Step 4: You Made Your Bed and Now You Have to Change the Sheets — Micki B.

Good evening, everybody. My name's Mickey, and I'm a real alcoholic. Hi, Mickey. And I live in Bryan, Texas, where the men are men, the sheep run scared, and the women are cunning, baffling, and powerful. Texas is the sister city to College Station, which is Texas A&M University. I'm about 100 miles north of Houston, in case anyone's wondering. My home group is the Hearn Happy Hour Group in Hearn, Texas, which is about 17 miles out of town. And it's the best home group in the world. And I hope you feel that way about your home group. And if you don't, it's your move. Do something. But I love my home group. And they are absolutely the backbone of my sobriety. And, you know, I'll always be grateful for them. We are the kind of home group that if a newcomer shows up, and they don't come back the next meeting, we send a posse out looking for them. And we calf rope them, do whatever we got to do, get them in there, keep them in there for a while. It's a program of attraction, you know. And I'm so thrilled and excited to be here. Mike, thank you so much for inviting me to come. Committee, thank you so much for a wonderful weekend. Beautiful room, beautiful basket. Just absolutely love that. My little take home. I really, really enjoy that. And, you know, a lot of times it is the little things that are done here. But a lot of people did a lot of stuff to do the little things that they did for us to make us feel so welcome. And thank you so much. Bob, great to see you again. Your lovely wife, Linda. Been on the road several times. I got to meet Bob and have been in some real intimate situations with him and other people. And, you know, Bob's been a hero of mine for a lot of years. And I need heroes in this program. I need those people that I look up to and that I respect, that I listen to and value what they have to say. And Bob, great job last night. Linda, beautiful talk this morning. Thank you so much for sharing. And I want to thank my friends, Sydney and David from Arlington. I came a few days early and went and spent a Wednesday and Thursday with them in Arlington. And we drove up, despite the weather, we drove up for Trudge the Road up here. And Sydney and I were partners in crime long before I ever got sober. And, you know, now she's got 19 years sober. And, you know, it's really great when you have some of those people, if you do. I mean, most of our old friends are dead or gone or head for the border or something. And it's good to have a couple that I can hang on to. And Sydney is certainly one of those. And she's been like a sister to me most of my life. And, yeah. David, her husband, has just been taking real good care of us. So I love both of you dearly. Both of you dearly. My sobriety date is February 5th, 1987. And for that, I'm truly grateful. And I really like that countdown because that was the first time I got to stand up for 23 years. And that's pretty cool, you know. I'm thrilled to death about that. My mother is ecstatic. You know, my home group is very excited about that. And, you know, the state of Texas is really happy that I got 23 years over. And this jacket is really, really cute, isn't it? But it's really, really hot. So, anyway. I'm so excited to be here and thrilled. And, you know, you've got a really wonderful thing going on up here. The enthusiasm for Alcoholics Anonymous is evident. And, you know, I think it's kind of like we go through. I think Bob can attest to this. We go through a lot of places. And so you'll... I see a lot of things. And that enthusiasm is not always as good as it is here. And, you know, you can feel it. Everyone's excited about this conference and excited about Alcoholics Anonymous. And I know you are. I surely am, too. I love this program. I don't know any other way to live my life. And it's been the best life that I've ever known. So if you're new, just hang on. Yes, it's not going to be great for a little while. And you hear all these wonderful things. But, you know, this program has the solution for all of us. Not just some of us. But for all of us. Not who need this or who want this. But for all of us that do it. And that's what's so important. And I'm so grateful that I fell my way into this fellowship. I think the first time... Chris was asking me at dinner, you know, when I first came to AA. And I remember when I was about 11 years old, my best friend's mother was an alcoholic. And we had this little older woman, Marge W. Who used to come over and get my friend's mother. And they would spend a lot of time in the bedroom with the door closed. And then she'd finally come out. And we'd gather up in the car. And it was either Friday or Saturday night. I can't remember. We would get a cake. And we would all go downtown to the first state bank. And these people would go in the back. And they would have a meeting. An A&A meeting. And we played out in the front of the bank. We played robbers. And I... Boy. I didn't know that was coming to fruition. But anyway. We would stay out front and play robbers. And then they would let us come in the back and have cake. Now, my friend's mother didn't make it. She got drunk one evening. And hit an oak tree with her car. And broke every bone in her body but her left arm. Lived for right at a year until she died. Which I believe she died from alcoholism. And so I... You know, that was really my introduction into Alcoholics Anonymous. What was amazing is shortly after that, my friend and I started drinking. And 20 years later, when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, that little old lady named Marge W. was still here. And I hooked up with her immediately. And I became her driver. And every weekend, we would go into a penitentiary somewhere before I even knew anything about the big book or anything about the program. I was taking Marge to carry the message to men and women behind the bars of a penal institution. And that was my true introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'll be forever grateful for those long-timers, old-timers, whatever you want to call them, that really trudged the road for a lot of us and that continue to do that. And God may we continue to follow in their footsteps. I come from an alcoholic home. My father was a wife-beating, child-beating alcoholic. He was the greatest person in the world, greatest fellow in the world. But let him drink for a day or two, and he became disgustingly and even dangerously antisocial. He was just what the big book describes as the real alcoholic. My mother's never had a drink in her life. My mother works hard. My mom is honest. My mom is good. She'll give you the clothes off her back. She's always willing to help. But my mother suffered from the disease of alcoholism and affects her still to this day. And there was my sister. My sister and I were raised in the same house. And we were just kind of different. And I don't know why. We were raised in the same house, had the same parents, same set of circumstances. But there was something different for me than it was for my sister. I'm a daredevil. I'm a risk-taker. I live on that razor's edge. I mean, if you say that can't be done, by God, I'll show you it can. And do whatever I have to do to do it. I like fast cars, fast people, fast things. I like motorcycles. I like cars. I like pool halls. I like all that. You know, my sister was the class favorite. She was the cheerleader. She was the straight-A student. She was Miss Hearn High School. And on Friday nights when she was cheering the team on, I was in the parking lot stealing hubcaps. You know, I don't know. Same family, you know. I don't know. We were just different. And so it wasn't a big deal. And my friends and I were walking down the street. Small town Texas. Neighbor had his garage door open. And in his garage were K-12s. And they were selling cases of Long Neck Miller beer. Some of you remember that old gold label on that beer. And it was the heat of the summer, probably 105 degrees. And we went in there and stole some of this Long Neck Miller beer. Went down to my friend's house, opened it. Of course, it foamed all over. We sucked that foam off and put some of that magic potion in our bodies. Enough to reach that feeling of intoxication. Instantly followed by nausea and vomiting. We didn't have those skills. That would come later on. You know, we didn't know how to appropriately coat your stomach before going out a night of drinking. Didn't know about putting your finger down your throat to puke so you could go back and drink some more. Learned that later. And I certainly didn't know my all-time favorite, which was putting one foot on the floor to keep the room from spinning. But we would come to know those things. And we got up the next morning green and sick and hungover with that green complexion. And my friend looked at me that morning and said, my God, Mickey, I'll never do that again. And the rest of our years in junior high and high school, I never saw that girl tie one on. She quickly saw what the problem was, made the correction, and didn't do it again. And I was just as sick as she was that morning. And I looked at her with the same sincerity and said, you know, you're absolutely right. I'll never do that again either. And I never did. I never drank hot Miller beer again. Something happened differently for me. I was born restless, irritable, and discontent. And that alcohol went down there and somehow quieted that madness and just made me for the first time okay in my own skin. And I had not ever known that kind of peace and contentment. And alcohol was just absolutely fantastic. The sense of ease and comfort that came at once by taking a few drinks was something that for the next 20 years of my life, I would be willing to go to hell to get that. You know? Just to have that blessed relief. It wasn't long after that I found better living through chemistry. I smoked a lot of those funny cigarettes. I took a lot of different pills. I took a lot of prescription pills. Of course, my name was never on the prescription bottle. But I took a lot of prescription pills. And I did a lot of those black market pills. You know, where you take trips and never leave the room. Paint a house without a ladder. Lay on the ground and listen to the grass. Grow, you know, I mean, for me, it doesn't matter if it's going up, down, or all around. And, you know, and it wasn't uncommon to find me out in a cow pasture after a heavy rain. For me, when I tell you I'm a real alcoholic, my problem is not really alcohol. Nor is my problem those other substances. For me, my problem is living life sober. I don't like sober. Sober for a person like me. Sober for a person like me was boring. Sober for a person like me was depressing. And I couldn't stand being sober. Now, I would get sober. I got sober thousands of times. But after a while, it's like the, golly, it's like they're clawing at your throat and you can't breathe. And it's like, golly, just give me some relief. Just anything. And so I start drinking. You know, stealing it from our parents. Getting some of the older guys to buy it. Back then, in those days, it really wasn't that big of a deal. You could get somebody to get something for you. And, you know, then I'd be off. I would start doing some of those funny other things. And then I started having doors open for me. Unfortunately, it was cell doors. But nonetheless, doors were opening for me. And I got into a lot of trouble for a lot of stupid stuff. And, you know, I was able to blame it on somebody else or it's their fault. Or, you know, if they were just a little bit cooler like me, they wouldn't have gotten in trouble. Unable to see I was the one in trouble. But nonetheless, you know, those things just happened and that became a pattern of life for me. And every time something would happen, I could never see the reality of the situation. You know, a lot of people talk about denial in these rooms. And I don't know where exactly we got all that terminology from. But, you know, my big book to me talks about delusion. And I was in complete delusion. I was in complete delusion. I was in complete delusion. I didn't know the true from the false. And after a while, my alcoholic life seemed to be the only one. And I'm so grateful this day and for the last 23 years of my life that I have found a way to be free from that, that I no longer have to put that alcohol in my body or any of those other things in my body for me to be okay in my own skin. And what a miracle that is for someone like me, and what a blessing that is. You know, I look back at the steps and what this program has done in my life, and in the process of working the steps, I was able to find out so much about myself. I was able to find out who I was and what made me tick, and then what my purpose and my meaning and my direction in this life is. Because I had none. I absolutely had none. And looking back and doing an inventory and doing a fifth step with my sponsor allowed me to see, what some of the motivating forces in my life were. And for me, one of those is all my life, all I've ever truly wanted was to feel loved, and to feel important, and to feel special, and to feel needed. And I didn't know how to do that. Some people this day will say that it's because of the alcoholic home I was raised in. I don't know. I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not. I think it was my reaction to the world. But nonetheless, I didn't know how to do that. What my experience shows is that I traded all of that for sex. Wanting to be loved, wanting to feel important, wanting to feel special and needed. And I traded that for sex because that was the closest thing I could see to it. And what happened for me at a very young age is I found myself pregnant and not knowing what to do. In this day and age, if you're 16 and pregnant, it's not a big deal. But in 1972 in small town Texas, it was a big deal. It was real big. And I eventually went to San Antonio, Texas. I tried to delude myself into believing I wasn't pregnant. And, you know, after a while it becomes self-evident. You can only deny that for so long, right? And then, so I went to Austin and lived with my sister for a while and I had this illegitimate child. A family came into my life and said, we will take your child and raise it as our own. With the understanding that you will never see this child again. And I made that deal. Because somewhere in the back of my mind I said, you know, I can find her when she's 18. And I'm telling you, I held onto that for 18 years. When she was one year old, it was like, oh, 17 more years. Then it was 16 more years. And I'm telling you, I held onto that. I went back to small town Texas with a scarlet letter on my forehead. I had no tools to deal with that kind of pain and that kind of loss. There weren't counselors on every street corner like there seem to be today. And my mom's solution was, forget it and go on. But you know, that ate me from the inside out. And I didn't know how to deal with that except to drink. Because alcohol somehow, when I was under the influence, would give me the ability to walk out of my house, hold my head up high and say, I don't care what you think. I don't care what you think. But you see, I'm an alcoholic. I have this built-in sixth sense. Nobody had to say anything to me. I knew what they were thinking. And knowing what other people are thinking about me has been a downfall most of my life. Most of my life. Thank God today, because of the steps, I have some freedom with that. You know? But I had no tools. I had no way to deal with that. And alcohol became my best friend at 16 years of age. I literally could not walk. I could not walk out of my house without being under the influence. I don't know how I graduated high school. Somehow I did. I think I was a good test taker and I made my first geographical cure. I was going to get out of that small town, Texas, because that was my problem. And if I could just get away from those people and get away from that small town, Peyton Place living condition, I'd be all right. I'm going to go somewhere where they don't know me at all. I'm going to go somewhere where I can start over. I'm going to be successful by God. I'll find me a career and I'll just be wonderful and one day I'll come back and show them all. I'll find me a good man and I'll get married and I'll join the PTA. You know? I had all these wonderful intentions and these great plans, but I had no way to do that. I just had these intentions with no method of accomplishment. And so I moved 500 miles to a small town right outside of New Orleans, Louisiana, where they party 24-7. Not a good move for someone like me. I was there two weeks before I ended up in jail. And you know, here I go again. And I'm telling myself, you know, you're snake bit. If it wasn't for bad luck, you'd have no luck at all. You can't ever have anything. God is punishing you for what you've done. And I believed all those things. So I didn't know what I was going to do. I'm 500 miles away from home. I'm in St. Charles Parish Jail. I don't know what I'm going to do. So the next thing kicked into action. I did the next best thing. I married the guy I got busted with, so he couldn't testify against me and I couldn't testify against him. Well, you've got to have a good reason to get married, right? So we took in sick together. And of course, you know what happened next. I got pregnant immediately because I was so desperate to fill that void. So desperate to fill that void. It took me 20 years after coming in here and being with you to realize that that void, that that hole I've had all my life, sometimes it gets bigger. But you know, that was a God-sized hole. And there's only one thing you can fill a God-sized hole with. But I didn't know that. I tried children. I tried different homes. I tried different places. I tried material things. Pomp, worship of other things. I tried to fill that void because I was always unsatisfied or dissatisfied with what I had. I had two beautiful children out of that marriage. Anyway, my son Micah will soon be 35 years old. He served in mine and yours United States Army for 10 years and now after a medical retirement he is working for the Sheriff's Department in a town where I live. And more importantly, he is coming up on three years of continuous sobriety. Thank you God. And my daughter Monica is 31 years old and is absolutely the joy of my life. And when I talk about my children and I think about my children I cannot help but think, thank you God for not giving me what I deserve. Thank God I didn't get what I deserve. I moved back to Texas in 1980 and I like to say move because it sounds better than unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. It was one of those spiritual moves in the middle of the night where you've got the U-Haul trailer and you're throwing everything at it and you head for the border and as soon as you cross that state line you wipe the sweat off your brow and you know things are going to be different once again, things are going to be different. And by the time I got back to Texas I had made a lot of other really, really poor decisions and one night under the influence of alcohol a little friend put a needle in my arm and from that day until the day I found you I was completely blackout shakes in the morning daily drinking morning drinking all day drinking I was smoking those funny cigarettes I was taking those bizarre pills and I was putting needles in my arm and I was doing what I had to do to survive. I knew about one day at a time long before I found you. Sometimes it was one hour at a time whatever it took to get what it was that I needed to get I'll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow but for God's sake give me some relief. And I lived, I did what I had to do and I did things that I am not proud of Chris and I were talking at the beginning of the meeting unmanageability for me is doing things that I not doing the things I'm supposed to do and doing things I don't want to do and I knew right from wrong I've always known right from wrong but what always gets me in trouble is what I want to do and I was always in trouble always in trouble I became so far removed from any normal feelings I was just totally lost totally cold and all alone The book says we know loneliness as few do and I tell you I could be in a room full of people or around people that I knew loved me my family when they still let me come around I knew they loved me and I couldn't feel that it was a very very lonely lonely place to be and a lot of other things kicked into gear in my life at that time a lot of other beliefs that I had that governed my life and one of those beliefs that I discovered I held during a when I did my four step was the principle a guiding force which was you made your bed now lie in it and I'm telling you that dictated a lot of the things I did for a lot of years in my life and I knew what happened to people like me people like me end up in dumpsters people like me end up shot and killed by other people like me people like me are hunted down like dogs and end up going to prison for long long periods of time nothing good happens to people like me people like me don't end up in Ocean City, Maryland Arlington, Virginia that happened to people like me and when you accept where you are you do nothing to change it wasn't until I was sober probably a good six months to a year that it was pointed out to me yes you made your bed and you have lied in it but now it's time to change the sheets and no one had ever given me that information before not until I found you never was there any hope for changing the sheets or getting a new bedroom set I was doomed to live the life I was living because it was governed by what I was believing watch out watch out a lot of things happened you know I had these two children and of course my marriage fell apart was doomed from the start and I had these two beautiful children I want to talk just a second for them about them you know Sydney was around during that time and my children saw things and my children heard things that no child should ever hear and they saw things that they shouldn't hear and they experienced things that no child should ever experience when I was six years sober my daughter came to me because by the time I was six years sober Alcoholics Anonymous had given my daughter a mother she could come to thank you you know but the things that she came to me to me with were unbearable my daughter had gotten into a relationship with this young man and she was having problems with intimacy and at six years sober she revealed to me that the reason she was having problems with intimacy is because while I wasn't there the fifteen year old neighborhood boys repeatedly molested my baby girl because I was too busy I had other things to do I was too busy I was at the store for a loaf of bread and I wouldn't come back for several days and you know at six years sober I thought I would absolutely go fly out of my skin how do you make amends for something like that saying I'm sorry is just a character reference with the help of the people at Alcoholics Anonymous the women in AA and Al-Anon I was able to get that young girl help professional help and today she walks a free woman and she says you're only a victim if you want to be and she chooses not to be the fact that she has a relationship with me at all is nothing shy of a miracle we talk so much in this program about the grace of God well I'm here to tell you about the mercy of a loving God that can repair such damage with the love that we have in this program thank God I don't get what I deserve thank God my children would come to me repeatedly times and you know I would come home and I would be so tore down that they would come to me and be cleaning me up with a washcloth and my children would say things to me like you know mama if you don't drink you won't get sick and I knew they were telling me the truth I knew it and so this time I'm going to get sober and this time we're going to go to the movies or we're going to go to the circus or we're going to go get a game and we're going to play because my soul is screaming I love you and there is nothing more I wanted to be than a mother to these children from the moment they were placed in my arms at their birth to this day right now if someone walked in the room and said your life or your child I don't even think about that you take my life and spare my child but I couldn't quit doing what I was doing for my children I knew it was wrong no matter how much I wanted to just be a good mother alcoholism doesn't care and I tell you what I know to be a fact there is nothing stronger than a mother's love for her child except the disease of alcoholism and I promise you it doesn't care it didn't care and there was so much damage and so much wreckage that is nothing shy of a miracle and the mercy of a loving God that shone in our lives to heal such tortured people to have the relationship we have today the respect that we have for each other and the love that we share openly freely and honestly thank God I don't get what I deserve you know and if you're paranoid and you think they're out to get you they are and in 1986 they came and got me and I was charged with a first degree felony punishable by up to 99 years in the penitentiary now I'm telling you I thought they were a little bit a little bit too heavy here I mean after all I'm just hanging out with my pals my buddies my compadres they call that organized crime and they're pretty disapproving of that and I didn't think we were that organized but anyway I spent a little bit of time in jail and then I got out of jail and I'm one of those people that gets in trouble when you're in trouble I got in a little bit more trouble and I went back and I was held at no bond in jail I went to a plea bargain they offered me too much time I decided to take it to a trial by jury and while I was sitting in that jail waiting for that trial to come up I heard a lot of that jailhouse talk and people were talking about if you went to AA before you went to court it looked good and I'm sure they don't have any of that over here in Maryland but down in Texas for a while it was pretty bad so I was almost willing to go to any lengths to look good when I went to court and so when I finally got out of jail I love Johnny H. California says it doesn't take a genius to get out of jail it just takes time and I finally do my time and I would get out and you know what every time I went to jail I found God I always found God when nobody was looking you kind of kneel down by that cot pull out that invisible thing we didn't have cell phones back then and dial 911 God and you make that prayer that you've made so many times before that I know I have made so many times before which was just simply God please get me out of this one I'll never do it again and you mean that when you say that prayer you wouldn't openly knowingly lie to God you know God knows all and you know I was absolutely telling the truth until they opened that door and let me out and I went right back and did the same thing that put me there because I left God locked up in jail I didn't know how to take God with me not until I found you I didn't know how to turn my will in my life had no idea what that was over to the care of God had no clue until I found you so I was waiting for this trial by jury went through that that jury trial you know they say it was a jury of my peers but I promise you that wasn't anybody there I'd have hung out with and I went through that trial and they came back with a guilty verdict as well they should have because they had the right person this jury showed pity and mercy which I didn't know at the time but they gave me another chance another opportunity and they slapped me with a ten year sentence of intense supervision probation well I don't know about you but I left that court room that day furious because I knew what they did on probation they told you what to do now by this time I have lost everything that I had I lost my house I lost my cars I lost my children I was living in an abandoned house with no running water and no electricity and I'm worried about somebody telling me what to do you know that's how sick I was talk about delusion I lived in a world that was so chaotic that there was just no rational thinking at all in there I was furious and it was in December and the judge said I'll give you until February 5th to get your life straight and he said then you better dot every I and cross every T for the next ten years or you're going to prison and there's nothing else he didn't want to see me in his court room again and I went back to what I had always done I'll make it Colway today tomorrow I'll worry about it but for God's sake just give me some relief today and I live like that on an ongoing basis I'm in this abandoned house and I have one person that was left in my life and he was a young man several years younger than I I always kind of liked those young men you know I thought if you got them young you could train them but you try real hard and you try real hard it wasn't until I came into Alcoholics Anonymous that I learned about relationships particularly men big book tells me all I need to know says they are not at fault they seem to have been born that way sometimes you just gotta know why right and this young man came to me and he made a very grave error he pointed out where I had failed he pointed out my failings as a mother as a citizen as a human being and I don't know about you but anytime anybody began to point out to me I've got to get rid of them I've got to get them away from me whatever it takes if it takes slicing you up with that tongue I can do that if it takes physically attacking you I can do that whatever it takes to get you away from me I'm willing to do that just God don't remind me how I failed and I attacked that young man viciously and after several minutes of screaming he finally looked at me and he said you know I can't live like this anymore and he walked out the door and I cursed him as he walked out with the famous last words you know I don't need you I don't need anybody I don't need anything if everyone would just leave me alone I'd be okay but when he walked out that night I was alone there was no one else and I was not alright I did what I knew to do to make it go away one more day and I'll worry about it in the morning and I walked outside that morning and I found his solution to our problems that young man's body hung from a tree limb with a rope around his neck and he'd been dead for about five hours while I was in that abandoned house making it go away for one more night he was out there making it go away for eternity and I pray for his peace and I know today that he sits at the right hand of God my God is either a forgiving God or he's not and I know that God is a forgiving God or else I wouldn't be sober I ran from that you know I looked death in the face that day and when you have no God in your life death is a really scary place to go and I ran I ran and ran and ran you know but you can't outrun your own head and everywhere I went there I was but I was running I was in this truck I was going and I was going as long as I could and the gift happened the gift for me was the gift of surrender something I had been needing to do for a long time but didn't really know how for me giving up giving in you know it's not in my vocabulary I don't know how to do that I'm an American by God you know we don't surrender and I was too tough to that and I fought and I fought and I fought but finally the gift happened and the gift for me was a tear and when I had one tear it opened the flood gates of years of uncried tears and I had to pull off the side of the road and I just broke down and bawled like a baby something I hadn't done in many many years and after a while I sat up and I looked around and I had that deja vu feeling I knew I had been there before but I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I saw some people walking carrying this big book under their arm I was outside I had been to an AA meeting I had been to many months before when I was trying to make it look good when I went to court the miracle of it was was when I looked at my watch it was a quarter to eight and people were walking in what a gift I knew something inside of me knew that I had to get in that room or I was going to die I just knew it and I somehow got out of that truck and I started walking down the sidewalk to what I consider my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'd love to tell you that the Brian group of Alcoholics Anonymous rushed to my side with a plate of donuts and a cup of coffee saying let us help you up you poor precious child of God but that's not what they did they had known what was going on small enough town you know what's going on they knew what had happened and what they did is exactly what they should have done they came and they looked down their long skinny noses at me and said are you sick and tired of being sick and tired and have you had enough I had had enough I couldn't take one more minute of me I was so sick of me I just couldn't go any further and I somehow got in that room and sat in the chair and that was the last time I drank and I don't remember what day it was I have no clue but I remember somewhere in the next week or so I remembered I had to see that probation officer and I reported to that probation officer on February 5th in 1987 and that's the closest date I come and that's the day I take as my sobriety date I walked in to see that probation officer and she looked at me and was like in shock I went cold turkey off everything and I'm telling you I was wild I was psychotic and she looked at me and she said my God can you do this by yourself and I said I don't think so and she tried everywhere to get me into some kind of place to stay well the profession I was in didn't have any hospitalization or insurance policies I didn't have $20,000 or $30,000 saved for a rainy day when I needed to go to treatment and the only thing that they had available was Austin State Hospital and there was a three month waiting list and I was dying today when AA says they can love you sober by God I'm living proof I sat in rooms those old tin chairs aluminum chairs and I sat in and held onto the bottom of that chair and I shook uncontrollably there were times when I would just vomit on myself and the people in that meeting came over and they cleaned me up gave me a little bit of nourishment and said just don't put anymore of this crap in your body and this too shall pass and you never have to go through this again and I dared to hang onto that from meeting to meeting to meeting and I was sick for weeks probably about six weeks and after the six weeks passed I started feeling a little bit better I mean they were giving me nourishment and I started feeling a little bit better so I started sitting in the back of the room and I'm kind of loud and I started telling the guys around me how big and bad and tough I was and let me tell you about those deals out there on the street and let me tell you what it's really like out there and and finally a Charlie came to the back of the room and he said Mickey why don't you every group's got a Charlie you know Charlie's got 15 years sober has an answer for everything and I found out later if they don't know what the answer is they just tell you it's in the book Charlie came back there and he said why don't you fix your coffee and come sit up front with me and I thought well now they want to know what it's like out there alright so I fixed my coffee and I went and sat up front by Charlie who leaned over to me and said sit here and shut up and listen you know one minute they're saying you're the most important person at the meeting and the next minute they're telling you to shut up I couldn't believe it that he would talk to me like that so I sat there and I shut up and I listened and Charlie probably saved my life you know really saved my life and for the next three months the only thing they let me do was read how it works because there were no cuss words in how it works I threw one in every now and then just kind of liven that thing up it got pretty boring pretty quick and then they gave me these other idiotic things to do you know I had to be the greeter at the door well you had to really want to get sober to come through that door when I was the greeter I'm telling you I don't look anything like I look today back then I'm 5'10 back then I weighed about 115 pounds and I thought I was looking good I hadn't been out in the sun in seven years so I had this pasty grey complexion I came walking in to these meetings with these tight blue jeans or skin tight leather pants tucked in these knee high leather boots with a brass tip on the end because I'm tough you know I had these black t-shirt that I wore with the neck cut out and the sleeves cut out because I was hot I had this big wallet in my back pocket with this dog chain that hung down to my knee and hooked up here on my belt loop because I'm tough I had a big wad of keys on my hip so I made a lot of noise when I walked you heard me long before you ever saw me now I was living in an abandoned house my truck started with a screwdriver but I had this big wad of keys on my hip because I'm important I had this big black leather jacket with the fringe that hung down all over it man if that jacket could talk I tell ya and I had a black hat pulled down over my eyes and I had to wear the sunglasses in the meeting because I heard someone say alcoholics are sensitive you know and that light was just a little bit too bright for somebody like me and I'd stand by that door and I'd be the greeter and I'm telling you it was pretty scary I'd kind of throw you in rather than invite you in and that gave me all those kind of idiotic things to do back then we smoked in the meetings and we had our own real coffee cups and had to clean those and had to wash those and you know they began to spoon feed me the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn't even know what was going on but I was so afraid they were going to tell me to leave and I didn't even know what was going on but I was so afraid they were going to tell me to leave and one of the things that kept me coming back for a long time was Al-Anon because over on Friday nights upstairs at the First Methodist Church on Tuesdays and Friday nights they had an open AA meeting downstairs and upstairs they had a closed AA meeting and an Al-Anon meeting and I used to love to go on Tuesday and Friday nights and I used to love to go on Tuesday and Friday nights just to terrorize those Al-Anons it was a spiritual experience it was a spiritual experience I'd start up those stairs clinging those keys rattling that chain I'd turn the corner and they'd scatter you know lack of power was not my dilemma and I'd kind of hiss at them spit a little bit on them and say come on you want some of this I didn't think so I hated women when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I hated women but particularly these Al-Anon women because they were all so color coordinated you know they wore those earth tone color outfits they always had the little pants polyester pants matched the little top always had their fingernails done and their makeup on their hair fixed so cute they looked just like I do now like I do now but man I hated them I couldn't stand them and I hated all women I hated women because I because I knew how I was you know and I wasn't about to trust a woman and Charlie started talking about you need to get a sponsor get a sponsor and I look over at the coffee pot and I see that young man with 30 days and I tell Charlie boy Charlie I bet he could keep me sober tonight and Charlie said men work with men and women work with women and you know what he was trying to tell me is what I would come to understand is that in my life I had tried to learn what it was to be a woman from a man and it doesn't work like that I needed the women in Al-Anon and the sober women alcoholics to teach me what it is to walk as a woman alcoholic with some grace and some dignity and I would have never found that from you guys I love you dearly make me laugh but I couldn't learn that from you I had to have the women that I wanted to look the absolute last place one day I was sitting in the meeting and I was complaining about my state of affairs I mean my God I'm living in an abandoned house I had this truck let me tell you about this truck when I got busted they took everything I had they took everything but this truck and the only reason they didn't take this truck is they didn't want this truck I actually got this truck from Sydney's brother in a drug deal and half a gram of dope he gave me this truck I figured it out one day that truck cost me $12.50 and I got ripped off it had been sunk in a tank of water to where the whole bottom was completely rusted out I had to steal carpet to put in the floorboard to keep trash from blowing up on me it was one of those that used to have power steering big early 70 model Dodge Ram big girl you know wires coming out of it places wires aren't supposed to be I'd crank it up get it started and it would die crank it up get it going and it would die but the thing that was always so cool is the men in AA would stand out on the front porch and wait until I got started and went I found out later they were taking bets but you know I thought it was touching and I came in now called synonymous I'm living in an abandoned house in a $155 truck I have absolutely nothing but to complain and this woman came up to me after the meeting and she said Mickey I want to tell you you're full of shit and walked off I couldn't believe they were talking to the most important person at the meeting that way and I went to tell her that when my mouth came open and a voice like mine came out and said will you be my sponsor grave error aren't we supposed to have somebody we can relate to and she has a similar story Linda Kay had been a whack in the army we had been no further polar opposites than this but here it was and I had just asked this and she turned around and looked at me from the top of my head to the tip of my toes and square in the eye and said I don't like you but I'll help you because I have to stay sober okay you know whoopty do she said do you have a big book I said no she said do you have any money I said no she said well steal one you can make amends later so I did she said Mickey we're gonna work this thing my way and my way is the way that's outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous she said if you don't do these things you're gonna die she didn't say you're gonna get drunk she didn't say you're gonna be miserable she didn't say you're gonna have failed relationships she said you're gonna die and I heard her and I believed her then and I believe her to this day and she took me to the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and taught me how to read that so much so that I understood what the problem was in step one step one is our problem statement step two is the solution and she pointed to me in the book where the solution was and then at step three she said you have a decision to make you can either keep doing what you're doing or you can try life on a spiritual basis those are your two options I had run out of alternatives I had run out of plans for me there wasn't anything else it was either go back to doing what I was doing what I know is gonna happen or try life on a spiritual basis and if you're willing to do life on a spiritual basis she said you immediately start step four and I did I immediately started step four by the time I was doing my fifth step I had gotten into a little apartment I would go to these meetings and I would complain about the state of my affairs and someone said get a job imagine that so I went to the new meeting the next day and they said are there any announcements I said yes I need a job and when that meeting was over I had a job and my first job sober was going into work in a sink factory a 120 degree sweatshop drilling holes in marble sinks I learned about punching a time clock I learned about a day's pay for a day's wage and when I went to my home group when I got my first paycheck they passed a basket and I put my dollar in I got a standing ovation from my home group and they said welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous I started doing the things that I should have been doing all along that I didn't know how to do for whatever reason and I just started doing them I eventually ended up in this little one room apartment and you know to this day I miss that one room apartment because so many miracles happened in that place so many miracles I became free just free you know my sponsor told me there's one thing that's not in the book that I'm going to tell you she said no relationships for the first year I said what she said no she said you don't know how to have a relationship you use people she said you are so sick if anybody would want anything to do with you you need to run the other way that's how it made sense to me I was so sick that if anybody wanted anything to do with me God can you imagine how sick they are she said if you want to make it you're going to have to develop a relationship with God and until you have a relationship with God you won't know how to have a relationship with another human being and I believed her then and I still believe her today and I got busy I did that four step and I did my fifth step with my sponsor and after my fifth step I went home to that little one room apartment to carefully consider for that hour the first five proposals and I had to go to the restroom so I went to the restroom and I turned the light on and when I turned the light on I saw my reflection for the first time I mean the first time I saw who was looking back and I saw how selfish and self centered and dishonest and inconsiderate I had been my whole entire life sick I was sick the miracle happened for me in step six and step seven it was like going over and flipping on a light switch because for the first time in my life I knew what was wrong and with God's strength I could change so I began to change I began to make those changes I began to practice honesty and practice consideration and doing the things that I should have done all along praying every day for God to give me the strength and you know what he did he did I got to my eighth step and made my list and at my ninth step I began to make amends and it was easy to go to the family because all they ever wanted was for me to be happy my sponsor said there were a lot of other amends that I had to make and she said you owe amends to this community you see I thought I was going to have to leave my community in order to get sober and stay sober again that was my thinking but it was the old timers in AA that said no you will stay here we'll look this community in the eye and you'll pay back what you've done and so I did I got busy I got busy on the HNI committee and I was already going to the prisons and institutions I got involved in the HNI committee I started going to the Lions Club and the Kiwanis Club and anybody that wanted to know about Alcoholics Anonymous by God I was there on the team and we went and carried the message and I was doing these things because I was giving back for what I had taken for no other reason I was doing the things that I needed to be doing so that I could close the book I'm not one of those people that goes around and believes in living amends I make an amend and I close the book what I'm talking about is I have changed my life I'm changing the way I live I'm not being a taker anymore I'm learning how to give and I'm telling you I was on fire it was about that time three and a half years sober the judge called me back in his chambers and he said Mickey I've been paying attention to you in this community and he said I tell you what I can't believe it he said you are a changed person and I'm releasing you from the bondage of the state of Texas and he let me off a ten year sentence early I couldn't believe it I couldn't believe it so I went and told my probation officer and she was very excited and she said now I want you to take this one step further I listened to her and did what I know was taught to do in here just do the footwork and I did the footwork and in 1994 I received a full pardon from the governor of the state of Texas restoring my full civil rights yeah what a deal so what is that about what is that about you know I knew that that had to be for service of God that's all that all I want my life to be is to be of service to God and you know I would find out years later what that was my probation officer helped me go back to school I ended up getting a couple of initials behind my name and went on and got into my field and got involved with a non-profit organization and started working my way up to mental management and I did that and I worked hard I worked hard and I'm living and loving AA and I'm living a different life and I'm free my God I'm free I have God I have a new employer I have a father I know what my place is and I'm telling you I am rocketed into the fifth dimension you know I am got it going on and I'm telling you I am free when I leave my driveway I don't look in the rear view mirror unless I want to my drivers license has my address on it my car has my registration you know I have insurance I wear my seatbelt and do it all along and I worked my way up in this non-profit agency to middle management and then we had major funding cuts and when you have major funding cuts the first thing that goes is middle management and nine years ago I found myself unemployed not knowing what to do and I bet I was unemployed for about two days and the phone rang and this lady says Mickey I hear you're looking for a job and I said yes I am she said well why don't you come work for us and I couldn't work where I'm working today and where I've worked for the last nine years unless I had received this pardon and for the last nine years I had been working at the Brazos County Community Supervision and Corrections Department where I was on probation how you get from there to here I'm in the computer and on the computer I was really impressed because now I'm getting some of my money back and I had people come in my office all the time and sit down and they'd say yeah but lady you don't understand boy I'd like to tell them I don't understand right I believe I'm doing what God wants me to do today I'm working with people that are just like me bad attitude filthy mouth you know bad disposition but if you want to change I can help you and I always get their attention because I say you know I can tell you how to beat the system yeah do what you're supposed to do I talked to Joyce Joyce was my probation officer and I talked to her the night before I came up here because she was having some surgery we remained really really good friends and really special friends when I was three and a half years sober I got a phone call from a mutual friend of mine and Joyce's her name was Susie and she said Mickey I'd like you to come to a private birthday party she said I'd like you to give Joyce her one year chip I didn't even know Joyce was in the program I didn't even know Joyce was an alcoholic and I told Susie I said you know Susie Joyce has never violated her broken her anonymity with me and I don't think I'm the one that needs to do that I said I'd love to come and I'm thrilled for Joyce but I'm going to have to say no and I got off the phone with her and it wasn't five minutes later Joyce was calling me and she said Mickey will you please come give me my one year chip she said I wouldn't be sober if I worked in your life we never know we're a copy of the big book and we don't know who's going to see that and it was my probation officer and I have two and a half years more than she does and I never let her forget it and we've become fast friends she's retired from the probation department and I've stayed on and we've become fast friends and thank God I don't get what I deserve and every day has not been great I have had some miracles beyond miracles that have happened I've served on a jury not only have I served on a jury I was foreman of the jury I think it was because everybody was going oh God jury duty and I was going yay jury duty and I sat on a jury and the miracle of it was I sat with a jury of my peers what a neat deal that was and I was the one that had to stand up and read the guilty verdict and he was definitely guilty beyond a reasonable doubt I wanted to scream out but son if you'll just let me tell you about a way to live if you just do some simple things maybe one day you can be on this side I tell you what I like this side better than I like that side and that's the thing if you just do a few simple things your life will change you will be rocketed in an unbelievable existence that you never even dreamed possible and that God is so good to all of us not because I'm special not because I'm good but because God is good and God wants us to have the absolute very best and does that mean bad things haven't happened no in 1994 at the same time I was getting this pardon from the governor I got really tired and I wasn't feeling well at all and I went to the doctor and he came back and he said Mickey I want to tell you you have terminal cancer and you've got about 8 months to a year to live and I couldn't believe it that was about the same time I met Bob I couldn't believe it I walked out of the meeting and I said how can this be happening this is the most important person at the meeting and I looked up and I said why me God and I heard my sponsor say why not you why not you and I surrendered to my cancer like I surrendered to my alcoholism and I did the next right thing I went to MD Anderson where I met this young doctor kind of really cute and after weeks and weeks and weeks of tests he came back and said you know Mickey you're not going to like what we're going to have to do but I think I can save your life and I said let's go for it doc because you see today I have a life worth living I'm not afraid to die but I don't want to die I want to see what's going to happen tomorrow I want to know what's going to happen next week I don't want to miss it I don't want to miss out on anything I love living my life today and I couldn't have said that years earlier so I got busy I did chemotherapy I did radiation I did horrible surgery and I did some more chemotherapy I lost every hair on my body had to beat the lesbians off with a stick you know exhausting and I did all kinds of things I did hands on healing I did Reiki I went to prayer programs prayer circles I went to churches where people fell out on the floor talked in tongues waved snakes in the air I drank aloe vera juice I burned sage I have crystals I have feathers I have angels I mean you name it you brought it by I did it I slept on magnets you name it I did it I believe it works they believed it works and whatever you believe there's power in whatever you believe pay attention to what you believe because there's power in the lie as well and I believed it would work and so by God I'm telling you what I got really really really sick but then I started getting well and I've been free of cancer for the last 15 years and what a miracle that is I had a friend of mine came by and he said Mickey are you angry with God and I said why would you say I'm angry with God and he said why would you say I die and it was a horrible cancer I had colorectal cancer I told my doctor it was just from so many years of men blowing smoke up my back again you gotta know why and I was so grateful I had done the work I was so grateful that I had done the work and that I had a God that although I don't understand I have a God that understands me and I no longer have a God that sits on some throne that says you know Mickey looks like shit he's doing okay let's flick a little cancer on her and see how she handles that because you see if I had that God today then that God is my problem and God can't be my problem and my solution at the same time what is my choice to be my Father God please help me put one foot in front of the other to walk down whatever path you have for me you know we're all going to die in this room and it's not because God's mad it's because we're human beings and that's what's going to happen I'm going to live my life free today I no longer worry about taking that next drink I don't sweat it when it comes I recall from it as from a hot flame and I do the best I can in Alcoholics Anonymous and I keep turning the page knowing that God has something more for me with a belief in that God has more for me because God is good and I go out every day with that idea and God has been so good so good and I go over I meet people all over and you know I get emails from folks and text messaging and now we've got this Facebook thing and you know so I've got all this stuff going on all over and one day I come home and there's an email message for me from a young girl named Kimberly Kimberly lives in Sugar Land, Texas which is about 90 miles from where I live we correspond for a little while and then my daughter and I rode over to Sugar Land to meet Kimberly and she gave up for adoption in 1972 thank God I don't get what I deserve it happened in God's time not in my time it happened when it was right for her not when it was needed for me and thank God I've been able to let go and get back so much more than I could ever dream and this year and for the last seven years I get Mother's Day cards from all three of my children thank God I don't get what I deserve you know I'm probably not what I should be and I'm probably not what I could be but thank God I'm not what I used to be thank y'all for having me