Self-Seeking and the Treatment for Her Own Insanity – Marty M.

Next here now is Marty Mann, the First Lady in Alcoholics Anonymous. Copied again by Fred Miller, Harvard, Ohio, from Originals, member of Central Office Tape Exchange, Ray A.'s own. The only thing that I can do is present them to you. Least of all, does our first speaker need an introduction? Her name almost from the very beginning has been synonymous with the problem of alcoholism and alcoholic synonyms. I don't know how you introduced one of the first ladies who were in AA, but the subject is the first woman in AA and there is no better person to talk about that particular subject than one ofthe first women in AA. So, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present to you Marty Hamm from New York. I don't know whether I'm glad or sorry that everybody moved up front, up here, because while they were back there, I was thinking of what a field day I was going to have and nobody would know what I was saying so they couldn't stop me. Now I have to be responsible and follow the theme of this meeting and I'm very happy to do that. Let me say that one of the real kills that I have had at this 30th anniversary meeting is the very great number of women members of AA that I've had the pleasure of meeting and seeing and hearing. There was a time when I wondered if that day would ever come. There was a time when the men members were sure it would never come. In fact, looking back on it now, I know exactly what they thought of me for many months. She's a freak. She's one of a kind, and there aren't any more like her. And I think they were very glad at that. I was particularly pleased not only at being asked to appear here, which I consider a kind of crowning honor of my years in AA, but also to be given the task of talking about those first women members. But to do it properly, I have to go back a little bit and talk about my own coming into it. And I think I could properly begin that when after five years of searching, I had finally found a kind of a home in a psychiatric hospital in Connecticut. and I had found a kind of a father in a man who was trying to get next to me down there his name is Harry Thiebaud he was the man who took me in he was one who apparently believed that there might be some hope for me I had been sent to him by a very famous neurologist in New York who had told me flatly that people like me, in his experience, and he'd had many years of it, had one chance in a hundred of getting well. He had not followed that up by specifying just what was wrong or why I had such a slim chance. But I didn't need that because I had long been convinced that I was hopelessly insane. And even though he told me that I wasn't, I didn' t believe him. I just thought he was being kind. When he succeeded in getting me into Dr. Chivo's capable hands in the sanitarium he headed, and I began to get what I had so desperately been seeking, which was treatment for my insanity, I thought, a lot of things began to happen that were good, and I became to feel very much better. and to feel that I was beginning to grasp some of the reasons for why this condition had overtaken me. You see, back in the 30s we didn't talk about alcoholism. We didn't talked about drinking as being the problem and in fact, in my experience there are not enough people who do it today. There are still too many who are looking for other reasons and they're not all alcoholics, believe me and who go on looking for those regions while assuming that their alcoholic patients are just going to dry up naturally somehow. It just doesn't work that way. I experienced that in the sanitarium. You see, I was Dr. Keebo's patient and he said right in the beginning that I was one of those people who couldn't drink. But he was only one of the psychiatrists up there and there were other patients there and their doctors were teaching them how to drink normally. So I thought there was something wrong with Dr. Thiebaud. And I felt very put upon that I had a doctor like that, whom I had quickly found out didn't much like to drink himself. I just thought he was a spoilsport. I didn't know how fortunate I was. But to collapse this story, because this is not the evening where I tell my full story as an alcoholic, despite the fact that I was making some progress despite the fact that Dr. Thiebaud never let up on his insistence that I couldn't drink and that most of the time of course I didn't every once in a while I did with somewhat disastrous consequences and this happened enough times so that Dr Thiebault said to me after one of these episodes that perhaps it wasn't doing me any good after all and perhaps he wasn't going to be able to help me and if it happened again, perhaps I'd better leave. Well, frankly, this was my last hope. This was in 1938 and 9 and there wasn't any place else for me to go. If I had gone out of there, I think my only next move would have been death or commitment to a state mental institution from which I might never have emerged, at least not in those dark ages of lack of treatment for people like me in official mental hospitals. Furthermore, I think I would have so utterly and completely lost hope that it would have been curtains inside which would have meant eventually curtains outside too. Things were at this pass when one day Dr. Kinville was home sick with a cold when he telephoned the sanitarium and said that he would like to see me in his home he had something he wanted to show me and tell me about this was a very unusual proceeding and I went down in some trepidation wondering what was up and he waved at me a book in cardboard covers of what looked like a manuscript and he said, I have been reading this and it's written by a group of people like you. I think maybe they have found something and maybe what they have find will help you. I want you to read it. And he put into my hand what was in effect the manuscript of a book whose title was Alcoholics Anonymous. I was very excited and I took it back to the hospital and began to read with mountain excitement. I was never one of those that objected to the name alcoholic or the word alcoholism because I'd been convinced I had things so much worse that were nameless, they were too awful to say, that defying that I had a name, I had something that had a nome, was to me a very wonderful discovery. I embraced it happily and I've always liked those two words ever since. and everything was going fine as I found I was learning quite a bit about what it was that I had and that there were other people like me lots of other people apparently until I tripped and stumbled over a capital letter the capital letter G the other two letters were O-D this I was not ready to accept and so I went to Dr. Thiebaud and I said, this is not for me. This is just another form of emotional self-hypnosis. This is another opiate. This is not what you've been trying to teach me. This is an emotional way out. I don't believe in it and I can't accept it. And he listened very sympathetically and when I finished he said, well, go back and read some more. This went on for a number of weeks. I read as slowly as possible I read only enough to give myself material with which I could argue with Dr. Kiko he wasn't a very good arguer because he just listened and when I finished he said go back and read some more I don't know how long this might have gone on but as so frequently happens with us that most of us come to recognize that it's not accident that there is something much deeper and greater involved. A crisis occurred in my life. It was a major crisis. It affected a member of my family. I felt responsible for it. I thought it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been where I was and in the condition I was in, and yet there was not one single thing that I could do about it. It also made me violently angry, The greatest anger I had ever felt. And in the midst of this anger, sitting in my room, which was a tiny little room up on the third floor of a big old house, under the eaves was a little window. My eye fell on this darn book that I had to have there all the time because of Dr. Chimbo's, and it was open. I wasn't looking at it deliberately. I wasn't seeing anything very clearly, but there in the middle of the page, there were a few words that stood out as if they were enraged, blocked letters, black and clear. And those were words read, we cannot live with anger. It's very difficult to know why those particular words at that particular moment acted as a battering ram that knocked down any resistance that I might have left to the basic concept of alcoholic synonyms. That's what it did. It knocked it down so completely that for quite some time, I was totally unaware of where I was or what was going on. I must have been on my knees beside the bed for quite a while because the bench bed was wet with my tears. And when I raised my head, I had a sensation of freedom, of absolute and complete freedom, such as I had never known in my life. I was raised up, lifted up. I was beyond any bonds, any imprisonment, any holdbacks of which I had known and felt so men. And I looked out of that little window on the third floor, and I knew beyond any doubt that I could walk out that window and keep walking. And as I looked out that windows, I saw a bluer sky than I had ever seen, and greener leaves and grass than I have ever seen. And the whole world was new-born and fresh. And suddenly it dawned on me that I really did believe that I should walk out of a third-story window and keep on walking. And then it occurred to me that maybe this really was insanity. And I rushed downstairs. Dr. Thiebaud's office was on the ground floor, and I beat down his door. And although he had another patient, when he saw my face, he let me in. When I tried to tell him, I think I was dabbling a bit, and he asked me a number of very careful questions. When I had finished telling him what seemed to have happened, and that I now believed because I knew that God had been there in the room, that he was with me, Dr. Thiebaud said, I do not think you are insane, I believe you've had an authentic spiritual experience. I believe it was of that kind because my resistance was so great. I know many people that have had spiritual experiences that have been gradual and easy. Mine was violent and really a little hard to take. But I have always been grateful and will always be grateful that I had such an experience. after that I felt I had it made I didn't need these people he said one thing which is go back and read the book and I went back and started the book at the beginning and somebody while I was gone had changed books on me this is a completely new book I softed up as a dry sponge sops up water I read it through. And when I finished, I started and I read it again. And I read that book a number of times in the following weeks while I found reasons, excuses, rationalizations and everything else to keep from going and leaving the people. You see, I'm scared of people. And I was particularly scared of these people because, well, one thing about that book was it was all about men. It was clearly a book written by men than four men. So I'd better do my own bit, you know. And besides, now I've had this experience, I could do my only bit. Eventually, Dr. Tebow put it into that nonsense and picked up the phone and said, you're going into New York, and you're goint to such-and-such an address where the husband is in AA, and he and his wife will take you to dinner or give you dinner and take you to a meeting. Well, I sat with that man in one of the meetings this afternoon and I was very happy that Popsie was here who took me to my first meeting. When we arrived at this brownstone house in Brooklyn I rushed upstairs to leave my coat and I didn't come down. I was scared. I never saw how many people were in that house. There must have been 30. it was an appalling mob I'm awfully glad it's dark out there I can't really tell how many of you there are but it's always a little frightening to see a big crowd and I can tell you that that little group of about 30 people in that brown stone house in Brooklyn looked just as big to me that night as you look to me tonight only I can't go upstairs and leave my coat and not come down not at this point anyway a very nice woman came up. She put her arm around me and she said, you know, we want you down there. Her name was Lois. And she led me downstairs. And people began asking me questions immediately. Most of them were about when did you have your last drink. And to my absolute horror, I told the truth. It never occurred to me not to. And then I had a shock that I had. and pretty soon I was in conversation and it seemed to me that I was finishing their sentences and they were finishing mine but we were just talking the same language. The next morning a man up in the sanitarium to whom I had passed on the book after I'd found it so wonderful but he refused to go to that first meeting with me he said you go see what it's like and then you tell me and I'll go next time telephoned into New York to see what it had been like and I made just one comment I said they were not alone anymore and this perhaps was the greatest feeling I had and yet, and yet there wasn't a woman member there I was it now I'll thank you there are a lot of nice things about that particularly since a lot of the men didn't have wives on the other hand I really did feel that it would be very nice to talk to another woman alcoholic I had met a couple in the sanitarium in fact I knew of one who was no longer there and who needed what we had but she wasn't there at the moment and I didn't quite know how to get to her but I asked immediately I said aren't there any women in this group there was a story in this manuscript about a woman, but I hadn't met her. And I found that she was living in Washington, her name was Florence, where she and a man named Fitz had gone to try and start a group. And I looked forward very eagerly to her return to New York or her visit to New Yorke so I could meet and talk with her. She was a considerably older woman and she had great many physical problems too and unfortunately I only saw her sober on a couple of occasions, and she died before I had anywhere near completed my first year. So that did not really answer my need. And as the months went on, I worked awfully hard to get some companions in there. I don't know how many women I tried to help, but I didn't get anywhere with them. And I was one of the men who had had more time than I and asked for advice and help on this, and they began to give me a really peculiar look. And it was perfectly clear that they thought, indeed, that I was some kind of a freak, and that no other women were ever going to respond to this. As a matter of fact, new men coming in looked at me as if I didn't belong there and said there was no such thing as a woman alcoholic. At least they didn't think there was. And I found that many people didn't believe that women had this problem, that this was a man's problem and AA was a man's program and this was the man's world. And I didn't believe that. I had over the years known other women who had been in the same kind of trouble I was in, but they were mostly in England where that's where I got into my trouble and where I knew a lot of others on my way down that were more or less like me. But I began looking very hard. The first one I went after was the one I had met in the sanitarium, and who had gone home, and whom six months after I came into AA, and I attended my first meeting incidentally on April 11th, 1939. And I was not leaving the sanitarian released from there until mid-September. And the day before I left, an ambulance drove up, and someone was lifted out of that ambulance, and it was this other girl whose name was Nona. I was not able to see her of course she wasn't able to see anyone for a couple of days she was in really bad shape but a week later I received a telegram that she had escaped and that she was holed up in a hotel in New York and would I go and see if I could find her and I did it was a pretty rough situation we managed to get a nurse for part of the time and I sat with her the rest of the term and when she was finally physically sober, but in dreadful condition. I told her about AA and I read the book out loud to her and she said, I want this, I wanna meet these people. And there was a luncheon meeting that we held once a week in those days and I took Nona to this luncheon. I remember somebody saying that they had watched the belt buckle on her dress and it was jiggling like mad. Poor Nona was shaking all over. She had separated from her husband due to this problem, which they both had. And a couple of weeks later, they met to discuss the legal arrangements for a divorce and he couldn't understand how she was sober. And she explained to him how and why she was so sober and he said, well, let's get the divorce. I want this too. So Walter also came into AA. Nona was my first successful case. Some months after that, we were meeting in those days at what we used to call A.E.I. Olean Hall, unless it's the 7th Street, and we took a room for our meeting, and they locked the doors until we'd made the collection to pay for the room. We couldn't leave. And one night at this meeting, a young woman appeared with an older woman, and to my knowledgeable eyes after my months in the institution, I knew perfectly well the older woman was a keeper. And sure enough, she was in another mental hospital up in Westchester, and she had been brought into this meeting. Well, everybody got me. I was the one woman, remember? And because Noma was not in New York at that time, she lived up in Connecticut and didn't get into every meeting. I worked there, and I never missed one. And they brought this girl over to me, and she looked pretty wild-eyed. Of course, later they told me I'd looked even more wild-eye at my first meeting, but I couldn't see myself, so I didn't know that. And I took a good look at her and at her secret, and I told them I'm not going to spend any time on her. She isn't a chance in the end. She'll never make it. She didn't come here willingly anyway. She was dragged here against her will. Clearly, they sent her down. They had to have someone with her to see if she didn't run away. Now, why should I waste my time on her? I've got plenty of cases I'm working on, which indeed I did, and none of them made it, but she did. Her name was Bobbie. And Bobbie Berger later became the secretary of what is today GSO, where she worked for many years and where her name became known to AAs all over the world because she was the one who corresponded with me. And this is the gal I said couldn't make it. Well, I was pretty glad she did make it, and it wasn't very long after that that one of her 12-step calls turned out well, and a gal named Isla came in. And Isla took to AA with both hands, and I mean both hands because we'd just got our club on West 24th Street, and Isla did a good deal of the scrubbing down of walls and the scrubging of floors and the making of curtains and the other things that went into that first club that A.A. ever had. So now we were four. And really, Bobby and Isla and I was a tree in New York. And very shortly thereafter, another girl came in that we liked very much, and then they began to come in in some numbers. But this process consumed a good deal more than my first year in A.S. And I can never forget those long, long early months when nobody believed that it was possible and nobody thought that another woman would ever make it. And naturally this didn't make me feel very good because if women couldn't make it, my making it was clearly a temporary thing. And when I unhappily had three slits in my first year and a half, I was pretty sure that I was a priest but I wasn't going to be the only one and I wasn' t going to make it and I want you to know that from then to now I have never ceased being grateful that I was one whom God granted the right to make and I feel that that's how it came about I think it is terribly important in these days when so many more women are seeking help of AA and of information centers and of doctors and clinics and in all kinds of ways where they think they might find help to realize that this opportunity was not offered to us just a few years ago. Thirty years may be a long time, but I knew an awful lot of women in the first few years that I was in AA who couldn't make it, who didn't make It, And I have always felt that in many cases, it was because they were women. It was not because there were so much sickness. It was não porque eles não queriam fazer isso. Mas as odds estavam tão fortes contra eles que eles nunca realmente tiveram a chance. Você vê, eu sempre fui convencido de que os duplos standardes que temos em ambos nossos países, Canada and the United States, and in many, many other countries too, about women, militates against women admitting this particular problem and seeking help about it, particularly if they fear that anyone might find out. Somehow it is acceptable on certain occasions and in certain places and for quite long periods for a man to get drunk. It is never under any circumstances acceptable for a woman to get drunken. We're all brought up knowing this. And when it begins to happen to us, and we are aware of what people think of a woman getting drunk, particularly in public, we go underdressed. We hide. We do our drinking in our bedroom at least as much as we can until we're too drunk to know the difference and then we go wandering out and everybody does find out. And our shame is so great and our sense of degradation weighs so heavily upon us that we're paralyzed. We find it difficult to move in any direction. From my point of view, then, the full acceptance of alcoholism as a disease which can be treated, the full realization that Alcoholics Anonymous is just as much for women and works just as well for women as it does for men is a tremendously important message. Today I know hundreds and thousands of women AAs all over the country, but let me tell you that there are many more hundreds of thousands who are still hiding in their bedrooms, who are sill doing their drinking after they get home, who have still managed somehow by hook or by crook to more or less successfully conceal their condition. I have seen it on the walls, I read it in the mental books, and I want to commit it to memory, which I have not yet done. But I have it here, and I'm going to end with it because I think it has double meaning for women and about women. I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that, I am responsible. I take that responsibility. I hope you will too. I happen to know her pretty well. I met her a couple of times when I was East NAA, but I'm going to do something a little different tonight. I'm gonna let a good friend of hers introduce her. I'll now introduce you Joan again so she will introduce our speaker for the night. Well, full of surprises. I can't tell you very much about Beverly's lead or her past, but I can say this much about her present. I had the pleasure of spending an evening with her and her husband and her children last weekend or the weekend before, and it was the most joyous evening I've had in a long time. It was a look at a beautiful family. I don't ever want to forget it, a family that was just full of love, affection, understanding, and I'll let her tell you how she arrived at this point. Beverly M. from New York. Thank you, Joni. My name is Beverly McGowan. I am definitely an alcoholic, a very grateful alcoholic. like a lot of friends i have met in this program i came from a wonderful home my aunt my aunt raised me from the time i was six weeks old until i was 12 was a home full of love religion smiles tears plenty of food plenty of clothes plenty of toys an ideal childhood I had it there was 11 children and one master of that house my aunt until I got a little older I used to wonder how mama had 11 children and no men around there but she functioned and it was beautiful I went to live with my mother who gave me everything a mother could give a child everything material and all the love she was able to give at that time. I stayed with my mother until I started feeling my own oats. I came to that conclusion, I'd say, around three years ago in this program. I left my mother because I was feeling my old oats. I met a Navy fellow who was stationed in the St. Albans Navy Hospital, which happened to be right across the street from my house in Queens. Him and I started dating. I came home one night, and I said, Mommy, I want to get married. She said, Oh, my God. I said I'm going to have a baby. She said oh, my god. Two years later, the baby was born, and again she said oh my god that was the beginning of something I didn't have any idea whatsoever about I was used to children I was even used to playing with babies I was ever used to changing babies but I didn' t know you had to get up in the morning at 2 o'clock and change babies I didn''t know you have to get in the mornings at 6 o' clock and feed babies. I thought you just bounced them and played with them and they ate what you gave them in the afternoon and then they slept all night. My husband, he was 18. He didn't know much about babies. So naturally, we didn't get along too well after the baby was born. I started drinking beer parties over at the St. Albans Navy Hospital and I used to feel proud of myself because I could chug a load a pitcher of beer, as well as any of the fellas. I was one of the fellows. Boy, they used to say, Jimmy, your wife sure can put down some beer. Believe me, I'd put down some beer I went home and we started arguing we started fighting but it was because he didn't understand me I was young and I liked to dance and I like to have a good time that's why we had arguments because he was jealous Not because Beverly was making a damn fool of herself Trying to drink harder than the sailors But because he was jealous I had another baby, a little boy, Patrick By this time I knew you had to get up with him So it was no big thing Patrick came two years later The arguments still were there More than arguments, this time it was out-and-out fights Beverly had stopped drinking beer She had switched to scotch Then I was drinking scotch to get up in the morning I was drinkin' scotch To clean my house I was drankin' Scotch to fix my dinner I was Drinkin' Scotch To go to bed Naturally, my husband got sick of it And he started goin' out, not comin' home night So naturally, I drank scotch Because he didn't come home nights I had blackouts I felt one time That he had painted all the furniture I had beautiful cherry mahogany furniture. And that SOB came home one night and painted it white. Family didn't realize until later that I swore that the dark furniture in the house was going to grab me, so I took some white paint and painted him myself. I figured I needed a change, and being that my husband was from Detroit, I'm going to change. I'm gone to Detroit, Michigan. We came to Detroit with the two children. The Navy moved us. Everything was going along fine until he slapped me. I don't know why. I was only drunk. Why should he slap me? Cussing out his sister, cussing out his brother, talking about his mother. Why should he slap me? I went upstairs and I slapped him back. And his sister who was three times my size came up and said, don't you hit my brother. I said, well that's the end of Detroit, Michigan for Beverly. And I got on a plane in a house dress and my kids in their pajamas and I said, Mama, I'm home. The first week, my mother was glad I was home because she didn't like him anyway. The second week, she wasn't too happy I was home because I started drinking. The third week, more drinking. The fourth week, he got to the point where she couldn't hardly go to work because she didn't know how the children were going to be when she came home. I don't have to continue right on down the line to this 10th and the 11th week, because being an alcoholic, you would know what happened. But I was a mess at that 13th week. To the point that my mother said, Beverly, I'm going to sell the house. You and the children have to find some place to stay. I can't take it. I can't take your drinking. I can't take this house anymore. So right away, my mother became an SOB, putting me and my kids out. Where am I going to go with two kids? I found a place. I put the kids up in a lady's place and I went to work. Doing the only thing I could do being that I wasn't a high school graduate. I washed floors I worked in a hospital I worked in a factory and being that I didn't have to come home to take care of the children because they were boarded out naturally I stopped in the bar at night to meet my friends I stayed in that bar so much that one day the fella had to go out and he said Beverly tend the bar for me I said man I never worked behind the bar what do you mean tend the ball for you. He looked at me and said, you live here, you might as well know how the apartment's running. So I went behind the bar and I ran it. That was an alcoholic's paradise, but at the time Beverly wasn't an alcoholic. You see, she was upset because her mother put her and her kids out. And she had to leave her husband who was a dirty old man beating gnawing me and whatnot. So I had all the self-pity inside Beverly, but the fellas perked me up when they came in for their nightcap. My, Bev, you sure look pretty. What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? You know, all the nice things you like to hear. Here, Bev. Have a drink with me. If they were drinking scotch, I drank scotch. If they was drinking beer, I'd drink beer. If he was drinking vodka, I drink vodka. I'm not going to top shelf him after all, he's my friend. And I stole everything I could get out of the cash register. Drank up all the man's profits. Lost one job after another but every place I went I took all my friends with me. So naturally I kept losing jobs but I still had my friends. Until one night a fellow came in the bar and he had been coming in, and I'd been eyeing him. He was looking kind of good to me, and I guess I was looking kinda good to him. And he said, baby, you gotta get out of this mess, cause it's ruining your health. I said, well if you think I gotta get out, take me out. He said, come on, and then I went. I jumped from the frying pan into the fire. That was the first time I learned that you don't get nothing for nothing. He was good to me. He left $20 on that dresser every morning, and when he came back from work, he expected me nice, pretty, bright-eyed, and clean, and I don't have to tell you how he found me when he came home from work after leaving $20 on that dressing. So we moved. We moved to St. Louis. same thing happened in St. Louis we moved to Canada same thing happened in Canada moved back to St. Albans and by that time I was really swinging I would go out on a Friday and not come back till Monday and who was he to say anything to me after all he didn't give me no piece of paper he didn's put no ring on my finger so he better not say nothing to me. But he put ring around my eyes and sat in my bed. So I was learning my lesson again, that you don't get nothing for nothing. Because every time I got drunk, all my underwear at that time. And when I came home, all my underwear was in my pocketbook. And I couldn't tell him I was a good girl when he'd look into my pocket book and see all my underwear. But I was. So out of that relationship, I had another little girl. I couldn't go back to my mother's, even though I tried. But my mother knew that I wasn't doing the right thing. So I went back to mijn aunt in Brooklyn who raised me. I said, Mom, I'm going to have a baby. She said, All right, sweetheart, come on home. I went home. I had that baby. When Beverly got her shape back, Beverly got back in the wind. I left that baby on Hancock Street in Brooklyn when she was six weeks old. And I started the rounds all over again. I didn't want to see that baby because, after all, I didn' t want to see the father. That's the excuse I gave myself at the time. But like everything else, Beverly knows now. She knows a little better. She just wanted to get out there and run to that bottle. I ran to that bottle to the point that I went back to my mother's house, because they found me on a bench in Jamaica, drunk. They pumped my stomach out. They sent me, I went to live in my apartment, which was at the time a two-room little apartment. I was still working in the bar as a barmaid because I couldn't do anything else. I cut both my wrists after I looked in the mirror and saw what the hell I looked like at 20 years old, what I had done with my life, what had I done to my children's lives. I couldnít stand myself so I was going to take the easy way out. I took a razor blade and cut both of my wrists and locked my door. and the only way my landlady found me was to come upstairs because her drinking buddies were downstairs and the other way she could get a drink is if she had Beverly down there to have a drink with them. They rushed me to Mary Immaculate Hospital my stepfather intervened he was a first grade detective so I didn't get put away I don't know whether that was a blessing or damnation because I went even further. I went back to my mother again and I said, Ma, take me in. Please. I'm going to do right. I'm gonna behave myself. I'm gunna do the things that I should do so I could get all my children back underneath one roof. My mother, being a mother, said, All right, sweetheart. Come on home. I rewarded that woman for taking me back into her home again. One Mother's Day, my neighbors were giving a party and she said, Beverly, please don't go to that party because every time you drink, you get to fighting. I said, oh, Mom, I'm not going to drink. I just want to go to the party. i went to that party and i came home and i woke up the next day in 103rd precinct in queens it wasn't new to me to wake up in 103nd precinct because i had been there before i told the matron i said let me call my mother she'll get me out of here matron said little girl you must still be drunk or crazy you knifed your mother 18 times last night with a butcher knife she's in queen's general hospital on the operating table with that i went to elmhurst general hospital in a straight jacket i stayed in elmhurst general for three months and then i went to court i saw them wheel my mother down the middle aisle of that court in a wheelchair and i died i wound up right back in elmer's general hospital again in the meantime my aunt had bailed me out i went back to my aunt i faced a baby that was nine months old it only took me nine months to get there faced the baby that Was nine months and got upset because she didn't call me mommy so what did i do i went out again and got drunk and wound up in canada from canada i had a blackout and wound Up in chicago had my aunt send me money to come home i went home i went to court i got sentenced to four years reformatory westfield state farm reformatory for women i went to westfield i stayed two years and i used to look at these holy roly sisters come there to the sunday afternoon meetings and give out a few cigarettes and wearing their big hats Their faces all made up pretty. And I used to say, what kind of flunky does she have at home sitting with her kids while she's up here trying to BS me? That's the attitude I had about AA when I was in Westfield. I came out after two years. I was paroled back to my aunt who at this time was dying of cancer. I saw a baby that again I wanted to call me mother. She wouldn't. I left there again, doing bad parole this time. In New York City, I walked the streets. I tended bar. I wasn't looking so good, so I couldn't do just but so much, but I went all around the teacup, including the handle. And believe me, I got a whole lot of cracks behind it too. i got to the point where i thought the alcohol was bothering me a little bit so i went to a priest i spoke to the priest and he told me to call aa i called aa and this woman who answered the phone sounded drunker than me i said lady you drunk i can't talk to you you drunk and i hung up the telephone I found out around seven months later that it was a recording. So that shows you what shape I was in. I came back out into Jamaica. I got into more trouble, and I got busted again. Thank God this time I got bust because I had gotten to the point where I would get a rose in the morning and stick it in a cherry cajaba bottle. That was the only happiness I knew at the time. Because I was waking up not knowing who I was waking up with, not knowing where I was going to lay my head the next night, not known where I would get a meal. I always knew where I'd get a drink but I never knew where I would go. I never would get me a meal that's the dilemma of the alcoholic woman. I went back to Westfield for 19 more months I listened a little more to the AA women that came there and I remember one woman said start where you stand and I left that meeting in tears and everybody laughed at me hard hearted Hannah I tried dope and I got so sick off of that I tried cough syrup And every time I belched, I smelt like a medicine cabinet. I tried everything possible, reefer, to the point that I was in a hotel room one night smoking reefer and drinking wine, laughing, laughing to beat the band all by myself. And the people in the next room called downstairs to the manager and said there's a party going on next door. the manager came upstairs and knocked on my door and here I am standing in all my splendor brassiere and panties and I was looking at a Tarzan picture on television and I asked him who's that Johnny Wasmello or Buster Crab he said that's Les Barker what did he say that for because I woke up again howling and screaming and laughing but that's the time I spent with myself I couldn't stand people. I couldn' t stand women, especially women. I could stand men because there was always something I could get from a man, not a sandwich but something I coudl get from him. So when I came out of Westfield a second time, I was paroled to my mother this time, who had recuperated, thank God, who had all three of my children, thank God, underneath one roof. And here I walked in to a girl I hadn't seen since she was four years old. She was now ten. To a boy I hadn'T seen since he was two years old, he was now eight. To a little girl I HADN'T seen since she WAS TWO YEARS OLD, SHE WAS NOW GOING ON FOUR. and I walked in and I said I'm your mother and they looked at me like I had three heads but I said it's not going to floor me this time I'm going to stick with it I stuck with it until that shoelace snapped and when I reported one day to my parole officer I was so cockeyed blind I went to the wrong desk and she made me sign a pledge and I told her what she could do with that pledge. And I went across the street and got drunker. She told me, Beverly, the next time you come here I want you to have all your clothes packed because you're going back to Westfield. I said, lady, you must think I'm a damn fool if you think I won't come up here and let you send me back to Eastfield. You're going to have to find me, miss. With that, I walked out of her office. She called AA. That night they came and got me. Oh, the whole force of them. St. Albans group. I was beautiful. I had short red hair around this long. I had on a pink bulky sweater, tight black pants, black boots, gray leather jacket, and a gray leather beanie cocked over to one side. And I was beauty. I walked into this cellar basement and the women came up and kissed me and the men shook my hand and I said oh Jesus they took me from one funny farm and put me in another. And I looked around and surveyed all the gentlemen, picked out which ones I thought I could get next to, and I opened up my mouth and told them that I hustled the streets of New York City, and I knifed my mother, and I gave up my kids, and I'm on parole. And they said, tell me what else is new, little girl? You ain't done nothing slick. So with that, I said, well, I'll let them take me home. I went home with this Irish guy that night and another fellow, Tommy Mann. And I said to him, I said, this program works, huh? They said, if you give it time, all you got to do is give it times. I said alright, I'll give it a week. If it don't work then, I know it don' t work. They said alright. The next day the Irish fellow called me up and he said, what are you doing? I said, drink and twister. He said, well, put it away and lay down and get yourself together. We're going to a meeting tonight. I said no, you get over here right now. He said honey, your days for giving orders are over. He said now put the bottle away, lay down, get some sleep, and we'll go to a meet-in tonight. He came over that night. I was down in the basement where my mother had put me, and I woke up, and he said get up, get dressed for the meeting. Oh, by the way, when you get up, I got your whiskey upstairs. That night, he became the Irish bastard. All over Queens, that's how he's known to this day. Billy the IB. Me, I made a vow with myself that I'll get even with him. I did. I married him. so that didn't solve my problem by getting drunk that day but thank god i had people in the program who stuck with me because one night one of the fellas the same tommy that i mentioned came over to my house and looked through my window and i was laying on my living room floor in alcoholic convulsion I had been toying with AA for around three weeks. He called up the St. Albans group, they came over in mass again, and they took me to Freeport Hospital for alcoholics. I stayed in FreepORT Hospital for three months. No, I stayed at FreepORT for eight days. Six days I was an alcoholic convulsion. Then I went to Central Islet Rehabilitation Unit for Women. I stayed there for three months. I was lucky enough to get a job in Freeport Hospital, and like I said, I got married to Billy after that. My AA has been beautiful. For one reason, I have people now that hold my hand people who I feel like crying they say go ahead and cry and get it out of you if I feel laughing they say laugh and get out of here my husband he's in the program I have my three first children back and I have three more benefits of sobriety all together when they get together it looks like a mob or elephants who run it through the house. I have the love and respect of my mother. I have the love and respect of my family. I have an opportunity to come here, Ohio. I have an opportunity to know many, many people who before wouldn't even open up their doors to me like my mother's neighbors. I have gotten so much from this program. But most of all, I've gotten myself from this program. I can look at Beverly now in the mirror. I don't cry. I can Look at my house now when it looks a mess, which it usually always looks with those three babies running around there. And I say, Thank God you got a house girl. I Can't forget to be grateful. I was down in that gutter. Believe me, there's more to my story than what I am telling here tonight. A whole lot more. A lot more hurts, a whole lot more pain. And I face them. My husband and I, we went through a big change last year because he has a gambling problem. Friends, groups told me to get rid of him, Beverly. He's hurting you. Get rid of them. I can't get rid off him because he's part of me. He has made my sobriety a happy sobriete and in turn I hope I have made his life a happy one. He lost two sons. I have been able to give him two sons back. He never had a daughter. I gave him a daughter, but I threw in a bonus. I gave them three more. I don't know whether he needed all of them or not, but I fixed it. My home is open now to sick alcoholics because that's the only way I remember where I was. I was a sick alcoholic now I am a recovering alcoholic all I can say to the area delegates thank you for having me all the way from New York and I want to say something especially to the fellas in the green robes back there God bless you you've taken the first step towards a better life by sitting in this room just try to stick with it it might hurt for a little while but believe me it don't hurt for long and you got people backing you up people in your corner and like they told me when I first went to my meeting little girl you haven't done anything slick so if you think you've done something or if you're not or if we think you've hurt somebody you've only hurt yourself and what you've Done can be undone through sobriety. Thank you very much. Well Bev, I want to thank you very, very much for sharing your story with us tonight I want to thank you especially for sharing your family with me last week. And I just want to tell you one little thing about Bev's family. She has the most charming children. They're children that you can see have grown up in love and understanding, especially these three little children. She has twin boys and a little girl named Beverly Ann. And Beverly was telling us that she went to the bank. Do you mind my telling you, Bev? I hope I can tell it as well as you did. But she went through the bank with the children. and she had the twin boys dressed up alike. But one is so much bigger than the other that they don't really look like twins, they just look like little steps. And Beverly Ann is about four or five years old, and she is just the most charming child. But there was Patrick and the twins and Beverly, and they were sitting on the side waiting for their mother to get finished at the teller's office. And a gentleman walked up and said to Beverly, gee, what a lovely pretty little girl you are. And Beverly said, oh, my name is Beverly Ann McGowan. And he said, oh, McGowan. He said, well, that's an Irish name, isn't it? She said, well, um, that's Patrick McGowan, he's my brother. And this is Terence McGowan and he's his brother. He's my father. This is Timothy McGowan and he is my brother My father is William McGowan and he was Irish and here comes my mother she's black. And as you can see tonight by Beverly black is beautiful. Thank you so very much. Before I make my comment, there are four men with baskets. The necessary pause in AA. And you know, it's funny. Central Committee needs some financial support. I'll remind you that we are self-supported through our own contributions. So many times we come in AA and we have short hands and deep pockets. But dig deep tonight, fellas. want a soft collection. Quiet collection. Beverly, I want to thank you for coming way out here and sharing your experience of strength and hope with us. It was a beautiful story and you are beautiful people. God bless you. Keep up the good work. On behalf of myself and the area wide committee, this is a certificate of our appreciation for where you were tonight so you can show that to Bill. I was asked to make some announcements. I'm hearing noise in that collection. I said, quiet. 1971 Ohio General Service Conference, Serenity Through Service, will be held at the Sheridan Gibson Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio, July 23rd, 24th, and 25th. I'm sure that if anybody here hasn't got any registration blanks, that somebody here like Maggie Oscar will take care of them. So see them after the meeting. Also, Mr. Knupp says to announce the Chautauqua Lake, New York Tri-State Assembly, the 18th Annual Chautausqua Tri-Estate Assembly. August 27th, 28th, and 29th this year. he has reservations here and Mr. Knuck will take care of you if you want to go to that I think we had a very good meeting tonight it was brief and to the point as soon as they're finished Thank you. Let it be. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen. 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, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen Again thanks Father you can put it in the back