Step 4 and the Defiance That Kept Her from Higher Power – Mary R.

Thank you all for coming and supporting the conference. It's been a fine day, fun couple of days. I don't know this lady very well, but I was given her tape when it was time to decide who it was I wanted to have, but we all wanted to choose a speaker, and I laughed a lot with her while I was listening to her talk. And it's been our goal to make this a very easy, fun conference this year. So with that, I introduce Mary. There we are. Glad to be here. I want to thank our, is that so funny? It's fucking funny. I'm going to take this off. Really hot. Thank you for bringing me some ice. I think my baby's getting me some iced water. Phyllis says thanks. Thank You. I want to thank our Al-Anon speaker. And Keith gave a great talk last night. And I want to thank the committee for inviting me. It's always a privilege and an honor to share in Elkhart's Anonymous, and I'm always very grateful that I get to share at this level. And you know, to tell you the truth, when I was newly sober and heard Chuck saying all And I really wanted to be a main speaker all the time. So I really am grateful that that happened for me. I truly am. And I say that with humility because I think it's, you know, I'm a very blessed woman to be able to share in Alcoholics Anonymous and to be sober one day at a time. And our great old-timer here, glad to see you. Well, I had a great dinner with my friends last night, Cheryl and Duncan and my new friend, Dawn. And the night before we went to dinner with Phyllis and Jody and Jean, and Phylls is sponsor. So it's fun to do those sort of fellowship when you go to conventions. It's really, really wonderful. And I feel very, you know, I just feel really loved here. And I'm a really difficult person to love. And people that know that about me, they love me anyway, and I'm really grateful for those people in my life. You know, I don't know. To tell you the truth, I did a talk in Reno, and they sent me the tape, but can you hear me in the back? Okay. If you can't hear me, raise your hand, okay? Because there's no since I've listened to a speaker, you can't hear it. So you want someone to speak up, I'll speak up. I have a big mouth. And so I did this Reno tape and I am really hurry and Phyllis had in her car. And she ran around and I said, oh, put my tape here. I said I Well, this is how I did the same story I gave in Reno. And first of all, I have one story. I love when they say, the speaker's saying, if I knew I was going to be a speaker a lot, I would have done a bigger story. You know, I've done more things to really give you more shit to laugh at about ourselves. And I love to drink. I'm an alcoholic. I mean, I'm a real alcoholic. I'm a pansy when it comes to those drugs, and even the alcohol as a drug. You know, our primary purpose here is for alcohol. It's anonymous. And, you know, I took me a long time to honor that tradition and to learn about that tradition, giving us a purpose. It took me very long time trying to understand that. Because I used to send everybody, you now, no matter what their problem was. And I stopped doing that, you knoW. So we've got to keep AA for those of us who have drank the way we drink so people can have some place to go when we're all gone. And I hope that as a member of AA, a long-term member, that I can honor that tradition and keep that going. So I started drinking when I was... Oh, I want to tell you about where because it's funny. I have good friends in Reno and help with it, did part of the convention. I had met Keith before, so I felt really at home going there. And they asked me to be the spiritual speaker. It just really fucking blew my mind. And I was swearing that I was going to clear up my act with my swearing, but for some reason I can't go. So I was sure that's God's will. So if I offend you, I'm sorry. And you can tell me... You can take the resentment inventory at home tonight. Keep coming back. If you're new in Elkhart-Sinamas, there's hundreds of meetings in any city you belong to. Even in the small town where I grew up was the street of Illinois. And I say that because I was a hick. And that's the last thing I wanted to be. And, you know, I came to this sort of hickey area. And I grew up in this town. And I come from a family of six. And there was brothers and then the next girl. And the first girl in that family. And I have a kid sister. And she's four years younger than me. And I was a great aunt yesterday. For my namesake, had another baby girl. And she was five. And I said, well, I'm going to have a baby girl today. And I'm very excited. she's had a hard pregnancy and I know she's been pregnant so I called her here about every hour and finally when I called my sister yesterday at dinner, she goes it's a girl, she's fine I said okay grandma see you so unfortunately I forgot to have children I didn't plan on it I don't think I I don' t think I ever planned to be a dyke my whole life it was like a period I was growing through and it gets to be my whole life, you know. I'm out before Stonewall, so when I realized that, I felt very fucking old. And I had these tapes and things on Stonewall and I knew a lot of people that was in this film that was on HBO once or one of the cable channels and I taped it. So every so often I drag it out and invite people over and we watch it because there's a lot eight people on this and one I remember on that tape she's passed away now but she lived to be 40 years sober and uh she had one one one hell of a story and not only her drinking but uh her whole life story was so you know so wonderful and she's such a dynamite woman and um yeah so i started drinking when i was um I don't know. I tell you what, my mother used to put alcohol on my gums when I was a baby and she used to give me alcohol so that I would slow down because I was this brat. And she said I never stopped crying for five years. And so, what she was saying. So, you know, so, and then she said, oh my God, do you have alcohol? Because I do that. I said, no, I'm no cloak on because I'm a pig. And I let me drink like a pig, and I never stopped. I have friends that we've been friends for 45 years now, and we had a close reunion last July when two or several of us, and were going to get together this January the 5th again and have some, just the women get together, about five or ten of us. And we've known each other since we were in high school and grade school, and one of our friends just died two weeks ago, and it really pulled our little group closer together. And I used to say to these kids, you know, we see each other periodically every two years, we call every five years, it's not real frequent, but we have always kept in touch. And all of us that I ran around with, I just don't understand how it has been the lesbian and the alcoholic. Because we don't know about the first stop, but We stopped drinking, and you didn't. You all drink like I did, you know. They said, but we stopped. You know, I said, oh, I covered the problem. And once I saw it, I never wanted to stop no matter where I was or where I was drinking. And I was a proud girl. I liked to drink in bars. I had time in bars and I had a lot of friends in the place I grew up. I was very well liked and people really like to drink with me, and we had a lot of fun. I really did. And, you know, we used to break into the country club swimming pool, and, you know, that's when we used to wear high heels. Can you imagine that? And I went to one of those golf courses and wore high heels, can you imagine all this fucking damage? And then we tore up our clothes and jumped the fence and jumped into the pool. Now, I wasn't like 16 i wasn't like 17. i was like 27 or 26 years old so now this was going on as if i was 15 years old and we did shit like that all the time so um you know my alcoholism didn't get me much trouble uh because i was in that area my brothers were all friends of the police and whenever they picked me up they go isn't your name real i'd go yeah and they go isn't sure brother vince said i'd grow you out because my brother went to school at multi skies And then they'd say, well, we're going to drive you, you know, follow you home. And I'd say okay. You know, or here, move over, I'm going to draw him. Or, you now, what would your father say if he took you home in a squad car? Or, y'know, whatever. And they'd try to scare me and they'd take me home. When I moved to California the same thing happened because years ago, thank God, well, I don't know, but I am grateful I never went to jail. And, um, because I was jailed waiting for it to happen. And, you know, when I got picked up in Burbank, the cop even drove me home. Followed me home and, you Know, that don't happen anymore, I think. I think it knocks a sort of Arginal when we get that DUI. Nothing's going to wake you up in the morning and see you in jail like, Oh, I Think I'm Really in Trouble. Knock, you Now. So I was very fortunate that But I ran away from home when I was 27 years old. I had left earlier, but I left early when I Was 19, but I went back home because my brother was Killed and my brother's gift to me Coming back, they said they'd take care Of my mother, that she was having A nervous breakdown and my mother was Grieving. And we were high drama in my family Because we had all these alcoholics. My mother didn't drink, my father did. My father drank until he was 89 years old, and he smoked too, and you know, I don't know how they did that. So anyway, I'm just going to jump into how I got to it. I'm the kind of drunk that, back then in this small town, you know. We went around, the one particular thing that stands out, took me about ten years to remember this incident. this incident. One particular thing was that I really liked to dress up, and I always liked to dress and look good no matter what. I couldn't have a dime in my pocket. I used to go out with no money and never buy, you know, drink all night and get drunk. I did that all right. I ran around with guys that were millionaires, they were farmers, they weren't Irishmen, and they were all 10 and 15 years older than me. They were a good friend of my father's and they took care of me, and i drove them. I was always the designated driver because So I never had to worry about getting drinks, because if I went into a bar in my area, they'd set them up. You know, if you're from a small town, that's what they do. I mean, you have six or seven drinks sitting up in front of you, and you never buy a drink when you left. You don't buy anybody a drink, and then you just drink and drink and drank until you fell off the bar stool, or you staggered out the door and drove home. And I always drive like this. I had a Mustang. It was really fast, and I had to go out on the freeway to see how fast I'd go from zero to sixty just for fun in the country. And of course when I was driving, I couldn't see the road so I'd have to open the door. So we drive and then I'm walking down by the white line. I was also, some of you have identified this, I'm a car jumper. I know we haven't had car jumpers here. You know, I also was pushing people out of cars. And, uh, you know, uh... So I was going to tell you first, then I'll tell you about my car-jumping days. Um... My, um... There's one particular time I went to the bar. I was dressed up. I had on these really nice green stretch pants. That's when they were really big in the 60s. And I had some really expensive shoes on. I had, like, a $150 sweater I got. And I went, you now, looking good into the bar and everywhere we all hung out. and a friend was there and we proceeded to drink and nobody really came in that night. And so I don't know what she said to me or what I said to her, she threw a drink on me. So I threw a drunk back and she threw it on me so I said goodbye to her who was Katie I never remember this woman's name I said Katie why don't you just start serving us water and so we kept talking they kept throwing these drinks on each other And we went Friday. We were just discussing this issue, believe it or not, until a good friend of mine came in and heard what the hell we were discussing. Something ludicrous, I'm sure. I can imagine two drunken women sitting there. And, you know, so finally I just thought I was going to go home, and I forgot I didn't have a car. and so I started out the door all pissed off at her and I got out and it started to smell a little like sweet snow and so I didn't live that far maybe two miles so I said oh you know I'm young in my twenties what the hell I said I'll walk screw her and so I started walking and you know I get by the end truck which is kind of faded and I could hear the train coming way down like whoo so I'm walking and now I have to pee And I go, whoo-hoo. And the train's coming, whooo-hoo-hoo, so I go I've got to beat this goddamn train. So I started running and of course I didn't beat the train, that was because of my pants. So now the snow is, I was all wet from coming out when we were dropping everything off, so all this snow was starting to stick to me all over, you know? The sweater was really big and it was raw, and it had gotten getting heavier because the snow was getting so I was walking somewhat like this, you see what I mean? So I waited for that train to go by, and I had to walk maybe another half a mile down to where I lived, and like I'm walking and, you know, I fucked up. And I go in the back door. My mother, another way of life for me, but I live with my parents until I was 27 years old. It's very embarrassing, but I did. And so I get inside. For some reason she's at the back door, which she had never done. She goes, so what happened here? I said, oh, I just got stuck out there in the snow. She said, you better go to bed. I said I am, I am. And, you know, my eyelashes were full of ice, and the ice was like on my cheeks. You know, and I was walking like crunch, crunch. I thought it was cool. I forgot I wet my pants by then. But, you now, that happened more than once. Continuously, you kno, and trying to deal with really wonderful women who were supposed to be stupid, there was, you know, a closet of dykes. And, uh, because I was out and they wouldn't tell me. And I got mixed up with closeted dykes that wouldn't come out. Did that piss you off? And, um, you'd be out, but they'd never come out with you years ago. And then, you know, 20 years later, they go, oh, I knew you were gay because I am. I said, well, fuck you. He made me angry about myself all those years. So it just went on like that. It was endless, continuous drama, just Mickey Mouse shit. I never got into any trouble. The person who came to jail was the cop who took me up this one time. He did take me to jail. He took me to the captain's office. He called one of my brothers. My brothers were all 12, 15, 17 years older than me. And my brother came down, that brother came down to get me for 22 years and I had more time. But he came down to get me and he said to me at the station, I don't want this ever to happen again. You know, when he clenched his teeth and tucked through his lips, I knew I was in trouble. Because this man is very, very passive. So he was always a jolly drunk. He never got into trouble. He just used to drink out, you know, fall down and take care of him. You now, so So, you know, that's the kind of stuff that happened to me. Just mediocre but continuously ongoing nonstop alcoholism. And you know what I didn't know, and I learned, I didn' t learn until I was eight years old. I didn''t know that blackouts are the beginning. I always thought blackouts was like the end sign of the drinking. Blackout drink is the beginning sign of drinking. And, you now, that blackout drinking for me started very early on. And so if you've had blackout drinking, I mean, I'm sorry, but you're one of us. And we can try to get out of this. You know, the book says, you know, go down in the quicksand, have a few drinks and see if it's going to work for you. And then it says, our hats are off to you. And my group used to say, don't let the door hit you in the ass going out. And I come from a tough Bradford group in the Valley, and they were no-nonsense men. And, you know, years ago there was a lot more men than women. And the women were very, very, huh, great. The women were a very, what's the word? Sparse. And so it's like all the men would jump around the podium all the time. You know, I don't know if you ever go up to straight women's stags or discussion women's stags where there's men and women in a discussion meeting. How many times do you see a straight woman raise her hand? Someone's never... I watch them just for fun. I'm like taking a survey. and take a very real serve of how straight women act in, you know, AA. And they're very encouraged to share and raise their hand and share most of it. Most of the time, you now, I don't find that with us dykes, because, you kno, hardly anything scares us. More the straight women, I'm somewhat timid, but that's not a general rule, it's just what I've observed. It's just Mary's rule. If I say anything here, you know, it's my opinion. It's not based on anything else but my own observations. And I'd like to give it to my experience, but it doesn't look like it was going to happen tonight. So, you see, that stuff went on, and then I ran away from home when I was 27 years old. And what I did, I always worked, always had a college, you know, because Mama always helped me out, you know, my mother. And I was very enmeshed with Mama, a total enmeshment. I was a servant husband, and I took care of her. my father was always absent. He was emotionally absent, but he was there physically. And my sister sent me this picture this week. My family loves to dress up, and I love that about them. They all dress up. So it's like, my sister's name is Mary Magdalene, and I am Mary Margaret. Okay, so you know where I'm going with this. So I had that on our shows as Catholic Catholicism stuff. And I mean, I was a really good kid in school and I wasn't that bright. I was the C average student always, but I was trying really hard. I was good with the nuns and you know, I protected my sister out through school and you know, the nun's were always on her fuck haze. I don't know why, but they were. There was always after this kid and she was just very quiet and bashful. And for some reason I just gave her a really bad time. She missed a lot of school because she didn't go to school. So, you know, so I don't know where I'm going unless we're trying to talk. Oh well, it doesn't even matter. We've got another 20 minutes to stay here until we're done. You put up with me no matter what I say. That's why I write about all kinds of synonymous. I don'T have to like you know be on or be this or be that or and i love it because i can be myself i love alcoholics anonymous because my whole life i want to do myself and you know that's why uh in some instances i'm not asked to speak in a lot of places because i'm i'm what you what you hear and see is what you get at all times with me you know i'm no bullshit kind of i learned that in the a and i'm sure i had some of that personality when i came but i was never able to do it i was that I was a sniveling, kiss-ass, people-pleaser, drop. Sniveling kiss- ass, dishonest people- pleaser. And I would have done anything to please you and never tell the truth about how I really felt. And A, it gave me the ability to speak up and say who I am and what I stand for and what's going on with me. And a lot of times I'm wrong and I can be wrong today. You know, I can do wrong and change and grow and move on. And I'm really grateful that I've learned so much in that course enormous about how to live because I was curious when it came to living I didn't know anything about living or anything about being a person. I didn' t know anything when people talked about what went on inside them. It was so foreign to me and I didn''t understand any of the inner work they used to talk about or any of that. It just was like, ''What? Huh? What? What?'' I was so dense, you know, and I was pretty dense like that when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous What time did I start? I don't care. I'll go another 20 minutes. So anyway, you know, I was very down about stuff. But this is important for identification of people because I think it's important for me to try to tell my story so that some in the room that is like this will identify with this and get it for themselves. I came from a background of being very religious. Like I said, I'm Mary Margaret. there's no mad woman, you know, it goes on and gets worse from there. And so my mother was very into her Catholicism. I love the Catholic Church, and I always wanted to do the right thing. I mean, I didn't rebel until I got to Elkhart's nuns. And once I started to get defined, I couldn't stop doing it here. And I don't think there's anything wrong with the fence, it's just that it doesn't take you out of here. You can be as defined as want here you can be as resentful as you want here don't drink you can be as happy as you like don't drink you know you can do whatever you want don't drink that's what we do that we don't drink you know eventually you'll come to new realizations by working the steps you find out who you are and some of your behavior will drop away and some people will never leave you my anger has never left you know i've been looking at my anger for 26 years it's still here you know it's still here my anger is just below the surface a little bit piss me off and and I'll tell you, you know. And I just, I mean, we were talking at the restaurant and we were trying to get her out here, Joey and I over the weekend, I don't know where we were, but she said something about, and she said, well, you're like bristly. And I said, bristley? That's what I am, is bristlay. She goes, oh, I didn't mean to offend you. I'm not making it so funny. I'm bristling, I'mbristling. Yeah, that's a bit, ah, you now. And I thought it was so cute the way she described it because I have this tendency to scare people off when I don't mean to. And I have a tendency to have a very hardcore exterior and not let very many people in. And I don' t even know I'm doing that. And it's taken me years. I mean, my son Jerry has known me the whole time he's been sober. I knew him when he was new. And I've known Grady about 10 years. I met Grady like in 88 or 89. And, you know, when I have history friends that have known me for a long time, and I don't have a problem with that. But in the beginning, I don' t relate in a gentle, loving way to people. That's just, I don''t. I just don' l. I wish I knew how to do that, but I don ''t. I mean, I can terrify you in one fucking minute. And I was trying to be very gentle when I met Don. And I said, Don''t fuck up now. She's three years old. Give the woman a fucking break. You know, she's worked her whole life. She's not some winky-dink kid here. and I was trying to be real respectful with her when I was a tiny 12-stepper, you know. And because I can just be awful. I mean, I'd just be brutally awful. And Phyllis is right behind me back there. You know, Phyllisa's had a hard time getting so we've been friends for 10 years. I've sponsored her off and on. And she's lived with me and she hasn't lived with million. She's run off and come back and she's been in and out of my life. And finally, you knows, I don't know much about Eleanor and I do try to go to Eleanor I work in the Al-Anon program. I do consider myself a double winner, and I'm sort of like a weak, wimpy Al-Anon Christian still. But the only way I know how to detach from people is go, Hello? Phyllis? No, I'm not talking to you anymore. Come on! That's how I try to detach, you know. And I don't detach in a loving, gentle way. You know, it's like, you now, I generally would say to Phyllise, she'd go, Mary, this is Phyllys. How are you? Real sweet. Phyllies is very sweet. She's got that sweetness that I wish I had. She's very sweet, she's very polite, she's great, you know, just... I love that about her. Because I'm not, you now? And I was inspired by that my whole life, but I don't think that's going to happen now. You know what I mean? It's 26 fucking years, this is it. This is what I get, you kno? And I always thought I had this vision where I'd be sweet and cuddly and very nice and all that. I'm no that, you kow. I'm do that. that. And so anyway, Teresa called, she goes, you know, hi, this is Teresa, go, yeah, are you sober? What does that have to do, are you sober, Teresa? I'm sober! She goes, but I'm, go back! Now, this kid called me like that for five or six years. All around, to finally she called, and she said, Mary? I said, yeah. She said, are you sober? She said that, yeah, I have a year. I said how the fuck am you a year? You know, she says now will you talk to me? And I said yeah, because I couldn't watch her kill herself. She's very secure. I couldn' t watch her self-destruct anymore. It was killing me. And that's why I have to detach. I don't know another way to detach, I wish I did, but I don' t. I had another friend that drank. He was, you know, he used for, he was 10 years old and my best friend really in the last 10 years. And he went out and he's been out and I had to let go. You know, I got the A&A notches in a car and, you know, we had cell phones and they would call me on a cell phone and they locked him in the back seat of the car and I directed him to the hospital. We did this whole kidnapping thing and we could hear him screaming. He would scream on the phone, is that fucking dyke on the cell phone. Is that where the phone kind of ought to take me? And he was screaming and jumping. He goes, I'm going to jump out, but you know, today we can't survive back at the seats because they have locked doors, you know. You can't get out of cars anymore. It's a fucker for alcoholics, you know? I'm not going to jump out of the car, you know! You can' t push somebody out like I used to, you know?! And, um, my mother pissed me off around the four or five, you know., we'd go down to say something to me coming from drinking and I'd say, What?! I'd go, I want a car! I want to have a car and a tummy cup! So I'd roll up at 2 o'clock in the morning. And I'd get home and I'd say, well, I wonder where she is? And I do that. It's so weird when I did this. and I'd worry that I'd stay up all night and wait and smoke a lot of cigarettes and drink coffee. And then she'd come in at 7 a.m. and I go, where the fuck have you been? How long have I been out there? And it was crazy. It was crazy and I was a batterer drinking. I battered this woman. I tell my women, I batter her. I was, I was really bad batterer. You know, and we're still friends today. She's my oldest friend here in California with 32 years of being friends. And, you know, she had seven. She knew it one time and she drank with one drink and she came back and she called me and she goes, Mary, I need to tell you something and I want to tell You something first before it comes to the eighth grade fine. And I said, what? Because I never in a hundred years thought that she would drink. She said, I drank in Palm Springs. I started crying. I mean, I got so upset. It hurt me so bad that she lost. This woman is a terrible alcoholic like myself. I'm so afraid that I'm going to relapse. Songs don't get back. Thank God she did. She had that one drink of champagne. She dumped it in her car and drove home. And, of course, she went down there. I won't tell her story, but she went there chasing a woman. So, you know, we do insane motherfucking shit sober. I mean, we're out of draining sober, believe me. Self-restraint is not at the top of our list for most of us. Not a lot are in the book, you now. So anyway, you know, I got, with the help of God's grace, I met some women in AA and I really chased this woman I was after in AA. And thank God she was sober. And so I got sober and I went to Radford and, you now, Terri has been to that group, hasn't she Terri? And I mean, this group is, you know, if you think I'm that, you should have been there. I mean they're like, well years ago we didn't have treatment centers and if people fell down, I think this is really great history, people would know this. We didn't had treatment centers. You went like loud off to a treatment center and get your little volume and withdraw politely. You know, what we did, you now, like politely withdraw them, give them a little shoddy poo, let them go to sleep now with their volume, you kno. We shook like whales in the meetings, you know, and that's how I got sober. And sitting on my hands shaking, the AAs coming by, and I had a chiropractor in my house to work on me in my bed because I had alcoholic paralysis so bad I couldn't, I could hardly walk. And, you now, so, you kno, and people would fall down at seizures in the meeting, this is the truth, they'd fall down with a seizure in the meaning, you'd reach over, get your wallet and stick it in their mouth and watch what they were breathing, listen to the meeting and they take, they start to rouse themselves. You take the water, you like pick them up. Someone says, give him a glass of water. We put them back in the chair and they sit through the rest of the meeting. We did it our time. And if they were really bad, we might call the ambulance. And, you know, so I assume alcohol is worse. And I think today, it's really sad today because how many people go on 12-step calls and see what's really going on out there? It's not pretty, folks, to be... The ones that I knew are very close to their disease, So they know what it was like to drink like that. And I don't want to ever forget what it's like for me to drink. Drinking took away everything from me. I mean, it took away my self-pride and the self-esteem I had built. It wasn't much, but it was all I had at the time that went. And it took way my connection with my family only because I was so into my disease and my resentments with my brothers and uh you know drove me away from them and i fled you know two thousand miles away to get away from my family and become something else so that i thought that i wouldn't be drinking in california that's why i left with my area because the drinking was too much with my friends also i wasn't married um i knew that there was something wrong with me and i didn't quite have a name for it and on when i'm one of the figures i went oh Oh, I think I'm one of those lesbians. You know, when I got that on the freeway, it's like I drove faster to California and found the first blonde I ran into. And that was the one that I just drank. And I was with her five years through terrible, terrible insanity. I mean, crazy battery stuff that is very painful and we still talk about today. When I think about how many times I've had to talk about that, ballering and me throwing her out of the car and you know one time i tried to jump out of the car hollywood flay and uh you know she had a hold on my coattail and my head was like this far from the ground and she's doing 70 miles an hour on the freeway now i mean i don't know how i'm alive you know what i'm saying and let go of me i'm out of here you know why hold on to me i want it anyway let go you know and you just we were just pathetic brothers we were just lost i was and i guess i heard on my other take is that it's really the truth is i was so lost and lonely i got so very very lost and i got suffered from a power greater than myself that whenever the time i got to el clark synonymous the first marine i came to i didn't remember the lord's prayer and i was brought up catholic and i was a good catholic i was a very religious sort of person until you know alcohol took a hold of me and i stopped practicing my faith when i came here and um i never really had any sense of god i always got so angry god for killing my brother that was killed in a car accident and i was pissed off at my brothers i just was very pissed off and i was just very very angry and uh so i just felt really really awful and uh at that first meeting when i could not remember that the lord's prayer i said oh my god what's happened to me what's happening to me what happened you know when i started crying i know i surrendered that night it hasn't been necessary for me to drink from my first meeting that's just my story but the desperate alcoholic that i am i know that can be anyone's story it can be it could be your story if you know if you're new in this room tonight and this is your first meeting or you've relapsed on your bath and this your first name again uh you know the book says that we don't ever have to drink in if we don't want to you know and i don't want to and it hasn't been necessary it's been necessary for me to drink believe me it's been very necessary to do it very very necessary you know and i i don t i don' t drink i don''t drink and that's the message that you get is that we don't drink here we don'' t drink in between meetings you know uh we go to meeting every day we knew and if you knew you'd go to 90 meetings in 90 days the basic alcoholics anonymous now you're probably wondering how most of us that have a lot of time have stayed here this long and i'll give you what the example is of what that what that is the big secret the biggest secret is we go to meetings we don't drink we work new cameras and we go insane sometimes and uh we go crazy call our sponsors we call some of our best friends uh we get ill our life changes we get injured with life crises uh you know and we just keep you know just keep plugging along i don't have any other choices my choice is to stay sober always well that's our choice the book talks about that not being a choice i i believe that but i i need to do all the basic things that i learned in my first year of what has kept me sober for 26 years nothing has changed i read the book i go to meetings i share i pick people up when i cancel meetings i take companies and means when i have the strength to now you know i talk to people on the phone i call my friends to see how they are i call my family to see how they are and i try to keep out of myself because if i don't get out of myself especially the kind of condition i am today and it doesn't take me long than to be laying in that bed and by one one or two in the afternoon i'm going but maybe i should get up now you know and the pains are awful i go maybe you know and i have to get off and i had to go phone up say you know just some one of my eight friends i just got off i'm fucked i'm totally cropped you know uh i'm so depressed i can't stand it and uh you know but i want to get ready and get my breakfast. I'll never forget, the best information in my first year always from my sponsor. I was really, I was having these nervous breakthroughs when I was new. And the first year you talked, you felt, I felt totally apart the first three. So I just kept falling apart. And I kept being really crazy, really crazy. And because I was crazy. I do suffer mental illness, but that's another story. So, you know, so I, and I always said I was different because of my mental illness in the A, and I always thought that there was something terribly wrong with me, and it was different from everybody in the A too, and that used to really make me crazy. And I finally have accepted my mental illness, I've done something about it. I'm very grateful that I did that. It took me 23 years to take care of that. I don't like to talk about that, but people need to know that if you've got other problems, you take care, and the book says we go see the doctors, we see psychologists, we go to people that can help. Let's go do that. Go do that. But first off, work the steps, you know. I worked the steps for 22 years and didn't quit my mental illness. I went to a psychiatrist. And I got used before and not taken their direction. So I'm very, very grateful that God has given me the courage to give up my suffering. God has giving me the strength to give my suffering and I no longer have to suffer from mental illness and I don't have to feel different from all of you anymore and I have to fell like I'm not enough and see what's wrong with me and how come people five years sober are growing and they're working and they are very successful here i am again struggling lost another job went insane at work got fired again on and on and on that's my story terry knows my story you know on and off and on it was relentless and it never changed it never changed so i finally had to address my mental illness and i'm really glad i did that i'm ready but i did and uh you know the stats work but they don't work on no illness so uh and i always thought it was going to i always said i was going gonna work on a mental illness i thought that jesus god almighty was going to cure my mental illness it didn't and uh but it really helps with everything else and it's changed my life my life drastically the steps i feel very grateful that uh and i haven't had the drink that you know the steps help us from drinking not the drink they help us in that drinking the steps take care of our alcoholism and they can also take care a lot of other problems and the biggest thing the steps has given to me is a power greater than myself and that's what it guarantees in the book it says if you do these certain things you will have a power within yourself to deal with and that is what I got from working the steps and what else can I ask for I've got a power bigger than myself that takes care of me no matter what no matter you know and um the latest thing that I had to work through some of you know some of your don't know was that I fell 17 feet I was paralyzed from the neck I'm only telling this because of God's power I was parallelized from the And then that downness, I would walk again. I was quadriplegic and it goes on and on and on. And, you know, I walk today and, uh, I have a difficult and, um, you know, I do the best I can. I do the best I can with what I got today. And, uh I'm not so hard on myself and therefore I'm not so hard on others. I've tried my whole sobriety not to be hard on others and I had to learn how to do that by falling 17 feet. It's pretty pathetic, isn't it? So whatever I did out of my injury, I've gotten a lot out of my injury. I've come to have a lot of quiet time alone with myself. I couldn't be alone with myself when nothing else could stop me. Some of the things you talked about was self-destructive behavior. I love speeding. When I first was injured, I didn't drive in my first year. I got my license back and was able to drive. I went, oh, I was driving within the speed limit and I was moving along. I said, wow, this is what normal people do. It's not so comfortable driving like slow and taking it easy you know of course now i've gotten more hyper again so now i still go 65 in three mile an hour zones and uh and i want to be nuts on the freeway and i almost had an accident with my niece and she was out here because of my compulsive obsessive behavior my driving and my energy to stop myself and you know but all those things i have to surrender and give up i have to ask god to help me because i am powerless over my behavior i'm powerless i'm proud of my anger. I'm powerless over what you do. I am powerless over people, places and things. I am powerless over my sister who's got scleroderma. I have power over my niece who's bipolar. I have powers over my other niece who is bipolar. I cannot help them. I can only watch what I do and correct my behavior. Watch what I do, correct my behaviors. I love what you said too about not giving advice or whatever Elanon says about pointing shit out to people. I do that all the time well you should do this and you should do that and why don't you do it this way you know baby cars it's like I jump on their fucking ass before I even know what's going on with them you know that's not right you know what I'm saying and I've tried to do less of that you know I've tried to say well what's going on honey and I'm changing my behavior not being such an asshole here and because I'm out you know the only way I could states over with the kind of person i was to kick my own ass and i did a lot of ass kicking and uh you know the book says we're hard on ourselves and easy on others but unfortunately i've always been hard on myself and hard on all you and uh i've also tried to correct that but i'm not very good at it but i've done better i've become a more loving person because of alcoholist anonymous and i didn't think that was ever going to happen to me to tell you the truth i really didn't i really did and i was a service a lot and uh you know but you have to be careful because two step it and go on for years that's what it says in the 12 and 12. and i i didn't want to do so i did a lot of two-stepping for years i never looked at myself and uh you know so the journey always comes back to me it always comes down to me take my own inventory to to do 10 steps at time you know the art of 10 steps is gone and now called tonight i don't hear it may not be here but well what i love and and what that means i've heard people i talk to most people don't take 10 steps and right do resentments and fears and i'm amazed at that people don't know that i'm a maze but little people know about alcoholics and others and you know it's just and i know and i'm not being judgmental about that what i'm saying is it hurts me it hurts for that people don't have to have the message that he would over how these steps work that they don't know how to work them that they're not getting the help they need you know and why is that because we have grown so big that you know some people have fallen through the loopholes and they're sober but they're very uncomfortable and you don't have to live that way you you know i had a boss who was totally abusive with me and right before my injury i loved my job and i loved where i lived and i was really having a good time at work and i had to come home every night and do a tent step on this man then i have to call somebody read it on the phone but i was 23 years over then i do that work all the time no matter what you know if you're going to call me i'm going to give you a solution i'm gonna have you write it out and call me back immediately you know i told my babies that i tell them to write out and calling back immediately i made it from them again what the hell is up with that what is up with that you know i would call marie student if i even know marie and you know complain to her and marie said here right marie would take my inventory and she'd say well you resent this and you resent that and you present that she was telling how i felt and then she said this is your fear you fear this and new fear that and you feel it she's like honey now you go write that down and you call me back now she talked to that when i was 20 years old i wasn't new you know what i'm saying so i'd go in and give my little pen a 20 or so when i go i resent someone so because you know i took my inventory because i never want to drink or use again i don't want to drink i'll do anything not to drink i will i'll join him not to dream and a lot of things have fallen away from me you know what i'm saying i've changed in many many ways i have self-restraint that i never thought i'd have you know and i i have a strength of tongue and pen where i can where i could walk away from most instances no matter how bad somebody may piss me off you know and i'm really grateful for that i don't have to have the last word anymore you know. And I don't' have to be right all the time because I love to be right. So does Cheryl, we love to be right. And uh you know with stuff like that every night at dinner, I love being right. You know like aha got to that time I was right. I love doing right you know? And uh and so I don' have to be writing more most a lot of the time not most of the time a lot of the time some of the times well so every fall and it was talking a bit about I'll stop here in two minutes we're talking a bit I need to share this feeling that's important for me and it's important to people that I you know everybody has you can work this program your own way truly you can but you but you do need a mentor you need a sponsor you need to guide with everyone call that person go to a priest go to minister go to go uh what's the jewish a rabbi you know go to buddha you know get them into hindu religion whatever it takes go to your psychiatrist go to your therapist but get a guy get a guide who's going to take you through these steps especially through the fourth step and the fifth step and do the work you have to do the word you just can't say, uh-huh. Oh, I did step four and five. Now I'm done, you know. And I think the first three steps are easy. Your power of silver alcohol, your life's unmanageable, you're nuts, turn it over, off you go. It's all right. That's what they told me. They said, Mary, your power of sugar alcohol? Uh-huh? Is your life unmanagable? Uh huh? Can you turn that over? Uh hunh? And they said to some other power, uh hunh. They say, you kno, so they said, so? It's alright. I said, oh, okay, now I don't know why it's alright and I did inventory my first four or five months of the body i did a fifth step and it wasn't the best but i did it i had to start somewhere and i was saying this on my um on my other top so i had i had this the scariest thing for me was to look within the scariest things was to look within and i never knew the power of that until it talks about in the fourth step in the twelve and twelve it talks about our defiance and how we won't look at ourselves it talks about how our defiance keeps us from God and how our way doesn't work and what we need to do to find God through these steps it talks about all that I have to open myself up to a power greater than myself you know and what fresh in my mind this hour is that you know I'm going to end with this I was I was sober on a long time and I spoke somewhere don't know where I don't who the person rather than who I was and I talked I tell them this is my little part of my talk and i said you know when i was nearly sold with this white light came into my room and it followed me it followed me for a few days and uh i went to my sponsor he was an ex-priest thank god some of you guys would have trusted i wouldn't even i would only trust the next priest and i wouldn'T go to the priest because i didn'T think they were like gay so you know i went through this guy i said do you know um i got uh he says right i said i got this uh this light you know he says following you i go yes i said what do you think it is he goes oh mary it's all right you know just sort of follow you you know and i told us that at a convention or some small talk or something i gave and when i got off the you know i one other thing do i do i mean we have a tradition in la where people come up and thank the speaker but more so than anything like that i don't want you to leave without me hugging somebody that was here so you know at the end of the meeting i hope that you come up and i get to hug you and uh so anyway um uh this woman said i got off the podium and she came up to thank me and she said uh mary did you ever let that white light in i said no but then i was 16 years older so alcoholics now doesn't let me let the let the light in it's something that got into my life and it took me a long long time and i hope that if you knew it won't take you that long thank you for letting me share Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you again. Thank you so much. Thank you too. How cool is that?