Sobriety When the Desire to Please Others Fails — Marcy P.

Welcome back, my friends, to AA Recovery Interviews.
I'm your host, Howard L., and I'm an alcoholic, sober since January 1st, 1988, one day at a time.
I'm grateful you've joined us.
AA Recovery Interviews is the podcast where Alcoholics Anonymous members from around the world
share their extraordinary stories of experience, strength, and hope.
There are over 150 unique interviews in this podcast series that you can listen to on all podcast apps
or at aarecoveryinterviews.com.
Today I'm pleased to welcome to the show Marcy P., whom I've gotten to know first by Zoom
and then in live meetings at one of my favorite AA clubs.
Her first exposure to Alcoholics Anonymous was at age 12,
when she witnessed her father receiving his one-year anniversary chip.
But though her father maintained his sobriety for the rest of his life,
little was spoken of alcoholism in her home growing up.
Like many AA members who were raised in or around the program,
Marcy's decisions to drink were largely unaffected by her family of origin.
By the time she started drinking in high school and increased her alcohol consumption in college,
Marcy enjoyed the pleasant aspects of drinking,
though she often blacked out and was once hospitalized for alcohol poisoning.
With few consequences along the way, she embarked on a career chock-full of travel and drinking.
Married at 26, the issue of her excessive boozing was raised and allayed many times
as her functional alcoholism provided plenty of excuses for continuing to drink.
By her early 40s, the fraying fabric of Marcy's life was being torn apart by her drinking.
Countless vain attempts to stop were fueled by her desire to please others,
but her own desire to quit drinking did not occur until after she had lost her job and marriage.
Thoroughly beaten by the disease,
Marcy's desperation turned into a serious problem.
She turned into a willingness to do whatever she was told to stay sober.
For the first time, she became accountable to her sponsor,
who methodically worked her through the 12 steps.
Combined with studying the big book, praying daily, and being of service to her AA fellows,
Marcy's efforts to embrace AA for herself finally paid off with a sobriety date
that hasn't changed since May of 2021.
Marcy's willingness to share her story has been a gift to me,
and I'm pleased to share it with you.
A story with sufficient similarities to be of value to AA novices and old-timers alike,
yet with enough differences to assure even the most skeptical listeners
that Alcoholics Anonymous really works for those who do it.
So please enjoy the next 60 minutes of AA Recovery interviews
with my friend and AA sister, Marcy P.
My name is Marcy, and I'm an alcoholic.
Hi, Marcy.
Hi, Howard.
That's the correct answer.
Good.
You win a duck.
Awesome.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks for participating with me on the AA Recovery Interviews podcast.
Well, thank you for having me.
You and I are sitting in one of our favorite clubs,
AA clubs in the city of Houston,
and we just came out of a meeting,
which was, the room was pretty full today, too.
It was.
And I've gotten to know you in this meeting over the last three plus years,
though I think we originally met during COVID.
We did, yes.
So I came to the club in 2020,
right before it shut down, trying to stay sober.
Yeah, 2020.
2020, yeah.
It was in, gosh, probably February when I showed up here again.
Well, I had never been to this location.
I finally was able to come to the noon meeting.
I had lost my job, had a lot more time on my hands, and it was not going well.
Life was not going well.
And I came here at noon, have been coming ever since.
Yeah, I'm glad to see you on such a regular basis,
because as you and I were talking before the interview,
I go to different meetings in different places,
but this particular club, I come to maybe two, three times a week.
Yeah.
And what's cool about it is I get to see you at least one time a week
since you first got sober.
Oh, yeah.
And so your sobriety date?
My sobriety date is May 23rd, 2021.
May 23rd of 2021.
So it took me, yeah, it took me a little while to stick around
and stay sober.
Stay is my sobriety date.
Well, I'm glad you chose to stay.
Me too.
Me too?
Had you tried AA before that?
Absolutely.
When was that?
So in my 20s, when I had first moved to Houston, just gotten married,
I was out drinking and got a DWI, and it scared me into the rooms.
That was my first time in an AA meeting for myself.
I grew up knowing about AA.
My dad was in recovery.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
So in East Texas, where I grew up,
in Marshall, my first AA meeting, I was 12 years old.
He was celebrating a one-year birthday, and I went to his meeting as a kid
and watched him get his one-year chipped and never wanted to go into another AA meeting again.
So obviously you grew up with your dad while he was still actively drinking?
I did as a child, but I didn't know he was an alcoholic.
He would come home from work and sleep,
and he would take a drink.
He would take a nap, and I just knew it as he was coming home from work to nap,
and then he'd eat dinner with us, and that was it.
I was a busy child, but gymnastics was kind of my life back then,
and so I wasn't at home a lot.
I was training a lot, and he, so that was it.
I never knew him as a drunk or, you know, drinking too much.
He hid it very well.
My mom probably had a lot to do with that, protecting the girls.
I have an older sister.
So I knew him sober.
I really did.
When I was 12 years old and he had a one-year chip,
our relationship changed forever, and we've been close ever since.
Now, prior to that, you weren't necessarily that close.
I mean, we were.
We were a close family, but he, like I said, he was at work.
He came home and napped.
We ate dinner together every night, and that was it.
But we never probably, you know, talked and connected.
But I was also a kid.
Yeah.
I don't remember a lot of that.
I really don't.
He went to treatment, and he had always had bad knees
and multiple knee surgeries since he was in high school,
like 14 knee surgeries by the time he was 40.
So pills were a lot of his problem, too.
But he went to a 30-day treatment center when, you know, I guess I was probably 11,
and they told me, my mom told me it was for his knees.
They didn't tell me.
He was going for alcoholism.
Wow.
I found that out later.
Did you notice when you were a kid any difficulties that your parents had between them
as what you might know now would have been his alcoholism?
I do now.
My older sister was, she was three years older than me, so 15 at a more aware age, I think.
And so she, I remember her coming to my room a couple of times and crying,
and my mom and dad were fighting.
And I didn't understand why she was so upset about it,
because I always thought, no big deal, they'll be fine.
What did she tell you about it?
Did she give you any ideas that made you think maybe it was because of your dad's drinking?
No, no.
Or just domestic squabble?
Right.
I never knew.
They must have tried to protect me from the whole drinking thing.
I didn't know about alcoholism at all until I went to that AA meeting.
And saw a bunch of men smoking and clapping for sobriety dates.
And I thought, what is this?
So you're 12 years old, and you're going to your very first AA meeting.
Right.
Was that the only one you went to until you came back?
I was done with AA.
What did you think about it all?
Well, I thought it was a bunch of old men who couldn't stop drinking.
I remember even feeling, almost feeling sorry for my dad.
Like, oh, he's got to go to those meetings.
That's so sad.
And never drinking.
Again, that must be awful.
That's what I kind of thought about it.
And then he would say, I'm an alcoholic.
And I thought, but you don't drink anymore.
Why do you call yourself an alcoholic?
That's not right.
And I would argue a little bit about that with him.
Like, why do you tell yourself that?
Because that's not true.
That's an interesting perspective to have as a kid, as an adolescent going into your teenage years.
Yeah.
To know that your dad is in AA, but you don't understand.
You don't understand why he's there, and your only exposure to it is this meeting of old men.
In East Texas, small town.
You know, not a lot of meeting options for the people there.
So that was for his first AA birthday.
Yeah.
And yet he's been sober.
Well, he passed away last year, but he died a sober man.
He was over, gosh, 30-something years sober.
I don't remember the exact date.
I mean, I know it was in March.
But I don't remember the exact year, I guess.
So what sort of things did you see going on when you were a kid and your dad was sober
that would have involved other sober people and parties where they weren't serving alcohol and that sort of thing?
Did you notice any of that?
I did.
What I would notice is my dad helped.
He was big into the service part of the program and had a great sponsor.
And I got to know his sponsor.
I mean, his sponsor and other men from the program came to the house.
We had a lot of activities with people from AA.
And I never knew how my parents were very, they grew up in Marshall, Texas.
They were high school sweethearts.
Everybody knew who they were, and they were very social.
So I didn't know who these people were.
All of a sudden, all these new people were calling the house.
You know, and my dad's meeting up with these men.
And it did open my eyes to, like, how he was helping people.
Like, oh, that's really.
And then the other thing, and I remember this vividly.
He had quiet time every morning.
He would get up before anybody in the house.
And my dad and I had that early morning thing in common.
I was a morning person.
And I would go up to where, you know, our kitchen area, and he'd be on his knees with his Bible, with the big book.
And he had terrible knees.
And I used to get, like, I would run and tell my mom, dad's in pain.
He's hurt.
Like, something's wrong with him.
He's on his knees.
And he's, you know, his eyes are closed.
And she'd say, no, Marcy, he's having his quiet time with God.
And so, and I was curious about that.
We grew up going to church every Sunday.
And I just knew him as a religious man, not necessarily, like, this one-on-one relationship with God.
And I was curious about that as a kid and in high school.
And I would ask my dad about that.
And he said, it's part of the program I'm in.
I start my day.
I start my day with gratitude.
And he told me.
And he shared a lot about it with me, what he did in the mornings and what he would read.
And so it was special.
We always, because of AA, always had, even way before I was drinking, I was always curious about his relationship with God.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
So knowing what you know now about AA, looking back at that time, were there other things in addition to the service work?
That he was doing that demonstrated to you what AA was about without you actually knowing it until you came into the program yourself?
Oh, gosh, yes.
Like what?
Like the kind of, he made amends.
He made amends to me and my sister with our minister from the Methodist church.
He, so, so like that process, he, he had us after school in a room at the church with, with the minister who we were very close to.
He was a family friend.
And, and we, we were there and my dad shared with us that he didn't feel like he had been the father he wanted to be and that it was going to be different going forward.
And if we had any questions, and I just was baffled.
I just remember being so baffled then.
Like, he's been a great dad.
Like, he's, I have everything I need.
Why, why is he being so hard on himself?
How long had he been sober by that point?
Probably six months.
I mean, like, I didn't even know.
Okay, so within his first year.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And my sister was a lot.
She was a lot more emotional about it and, and probably had a lot more to say about it.
But I was like, great, dad.
High five.
This is awesome.
Wow.
So, so there's things like that.
Like, he was making amends.
He was doing the service work.
His morning meditations.
Like, all of these things that I started to notice and do and, or, and see were, are of course evident to me now.
Like, these are the steps.
These are, he lived the steps.
Yeah, yeah.
That's amazing.
It really is.
And to, and to see it now and to know, looking back, what he was doing back then that you didn't understand back then.
Right, right.
But it had its impact nonetheless.
Totally.
It totally did.
And it obviously did as, you know, my son was 11 when I got sober.
Isn't that amazing?
Isn't that something?
Yeah, history repeating itself.
Well, a little bit, yeah.
I, I think my struggle, you know, my dad was a one and done type.
He went to treatment and he hadn't had a drink.
He hadn't had a drink since.
And that was not my story.
So that hasn't been my story.
But, but so when, you know, when I went to my next day meeting, I had gotten a DWI, living in a new city in Houston, newly married.
And.
So there's a lot of time between that very first.
Yeah.
Exposure.
Skipped over a lot.
And then.
Now, when you were younger than that, and you mentioned that you really didn't see any alcoholic behavior exhibited by your father.
He'd come home, he'd take a nap.
Were there any other things that looking back now that would have predicted that he would end up in AA?
Not that I was noticing.
You know, I think that too, as a kid, I was, I was in my own world.
Like I know this now, like I was a very daydreamer, you know, people pleaser and daydreamer.
And so like, I know this about me and maybe I wasn't living in the reality.
Of what my home life, what, you know, I, I didn't, I had great parents.
I had nothing to complain about.
They provided, you know, I was, I was really into gymnastics.
We trained all the time, four hours after school, four days a week on the weekends.
And my dad played a golf.
So he was at the golf course on Saturday and Sunday.
And that was our life.
Like I didn't see dad.
I really didn't, you know, I wasn't home much.
And that went on until.
Well, I was about 12 and, and I got to middle school and, um, you know, stopped pursuing gymnastics.
And was there any alcoholism on either side of the families that you're aware of?
Yes.
My dad's, um, dad was also alcoholic and I don't know his story very much.
I, I, I never got to really learn that whole, but he, he died sober as well.
Um, but my dad's upbringing was not an easy one.
And.
Because of his alcohol, he was adopted and, uh, his alcoholic father, it was very, very tough on him.
Yeah.
So on that side, and of course, through the years we've discovered who the biological parents are, but, um, there was not, I don't believe there was alcoholism from, oh, there was maybe from the biological mother.
I really don't, I don't know.
And on my mom's side, my granddad never, um, was an admitted alcoholic.
But drank a lot and never got, never sober, did not die drunk.
I mean, it would have never dawned on him.
And in fact, I saw him one time at a wedding, he was gulping a glass of wine and I had remembered him telling me he didn't drink anymore.
And I said, daddy, Rob, you don't drink anymore.
And he said, I'm not drinking.
And he meant whiskey.
Like he didn't see wine as alcohol.
Yeah.
But he wasn't, he wasn't in the program or anything.
Uh, and my dad and his dad.
That raised him were, uh, in the program.
That's, that is all I know about.
And my mom never drank.
Like I never, they never even had alcohol at the house.
I never saw alcohol.
She's not a drinker.
Yeah.
Did she ever sit down and have one of those discussions with you as a kid about, about drinking or about drugs or any of that sort of thing?
No.
That you can recall?
Not that I can recall at all.
That's not unusual for this generation.
Yeah.
Especially.
Mm-mm.
When I got to high school, we talked about it.
Cause people started drinking and I would get in trouble, you know, if I drank and I knew that I'd be in trouble if I drank like, like somehow I knew that that wasn't going to be accepted, accepted, but, um, yeah.
So I, I hid every, you know, I hid everything from my parents.
I wanted to, I was a very big people pleaser.
I wanted them to be very pleased about my behavior.
So when, when did you take your first drink?
I was a freshman in high school.
I was at a friend's house.
We were all slumber party and we drank some purple fashion and that's, I remember that being my first drink.
Could have taken it or leave it.
I mean, I remember the warm fuzzy feeling.
Yeah.
The lightheaded, the laughing.
I remember all of that, but it was not an immediate love of my life.
So it didn't make you want to repeat it anytime soon?
No.
I also was afraid of getting in trouble too.
Getting caught.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, I, that.
Freshman year, sophomore year.
Yeah.
I mean, it wasn't a big thing for me early on.
So you went through high school without drinking or?
No, I, I drank, I drank at parties.
Weed was around.
I, I probably tried weed and I, I did.
I didn't care for it.
I definitely like drinking better than weed.
We had, you know, I think about it now.
I really didn't like beer.
I didn't like what we were drinking.
So, you know, when we'd go get maybe daiquiris from Shreveport, you know, we,
I love daiquiris.
I lived on the Louisiana border.
So the drinking age was 18 when I was 16 over there.
And so we would go get daiquiris from Louisiana and that I liked.
That was good.
But my drinking took off definitely when I got to college.
I got in trouble too much in high school for drinking.
I, it was, it was not.
What kind of trouble did you get into?
I came home drunk one night and got grounded and couldn't drive my car.
And, and that, I was miserable.
And this is after.
So your dad's already in AA, right?
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I did.
I came home and I had been drinking and, and I came home and my mom could tell.
I lied to my parents a lot about like where I was going and who I was going with.
If there was going to be drinking involved, she'd, if they didn't like the people I was
hanging out with and I didn't tell them, I would tell them I'm going here.
So I would get caught in these lies for no reason, like just silliness.
So I was never a very honest kid.
And, um, but drinking was, it was not a problem in high school.
I was not, I wasn't even, I would say an every weekend drinker at all.
So you were the occasional drinker.
You enjoyed it when you did it.
Yeah.
And, and the times that you got in trouble that your folks found out about it, we're
talking about a time that's, uh, let's say five to eight or nine years past your, the
first time you ever experienced AA.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
So you're at that point.
So did, did your dad ever say anything to you during that time about drinking?
No.
He didn't.
That's good.
That's good.
The reason I'm saying that's good is because as a parent, I know that there's nothing that
I could say to my children to dissuade them, except to share my own experience about being
an alcoholic.
And I had to do that with my own kids at some point.
And I think it, I think it made a big difference in their lives, but I also know that it's
very difficult for.
People who are in AA to influence their own kids, to stay sober beyond their own experience.
So your, your dad was, I guess he was pretty cool about that with you, huh?
Yeah.
I, maybe he, he didn't see, I, you know, I was definitely more, uh, monitored by my mother.
She wanted to know what was going on, who I was going with, where I was going to call
the check-in.
I didn't see that as much for my dad, probably because my mom was already taking care of
it.
And so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think they both understood that people in, in high school are going to, there's going
to be alcohol around.
So, but they had to punish us.
I mean, we couldn't just, just drink and, um, oh, this is one thing I haven't told you.
My dad owned a liquor store.
So one of our family businesses is a liquor store and, um, and you know, it's, it's a
good business and it always bothered my dad once he was in the program, but he had AA
people working there.
It was, it was kind of baffling, but, um, it started to bother him later, you know, as
he was sober longer, he was like, ah, I just, it doesn't feel right or something, but it
supported a lot of things.
And so it, it was not sold until much later in his life.
So I had, my family was involved in a liquor store when I was 18 and I was, you know, a
senior in high school.
We try to get the booze from there.
You know, it was just alcohol was around.
But, um, it wasn't, I don't know.
I never would go in the liquor, you know, I would never get in trouble trying to take
So your friends weren't trying to get you to go in and get them liquor.
They really weren't.
Like we, we were scared of that liquor store.
Like we even avoided it because, because it was
You'd get in trouble both ways.
We'd know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like somebody, everybody knew who we were.
So it wasn't going to, we couldn't get alcohol that way.
But, um, it was.
It was in the family to put it that way.
It was a business my granddad started.
So I went off to college.
I left 18 and never wanted to go back, you know, being from a small town and everybody
knows you, I really wanted to leave and never live there again.
That was my goal.
When I left, I loved my parents, but did not want to grow old in a small town.
I really wanted to live a big city life.
So I left when I was 18.
We grew up kind of going to Dallas as the big city.
And I just loved Dallas.
I said, yeah.
Yeah.
So I went to a college really close to Dallas.
It was TCU in Fort Worth.
That is when I fell in love with drinking.
Is that a party school?
Would you say?
I would say it is.
And I would say it even shifted to the party school in the nineties.
So I was there in 96.
That was my freshman year.
I was a big cheerleader.
I mean, I did it all through high school and taught it in the summer.
I did it for a job.
I knew I wanted to be a cheerleader in college.
Get to TCU my freshman year.
I find the, the, you know, the cheerleaders.
I found the cheerleading trouts.
I make the team within a month, I went to two practices and quit.
It was the love of my life for, since I was 12 and I thought I would do it all four years
in college.
And I discovered alcohol and partying with so much more fun than getting up at eight
in the morning to go to cheerleading.
So you just, just decided to give it up.
I gave it up.
That was the first time my dad said, well, why are you doing that?
Is that because you want to drink and hang out?
You know?
And I was like, no, that's not it.
It's just, I don't, I don't want to do it in college.
You told him a story, but you, what you knew deep down was.
I knew, totally knew that I did not want to put in the work.
It's too hard.
When you hung over.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that got in the way.
That would have gotten in the way big time.
I chose to play the sorority and, and I really was meeting all these new fun girls and, and
we were all in on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.
I didn't miss a thing.
It was Thursday, Friday or Saturday night, my freshman year, I, I really.
What kind of drinker were you?
Were you a blackout drinker or were you?
Yes.
You were.
Not always.
It wasn't every night.
But yes, I would drink until I drank until I couldn't, you know, until the bars closed.
And then if we were going somewhere afterwards, I was there.
So you had no self-regulation.
No.
Mm-mm.
What did you think about that at the time?
During college.
I.
During my freshman year, I didn't really think about it as much cause I felt like everybody
was doing that.
Sure.
I felt like we were all, you know, drinking like I drink, but I don't know that they were.
But when I went home to Marshall for the summer, that summer after the freshman year, and I
found myself wanting to drink every day.
It was, it was, I was missing drinking because, you know, I was home with my mom and dad and
not doing much and I got a summer job, but I, I found myself wanting to go get, you know,
whiskey to put in my Diet Coke at night.
Hmm.
While I was home.
While you were home.
Not drinking with anybody else.
And that, that was like, well, that's not, that's probably not normal.
So you were pretty habituated to alcohol by that point.
Yeah.
I mean, all through college drinking was, was important to me.
Mm-hmm.
It, it was, if it wasn't around, I didn't want to go.
Hmm.
So what were the consequences from all that drinking in college?
Mm.
The consequences started in college.
So I was hospitalized.
Junior year, I was probably 20, 21.
I was drinking heavily.
I was dating who became my husband.
We're, we're out and, and I'm passed out and it's like eight o'clock and he's concerned
and, and he's like, how did she drink so much already?
And, and there was a bartender that he was concerned had slipped something in my drink.
It was kind of the time when the, when people were getting slipped, you know, roofies.
Roofies.
Yes.
And the bartender had kind of reputation for possibly doing this to girls.
So that was his immediate thought.
I don't remember the night at all, but he called my sister and said, something's wrong
with Marcy.
I think she's been drugged.
She can't walk.
She can't talk.
It's nine o'clock.
Well, what do we do?
And he said, she said, well, we've probably got to take her to the hospital.
So they did.
There was no drugs found in my body and my alcohol level is near a coma.
So my parents were called.
Yeah.
And they came up to Fort Worth and that was the first time they were concerned that that
incident started, um, their questioning my drinking behavior and me starting to hide
it.
What was that feeling like when they came into the room and saw you?
Oh, I, I thought this is all a mistake.
You guys have overreacted.
Um, I, you know, I hadn't eaten all day, the alcohol, I really, you know, I really still
think something was put in my drink, you know, all the lies you're, you're telling and, and
they were like, well, I don't see any of your other friends, you know, everybody drinks
shots.
And so they weren't buying the lie.
Where are they?
No, no.
And your dad probably saw right through it too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They asked me if I was drinking daily.
Marcy did.
Do you black out every time you drink?
Of course I'm no, no, this never happened.
This has never happened.
Yeah.
So the lies started, they continued and, and I really did start to try to control this
thing.
Like, okay, I can't get sloppy.
This is not working out.
I got to slow down.
We'll be right back.
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And we're back.
The question is about your, your boyfriend at the time who eventually became your husband.
Um, how did your drinking change as a result of that relationship or did it stay the same
and he was just added to the party?
We did party together.
I always, my drinking was always an issue with him.
My relationship with my girlfriends changed.
I spent a lot more time with him.
Yeah.
And so, and we drank together and I always outdrank him every time.
So he wanted to slow down or stop at some point.
I wouldn't say that, but he couldn't understand why I would have to get so drunk and, and
it would, it was a question that carried through like, why do you have to drink so much?
I drink before I saw him and then, you know, he would think my first, my first drink with
him was my first drink.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I drank as much as I did.
It was always more important for me whenever we were together, like, well, let's get a
bottle of wine or we're going to watch a movie at your house.
Let's get a bottle of wine.
I always had to have alcohol.
So you mentioned that there were some, that that was an issue between you and him.
We're talking about the years between, let's say 22, 23 and whenever it was, you guys got
married and then that precedes AA by how many years?
Let's see.
So I was 26.
When I got my first, my only first and only DWI and went to AA and then we got married
at 25.
So, but we were together since I was 19.
So 19 to 25 years old and then my first AA meeting here was 26.
Okay.
So you were 26 when you went to that first AA meeting?
Yeah.
And he was, he was not with me when I got arrested.
He was already home that night.
I stayed at the bars to keep drinking.
and with other friends or by yourself no with other friends and i took a friend home and then
got pulled over on the way home by myself to and they arrested me as they should have i was driving
in a blackout did they do a breathalyzer at the scene i refused the breathalyzer but they did a
roadside test and that was sufficient that was sufficient they took me in what did that situation
look like when you got to the police station and and everything else what were you thinking at the
time um it was terrible i was horrified in more fear than i've ever been in in my life at that
moment yeah not knowing what's going to happen right not knowing what's going to happen just
awful who was the first person you called my husband your husband i called my husband first
and you guys been married a year not even probably not even a year and you're getting
arrested for dwi yeah when you went to the police station did they put you in jail for the night
yes that will they take you out to a women's holding facility yeah
the the transportation from downtown because they take you downtown as a woman to book you
but then they take you out to this other facility that's not anywhere near downtown it's a women's
holding facility and then if you're there for 24 hours then they take you back downtown and
to county or something so i was downtown and this officer tells me that i can make a call
before i go and i called my husband and told him what was happening i don't
remember how that call went but i do believe he woke up you know it was like two or three in the
morning and he's the one that came to get me out the next day what happened on the way to the
women's holding facility i got um i was in so much fear and in an alcoholic haze and um craziness
that i okay so so um i was handcuffed in the back seat and i'm asking the police officer who's
telling me because i didn't know what was going on and i'm like i don't know what's going on and i'm
like i didn't recognize anywhere i was going and uh and i'm asking where are you taking me you said
eight miles it's been longer and um the the officer wouldn't answer me and so i shimmied and started
kicking my way out of the cop car kick the window i did all the way i didn't know that yeah i did
it's okay i don't you know my parent my mom might hear this so she she would not like me just sharing
that everywhere oh okay well i didn't realize that no it's fine
the thing about that story that gets me is that you they had to switch you to another cop car
because i because i did kick it all the way out yeah and that kicked the cop who you were in the
car yeah yeah did he kind of go he went he pulled all over and wrestled me to the car oh no yeah
it was terrible and i had handcuffs on and yeah i was bleeding because i had kicked it out and
was trying i mean i kept after this whole thing i kept waiting to see myself on the tv show cops
you know i was and i was horrible that really did that was the beginning of like i'm not drinking
anymore that's terrible and uh yeah so i i barely made it like my legs were cut up and because i
take the window out of the car yes that's wild that's how bad i wanted out of there well i can
imagine if you were doing that you weren't buckled in right i didn't i don't think i was i was not
buckled in i wasn't handcuffed so i was trying to shimmy my way out of a movie car i was trying to
shimmy my way out of a fucking cop car it makes sense though to the drunk doesn't it i mean yeah
that's how messed up i was and this is at 26 years old and they pull over and another officer arrives
and they took me to the macawa holding facility where hours later uh my husband came to get me so
you were freaking out i was freaking out must have made that must have freaked the cop out too
it did wild woman in the back seat wild woman and um you know still to this day
it's a it's a haze of what was going on but uh i was charged with the dwi and that was it and court
was awful i you know you go for almost a year and you have to do the community service and they take
your license i mean all the things after the probation it comes off your record and it got
me into my first a meeting so you were sentenced like a lot of people often are after duis or dwis
pis you were sentenced to aa to
do you have to get a paper signed i believe i did a paper signed i had to take some sort of
drunk driving course that was six weeks long i had you know i had to do a lot of things to check
a lot of boxes but but i don't remember having to get an aa paper signed very long or very
very much pretty short term yeah punishment huh yeah what were you thinking when you were sitting
in those aa meetings well i went to the first one so you you remember
my my first day a meeting when i was 12 and so i go i find the club and i walk in there and i was
almost relieved because i saw girls there my age i saw you know it was just like a mixed crowd there
were tons of people there and i was like well oh wow okay and a friend of mine it was kind of a god
thing a friend of mine that i'd been in college with who i knew but we didn't hang out a lot
so i went to an a student court who came with the Furbigam class it was a secret cell but uh
i saw a lot of girls and it was culturallyяд the whole time you know it was放k realized
it wasn't crazy at first and then it just wouldn't matter and there was some for us at the time
but that was the boo stillacio i could come back to the one which 성 muss the rockers
was like, well, she's fun. So I, I clicked to her and followed her around like a little puppy dog.
And she said, well, this isn't the only meeting in town. I want to take you to other
meetings if you want to go. And she, uh, and I met her at various meetings all over town and she kind
of broke, um, the AA ice for me, if you will. And, and I really, you know, I really appreciate
that. And you were still pretty young at this point. Yeah. 26. You're 26 and you're going to
your first AA meetings. How long did that last? Well, I stayed sober longer than I stayed going
to AA. Yeah. I, I, I was having really good results, not drinking. I got a better, I got a
job, a job I loved. I felt better. I slept better. I looked better. My home life was better. You
love. The woman that was helping me, like she was really involved in AA and I just didn't ever find
myself really involved or working the steps. What was your relationship with your dad like?
Oh, exciting. It got exciting. It got exciting while you were, you were in the program,
he's in the program. Yes. The two of you could speak the same language. Yes. What was that like?
Well, I think for him, it was probably like working with a sponsee or something.
Pretty hopeful, isn't it? Yes. Like the energy behind it was,
very, uh, hopeful, exciting, you know, just, um, I think there was relief. So.
But he wanted for you what he had, but you didn't want from him what you had.
Well, yeah, he wanted for me what, what he had, but I didn't, I didn't want how he got it. Like,
you know, like I really didn't understand like why I had to do AA when I was, I was doing just
fine, not drinking. So you did just fine. You did just fine.
For a while.
Not going to AA. How long did you stay sober that time?
I don't remember, but it was at least until the court dates were over and I had this new job. So
it was probably about a year and I started drinking again. I started drinking again and
did not have the consequences like before right away. So, so it was working out.
Yeah. So you became a functional alcoholic.
Right, right.
Yeah. What was that like?
Not as much fun, but I definitely wanted to be drinking again. We were in the time in our life
where a lot of people were drinking. We were in the time in our life where a lot of people were
getting married. So we were going to fun places and, and I wanted to be drinking at every place I
went. And, uh, even work required me to travel all the time to really fun places and nice dinners.
And, and I wanted to drink at those places.
So you could drink on the company dime.
Right.
And you were traveling. So you could drink in
airplanes, hotels.
Yes.
Wow. That's an ideal setup for an alcoholic.
It was.
Did it ever get out of hand?
Oh yeah.
In what ways?
Unable to go to work the next day because I'm so hung over. So missing work. I didn't never have
another consequence like a DWI. So it was all manageable, but, but I was lying. I was lying
to people. I was telling my mom and dad that I wasn't drinking still. So, so the lie was getting
tough.
And people who are in problem drinking don't have to tell people that they're not drinking, right?
They don't. No, they don't. It's so, it's so obvious.
Yeah.
And right now.
Yeah. So, so your husband knew that you were drinking, even though you were denying it.
The folks knew that you were probably drinking. Everybody knew except to the extent that you
didn't want to admit it.
Right.
So how long did that go on?
Well, I had my son during all that too. So I got pregnant with my son in 2009. And so, so it lasted
for a good five, seven, 10 years.
Yeah.
This off and on.
Right.
Yeah.
drinking. Did you stop drinking while you were pregnant? Mostly. I was very sick when I was
pregnant, but I did have wine. What I would tell myself is that that's okay. People used to drink
when they were pregnant before they knew that it was bad. And so that was the lie I would tell
myself. I was too sick pregnant. I really didn't want to drink. It wasn't until after I had him
that I started drinking daily. It was the first time I really started drinking daily in my life.
So here you'd started drinking after that AA court mandated sentence expired. You went all
the way through having the kid. Yeah. So I'm in my early thirties. It was about 2011. He's two or
three that I'm drinking daily. I'm back to work. I only took, you know, two months off when I had
my son. So I'm back in this cycle of drinking again. And it started to
become daily every night. So I'd put my son to bed and, you know, I just counting down the minutes
to, to have my wine and, and I drank until I passed out every night. What was your husband
saying about it at the time? You drink too much. Why do you have to drink every night? This is a
problem. You should stop. Did the childcare default to him? No, we had a full-time nanny. We were both
in very high demand jobs and we had, she didn't live with us, but I would get home from work and
he would leave and I would, you know, have my wine and take care of our son. And he went to bed at
eight o'clock, you know, so I had a whole few more hours to drink. And my husband couldn't understand
why I was having to drink every night. And most of those nights get drunk. He and my parents,
because they knew by this time I was drinking again, encouraged me to go back to AA. And I did
go back to AA again in my thirties. In your thirties.
Mm-hmm. So was that at the end of people's urging you to do so, or did you make that decision for
yourself? No, my, I went because of people urging me to do so. Okay. So everybody wants you to go
to AA, but you. Yes, but me. But you. So how long did you go back? About six months. Six months. And
what was that like? Well, I got a sponsor. She was wonderful. Now this was at the same club that
you came in at? No, no. I found another meeting. We had moved to this neighborhood. I found the
Thursday night meeting. I walked into there one Thursday night to make everybody happy at home.
Yeah. And that's a good meeting. It's a great meeting. Yeah. And I found, I mean, I called a
lady. She gave me her card. I called her the next day because I had pretty sure I'd left the meeting
that night and drank. And she told me to call her. So I did. And I asked her to sponsor me. And I
think I was torn. I think I was torn. I was torn. I was torn. I was torn. I was torn. I was torn. I was
I wanted to want to be sober at that point. I really did. And I really fell in love with this
woman and she was willing to help me and everything she was saying made sense. I knew like, it was like
everything started clicking this time. Were you willing to do the work? I was not willing to be
honest with her or do the work. That makes it tough, doesn't it? Yeah. It makes it very
unsuccessful. I got the result, the same result I'd been getting. In six months? I was sober for
three of those six months. That's it. That's it. Wow. Yeah. Did she call you to task on that? Did
she know that you were? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I felt really bad. And even to this day, when I
worked the steps this time, she was an amends that I made because I felt like I had lied to her and
manipulated her just like I was doing to my parents and my family. I was telling them one thing. I was
not being honest with myself.
And so, and I felt like she had, you know, put in this time because I was telling her one thing and
thinking something else. And so, I still haven't been back to that meeting. And here I am, you
know, over three years sober. And it's a great, there's, I know, you know, a lot of people that
go there, but it's still a good meeting, still a great meeting. And I, and, and I called her and
made an amends and I mean, couldn't have, couldn't have gone better. She knew. Is there a reason why
you don't want to go back to that group?
No. You just haven't. You just haven't.
I just haven't. It's eight o'clock at night and I'm usually doing other things on a Thursday night.
I get that. I get that. So where are we at timeframe wise?
So that's my mid thirties.
Mid thirties. We're talking about the 2010s.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. My son's pretty little still. They hit four or five. So, so I did the AA thing
again just for that brief time.
Had you convinced yourself?
I had convinced myself by that time that, that AA wasn't for you and that you had your own ways of
wanting to do things.
Yeah. Well, I had convinced myself that I did not, that with the job I had, that I was not going to
be able to do AA. What the people in AA were telling me to do.
Because you were so busy.
I was so busy. I was traveling all over, you know, the country.
And drinking was just all part of the scenery and the environment.
Yeah. I couldn't go to meetings. I was like, I can't go to meetings.
Wow.
So I'm never here and I wasn't.
I really wasn't, but there were meetings all over the place. I could have gone to meetings.
Well, so, so take us from that point up to the point when the bottom fell out and you got into AA.
Everything fell apart, Howard. When I had gotten into AA again in my thirties and messed up that
relationship with the sponsor who I really respected.
Oh yeah.
I, I didn't want to go back to AA. I wanted to drink. I wanted the consequences to go away, but they
didn't. They got worse.
Yeah.
I ended up losing everything. So I lost the job that I loved.
Um, I lost the marriage that, you know, was the love of my life since I was 19.
Um, my son, you know, my, my family for the first time split apart because of my drinking.
Um, in 2018, uh, it was a, that was a, a year where everything changed.
Yeah.
And I was able to go home to my home life. Um, my husband was told at one of the treatment centers I
went to that drinking had been such a big part of our life that, that it was going to have to be
removed from the house. And, and, and not that I want to tell his story, but he heard that and has
not had a drink since. And he wanted that for me. Like when I was in that situation, I was like, I'm
going to be sober. I'm going to be sober. I'm going to be sober. I'm going to be sober. I'm going to be sober.
When I was in that treatment center in 2018, we decided our family's going to stay together.
We're going to be sober. This is a sober home. We're going to raise our son in a sober environment.
When you come home, that's it. No more drinking. And I went home and drank and he has never
drank since. And so, so the relationship ended shortly after that.
But he's not in AA, is he?
No.
Okay.
No. Al-Anon. Did Al-Anon for a while.
Yeah.
And would probably go back.
Yeah.
He loved that program.
Yeah.
Loved that program.
And it may have been one of those things that kind of led up to the divorce too,
because Al-Anon does give people a different perspective on their lives.
Oh yeah. Boundaries and, and, you know, detached with love. He worked that program
and detached with love and gave boundaries and was very, um, I mean, stern with the,
this is not a drinking home.
Yeah.
He was like, you know, like a night guard, right?
Yeah.
So, uh, when I would drink, he asked me to leave. So anytime a relapse or a drink was
happening or he, and he knew every time. So, um.
Where did you go when you left?
A hotel.
A hotel.
It was a very sad existence for a while. That's where my alcoholism took me. I was
not working. I was unemployable. My family didn't want me around if I'm drinking, but
yet it's the obsession and it's all I could think about. It's all, you know, I would wake
up every morning. I'm not going to drink. And then I would be drinking by noon. He's like,
you can't be around our kid. You're not going to be around our son. So I would go to a hotel and,
you know, just for two days and drink and then try to go somewhere. And I would end up in like
a sober living or another recovery center. I'm curious about the frame of mind that you had
during that time. Were you going to the halfway houses or treatment to change the consequences
or were you going because you really wanted to get sober? I really wanted to get sober.
You felt that way deep down? Yes. You know, when we did split up and then I came back in here,
I came back to AA. Last resort, right? Nothing else is working. I've been to treatment.
Everybody around me can get sober.
But I'm still drinking, which something's wrong with me. Oh gosh, there's that AA. Got to go back
to AA. So I'm going, I come back here and, and this was the, a meeting and a group of people
that told me to come back, like come back if you drink. So I did that and it saved me. I didn't
feel like I couldn't come back. How long did you do that for? I mean, a year, 2020 to May 23rd,
2021. But with months.
It's a sobriety here and there. Because I remember you on the Zoom when you had slipped
and then you surprisingly said, I need to get a desire chip or I drank and you had a couple
months or something like that. I had 30 days, I think. It was my first time to get a 30 day chip.
And how many times did you get a 30 day chip during that time? At least, at least three.
Three times. Yeah. But I even got a 90 day chip twice. I remember that too. You know,
it talks about the.
Insanity. I'd never felt insane until I looked back and realized how insane I was. I couldn't
shake that obsession. And then I wasn't doing everything I was being told to do. I wasn't
calling. I wasn't really opening up to my sponsor yet. I was, I was still trying to do this on my
own and trying to figure out everything, you know, instead of just following instructions.
I remember, I remember the early days when you, when we came off of COVID and we went back to the
live meetings.
Was that the first time you had gone to live meetings here at this particular club?
I had started coming about a month before it shut down.
Okay. So you, you came and then we went to the Zoom and then how, how much time passed
until you were back live?
Uh, I came back when it opened back up very quickly. It was a small group of us,
but I was here every day.
And we were meeting out in the parking lot out.
We did that too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
To be away from confined spaces.
Yes. And masks. We wore masks here for a long time.
We wore masks.
We wore masks there as well.
Yeah. When we came back in, it was the highlight of my day to come here every day.
And COVID was unique in itself.
It was.
That being an unemployed, you know, uh, trying to get my family's let me back in the house.
I'm walking on eggshells. I couldn't wait to come out to an AA meeting. It was,
it was the first time in my life and all of my history with, with the program that I was
really seeking it.
So you really wanted it.
Yeah. I w I was starting to believe what y'all were saying, that y'all were actually happy.
This is the first time that Marcy is doing this for Marcy, not for the folks,
not for the family, not for your kid, not for your, I guess your ex.
They're all a part of it, but a hundred percent. I have to, I mean, I cannot live like this anymore.
I'm going to die.
So you hit your bottom.
Yeah.
Sounds like you might've hit it a few times.
I did.
Yeah. What was that like? Did you think you'd get back?
I thought each bottom would be done, would be,
the last one. Can't get, cannot get worse than this. It can't. And it, believe me, it can.
Had you ever gotten to the point that you felt like giving up on AA and just giving up in general?
No.
So you had a sense of hope while you were wanting this program to work?
Yes. Big time. I never lost hope. I think the people trying to support me did.
I don't think my dad did. He, he helped my mom a lot through that process.
You know, she's got to,
I want this. We cannot control it.
What a blessing for your dad to bring that perspective to the family.
And to my husband and everybody, you know, you want to control it. You want to fix it.
You want to make it better or you want to give up on it. Thank goodness that my family was
involved in either Al-Anon or an AA program and knew other AA members or Al-Anon members to talk
to because it's the reason we're together today. My family's together today and this is, it's a
miracle. We've been through it all.
At what point did you get the sense that this was going to work long, long-term for you or could
work long-term for you as long as you continue to do what you needed to do? Did you get the sense of
the other shoe's going to drop and you go back out to drinking? Or did you hang on in such a way that
you kind of protected yourself from that?
I think this last sober living house that I went to was that, was, there was a moment when
I had been doing the same thing over. The, the bottoms, the bottom, the bottom, the bottom, the
bottom, the bottom, the bottom, the bottom, the bottom, the bottom, the bottom, the bottom, the bottom,
The bottoms were, were now like, I can't be with my family. I'm have to go to a hotel room
to drink. This, there's no way to live. Like they're constantly, I'm not in jail. I'm not,
you know, I'm not sick. I'm not having seizures. It was all like, this is just sad. Like it,
so there was a moment when I called and my sponsor
currently who was my sponsor and that I asked to sponsor me in 2020 has stuck with me while I all,
Yeah.
these relapses happen. And I called her from the last hotel room, told her my plan. I'm going to
go to this sober living house that he told me I could come to. The owner told me I could come to
if I blew a zero in the breathalyzer. And he said, you can come and we'll get you in. And my sponsor
said, you know, how are you going to do that? You're in a hotel room. You can't stop drinking.
And I said, I'm going to lock myself in. And I'm going to show up there tomorrow. And I did that.
And I had a deep breath. And I remember her telling me that she would continue.
She would start the steps over with me. But I had to be willing not to drink. Like it was that
simple. Like you have to be willing not to drink. No matter what. And it was that.
No matter what. And I agreed to that. And I told her, I said, the car rides are, my head is crazy.
It's telling me one thing. Can I call you every night on the way there? And because it was,
you know, a little bit of a drive. And so she answered the phone every night. And we talked
for 30 minutes while I drove out to this sober living house every night. So I started doing
something different than I had done before. Yeah. What were you doing during the day?
Were you working at this point?
I was coming to meetings and trying to help my family business. So my husband has a family
business he started. And I had helped him during my bouts of sobriety. And so I was doing that.
Okay. So how long did you live out in this sober living?
42 days, I think. I think it was exactly 42 days.
Would you consider that an integral part of your sobriety? Or getting sober,
staying sober in those days?
Because I needed a safe place to stay. And this environment at this particular sober living
was safe. The women there wanted to be sober. That was the first time I'd experienced that.
It was smaller. There were not a lot of people there. And the women were serious. And so
that was helpful. But then I also had the time in my day to meet with my sponsor. We met
once or twice a week. And I was able to meet my sponsor. And I was able to meet my sponsor. And I
week, work the steps. We started doing other things like listening to Joe and Charlie tape
with the steps. And, um, that was how we worked the steps. And we, you know, within 42 days,
I'm making amends to my husband, my son with my, with my therapist. Um, I was also seeing a
therapist. Uh, I, I put it all in all the work every day. I woke up this program. So you went
all in. Tell me about your spiritual life at this point. I prayed all the time. My spiritual
life is very different today. Like, I just feel like there's been so much shift. I was praying,
praying with such, uh, intent to be sober. Like, please take the obsession. Like just,
and then, you know, I was told to give thanks to God at night when I had a sober day. So I
practiced that. Um,
I practiced that.
I practiced the third step prayer daily. So my prayer life was there. Was it as meaningful
as it is now? No, but because I was stressed, I was just like dressed out and trying to fix
everything. But, but knowing, and my therapist to help me, I mean, there was a time when I,
I really believed that God could fix the drinking problem, but I didn't know if God could fix
the home life because there was a lot of,
you know, stress broken and damage done. And my therapist was like, well, don't you believe that
God in a power bigger than yourself? I mean, if he can fix that.
That sounds like a part of a spiritual awakening to me.
It was. My spiritual awakening was gradual. This program, the steps, my spiritual life,
it, I'm a different person.
I can validate that and verify that because I was in the very rooms that you were
getting sober and staying sober here at this particular club.
And I happen to know your sponsor.
Yes.
Right.
Yeah.
And she's great.
And seeing the quality of her sobriety.
Oh yeah.
As part of a reflection on you, I think is very cool because you see somebody sponsoring
somebody and they start to change. The sponsor starts to change.
Oh yeah.
And, and what, what I noticed about it was that it seemed like her program was becoming,
more vital as a, as a, as a, you know, by sponsoring you, we are talking about the same person.
Yes, absolutely. I sit behind her every day in a meeting. Well, I mean, I think she's the first
person in my life that I've really been a hundred percent honest with besides my husband, you know,
like it, it opened me. I was like, it broke something inside of me and it, it was like
freedom. There's another member in here that, uh, he and I talk about the freedom.
The freedom that, that we find is I don't take it for granted one single day, Howard. I talk a lot
about gratitude when I share it's, I wouldn't be here. Like I wouldn't have any of the things,
any of the things that I have today without Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12 steps and the
people in the room, the support has been. Well, and the support is there because you're,
because you're part of it. When you come into AA to get the support, you have to be supportable.
Which means, you know, so that people can approach you without feeling repulsed or repelled,
or we happen to know when, when, when somebody is struggling and when they're not, you know,
when to say something and when to not, it's not always perfect. Sometimes we say something when
we shouldn't or don't say when we should, but I've seen the change in you. I've seen the change in
her. Cool. And I know I can notice it and, and maybe, maybe you have to some extent, but I've,
I've definitely seen it in her.
I've seen the effect in her of sponsoring you. Now, the next question is, you're working the
steps. You got through all 12 steps. You made your amends. You were able to come back home
at a certain point. Yes. Now, did you say you guys had gotten divorced? So you went through
all the paperwork and stuff. So you got back together, undivorced. How does that process work?
We're, uh, we're together.
And, and plan to make it official this year.
Good for you.
Yeah.
God, what a blessing.
What a blessing. And our son is, um, you know, he was at the age where he saw a lot.
He's 11, right? When I sober up. And so I don't know how that's affected him yet. We don't know
yet. And I don't have to know because one day at a time.
Well, people in these rooms have never been able to figure out what, what
keeps somebody from drinking or makes them want to drink, you know?
Yeah. So I,
I don't know about him yet, but I do know that we, the three of us, our family unit is the closest
we've ever been. The most respectful we've ever been to each other. It's like, it's just, we,
we bring these steps and principles into our home life and my sponsor is a big part of that.
So she does that too with her family. You know, I think we seek out people that we want what they
have. And I really always listen to her share. You know, when she talks, I listen. The way she
puts her family and kids and husband and talks about them and speaks to them and engages with
them is how I want to be. So at what point were you ready to start sponsoring other people?
Well, I didn't really know. I knew that I had worked the 12 steps. I was coming to meetings
regularly, so I knew I was available. I also know the part in the big book that says working
with other alcoholics is our insurance against the next slip or drink. So I wanted to. I wanted
other women to feel like they could call me. And my sponsor had also made me in the beginning get
other women's phone numbers and actually call them. So I felt awkward, but I did it. I have
a handful of women that I'm now...
Pretty easy to talk to and calling.
So in my own way, I guess, or in that way, just reaching out to them,
that was an initial way of me getting to help.
Maybe I was helping somebody.
Maybe I wasn't.
But it was just an act of service, just reaching out to other people in the program.
So that's how I started talking to other women.
Well, availability is nine-tenths of the game, though.
Yeah, being here is part of it.
Being there and being available.
I had two women ask me pretty soon after I had worked the 12 steps to sponsor them.
And I still sponsor those two women today.
One of them celebrated a year in March, and the other one celebrates seven years.
She has more sobriety than I do this month.
She had been sober longer than me, but she had gotten away or never really worked the steps, she said.
So she wanted to work the steps.
And so we did that.
So I took her through the steps.
And so those are my two sponsees.
I've had other women.
And they've been asking me, and we've started, and I haven't heard from them.
Well, what I notice about you when I see you in meetings is that the women all come over and say hi.
You've made a big effect on their lives and certainly on other people in the rooms.
I've felt it.
I've felt the love that people have for you.
It's very strong in this particular club.
Seeing them stay sober means that you're probably staying sober on top of it, right?
I can see the earnest desire in your face to stay.
You're planted in the middle of this program.
Isn't that where we have to live?
Have to.
I have to.
Yeah.
It's changed my life.
And I want, you know, like, I was, there was a meeting last week that the leader was talking about wanting more.
And we're people who want more.
More is better.
And I want more of this.
Of course.
I want more of what I'm getting.
And it's, that's why I keep showing up and doing what I'm, what's suggested.
You see how well you did in this interview today?
Thank you.
Well, you're easy to talk to.
I mean, I like talking to other alcoholics.
Yeah.
I enjoy it.
And we understand each other.
There's a level of understanding that even though we don't have a deep relationship based on a lot of time or interaction,
there's certain things that we know about each other deep down without even having to outwardly know it.
You know, it's like if you're here and you're doing this and you're helping others, you're my kind of people, right?
That's right.
You know what I mean?
You ever get that sense?
Absolutely.
Yeah, I do too.
I do too.
Well, this has just been marvelous.
And I want to thank you for doing this.
You're a beautiful person.
I love you.
And you're just an amazing member of this particular club.
Thank you, Howard.
You do a great job.
I've told you I've loved listening to these.
I'm glad.
It's helped me with my program.
I mean, and you know, there's people I look up to that I knew from here and other meetings that I couldn't wait.
Oh, gosh.
Howard interviewed them.
I can't wait to listen.
Well, it's been a lot of fun.
It's been really helpful.
It's helped a lot of people.
And that's why we're here.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Well, again, many thanks for doing this interview with me today, Marcy.
Absolutely.
And I'm looking forward to many, many more meetings with you and our friendship growing in the future.
Me too, Howard.
Thanks so much.
It was a pleasure.
You bet.
Well, my friends, that's it for this episode of AA Recovery Interviews.
I want to thank my guest, Marcy P., for sharing her story.
And thank you for tuning in.
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