Sponsorship That Refused to Let Her Be a Parasite – 1953 – Alabam C.

I'm so glad to be here again. I was here last year. I love coming over here. I love seeing so many people I have known across the country here, and some from my other group. My home group is North Hollywood Group, and I think I'll start off by telling you that on December 1st, I was 35 years sober, and I'm impressed. Thank you. Thank you What I really want to tell you that far was that I'm impressed what God and Alcoholics Anonymous could do for me that I couldn't do for myself I tried every way I knew to stay sober except not drinking and I liked AA except the part about not drinking so I went a year without stopping and I was getting sicker and sicker and sick and those that were there know the doctor, the prognosis 35 years ago the proagnosis was either death by a heart attack or a wet brain the doctor told me later these things, he told my sponsor these things the doctor was an alcoholic himself and he knew everything in the world to do for one He knew everything they knew in Akron and New York and California, and then he had a method of his own. But he told my sponsor that if I lived, he was very much afraid I'd have a wet brain, that he had never seen a woman go through what I was going through without it or either a heart attack and dying. And so when I said yes, I'm most grateful. You know, he told me later I had no brain damage. Oh, God, I was afraid that he was going to make the test. And, you know, two or three months after I got sober, I wasn't sure whether I had brain damage or not. And I said, you don't come on. Let's get the test made and over with. And he said, what test? And I say, well, you said that you would make the test to see if I'd had brain damaged. And he says, Alabama, I don't have to make a test. You don't. You don' t have brain damage. You are one of those fortunate people that went through it without it. And I drank a lot. I drank like a pig, except my brother says that pigs know when to stop. And, you know, towards the end, I was drinking two-fifths a day and not eating. Because, you knew, if you ate it, it'd take the buzz off. And besides, I wasn't able to get up and go to the kitchen and get anything to eat. I had the whiskey in the bed with me. I always put some bottles in the bed with Me, so if I'm not able to get up, I got my medicine. And I had to have, before I could get up even to go to the bathroom, I had three or four drinks. And to get in the tub and out of it was a real... Well, I don't think I got in the tube that week. I doubt it seriously. I haven't always been a drunk I didn't start drinking until I was 16 and that was just I'm just showing off then I graduated from high school when I was sixteen and all the rest of them were around eighteen and there was some college boys at this party we were having and so forth and they said they had a little wine that they wanted us to have and it wasn't wine at all it was that heavy proof Cuban rum and I thought it was wine and they pulled me about that much and I said fill the glass I'm accustomed to it see I was the baby in the group and I didn't want them to think I wasn't sophisticated you know and I got sick real sick all night long and oh they were having so much trouble trying to keep we had a spend the night party in my day and time when you have a spend the night party. It was for women only. And I just didn't want you to confuse the kind of party it was. And these girls had to take care of me all night long and try to keep the parents from hearing that I was sick. And the next day, I went home, and my mother said, what did y'all do at the party last night? And I smiled, but I smiled. And And I said, Mama, I don't know what the rest of them did. I got drunk. And I laughed and shrugged my shoulders. And Mama said, Honey, you mustn't ever talk like that because people will believe you sometime. And see, in my family, if you tell the truth, ifyou tell the truththe punishment wasn't so great. Now, I was to use this type of, you know, lying by intimation, it's called. It's the worst form of lying at all. It's as hard as to quit. See, if you tell a direct lie, you know it right that minute that that is a direct line telling. But I never told direct lies. I told it like I told my mother this, you know. And I had one. It took me quite a while to get rid of it in AA. You know, after I got in AA, first thing my sponsor told me to put on my inventory was lies. And I said, oh, I exaggerate, Walter, but I don't lie. And Walter said, Alabama, you either tell all the truth or you don't tell any. You know, I said just write down lie. And he said, and then you put a dash and put truth. And that means exactly the way it happened. And I thought, that'd be dull. And I don' t know about you, did your sponsors take your inventory? story. Well, Walt knew how sick I'd been because he had stayed with me five days a night because he was the only person that wasn't afraid of me. The doctor backed out of the room when he was leaving and it wasn't out of respect. And the girls couldn't handle me. They couldn't handle me at all. And Walt was the one who could because Walt had been in the same maniacal condition that I was in. And he stayed with me five days a night. And I'm so grateful to God that we didn't have SSI and all of this insurance stuff that you can go in 21 days, you know, and insurance pays for it or the government pays for something. I'm so grateful we didn' t have it then. You know where they put me? They wouldn' t take me in the hospital where I was, I was in Sedalia, Missouri, because I gave them trouble in hospitals. Like pulling the IVs out of my feet and arms and legs and wherever they could find a vein. And doctors wouldn't take me. I gave trouble over at the hospital, you know. They had to come back, you know, at one or two o'clock at night to put the IVS back in and so forth. And it was snowing and they couldn't get me out on a plane to Akron or to New York or to California where they knew how to detox, had a place to detox women. Wasn't any detox around there for women. And so Walt took me in with a little club room upstairs over an empty store. Rats ran around in it and I saw them after I was sober too. Now I had been just come out of the Waldorf Astoria and the Pierre in New York, and they put me in a place like that. We had one death room for 12 men and me. You can just see the walls and around the toilet now, can't you? And the place wasn't clean. I don't know whether it was ever swept or not even, let alone scarred. And it was 12 men and I getting sober there. And the women couldn't handle me and the men were afraid of me too, But Walt wasn't because, as I said, he had been where I was. And do you know that man? They brought him a reclining chair there. That man stayed with this insane woman five days and nights. Five days and night. Now, folks, I have tried to stay with a woman that was in the same condition that I was in. And, you know, I lasted 24 hours. I don't know whether it was because I was physically, emotionally, or spiritually unable to handle it. But 24 hours was all I could handle. And this man was with me five days a night. She had to go into Camarillo, which is a state hospital, mental hospital. And she was to be there over a year. And you know, if it had not been for Walt and Dr. Nason, And all of these men that I mentioned by the last name are dead now. Every one of them. I had four men sponsors. I like men, drunk or sober. And I like women now. That's the beauty of being in AA. I liked women when I was younger. But see, I thought you were like me and I didn't trust you. You know, as I started drinking, you know, and everything. but that's one of the bonuses I've had in AA I have many good women friends there as well as men friends I know how to be a friend to people you taught me I knew how before I became a drunk but after I became a drunk and I don't know any nice alcoholic I could say but you know alcoholics sound so refined and when they called me a drunk I understood what they meant you know and in here Walt stayed with me these five days and nights and they brought him a reclining chair and he took off his shoes and he was not able to put them back on his feet looked like they were about twice the size because you know if you can't get some bed rest that happens and they let me The doctor said, let me have the run of the place to the death of, you know, without my hurting anybody. And so I was up one night and they had an Indian there and he was fast and he could tiptoe behind me. I never knew he was behind me and I went over to the window and it didn't have any screens in it and it was up and this was wintertime. and I went over to the window and he was right behind me they said to catch me and I turned around and I said how cold is it outside? And they told me you know it was below zero and I says it's too cold for me and walked back and got in my bed. And I didn't know that they had kept that engine up there because he was so fast and quiet that he could follow me and catch me if I tried to kill me or somebody else. I think they were more worried I'd kill them and you know I'm not that kind of woman but the only time I really ever tried to I didn't try to kill them I just tried to get my bottle back there were two men there were too many two men in my life that took bottles away from me that wish they never had and my brothers they taught me how to defend myself and I guess it's uncomfortable See, but that's like taking somebody's life blood When they need that bottle They need that last drink And I knew I'd die if I didn't get it And Anyhow, I'm going on See, I started off getting sober Because sometime right at the end I got five minutes left to get sober in And some of you might have left And never knew whether I got sober or not You know But these men were great to me. I can't tell you how good these men, drunk ass sober, the men that were up there, they did everything they possibly could to help this sick woman. And, you know, when I started getting just a little bit better, one of the men went to Walt and said, Walt, if I left the bathroom door open, would it look all right if I washed Alabama's hair for her? She said she can't stand it any longer. And Walt said, it'll look all right if you do it. Nobody will criticize you if y'all go in the bathroom together. And do you know, I couldn't even take shivers until there was some girl that wasn't scared of me that could go in there because Walt was the friend that I was, you know not to pass out in the shower. And so that's the kind of condition I was in. And we actually didn't have enough food up there sometime to eat. We had to wait until some grateful alcoholic that got sober there came and went and bought us a sack of groceries. And I stayed two months. My family tried to pay in and pay well, them for keeping me. And Walt said, oh no, ohno. When she gets well, she'll go to work. And when she goes to work, she's going to be a good girl. She'll pay her. and they said Mr. Robinson I wish you and the family would agree not to send her one penny of money and when I heard that you know I didn't like it one bit because my husband was dead and been dead a year and my state was tied up and I couldn't get any money, I couldn' get any money I had a little bit left I traveled a lot you know and I was checked into two hotels and stay in another in New York. And it's expensive. It's expensive and I was the kind of drunk you know that if I was in a dry county and I needed a drink and knew I was going to die if I didn't get it, I'd start a plane and go there. You know to a wet state or county. I was in hospitals like hotels I used, I'm not proud of these things. That's the reason I still work for a living at 75. I shot a I mean I wrote I wrote in ambulances like they were taxes you know I just call hospitals and say send an ambulance I'm coming and I used all the N's like they were maids now as I said I'm not proud of this but that's the way I was when I was drunk I thought the world owed me everything now I realize I owe the world everything and everybody in it. You know that I, I haven't, I wasn't brought up that way. I was brought up as a loving child, well-behaved child, fun-loving child, a truthful child, you know. But, you know, I couldn't tell my husband the entire truth. He'd leave me. And so I had to, you know, just intimate things that weren't true to him. And that's again, that devious lying you do, you know. I don't know about you. You may have gone to your husband and said exactly what you did the night before but I couldn't do it because I wanted... I loved my husband. What I did had nothing to do with my love for my husband but when I got drunk, I'd do a lot of things that I wouldn't do sober. You know, like I was supposed to get back home on a certain day and it might be a week later and when he asked me where I'd been, how did I know? You know. Sometimes, I had a lot of blackouts. I'm grateful for every one of them because that means the things I don't have to remember and write about. I just have to assume I did everything you needed to do to stay drunk until I was 39 years of age. Now, I'm doing all of this when I'm a member of the church, a principal church. I have left the Methodists because they didn't have all of the, the Methodist didn't have all of the things that are, well you know sometimes they talk a little bit about hellfire damnation and I didn't like to hear that because I knew that's where I was going and so I joined the Episcopal Church because they thought it was alright to drink within moderation but you see I didn' t drink within moderation. I never did drink within moderation. I never will be able to drink within moderation thank God Thank God. I think it would be boring. And I'm not moderating many things. I love AA. You know, I go to AA or either speak at AA or either got a girl that's listening to a fifth step at least five days out of the week. If I like something, I want a lot of it. And I like sobriety. And I don't... I'm afraid if I don'T get to meetings, themselves, say something I don't know. You know, and you know, some people are happier than others, and I don' t want to miss the things they know that would make me happier, you know. God, I hope all of you are fortunate enough to be as happy as I am. I couldn't believe at 75 I'd feel young and vital and go to work five days a week and go out and speak any time that I'm asked. We got so many meetings in Southern California if you can open your mouth, you got a chance to speak, you know. But anyhow, I'm going back. I'm going to backtrack a little bit, but I'm gonna finish getting sober. The doctor came and he did everything that medical science knew. And at the end of the fifth day, he told Walt that was staying with me, I told you about, he said, I've already told you what the prognosis was. And Walt said, Alabama, I prayed for you. I have prayed for you. The doctor has done everything. I prayed every day for you the doctor's done everything that medical science knows to do and you're not getting any better. And he didn't tell me this but he told me after I got better he told me that they had gone so far as to ask permission to put me in a padded cell in Independence, Missouri, so that I would not kill myself or someone else. And they never had to do it, thank God. Thank God. And he told me that maybe God was polite. Walt had prayed, he said, every day that God would restore me to sanity and remove the obsession for me to drink on a lifetime basis, a day at a time. And He said, Alabama, we haven't had an answer to that prayer, so maybe God's polite and doesn't come when he's uninvited by the host. And he says, why don't you ask God to restore you to sanity and remove the obsession for you to drink on a lifetime basis a day at a time? And I said, well, you know I can't remember that much. He's crying about it. And I knew I couldn't. I wasn't so insane that I didn't know I couldn't. And he said, honey, just ask God to let you mean what I'm going to say and you repeat it word for word after me. And we did just that. And in that dirty bathroom that the 12 men and I were using to get sober in, I heard God say to me, don't be frightened folks. If you'd been there, you wouldn't have heard a thing. But I heard Gott say to me that I could be sober and I could be sane on a lifetime basis a day at a time. And that wasn't even the miracle. The miracle was I believed it. And I believed in it, and I have never ceased believing that I can be sober and I can say on a lifetime basis a day of the time. And I went out in the hall and telling everybody I met, they already were frightened of me, you know, that God had spoken to me. And they ran and got Walt and said, come at once, come at once. She's totally gone, she's gone totally insane now. And Walt said, how do you mean it? And he said what's she saying? And they said, well Walt, she said that God said to her that she could be sober and sane on a lifetime basis the day after time. And she said she heard God say she could. And Walt said, this is the soberest and the best she's ever been. And he had hope. I had an out-of-body experience. I wish I had talked about it a little bit more after it happened. I talked to the doctor. He told me it was called an out of body experience, that it was nice to have had it. And you know, I just died for a short time. And all I really remember about it, it's like coming in from the atmosphere. and it was like I had floated back into my room. Now, folks, I had not had anything but passed out sleep in a week. In a week, and nothing but passed-out sleep up there. And I went to sleep after having this spiritual awakening, and I went asleep, and I slept for eight solid hours. Eight solid hours, And when I awakened, I felt like I felt when I was a child. That there was no weight about my body. I felt that I could go out on a hill like I did as a child and fly down the hill. You know. And my body felt light. You see, the miracle had happened. All of that stress and strain was taken from me. All of it. And I fully believe. I know the doctor had a lot to do with it, but I fully believe it was Walt's prayer. People had never met me. AA groups all around were praying that God would restore me to sanity and remove the obsession for me to drink. My family churches were praying for my health and my sobriety. And I'm so grateful to God. I'm so grateful that there was somebody like Walt that loved an alcoholic that he didn't even know before enough to stay with me and to take care of me. I stayed on up there for two months afterwards and my brother, they called my brother and said that I was well enough to come home if I had somebody to stay in the house and stay with him. And they said did they know anybody sober that they could play you know to stay away from me and they said no they didn't And they said, we're afraid, Dad, to send her home, her apartment alone, because she's so new on the program, you know, and everything. And Dad said, well, why can't you keep her? And he said, Well, the ladies came. They couldn't do anything for her, but they came and sat in the outer room so it would look all right that she was up here with these men. And he says that they're worn out, that most of them are not alcoholics. because there were many alcoholics and women in Independence, Missouri then, in the larger cities they were coming in most frequently. And Dan said, why do you have to have a woman there? And he said, well, just for look's sake. And my brother said, Walt, you and these men up there took care of her when she was drunk. I trust you completely. You do not need a woman as far as the family is concerned. to be there with her. She knows what she's doing now. She's sober. And I stayed another month, and I asked them to take in another girl. See, they weren't prepared for girls, and I'd sleep on the cot. Somebody could bring me a cot or something in, and I'd take care of the girls. And here I am, you know, just after being insane, and they're working with other alcoholics. I'm so grateful to God nobody told me I couldn't sponsor before I was a year old. I got a baby that got sober, and she died sober. You know, she was older than I was. I mean, chronologically, yes. I'm so glad that I didn't know I wasn't supposed to go on a 12-step call so early in sobriety. My sponsor took me with him any time there was going to be any women in the house. And I'm so grateful that these men treated me like I was their sister, and I loved every one of them. I never can say thanks enough to what they did. But things got tough for me. My brother, I told you Walt told my brother not to ask the whole family not to send me any money, that I'd have to go to work. And I don't know about you all, but the word grated on my ears I told Walt so and I asked him would he spell the word maybe it would say him better and my brother got me a job working for the state and do you know my sponsor wouldn't let me take it and I ask him why he said he was the taxpayer I had never had to work for a living I'd worked I'd been like a husband who was the manager of a gold mine. I've been known as the gold digger, too. I had been hostess for the company and done a lot of entertaining and was entertained a lot during the years I was married to George. And I had worked two years for my uncle before I married. But it was all family thing, you know. And Walt told me that I had to work two years on a job before my recommendation would be any good because my recommendation from a family wouldn't be wasted on. You know, a family had to write it. And so Walt told me to go out and get a job and make telephone calls, and I called, and nobody would hire me. And Walt went out and got me a job clicking in a store to razz the floor. Seventy-six cents an hour. I bitched. I have just returned and got a bad check at Waldorf Astoria for a thousand dollars you know I've just returned from the Pierre Hotel in New York living you know except I was drunk but if I hadn't been drunk it would have just been good living and and then he wanted me to go to work in some dirty old store for 76 cents an hour I went and I told him I didn't like it And he said, I didn't have to like it. Just act like I did. He told me to get up in the morning and to pray and ask God to give me the strength to get to the job. And he says, you go put on a fan in front of the mirror before you leave your apartment and you ask God that you could put a smile on your face and you keep it on your faith all day long. And he sent Eddie to come down to the clubhouse Before you go to work, at noon you come down and go to lunch with a sober alcoholic. And at night, after you got off from work, you come in and there'll always be somebody waiting here in the club room to tell you what we said at the meeting that night. Because I sometimes had to work. And we didn't have but that one meeting a week. And these men would wait for me every night. They called it Alabama's round table. And then they'd ask me what I'd eaten during the day. And they said, you haven't had enough protein. They said, anybody here got enough to buy a steak? You know, we were a poor group, except for one or two men in it. And they were waiting down there for me. However, one of them felt I was too nice and late to go to work, and he rented an apartment for me, and you know all the things that go with that. It's sort of like being the kept woman. And he was married. And, you know, I finally, within three months of sobriety, I got sober enough to realize what I was doing. And I thought, I would not even like that drunk. You know, and I had to tell him that I couldn't handle it and stay sober too. And he said that was all right. He understood. And he had never been out with an AA girl before, and he wouldn't have gained. you know I had to keep that to myself it wasn't a soul in that town even my sponsor I could tell it to because I would break his anonymity too you know and I didn't have anybody I could talk to about it I can talk freely about it at an AA meeting here because y'all don't know who it is but see back then if I had just made the intimation they knew it wasn'T over two men in that group, they could afford it. They're wives and me too, you know. But in here, I went to work and one day I'm walking down the street and I can't carry a tune. I think I drank too much. And I can'T carry a tone and I'm singing on the way to work. And you know, it dawns on me I'm happy I got a job to go to. Can you believe it? That I was happy I had a job to go through. and I told Walt about it and he said, I thought that might happen. I was there seven months sober and five months working and the manager came over and said that the head of your department is going to be married and she's going to leave us very soon. He said, do you think you could manage that apartment, department? And I said, I know I could And he said, it was photograph records and small instruments and so forth. And a lot of, he said well what would you do if you ordered a case or five cases there? Something you thought was going to be a hit and it didn't make a hit at all. What would you doing with all those records? I said I'd sell my mistakes. And he says I believe you. I believe ya. He'd watch me sell. I said the only thing is I'm not going to wrap the packages. I'm not going to wrap them you'll have to have a wrapper come over because I'd rather sell than wrap and it's a waste of talent to wrap and you know that man said he'd have a rapper for me as well as I had an assistant people working under me and so I was made manager of my department there when I left at the end oh I forgot to tell you they they made me uh they made the woman of the year the cat's drug company we There was 50-some-odd stores, and they decided who was the woman of the year by the space that your department had and who made the most money for a square foot, you know. And apparently I had done better than any of them. And I thought, surely they would give me a check with the statue or whatever they gave me. I wasn't interested in the citation. I was interested in money. and at the end of two years when I had worked there I resigned and the manager of the store said Alabama, please go and see the PR PR man go over and talk to the cats and so forth don't leave us and I went over at his request and asked him if I'd be paid for the time and he said yes and I talked to him And they told me they were grooming me as soon as this woman got married that was engaged, that they were grooming me to be buyer for the record department for 52 or 56 stores. And I told them that was awfully nice, but I wanted to come to California. And they said, you're going to turn down a job like that? And I said, I want to go to California, I've already made up my mind, but thank you and no thank you. But, you know, it was an honor to know that they felt that I could do that job after two years there. The man knew I was a drunk, a sober drunk, and he was too. And one day, I had migraine headaches real bad when I was drinking, and they went into my early sobriety, and I stayed out of work a couple of days with that, and then my sister was sick, andI went down with a migraine headache. And when I got there, a floor decorator came over to me and said, Mr. Harden's going to fire you. He told us all at the meeting this morning downstairs that he was going to file you. And I said, well, that's all right, but I'm not coming to work when I don't feel like coming to work. And so he came over and he said, he told me that if I wasn't out carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous in the gutter to the winos that I wouldn't have those headaches. And I said, Mr. Hardin, what I do at night is none of your business. You don't pay me for what I doing at night. What I do on this job is your business, but what I'm doing at nights is my business and I don't want to hear any more about it. I was already going to get fired. Why the heck not tell him? And he didn't like it. He stunked off and his face was red. And I realized later that he was an alcoholic. He had heart attacks, they called them. And he about to have one that day. And he came back. They couldn't understand. They were sure he came over to find me. And when I didn't go downstairs and get my coat and leave, they didn't understand me because they said he had never said he was going to do anything that he didn't do. And I said, well, he didn's find me, And he came back, oh, about an hour later, and he said, how is your head? And I said, it hurts. It hurts, and it hurts real bad, but I haven't got anybody to take my place. And he said I'll call somebody to watch the cover for you. I want you to go over to the pharmacist and have him call your doctor and see if he can give you something that's all right for you to take that would help your head. And I thought, okay, and I went. They still couldn't understand it when I went over because that's where you got paid by the back of the pharmacy. They just knew that he had sent me then, you know, to get my check. And instead they saw me go downstairs and I didn't come back. I lay down, you known, in the ladies' room. And they just couldn't believe it because they said it was the first time since any of them had worked there that man ever changed his mind about something. And I did a good job for him. But you know how I did it? You know how you did a great job for her? And you were waiting, people like you were waiting for me every night to ask me how my day went. And I would tell you about troubles I might have had with a customer or something. And they said, Alabama, remember your customer is always right. Always right. Don't be sassy with them. And you smile at them and you thank them and you have gracious manners. You know how to do it. And you know they'd ask me if I had any trouble the next night then. Did you have any trouble with the customer? And I said no. And it got better and better and better. And those were the people that are oh so much to you. I wish I could tell you that I was different, but one night I went down there and the boy said come on over Alabama, let's talk about your day. And I said, boy, there's a poor sick gal up there sick. And I got to go up and talk to her. I'll be with you after a while. And I was wearing a halo when I said that. Have you ever seen an alcoholic with a halo on? Very unbecoming to us. They tarnish readily. And mine had a habit of slipping and blinding me. You know, kicked down and blotted me. And so I came downstairs, and I said, oh, boys. Now remember they knew me when. I said oh, boys, I'm so glad I didn't go the length the poor gal upstairs went to before I got here. And Dick the Wino looked at me with those Al-Anon like eyes. And he said, Alabama, what she done, you ain't done. I said, Dick, she told every one of us when she came in here today at noon drunk, you know, she told everybody here that she was a prostitute. I had to whisper the word. I couldn't say it. You know, I whispered it, but they heard it. And Dick looked at me and his looks were kill you. I should have been dead. And he said, Alabama, ain't you going to ever get honest? I said, Dick, I don't even know what you mean. He said, self-honesty is what I'm talking about. And I said I still don't know what she means. He says, Alabama don't you know the only difference that you and that gal upstairs is that you didn't know you could Sell it, and besides, you didn't need the money. So we get somebody that acted like I did. I can't help but tell them that, you know. You know, that straightened me out. It got me on a good path to realize that I was no better, and I was nowhere. I did what I had to do to stay drunk. I fortunately didn't have to live on the street. There were people that would be glad to pay the bill. and I had a lot of wealthy friends and a lot of people thought maybe about things I've said I was the kind of woman that after my husband died and I went to New York in New York there are many places that ladies cannot go unescorted and I called some of our friends from the mining world and so forth and they would take me out you know, to the places that I wanted to go the nightclubs and so fort and I said something to Walt about that. And Walt said, with a marriage? And I said, yes. And he said, Alabama, write that on your inventory. Write that on you inventory. That is not good sobriety to go out with a married man. You took him away from his wife and his children and he possibly spent money on you that they needed. And I say, Walt, you never will understand me. I never went out with anybody that didn't have enough for all of us. You know, that man was going to make me get honest if he had to write my whole inventory. And then he sent me, he said, I don't want your sex inventory. He said, well, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to say, I said, but I don' t know any girl I particularly want you to take it with here because they didn't, we just didn't any women that were good sobriety except one woman who was cross-eyed and had never drunk anywhere except at a neighborhood bar, and I'd never been in a neighborhood car. I drank at swanky places, you know, because I liked the best, the very best. I was the only thing that wasn't the best present, you know. So I talked to a principal priest. I had something else to talk to him about. I didn't trust you people with my inventory about my income tax. I was afraid you'd report me. You know, I didn'T know whether the RAS would pay you to come and tell them what I'd done or not. And so I told this Catholic priest about it. We had bought some mining stock very, very cheap because my husband had fended the mine. And very, Very cheap. And I had to sell it. My husband had become a chronic gambler, and I'd had to sell it to cover his gambling debts because all of his gambling deaths were secured by this stock at banks and individuals had it. And I didn't have too much that I got out of it because time I paid what he had borrowed. And you know, it's no way an alcoholic can spend money as fast as a gambler if you live in Las Vegas. I did everything it takes to, you know, I chartered planes and did all that kind of stuff. But I still couldn't spend it as fast as he did. I didn't really know he was spending it that much either. And when he died, I found out that I didn' t have it. And this priest told me that maybe I better not write the income tax people if I couldn' t pay them. Maybe it'd be just best not to say anything about it. And I said, there's no way in the world I can pay them because we made a great deal off of the stock. And I says, there is no way I could do it. And he said, have you filled out your income tax for the year? And I say, yes. He said, did you file it in Nevada? I said no, I filed it in Missouri. And he says, well, they may not connect you with the Nevada crowd. And I never heard from him and I never worried whether I paid him or not. But I sure paid him on everything else. and everything went along fine. I had, I'm going to tell you a little bit of what I was like before I drank. I grew up in a family that was seven children that lived to be adults. A brother and sister are both dead from alcoholism. I have a sister that's sober through her church and don't knock it. I have not tried to fix it. I am so proud of me that I haven't gone to her and said, Honey, you would have so much more fun in AA. And it's such a, so much better program. You know, that woman is happy as I am. And I just keep watching her, and I think, Oh, surely you can't do that through the church. So, you know, they can stay sober the way they think they can say sober, you know. And she's just as happy, just as well-adjusted as I am. And I'm so happy for her. And I haven' tried to fix it. And that is remarkable for a person like me. I always thought I knew how to fix things, you know. And the older I get, the more I know I don't know. All I know is that if I don' t take that first drink and that if go to my meetings and if I do my writing when... If I do writing and if do my sponsoring and if give service at my group and do what I'm asked to do in AA that I will stay sober. And if I don't do those things, I won't stay sober I cannot be a parasite and stay sober because I have no human dignity if I am a parasite. I am grateful to God my sponsor did not let my family give me any money. My mother had a slip. She sent me a week before my first birthday a check for me to buy a dress for my birthday party. she wanted me to have shopping time and then with my uh my family my brother wouldn't give me any money because he was told not to but every time i went to see him he loaded the car with food you know they always had an abundance of something that they wanted to get rid of you know or maybe i better go to the chiropractor while i was there he owed him some money and he said you know we just saw the swap bills and then maybe i'd better see the dentist and maybe i better do this, that, and the other, but no money. Never did any money cross my hand, you know. And I'm glad, I'm real glad. I wish that everybody in AA knew how important it is, that they don't sit around the clubhouses all day long drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes that they're bumming. You know, I believe that that's the worst thing that can happen to an alcoholic. You know, I grant you maybe you need ten days or better to get well in a month, some people. But you know, I know people still sitting around two years later. And I don't think they got a chance. I don' t think they've got a change. But come in and I'll say, How are you today? Well, Alabama, I drank a little last night. And I said, Well, didn' t you know you were going to? Oh, no, no. I didn' d mean to. You know... Well, I really think sponsorship includes what my sponsor did. You've got to go to work. You've Got to Go to Work and Hold Your Head High. And you know, I feel this way about it. They'll come in to burn money for me if they're coming off of being real, real sick. Now, I'll give them a little money to eat on, you know. But you know I'm 75 years of age and I go to Work five days a week. And I like going to work and I'm grateful they still want me to work I have suggested that if they felt I was getting a little bit old for the job to just say so and they said well who in the hell could run it and you see I'm not bragging but with me 75 sometimes people respect age and then with me 35 yeah so but sometimes they respect the amount of sobriety I've got and and I'm pretty plain spoken I'm very polite I'm really plain spoken you know and And, uh, but see, that's the kind of sponsorship I had. They wouldn't let me be a parasite. And, um, I know that, uh... I know people get up and they like to get up at the podium and talk, but you just have a self-study, uh, a self study, a tradition study. We haven't got as many people that want to talk because they've got a subject to talk on besides them. You know, we are self-centered human beings. I have to fight it every day. every day. But you know, I want people to stay sober. I want them to be happy and joyous and free. The book tells me that we demand that this happen to us. And it's up to us whether it does or not. Because God wants us to be too. There's no doubt in my mind, there's no doub in my mine, that he doesn't want the very best of everything for us. and it's up to us to do either part of the footwork. I grew up in this family of seven. I don't go to children of alcoholic parents. My mother wrote me a letter on Mother's Day thanking me for the presents that I had sent her, and she said that she wanted to apologize for not making so many mistakes in rearing me, and please know that they were made in ignorance but with love. And I tried to think of some mistakes my mother had made. Do you know, I couldn't think of any. Every bit of it was done for my own good. I didn't like what she did again. You know, my dad came to school one day and he didn't come up to the teacher's desk like anybody else's dad would have done. He got at the door back there And I asked the teacher, would she please excuse me to come home and make up my bed? Because that was what I was supposed to do. And you know, I respected him for it. I respected Him for it, and I respected my mother. And I haven't... Sometimes I realize that some people's children were abused and all those kind of things, but I wasn't, andI wasn't. And I don't go to that organization because I don' t want to get in the blame game. I am responsible for my own alcoholism. Nobody made me drink at any time. Everybody that loved it tried to keep me from it, you know. I am responsibIle. And when we start blaming people, places and things for our alcoholism, then we' d not go get well so fast. We' d noI go get weII. I do grant you there are some children of alcoholics that have been so abused that they need help, outside help. But I don't need to go to those places because I don' t want to get in the game. I don''t want to got in the games. I love my family. I respect them. My dad died two months after I was sober. And about two months, yeah, nearly two months after I was sober, I hadn't gone to work yet. And my sponsor asked me if I felt that I could go home and not drink for the funeral. And I said, I don't know. He said, talk to your mother and see how she feels about it. And Mama said, honey, stay with your AA friends. Stay with them. They know how to help you. and we'll be so busy, you know, doing other things here. And then come visit me when we can be alone and have a lot of time together. And she said, six of your brothers and sisters will be here. And she says all of them would be happy for you to stay. And maybe you would be better off there with your AA people. And I know I was. And I am so grateful to them. They had me to their home and they stayed close to me. And I felt like that with my husband dead and my dad gone, I feltlike that my support was gone, you know. And when I left Independence, I came out to California and I met a wonderful man, a man. I was going to tell you first about where I heard my first AA meeting was in North Hollywood Group. Now, that's my home group, and I think it's the finest group in the world. And I hope you feel the same way about your group. If you don't, it may be because you don' t give enough to it. You know? Yeah, Al is right. I have to remind myself that I say this all the time. You see, the thing of it is, I know enough people and I sponsor enough people that they play back to me what I told them to do. That's the reason I continuously work the program like a newcomer. You know, because they play it back tome. If I want some help, the best place that I can go to is somebody that I sponsor. And it makes me so mad when they start playing back the records that I gave them, you know. And I said, I didn't come to you to hear that. And they said, you got to hear it. But anyhow, I went to this AA meeting. I went out of a drying-out place. I've been in hospitals all over the country, you now, all overthe country. And I went through this drying-up place. And the doctor asked us if we wanted, said there was a man there that wanted to know if he could come over Tuesday night and take some of us to the North Hollywood Beginner's Meeting. And I needed some whiskey. That man wanted to give me Peralta hot. And I told him I didn't take Peralza hot. Have you ever smelled it? And I wasn't going to take it. And he said, well, how do you get sober? And I said, but I get sober with taking some whiskey, tapering off on whiskey. And he said, well, I can give you an ounce every six hours. Any fool knows that that wouldn't keep you out of DTs and convulsions. No way. And I knew I had to have something to drink. So I raised my hand, and then I realized later I didn't have the proper clothes to wear to a social affair with me. And I called the place I shopped in Las Vegas and asked them to call their manufacturers and send me out a navy blue suit, understated that I was going to a social event it was social all right and uh so we went and on the way over I asked the man to stop and he said for what and I said for me to get a bottle and I says he said I'm not gonna buy you a bottle I said I didn't ask you to and he said but the doctor's got all your money your money and I say I'm an alcoholic but I'm not a fool. I never give anybody all of my money. And he said, well, I know he's got your billfold. I said, but I took out what I wanted. And I got it here. Then he said well, won't they find it? I said not in my bra. And so he said I'm not going to buy you a bottle. And then I said I didn't ask you to stop and I'm going to get a bottle And he said, well, I don't want to take you to the meeting with a bottle. And I said, Well, you just put me out there, and I'll take a taxi back to the hospital. I was out to get my whiskey. That's all I care. And he decided it would be better for me to go than not to go. And I went with two bottles, one for me sober up with and the other one to drink at the meeting. And I wore a lot of capes. I still do, and I had the capes over like this so I could put the bottle in, you know, tight in my bra. I've had three breast operations, and if they ever turned out to be malignant, it would have been the bottles rubbing it, you Know, and causing the malignancy, and when I got there, it looked like a church, and then they had that sign, but for the grace of God, and And I thought, is this a revival time? And then they had first things first. And I said, oh, I know what that means. You've got to get the bubble before you can drink it. And haven't I already done it? And I went to the bathroom. Don't go as often now. But I went through the bathroom many times during the meeting. And there was a sign that said, we care. And it was all lit up with Christmas tree lights. And it overhanged at our podium. and I thought it was the tackiest thing I had ever seen and I said who in the hell cares whether these drugs care or not, I don't and I want to tell you something if that weak care was ever not up there they took the Christmas tree lights off of it, you know they were going on and off and they took it off if that light went out I'd climb a ladder and get up there and fix it myself because it's important to me that you care and that we care what happens to our fellow men. And everything went real well except, you know, all of these things up there on all of the stands that we have there. And then a man got up and he said he'd been in Lincoln Heights and I preached all over and I said, What's that? I thought it might be a men's club I knew nothing about. And he said that it was the big jail facility And I thought, well, I wouldn't tell it from, you know, a podium if I had been in Lincoln Heights. And then, you Know, folks, I was ashamed for him. But when I really was ashamed, I bowed my head in shame. A man got up to a podium with approximately 200 people in that building and said he had been In a Penitentiary. Oh, I felt so sad for him, Not that he'd been in the penitentiary, but that he didn't know any better than to tell it. Three and a half years later, two and a halft years sober, I married a man who had been in a federal penitentiary. And he got there doing the same things I did, writing big, bad checks. His mother went bankrupt trying to keep him out of jail. His wife divorced him because she couldn't be responsible any longer. I wrote big, bad checks in my husband, my brothers, and my father covered them until the Eleanors, which is called family group, they got to them and they told them that they were enabling me to stay drunk. And I got... I spoke at a... I spoke, you know, at a one time at a Eleanor meeting and I told them that when my family quit covering my checks maybe some of their husbands did But my checks got covered, including that one for $1,000. I found out later, my mother told me, I thought my brothers were still doing it, but they had quit. But I found that it was the chairman of the board at the bank that covered my $1.000 check from Waldorf. And he told my mother he'd like to marry me, but he was too old for me. If I'd known that he was that interested in covering my checks, I might have married him. And at that time, you know. But anyhow, that night at the meeting, Jim had to go a little further than I did. Somebody always covered my checks, but when they quit covering Jim, Jim had used other people's checks and names, and they frowned on it. Jim didn't have to stay in prison long, though, because they found out something in the trial wasn't quite right, and he didn't have to stay very long. Jim was a wonderful man, a well-educated man, a loving man, a man that loved being sober and we carried the message of Alcoholics Anonymous on a sponsoring level. We'd always volunteer to go if a couple called or anything and Jim would talk to the man and I would talk to the woman and sometimes one of them didn't say they were an alcoholic, but then they'd call us later and say that, you know, they were too, and we'd suspicioned as much. And we did everything together like that, and our house was open house in Bakersfield for AA members, and Jim knew that all he had to do is say, I'm bringing two or three people for lunch, and I said, all I've got is soup, but I'll weaken it. And everybody knew they were welcome to come to our house at any time day or night, men or women. Jim trusted me completely. He'd send his babies over to talk to me if he had to go to work, you know. And I trusted him completely with the girls that I sponsored. Jim was killed in an automobile accident a year and a week after we were married. And I want to tell you folks, it was rough. It was real rough. And I couldn't follow solid food. I thought I couldn'T. And some of the men at the club about two weeks later said Alabama you're eating solid food and I said no I can't swallow it. And they said Alabama, you've got to start eating and not just drinking the vitamins that the doctor gives you. And he said everything I heard you say tonight sounds like pull me, pull me pull me and he said Alabama if you don't snap out of it it's going to be pull me a drink. He said Alabama ya know you're going to have to stop sponsoring again you're gonna have to get in touch with the girls that you sponsor invite them over to the house and you're going to have to start doing the things that you and jim did together or it's going to be pull me a drink and for you to drink is to die alabam you know that i go insane they took me home that night they spoon fed me they spoon-fed me there were two of them and they told me if i was uncomfortable i'd better to go in and put on my robe, that they had a lot to talk about. And they told me these things. And They told me things that Jim had told them, that I had told him, that it helped them. And He said, Alabama, I know it was hard. I know It was hard! We know how Jim loved you and you loved him. But neither one of us have ever had that for days. We have never had the kind of marriage for a day that you or Jim had for a year and a week. You ought to get down on your knees and thank God for what you and Jim had together. And at 7 o'clock the next morning when they left, I walked out with these two men in my robe to the car with them and kissed them both goodbye. And people were coming out with their briefcases going to work. And I'll tell you, Bakersfield isn't like Hollywood. But you know I didn't give a damn? I didnít give a damn. Because those men saved my life. Two days later, a man called me and he said thereís a girl that canít stay sober living with her mother and daddy and sheís trying to because they have no understanding in Alabama. Please take her to your house. You know, they did me the biggest favor that you could do anybody in my position. And then she had a boyfriend that was an alcoholic and I had to call him up and tell him to come over for all the meals. I wanted to feed him good and get him to meetings. And I started working with alcoholics again, and I've been working with them ever since. I have married once since then to a nice fellow, but we didn't have enough in common. And this may sound a little crude, but sex in Alcoholics Anonymous is not enough for a good marriage. It's just not. I had an opportunity to marry a very wealthy man a few years ago and go to new york and you know i knew that i couldn't that i couldn't marry him i wasn't in love with him i liked his money and i i liked him too as a friend but i wasn'T in love WITH HIM and i didn't think it was fair and i told him the truth and i TOLD HIM THE TRUTH i've never been sorry i've NEVER BEEN SORRY because if i'd gone back there, my life would have been entirely different from what it is today. I'm available today. I'm available wherever I am needed today. I'm so glad I have a purpose in life. I was living without purpose when I got here. And as a young girl, I've had purpose in light. I knew what it was to live the good life. I've made many mistakes since I've been sober. But I want to tell you something. I have not ever made the mistake of taking that first drink that's all that counts I wish every one of you all of the joy and happiness that you can gain from this program and come to see me when you're in California at the North Hollywood AA Group Thank you