Six and Seven Are the Keys to Freedom — Please Remove from Me, Fill in the Blank, at Any Conscious Moment – Mary S.

Hi, everybody. My name is Mary, and I am an alcoholic.
Hi. Thank you so much for having us, for having Tim and I here this weekend.
You're a wonderful group of people.
I want to definitely extend my thanks to the committee for inviting us
and allowing us to hit the road and have another adventure in sobriety.
And what an adventure it has been.
And it's, I love, I'm always grumbling and crabby before I leave for a conference.
I don't get to go as often as I'd like to or as often as we used to.
But, and I'm always doing it kind of kicking and screaming
because I have all this important stuff going on that I can't leave.
And, you know, I'm whining at the airport,
and I'm worried that the flights aren't going to be right and the whole thing.
And, you know, are the people going to be okay?
And, you know, are the people going to be okay?
Are the people that pick us up going to be on time?
Are they going to like us?
And that kind of thing.
And within microseconds, I have five new best friends.
And, you know, we're off to the races.
And it's like a big theme park.
You know, these conferences are like a big theme park.
And we have, oh, remember when land.
And my hangovers were like this land.
And all those kinds of places.
And all those kinds of places that we visit when we get together
and trade stories of our collective past.
But it's really nice to be on the shore with you today.
I am an alcoholic, and I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I appreciated Rick's story so much last night, and I related to it so much.
And I know you're back there somewhere.
You and Tim are back there somewhere, hiding out, pretending like you're,
you know, regular members of AA back there somewhere.
There you are.
I see you.
I did appreciate your story so much.
And my heart's with you, and my thoughts are with you this weekend, for sure.
And, honey, you're always with me.
But let me tell you my story.
I'm powerless.
I'm powerless over alcohol.
And that's why I'm standing here.
And I know what that means today.
And essentially, my story of coming to Alcoholics Anonymous
and staying in Alcoholics Anonymous is a story about power
and what I'm willing to do to get it today and then.
So, really, it started off pretty innocuously enough on the west side of Cleveland,
definitely the greatest location in the nation.
And it's my hometown.
And I love it.
I really do.
I tried like hell to get out of there for years and years.
And now I don't want to go.
Now I'm just darn happy to be there.
But I grew up on the west side of Cleveland.
And that's a little different than the east side of Cleveland.
And the west side of Cleveland is where the working folks lived.
And we had blue collars.
And, you know, most of the, everybody was either of eastern European origin
or Irish origin or Italian origin.
And we all lived there.
And we all had big families.
And I grew up in the 60s.
I'm the oldest of seven children.
And my mom stayed at home.
And my dad went to work.
He actually worked at the local television station.
He worked at the ABC affiliate in Cleveland when I was a kid.
And that was pretty cool.
You know, that gave me a little status on the block there.
And, you know, I'd bring my Girl Scout troop down there to be on the kids' show.
And that kind of thing.
It was pretty cool.
And it was just a great way to grow up.
You know, there were a ton of kids running around.
And nobody was on a soccer team or taking karate or had swim lessons.
You know, you learned to swim in Lake Erie.
And, you know, usually by falling off a boat or off a pier.
And it was a lot of fun, man.
It was a lot of fun.
But we really had everything that we needed growing up.
We, you know, we had shoes on our feet.
And clothes on our back.
And most importantly, my mom and dad, they loved us very much.
And we prayed together as a family.
I grew up a Catholic.
My Uncle Joe was a priest.
And he had a parish about 30 miles west of us.
And we'd go see Uncle Joe the priest on Sundays.
And my mom and dad took us to mass every week.
And they were active in our church.
And I never.
It was a beautiful family.
You know, we would come around the dinner table every night and we would join hands.
And we would say the grace prayer and we'd say the Lord's Prayer, right?
And my dad always taught us, he'd say, you know, faith is everything.
You can do anything with faith.
If you have nothing else, you have your faith.
And I want to make sure that you kids have a strong faith.
That you know that God loves you and Mom and I love you.
And you can do anything in the world with that.
And he really believed it.
He really believed that we could do anything that we wanted to do.
And he encouraged us to try.
And he worked very hard to make sure that we stayed in a good school.
And, you know, but I, drinking in the family was, it was fun.
It was, it was what the adults did.
It was, it was cocktail time.
And in our house, it was one, it's a turn
of the century house and it's, in the dining room, there's built in really pretty leaded
glass cabinets and, and on the right hand side, Mom had her cabinet with the, the china
and the silver and mementos and those kinds of things.
And on the left hand side, that was my dad's cabinet.
And it was the liquor cabinet.
And it was beautiful.
You see, when my dad was in the service before he met my mom and he traveled around, he was
a military attache and he, he would hang out in the 21 Club or, you know, they'd be, they'd
go listen to, to Fats Domino or, or, you know, some good jazz and, and he was, he was pretty
cool.
He was a pretty cool guy.
And he had his liquor cabinet and he had this, he, he redid, he took out all that beautiful
leaded glass and put in some crazy 70s plastic stuff and, but you'd open that cabinet and
there was every kind of liquor you could imagine.
There was dark rum and gold rum and white rum and, and Canadian whiskey and scotch whiskey
and single malt and, and it was, and the glassware, the glassware was beautiful and he was always
cleaning it and spark shining it.
There were long, skinny stinger glasses and big, fat beer steins and goblets and, and
rocks glasses and then there were all those weird liqueurs with branches in them and they
were blue and every color of the rainbow.
And it was just, it was, it was incredible.
You know, when my dad would get home from work,
when he was working at the TV station,
he'd get home and he'd start getting out the stuff.
You know, he'd get out the mixer with the glass stirrer
and he had a special cutting board
with the knife slit right in there
and he'd cut the fruit.
And when my dad made a drink,
he had a three-by-five file card box
and it was full of drink recipes.
I know.
You're following me, right?
And he'd go through and he'd pull out,
he'd pull out a recipe and put it down
and he'd start measuring.
He'd start with the jiggers and a little,
you know, a sugar cube going on
and my brother and I would just be,
you know, we'd have our noses on the edge of the table
watching this alchemy happening
and every once in a while he'd flip us a cherry,
you know, or make us at Shirley Temple.
And then him and my mom would sit down
and they would enjoy a cocktail.
They would enjoy a cocktail.
You know, and talk a little bit
and then she'd go make dinner
and that was how I remembered it, you know,
and they would have their adult parties
and there'd be all kinds of shenanigans going on
but it was, that's what I remembered.
Needless to say, this wasn't going to be my path.
You know, I said my mom and dad were active in their church
and they were gone a lot
and at that time we had six kids
and I was, you know, I was, you know,
I was the oldest.
My mom was always pregnant.
She was always pregnant
and there were always another kid.
There were foster kids.
There were just always babies
and I was the babysitter
and I, you know, that was, wasn't my favorite.
That's just not the way I wanted to do things.
You see, I always wanted to be free.
It was kind of a tail end of the 60s
and the early 70s
and I wanted to be free, man.
I wanted to do what I wanted.
I wanted to, you know,
listen to music
and just do my own thing
and go my own way
and I just always had all this stuff I had to do.
You know, I had to stay at home
and take care of babies.
Anyway, I, you know, I was,
up until, like, junior high age,
I was really a pretty good kid.
You know, everything was going along swimmingly
and then, you know, then it happened
and, you know, it happened for me
just like it happened for you
and it happened to every other American.
It's puberty, man,
and it's a brick wall
and it is for all of us
and I didn't feel any more comfortable with it
than anybody else
and I wasn't enough
and neither were you
and neither was anybody else
so we all did all kinds of wacky stuff
to try and make it happen
and I was pushing the boundaries, you know.
I was listening to David Bowie
and Lou Reed
and I was making my parents nervous.
And I started to, you know,
look for people outside of my circle,
you know, and take a risk
and get out there
and when I was growing up,
they were building I-90
and I-90, as you may or may not know,
stretches all across the country
and I went right through my neighborhood
and when we walked to school,
we had to walk over that construction site
and, you know, for years,
it was there as long as,
well, it's still there
except now there's,
there's cars on it.
Now I drive on it.
But at that time,
it was a construction site
and there were lots of steam shovels,
you know, big bulldozers
and stuff like that
and I was walking home one night.
I was about 13.
I was in eighth grade
and walking home from one of those
David Bowie,
illicit David Bowie listening parties
and it was dark
and I crossed,
I was crossing over the site
and a bunch of the boys
in my grade school
jumped out from behind
that construction equipment
and they ran me down
and they chased me
and they pinned me to the ground
and they sexually assaulted me
and I had no ability
to do anything with that event
other than put it away.
I was ashamed
and I was horrified
and I was completely traumatized
and had no idea what that meant.
All I wanted in my little adolescent mind
was to have a little boyfriend
and to maybe be part of something bigger than me
and be part of something special
but that's how it started
and the reason that I tell you this
isn't because that's why I became an alcoholic.
It wasn't like I, you know,
immediately turned to a drink
because of that.
The reason I tell you that
is because it set me up
and, you know,
we all have things.
We all have baggage.
None of us come in here clean.
We, you know,
there's in AA,
outside of AA,
stuff happens
and it happens to everybody
and that's what I began to carry around
and it didn't make me afraid
and it didn't make me depressed.
It made me angry
and so I began to be angry
and that anger was to progress
much as my drinking did.
Shortly after that time,
several months after that time,
some other boys in my Catholic grade school class
were altar boys
and they had a rum running operation
going from the sacristy
to the public park
that we all hung out in
and I put my order in
for a bottle of altar wine
and on a Friday night
before a high school football game,
I got my hot little hands
on that hot little bottle,
that hot green bottle.
I remember exactly what it looks like.
And then it didn't even have a label on it.
It had a piece of paper on it,
like a check mark on it, I think.
I don't know where it came from
and I remember how it tasted.
I remember exactly how it tasted
and I turned that bottle upside down
and man, oh man,
there it was, huh?
You know, it was all that power.
It was back.
You know, I experienced powerlessness
before I ever picked up a drink
and there it was
and I was the prettiest girl there
and I was funny
and I was popular
and we were having a good time
and life was grand
and that lasted about 15 minutes.
And then the world started to spin
and I started to stagger
and I threw up
and I started to cry
and some kid gave me,
he put me on the handlebars
of his banana bike
and he pedaled me home,
pushed me off
and pedaled away real quick
and my mom came out,
and she took one look at me
with all that puke
all over the front of my jean jacket
and she said,
where were you?
And I said,
I was at a pizza party
and I ate too much pizza
and I got sick
and I was off to the races.
I was just off to the races
and the next morning,
I had the first of a thousand
of those brain-rattling,
gut-wrenching hangovers
where I puked
and I puked
and I puked
until I had to puke again
and the whole time,
I thought,
where do I get more?
How do I do this again?
I can,
this is,
I know I can do this
and I set out
every ounce of energy I had
to get that next drink
and before long,
I had,
that was before they put pictures
on driver's licenses
and I told you,
there was a bunch of kids
on our street,
there was a girl
several years older than me
and she was 18
and she gave me
her driver's license.
It didn't have a picture on it
so I could buy it
and I could buy that tasty
3.2 alcohol beer
that they sold in Ohio back then
but at 15 years old,
that's a pretty big deal.
That's a pretty big deal
and so I could buy beer
at some of the local delicatessens
and I was just off and running.
You see,
and there was something,
I can tell you this,
I don't even remember
a whole lot about that time.
I'm always amazed
when people stand up here
and they really remember.
Like they remember
whole conversations
that they had in 1976
and I'm just like,
wow,
that might have been the glue
but I don't remember
a whole lot
but what I do remember
is I felt powerful.
I absolutely remember
feeling powerful
that I could walk into
a delicatessen
at 15 years old
and buy a six pack of beer
for my little friends
who were like,
ooh, ooh, ooh, you know.
Mary,
gotta hang out with Mary.
She's got the power.
I liked that
and so I just kept working it.
You know,
my mom sent me to,
you know,
things started,
you know,
I had that Jekyll Hyde.
You know,
I went from being
a decent kid
that went to school
and did my homework
and had ambitions
and I was writing
to the president
to end the war
and I was,
you know,
writing editorial letters
to the newspaper
when I was a kid.
When I was 10
and, you know,
I was precocious
and it just all changed.
It all changed
and I didn't want
to go to mass.
I didn't want to pray
with my family.
I didn't want to have
anything to do with them
and I don't want
to be like my mother.
She just has babies
and she's trapped
in this house.
She's not free.
She can't do what she wants
when she wants to do it.
You know,
so I started to rebel
and it was,
it was way past
David Bowie
at this point,
you know,
and they wanted me
to stay home.
I didn't want to stay home
and, you know,
and my mom and I
would just fight.
We would fight
and it was
slap,
box,
push,
down,
fighting,
you know,
and there'd be my dad
trying to break it up
and he'd sit me down
and he'd say,
Mary Margaret,
you know,
do you know?
Yes,
it's Mary Margaret.
Professionally,
I go by Mary M.
But he'd say,
Mary Margaret,
do you know how much
we love you?
Do you know
how important you are
to your brothers and sisters?
Do you know
you could be anything
you want
and I'll help you get there?
He says,
you are beautiful.
Why are you doing this?
And I just,
I gotta go.
I gotta go.
I might be missing something.
But then,
they need me.
You know,
and as,
as my ID turned 21,
I could start buying liquor.
And,
and that was
even better.
That was even better.
Boy,
I was queen
of the high school
parking lot then.
And,
my mom,
I'd gone to the same
girl school.
I went to a Catholic
girl school
that my mother
had gone to
and she was very proud.
She was very proud
that I would go there.
And,
after the middle,
middle of my sophomore,
sophomore year,
Sister Karen
suggested
that maybe
it wasn't a good fit.
You know,
because the other girls
were going to the snowball dance
and the mixers
and homecoming
and I was down
in the industrial flats
of Cleveland
racing muscle cars,
you know,
with my boyfriends
from the trade school.
You know,
those were the guys
that I loved.
And,
so I went over
to the public school
and it was the end
of the baby boom
and there were about
800 kids
in my graduating class
and,
you know,
I was free.
I was free.
And I did what I wanted
when I wanted to do it
and I stopped coming home.
I was out of school.
I had all those
academic credits
from the girl's school
and I was out of,
by the time I was a senior,
I was out of school
at 11 o'clock
in the morning
and I checked coats
at night
at a disco
at a,
a disco was happening
and we thought
it was pretty lame.
You know,
we weren't too big
on the disco stuff
but they had cash to burn.
So I was making
$100 a night
checking coats
and,
and I was free.
Right?
And,
that anger
was really starting
to grow
and it was turning
into a rage
and,
and it began
to feel good
to fight.
It began to feel good
to,
you know,
get into it
with somebody.
And it didn't work
so well
when it was somebody
whose coat
I was checking,
you know,
or,
or,
at the parties,
you know,
with the other
high school kids
and it,
and it,
it felt powerful.
It felt really powerful
to just get up
into a,
just work up a lather
and let loose
on somebody else.
It felt good.
But I don't know
what I thought
was going to happen
after high school.
I don't,
I mean,
I guess I thought
it was just
going to keep going.
I don't,
I didn't have any plans.
I,
I wouldn't have
a conversation
with a,
with a teacher
or with my parents.
My dad still tried,
he'd,
you know,
lecture me,
he'd sit me
on the edge of the bed
and give me those lectures
and,
you know,
and it just
wasn't happening.
And,
and so I,
I just went to the bar
and I started sitting,
instead of sitting
around the high school
parking lot,
I sat around the bar
and,
and,
um,
you know,
that began
some geographic cures.
You,
you know,
once I,
once I was able
to,
to work full time,
I would just work
as long as it took
to save up enough money
to go someplace.
And I was going
to move there,
I was going to get away
from Cleveland
and I was going
to move there
and then I'd get there
and I'd be there.
And I didn't know
what to do.
I didn't know
how to take care
of myself.
I didn't know
how to not be resentful.
I was resentful
over everyone.
I resented everyone,
everyone who cared
about me,
including the friends
that would invite me
to their,
their homes
to come stay with them.
And then they would,
I would just end up
making them angry
and running out of money
and I didn't want to work
and you can only make
so much money
petitioning
for normal
on the boardwalk
or,
you know,
that was about
the size of it
and I'd be back in,
I'd be back in Cleveland
and just be so resentful
about that
and fighting
with my mother,
fighting and fighting
and,
you know,
one of my new cures
was going to,
I was going to go to college.
You know,
I'd hung out
on a lot of college campuses
and they were pretty fun.
My phone's ringing,
isn't it?
I should get it.
I should pick it up
and just set it here,
just set it right here.
Sorry about that.
So I started hanging out
in college campuses
and thought,
well,
I might as well go there,
you know,
and they're giving money away
to go to college back then
in the early 80s
and I went to Kent State,
you know,
the infamous
Kent State University
and there was still
a lot of hippies
and radicals
hanging around Kent then.
They were trying
to build a gym
on the site of the shootings
and there was a lot
of action down there
so it was a fun place
to hang out
and so I got a government loan
and I went to college
and I decided,
you know,
I'd been in commercial art
in high school
and I was going to be
an artist
because artists
could break the mold.
Artists were free.
They could do
what they wanted
and that appealed to me.
So I wanted to be
a photographer.
I wanted to be,
do photo illustration
and design
and do those kinds of things
and they put me in a dorm
with a lot of other
art students
and they were painters
and potters
and poets
and sculptors
and musicians
and I'll tell you
what,
that place was live.
It was really fun
and they were creative,
wonderful people,
some of whom
I'm still in touch with today
and drinking just took on
all new meaning.
It became performance art
and this is where I learned,
I learned to develop
an appreciation for Mad Dog
because that was a statement
and we'd steal Mad Dog
from the convenience store
and go sit in a sewer
pipe over on the railroad tracks
and write manifestos
and just incredibly
depressing poetry
and I'd be up in my dorm room
drinking
and I took a class.
It was the hardest class
I've taken in college
to this day.
To this day.
And I went to college
for approximately 18 years.
To this day,
the hardest class
I ever took in college,
was jogging.
This little Nazi
that ran this class,
he was something else.
And I'd be sitting up
in my dorm room
and I'd be watching
my jogging class,
jogging around the comments
like, suckers.
You know,
but what happened was
is I didn't pass jogging
and I began to not pass
other things, you know,
and nobody's paying for me
to go to college.
And, you know,
my family doesn't have
that kind of money
and I'm taking out loans
and, but, you know,
something always happens.
You know, if you just hang around,
if you just wait,
a trap door opens
and there he was.
And he was the RA.
He was the resident assistant
in the dorm.
He's the guy that's supposed
to keep everybody in order.
It's a co-ed dorm.
There's women in one wing,
men in the other wing
and everybody's stone cold nuts
and drunk.
And he's the guy
that's supposed to keep things,
under control and legal
and he's walking around
drinking martinis
out of coffee cans
and thinking this is the guy.
This is the guy.
And we became drinking buddies
and, you know,
he took good care of me
and I thought, well,
this is a good plan,
him taking care of me
and he was engaged
with somebody else
but those kinds of details
never stopped me.
Never say die.
There's always a way.
And so we got engaged.
We got engaged.
You know, we...
That's enough of her.
It was my turn.
And, you know,
and it was a nice plan.
It really was.
He's a nice man.
Came from a nice family
and he was a potter.
You know, he was getting
his BFA in ceramics.
And the plan...
Ha ha, you try it.
The plan was
he was going to get
his BFA in ceramics
and we were going to get married
and with all the wedding money
we were going to buy a Winnebago
and we're going to go
be our artists.
We're going to go
hit the craft fair circuit
and we're going to make pots
and we're going to sell pots
and we're going to smoke pot
and then we're going to grow pot.
But we're going to be free.
We're going to do what we want.
And he lived in Columbus
and I lived in Cleveland
and that summer we were apart
at our respective families.
And I've never been
so miserable in my life.
I just...
I did what I knew how to do
which was drink.
And I went to the bar
and I don't remember working.
I might have.
I never remember that kind of stuff
but I remember drinking.
And, you know,
I was drunk all the time
and just not really respecting
the fact that I had a ring
on my left hand
and just restless,
irritable and discontent
and angry.
So angry.
And I was, you know,
getting thrown out of joints
and pushing people around
and just letting my mother have it.
And she was so happy
to be planning her firstborn's wedding.
And she offered me her wedding dress
and said,
I'd like you to have this.
Now I used to dress up in this dress
as a little child
and, you know, be a bride.
And I'd fold my hands reverently
and try on my mom's high heels
and, you know,
just pictures of me like that.
And my response to her was,
I'm not wearing that rag.
I want my own dress.
And you have to buy it
because you're my parents.
And so I had some kind of
Princess Diana monstrosity
and, you know,
and the wedding came
and all the relatives came in
and we had the rehearsal dinner
and I did what I do.
And I got drunk.
And I wasn't supposed to.
And I wasn't,
I was supposed to go home at 9 p.m.
and get a good night's sleep.
I didn't.
I stayed out till 3 in the morning
and I did what I do
because I don't stop.
I don't recall any time
that I ever picked up a drink of alcohol
and then put it down.
Unless I had to run, of course,
but I just never wanted,
to stop.
I never could stop.
And so there I was
that morning.
I'm getting married
and I got that hangover
and I'm puking and I'm puking
and there's my father
and he is resplendent
in his tuxedo
and I have to,
my father wasn't a tall man.
He was,
he was kind of round
and his head was really round
and he had ears out to about,
out here
and he was bald.
He was very shiny and round
and he had a smile
that went from ear to ear
all the time
and there he was with his arm out
ready to walk me down the aisle
and I'm wiping that crusty stuff
out of the corner of my mouth
and I'm thinking,
he said,
are you ready?
Uncle Joe the priest is up there
ready to say the wedding mass
and I'm thinking,
oh, this is a bad mistake.
And, but, you know,
the little brother in the tuxedo
has just shot up the aisle
with the ring
and I, I walked,
you know, dead woman walking
right up the center aisle.
We got married
and I told you what the plan was.
Itinerant artist,
Winnebago pot.
We moved to Columbus,
lived in a duplex
that his mother owned
and he got a sales job.
And I was mad.
I was not happy about that.
I was landlocked
and I had to work.
And,
so I did what I do.
I did what I do
and I worked in a dark room.
I don't know what,
they can't open the door
when you work in a dark room.
So in that little six by eight space,
I was free.
I was free.
And around that time,
about six months into that,
I started to get
these physical symptoms.
I was crying uncontrollably.
It would come out of nowhere.
You know, I'd hear a sad song
or have a sad thought
and I would just start bawling.
I was,
my blood pressure was
raging out of control.
I had incredible headaches.
Went to the doctor.
The doctor said,
honey, you have stress.
And he gave me a,
he gave me a prescription
for Elevil,
Tylenol 3,
and Valium.
I was 23 years old.
And he said,
don't drink with these.
I don't even have to,
I don't even have to try
to make you guys laugh.
I mean,
it's,
it was just
that ridiculous.
And,
yeah,
the second year of that marriage,
I got nothing for you.
I just got nothing.
I got nothing.
I got nothing but rage.
I got nothing but rage.
And I remember,
my husband made
Alka,
Alka,
Alka,
Alka,
architectural ceramics
that hung on the wall,
like these big sculptural pieces
that hung on the wall.
And I,
they just made such a noise
when you flung them off of that.
And so you can't imagine
the,
the satisfaction
of broken crockery
when you got that kind of rage.
And I,
and I,
I started running away.
I started,
I would just run away.
I would run away.
And I'd either get in the car
and I'd drive somewhere
where I knew someone
or I'd hitchhike
or I'd,
you know,
just run away.
And,
one of those times
I ran away
and I came home
and I brought some trouble with me.
And,
he wanted a divorce.
And he certainly
had every right
to do that.
But I was horrified
and petrified
and,
how dare you do this to me?
How dare you?
You can't do this to me.
And,
yes he could
and he did.
And,
I begged him.
And it just,
you know,
it was beyond begging.
And,
and he came home.
It was,
it was actually my birthday.
It was my
24th birthday.
And,
he came home
with a big manila envelope.
I saw him park the car.
And I thought,
you know,
this is the fantasy land
I live in.
It's a big envelope.
It's my birthday.
And,
hey,
he'll forgive me.
And he came in
and he said,
I need you to sign these.
They're the dissolution papers.
And I,
I flipped.
And I took him
by the throat
and I started to beat his head
against a concrete wall
with the full intention
of taking his life.
Wanted to take his life.
I fell
completely enraged.
And,
he was
bigger than me,
taller than me,
stronger than me,
no problem.
And,
and,
you know,
then it was a big
dramatic thing
running around
with pills and things.
somehow he got me
in that old 1970
Volvo station wagon
that we had
and chugged up I-71
and just like that kid
with the banana bike,
he pushed me out
of the passenger seat,
rolled down the window,
looked at my mom and dad
and said,
you can have her.
And he took off.
And I went to bed
in my old room
and I woke up
and there were
my softball trophies
and my horse statues
and my posters
and my rock star posters.
And,
as far as I was concerned,
it never happened.
And by the end of the week,
I had a new bar.
My barstool.
And by the end
of the third week,
I was dating the owner.
By the end of the fourth week,
I was a daytime manager.
I had the key
and I ordered all the liquor.
I just,
I just don't take my time.
I just don't like
to mess around.
And for the next
two and a half years,
my world got very small.
It didn't leave that bar.
And if you came
to that bar,
you came to see me.
And if I liked you,
you didn't have to pay.
And if I didn't like you,
you probably did have to pay
more than you should
in many ways.
And it just
got real small.
And my mom and dad,
at first,
they would come in
and they'd want to
enjoy a cocktail.
And they'd get
15 minutes
of my mouth
and my act
and they'd sneak out.
They didn't want me
to see them.
And my brother
and sisters,
I got six of them.
They don't even know
who I am.
They have no idea.
She's the crazy person
that makes the Christmas tree
fall down.
You know,
and I was always
looking for a fight.
And, you know,
at that point,
my mom and I
were just
a hundred miles away.
And my dad,
he would try,
he would beg,
he would write me letters.
He wrote me
the most incredible letters
that I still have today.
Just begging me
to say a prayer,
to relax,
to relax,
to relax,
to get some help.
You know,
he was even,
you know,
maybe you need
a psychologist.
You know?
I don't,
my last drink,
I don't know.
It wasn't any different,
really,
than any other time.
I don't,
I had,
a couple of times,
you know,
things were,
were getting dicey
and people,
you know,
friends in the bar
were starting to stay away.
And,
and I dated this guy
that owned the bar
and he was always
breaking up with me.
You know,
and it usually,
had to do with
some kind of drama
that I would put on
for everybody
the night before.
And,
you know,
he had broken up with me
and I begged him
because I,
I mean,
I,
that was my lifeline.
You know?
And he said,
you can work here
but you have to leave
after your shift.
So I'm banned
from the bar
that I work in.
And I,
I got a problem
with that.
And,
and,
and,
and,
and,
and,
and,
so I'm going to stay
for just one beer.
One.
Just one.
I don't know what happened.
And,
you know,
half a dozen later,
he's down at the other end
of the bar
talking to a young lady
and I walk down there
and tell both of them
exactly what I think
of the whole situation.
You know,
they're pulling me out again.
You know,
and I
went to some other bar
and got into it
with that barmaid
and went back
to a friend's house
and passed out
on her living room floor
and,
and I woke up
the next morning.
It was February 12th,
1988
and I woke up
with the thought
that if I took another drink
I would die.
That I would die.
And,
I was petrified.
I,
I did not know
where to turn.
I didn't know
where to go.
I knew that the reason
that my marriage failed,
that my,
I was estranged
from my parents,
that my brothers
and sisters
were afraid of me,
that I couldn't
keep a job,
that I was shaking
every day,
that I was crying
every other day,
that,
that no matter
how hard I tried
to make it right,
it was wrong.
The reason
for all of that
was because I drank.
And,
that thought
of life with
or life without
alcohol
was absolutely
paralyzing.
But,
there was one guy
that I knew
that didn't drink.
And,
he had more fun
than anybody I knew.
And,
he'd come into that bar
and he would dance
and he would be
my designated driver
and,
and,
he took care of me a lot.
And,
he's sitting at the bar
drinking Diet Coke,
you know.
And,
I called him up
and said,
how do you not drink?
And,
he came over
to my apartment
and,
and,
you know,
he was,
he was dancing
on the edge there.
You know,
the hanging out in bars
drinking Diet Coke.
I'm not saying that
because it's okay
to do that.
It's not okay
to do that.
And,
if anybody hasn't told you,
it's not okay
to do that.
But,
that's what he was doing
and I called him
and he came over
and he shared with me
his story
about coming
into Alcoholics Anonymous
and neither one of us
have had a drink
since that day.
And,
he went back to AA
and I went with him.
And,
I went to my first meeting
and there were about
300 people there
and I was,
I'm dressed like
I'm going to the prom,
man.
You know,
and I don't know,
I don't know
what I'm going to find
but,
it wasn't what I,
I didn't find
what I expected
to find.
And,
what I found
were young people
like me.
And,
what I found
was a lot
of laughs
and a lot
of joy
and people
that seemed
genuinely happy
to see me.
And,
that made
such an impression.
And,
it's,
I have experienced
that every time
I've walked into
a room of
Alcoholics Anonymous.
There is an
authenticity here.
There is a realness
here that crosses
across our diversity.
We have a lot
of diversity
in AA
and I love it.
I love diversity
in AA.
I love that
everybody is weird
and different
and goofy
and it's you,
the same knucklehead
sitting on the
bar stools
that I loved
and then you disappear
and I didn't know
where you'd go
and you're here.
You're here
and you're cracking
the same stupid jokes
and you got
the same sarcasm
and,
but you have hope.
You have hope.
And,
what is hope?
Hope is a positive
image of the future.
A positive image
of the future.
A positive vision
of the future.
And you had that
when I walked
into the room
and you have that today
and I have that today.
And,
I,
you know,
the light,
just the light
that burst
into my life
at that moment.
And then,
my old friend
Tommy C.
used to say
that the light
that came crashing
into the darkness
and it was the light
of my higher power
shining through your eyes,
shining in your smiles,
shining in your eyes,
shining in everything
that you did.
And it melted my heart.
But there I was
with a very drippy heart
that needed to be
made whole again
and I,
you know,
how do I do that?
I,
you know,
I didn't even think
I was that bad,
quite frankly,
but the longer
I hung around
and listened
to the stories,
the more I was,
well,
yeah,
I was pretty convinced.
Maybe I wasn't that,
you know,
too young
or maybe it wasn't
a phase.
But you said
get a home group
and I got a home group
and I actually
didn't have much choice
in the matter.
You know,
there was another woman
that she used to hang out
in my bar
and she was one of those
people that disappeared
and there she was
and she was just,
she was and continues
to be a real,
you know,
classic American character.
You know,
at that time
she owned a vintage
clothing store
and she was,
you know,
a pretty well-known
character in Cleveland
and,
and,
very freaky
and,
and very crunchy
and,
and she would wait for me.
She would pick me up
and she would take me
to meetings
and she didn't give me
a choice on a home group.
She said,
we're going to this home group
and it was the women's group.
It was the Edge Lake
women's group
and,
and this was,
you know,
there were women
in our home group
that were,
you know,
drank during Prohibition.
It was,
it was fabulous.
But,
and,
and there were women
my age
in their 20s
and younger than me
even in their late teens.
You know,
so we ranged
in ages really
between 16
and 80 something
and it was fabulous
and these were women
that stayed at home
and women who,
professional women
and women who were
in college
and women who were,
you know,
just women,
just the whole
broad spectrum of women
and it was great
and the whole thing there,
the whole message there
and it came down
from that,
from that flapper.
The whole thing
was that you
are a lady
and you are a sober woman
and you will hold
your head up
and you will clean
yourself up
and you will live
your life
and it was,
boy,
it was a message
of power.
It was a message
of power
and it,
it really
caught me
where I lived
and,
and those women
brought me
to my higher power.
You know,
and,
and it was,
to this day,
it continues to be
just an incredible,
incredible experience
and,
and it was the steps,
right away,
it was the steps
and I remember
at my first experience
at that meeting,
we were discussing
step eight
and they came around
to me and I said,
well,
I don't know a whole lot
about step eight
and one of those
long timers,
she stopped me
dead in my tracks
and she was sober
as long as I am today.
She had as many,
well,
maybe a little less
but she stopped me
dead in my tracks
and she said,
honey,
honey,
honey,
and she still does that now.
She calls everybody honey
in the sweetest way.
She said,
you know a lot
about drinking,
don't you?
And I said,
yeah.
She said,
you don't,
you haven't been here
that long,
have you?
No,
she said,
that's why you're
going to sit down.
You're going to be quiet
and you're going to listen.
And I sat up
a little straighter
and I shut my mouth
and did what she said
and she's a member
of my home group today
and recently enjoyed
40 years of sobriety
I think it was last year.
So,
I did what they told me
and we worked the steps together
and I got a sponsor
and she said,
I'm not going to be your buddy,
I'm not your friend,
I'm not going to get you a job,
I'm not going to take care,
you know,
you're single,
I'm married,
can't help you
with your dating situation.
She said,
but we're going to work the steps
and that's what we did.
And just right from the get-go
there was no sitting around,
there was no waiting
and it was,
we were dead serious about that.
And so that's what we did
and it was an awful lot of fun.
I had a lot of fun
in my early sobriety,
went to a lot of meetings,
it was, you know,
all the young people stuff
that makes me insane today.
But,
I love my girls.
Stuff happened,
you know,
there was,
we worked,
we did my fourth and fifth step
about six months in
and I worked real hard
to do my fourth step
and it was really pretty amazing.
And I did my fifth step
and my sponsor said to me,
she said,
you know,
you might want to lay off the dating.
And I looked at her,
I was,
I think my jaw hit the table,
I was like,
what?
I have a date after this.
You know,
I had a date after my fifth step.
And she said,
you might want to think twice about that.
She said,
you need to spend some time with you.
You need to learn,
you just did a fourth and fifth step.
You just found out
who you really are.
You might want to hang with that a little bit
before you try to hang with somebody else.
And I thought,
ew.
And I,
you know,
then and to this day,
I am 110% convinced
that if I pick up another drink,
I'm going to die.
There is no play.
I just know that in my bones.
I just know that.
And I believed it then
and that thought has motivated me so much
to do what I didn't want to do.
You see,
I wanted to be free.
And that means I do what I want,
right?
Wrong.
It means I do what I'm told.
And by doing what I was told
and not thinking about it
and learning to do what I was told.
You know,
back then we smoked in AA
and somebody had to clean
those stinking ashtrays.
And I didn't want to clean them.
Nobody wanted to clean them.
But by cleaning those ashtrays,
by coming early,
doing coffee,
picking up chairs,
giving somebody a ride,
I learned how to do something
I didn't want to do.
And I never did anything
I didn't want to do
because I was free.
Right?
And that's where that got me.
But I learned how to do things
I didn't want to do
and that was probably
the first big lesson I learned
in Alcoholics Anonymous
and it has saved my butt
a hundred times since.
You know,
it's just this life has been
nothing I ever expected.
I did not expect any of this.
And, you know,
it makes me a little nervous sometimes.
My God,
if this keeps going at this rate,
you know,
I might have a monarchy in my future.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I mean,
I have a relationship
with my higher power today
and I,
you know,
one of the first things,
thoughts that hit me
when,
after working the steps
was that my mom and dad were right.
They were right.
And it felt like a relief.
It felt like such a relief
to let go
and that,
you know,
when our third step
in our big book,
the director of the show,
it just,
you mean I don't have to do that?
I don't have to control everything?
God, what a relief.
And it continues to be.
It continues to be.
My father was my greatest advocate
after I got sober.
He was,
you know,
my next brother under me
was not happy about it
when I got sober.
And I have to tell you,
my mother and I,
it was years and years
and years
before we could sit down together
without it turning into a fight.
And I'll tell you a little bit more
about that in a second.
But my dad,
he was my biggest advocate in sobriety
and he loved the fact
that alcoholics prayed together.
That we would get in a circle
and join hands
and pray together.
And he used to come with me
to open meetings occasionally
and just would have that grin
on his face, you know?
Like,
oh, they're praying.
You know,
I get to pray with them.
Yeah,
yeah,
you know,
and he'd get real fired up about it
and he'd say like,
you know,
why don't you come back to mass?
You know,
because I'm off
meditating with Hindus
and,
you know,
I'm doing all kinds
of alternative spiritual,
I'm a spiritual person.
And there's not,
it's diversity.
We're all about diversity here.
And, you know,
we all have our path
and that was my path then.
And, you know,
my dad was in mass every week
praying for me.
He was praying for me
to come back to mass.
You can bet on it.
And I wasn't having any of that.
But I went to college
and I went back to college
and I found out not drinking
that I'm kind of smart.
And I didn't flunk.
I would get good grades.
And it was like,
wow, this is kind of easy.
And, you know,
so I'm, you know,
dancing through college,
going to college
and no big changes.
So I stayed in college.
And I finished my degree
and got another degree.
And they said,
well, you just keep going.
I got another degree.
And I was finishing my PhD.
I went back to Kent State
and I got a PhD.
And I got a PhD in communication.
I studied media effects for a while.
My dad was in television
for a long time
and I was interested in that.
So I studied that.
I wrote a dissertation.
I wrote a dissertation.
I wrote a dissertation.
I did a piece of research
and I wrote a dissertation.
You had to do that
before they let you out.
And it's a book.
You know, I wrote this book.
And it took a couple years
for me to do.
And I hated it.
I hated doing it.
I don't know why I hated it.
I'd say, you know, Dad,
I did this to see if I could do it.
And, you know, I can do it.
So I don't have to do it anymore, right?
And he's like, no.
What did they tell you in AA?
Give it another day.
Just day at a time.
Give it another day.
And he'd grade my papers.
I was teaching college
and he'd grade my papers
and, you know,
he'd give me advice on this.
He's like, this one.
This one's having a little trouble here.
You talk to this one.
And the day came for me
to defend my dissertation.
And it was in the beginning
of November in 1998.
And we were going to celebrate.
We were going to have a party.
You know, and I had two brothers
who had birthdays.
And I'm finishing my dissertation
and my dad called
and he said, Dr. Stepp.
It sounds like some, like,
wacky name change in AA.
I know, but it's really my name.
And, you know,
he said, Dr. Stepp.
And I was like, oh, don't say it.
You'll jinx it.
I got to defend.
And I was going to ask him
to come with me and defend.
And he said, you're coming over, right?
And I said, yeah.
And I hung up the phone
and I got in the shower
and the phone was ringing
by the time I got out of the shower.
And it was my little brother
saying, get here now.
Because when my dad hung up the phone,
he had a massive brainstem infarction.
And he fell to the floor unconscious
and he never regained consciousness.
And the EMTs came
and they took him to our local hospital.
And, you know,
we all gathered at the hospital
where he was.
And there he was on a table
hooked up to the breathing,
you know, the breathing machine.
And, you know, we were all in shock.
And my mom was there
and my brothers and sisters.
And we did the only thing
that we knew to do.
Nobody talked about it.
Nobody made a decision to do it.
We joined hands around him.
And we said, they are father.
And I called,
my girls.
And they came,
as you do.
And you took care of us.
When we came back from that two days later,
well, the next day I had to go
and defend my dissertation.
And it didn't even occur to me not to go.
It didn't even occur to me.
And the AAs came
and they drove me to Kent
and they packed my briefcase
and made me brush my teeth.
And I went and I defended my dissertation.
And my advisor sent me off
with my walking papers.
And I went to the hospital
and I whispered in my dad's ear,
you could call me doctor now.
And my mom gave me his class ring.
He got his bachelor's degree.
And he gave me,
she gave me his class ring to wear.
And we took him off life support the next day.
I haven't gotten choked up about this in a while.
And I couldn't go in that room
because I felt like I was 10 years old
and I felt like I was sitting on the edge of the bed
and he was saying,
Mary Margaret,
do you know how much we love you?
Do you know how important,
how important you are?
Do you know how much God loves you?
And I certainly knew in all of those moments
that God loved me.
And it came through your love for me.
It was wonderful.
It was terrible
and it was wonderful all at the same time.
I've never been more grateful in my life.
And after my father was gone,
I had a mother
who we didn't know.
Didn't even like to be in the same room with.
And she doesn't have a driver's license.
I used to think,
it used to make me crazy.
Now I think it's brilliant
that she had seven children
and never got a driver's license.
But she had to go to mass.
And so I needed to take my mom to mass.
And she liked to go Saturday at five.
So I would take her to mass.
My sister and I would take her to mass.
And,
and I realized when I was at mass,
I first,
the first couple months,
I couldn't get through it without crying
because here I was in the church.
I was baptized in,
got first communion
and went to eight years of grade school with,
got married in.
They're going to bury me out of that church
without question.
But I felt close to my dad.
This was his home.
And I,
so I kept coming back.
Right?
And I started to listen to what was going on
and it was meaningful to me.
And I started to listen some more
and I could hear my mother sing.
And my mother has a beautiful voice.
And I remember her singing when I was a little child.
And I remember her singing me to sleep
and singing my,
all those babies to sleep.
And I would sit in mass with my mother
and she would sing.
And it made,
it healed me.
And it made all that anger and rage
go away and go down the drain.
And slowly,
month by month,
year by year,
my mother,
and I put back together a relationship.
And there was one day
when there was a baby squirrel
that had fallen out of a tree in our front yard.
And the two of us mobilized
like it was the fire of London.
We were going to save this squirrel.
And it was the first time
we ever did anything together, you know.
But I'm really happy to tell you today,
my mother regularly tells me,
what would I do without you?
So, and since that time,
I've had another brother
who was the victim of an assault.
This is the brother
that wouldn't speak to me for years.
He would tell people I was his cousin.
Because I was sober.
And he experienced a traumatic brain injury
about two years ago
after, I don't know,
he called a crackhead a crackhead
or something like that.
And crackhead was strong.
And he was,
had a skull fracture in six places.
And, you know,
suddenly over,
I said, what can I do to help you?
And he's like, I don't know.
I don't know what to do.
And he's a little wacky, you know.
He talks a lot.
His emotions are up and down.
And he kept losing jobs
because he can't follow.
So I mobilized.
We found him a brain injury program.
And I got him on disability.
And he's doing all right.
He's doing all right today.
He's happy.
He's happy.
And he's got a shot.
You know, he's doing vocational rehab.
And he's a mad guitarist.
And he's going to go learn how to make guitars.
And I have another brother this past week
that had a pretty big surgery.
And it was my job to get him to surgery
and be there in the recovery room when he woke up
and make sure my mom knew everything that was happening.
And he sent me a text today.
You know, that melted my heart.
You know, he's a big, strong carpenter.
Yeah, you know, and he melted my heart today
in a text before I came about how much I mean to him.
And, you know, whoa.
You know, all these responsibilities.
I'm free.
I'm free.
About, you know, my sponsor said I shouldn't date for a year
and a year and about a month.
And I was speaking at a meeting.
And I caught somebody's eye.
And he caught my eye.
And I marched right up to him and said, hi, I'm Mary Stepp.
You know, he jumped about a foot.
And we started circling each other, you know,
like a couple of sharks.
And it was like sixth grade, you know.
Somebody came up to me in my own room and said,
do you know Tim Towsley?
He likes you.
And we had a date.
And I caught sight of our image in a shop window
after we had some coffee and went to a scary movie.
And I saw that image in the shop window.
And it was just boom.
It was like that, you know.
Well, not that that doesn't happen 1,000 times a week
in Alcoholics Anonymous.
But.
We've been together ever since.
It's been about 23 years.
And you know, what a journey that's been.
I can't speak for him.
He'll speak later.
But I'll tell you what.
I was petrified.
I think I've said that three times this afternoon.
But you know what they taught me in AA is feel the fear
and do it anyway.
And we always knew.
That's what we did.
That if we kept our higher powers between us, we had a shot.
And he wasn't my higher power.
And I wasn't his.
And when we got to a meeting, we separated.
And now it's a little different.
Now we come to these conferences.
And we get to be drunks.
And we get to be together.
And there's none of those responsibilities.
We are free.
We are so free when we're here and get
to spend our time with you.
And it reminds me of.
All that keeps us together.
You know, this love that we share, this genuine care
that we have for each other is really remarkable.
And, you know, we can be so silly about it.
You know, we can be so suspicious of each other
and defensive with each other and silly.
And then, you know, when push comes to shove
and we actually do work that third step,
we're just like, I love you.
You know, we do.
And we get to have a lot of that at these conferences.
And it's really wonderful.
It heals me.
I have, today I have way more career than I can handle.
I, it's, you know, I was just sending out resumes.
And 10 years later, I'm on the faculty
of a major medical school.
And I do research with women who are,
who have just received a terminal diagnosis of cancer.
And so I go into their homes.
And I interview them.
And they tell me about hope.
And it's an incredible blessing to be able to share my life
with these women, to be able to share what I learn
with medical students and with other physicians.
Talk about a feeling of power.
Try humbling a doctor.
I always say a prayer before I go.
But God is with me every step of the way.
My higher power, I don't know what that is.
I don't know who that is.
It's, to me, it's not a big man in the sky.
It is just, it is a wonderful living force of good that does
for me what I cannot do for myself.
And my sponsor taught me step six
and seven are the keys to freedom.
And she said, the way she explained it to me
after I did my fifth step was that,
at any conscious moment, you can turn your thoughts
to your higher power and say, please remove from me,
fill in the blank.
And once I do my fifth step, I know what goes in those blanks.
I know exactly what goes in those blanks.
And that is the key to freedom today for me.
My sponsor, a lot of girls, and they certainly keep me humble.
And they are the light, one of the lights in my life.
And I'll finish this by telling you, when Tim and I got married,
once again my mother offered me her wedding dress.
And she said, I don't know what you can do with this.
And I said, you know, if I can't make it work, I'll, you know,
I'll have it preserved.
And I moved heaven and earth to get my big butt in that dress.
And a dear friend of mine in Alcoholics Anonymous is a,
a seamstress, she's very talented, and we moved some,
the hem and some lace and some seams and some,
and the night before Tim and I were married,
I surprised my mom and my dad.
My dad was still around at that time, thank God, and we showed him the dress.
And when we were doing the dress, we found a grain of rice from their wedding.
And I sewed it up in a little piece of lace, and I wrote a poem to my mom.
And that was the beginning of chipping away that glacier that I had frozen her
into.
And the next day, my father and mother walked me down the aisle,
and it was as pure as I've ever felt in my life.
And those are the things, those are the kinds of moments.
No, you don't come here to get married, you don't come here to get a job,
you don't, but you can find those things.
You can find anything you want in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And if you stay on that path, if you work those steps, if you find that freedom,
you'll have those moments too, and I know you have.
And I,
so I guess all I have left to say is thank you for my freedom.
I, I tattooed it right here.
Thank you and
let's join hands and participate in a miracle and say the Lord's Prayer.