Step 12 and the Message of Being a Recovering Woman – Mary R.

About This Speaker Tape

San Francisco, thirty years ago: the "Belle of Bush Street" in a fancy pad with the orchestra playing exactly how she wanted. Mary R. describes the high of the road show and the USO, where she was "democratic with her drinking," fraternizing with everyone from yardbirds to generals.

But the glitter was a cloak for a homicidal hatred of women and a desperate need for approval. The wreckage mounted—a court-martial for hitting a captain with a field telephone, a "suicide pact" marriage to a compulsive gambler, and three pregnancies spent in a blur of vodka and arrogance. She recalls the grit of the bottom: lurching down a main thoroughfare, hitting buildings with her side, and waking up in a cold gray dawn on the scrap heap of life.

After a period of total insanity and a plea to a policeman to be jailed, a young gay man from the clubhouse found her inhabiting a dirty moo-moo. He pushed her through the door of AA, where a sponsor finally spoon-fed her soul.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Laughter: Mary jokes about the 'message' of AA and her own nervousness.
• 4:15 Mary discusses the 'ingredients' of her alcoholism: obsession with self, hypersensitivity, and idealism.
• 11:20 The 'Belle of Bush Street' era in San Francisco nightclubs.
• 16:40 Story of the USO tour and the 'democratic' way she drank with everyone from Yardbirds to Generals.
• 21:10 The field telephone incident and the near court-martial.
• 27:30 Description of the 'suicide pact' marriage to a compulsive gambler.
• 34:15 The 'compulsive housekeeping' phase and the terror of early motherhood.
• 41:00 The 'cloak of arrogance' and the shame of being a pregnant alcoholic.
• 48:20 The 'homicidal insanity' and the plea to be put in jail.
• 53:10 The first contact with AA via a 'young enthusiastic gay heir'.
• 56:40 The first meeting and the role of her sponsor who 'spoon-fed her soul'.
• 61:15 The struggle with resentment toward her husband and the 'rotten' sponsor's influence.