Removal of Obsession: The Seventh Principle’s Demanded Action. – Vickie C.

I am a recovering drug addict and I call it call Vicki. Hi everybody. I really love this lady
Suge. She's great. About two and a half years ago she called me one spring morning and I've had a,
I call it a flip. I wasn't feeling too good. I didn't even know the flowers were blooming
outside. She said to me, well are you gonna stay drunk all spring? I peeked out the window and sure
enough it was spring. But she's meant a lot to me. I used to tell her when I first got in the A.
I'd call her in the morning. She's my sponsor by the way and I'd say, you know I've got this to do
today and I have this to do and I have all these things I always had to do and you know I was always
too sick to do anything. She said, I don't have a damn thing to do but stay sober today. And that's
finally, it finally spoke to me that that's really all I had to do too in the beginning when I was
trying to handle everything. I started to introduce myself the way one of my husband's patients.
The way she...
Vicki described me once when I got back from Willingway the first time. She said, you know we're
trying to keep it a big secret that I was now calling and that I'd been to Willingway and all
these nice things. And one of his patients told me, said, now we weren't gossiping about you Vicki.
Said we really weren't talking about you but all I know is that one of your husband's patients said,
did you know that Vicki's one of them kind of people that's been you know where for you know what?
So I always feel like I should say I'm Vicki and I want to know something.
I've been a lot of places for you know what. I'm going to try to tell y'all a little bit about what it was like and what happened and what it's like for me.
I may not tell it in that order but I've been doing so much thinking I have no idea what I'm going to say.
Once they start reading how it works, my heartbeat ticks up, you know, and I feel like I might just not be here when it's over.
I didn't run anywhere. But I'm a country girl. I was born in Coffey County, Georgia on a farm.
I used to drink.
I was born in my grandmother's house. I used to drink because I wasn't born in the hospital.
In fact, I wouldn't tell anybody I wasn't born in the hospital. I thought they were better than me.
I had several reasons for drinking.
I have one brother three years younger than me. He did a lot of drinking.
He never had a problem with alcohol. He retired from the Navy. He's traveled all over with two children in my family.
My mother has a drinker.
She has the drinkers on her side and my daddy has the eaters on his side.
I started drinking and started eating and I'm trying to get in the, you know, do better about the eating now.
I got addicted to Heath Bars in 1974 and 75. I could hardly keep enough in weight loss for me.
Gained to 163, I think, pounds. We were talking about that tonight, Doc was.
I was telling her that, you know, I think I'm going to wake up and maybe I've been in D2s because this is unreal to me.
I can't believe this is really happening. When Dr. Mooney called me on Saturday, I just, I couldn't believe it.
He asked me if he thought I was well enough to do this and he said, come on.
You know, I made it through in Statesboro and I guess he thought I'd make it through tonight.
And Doc said, really no requirements to be sober. So here I am.
But anyway, I was born on a farm. My daddy was a farmer.
I grew up, like I said, with all the character defects I think I had before I ever took my first drink.
My alcoholism was the first, my first drink was the first thing I ever found that made me feel exactly the way that I thought I had wanted to feel.
All along. I had it, like I said, a character defects.
If I didn't like where I lived and we lived on the farm, I'd get off at somebody else's house and walk home.
I did, did things like that. They said they didn't know what was wrong with me, but they knew that I was different from other children.
But at that time, I like to think back about my mother's brother's drinking.
She had seven brothers. And I just remembered that out of all the fears that I had growing up,
alcoholism, drinking was not one because I was never going to take a drink, nor was I ever going to associate with anybody else.
Drinking was not one because I was never going to take a drink, nor was I ever going to associate with anybody else.
Drink was not one because I was never going to associate with anybody else.
it did. I didn't know anything about it other than I didn't like it. I never saw a drop
of alcohol in my home, in my life. My mother and father, as far as I know, never had a
drink, and I just never had that fear. I knew that I would never have a problem with alcohol.
I remember breaking up with a boy for taking me to a party where they served champagne.
That's just really how much against that I was. I was taken to church, since I can
remember. There's no reason I looked back when I first got to William where I tried
to find a reason why I was an alcoholic, you know. And I look back, and it's just that
I drank alcohol, and I became addicted to it. I took my first drink when I was 19 years
old. I believed myself that if I had not taken that drink until today, that I would have
gotten addicted to alcohol, because I just don't believe that I can handle a drug alcohol
or any other mood-changing drug. I took my first drink at 19, and it was because at that
time, just to be one of the crowd, we had a regular meeting place of all the teens.
Teenagers of different counties there. Those fill a log. It was a log cabin with a fireplace
and a lot of partying and all that. And every Saturday night, I'd sit there and be the only
person that didn't take a drink, and I dreaded that part of the evening, just sitting there
and saying no, you know. They'd keep insisting. I tried some beer one night, and the beer,
I didn't like it. And I thought, well, if this is the way it's going to make you feel,
I'll just not drink it anymore. And then after that, it was sometime later that I met this
young pharmacist that came to town. This was my first husband, and we were going over to
this place.
One Saturday night, and I don't know why, I had heard people talk about taking straight
drinks of booze. And I, you know, that it would strangle you. It would do all these
things to you. And I've never really understood why I decided to take that first drink that
night, that straight drink. But going over to this place, he got off work from the drug
store late. It was 9 o'clock, and we were going over there, and I decided that for some
unknown reason, I took that straight drink of booze. And all these things they told me
would happen did not happen. What it did to me was that it made me feel exactly the way
I wanted to feel.
I felt like I could dance just as good as anybody. And this is a story I hear a lot
of times in talks. I lost my inferiority complex about being a country girl. Nothing, I didn't
have any problems that night. And I remember just how much that impressed me that I had
found exactly what I'd been needing and what I'd been missing was all these people having
so much fun. And I just sat there on Saturday night. So I decided then that a drink is just
what I'd been needing all along. I just regretted having missed out on all that. I had this
warm, good feeling. So after that, it started to be one drink, and it started to be two.
And my personality started to change right then and there. I really look back and I can't
believe how fast that my thinking changed about things from that, from my first drink.
I started associating with different people, people that I never even thought about associating
with. I got home one night, and my mother, you know, I had the highest Sunday school
and church attendance of anybody in our church there, and it was a big church. And I walked
in, and she started crying because she said, you're drunk. And I said, I'm not drunk. And
she said, you're drunk. And I said, you're drunk. And she said, you're drunk. And I said,
you're drunk. And I said, you're drunk. And she said, you're drunk. And I said, you're drunk.
She couldn't believe that I had a drink. And I was thinking back the other day that
actually it became a family disease at my house right around then, because I could not
tell her that I would not drink again. Now, if it had been someone I dated or something
she didn't like I would have told her, you know, I won't do this, just don't cry, because
I really love my family, and I just never wanted to hurt them. But I could not tell
her that I would not drink again. Well, needless to say, the drinking got to be on weekends,
and it got to be um, during the week.
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And not long after that, my first husband moved to Jacksonville, Florida.
And after he left, I started running with a drinking crowd.
It was just real important to me to drink, you know,
to be with those people that liked to do what I started liking to do.
I remember my first husband's mother lived about three miles
from a place that served liquor on Sunday.
And I used to, every Sunday, you know, say,
let's go see your mother, let's go see your mother.
I really didn't care about seeing his mother,
but I knew that bar was about three miles from our house
and we'd always stop back by there.
But I got to, he got to Jacksonville, moved to Jacksonville to go to work.
I'll try to move on in my story.
I get stuck in my first marriage, and sometimes it's hard to get out.
He moved to Jacksonville, and my keeper was, it is,
my keeper was gone.
You know, I used to stand up here and say I did love him, I didn't love him,
and all this sort of thing.
But actually, he had become a real good keeper for me before he ever left.
To go to Jacksonville, Florida, he would lie for me.
He would try to keep my family.
He would try to keep me from knowing that I was drinking.
And he would make all kinds of excuses for me.
So when he moved to Jacksonville, I didn't have the keeper that I'd had to
keep me out of trouble and things like that.
So I decided to go there and go to work.
And I got to Jacksonville.
See, I had already started, after I started my drinking,
I was already starting to look for people, places, and things
that were going to make me happy.
I was already on that geographical tour already at an early stage.
I was having, I didn't know then that ammonia had alcohol in it.
I was having, drinking ammonia, coke.
I was having coke in the morning, and there's nothing worse than that.
And I was already, you know, I didn't realize it until I'd been in this program a long time
that alcohol was, I had problems with it from the very beginning.
But I got to Jacksonville, and then, you know, by then,
my drinking was really, it was picking up a lot.
I could drink more.
I'd still get sick, but I'd still drink.
Anyway, during this marriage, I had a little girl during that marriage.
We got married.
I got there, I started to tell you, I got to Jacksonville.
I didn't want to go back to Douglas, and I didn't want to stay in Jacksonville.
I didn't want to go back to Douglas, and I didn't want to stay in Jacksonville.
And I was already, like I said, starting this thing,
trying to find people, places, and things that were going to make me happy.
Well, anyway, I married this boy, and like I said,
he was probably one of the best keepers, and I've had some good ones in my life.
I wouldn't be standing here today, but I married him, and my paranoia,
I started to thinking for him then, you know, because my drinking was increasing.
I'd like to say right now that while I'm qualifying myself in this program,
is that I drank up that marriage, I lost my little girl in an accident
driving under the influence of alcohol, I've been in jail, I've been in hospitals,
I've been to psychiatrists, and I've done everything that I think that I could have really done
and still survived, and I exhausted every human power that I knew to try to relieve my alcoholism.
And until I got in this fellowship, and you people helped me to find a God of my understanding,
I didn't get relieved of this alcoholism.
But anyway,
during this marriage I had a little girl, and my drinking, I was still drinking every day,
and I would drink at night, you know, at this time, it was just growing right along,
but I couldn't drink very much.
But sometime along in 1961, my mother started telling me about drinking and driving.
But coming back, I couldn't stay there, I was not happy, and I couldn't stay at home.
I just didn't know what I was searching for.
And I had gone to church, I was still going to church, I was still looking for this thing that I found,
and I called it synonymous, this peace of mind and this God of my understanding,
but I didn't know what I was searching for.
And I had gone to church, I was still going to church, I was still looking for this thing that I found,
and I did not know at that time what I was searching for.
But coming back from Jacksonville on a weekend,
and I had drunk some wine, and I had an accident in Waycross, Georgia,
hit a bridge there, and my little girl was killed.
And I didn't know at that time, this I think was really when different turning points were starting in my life.
But I didn't know for a good while that my child was dead.
They didn't tell me, they said that she's in no pain whatsoever,
and she's over in Douglas with your mother, and they gave me all these things,
because I was really close to death myself.
And during this time, I remember that when the drugs and all,
I'd never had drugs at that point, and never had any sort of medication other than just alcohol.
So during this time, I remember when the feelings started coming back,
that I promised God everything in this world about my drinking.
Apparently, somewhere in my mind, I knew that I had a drinking problem.
I knew it was more serious or something, I don't know,
because now it's just now beginning, I'm beginning to realize a lot of things about how sick I really am,
and what it really was.
But I laid there in the hospital bed, and I promised God everything in this world,
if he would let someone come and tell me that she was all right,
because nobody had told me yet that she was gone.
And I thought, you know, I said, I'll never drink again, I'll go to church,
I'll be everything that everybody wants me to be, you know,
if just somebody will come and tell me that she's all right.
Of course, it didn't happen that way.
They just came and told me one day that she was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I laid there in the bed, and I remember that I started crying,
and I would strangle, because my mouth at that time was wired, my jaws were wired from all over.
And they said, if you cry, you'll strangle.
And I thought that was the worst thing in the world that ever happened to me, it was really hell.
And I get on with my story, because I think this is when I really turned my life over to the Bible,
it was right along in there.
About a week after I got home from the hospital, I was still in a wheelchair,
and they wanted me to go out to the cemetery, and I didn't want to go.
It was the worst thing I ever had to do in my life.
And I couldn't cry, my faces, my jaws were still,
they were all wired up.
But I went out there that day, and I came back, and a friend took me a ride that afternoon and offered me a drink.
And this is where I believe that I really got to turn my life over to the Bible.
Because that day, it was the hardest drink that I ever took in my life.
I didn't want to drink it, but I wanted that escape or something to relieve the pain that I was feeling inside.
And I heard a lady talk once that said that her husband was killed in a jet that blew up,
and that that day the commanding officer came to break the news to her,
and that on one side he offered her, the chair, he offered her a drink,
and on the other side his wife offered her a cross.
And that really got to me when I heard her talk that day,
because I was thinking that nobody offered me a cross that day,
but somebody did offer me a drink, and I took it.
Now, I don't know if I would have still taken the drink.
I've chosen the drink anyway, because I wanted that easier, softer way.
I always did.
So anyway, that day I took that drink, and I'll never forget it.
It was...
I remembered all the promises I made in the hospital,
I remembered all the feelings I had,
and what I really wanted my life to be like,
and the kind of person I wanted to be.
But at the same time, I wanted out of that pain.
I wanted anything, and if it had been an injection, or a pill, or whatever,
I would have wanted anything that would have given me some relief.
So, I remember taking that liquor and pouring it through those braces,
and I thought, this is an awful thing to do,
because, I mean, the braces on my mouth, and just pouring it through there.
And after I did, it just didn't seem to make any difference anymore.
I went back to Jacksonville to live.
I had planned on staying home then, because I was in the process of getting a divorce,
but I decided, I think, at that time, that I was telling myself that I was going back
and start my life over, when actually, I was going back so I could drink,
because I couldn't drink at home.
My mother didn't allow that, or wouldn't have.
So, when I went back to Jacksonville, I started, after that first drink of pouring that liquor through those braces,
it just got to be real easy to pour it through there, and just drink.
Drink the liquor.
By that time, I was on medication, two tranquilizers,
because I was afraid of cars, and afraid of riding, and all.
So, I started out with Equinel, which, you know, I abused it all the way.
I didn't realize I did that until then.
But by this time, my mind was really getting messed up,
because I was drinking and taking the pills,
and I started deciding that my ex-husband had decided that I was the one that caused the accident,
and I was guilty of this and guilty of that.
I was thinking, projecting my feelings of guilt onto him.
I was deciding,
what he was thinking, when I was thinking all these things about myself,
and it really got to be awful.
So, I really had heard all this, that God would, you would reap what you sow, and all this sort of thing.
And at that time, all I could think of was that God really, they really knew what they were talking about,
that He really made you reap what you sow.
And another thing, I had been disciplined about what God would do to you, you know, for what you did wrong.
No one, until I got there, hey, I don't believe I knew what God could do for you.
I just knew what He could do to you, and I believed that.
But anyway, this marriage ended in a divorce, and in 1961, I married my present husband,
who was the doctor when my child was born, and he was my doctor when she was killed.
He knew that I was drinking when I had that accident.
My ex-husband knew that I was drinking, and both of them told me, when I told them that I was drinking,
they said, don't ever say that to anyone else, to another human being.
And all that guilt that was just heaped upon me, and it was just like if there was somebody in the world that would understand,
if I could tell somebody, just anybody that would understand my feelings about that, that I was drinking,
if I could just tell someone that I was drinking when it happened.
And the guilt just started heaping up, you know, and it became, it just, it really was awful.
I just remember that desperation, and I didn't find that until I got to AA.
Something else that I, that really and truly has meant so much to me in this program was,
along that time, so many people would tell me that you have to forget about that.
You have to forget about the past.
And when I came to AA, they didn't say that to me.
They didn't tell me I had to forget about the past.
They asked, they taught me the serenity prayer, to ask God to help grant me the serenity to accept the past,
not forget it, but to accept it.
And for that, it saved my life.
But when I married my husband in 1961, I had every intention, I really thought God had smiled down on me.
Here was someone that knew all about me.
The most important thing in my life at that time was for someone to accept me just the way that I was,
knowing all the bad things, and if there was anything good, good things about me.
But mainly was that somebody had accepted me for being the way that I was.
It was, I was looking for what I found right here.
But anyway, at that time, I started, I was in church.
I met Shu, and I changed over to the Episcopal Church, and I was searching then for something.
I would call her, and she tried to help me.
She was not in AA then, but she tried to help me every way that she knew how.
She was 12, Stephen, and didn't know it.
And I don't know what I was done with that at that time, because we were both doing the best that we could with what we had to do with.
So, I really was grateful to God that here I had a second chance.
I was going to make my life beautiful.
It was going to be good.
I was just going to, everything was going to be right, you know.
But I didn't know that my alcoholism had progressed to the point it was.
Well, now I get into the drugs that really, this is when my life from there out, when I thought it was going to be beautiful,
it just got to be a downhill climb from there on out.
I married this doctor, and I went to work for him.
And I couldn't, I just couldn't hold out the pace.
I was trying to do it.
I was trying to be a perfect wife, a perfect secretary, a perfect everything.
I was sick from the alcoholism.
I didn't know it.
I wanted to, I had four stepchildren.
I wanted them to be proud of me.
I was going to make everything just great.
And I didn't realize that I was a sick person at that time.
And along there, he never gave me drugs.
It's just that I worked over there where the samples were.
And one day, I realized, I found out that, I don't know how I found this out,
but I learned that one of those diet pills would just give me all the energy that I needed to keep up with him
during the day.
So I started taking the diet pills to work during the day, and then I couldn't come down.
I started stealing his sleeping pills to sleep at night.
And it just, this is when I really, and the booze in there.
And this is when my mind really, I mean, I really started getting sick.
Somewhere along that time was when he was trying to make a lady out of me,
trying to help me, trying to, he was taking me places, buying me things, doing things to try.
He wanted his children to be proud of me, and I think he was proud of me.
But he just didn't realize that how sick I was.
It was along during that time that I started having my seizures and making hospitals for the first time.
I started having the seizures.
I started going to the psychiatrist.
I asked the psychiatrist if he thought I was an alcoholic.
He said that if I had been an alcoholic, I would have been climbing the walls while I was in the hospital.
Now, all these bad things started happening.
Then I really, my mind just was blown.
I started doing insane things.
After the seizures,
along during this time, I started thinking for him, too.
You know, we had a farm out there.
I started, this is when I started getting picked up for driving under the influence.
But during this time, I went out to the farm one night.
I mean, I really, I had to quit working at the office,
but I would go down there and steal samples and that while he made hospital rounds.
So I started deciding what he was thinking and what everybody else was thinking
because my mind was really messed up.
And I went out there one night looking for him, and I couldn't find him at the farm.
And I backed into his fence out there.
And I couldn't get the fence off the car, so I pulled his fence home with me.
That was the beginning of my really getting, really getting insane.
I forgot the fence was behind me, too.
But I was coming down the road, you know, just flying.
I had to look in the rearview mirror, and I saw this fire.
And it was fence and posts and things, you know, just flying around up in the air.
And I just pulled it on home with me.
But I started really, you know, I can't really tell you how sick I got along during that time.
So one Sunday night, the best thing that happened, I was still taking these pills,
and I was going up and down.
And like John said,
I did sideways last night.
But one night, I went down to the office on Labor Day, and we'd been to Lake City.
And I had been drinking, and he was sober.
And I really had aggravated him all the way from Lake City, Florida.
But that night, he said if I didn't leave his office, he was going to call the police to me.
So I was, you know, I was just drunk enough, I was not about to leave.
So I had my office keys in my pocket.
And this night, he called the police.
That was the first time I had been to jail.
And so on the way to jail, that man tried to take me home, that policeman.
He really did.
But the incentive of alcohol, I was going to show my husband what he had done to me.
So I went to jail that night.
And I mean, I insisted upon it.
He was taking me home, and I kicked the back of the seat one time or something.
And he just turned the corner and took me right home.
But this is the night that I lost my office keys, so I couldn't get any more pills.
Well, when I couldn't get the pills, I was already depending on those pills to up any chemical, alcohol or whatever.
I was totally chemically dependent by that time.
I depended on those pills, those diet pills, to make me feel high and good during the day,
to get my work done.
I was depending on those sleeping pills to go to sleep.
When I couldn't get the pills, I was depending on the booze on weekends to party or to make me feel...
Everything depended upon a pill or a drink.
By that time, my life was totally chemically dependent on pills or booze.
And they both did the same thing to me.
They both made me crazy as a bat.
But anyway, along this time is when we built our new house.
And I got over there.
And see, this is material things.
I always just knew they were going to make me happy.
I knew when I was little
that God could grant you anything in the world you wanted in my mind.
And so I prayed for material things because I didn't have all these things when I was growing up.
I had everything that I needed.
But I had all these things now that I thought I wanted.
And I was the most miserable, unhappy person in the whole world.
My husband was trying to keep me locked upstairs so I couldn't go to the liquor store.
I was busy.
I'd climb out on the roof upstairs on Sunday and all the cars going down the busiest corner there
and walk across the top of my house, get to the back, try to get down.
He'd be standing there.
He'd tell me I was grounded and I was on a two-story building.
And the neighbors and I know that it was awful around there by that time.
I was really...
He told me the other day.
He said, you know, I used to...
He said, you used to leave the house and I, you know, want to ask, go look for you, see where you're going.
And he was dead serious.
He said, but finally it got so that if I just sat there long enough, the police would call and tell me where you were.
And that's really the way that it was good.
If he just sat there, somebody would call him and tell him what kind of trouble.
I'd gotten into.
But at this time, I was just really getting sicker and sicker.
I started making hospitals.
I can't tell how many times we rode the willing way and rode around the building and came back home during that time.
But I was making the hospitals and I was really getting...
I was trying to start.
I was trying to stop drinking, you know, by myself.
I'd sit there on the stairs all day and I'd cry and I just...
I was the most lonely person in the world.
And I'd say, my God, you know, if just one person in this world knew how I felt, if there's just anybody,
that understood this horrible feeling.
By that time, I was getting to be more and more of a vegetable.
About the only extent of my getting out of the house was going to the liquor store,
was putting on some dark glasses or scarf and getting to the liquor store.
That was the highlights of my day.
And I have friends here tonight that tried so hard to help me.
And I don't think they care.
I'm Ben and Shug, Bill, just so many people that...
Really, I remember once when Ben and Shug, I really don't believe I'd be standing here tonight
if they hadn't...
offered the encouragement and the help that they did to me.
They didn't give up on me.
And I did keep coming back.
But along this time, I was so sick.
I remember going to the office just before I lost the keys to the thing.
And I had been hearing music for two weeks.
It wasn't... I don't know, Jim Reeves or somebody kept singing.
It started out with church songs and got into country music.
But I had gone out there and stolen this...
this sparing, three things of sparing.
I knew they gave me that in the hospital.
And I had given myself injections.
And I'd never given an injection.
I'd never given an injection in my life.
But I was willing to do anything it took to give me some relief.
You know, just get...
Just really, this...
This...
It was me.
I couldn't stand me anymore.
And along this time...
I have...
I have a friend here tonight.
She said I could tell this.
I had a...
a pretty little girl doing my hair.
She was one of my best friends.
And we had...
We had a lot of things in common.
But the main thing we had in common, we're both like Jack Daniels.
And, uh...
I'd go over on Saturday, and I was the last customer that she would have.
And sometimes when I'd go home, my husband would say,
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
I had a party, and I was the last customer that she would have.
And sometimes when I'd go home, my husband would say,
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
Then you pay her to do that.
And...
But anyway, you know, we'd get these King size coats with about this much coat,
and some Jack Daniels on.
And we really fixed my hair, I'll tell you.
But, uh...
And one time, I remember, we went to a party, and...
And she helped me put on my false eyelashes.
And somewhere where I got stuck during the party,
and we found it somewhere in my hair the next day, I think.
But...
But we...
really like she said before I go she said you know Vicki when we got it when we did something bad we
did it bad bad and we would and there's one experience I have to share with you because
it took me a long time to be able to tell this I mean I just didn't go around telling it you know
but up until just before we moved in our house I thought that I had run through the neighbor's
fence and I had run through our fence and done things like that pulled the other fence home I
had a thing about fences I couldn't miss them but at that time I'd still you know people weren't
I knew they thought they knew I was crazy but they didn't know what was causing it I don't think
but a lot I had one of these free drinking times you know that I didn't get out of the house for
about three days and she came by one night to see about me and we decided she she was going to visit
with me we were going to go by and have a drink and she was going home then oh I don't have where
she lived for me but she was going home and I was going back to my house and so you know how it goes
when you go to get a drink we go to 50 Jack Daniels and out past where I live there's a force
where you go to the prison branch and you go back and you go to the prison branch and you go back
airport and we're just going to ride by the airport road because the police didn't you know
patrol that so much and we could talk and enjoy our drink you know our 50 jack daniels but going
we got on the wrong road it was it was raining that night and we took the wrong road and
went to the county dump instead and she ran over a stump at the dump
i mean she really got on top of that stump and she was going to get that car off that stump too
and she kept bragging that thing and in a few minutes we looked down the stump was in the floor
boards you know coming through so this is the beginning of a horrible night you know and and
like i said my husband was trying to tell his children that i was really okay and i was a nice
person and he'd take me to europe he was trying to let everybody see how nice i was and it's hard
to do and they go into jail by that time and doing all kinds of things but anyway this night i walked
to the prison branch and broke up i didn't know they were having an a meeting and i got i never
know who took us
home it was a trustee they said but he took us to our house to my house and we walked up you know
on the porch to ring the doorbell and my husband came to the door and he said y'all are drunk and
we were just very indignant and started trying to walk out i don't know where we're going but she
slid out my front step and this was this is really that bent for the grace of god i thought about
this not looking at it he said that he actually heard her skull just crushed right there on his
doorstep because her entire body went out
and
and just the base of her head hit that tile step.
And he says until this day he can't bear to think about it.
He just hurt it, just crushed right there.
And if nothing else has made him love that slogan,
it's but for the grace of God,
because he said that that really had to apply in her case,
that it was just a miracle.
But this wasn't the end of it.
We went to the hospital,
and she was not going to let them x-ray her head.
I had lost my shoes,
and I was wet from walking in the rain.
And here my husband was a doctor at the hospital,
and I'm going up and down this hall crying about his shoes,
and I don't know what else.
And she's screaming, you know, she's not going to let them.
It was just really, it was awful.
He said the other day, he says,
you know, you used to really embarrass me.
He said it embarrassed me.
He said it made me sick.
I said it made me sick too.
But we were really, by this time, you know,
he had tried everything.
He knew to make me stop drinking too.
He had carried me every place he knew to carry me.
And the children would follow me around on weekends.
You know, his kids would watch me.
And so the only thing I could get away with,
would be to get me some extract or something.
I sat there at Willingway the first time,
and they talked about mouthwash and Listerine.
I thought, oh, you know.
And they said, keep drinking and you'll get there.
And I did.
I kept drinking and I got there too.
But anyway, one Sunday there,
the kids kept following me around.
We had some banana extract or something.
And so I tried it.
And it made you crazy, like all the rest.
But sometime that afternoon, Bill walked by me,
and he said, damn, Vicki, you smell like a banana pudding.
And I remember, you know, I thought, well, you're insulting S.O.B.
You know, it never dawned on me that I really smell like a banana pudding.
I really thought he was just as insulting as he could be.
But then there was another time there that I broke out in polka dots.
Now, I'm not kidding you.
They were little round polka dots, you know, just all over my body.
And it scared me.
I thought, I think I mixed two or three of them together.
But I walked out there in the garage to tell him.
And I said, hey, you know, what am I going to do?
I think I'll pour them.
I said, and he says, what in the hell have you had, ma'am?
I said, extract.
And he said, God, I don't know.
So anyway, I figured I was going to die anyway.
I got me some vodka.
And I don't know if I, I never didn't know if I turned on one color or just, you know,
or they went away, but they went.
And it just really got bad around there.
But I did, in 1974, I went to Willing Way, and I sat there,
and I thought that my husband had bought me some sobriety,
and that I was going to, you know, that I had it made,
and my family thought I was well, and I didn't need to go to me.
And I went to some meetings, and they didn't know how sick I was.
But in 1975, I was right there, back there the same time on my birthday,
again, that next year.
And I decided that I would go to some meetings.
And Chuck, the last time I was there, Dr. B was there.
I called him Dr. B, and he was telling me that I was just a slow learner.
And I am.
But I look back today, and I know how sick that I really was.
I did not know at that time what a sick person I was.
When I talk today, I look.
I look back, and I wonder how in the world I ever made it.
I got to, I started going to the meetings, and I did the inventory,
and I did everything that I thought that I was supposed to do, you know, to stay sober.
But I still had never taken the third step,
and I had that hang-up about what had happened in my accident,
and what God could do to me, not what He could do for me.
And the people like Ben and Chuck and Marion,
the different people in our group started talking to me about this third step,
and I started, I was getting sicker all the time.
And I knew that I had to do something.
I finally became willing to try whatever it was these people had.
I hear them talk about they walked in the A, and they saw all these smiling faces,
and they wanted what these people had.
And I used to say, well, I didn't.
And they said, and you didn't get it either.
And I didn't.
But I started wanting what they had, too.
In 1977 was my last drunk, as of today.
And I had this friend of mine, I kept trying so hard to get what these people had,
this third step of turning.
And I said, well, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life and your will over to the care of God.
And I had seen this friend of mine that had been on drugs at one time,
and she was happy, and she was off drugs.
She had found hers in the church, which I think is really great, you know.
But I found mine here.
And today I can understand it, because what I do here is what I love and where I belong,
and she's where she belongs.
But anyway, she was driving around town with this big old sticker on the back of her car like I found it.
And I found it, you know.
And I didn't understand that.
And I talked to her, and she explained it to me.
And I started really wanting, the last drunk that I got on,
and I tell you, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And I really, I just thought that I wasn't going to make it that time.
I almost didn't.
And this day I had, like I said, I exhausted every human power trying to relieve my alcoholism.
And by this time, I was willing to try whatever it took.
And I called this friend of mine one morning.
I first asked my husband, as I was sitting there with a drink in my hand,
would he join hands and pray with me, because I'd heard him talk about that.
And he said he wasn't about to, because he thought still, you know, drinking and praying just didn't go together.
But...
But I called her, and she did.
She came, and she let me drink, and she prayed with me, too.
And something happened that day, I don't know what.
But anyway, that day, a friend of mine in Jacksonville called,
and this was the first time I was ever willing to go off and leave my bottle at home,
because every time I did, I was sorry when I started these shakes and sweats and all that sort of thing.
But this day, this is the miracle of this program to me.
I was so scared tonight, and I thought about that my last drink,
I was just willing, really, I was just willing to try this,
this higher power that I kept hearing about in IA.
And so tonight, I mean, I thought, if you could turn something that was so...
such a miracle over to God, why in the world can't you turn this talk over to Him and just let it go?
But I still try to manage things.
But on this day, I called her, and she did come and pray with me.
I'm not telling anybody to do it this way, I'm just telling you this is the way that it happened for me,
and it was the best day of my life.
And it took a lot of help from a lot of people to get me where I am today.
But when I called her, she came down there.
And a few minutes later, we did pray together.
And in a few minutes, a friend of mine from Jacksonville called,
and they said, we'll come and get you, but we don't have any booths,
and you can stay with us until you get over this.
And I thought about it, and she called me back and said,
we don't want to drive up there and you change your mind.
So I told her I'd go.
I had become willing to try this, just to try this higher power that I heard so much about.
I was going to try it.
If it didn't work, I just was not going to try it anymore, you know,
but I had become willing.
And they did come to get me.
I really thought about that.
I remembered the seizures.
I remembered all the transfusions.
I remember all of the bad things that could happen from coming off the alcohol.
And I said, but I'm going to just try this.
I'm going to just leave it all behind me.
I'll see what happens.
If I have a seizure, if I go in the hospital, I'll just see what this God does.
You know, I'll let him handle it just this once.
So I did go home with him.
And about 2 o'clock in the morning, I woke up and I was nauseated.
And she had brought me a towel.
When I sat up in the bed and got to the bathroom and looked in the bathroom,
I was throwing up, and it was just blood.
There was just blood running down my arms, and it was really horrible.
And for the first time in my life, though, I didn't have this fear of death or something.
Something had happened in my life, and I knew it.
So I went in the hospital, and it was real strange.
They asked me about staying the 28 days and going through the psychiatric thing.
And for the first time in my life, now, I'd been in NIA since 74, and this is 77.
But I kept coming back.
And I had seen what I wanted here.
I just didn't know how to get it.
And thank God I did keep coming back.
And thank God y'all let me come back.
The best thing in this world is that you can't get kicked out.
And like Suge said, if I can get it, anybody can.
But anyway, this day when I got there, I think the greatest feeling that I've had in my whole life
was that I was through searching.
I mean, I had found what I was looking for.
And I knew that all I had to do was come back to A, and that it was here.
The search was over, and this frantic feeling.
And this emptiness that I'd had for so long.
And this thing had really worked.
This is what really amazed me.
I had just that faith of a mustard seed.
And I say that's an exaggeration, and yet it worked for me.
I haven't had a compulsion or really a desire for a drink since that day.
And I try every day to remember where it comes from.
I used to get 30 days or 90 days sobriety, and then I would start being real proud of myself.
But today I constantly remind myself where my sobriety comes from.
And also every other really wonderful thing in my life comes from.
I can't believe that, I just really can't believe the things that's happened to me in this fellowship.
One of the things that kind of sums it up at home is that my husband says,
you know, I used to hope that people would think that you were some other Calhoun, you know,
that you might belong to one of those that had a store downtown or something.
And now today he says, you know, I start to introduce you, and I want to say,
this is my wife Vicki.
She's an alcoholic.
So things are better along that line.
And that makes me feel good because I am Vicki, and I'm proud I'm an alcoholic.
I thank God for it tonight.
Everything that happened to me, whatever it was necessary to get me here, I'm grateful for it.
I tried this chair last night, and I was just up to here.
And it's just so hard to say all the good things that I feel and the gratitude that I feel.
And when Dr. John called me the other day, I still am not believing it.
I just couldn't believe it.
You know, that he had asked me to come and talk.
I don't know what else I can say except that I love you and thank you for saving my life,
for giving me a program for living.
I believe that, well, I look back so many times that I needed this so much.
You know, I really need it.
But then I guess I wouldn't have known what to do with it if I could have gotten it,
if somebody had given it to me.
Because when I got to A, I didn't know.
I really was too sick to know what y'all were trying to help me do.
I love you.
I love you, and I thank you for listening to me now.
Thank you, Vicki, for sharing with us.
Isn't she beautiful?
Everybody remain standing, please, and let's hold hands and say the Lord's Prayer.
Thank you again.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.