could find was a flicker Is there anybody here Old enough to remember flickers? There are these big giant safety razors In a plastic encasing And they also had wires That went over the razor blade So I'm sitting on the floor And I'm trying to pry it open And I managed to pry a couple of the little The little wires On the razor blade And I managed to pry a couple of the little wires on the razor blade And I finally I just I threw it down on the floor And I looked up and I said If I'm not going To die What the hell am I supposed to do? That's only one of two swears You're going to hear in this But that's what I said So this little voice In the back of my head says Call Suicide Hotline Okay Sounds good, I'm suicidal Sounds like a good idea Okay, now give this some thought That you wouldn't give thought to When you're completely drunk Guess who works At places like Suicide Hotline? Counselors in training Like people of my graduate program So I called And I talked to a very nice woman And at the Toward the end of our call She said, you know, you should really talk to Dr. So-and-so He's a great guy And I said, well, I'm suicidal And I, you know, all of a sudden The wheels start turning And I said, how do you know him? And then it was her turn to pause And she said I'm one of your classmates She introduced herself And I just, here's the second swear I looked into the phone And I said, oh, shit And I hung up Oh my God So now by Monday My whole department Graduate programs are really good They're really small My whole department's going to know And my department head is going to know And they're going to start looking at me And they're going to start wondering Why they let me into this graduate program So I called a friend of the family Who was a psychologist I'd just grown up with him And I asked him what to do A typical psychologist He told me to do what I thought was best And I thanked him And oh, thank you And so I called my friend Mary And I asked her To take me to a treatment center Now Mary was living with her parents at the time Going to the same graduate school And her father was my pediatrician So I thought, well, he knows How to keep confidentiality What I really wasn't thinking about Was that Mary's mother Was the worst gossip In our little town So I hang up And I realize what I've done She comes over She doesn't take me to treatment She takes me to a donut shop Where she proceeds to order donut After donut After donut She gets to the fifth one Now she's allowed me Anybody I mention in the program Has allowed me I've already cleared it with them But she was also a candidate And she's now in the program Where she lives But she was waiting for me To get sober enough To realize that I wasn't really an alcoholic Now think about that She thought I was engaging In some sort of hyperbole And you know, just So I finally told her If you don't take me to treatment I'm calling a cab So she took me Okay, this gets better Okay, so now The head of my department knows All the students know Mrs. Roberts knows So I got there At like four in the morning So they let me sleep in And they finally woke me up And they said We need you to see the doctor It gets worse We need you to see the doctor And he needs to go home And I walked in And there stood Dr. Mahoney Who lived across the street From my parents Who's Daughter was my little sister's best friend Yeah, in the city of, you know However big Toledo is You're bound, boom To run into one or two people, right? So They sent me to This day room And they gave me this waffle And I hadn't eaten in three days Because I decided that alcohol Had a lot of calories So I sort of gave up food And so I'm sitting there And I'm trying to eat this waffle I'm 23 years old I'm sitting there I'm trying to eat this waffle And every time the waffle Gets up to my lips It falls down And what I really want to do Is grab that thing And just chow down on it, right? But no A woman bustles in Probably about my age now But I thought of her As an older woman And she comes in And she hands me this little card That says just for today And I'm like, oh my gosh And with her name And phone number on it And she says, hi, I was You know, I'm Shirley I was just in the nurse's station And I saw your chart And recognized the name I went to high school with your dad So, it gets worse So I'm sitting there Trying to eat this waffle And she won't leave She finally leaves And I picked it up And I just wolfed it down And I'm like, oh my gosh Excuse me And sat there looking out the window And in comes a gaggle Of nursing students Adorable You know, rosy-cheeked young women And here I am Sitting there with yellow skin Shaking my hair You know, I haven't had a shower in days And one of them breaks loose From the pack And comes over and says You don't remember me, do you? Do you remember me? And I'm thinking Oh God, please don't play this game with me now You know And she goes I'm Robin I'm Jack's sister And she starts talking to me About I'd been in the paper Like The month before She started telling You know, talking about How they'd seen this article about me And blah, blah, blah And meanwhile I'm thinking fraud Fraud Fraud In red over my head And finally she goes away And you know, I'm all sticky From that syrup and everything too It was just a nightmare And then another girl Breaks away And she comes up And I knew her right away Her brother was the president Of my high school class And she hated me in high school Hated me She hated me in high school She came over and talked to me And she said Well, I'll tell Tom I saw you Please don't do that She's like Oh, yeah, yeah So I finally Somebody saved me They said my counselor needed to see me And my counselor said I had two choices I could leave treatment And stay in graduate school Or I could stay there And drop out of graduate school And I said I don't know if you know this or not But for somebody like me It was really hard to get in So I said to my counselor Who'd been sober for many, many years 22 years or something impossible like that And I said Well, you got sober without going through treatment Now I'm not recommending anybody leave treatment But I said You got sober without it Tell me what you did I'll do that And if it doesn't work out I'll come back And she looked at me for a few minutes And she said Okay And so she said You have to go to an AA meeting I said okay You have to go tonight Okay You have to go to a closed meeting All our closed meetings were discussion meetings I don't know if it's the same way in Georgia But she says And at that meeting You have to raise your hand Identify yourself as an alcoholic And at that meeting Ask for help And so that's what I did I don't remember anything else about that meeting I remember One of the girls Saying stay out of wet places I probably shouldn't even tell you this But I swear to God I thought she was talking about sex It was like a week or two Before I figured out what she was talking about Um Oh God! Oh God! So after a time of going to meetings and so forth Um Somebody turned to me in a meeting Cause they are not as big about cross talk Up there as they are here And they looked at me and said You need a sponsor Okay So I called Shirley She was the only person I knew really well Or well enough And she was delighted to be my sponsor Cause we you know We had you know we knew some friends and friends And you know we had some friends and friends and friends and friends and friends and friends folks in common and we knew a lot of the same Catholic people that kind of thing she wasn't real big on the steps she sort of rushed me through them it's just kind of like oh you don't need to feel bad about that you know you're being too hard on yourself so I didn't really do a lot of step work with her but she was all about service work for example if I came into this room tonight and all of y'all were sitting here she would make me go around and shake every person's hand every single person in the room would get their hands shaken and I would introduce myself she had me washing ashtrays back when we smoked in meetings putting up chairs and then at two years of sobriety she had me become a general service representative and she had me speak before two hundred people at a general service convention and I had no idea what I was in for I was so scared I was like practically on my knees just begging this guy tears in my eyes please don't make me go out there I'm going to vomit it's going to be awful and he looks at me and he knew I was a counselor by that time and he goes hey Pat you know how in counseling people talk about you know what I'm talking about you know what I mean and then he goes oh I've been here long enough to talk about things for a really long time and then they go do them like yeah you know I thought maybe you know I convinced him he said well in AA we do it first and then we talk about it later get out there so I went out there and you know it was okay I still hate public speaking hate it with a passion well we'll talk about that later because thirty three percent of the AA membership was women when I came in and we're way up to like what the last census 34 35 percent every woman in this room with over 90 days knows what it's like to walk into a meeting and wonder if you've accidentally walked into a men's meeting yeah so that's why I speak so after two years I moved down to Florida I had a sponsor named Dawn she was all about the steps she got me working them I also married somebody in the program it was not a good marriage um and uh so I thought maybe I better go get a PhD and become a psychologist so that's what I did and I dragged him across the country and then we broke up um it was not a good marriage I mean you know I could have you know like opened a phone book and pointed and we could have both done that and been both of us better off but uh you know we were we were sort of like the king and queen of AA and so we were used to being you know big stuff you know and we got out to Fresno California and nobody cared who we were you know and fortunately for me I met Barb and Barb was uh she was sort of in the center of the the in crowd I don't know how else to put it so it was fairly easy for me to make the transition but it really wasn't easy for him and he was lonely and he was unhappy and I said you know go back to Florida um one of the nice things about Florida was that there were a lot of young women there because there was a halfway house there and women would come from all over the South and they would come from all over the South and they would come from all over the Southeast in uh Toledo Ohio those first two years I met maybe two people in their 30s that I hung out with and everybody else was just it was me and the little old ladies there just weren't people in their 20s there were teenagers who were like 16 and forced in and then there were people 40 and over okay so moving on so I dragged him across the country he went back home and I um met and married someone who was not in the program and we were married for 20 years and at that time um my daughters are actually my sixth and seventh pregnancies and so I spent a lot of time doing bed rest uh in order to get my daughters and some other things and uh ended up with two of the most wonderful people I've ever met it's the they're the best thing I've ever done but about that time and when they were little toddlers I started doing something I called drifting because when I was doing bed rest I got used to doing meetings online and talking to people on the phone and I thought well you know I have little ones we didn't believe in babysitters for various reasons um so I really sort of stopped going to real meetings I did a lot of online stuff and a lot of phoning and um so then I decided to uh drag him across the united states because I wanted to be near my parents and uh at any rate uh the marriage was very good until it wasn't and I left for a very good reason and I don't share that publicly because other people were involved um but you know makes me sad the marriage ended but I never regret making the decision that I made so now the next time I see one of you guys bird-dogging one of my pigeons I want you to remember this story okay I fell head over heels madly in love with an artist named Caleb I have Caleb's permission to tell you where his story intersects with mine he was about 13 years sober and he noticed that I was doing that drifting thing where I go to a meeting here I go to a meeting there but I'd never really let you get to know me and one night he took me by the hand and he said honey you need to go to a spoon you mean I need to go today you're the one who doesn't go to meetings and he didn't he stop going to meetings so he did what all men of good character do when they see a woman in AA in trouble and that's he took me to a group where he knew a group of ladies who had good sobriety he took me by the hand and led me over to the sober women and those women took me in and they nurtured me and I started to feel a little less crazy everybody told me you know you were married for 20 years you just you know you're just now you know divorce this is a rebound this is rebound I know no no no no sort of like that first drink I don't want this to ever stop I don't ever want to stop feeling this way again but after being with these women and really sort of getting back on my feet emotionally from the divorce I realized that it was a rebound you I still talk to him about a month after I left him he went back out and about a month after that he made two suicide attempts and he was a very well-known artist in his area he's now in a nursing home and he doesn't have the use of his hands and he uses a wheelchair most of the time we have a friend who comes by every Thursday night and if he's up to it he takes a break and then he goes to the room and takes his mask off and off for a while and he is left alone from his wife and everybody takes him to the meeting the last time I talked to him I think he has some memory issues because I said I'm really sorry I didn't bring you that tofu from our favorite Thai restaurant and he said what are you talking about nice like him to visit you he didn't even remember it so this has a point by the way this isn't going nowhere so I have to ask myself why was he there was something wrong last time he did have problems with his се Datejrij and the word y may minister think of me Zeit that makes wide time different way that if Why was he able to help me But not himself Why is it for seven years I got to be the library lady Every Tuesday morning At Camp Creek Elementary School I got to do that Somebody trusted me to do that I got to go on Girl Scout trips And help lead my girls I got to do that I got to be a present parent I got to be a psychologist I got to live the life I decided to live It hasn't been all smooth sailing After the divorce Well actually it was during the divorce I was fighting for custody And I lost my home and went bankrupt So it hasn't all been smooth sailing But I've always had this program To fall back on So my question is Why is it that Caleb could save me But he couldn't save himself You remember Sandy Who sat me down at the table She died in a nursing home Of cirrhosis of the liver Leaving three boys Her husband died in a rehab Of a heart attack She was a teacher He was a lawyer I mean this disease Hits everybody But she was able to save me By being so direct And so forward My friend Marsha ate a gun I called her brother in Alaska Tracked him down And I said Scotty is it true And he said yeah About two weeks ago She called me And she said she wanted to die Because she couldn't stop drinking You remember Jack's sister Robin Jack also died from this disease He killed himself Because he lost everything And he couldn't get And stay sober My friend Sue is dead My friend Lori is dead My friend Ann is dead With the exception of two people Virtually every woman I knew When I was partying Is dead now Most of them by the time we were 50 So why do I get to be here today Why do I get to be here today Why do I get that seat right there It has nothing to do with me Higher power That's the only conclusion Because I did everything wrong I didn't do things perfectly in AA But there were these angels that came along And I let them help me Higher power You know I have a habit even in sobriety Of doing what I call walking under pianos You know I have a habit even in sobriety of doing what I call walking under pianos You know it's like a cartoon that got the piano And I'm walking around going oh everything's fine You know Hey look up Higher power So don't drink Go to meetings Read the book And pray Thank you