Never Had a Head-On Collision in My Life — I Always Hit Them in the Rear 🤦 – Kay S.

Boy, doesn't it feel good to be sober.
My name is Kay Stewart and I'm an alcoholic.
And I want to tell you that this is a real privilege for me to be invited to be in the
great state of Texas to help you to celebrate your 40th anniversary.
You know, any time I'm invited to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, I think it is really
an honor.
But to be invited to something as special as this, it is icing on the cake.
Of course, what would you do without icing if you didn't have a cake?
But it is really wonderful.
It makes me feel really important.
And I like to feel important.
For so long, I just felt like a zero.
And I really feel good about being here.
And I want to thank you.
I want to thank everyone that had anything to do with me being here.
I want to thank Jean, Guy Marie, Janice, and I particularly want to thank Craig.
Thank you.
Now, Craig identified himself this morning as my brother.
That is not true.
Craig and I are having an affair.
Because of our age difference, it bothers him.
But I tell him it's like wine.
It gets better with age.
So, I am really happy to be here.
Everything has been wonderful.
You know, where else could a drunk go and have a beautiful room, fruit in the room,
candy even, flowers?
Gosh, that makes me really feel like somebody.
Now, I don't know about you, but that feels good.
And I would like to start my meeting.
I'm going to be a little late.
I'm going to be a little late.
I'm going to be a little late.
I'm going to be a little late.
I'm going to be a little late.
I'm going to be a little late.
I'm going to be a little late.
I'm going to be a little late.
That takes me a little late.
But anyway.
Go over, go over to Nhon's place, my sayings and rest.
freezing with a little prayer and it goes something like this I thank You God for all
you have given me I thank you for all you have taken away but most of all I thank you
for all you have left me and that is just the way I feel I am so grateful to the God
I thank you for all you have taken away and to understand for all the wonderful things
God, for all the wonderful things He has given for me from his day in.
And now Iwe merr and we will be back briefly but again, even the reading is better for
him.
me last september uh the 24th i was sober uninterrupted 19 years am i grateful enough
thank you i appreciate that because when i came here there was no way no way that i could go
more than two and a half or three hours without having to have a drink so it's been a long time
between drinks thanks be to god and the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous i would like to direct
some remarks this afternoon to our a new girl to tell her that there is a way out a way that
she can live one day at a time and
be reasonably happy as you hear my story you may say i didn't do the things that she did
i don't belong in the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous well i would beg you don't be hasty
in that decision because the things that happen to me doesn't have to happen to you
i am one of these people that had to go all the way down that road to hell
all the way down
my friends but thanks be to god one day at a time one step at a time and a lot of tender loving care
for you i have been able to walk back and to hold my head high fact is i hold my head so high i
walked in a lady's restroom they have a sign about this size about that tall yellow bright yellow
it says caution on it i kicked that thing clear across the room
didn't even see it but you see today i don't have to go with my head down i don't have to look down
i can look up and i can look you in the eye and know what i am and know where i came from
and know where i can go back anytime i so choose to have that drink every day i have a choice and
thanks be to god i have made the right choice and i have made the right choice and i have made the right choice
one for me i know a lot of people say they don't like to hear a drunk-a-log they say you know how
to drink or you wouldn't be here and then as soon as they tell you that you better sit back and
figure on they're going to talk for two hours about drinking because that's the way we do that
stuff but i'm going to tell you something about my drinking because if you didn't know how i have
suffered there would be no way that you would know how much alcoholics and non-drinkers would know
what this alcoholics and anonymous means to me i came uh i'm not originally from akron however i
live in akron a birthplace of alcoholics anonymous where these two great men dr bob
and bill they came together 50 years ago the 10th of june they came together
and they formed this program what we believe is under the divine guidance
of god and they were alcoholics and dr bob and bill and they were alcoholics and dr bob and bill
and they made a life that we, too, can live without drinking.
But I am not originally from Akron, Ohio.
Maybe you've detected that already.
I'm really from wild, wonderful West Virginia.
And I was raised with good folks.
They were poor people, but they were good people, and they were hardworking people.
But they believed and they practiced, do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
My parents had a lot of good values, and they tried to pass it on.
My parents' goal in life was to raise good kids.
They just wanted to have a nice, decent family.
There were four brothers in my family, four boys.
One of them happens to be here today.
Ken is a member.
We're of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Ken Butler.
Let them look at you.
See how it runs in the family.
But they wanted my brothers to grow up to be gentlemen,
and then they wanted we four girls to grow up to be ladies.
Well, along came Kay.
Now, I'm telling you that I blew their program sky high from the very beginning
because it just seemed...
It just seemed that I was never able to do what my parents considered a lady would do.
My parents were not drinking people.
They were not opposed to drinking, but they were not drinkers.
But I found that old White Lightning when I was about 14 or 15 years old,
and, man, I loved it.
For you young people that don't know what White Lightning is,
it's that stuff that they make back in those mountains,
and, man, it's good.
I like the taste of it.
And I like the smell of it.
And I like what it done for me.
And I got right on with it.
Well, now, of course, at that time, drinking was no problem to me.
It was drink or not to drink.
My husband always says he thought he was marrying a Southern belle,
and he wound up with a ding-a-ling.
But that's my husband's problem.
My husband has a lot of problems.
I wish I had time to go into them, but I don't.
Now, but I will touch on a thing or two, I'll tell you that,
because he took a nice little hillbilly girl and almost ruined me.
And because most of the things that happened to me, it wasn't my fault.
It was always someone else that got me into trouble.
But anyway, we lived back in this country,
and it was 13 miles to the nearest country, or to the nearest town,
so I don't need to tell you.
I'm country.
I was country when country wasn't cool.
And so at the ripe old age of 17, I came to the big city of Akron.
Now, I'm going to tell you that I had arrived,
because they had streetlights, and they had tall buildings,
and they had people running every which way,
and they had beer joints and nightclubs on every corner.
And wanting to be a part of,
instead of a part from, I got right in with the drinking crowd of people.
And I started going around to all these wonderful places,
all these beer joints and these nightclubs.
And I loved them.
I loved the music.
I liked the good-looking boys.
I liked the dancing.
Everything about it I liked.
But I found out right away that I was going to have to change,
because I found out in Akron they didn't drink out of a quart jar
like we did.
They didn't drink out of a quart jar like we did down home.
So I was going to have to start drinking the mixed drinks
and all of this kind of stuff.
But being a fast learner that I am, it didn't take me too long.
And it also didn't take me too long to learn.
All I had to do was make a few trips to the ladies' lounge,
tell them the bartender set me up one.
He would.
I'd drink it and go back to the table and try to drink
like a lady.
Now, my friends, I never found out how a lady drinks.
But I tried real hard and for a long time.
But Akron was wonderful.
They had cars.
You know, down home, if you'd see four cars in a row,
you'd say it must have been a big funeral.
And it was just really great.
And things was really hopping.
And I just got right in with it.
I loved everything about that big place.
And...
So, I got married.
I have two children.
I have a son and a daughter.
But after 13 years of marriage, I was divorced.
Now, drinking had nothing to do with this divorce.
It was just something that happened.
But I do like to believe that I gave my children some basis
for good living because they really are two nice people.
Beautiful, beautiful people.
But after this divorce, I changed jobs.
I'm a hairdresser and I changed jobs.
And I moved in with my parents.
And my mother took over the care of the children.
And I worked long hours.
I worked hard.
It was necessary that I did.
But after work, I could just go out and do my thing.
Now, you know what my thing was.
It was drinking, dancing, let's live it up.
Now, you know, I never was a girl that wanted to break up a party.
No, not me.
I'd say, let's go to my house.
Let's go to your house.
Let's find an after-hours joint.
But let's keep it moving.
Let's keep it moving.
So I started going around again to all these great places.
And I run into this old boy.
Now, I'm going to tell you, he was just my kind of people.
He was a good drinker.
He wasn't a fighting drunk.
I never liked fighting drunks.
He was a good drinker.
And he knew how to hold his liquor.
And we just got along good.
He was a lover.
And we'd just drink and love and love and drink.
And he said that I got him drunk and got him married.
And I really don't know what happened.
But then is when I married the old boy.
And then was when my problems really started.
And that's a fact.
That is a fact.
Now, I will take just a minute to tell you what a good wife I was.
He didn't drive.
He didn't drive.
But I used to take him to any place he wanted to go.
Now, it didn't make any difference what beer joint it was.
If he wanted to go, I'd take him.
If he couldn't think of a place, I would.
And we started having problems.
Maybe these things didn't happen to you, but they happened to me.
And we started losing our car.
But it wasn't my fault.
And I figured I'd take him any place he wants to go.
The least he could do was watch where we parked the car.
But he never did.
He always got some drunk to drive us home.
Then I'd have to get up the next day and call my friends to go to help me find the car.
Now, you know, that's all right when it happens once or twice.
But I'll tell you something.
It's not a way to win friends and influence people.
People started looking at me funny.
They'd think I drank too much.
And things was to get a little more serious.
This being a progressive illness, see.
And it started progressing very quickly.
But now I started hitting other people's cars.
But it wasn't my fault.
I've had so many accidents.
I just couldn't tell you because I don't remember.
A lot of things I don't remember.
But I never had a head-on collision in my life.
I always hit them in the rear.
But, you know, I used to say to him,
KC, did you see what that guy was going to do?
I didn't know if he was going to turn left, if he was going to turn right,
or if he was going to stop.
And I just hit him.
And KC didn't see it, and I didn't see it.
And we figured both of us couldn't be wrong.
I tried to tell that to the insurance company,
but they didn't believe it either.
So I was canceled with a couple of different companies.
My mother, it was about this time my mother started nagging me.
She decided I drank too much.
I said, Mama, stay off my back.
I can quit drinking any time I want to.
I don't hurt anybody but myself.
And, you know, to, excuse me, to tell an alcoholic not to drink
is like telling someone with TB.
Now, don't cough.
It's a bad habit.
It's a bad habit.
Now, you know, no sooner was I married to this KC
than the first thing he done in the morning was drink.
He drank in the morning.
Now, I didn't understand that.
But along about Monday morning, we'd have a pretty wild weekend.
Along about Monday morning, I wouldn't be feeling too good.
And he wanted me to have a drink.
He said, make the butterflies go away.
But I didn't want to do that.
But he insisted.
He asked me two or three times.
And I took that drink, and it done exactly what he said it would do.
The butterflies went away.
And then he went away.
And then I went away.
I just kept right on drinking.
There were few days from then on that I didn't drink something.
Now, I don't mean to imply to you
that I went down drunk every day,
but I drank something every day.
I believe, for me, the earliest indication that I had that alcohol
maybe was causing a little problem in my life
was when I lost pride in my personal appearance.
Now, I hear you guys tell me what a rough time you had shaving.
Man, you don't know nothing.
You try to get up, be real sick in the morning,
and you need a drink.
And you try to get your face on.
Try to get your eyes on.
Man, you got to have a real steady hand to get these on.
And I didn't have it anymore.
And I couldn't get my face on.
Or you try to go to a hairdresser
and sit under a hot, real hot hair dryer for an hour if you're sick.
Baby, there's no way.
I'd tell that girl,
get damn things out of my hair because I'm a getting.
And I got.
I just kept right on drinking.
It was about this time that people started saying to me,
they said, Kay, you're looking bad.
They said, you look sick.
I said, I am?
I said, I got the virus.
I said, I got sinus trouble.
That accounted for the bags I had under my eyes.
And then when all else had failed, I said,
I'm going through a change of life.
I'd been going through change of life ten years
before I ever heard tell of Alcoholics Anonymous.
You've got to tell them something.
You've got to tell them something.
Society demands the alcoholic woman tell them something.
I couldn't say, oh, I just been laying over the house drunk for about a week.
You see, you see, it was about this time in my life
that I had started trying to control my drinking.
I didn't know that's what I was doing.
But, you know, I knew it didn't make any difference
how much booze we had at the house we were going to drink it.
So we decided we'd just drink it to bars.
Now, if we wouldn't drink any place else, then we'd be all right.
Well, now, I don't know, but it didn't work for me.
It didn't work for me.
I just drank it faster, got drunk quicker,
wake up in the middle of the night sick.
Oh, my God, so sick, sick, sick.
Needing a drink, needing a drink, so desperately,
scrounging around sometimes and finding a drink.
But more times than not, there wouldn't be anything.
And I remember walking those floors.
I remember that sickness
and wanting morning to come,
hating for morning to come
because it was going to be the same old thing.
And, oh, those fears, those fears,
those unknown fears that only the alcoholic knows.
Just terrible, terrible fears.
I remember, too, my friends,
a time came in my life
when I could no longer cope with life as it really was.
I tried the suicide business.
As you can see, it didn't work.
I messed up in that one, too.
But, you know, it's a terrible time in a person's life
when it comes that you no longer want to live.
But that happened to me.
There were so many, many things that happened to me.
I'm going to tell you about one,
just one little incident that happened to me.
It's one among many.
It was a real hot day,
and I was going to have all my friends in.
Now, my friends were drinking friends.
I didn't fool with people if they didn't drink.
I didn't like people who didn't drink.
That's the reason I like Alcoholics Anonymous so much,
because you are the very same people I would have liked out there.
I'd have said,
come on up and let's drink and talk a little bit.
I like drinkers.
So this was one of those days
that I was going to have the people in,
and I was having a little nip or two.
You see, everything I do,
I'd have to have a little nip or two in order to do it.
And so I checked the liquor cabinet,
and I decided,
now all these people come and drink,
and I'd better run to the liquor store
and get a couple more bottles.
Now, since it was a hot day,
I had on a bikini outfit.
Now, that's just a little bit down here
and a little less up here.
Now, I don't know about Austin,
but I'm going to tell you in Akron,
you don't run around in a bikini outfit, generally.
At least I didn't, generally.
But this day, I took off for the liquor store in my bikinis.
But on the way up there was my favorite little bar.
Now, this is where my friends went.
And I decided I'd better go in,
see who was there and what they was doing,
make sure the girl was sterilizing the glasses
and all that kind of stuff,
putting all the money in a till,
strictly minding other people's business.
And I had a few.
It was probably quite a few.
But I did go on to the liquor store.
But the next thing I knew,
I woke up and I looked around.
Now, my friends,
I've been in a lot of places in my time,
but I'd never been here before.
But it didn't take me too long to find out
that the little lady was in jail in my bikinis.
Oh, my God.
Was I humiliated.
How will I get out of this one?
I mean, this is serious business.
So I called Casey and I told him where I was.
Now, Casey tried to protect me,
but, you know,
he protected a drunk like me.
But since he didn't drive,
he got someone to come over to jail to pick me up.
And I said that day,
this will never happen to me again.
A little bit of bad luck.
It can happen to anybody.
If you drink too much and if you drive,
but it's never going to happen to me anymore.
Now, I didn't intend to quit drinking
or I didn't intend to quit driving,
but I was going to do it different the next time.
You know,
the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about this.
It's about people like me.
And so,
but I really meant that
just as I had meant so many promises.
But, you know,
my friends,
it was only about three weeks later
and it seems that I was over in Barberton,
a little village of Barberton,
and I decided to go to sleep there
in one of their main intersections.
And I woke up
and I looked around
and, baby, I knew where I was
because I'd been there before.
I'm in jail again.
Well, I called Casey and told him where I was
and our son had just got his driver's license.
He was just 16 years old.
He had just got his driver's license.
And, my friends,
this is something that I don't ever, ever want to forget.
I'm not proud of it,
but this is the way it was.
I don't ever want to forget
that my son walked in that jail
and I walked out of that cell
and I saw him
and I wanted to go up that day
and I wanted to put my arms around my son
and I wanted to say to him,
son, I love you
and I don't want to hurt you,
but I can't stop drinking.
I just can't stop drinking.
I knew I could not stop drinking.
I don't remember what my son said to me,
but I remember saying to him,
come on, come on, let's go.
I need a drink.
I need a drink.
And I went out and I continued to drink.
I have been arrested four times for DWI.
You think it can't happen to you.
My friends, I didn't wake up one day
and say my goal in life is to become an alcoholic.
My goal in life is to hurt everybody
and everything that's near and dear to me.
I didn't want to do that.
I just wanted to be a nice girl.
That's all I ever wanted.
But that's the way it was
because I was suffering from the disease of alcoholism,
one that always gets worse.
It never gets better.
It was after a while,
one day my husband and I was up
and we was trying to get better
and my drinks wouldn't stay.
This in itself was no big deal.
I had trouble every day of my life.
Keeping a drink down.
Now we talk about resentments
in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I had a resentment before I ever got here
and that happened to be one of those days
because every drink KC took was staying down.
Every drink I took was coming up.
I tried everything that we all know,
a little creme de menthe, a little pepper,
all these things, but nothing would work.
It was the blackest day in my life
and I didn't know what to do about it.
Didn't know what to do about it.
We left there. I came home.
My mother was there.
My mother could always be at my house
when I didn't want her,
when I've got to think up some lie and tell her.
But this day I was too sick to lie.
I said, Mama, I'm sick.
I'm so, God, awful sick.
And my mother said to me,
if you are so sick,
why don't you go to the hospital?
My mama didn't mean an alcoholic war
because she had never heard tell of such place.
But I had.
I heard that there was St. Thomas Hospital
and you could go there and get the cure.
You see, I didn't know that once an alcoholic,
always an alcoholic,
that there is no cure for our illness.
It can only be arrested
so long as we don't take that drink.
But I didn't know that.
And I went in and my husband,
oh, he was drunk.
He was snorkeled right out of his mind.
And I looked at him and I said,
Casey, will you give me the money
to go to St. Thomas and get the cure?
And he turns around
and shook his finger at me.
He was cross-eyed as he could be.
And he said, I'll cure you myself
if you'll listen to me.
Now, the only thing
that ever kept me out of a mental hospital,
he was too drunk to have me committed.
But I wasn't that crazy.
And now, friends, something happened then.
I went in and I know today what happened.
I had never, to my knowledge,
heard of Alcoholics Anonymous.
But I went in to call St. Thomas Hospital
and I called Alcoholics Anonymous.
I said to the man,
I'm sick from drinking.
Can you help me?
He said, sure, sure, we can help you.
He said, I'll send a couple women right out.
Well, I'm going to tell you something.
That's the last thing I wanted out to my house,
snooping around,
was a couple women.
They're going to tell everybody
I drank too much.
And I didn't want people to know
I drank too much.
So I vetoed that one right away.
But I'm so grateful for this man
because he said to me,
he said, I will call you right back.
He got my phone number and just in a few minutes
he called me back and he told me
that I could be admitted to St. Thomas Hospital.
Now, this was something that impressed me then,
but it impresses me more the longer that I'm sober.
This man did not ask me what side of the street I lived on.
He didn't ask me if I was rich or poor.
He didn't ask my political belief.
He didn't ask my religion.
And he didn't ask my nationality.
I say, thank God he didn't,
because if they hadn't been taking West Virginians that day,
I'd have been dead.
But he told me that I could be admitted
and my mother and my 16-year-old son
took me to St. Thomas Hospital.
The next thing I remember,
I got up and I was crying.
A lady was holding my hand
and I said to her,
I'm in here because I drink too much.
And she says, oh, yes, yes, I know.
I understand. I'm an alcoholic.
Now, I didn't know what an alcoholic looked like,
but she didn't look like what I thought one ought to.
And I looked her over real good.
Now, the only way that I have ever been able
to describe my sponsor
is that she was a little woman
and she was a pretty woman
and every ounce of her was dignity.
But as I listened to her,
I knew for the first time in my life
that this woman understood how I felt inside of me.
I knew I didn't have to lie to her anymore,
to her at all.
I felt comfortable with her.
And I was very, very sick
while I was in the hospital.
I remember she showed me
the 12 suggested steps of recovery.
And she explained to me
that this is a program
that we try to live our life by daily,
that you heard read.
And I said, I took a look at those,
and oh, my.
If you listen to those things,
they're full of God in there.
And the places I went
and the things I done,
God hadn't been in my life,
I'll tell you that.
And then it says someplace in there,
you come to believe
that a power greater than yourself
can restore you to sanity.
Now, look, I did a lot of funny things,
but I wasn't insane,
so I wouldn't need that one.
And then it goes on,
and in there it said,
you admit to God and to yourself
and to another human being
the exact nature of your wrongs.
No way was I about to admit those things.
I've been lying about them all my life.
And now they tell me I'm supposed to do that?
I thank God for one thing,
that I was honest enough
that I said to my sponsor,
you know, I don't think I can do that stuff,
but I just don't want to drink anymore.
I've just had it up there.
I don't want to drink anymore.
And she was such a wise person.
And she said, Kay, maybe for you,
just maybe for you,
if you will try to practice honesty,
purity, unselfishness, and love.
And very quickly she told me
that honesty,
purity means true or false.
Purity means pure in heart,
in thought, in motive.
And selfishness,
you just think of the other person.
And love, love.
She said, if you stay sober,
you will find love for another human being
you never thought possible.
Well, things are clicking now.
I thought, well,
four is easier to do than 12.
I'll give that a try.
Little did I know, my friends,
that those four ingredients
were entwined in our 12 steps of recovery.
The next thing my sponsor said to me,
she said, she told me about the meetings
of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I said, well,
what do they do down at those meetings?
And she said,
oh, they just drink coffee
and they smoke cigarettes
and they share with each other
their experience,
their strengths,
and their hope.
And I said, how many meetings
do you go to?
She says, oh, I go to a meeting
just about every night of the week.
And I thought, oh, my God,
a revival.
And I wasn't crazy about
them old prayer meetings
they had down home,
but I didn't want a drink.
And I said to her,
well, I'll tell you what,
I will go to one meeting a week
if my husband will let me.
And that's the way
that I come out of the hospital.
I was sober.
I went to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
One thing that I'm grateful for today,
that when I got here,
I knew what my problem was.
I knew my problem was alcohol.
And you told me
that you had the solution.
You had the answers for me.
And so I started going
to AA meetings.
And I loved them.
I loved the people.
And my husband was thrilled to death
because he thought,
well, I had a little drinking problem.
And he went to some meetings with me.
He went to four or five.
He cut his drinking in half
about this time.
He gave up water.
But things was really working good for me.
But they'd get a speaker up here,
you know,
and they'd talk a long time.
And they would say,
easy does it,
first things first,
let go, let God,
all these crazy things,
I thought.
And so anyway,
they talked a lot about medication
back then.
They said that it seems
that alcoholics are addictive prone.
Now, we know that we have
a program of Alcoholics Anonymous,
but it seems like alcoholics
aren't too honest a lot of times
when they go to their doctors.
And the doctor might prescribe
a little bag of pills, you know,
because we're nervous and shaky
when we come here.
And so he'll prescribe some pills
and he'll say, now you go home
and you take one of these
every four hours.
Well, alcoholics get mixed up real easy.
So it seems like a lot of times
they'd come home and they'd take
one of these pills.
But they didn't need to tell me
that stuff because I never took medication.
I believed to take alcohol.
I thought alcohol was a total answer.
Give me a fifth.
It would cure anything from
corns to snakebites.
I advised it for all my sick friends.
If it wasn't sick, I advised it anyway.
Drink was the answer.
So anyway,
it so happened that I was sober
for about ten months
and I did drink again.
I had two major operations
and he prescribed some of these pills.
Now, I'm not knocking them.
Man, they were good.
They give me
so much energy
and they were wonderful.
And my sister-in-law came to visit
and she wanted to go
to West Virginia
and I was glad to take her.
It was a six-hour drive
but I could have walked it
with those pills at that time.
I took her to West Virginia,
got rid of her real quick.
I checked into the hotel,
which was my usual pattern,
ordered myself a fifth
and I proceeded to get drunk.
Now, friends, when I get drunk,
I get drunk all over.
My hair gets drunk.
My arms get drunk.
And she came up to visit me that night.
She didn't even know I drank.
And she gets on the phone
and she calls my husband
and reports my condition.
My husband got calls
and he suggested that I come home.
Well, being the kind of a lady I was,
we only had one car at that time,
and I told him,
if you want me, come and get me.
You know where I'm at.
But being the kind of a gentleman
that he was and is,
that's exactly what he did.
He and our son got a cab
and came the six hours to pick me up.
The only thing was
when he got there,
instead of one drunk,
that was the beginning of my last drunk.
Neither one of us remember anything
coming back the six hours
or sundry of the car back.
We laid in our own home, my friends,
for three weeks, unable to get up
to get a drink.
We'd just call out and have it delivered.
Now, I was in DTs.
I was hallucinating.
We'd wake up long enough
to drink a water glass full
and black right out again.
Now, if you will, think of one drunk.
Now, I'm talking about
a real drunk.
I'm talking about throwing up drunks.
You think of one drunk
in a bed for a week.
I guess it could get kind of bad.
But I guarantee you,
if you put two real drunks
in the same bed
for three weeks,
it will get bad.
Now, we had a bucket
on each side of the bed,
but we never hit the bucket.
You think of Skid Row
wherever you want to think of it.
You think of Skid Row,
but my friends, I'll tell you what,
that we brought Skid Row
right in our own home.
There isn't any difference
in a three-inch carpet
or a three-inch gutter.
When you're all the way down, baby,
you're all the way down.
You're all the way down,
and let me tell you
that we were all the way down.
I was seeing these cats.
They'd jump up on the bed.
They were all cats.
But, you know,
I'd seen this clear plastic suitcase,
and there was a dead man in there.
Now, baby, that scared me.
Now, they said that I called my sister
and said,
you'd better get over here
because Casey is going crazy.
He's seeing cats and dead people
and everything.
Not me.
I'm dying, and I lie on him.
And so they came over,
and they took my husband
to St. Thomas Hospital,
and they took me
to Youngstown Alcoholic Clinic.
Casey and I came home
on the same day.
We managed to get that bed cleaned up,
and we laid down,
and then Casey said something
that really, really embarrassed me.
Casey and I had shared a lot of things,
but then there were some things
that we didn't,
and this happened to be one of them.
He said, you know, Kay,
St. Thomas, they told me prayer
was essential
for the recovery of the alcoholic.
And I said, well, go ahead and pray.
He said, you do it.
I said, look,
if you want to pray, pray.
And he said, Kay,
you've had more practice at it
than I have.
So Casey and I said
our first prayer together,
our first prayer of hope,
our first prayer of gratitude.
And as I said,
it was last September the 25th.
That was 19 years.
Now, Casey and I did not get our AA
sitting home watching gun smoke.
Casey and I went to a meeting
the first night,
the very first night.
Now, baby, we were sick.
We weren't just a little bit shaky.
We were still sick.
We went to a meeting,
and thereafter I know
that we didn't miss more than six meetings
in the entire year.
It was wanting to save our life.
We just didn't want to die.
And lo and behold,
we found a way
that we could live,
the way that we could live comfortably
with ourselves
and with our fellows
and not have to have a drink.
We're fortunate in Akron, Ohio,
because we do have a lot
of the old timers,
and they're active.
My husband refers to them
as walking on the shoulders
because they were so good to us.
They seemed to know how much
that we wanted to stay sober.
People are dying every minute
that needs to stay sober,
but you have to want
what we have
and are willing to go
to any lengths to get it.
And we were willing to go,
and those old timers felt it.
They told us,
ask a lot of questions.
Listen to the answers.
Look around you.
Let her stay sober
and try to do the things that they do.
They told me that I was going
to have to change my attitude.
Now, I didn't think
that there was a thing in this world
that mattered with my attitude.
I would sit on a barstool.
Some old gal would come in
hustling a drink,
and I'd look down my nose at her
and I'd say to Casey,
if she doesn't have the money,
what's she doing in here?
You see, they told me
that I never looked down
on another human being
unless I reached over
to pick them up.
Circumstances, my friends,
is what makes a difference.
I know today
that I would have done
anything necessary
because I had to drink
in order to live.
I had no choice.
I had to drink.
So that is what
I always think when I get a call.
I've been sponsoring people
since I was sober
one month in the program.
I've been doing 12 steps
in sponsoring.
Now, sometimes we say,
oh, you haven't been sober long enough.
And that's what I told
this sister at the hospital
when she gave me this girl.
I said, sister,
I've only been sober a month.
What will I tell her?
And sister said, well,
I just didn't drink
and I've been going to meetings.
And you know, after more than 19 years,
what I tell a girl that I get?
I don't drink anymore
and I go to meetings.
Very simple, very simple.
God, am I glad they made
this program simple.
If it would have been complicated,
God knows I'd have missed it
because I almost missed it
the way it was.
So I ask you today, my friends,
don't miss it.
Give it your best shot.
Give it your best shot.
You know,
they told me about
the big book
of Alcoholics Anonymous.
This is our textbook.
Every answer they told me
that you can ever need
to know for good living
you will find
in the first 164 pages
of this book.
I think it sells
for about $5 or $6.
I don't know.
And don't you worry about it
because if you don't have the money
for one, steal one.
It can save your life,
my friends.
I came here believing in nothing.
Believing in nothing.
And today I have a friend.
I have found
a God
of my understanding.
And the old timers
were so good about that.
Last night Dottie mentioned this.
They said
if the word God
is too much for you
just put another O in there
and think of it as being good.
Think of it as being good
orderly direction.
And you know
you can go in a closet.
No one needs to know you're praying.
I heard some young ones say
fake it till you make it.
You know just keep asking God
to help you.
I had this gal.
Her name was Julie.
Julie used to call me up
at all hours of the night.
Oh my.
And she'd tell me about this
praying business stuff.
You know and gosh.
I thought she's never going
to get off the phone.
I said to her in honesty.
I said Julie I don't know how to pray.
Just say God help me today.
And my friends
that's exactly what I did.
I just said God help me.
Every day of my life
I get up I ask the God
of my understanding
help me today
just to be a little better person.
And I ask God
many times during the day
to help me
because I drank many times
during the day
every day.
And you know he always does.
He always does because
I haven't had to drink.
And then at night
it's only common courtesy
that I go to the God
of my understanding
and I say thank you God.
Now I don't mean to tell you
that things haven't been bad
at times in my life.
I've lost people in my family
that were very close to me.
I've lost many friends
and you know no one
ever said to me
Kay be a big girl.
They said call me.
Talk about it.
They cried with me.
And you know that's wonderful.
That's wonderful.
I don't have to go alone.
I used to have to try
to impress you with who I am.
As you can well see
I don't have to try
to impress you today.
What you see is what you get.
You can love me
just the way I am
as I love you.
It is absolutely
this program will work
when all else fails.
It is magic my friends.
It is complete magic.
Nobody knows how it works
but it works in spite of us.
I like the emotions you know.
We say little boys
now little boys don't cry
because big men don't cry.
Big men just don't cry.
But let me tell you
I see a lot of big men.
I go to a lot of conferences
and I know a lot of men
and boy you see them
maybe they haven't seen each other
for six months and they'll go up
and they'll put their arms
around one another
and they'll say my God Joe
I love you and those tears
will run down their face.
Tears of gratitude.
My friends let's share
it if things is bad.
Let us share that.
But one thing let us
don't ever ever be gossipy
toward another human being.
How can a pot call a kettle black?
How can you say
he's a running around
with his wife
or whatever's going on.
We don't care about
that kind of stuff.
Do your own thing
if you can live with it
so can I.
What's anyone ever done
you haven't done
or wanted to anyway?
You know that's the way
I look at it.
This is an anonymous program.
I love anonymity.
Only we know who we are.
That sure makes those
other people curious
about it doesn't it?
But you know we should
always protect other
people's anonymity.
Now I think this is important.
I think this is important
that I have when I'm working
with a new girl.
And you know another thing
it doesn't cost you anything.
You can go to an AA meeting.
You heard Janice up here
said put some money in the thing.
She meant if you have it.
If you don't don't worry about it.
You go to an AA meeting
if you don't have any money
don't worry about it.
Just send that hat on over
and we just don't worry
about nothing in AA.
It works in spite of us.
You know I like this story.
It was a little girl
and she had this cat
and it was just
a little old alley cat.
But she used to pet that cat
and brush that cat all the time.
And one of her friends said to her
why do you keep brushing
and petting that cat all the time?
She said well because I'm going
to meet a lot of nice cats.
She said there's no need
for you to do that
because you can't win any prizes.
The little girl said
I don't expect her to win any prizes
but I'll meet a lot of nice cats.
See that's what's happened to me
since I've been in the fellowship
of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I haven't won any prizes
but I sure met a lot
of you nice cats.
You know and that's all
about you, all of you.
That's because you allowed me
to be me.
That's because you gave me
a guide.
You gave me someone
that I can talk to day or night
and reverse the charges
if I want to.
And you never hear God gossiping.
I've never heard one time
anything I said to him
I'd ever got back down here.
So you know
you can just
talk to me.
He didn't work union hours either.
So and do you know
the biggest
and the best piece of literature
that you will ever find
is in the doctor's opinion
of the big book
of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It really is.
I have a whole bunch of stuff
that I'd like to tell you
but I wanted again
because he blows my mind.
Number one he gave you
the wrong information.
This morning he told you
he belonged to the best group
in the world which is not true.
I belong to the best group
in the world.
I belong to the flame breakfast group
in Akron, Ohio
and you're welcome there
every Sunday morning.
How about that Craig?
But you know what I like
if you don't believe
that you belong
to the best group in the world
stick in there
and make it the best group
don't go out
and screw up somebody else's.
I believe if possible
my group might be
a little better
but at my group
they want to vote on everything.
They want to take care of things
in our group
and I believe that that's
where it all comes from
and I had a friend many years ago
that told me something
that I've always carried with me.
He said Kay don't settle
for a half a loaf.
Don't settle for a half a loaf
in this fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous
and don't any of you settle
for a half a loaf.
The first thing we have
is our home group.
You stay sober a little bit
and then you get into
your inner group office.
That's the lifeline.
That's the bloodline that comes in
and you get these calls
and you get to go out
and help other people.
I hope and pray to God
that the day never comes
that I say I don't have time
when that phone call rings
and I don't care what hole
this little old lady may be in
and I can go down
and put my arms around her
and say baby you don't have
to drink anymore.
There's a way out.
Get active as soon as possible
in your inner group office
and then if your sponsor
really cares a whole bunch about you
they'll tell you about general service.
Now a lot of people say
I don't want to hear nothing
about that general service business.
Let me tell you
because it is the glue
that holds the whole thing together.
If it were not for general service
we wouldn't all be here today
my friends.
So don't settle for half a loaf.
We have another program in here
and it's called Al-Anon.
God am I glad they got together
and formed a group
because they're sick.
And I know they really are
because anybody
that would want to
live with a drunk
can't be alright.
But it works.
It works.
I don't know how but it does.
And then we have Al-Ateen
and that is for the children
of the alcoholic.
If you believe and I do believe
that alcoholism is a family illness
I believe we all need
to get better together.
This program is just really great.
And you know
I know that there's
no misters in the fellowship
of Alcoholics Anonymous
but I think I'm married
to the nicest guy
in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I have a real good relationship
with my children.
I've learned to do a lot of things
since I have been in the program
of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I golf 18 holes every day
when possible.
And I've learned to paint
since I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Not very good.
A little acrylic.
I learned to crochet.
Now that probably doesn't impress you at all.
But you didn't see me when I came here.
God I couldn't have held a pitchfork.
And today I can just do
a lot of things.
And life is just so beautiful.
Life is so beautiful.
You know today
I have self-respect.
I think I'm okay today.
I like me today.
Because I haven't done anything at all
that was ugly.
But I have.
I'll be glad to apologize for it
if I'm wrong.
If I feel that I'm wrong.
But I'm no longer a doormat.
I don't have to be a doormat.
I'm in the world of living.
I'm in the world of real people.
I have hope today.
I have peace of mind.
And the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous
promises me all of these things.
It says that I will
find a new freedom.
That I will find a new happiness.
That I will comprehend
the word serenity.
And I will know peace.
No matter how far down
the scale I have gone.
If I'm willing to work for it.
And my friends
I'm willing to work
for all of these things.
I know I'm taking up too much time.
So I just won't take up
any more time.
And I just want to tell you
that this was just
the most amazing thing
that has ever happened to me.
And I want to thank you
because you know
you have allowed me
to share with you
my innermost thoughts.
My innermost feelings.
You know my parents
they wanted me to be a lady.
That was their goal.
And my friends
I believe that I have met
with their expectations.
In the course of Alcoholics Anonymous
you told me
if I would dress like a lady.
If I would talk like a lady.
If I would act like a lady.
If I would follow the principles
of the 12 steps
of Alcoholics Anonymous
I could be a lady.
And I hope that I have met
with your expectations.
I have tried
and I will continue to try
one day at a time.
I have never seen
God.
But I know how I feel.
It's people like you
who make him so real.
My God is no stranger.
He's friendly I say.
And he doesn't ask me
to weep when I pray.
It seems that I pass him
so often each day
in the faces of people
I meet on my way.
He's the stars in the heaven.
A smile on a face.
He's a leaf on a tree.
He's winter and summer
and autumn and spring.
In short, God is every
real wonderful thing.
I wish I might meet him
much more than I do.
And I would if there were
more people like you.
God bless you and thank you
for allowing me this privilege.