Six and Seven Is Where the Magic Happens — You Found Out Who You Are in Four and Five, Now Ask Higher Power to Remove It — Mary S.

Hi everybody, my name is Mary and I am an alcoholic.
I forgot how much fun these were.
I haven't been to a young people's conference in a couple of years.
It's like the Rocky Horror AA picture show.
Just don't throw anything at me, I'm unprepared for that.
Thank you.
Thanks for being here.
Because if you weren't here, none of us could be here.
And our most important mission is to keep the doors open.
And I'm also grateful to hear the message of service that we had a couple of minutes ago.
Humble service is what it's all about.
That's how we stay here.
My husband and I are happy to be here.
We came to get out of the Cleveland weather.
You have it much nicer here.
Although we probably should wait another 24 hours before we know for sure.
. . .
But it has been a nice day.
It's been a nice time since we've been here last night.
Seeing some old friends and making some new ones for sure.
But I'm here for a very important reason and that's to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous.
So I'll begin at the beginning.
I grew up in, well, in a wonderful home.
You don't hear that an awful lot from these podiums, but you'll hear it from me.
I came from a pretty traditional family on the west side of Cleveland.
My mom and my dad.
And I'm the oldest of seven children.
So if you could have described our home as anything, it was noisy.
It was noisy.
It was chaotic.
It was full of a lot of love.
We had seven kids and one bathroom.
So you learned how to find your space, grab it, and hold onto it real quick in our house.
But we had everything that we needed.
We had love in our family.
We had laughter in our family.
We went to good schools.
We lived in a nice neighborhood.
Rode our bikes around the block until our moms called us home.
There was a ton of other kids in the neighborhood.
It was a nice way to grow up.
And my mom and dad were really involved in our childhood.
I think the most important thing that my mom and dad gave me was they taught me how to pray.
They taught me how to pray.
It was one of my first memories they taught me how to pray.
.
My father taught me that now I lay me down to sleep prayer and the angel of God my guardian
dear prayer.
And when I was, I don't know, five or six years old, I thought pretty sure I was going
to be a nun.
I thought that was probably what I wanted to do.
And I loved God and I knew God loved me.
At no time was there a fearful presence of God in our home.
It wasn't like that at all.
In fact, that's what we did when our family had problems.
We prayed together.
My dad was real active in our church.
We belonged to the Roman Catholic Church in the neighborhood and we went to those schools.
And it was very important to my parents that we went to Catholic school.
My dad's brother, my uncle, was a priest.
And so we had that very strong legacy in our family.
But it was never a punishing, fearful kind of a God.
It was always a very loving presence.
And that's what I remember about my childhood.
I remember that my parents really adored us all and that family was the most important thing.
And as I grew older, things started to change.
And nothing was enough.
I wasn't pretty enough.
I wasn't funny enough.
I wasn't smart enough.
I wasn't athletic enough.
And I suffered from the mysterious disease called puberty.
And I was looking for a change.
You know, I told you I went to a Catholic school.
And I was there.
And we were always really led to believe that this was the place to be.
That, you know, this was a very important privilege.
And we were lectured all the time by the priests and the nuns about loving each other and being kind.
And one night when I was walking home from my friend's house,
a gang of boys I went to school with followed me home and pinned me down in the snow and assaulted and molested me.
And the next day I went to school and all those boys were there.
They were laughing and calling me a slut.
And I was 13 years old.
And that was the day it changed.
That was the day that I needed to get the power back.
Because that was the day that I lost the power.
That was the day that I stopped being innocent.
And that was the day that I started looking for a power greater than myself.
But it wasn't going to be God, you see.
Because those boys went to the Catholic school.
That I went to.
And they represented that God.
And they represented that background.
And that was the day I turned away from that.
I didn't know what I was doing when I was 13 years old.
I didn't know how to take that.
And my strategy was not to tell anyone.
I didn't even really know what happened.
All I knew is that when I went to school the next day it was my fault.
So I started to look for the power.
And there were some other guys in our school.
And they were altar boys.
We had to go to Mass a lot.
Catholic school.
You had to go to Mass first Friday.
You had to go to Mass one day during the week.
You had to go to Mass on Sunday.
You did a lot of Mass.
And so, you know, the boys were altar boys.
And it was before they let girls be altar girls.
And they had a little racket going between the sacristy and the local park.
And it was the altar wine pipeline.
And I put my order in.
I was in eighth grade.
It was the fall of eighth grade.
And I'm pretty sure it was 1974.
And I put my order in for a bottle of that altar wine.
And went up to the park.
And I turned that bottle of altar wine upside down.
And I found the power.
And I was all those things and more.
I was pretty enough.
And I was smart enough.
And I was funny enough.
And I was attractive.
And the center of attention.
Boy, was I the center of attention.
In fact.
You know that I felt like I could just take on the world.
That was liquid power.
And that's what it was all about for me.
And that lasted about 15 minutes.
Because after that initial rush of energy and surge of power.
It pretty much knocked me on my behind.
And I was spinning.
My head was spinning.
And I was falling down.
And the next thing you know, I was crying and losing control.
And I threw up.
And I was.
And I was.
You know.
And I know that you know this.
Because you probably did this too.
But when I was 13, 14 years old.
We traveled in packs.
We were like herds.
And we just moved through the neighborhood.
And we went over to the side of a big park system.
And I fell down in the middle of the street with cars rushing this way and that.
And somebody finally stuffed me into the handlebars of his banana bike.
And rode me home.
And I staggered up the driveway and into the back door.
And I had puked right all over the front of my jean jacket.
And I looked at my mom and said I was at a pizza party.
And I ate too much pizza.
And I got sick.
And she said, yeah, right.
And she sent me to bed.
And I woke up the next morning with the first of many, many voracious hangovers.
And when I had a hangover.
You know.
Death measures availed us nothing.
And I've never done anything halfway in my life.
I can honestly tell you that.
Never done anything halfway.
And my hangovers were right in that category.
They were colorful.
They were exquisite, my hangovers.
And that was the first one.
And I said, mom, I think I have the flu.
And she said, right.
And I didn't play softball in the CYO softball game that day.
And this was my pattern.
This is how I drank.
And this is how I continued to drink.
And two days later, when that hangover wore off, I was planning the next one.
Because that drink gave me the power.
That drink made me feel strong.
That drink made me feel in control.
And that was something that I wanted to have.
Now, this was about 1975, 1976.
We were getting, it was an Olympic year that year.
And I said, you know.
Other kids were interested in careers.
And they were playing softball.
And taking diving and swimming lessons.
And watching Olga Corbett.
And I was, I set out to be a world-class Olympic drinker that summer.
I was going to master that.
You see, because at first drunk, and a couple of them after that, I was embarrassed.
And I was going to teach myself to drink.
Because if this drinking was going to be my key to the center of attention.
And my key to feeling powerful.
Then I was going to learn how to do it better than anybody else.
And not be embarrassed.
So I started, I went into training.
And I went into training by robbing my dad's, my dad had a liquor cabinet.
And it was beautiful.
And he was very proud of it.
My dad was the kind of drinker that when he mixed a cocktail, it was a work of art.
Neither of my parents are alcoholic.
And when my dad was the kind of guy, he'd come home from work.
And he would make a cocktail.
And he had a three by five box.
That had drink recipes in it.
And he would get fruit.
And he'd have little knives and cherries.
And special glasses.
And weird stuff from all over the world.
And he would make these drinks.
And him and my mom would sit down.
And they would have a cocktail.
Well, I went into training.
And I started pilfering.
And I would get the mayonnaise jar.
And I would just start pouring stuff into the mayonnaise jar.
And then I'd climb up into the dormer in the garage.
And learn how to drink.
And that's how I taught myself to drink.
And I taught myself to cover it up.
And I was off.
I was off and running.
I was off and running.
And everything about my life started to center around drinking.
And it was about that time.
I guess I was 15 or 16 years old.
That my personality started to change.
And I went from being a loving daughter.
A kind sister.
A decent person.
That had hopes and dreams.
To being a sassy punk.
And that's what I was.
And I would get into trouble.
And my dad would find out.
You know, my mom and dad were involved in their church.
And they were involved in a couple groups.
And I was the oldest of these children.
And they would leave.
And they would leave me with them.
Which I then, of course, would proceed to drink.
And after they were gone for about a half an hour.
I would leave too.
And I would go to the park to see my friends.
Because that was the most important thing in the world.
Was for me to be with my friends.
So I could show them how amazing I was.
And one day I was sitting at the park.
And we were drinking.
I think we were drinking and setting leaves on fire.
Some kind of important community service.
Like clearing the fallen leaves.
And they would all blow up against the chain link fence.
And you'd get a whole wall of flames.
And that was always fascinating.
But before things got too out of hand.
Somebody said, oh Mary, there's your mom and dad.
And here comes mom and dad.
Walking down.
They had their nice clothes on.
And they were walking down the path to come and get me.
And I thought, oh my God.
I was grounded all the time.
And inevitably, you know, they'd just get in the car.
And we would get in the car.
And my dad would start to talk.
And he would talk.
And he would lecture and lecture.
And get every line.
And you've heard it all.
You're hurting me more than you're hurting yourself more than you're hurting me.
Or however it went.
I don't know.
But he would start talking and talking.
And I would, you know, I don't know where my head went.
But I started to resent.
I started to resent there.
And I started to resent their control over me.
And I started to resent their concern for me.
And to me, it was all just them wanting to keep me from my friends.
My precious friends.
I went on my way.
You know.
And I went to one high school for a while.
And it was a private girl's school.
And after two years, when all the girls were going to, the other girls were going to mixtures.
And they were dating the other boys at the other Catholic high schools.
And I was down in the industrial part of Cleveland with a guy I met at a tech school.
And we were racing his 1969 Cougar drag racing up and down the street.
That was the difference between me and them.
And after two years at that school, the kind nun said, Mary, we think you'd probably be happier somewhere else.
And I said, that was the plan.
You see, I had it all under control.
That was the plan, was to get out of there and go to the public school.
And I went to the public school in the suburb on the west side of Cleveland.
And there were 800 people just in my graduating class.
It was big.
It was the end of the baby boom.
And it was easy to get lost.
And it was easy to do whatever you wanted to do.
And I became a burnout.
The girl who was going to become a nun became a burnout.
That's what we were called.
I don't know what you call them now.
I think you call them freaks now.
But that's what we did.
And we wanted to be hippies.
And we kind of missed that because it was the late 70s.
And there were a lot of people that were getting into disco.
And we didn't like that.
And so we drank.
And I had an ID for 21 when I was 16.
When I was 16 years old.
And I could buy liquor in the liquor store.
And that's what I did.
And I drank in the morning before school.
And I took drugs before school and went to school.
And I made it through school.
It wasn't that hard.
And there weren't that many rules in it.
That wasn't a big deal.
And some of my teachers said, well, aren't you going to go to college?
And I thought, well, why would I want to do something like that?
Because I'm having such a good time.
And next thing you know, people are starting to drift.
And there was that change.
And high school was over.
And the girls were starting to get pregnant and married.
And I thought, well, I know I don't want to do that.
And I wasn't real sure what I wanted to do.
But I was drinking.
That's all I knew how to do.
That was all I learned how to do in that period of time.
So I drank.
I hung out in the bars and I drank.
And I started to experience what they describe in the big book as rest.
Restlessness, irritability, and discontent.
I started to get angry.
Now, I started to get angry back when I was 13 years old.
But by the time I was 18, I started to get real angry.
And when I got angry, I felt powerful too.
When I could muster up a rage and dive into that rage head first
and just let it rip either with my mouth or my fists
or whatever I had at my disposal, I felt powerful.
And so I started to drink and rage.
It wasn't very attractive.
And that restlessness, irritability, and discontent got bigger and bigger.
And by the time I was 18, 19 years old, my brothers and sisters were afraid of me.
They were all younger than me.
My mom had a baby when I was 17.
He was just a little pipsqueak.
But the others, they were afraid.
And I was always either throwing up in a bucket up in my room
or I was raging at them.
Or I was on the way out the door.
That's their memory of their oldest sister.
But I started to take the geographic cures.
And I went down to Florida.
And I thought about going to New York and went out there a couple times
and went to California.
And I'd get to these places and I would be petrified
because I didn't know how to live.
All I knew how to do was drink, so I would do that.
And then all the money would be gone to live or get an apartment.
And it was way too scary.
And I would come back home to the safety of my family.
And they would always take me back
because they loved me more than life itself.
They loved me with an unconditional love
that I don't know if I'll ever be able to give somebody else.
And my dad would be there.
And he would be thrilled.
He would have this great big smile on his face when I'd come back.
No matter how hungover I was,
no matter how nasty I was to him,
he always welcomed me back
with the biggest heart.
The biggest heart on the face of the earth.
And a couple days later, I'd be off and running again.
My mom and I would fight.
And it was terrible.
You know, I remember her chasing me down the street one day
and screaming obscenities at her.
And I'm never coming back.
I always came back and they always took me.
But this restlessness, irritability, and discontent,
finally, you know, I thought, well, maybe I will go to college.
And I went to Kent State in Ohio.
And I went to, I was an artist.
I was going to be an artist.
And I lived in a dormitory with other art students.
And it was a co-ed dorm.
And drinking took on a whole new meaning here.
It became very different.
And it became performance art, is what it became.
And my idea, I started to binge drink.
And I hadn't really done a lot of binge drinking up until then.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe it was.
Who cares?
But that was my goal, was to binge drink at this place.
And there were a lot of other art students there.
So it was a creative atmosphere.
And that's what we were supposed to do.
And so, to me, well, just this is what was typical.
You know, I'd put on this pair of overalls that I had that had,
you know, this stupid embroidery all over it.
And patches from Rolling Stones concerts and things like that.
And I'd put on a pair of overalls.
Rolling Stones concerts and things.
And I'd wear those for a long time until they were pretty stiff.
And we'd get a bunch of Mad Dog and a bunch of bourbon
and go sit in a sewer pipe by the railroad tracks for days,
as long as we could, and just eat Vienna sausages
and walk around the tracks and build sculptures
and climb the railroad towers and write manifestos.
We would write manifestos.
That's what artists did.
They wrote manifestos.
And so we'd write manifestos.
And they were pretty incomprehensible.
And we'd leave them in the sewer pipe.
And when we got cold or uncomfortable, we'd go back to our apartments.
And that's what it was about.
And we thought we were making these great artistic statements.
And nobody even knew.
They thought we were just gross burnouts.
But I thought this was living, man.
This was really living.
And this is where I met my first husband.
And he drank like I did, you know.
He was a pretty creative guy.
He was a potter.
And he drank martinis out of coffee cans.
And I like that.
And he was the RA on the dorm.
And if you're in college, you know what the RA is.
The RA is the guy that's supposed to,
or the person that's supposed to keep everybody in line
and not breaking the rules.
And this guy, he could break the rules more creatively than anybody I knew.
And so I fell in love with him.
And, you know, we fell in love.
And what do you do when you fall in love?
You get married.
And, you know, all of a sudden school was unimportant.
And I ended up finishing his degree.
And, you know, that was good enough for me
because I certainly couldn't take care of myself.
I definitely needed to be taken care of.
And I was kind of tired of going home.
And so we decided to get married.
And I really loved him.
I really believed that.
And I think he did the best that he could.
And we were both the oldest in our family.
And when you're the oldest in a big Catholic family,
you have a big Catholic wedding.
And Uncle Joe the priest comes into town to say the mass.
And all the relatives come in from out of town.
They have a big old shindig the night before the wedding.
And during the big old shindig the night before the wedding,
I did what I do.
I got powerful.
And it was a mess.
It was a dirty, ugly mess.
And the next morning is my wedding day.
And there I am in this beautiful satin dress.
And I have to back up for a minute
because when I was engaged that summer,
my mother offered me her wedding dress.
And she was so proud
because there were pictures of me,
three years old,
prancing around in my mother's wedding dress
with the veil and high heels.
And I loved that wedding dress more than anything.
And when my mom offered me her wedding dress,
I said, what would I want to wear that rag for?
That's the kind of person I was.
And so there I was in my wedding dress
that I picked out,
wiping the bile out of the corner of my mouth
after I had just thrown up in the bathroom.
And there's my dad,
as proud as the day is long,
ready to walk me down the aisle.
This was his dream come true.
And he had that great big smile on.
And he said, you ready to go?
And I was shaking and I was white
and I thought I was going to throw up again.
It didn't have anything to do with getting married.
But as soon as that organ started playing
and they had the white paper down the center aisle
and all the people were turning around,
what are you going to do?
And I walked.
And I had that moment of clarity.
And I knew it was a big mistake.
There's Uncle Joe up at the top of the aisle.
So I went and got married.
And that night I was a wreck.
I cried my whole wedding night
because I knew it was a huge mistake
and I didn't want to be married.
My husband was trying to ply me with bourbon
and the money and the cards.
And we went to the Bahamas the next day
and I sat in our hotel room
and drank coconut rum
and took mescaline
and was afraid of sharks.
And I sat there for three days
and he finally talked me out of there.
And we said,
we're going to go play some volleyball.
And I thought, okay.
And we go to play volleyball.
And wouldn't you know it,
that's the moment that
this 10-foot shark rolls into the harbor there.
And I was just back in that room.
That's it.
I was back in that room.
I was done.
And, you know, our plan when we got married
was that he was going to,
he was a potter.
He got a degree in ceramics.
And we were going to take all this great money
that we got from this wedding
and we were going to get a Winnebago.
Now, the wedding wasn't that big,
but we were going to get a Winnebago
and we were going to just travel the craft fair circuit
and make pots and smoke pot and sell pots
and do all the pot stuff.
And what happened was he got a sales job
and we moved into a duplex
that his mother owned in Columbus, Ohio.
And this was not part of the plan.
This was not the way I planned it.
And I got a job.
I told you I was doing photography
and I got a job in a darkroom.
And I was doing color printing in a darkroom
and for the next two years
I was in a six by eight completely pitch dark room
with headphones on listening to the butthole surfers
and printing your senior pictures
and your baby pictures.
And I started to drive myself insane.
And I drank every day at lunch.
And we drank every weekend.
And I was a complete binge drinker at that point.
I started drinking on Thursday
and I didn't stop until Sunday.
And then I would keep it together for the week
and do it again the next weekend.
I started to experience physical effects from my drinking
and I went to the doctor and I told him
I was crying uncontrollably
and I had terrible headaches
and I didn't know what was wrong.
What was wrong with my life.
But I was miserable.
And he said oh.
And he gave me a prescription for Valium
for Tylenol 3 with codeine
and he put me on mood stabilizers.
And he said no don't drink with these.
I was 22 years old.
And I said okay.
And so I don't have to tell you what happened next.
I was married for two years
and I don't remember the second one.
I pulled some real shenanigans.
I went down and visited a friend at the college campus she was at
and just pulled some real stunts
and got in a lot of trouble.
And when my husband found out he had had enough
and we went back and forth on that for a little while
and he came home.
It was my 25th birthday.
And he had a big envelope.
And I thought I had the situation under control.
I talked him into keeping me around.
And it was my birthday.
And he had a big envelope.
And I thought see he got me a big birthday card.
And I thought this is it.
I finally got him back where I want him.
Because I'm in control here.
And when he pulled out the papers
they were the dissolution papers for the marriage.
And I went crazy.
And I actually felt like my mind just crumbled at that moment.
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.
And I couldn't believe he was doing this to me.
He was doing this to me.
And then I ran upstairs for the Valium and the drugs
and we tussled and he finally packed me into
we had a 1970 Volvo station wagon.
And he packed me into that wagon and strapped me in
and he drove me 90 minutes north on I-71
dropped me off on my parents front porch
looked at them and said you can have her.
And he turned around and he walked out of my life.
I went to bed in my old room.
And I went to sleep for about 24 hours.
And I woke up and there were my softball trophies.
on the shelves and my little porcelain horses
and my crucifix and my Virgin Mary portrait.
And far as I was concerned none of that stuff ever happened.
And within 24 hours I had a new bar.
And within 48 I was dating the owner.
And after about a month I was working there.
And after about two months I had the key and I ordered all the booze.
I was the daytime manager.
And that was my bar.
And that was my booze.
And you were all my friends.
And you came to see me.
And if I liked you you got double.
And if I didn't like you you paid double.
And I thought that was living.
I had arrived.
And I could drink the way I wanted to drink.
And I was in control of all of you drinking.
I served the alcohol.
And I felt powerful.
I was a mess.
I drank every day.
And I didn't even know I drank every day.
A couple of times I thought boy I'm drunk every day.
And I didn't want to think about that too much.
And the kind of drunk that I was it was you know everything was fine.
I'd go in about noon and start stocking the bar.
And I'd pour a water glass full of vodka because I wasn't allowed to drink.
Well I was at first but that didn't last real long.
And so I would put it in a water glass and put it under the sink.
Nobody would see it.
It would just look like a cup with water in it.
And I drank.
And I'd start drinking Stolichnaya vodka out of this water glass.
And that's just how I drank.
And that went that way for a couple of years.
And about you know like I said the day would go and the happy hour customers would come.
And we'd throw some darts and everything was fine and nice.
And I had my regulars.
And then night would come.
And once night got there then all bets were off.
And you see that's what my drinking is all about.
That's how I know I'm an alcoholic.
That's how I know I belong in alcohol.
Alcoholics Anonymous.
For a very simple reason.
When I pick up a drink I cannot predict what's going to happen next.
It's just that simple.
I cannot control my drinking.
I cannot control what's going to happen next.
I cannot stop once I start drinking.
You know through the years when I was a younger person I thought I was having a good time.
And it was all just about having a good time.
By the time I was in my early twenties I couldn't stop if I wanted to.
I just didn't know that I wanted to.
I didn't want to.
But I was miserable.
People were moving away from me.
Because about 10 o'clock at night in that bar it would be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
And somebody would look at me the wrong way.
Or a girl that I thought was prettier than me would be paying attention to my boyfriend.
Or whatever.
And I was off.
Boy I was on the dance floor telling somebody what for.
I was throwing a beer mug.
I was taking a swipe at somebody with a pool cue.
I was kicking a bar stool out from somebody who was passed out on the bar.
That's the kind of drunk I was.
And I was angry.
And I had to show everybody else just how angry I could get.
Because I was the most powerful person in that bar.
And you shouldn't forget that.
I run this.
But on the inside I was scared.
And there was a lot of cocaine around at that time too.
And between the alcohol and the cocaine my brain was just melting.
And my heart was starting to pound.
And there was all the suicidal feelings of coming down off of that stuff the next day.
And all the crazy remorseful stuff.
Now I never remembered anything I did.
I had blackouts from the very first day.
And I never remembered a doggone thing when I was drinking.
And I used to think when I was in high school I thought that's how I knew how good of a time I had.
The less I remembered.
The better time I had.
But by 1987, 1988 things started to fall apart quick.
And the guy that owned the bar he stuck a finger in my chest.
And he said you are an alcoholic.
You are not allowed to be here.
You've got to find someplace else to drink.
And I was offended.
I was offended.
Because alcoholics were dirty, scummy, skanky old men that lived under the bridge.
And I certainly wasn't dirty, scummy or skanky.
I had gone back to college.
I was 26 years old.
I had it together.
I was paying my bills.
And I was better than everybody else.
Because I had the power.
Well, my last drunk wasn't that eventful really.
This guy, I told you, he told me I was an alcoholic.
And he didn't want to see me anymore.
But I could work there.
I could work in this bar.
But I had to leave after my shift.
So I'm banned from the bar that I work in.
And I had to leave.
And he was at the end of the bar talking to a young woman.
And I went down there and I told the two of them exactly what I thought of the entire situation in no uncertain terms.
And next thing I know they are hauling me out by the coat.
They are pulling me.
And I'm hollering at them.
And swearing.
And real class act.
And they threw me out the front door.
And I was very resentful.
And got in my car and drove to another bar.
And gave that barmaid a hard time about something tremendously important like the songs on the jukebox.
And then I spent about an hour in a phone booth crying.
And then I went, I got in my car.
They wouldn't let me drive.
And I got in the passenger seat.
And I was having.
I was angry about something.
So I was having a temper tantrum on the windshield of the car with my feet.
And I shattered it.
And went to a friend of mine's house and I went to sleep on their living room floor.
And that was it.
I woke up the next morning.
It was February 12, 1988.
And my first thought upon waking up was that if I took another drink I was going to die.
That's it.
That's it.
I knew that if I drank.
I was going to die.
I knew that because of my drinking my marriage failed.
That because of my drinking my parents wouldn't talk to me anymore.
That because of my drinking my brothers and sisters wouldn't see me anymore.
That my friends were walking out of my life.
That I had a hole in my heart that was black and getting bigger every single day.
That the reason that I wanted to end my life.
That I couldn't envision a future was because I drank.
It was just that simple.
And it was the most frightening moment I ever spent in my life.
I was 26.
And I felt like my life was over.
Because I couldn't imagine life with alcohol.
And I couldn't imagine life without alcohol.
I didn't know how to do that.
So I called up a guy that I knew that didn't drink.
And he had more fun than anybody I knew.
This guy would get out on the dance floor and he would send people to the hospital.
He had so much fun.
We had a great time.
And he laughed.
And he was crude.
And he was rude.
And he was more fun than anybody.
And he was my designated driver a lot of the time.
I had that Volvo.
And we would drive around in that Volvo lighting sparklers.
And I'd be sitting in the back drinking a bottle of wine.
And he'd take care of me.
And I called him up.
I said, John, how do you not drink?
And what I didn't know is that he had been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for about three years.
And he was hanging out in bars and drinking Diet Coke.
And he was coming real close to the end.
He was coming real close to the edge.
I said, John, how do you not drink?
He said, one day at a time.
What are you willing to do?
I said, anything.
Because I'm scared.
I'm scared to drink.
And I can tell you with complete honesty that I am scared to death today of what could happen to me if I pick up a drink.
If I pick up a drink, I am a dead woman.
I watched somebody die this week of alcoholism.
I know that there's a person sitting in this audience tonight that's going to be dead of alcoholism within five years.
Somebody you're sitting next to, maybe.
Maybe it's you.
But this disease kills.
And I knew it that day.
So I did something about it.
And I was scared, man.
I didn't want to come to AA.
Who wants to come to AA?
I wanted to go to Europe.
So I came to AA.
You know, my friend John was really cool about this.
He said, you know, he didn't push me.
He didn't say, you've got to do 90 meetings in 90 days.
He said, you could do 90 meetings in 90 days and see where you're at.
You've got to quit doing everything now.
He said, well, maybe you should, like, not take that Valium.
Maybe you should not do any Coke.
And don't drink.
And just try going to a meeting.
And he gave me options.
You know, but I told you, I was really scared.
I was real scared.
But I went to an AA meeting.
I thought I was pretty slick, you know, because I didn't wreck my car.
I didn't go to jail.
I didn't, I mean, a marriage crumbled, but that was his fault.
You know, I didn't have a lot of the same consequences that you sometimes hear from this podium.
I didn't have any of those.
I was paying my bills.
I had a ton of money coming in.
You can make a lot of money tending bar.
You don't pay for drinks when you tend bar.
So it's not like I was spending money on alcohol and drugs and things.
People gave that stuff to me.
And so, you know, but the thing that, that's not the stuff, though.
It's the inside stuff.
It's the restlessness, irritability, and discontent.
It's the uncontrollable rage.
It's feeling completely powerless.
And you know, I didn't like that powerless feeling.
And when I came to AA, they said, you know, what are you willing to do?
I said, anything.
They said, well, you got to pray.
I said, pray?
This is how you stay sober?
You pray?
I looked at those steps.
Big book.
I think the big book is the Bible.
I thought, well, okay.
I'm not so hip on the Bible, but whatever.
If that's what you got to do, I'll do it.
But the thing that got me about AA, I wasn't so sure about those steps.
I figured I could work them.
I had those first three steps worked about the first week.
And the fourth step was like, I didn't even want to think that far ahead.
But I got to AA.
I was working the 11th and 12th step by the end of the second week.
I had it all figured out.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I didn't know what I was doing.
But what kept me coming back was the people in Alcoholics Anonymous.
These are my favorite people in the world.
You are the same knuckleheads that sat in my bar and told those bad jokes
with that sarcastic humor and the crazy antics.
And I love you for that.
And you're here and you don't drink.
Most of the time.
And I love that.
And I loved that when I came to AA.
There was laughter.
There was a sparkle in your eyes.
It was the most attractive thing that I had ever seen.
And I saw some attractive things in AA.
Let me tell you.
And I thought, I'm coming back.
And I did.
I kept coming back.
I really liked coming to AA.
And I am so grateful for that.
I'm so grateful that I liked that.
And it was, you know, I went to big meetings.
Meetings twice the size as this one right here.
And I could get lost there.
And it was distracting.
And I think I was distracted in a big way.
You know?
And there was a lot of my ego that kept me sober.
Because I said I wasn't drinking and I wasn't going to drink.
And it was my ego that kept me sober those first couple of months.
But it was kind of weird.
It was definitely weird.
And I think the hardest part was leaving that bar.
Because that bar was...
Because that bar was where my friends were.
You know?
And it was real tough.
And then one of those days I was going to...
In fact, I groveled for my job back.
And I worked in that bar the first two months I was sober.
And the women from AA, they would pull up to the bar, beep the horn.
I'd whip the towel out from under my belt and say,
Bye, I'm going to an AA meeting.
And I would run out the front door.
Let me tell you.
The regulars don't like that.
They don't like that.
They don't like their barmaid running off to AA meetings.
But that's what I did.
And I loved coming to AA.
Because there were younger people there.
And they were cool.
But that's not how I stayed sober.
Didn't stay sober on the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Though God knows I love it.
I stayed sober because I did the work.
And the work in Alcoholics Anonymous is hard work.
And it requires a humility and a maturity.
That's difficult to muster when you're 26 years old.
Let alone when you're 20 years old or you're 16 years old.
And I always felt that the young people in Alcoholics Anonymous were really special.
Because we're asking you to find a maturity that you're not even supposed to have yet.
And it requires that to stay sober.
It requires being able to understand who you are in the grand scheme of things.
And that's pretty hard.
Self-centered.
Self-centeredness is part of going through puberty, I think.
And it's real hard to break out of that.
But it certainly can be done.
And it can be done, just like we heard earlier, through humble service.
You know, alcohol is just a symptom of a bigger problem.
And I've already mentioned it.
And that's self-centeredness.
Self-centeredness is my problem.
Self-centeredness is always my problem.
And humility is always my answer.
And that's what these steps have brought me.
The way to do that, the way that I found to do that, is through a power greater than myself.
And I told you that my problem is powerlessness.
And my problem is looking for powers greater than myself that aren't so great.
And that's what I did.
I looked for anything that made me feel powerful.
But I never looked to God.
You see, because that's what my parents wanted.
That's what my parents taught me.
And I turned away from that.
They taught me when I was 13 years old.
I turned away from that.
You know, and when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I found out my dad was right.
And he said, so what do you do in AA?
And I said, well, dad, you're not going to believe this, but we pray.
Really?
And I got to begin a journey with my mother and father, a spiritual journey with my mom and dad,
that is one of the most precious things in my life.
You know, I told you that my parents were, they have a lot of faith,
tremendous amount of faith.
And they gave that to us as children.
And we got to pray together again.
And one of the greatest things I've ever received in Alcoholics Anonymous
was being given the ability to pray with my mom and dad again,
just like I was when I was little.
I used to fake like I was asleep when they'd do the rosary,
but we don't have to do the rosary now.
You know, my dad and I, we started to talk again.
He gave me those lectures again.
But this time I wanted to listen.
This time he had things to teach me that I was willing to accept.
And it was remarkable.
I stayed in school and I worked the steps.
My sponsor said don't make any big changes the first year and I didn't.
So I stayed in school and I stayed in school and I stayed in school
until there wasn't any more school to stay in.
Although I found a way to deal with that too, which I'll get to in a moment.
But I threw myself into Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I worked the steps and I prayed.
And everything that I did was motivated by the fact that I don't want to take a drink.
Everything that I do today is motivated by the fact that I don't want to take a drink.
And when I keep that orientation, I'm in good shape.
You know, they ask us to do a lot of funny things in this program.
They ask us to be honest.
They ask us to tell about all the weirdness of our life to another person.
They tell us to...
They tell us to admit we're wrong when we're wrong.
They want us to answer the phone at 2 o'clock in the morning.
Drive a bunch of strangers all over town.
Come to Vermont in February.
I really believe that the greatest lessons I've learned in life
are by doing things that I don't want to do.
I'm a drunk.
I'm an alcoholic.
I'm a self-centered person.
I don't want to experience that feeling in the pit of my stomach,
the, I don't want to do that feeling.
I didn't do it.
I went the other way.
I did the exact opposite.
I flipped up a middle finger and said, what do you think of that?
That's how I was.
But in Alcoholics Anonymous, I can't do that.
In Alcoholics Anonymous, I have to feel that feeling in the pit of my stomach,
the, I don't want to do that and do it anyway.
And I can walk through that fear,
because that's what it is.
That feeling in the pit of my stomach is fear.
And I can walk through that fear because I'm not alone.
I know that you've walked through that fear.
I know that my higher power can take me through that fear.
I know that if I walk through that fear, I'll be a better person.
It'll be worth it.
The hard work is worth it.
And it is.
So how is it today?
It's pretty good.
It's pretty good.
And it keeps getting better.
It has not been easy staying sober in Alcoholics Anonymous.
You know, no, I've got to alter that.
Staying sober has been the easy part in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Not drinking has been the easy part.
The hard part has been doing the things that I have to do to not drink.
The hard part has been being honest.
The hard part has been praying when I want to fight.
The hard part has been keeping my mouth shut when I want to shoot it off.
The hard part has been going to a meeting when I don't want to.
Or helping somebody I don't like.
That's the hard part.
Not taking a drink isn't that hard.
But it's crucial.
It's crucial.
I don't mean to minimize it at all.
And some people never, ever get that.
Ever.
And it's definitely something to respect.
I worked those steps.
And I worked them again.
And I worked them a third time.
And I work them every day.
And the only two steps I'm going to go through right now are the two steps that we don't hear much about.
And that's steps six and seven.
I think steps six and seven is where the real magic happens in this program.
Knowing about steps six and seven and knowing how to work steps six and seven is what separates...
I don't know.
I don't even like saying that.
But I was going to say that.
But I'm not going to say that.
It makes a difference though.
Let me tell you.
And here's how I understand steps six and seven.
This is how my sponsor taught me.
That when we do steps four and five, we have a blueprint.
And that blueprint is us.
It's me.
When I did my fourth and fifth step, I found out who I was.
And all the good stuff and all the bad stuff about me.
And I was surprised.
I was surprised by some of the stuff I found out when I did my fifth step.
But I know I don't have to handle it alone.
Steps six and seven tell me that I'm responsible for that.
I'm responsible for that stuff.
That stuff doesn't go away.
It doesn't ever go away.
My selfishness isn't ever going to go away.
That's mine.
And I'm responsible for it.
And steps six and seven tells me how I'm responsible for it.
Steps six and seven tells me that I always have to be ready to deal with it.
I always have to be prepared to be responsible for my own behavior.
And step seven tells me exactly what to do when I get into trouble.
When that behavior starts to be there.
Step seven says we humbly ask God to remove this character defect.
And that's how we change in Alcoholics Anonymous.
We begin to do it differently.
This is a program of change.
And six and seven tells me exactly how to do that.
Believe me, the first time that I encountered a character defect after doing a fifth step, I didn't know what to do.
I knew it was a character defect.
I knew it was something I wasn't supposed to be doing.
But I didn't know what to do.
But the seventh step says we humbly ask God to remove this character defect.
And I did that.
And it worked.
It worked.
I couldn't believe it.
And I continue to do that today.
And I know that there's some trigger situations for me.
And I know there's...
I know who I am.
And that's one of the greatest things AA has given me.
I know who I am.
And what I'm capable of.
And I have to always be ready.
To say, oh God, help me keep my mouth shut.
And God helps me keep my mouth shut.
Or God, help me to know what to say.
And God puts the words in my mouth.
Or help me to know what to do.
And God guides my actions.
Help me to be unselfish.
And God will help me to be unselfish.
Remove this obsession.
And the obsession will be removed.
Now I don't just sit around and wait for visions and things like that.
I gotta get busy.
I can't sit around and think.
I'm an obsessor.
And I can obsess with the best of them.
And I have to be busy.
And that's what service brings me.
If I can get out of that and go help somebody else.
Got a character defect happening?
Gotta go help.
And get out to a meeting.
Call one of those women that I sponsor.
It doesn't have to be somebody in AA.
I can help anybody.
It doesn't matter.
I don't think God minds.
In fact, I think God would prefer it if I helped people other than AAs.
I think He likes that.
So that's what it's about for me.
This is an incredible journey in spirituality.
You know, I've done lots of things.
And when I started to pray in Alcoholics Anonymous, it had to be perfect.
And I was rhyming my prayers and trying to write the Psalms.
And finally somebody said, you know, Mayor, maybe you're missing the point.
And the only point I was missing was how much of a point I was missing.
The only point I was missing was how much of a perfectionist I was.
And I needed to just calm down.
You know, God's happy just to hear from me at any time of the day in any way, shape, or form whatsoever.
And so now I try to make my life a prayer.
And I try to make conscious contact with the higher power whenever I can.
I've meditated in ashrams.
I've gone to Mass and monasteries and chanted mantras and read different spiritual texts.
And you know what?
It's all good.
It's all good.
And it all comes back to the same place.
And I really like that about Alcoholics Anonymous.
That it's a launch pad for a great spiritual adventure.
My life today is very good.
I told you I stayed in school until school ran out.
And that was hard.
Let me tell you.
That undergraduate degree wasn't...
That was okay.
That was pretty fun, actually.
That was fun.
And then I went and I got a master's degree and it got a little harder.
And it got a little more complicated.
And I was in AA and they said,
Don't think.
And then I would go to my graduate classes and they'd say,
Think about this.
Take this apart.
And I went into a field where we study human behavior.
And you know how scary that can be for an alcoholic.
And...
So I lived this one life during the day and then I go to my meetings at night
and they tell me to be quiet and sit down
and stop trying to interpret everybody's behavior.
And it was an interesting process.
And it was frustrating and difficult.
But I made it through that master's program.
And right before...
No, I think it was the last year of my undergraduate.
And I went to an AA meeting and I saw one of those guys that I had seen
my first week of meetings.
And I was about a year sober.
My sponsor said,
You can't date until you've been around a year.
So I got a dog that first year.
And it was about a year later and I saw this guy at a meeting
and he was something else, boy.
And I went over there and I stuck my hand out and said,
Hi, I'm Mary.
And he jumped back.
And that started a whole new spiritual journey.
Because you know what?
The dog never complained.
The dog never got resentments.
When I was living with the dog,
it was really pretty easy to live as a sober alcoholic by myself.
And Tim and I started to go out.
And it was really...
It was just amazing.
It was just amazing being in love with somebody like that as a sober person.
And it almost swept me away.
And it was very frightening.
And I'm grateful to the people, the strong examples that were in our life
that helped us do that.
Because I did not know what I was doing.
And left to my own devices, I would have made a mess out of that situation.
And it's really just through the grace of God that we've survived this time, I think.
But he made it with me through graduate school.
Between Tim and my dad, you know, I just...
I would come home and be so tired and frustrated and freaked out.
And about halfway through the Ph.D. program,
I had no idea if I was going to finish.
It was just an endurance test.
You know, the first year was kind of cool.
And I knew I could do it.
And after that, it's just, who knows?
Well, see, I knew I wanted to finish.
But I wasn't sure if it was ever going to happen.
And I would call my dad on the phone and say,
Dad, I don't know if I can do this.
And he'd say, sure you can.
You've got God.
Sure you can.
You can do anything.
And I'd come home and, you know, Tim would sometimes,
he'd have some macaroni and cheese for me.
Or he'd ask me how it goes.
And I'd just look at him.
Because I knew, I couldn't even begin to explain to him
all the weird stuff that was going on.
But it didn't matter.
He was just there.
And he just dealt with it.
And he never gave me a hard time ever.
So between the two of them, I survived.
And it was a long row.
I was in that Ph.D. program for about seven years.
And it was really something else.
And I was finally finishing my dissertation.
This big old book that I wrote.
And I had just agonized over this thing,
blood, sweat, and tears, for about three solid years.
And I wrote the last book.
And I called up my dear dad.
And I said, that's it.
I did it.
He said, really?
And I'd finished the presentation for my defense.
We had a big formal defense with the members
of the university community.
And it's all very formal and fancy.
And I couldn't believe I had made it through this process.
And first person I called, first person I always called
was my dad.
And he said, Dr. Steppe.
And I said, oh, no.
Don't jinx it yet.
Don't call me that.
And we were having a party over at my mom and dad's house.
It was my brother's birthday.
And we were having a big party.
And I said, well, I just got to hop in the shower.
And Tim and I will be over there for dinner.
And I got out of the shower.
And the phone rang.
And it was my little brother.
And he said, get here now.
And my father had gotten up to go to the kitchen table.
And he had a massive stroke.
And he fell backwards.
And he never regained consciousness.
And it was two days before my defense.
And we went to the hospital.
And he worked at the hospital.
He worked at that hospital.
And he was in the emergency room.
And he was unconscious.
And all of my brothers and sisters were there.
And we did what they taught us to do.
We stood around him in a circle.
And we held hands.
And we said the Lord's Prayer.
And it was OK.
And he was on life support for a couple of days.
And I went.
And I did my defense.
And the people in AA were there for me.
And they came and got me.
And they packed my briefcase.
And they sat with me when I said, I can't do this.
And they said, yes, you can.
And they got me a bagel and made me eat some of it.
And drove me to Kent.
And came into my defense.
And I did my defense.
Because I can do anything in this program.
With your help.
And with the help of my higher power.
And we left.
And we went to the hospital.
And I whispered to my dad that I did it.
And I don't know if he heard me.
Maybe he did.
Maybe he didn't.
Doesn't matter.
And then the priest came.
And we prayed again.
And we went outside.
And I couldn't stay in there and watch my father die.
Girls aren't supposed to watch their daddies die.
But my husband went in there for me.
And he stayed there and held on to him while I stayed outside with my brothers and sisters.
And they took my dad off life support.
And he went pretty peaceful.
And that was a year ago.
It wasn't that long ago.
And it's still pretty fresh in my memory.
And it was probably the most significant spiritual experience I've ever had.
Because I knew the whole time that it was okay.
And as much as I hated the idea of it.
And as painful as it was.
To think of life without my father.
Especially at my pinnacle.
The pinnacle of my success.
That was unthinkable.
But I had 11 years of life.
11 years of sobriety with my father.
And that was the most important thing.
And my dad was the most spiritual person I ever met.
And there were people lined up at his wake for around the block.
There was a 90 minute waiting list to get in there.
And people came up to me and said,
If it wasn't for your dad, I wouldn't be a priest today.
If it wasn't for your dad, we wouldn't be married today.
If it wasn't for my dad, I don't know if I'd be sober today.
Who knows those things.
It's probably not real fruitful to go there.
But he gave me his whole life.
And he gave me a power of a higher power.
A God as I understand God.
As loving.
And all-knowing and all-powerful.
So I'm just so grateful for that.
And I know he's with me.
I know he's with me.
And I certainly have all of his stellar qualities with me.
No doubt.
But that left me with a mother that I didn't get along with so well.
And we get along well now.
And we're...
Last year has been a real learning experience for us.
And we're both trying very hard and making incredible headway.
And it's all because of this program.
And because of the power of prayer in my life.
I really believe that.
We're going through some hard stuff.
But we're doing it.
I have to tell you that a year ago,
I took a dive into depression that I didn't think I was ever going to crawl out of.
After we got through the holidays.
After my dad died.
I didn't think I was going to make it.
And it was about this time last year that it began.
And by about the end of March, I was ready to pick up a drink.
I didn't think that could happen to me after 11 years sober.
But it sure did.
And the only reason I did not pick up a drink was because I kept going to meetings.
That's the only reason.
I was praying.
But my prayers weren't real happy.
It wasn't the prayer that kept me sober.
Maybe it was other people's prayers.
It was going to meetings.
Going to meetings is important.
You stop going to meetings and you're walking out of here.
It's so important to go to meetings.
And I continue to go to meetings today.
That is my lifeline.
And that's what saved me.
But I made it.
I made it.
I didn't drink.
I made it through the other side.
And my life is better for it.
Definitely better for it.
I wouldn't trade these experiences for the world.
I need these experiences.
They hurt.
They're painful.
They suck.
But I need these experiences and I welcome them.
Because I'm living life on life's terms.
I'm living life completely and fully.
And that's what I've always wanted.
So, to bring you up to date,
that incredibly hot guy that I saw my first week of sobriety is now my husband.
And I have to get you smiling again.
So I want to tell you about our wedding.
And ten years after my first wedding, I had another wedding.
We had another wedding.
And this time my mom offered me her dress again.
And I said, Mom, I don't know if I can get my big old butt in that dress.
If I can't, I'll have it preserved.
And you knew I was going to move heaven and earth to have that dress fit this big old butt.
And one of my dearest friends is a clothing designer and a seamstress.
seamstress and she worked miracles with this beautiful dress and as we were redoing the dress
we found a grain of rice from my mother and father's wedding in 1960 and we saved that grain
of rice and I sewed it up in a little piece of lace and I wrote my mother a poem so sappy and
I wrote her a poem and at the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding we brought her in
and surprised her and showed her the dress and she was crying and I was crying and dad was crying
and everybody was crying and it was marvelous and the next day we walked down the aisle and
we had that we invited about 300 people to the wedding and about 350 came and that's aa
and um and I walked down the aisle with my mother and my father and he had that big grin on his
face and that's how i remember my dad is walk the three of us walking down that aisle and it was the
purest moment i ever had in my life i didn't dread what i was doing it was wonderful and we had the
serenity prayer and the lord's prayer and a reading out of the 12 and 12 and it was remarkable
and we had a big clam bake for a wedding reception and an elvis impersonator and all of the guys that
tim sponsors pitch tim sponsored pitched in and bought us a honeymoon they sent us to the bahamas
and this time i went outside and it was amazing and i adore my husband today i don't want to take
his life and i know he adores me and we have a great relationship and we're both we we're
individual personalities and he gives me all the freedom that i need and we live our lives as
individuals and and we live our life as a couple too and it's marvelous it's it's more than i ever
dreamed
possible i have a wonderful relationship with my brothers and sisters my mom i you know it's so
much gratitude in my life so much gratitude on monday a woman i sponsored died of a ruptured
esophagus the doctor said if you drink again you're going to die from this ruptured esophagus
and that's what happened made me mad not at her made me mad at the disease
made me mad that i had to go through it
but it certainly reminds me of how cunning baffling and powerful alcoholism is
it reminded me of how lethal this disease is if you are an alcoholic and you don't treat your
alcoholism you can die any number of miserable ways and that's why i don't drink because i don't
want to die i love my life and i'm going to live a different life i'm going to live a different life
i don't want to die i love my life and i'm going to live a different life and i'm going to live a different
life and i'm going to live a different life and i'm going to live a different life i love my life
And I love to live.
And when it's time to die, it is time to die.
But I don't want it to be for alcoholism.
I don't want it to be dead drunk or lying in an alley or a ruptured esophagus or any of those things.
So I'll stay here with you today.
And you stay here with me.
Thank you for listening and have a great conference.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.