Step 6 Means Doing It, Not Just Wanting It – Diane O.

Thank you. And I'm a member of the Primary Purpose Group. Thank you. Preamble. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. It does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. And now Nancy will read our 12 steps. Hi, I'm Nancy. I'm an alcoholic. I'm from Myrtle Town Survivors. Hi, Nancy. How it works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. Usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. And at this point I'm going to breathe. Their chances are less than average. There are those too who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our story is described. It goes in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. And some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go. Absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol. Cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. Half-majors availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. One, we admitted we were powerless to do anything. We were helpless. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. Six, were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Ten, continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Many of us exclaimed, what an order, I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after, make clear three pertinent objects. A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. And C, that God could and would if he were God. Thank you Nancy, and Annette will read the twelve petitions. Hi, I'm Annette and I'm an alcoholic. The twelve petitions. One, our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. Two, for our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority. A loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern. Three, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to serve. Our membership is a desire to stop drinking. Four, each group should be autonomous, accepting matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. Five, each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Six, an AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. Seven, every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. Eight, Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers. Nine, AA as such ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. Ten, Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues, hence the AA name ought never be drawn into the group. Eleven, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films. Twelve, anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Thanks. Thank you, Annette. Two of our readers tonight are celebrating their first birthdays. I'll leave you to guess who they are. One of them is a former AA member, and the other is a former AA member. Annette, I'll leave you to guess which two. It's time for the seventh tradition. Pat? Where's Pat? Okay. You all know what the seventh tradition is for. Okay, while they're going around with that, I just want to take the opportunity to thank all of the people who helped us put on this wonderful assembly. I'm not going to begin to list them by name, but there are about 40 of them. And if you see them, you help me thank them by giving them a hug. And as soon as the seventh tradition is over, we are going to hear from a wonderful friend, a past delegate who's been up here visiting us many times and loves Humboldt County as her second home. This is a lady I've known and admired a long time, and every now and again when something goes wrong, and I need really knowledgeable advice, this is the lady I go to. She knows AA. She knows its history. She's been there. And as soon as the sound man gets finished telling her how to do it, I'll let her. This is Diane. I'm Diane Olson. I'm an alcoholics. Hi, everyone. Y mi grupo va a hacer. My home group is La Noche Vida de Sábado, Saturday Night Live in Campbell, California. And quiero dar gracias a mis compañeros hispanos por todo su sostener y todo su amor, y lo agradezco muchísimo. I want to tell my Spanish-speaking friends that I'm grateful for their love and for their support, and I find myself burled deep into their wonderfulness every day. And I want to thank them for their support. I want to thank them for their love and for their support. I want to thank them for their support. I want to thank them for their support. I want to thank them for their wonderfulness. Every time we have an assembly, it affords me the chance to practice my Spanish a little and learn much of their love, their sharing and their caring. And I'm very happy for them personally that they're going to have the opportunity to spread the word even further to a second Hispanic district. It was my privilege and pleasure to be back at the General Service Office last week and spend a couple of days sharing with all the staff members, and in particular Vicente Mejia, who has been the core person, the part of him that I like to call him, for the Spanish world for the past six years. And because of his support and his impetus and he's got charisma and he's got a lot of love naturally for his own people, the Spanish world in AA has grown tremendously. Having spent time in Spain and Mexico and having lived with their families, I've always been just carried away by the fact that I'm a Spanish person. By the love and the caring and the sharing and the real identity with other human beings that they share. They seem to have a thing about other people. They're far more interested in you as a human being than they seem to be in material things. And it's something that has always touched my soul deeply. So I'm really grateful, for mis compañeros en la Costa Norte de California. And I'm very grateful to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I couldn't say that nearly 16 years ago. I didn't want any part of this deal, I'll tell you. It was something that I did not work toward or strive to be as I was growing up and getting into all kinds of trouble. In fact, I thought I was doing my life very well, thank you very much. And there was no way I could have ever imagined in my whole, just ever, the kind of life that is mine today as the result of this program. I have a loving God that is personal to me, that's a part of all of the areas of my life. It goes with me everywhere I go. And, of course, the friends, the wonderful friends that let me know what I need to know when I need to know it. Quite different than the relationships I had casually out there for years before I came here. I plain old just didn't know how to do life. Very early on in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was still practicing a lot of denial, a lot of denial of what I was doing. I was still practicing a lot of denial of what I was doing. A lot of standoffishness, a lot of, you don't have anything to tell me. Somebody was reading Chapter 5, was new in the program, and came off reading it a little off cue. The line is supposed to go, They are not at fault, they seem to have been born that way. He read it, They are not at fault, they seem to have been born the wrong way. And that was my first real response in Alcoholics Anonymous, because that hit me, I identified with that. Because I can, I can never remember until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous feeling home in this world. My earliest childhood memories were ones of being very apart from, very different than, and totally at ease in the world that seemed very cheap and very dirty and very ugly. Fortunate, very fortunate for young parents, my earlier years were spent in isolation. Not necessarily thought out ahead of time by my parents, but it was very fortuitous because it, you know, I didn't have as much chance to get into trouble with playmates earlier on as I, as I did as we moved back into a more populated area. But we lived out in the rolling hills of Southern California, where my playmates were animals and imaginary people that didn't exist. And I managed to control them and run their lives and make them do what I wanted to do. And that was very satisfactory to me. And we got along well with my doing that, except in a couple of instances, where, and well, animals are like people. You know, you step on their toes and they will retaliate. You try to force them too hard to make them do something you want them to do. And they will do the same things that human beings will do. I was both clawed to the tune of 30 stitches by a Siamese cat and mauled by a chow dog, both before the ages of four. And it had nothing to do with those animals being naughty. You know, both times I determined that they were going to play with me and they weren't into playing that day. And both of them tried to let me know that before I pushed them too far. In both instances, my parents, you know, suffered behind countless trips to the hospital and a lot of recuperation time. I also didn't take direction well. I never was able to understand my parents telling me something to do and I didn't want to do it. It just never computed. And, you know, it never occurred to me that I should pay attention to what they told me to do. And it finally came to a head one night. I was wont to go out and play at night. Being a very high strung, keyed, full of energy kind of person that's been somewhat tempered today, but, you know, most people that know me well, it's still quite an evidence. If I woke up at night and wanted to go do something, I didn't think twice about crawling out the window and going to do it. And this was not an area that was heavily populated, so there were a lot of animals. Things, well, rattlesnake was a good one. And in the night I was referring to, my mother, it was the two days after my mother had killed a rattlesnake in our yard. And I had decided that I wanted to play. I decided that I wanted my bunny rabbit from its bed in the bed with me. And I didn't see anything wrong with that, and so I went and got it. And my parents checked on me frequently at night, as you can well imagine they might. And they removed the rabbit once, and they removed the rabbit twice. And both times I got punished, as parents will do. And the third time, I was going to show them. So I got out and went and got in the pen with the rabbit. I didn't think that they would not figure that out. They did not think to look in the rabbit's eyes. They looked in the rabbit's pen, and they thought I had gotten mad and ran off. So they had this humongous search party out half the night. From time to time I could hear their frantic voices and see the flashlights. And I was just curled up around that little white rabbit and just as pleased as punch that I was putting one over on them. They found me about 4 o'clock in the morning. They were not happy. They put me in my room with the help of the neighbors. They put boards on my windows and a deadbolt on my door. And when they finally went to bed about 6 in the morning, I was in the bed with my mother. And I was in the bed with my mother. And I was in the bed with my mother. And I was in the bed with my mother. And I was in the bed with my mother. And I wasn't. I destroyed my room. And then they came in the next morning, and I had taken everything off the wall and the dresser doors and thrown everything. And I had done some finger-pulling that wasn't too pleasant. So this is how life started, and it didn't get better. So I kind of got like synonymous. That's just a little small picture of what this kind of… this is the kind of personality that I came in with. It had nothing to do with anybody else. It was inside me. I was… propelled, and I like to call it a great big black ugly force that literally drove me off and against my own will to do things that got me into trouble. They moved back to a populated area, my parents did, because it was time for me to go to school, much to the concern of the neighborhood parents and the teachers at school. I did not do school well, as you can imagine. Kindergarten was a disaster, and so was first grade, and so was second grade. They were on the phone to my parents all the time. I was always being punished. And finally, there was a major war when I was in the second grade. I was always forming clubs or gangs, and my gang would, you know, we were always warring against the other guys, and it wasn't just play stuff. We used rocks, and I mean, I lacerated a head or two and got, I've got umpteen stitches and scars in my head. But this time, I had made a clubhouse under the home where my parents lived, and only the people that I determined should be there could be in this clubhouse. And some of the other kids wanted to get in, and there was a great big major war over it, and some people got injured, and I lost a fingernail, and I still have a scar on my hand. And that was kind of it. The parents in the neighborhood said that's it. Every time they put my child in a place with Diane, there was trouble, there was injury, there was trips to the hospital. My mother took me to the hospital one more time. She was, you know, it was, it occurred to me that acting out, I was always angry, see, I was always absolutely furious that people didn't do things 100% my way. And in these gangs, I had to be the chief. I had to be the gang leader. There was never an opportunity for anybody else to have a say so about anything. And I can remember coming home from the hospital that day with the bandages, one on my head and my hand, and my mother just beside herself because, you know, the name of the gang was Diane. And the neighborhood had literally banned me from their homes. There wasn't a playmate left in the neighborhood whose parent wanted me to have anything to do with his or her son or daughter. And so I made a conscious decision that day. You know, God, I don't know where it came from, but I decided that no more would I show anybody any kind of emotion. I was not going to act out. I was not going to cry when I got spanked or got in trouble or got hurt. I was not going to let anybody anymore know what was going on with me. And I started practicing that right away. And from that time until I was poured into Alcoholics Anonymous a little over the age of 30, I did not ever let anybody know. I mean, I went through life just an absolute roaring volcano inside with major war going on all the time and never let you know it. I made my way through the rest of school. We moved in, and I had a little better relationships with friends. However, there was generally only one really good girlfriend, and she never lived up to my expectations. She would always let me down, and I'd get disappointed, and I'd throw her away because she'd break a date or she wouldn't show up or she wouldn't do something that I expected her to do. I was very much a tomboy, very much an athlete. Until I reached puberty, you know, my whole deal was to outrun the guys in school. I was a runner at that time. And I had no more interest in you than beating you. And I would get out on the Sandy B.es of Southern California and just run for hours, well, a couple hours at least, before I'd go to school. And I'd run for hours. I'd go to school in the morning so that on that good asphalt at school I could beat you. And I hit puberty, and men became something to use, manipulate, look good on, you know. And I began, you know, a new approach to men, which was always have one. It was a security deal with somebody I could depend on. And the minute that I grew tired of you or I got the feeling that maybe you were going to throw me away, I let go of you and moved on to someone else. But generally, I had a new man in tow before I let go of the old man. I set goals. My parents didn't put anything on me, okay? My parents are just normal every day. I said to my mom just last month, how did you do it? How did you survive? And she smiled and she said, we were talking about, she was just finding out that the cat and the dog didn't attack me. She was just figuring out that I attacked them. And I said, how did you do it? And she said, I guess I was just young and resilient. I don't know. Because, you see, as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous, we have an incredible friendship. We have an incredible friendship today that I never even could have hoped or dreamed or wished could have happened. Because by the time I was poured into Alcoholics Anonymous, I had totally destroyed that relationship with my mother through my own actions and through my own behavior. I went through school. To have looked at me, you might have thought I was okay. My ego made me get very involved in school activities. I was always outstanding at sports. I was an overachiever in school. I immediately fell in love with Spanish. And the culture and everything it had to do with Spanish. And, you know, it wasn't satisfactory to get an A in Spanish. I had to be the best in the class. And unless I got the award for being the best in the class, it wasn't good enough. And generally, my problems were with me. They were of my own making. It was because I never lived up to my own expectations. I never did anything that I really felt I was always falling short of some enormous goal that I had set for myself. You know, I had to be the very best at anything I did. Particularly in sports. And when I didn't get there, you know, I would just crawl under the pile. Just crawl under the bed and wallow in self-pity. And, you know, I literally just, you know, it was all here. You know, I can look back today and see that because I did not adjust to life, because I was absolutely, it was impossible for me to be a playmate among playmates or a worker among workers or a family member among family members. It was all in my outlook and my perception and how I perceived life. And I can't tell you any more than that's what I came in to. And that's what I came in with. That's exactly, that's all, you know, all I can remember is I came in with a distorted perception of life and it did not change. It got worse. The interesting thing is, and I think it's perhaps I was so highly driven and definitely was, you know, I was on the path toward the Olympics and swimming and that type of thing that the people I ran around with didn't get into any of the drinking or the smoking crowd. You know, it just happened. I mean, I can't take, you know, like any credit. I can't take credit for that. It just happened that that was my obsession. That was where I was propelled when I was in high school. And so I basically stayed pretty clean. But I can never remember really being at peace with me or with the world. You know, it was just always struggling and always disappointed. And there was always a new man or there was a new best friend, but people just generally, you know, didn't let me down. I had a childhood sweetheart, a high school sweetheart. I ended up marrying him, all for the wrong reasons. You know, it was something people expected me to do. I'd grown up with this guy, my family. I thought my family wanted this and my friends. And, you know, I look back on it today and I shake my head in utter amazement because there was absolutely nothing there to make a marriage out of. But I went ahead with that and I finished my education. And on the surface, everything was looking – I know that my parents were even fooled because I had gotten a job in a very high school that was – the principal at high school was my high school principal. And the Spanish teacher that I was working with had been my high school Spanish teacher, the man who had inspired me and motivated me. I was teaching synchronized swimming, directing the synchronized swimming show. And the other teacher with me had been my synchronized swimming school teacher. You know, the whole picture looked perfect. And I'd married my childhood sweetheart and we had a nice little apartment and we had these friends. But inside there was just – there was nothing. There was emptiness. There was – you know, what's it all about? And nothing, nothing ever – not even for one day can I remember feeling – I remember feeling okay about me or about life. But I kept on keeping on. You know, we have, you know, willpower to burn. There's no doubt about it. And I don't know whether I thought that around the next classroom door or whatever, I would find some kind of something. But, you know, what happened was I did find it. I found it in my first year teaching high school. You know, that was an interesting scene because I immediately needed to be the world's best teacher. And I immediately needed that every student I had loved me. And I could not have any student not liking me or nor any student's parents not liking me. And I had one class of really low-ability kids that were just – did not do well in any department anywhere. And God forbid that they should not do well in my classroom, though. So I – you know, they demanded a lot of energy and time from me because, you see, I cheated for them. When I was correcting their papers, I changed their answers for them and I helped them write essays. And, you know, I would have loved to have had a teacher tell me – I would have loved to have had a teacher to like me. You know, I've met a lot of us in Alcoholics Anonymous that said, where were you when I was going to school? You know, it was interesting because – and that was kind of a humorous situation because it got to the attention of the district that I had this class of – kids, they were us. They were us. They came to class smelling like us, you know, when we were out there. They were definitely on their road, hopefully, to Alcoholics Anonymous someday. And the district came to me and wanted to come in after school and let us do an afternoon session for them so they could see what we were doing. So they could see what we were doing in this class to get this kind of stuff from these poor children. I mean, they were seniors taking this class for the third time, for example, that type of student. And, of course, the kids knew what was going on and I knew what was going on and we weren't about to tell anybody in the district. And, you know, talk about being the consummate actors that we all can be. Why, you know, teachers from all over the district came in to observe us one afternoon after school and we put on this little mini session that we'd rehearsed and planned well ahead of time and we pulled it off. And, you know, I do think that of all the classes I ever taught, I'll always remember those kids because, you know, we gave a lot to each other. And I had an understanding of the fact, you know, that they were just not going to survive if I didn't help them. And I wasn't about to let my ego get bruised by them not looking good coming from one of my classes. So, you know, this year turned out to be very, very laborious, this first year teaching high school. I put, you know, 18, 19 hours a day into it. And I came home one night and I was like, you know, I'm going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a teacher. And I was experiencing a tremendous amount of frustration because I was coming to the end of the first year when grades were due and I was going to night school to finish my degree. And I was directing the synchronized swimming show and some of the girls were not in there doing what I thought they should do. And in any reach, I just reached a breaking point and opened the cupboard and pulled out some vodka and fixed myself a drink and I was off and running. And I can remember it like it was yesterday. And it wasn't that I had not drunk before then. I mean, I had been drinking before I was 21 or 22. But this did something for me. This just changed my whole being instantly. And it was like, you know, I remember thinking, my God, the magic elixir, where has it been all my life? How have I missed this? I have suffered for 22 years. And all of a sudden, I don't need to suffer anymore. And I knew from that moment that if I just took this precious bottle with me no matter where I went and just kept enough of it in me, I wouldn't have to suffer in this life anymore. And amazingly enough, I got a lot of false courage. You know, I had always been just like a little chameleon. It was really important to me that you liked me. You know, I have a thing about rejection that came forth in my inventory that was really quite awesome. Of course, most of it was imaginary, but it was really important. I didn't have an opinion of my own. It was so important to me that you liked me. You know, if I were running around with you and you thought one way, I would think that way too. I never even gave myself a chance to think for myself. And it was just like, I don't know. And it was just like I changed colors. No matter with whom I was, I was going to be like you because it was important to me to be accepted by you. So the last thing in my mind that I was ever going to do was upset any apple carts. Like, I was going to teach at this high school probably all my life. And I was going to stay married in this dead marriage where we didn't make love and we didn't make war all my life. And drudge along with these lifetime family and lifetime friends. And I was just totally uninspired. I was miserable. I started to drink. And I started to think. And for myself. And coincidentally, I got a little government scholarship thing to go back and study Spanish at a college in the Midwest for the whole summer. And I just, you know, I took off. It was a chance to improve my Spanish. And, you know, it was just a total intensive six-week deal the government paid you for. I mean, they knew to be there. And I got back there and I met some new people. I met another Spanish teacher from New Jersey. And I just knew. And I just knew that he was the knight in shining armor on a white horse come to rescue me from what was my real problem. I mean, this lifelong thing in this same town and same family and same boyfriend and same school. And it just occurred to me that if I moved from California to New Jersey and started over again, everything would be wonderful. I absolutely believed that. No message whatsoever yet that the problem was very well localized right here. But I'll tell you, I did the most. I'll never forget the expression. I mean, everybody was totally astounded, devastated, unbelieving. I came waltzing back into my hometown. And I announced very blithely, I'm moving. I'm going to New Jersey. And I told the childhood sweetheart, husband, longtime boyfriend person that I was going via Las Vegas and I was getting me a divorce. And I was going to New Jersey. And I told my family. And I said to my mother, I want you to burn everything. I am starting over. I don't want any high school annuals or scrapbooks or pictures. I left all of the work. I left all of the wedding presents and everything with the boyfriend, husband person. And I was in and out of my hometown in a fast one week. Just gone. And went through, it was Reno. And spent six weeks there. And I took a little Russian. And I took a little French. And I caroused a bit. And, of course, I'm drinking all this time. I must let you know this, that from day one I never did not drink. I drank every single day. Every waking moment. And what happened was it just gradually increased. I had a thermos. I had whatever. It was always with me. I mean, it was a thing. It was like my little blankie that I had with a kid. It had to be there. And I burst into New Jersey wide-eyed, full of expectation. Here I am. And I faced off again with this high school Spanish person teacher. And he wasn't a knight in shining armor. His apartment was the dregs. He lived in the top of a tenement building, a converted army barracks from the war that was the most tacky. It was the most tacky place I'd ever set eyes on in my life. And I took one look at that. And then I caught up with his behavior for about a week. And I thought, I want out of this. And I decided I want to go back home. I made a mistake. But you know how we are. Pride stands sentinel in the doorway and says, Diane, thou shalt not. I mean, do you think the Californians are going to want to ever look at you again after what you've done? You know, girl, you dig in your heels and you let them know you're tough. And, you know, and you stick it out. And, you know, you're going to survive. So I wrote these wonderfully creative letters back. I'm telling them how wonderful things were and how well I was doing. In the meantime, I continued to die inside and I continued to drink all the more. And I had a rather interesting nine years sojourn in New Jersey, man to man and job to job. I flipped from teaching Spanish to interpreting. And I picked up a little love for Spain. And I spent all of my vacations in Spain. And I had a Spanish boyfriend that I came pretty close to marrying him. God save him. He escaped in the nick of time. But, you know. My Spanish got to be very fluent. And it was my big obsession. You know, no other American could speak Spanish like I could speak Spanish. And when I was around Spanish speaking people, I would ignore you if you were American. Don't try to speak English to me. I'd look at you with disgust and disdain and act as if I didn't understand you. I also had another little thing going indicative of what I was doing in those years. You know, I still knew that there was a deep sickness inside of me. Even though I wouldn't let myself think about it too much. Because, you know, it was too destroying. And I had like a little switch in my head that would turn it off. And I really wouldn't get into it. But, you know, I was always boy hopping, job hopping. And what happened though as a result of living with these Spanish speaking families was, you know, I really got impressed with their faith and their togetherness and their family unity. And I'd become a part of some of the things they do as Catholic families. And I decided that I had it. I knew what was missing. I needed to be a Catholic. You know, if I had this kind of discipline, of regimentation, of Mass every day, of abstinence, all the things that they were doing before Vatican II, you know, I really believed that that would be the answer. And so, after coming back from my adventure with Experiment in International Living, I went right to my local rectory and presented myself and there was the cutest darn priest you've ever seen in your life. And my head took off and you know, I'm great with fantasy. I have to watch it today. My head took off and I had me marrying him. He was going to leave the priesthood first, of course. Marrying him, sailing off into the sunset, bunch of children, you know, the little house with the white picket fence, the whole nine yards. And so, I gave Father Thomas my best energy and my best attention. And it took him a whole year to instruct me and get me, you know, first of all, baptized. And then we went through another long thing until I was confirmed. But in the meantime, I just threw myself into that rectory and I was there at Mass every day at 7. And I did the young activities and I taught catechism. And you know, I put more energy into doing some good stuff but for the wrong motives. About as much as I ever was able to muster up after all this drinking. In the meantime, I'm drinking all the time. I'm going to confession with very calculated confessions because I certainly, I have to go to him, right? And I want to impress him. I certainly don't want to turn him off or drive him away. So, I did all the right things for the church. And I'm going to confess to him. And I'm going to confess to him. And I'm going to confess to him. I did all the right things for the last four years I was in New Jersey in terms of some day winning this priest and sailing off into the sunset. The only thing is, he took me to a family thing once. It was out in Long Island. This is a staunch Irish Catholic family. My gosh, there were two priests in the family and a Franciscan nun sister. And the mother was too smart for me. Boy, you know, we were there and before I knew it, she had me pigeonholed in a corner and nose to nose. And she's looking at me. She's looking at me from eyeball to eyeball. And she's saying to me, I certainly hope you are praying for Father Tom's vocation as we in his family pray for his vocation. And, you know, I knew she was on to me. You know, I knew that there was. The funny thing about this is that, you know, I had some real serious illness that was somewhat alcohol related. I was in the hospital a lot. But I had one very, very serious illness in which they thought I was going to die. And I had a very big, what I call double major surgery. And one of the things I can look back on and see how far my disease had gone was that I was so sick they had me in the hospital for a good month. And they had me in for about a half, about a couple of weeks before they were able to operate. And then a couple of weeks after the operation. And, you know, I remember that they gave me some real high powered stuff because, you know, the incision was large and there was a lot of pain. And they had tubes in my nose and both arms were taped to boards because there were needles in both arms for the intravenous business. And, you know, I was like. I'd never been in my life immobile. And I was still into manipulating and using men. And even though I was chasing this priest, I still had a hostage. Always had a hostage. And this particular one was really good at being used and manipulated. And the stuff they were giving me to kill the pain never lasted long enough before they gave me another shot. And I had that figured out pretty well in the first couple of days. And as sick as I was, I actually got this man to bring me in a bottle of vodka. And help me get it into me through a straw. And he actually did that for me when the doctors and the nurses and everybody else there was not paying attention. And when I think back on that today, you know, you know, you got to wonder, you know, can there be any doubt in my mind about the first steps? I mean, it doesn't seem very likely that that kind of thing could escape. But, you know, it does. I was able to rationalize that and justify that. They weren't paying fair. They weren't keeping me out of pain. I didn't care if it only could come every four hours. It was fair. And so I went to any lengths. And I threatened this guy, you know, you bring it in and take care of me or we're through. And he did. Another pretty sad thing happened. You know, I talked about really burning my mother out and finishing our relationship. She'd come to the East to take care of me because I was a real sick kid. They weren't sure I was going to live. And she sat at my bedside for days. And she went home and she cleaned up my filthy, awful apartment. And she made me some puddings and bought me some baby food. And I was beyond this, that kind of a diet for three months, the baby food pudding business. And when I went home with her after a month being in the hospital and looked at what she had done to my apartment, I totally exploded in her face. Just, I was rude. I was vicious. I ran her off. I sent her back home to California. There was no thanks. There was no gratitude. I just wanted her out of my apartment. I wanted to be left alone. I needed my vodka. I needed, you know, I did not want to be left alone. I did not need her puddings and her baby food. However, the irony is here, I did, you know, they said you cannot eat any foods for a while. So I did eat this baby food. And I did eat this pudding stuff. But I drank. I drank, just drank. And I took, you know, I drank down whatever they sent home with me for the pain for a while. So the deal here is that my illness progressed rapidly and I got very, very sick as a result of this surgery. And it wasn't long after this surgery that I had reached a bottom where I just didn't know what to do. I was going to be able to make it on my own. And there was a stirring inside of me that I wanted my family back. And I just knew the Spanish boyfriend wouldn't work out. And I burned my way through this last hostage. And I was ready to come back home to California and take my chances. And as luck would have it, I came out Easter one year to test the waters and met me another hostage. And I figured that with him in my arm, why, you know, he could soften the blow and it would be okay to come back home. And I was so happy. I was so happy. I was so happy. And that was where I ultimately just met my downfall. I came back to California and it was just a straight spiral downward from that point on. I drank just, I can't even begin to tell you the quantities. You can imagine you've all been there, I know. But I drank around the clock and when I wasn't drinking, I was passed out. I married this last hostage. We moved to the Santa Clara Valley. And the last months before I was poured into a detox, I just drank around the clock. And when I wasn't drinking, I was passed out. And I'd reached a point where I felt like everything dear to me in life was gone and should be gone. And furthermore, I didn't deserve to have it back. It was total filth and degradation. I wasn't capable of working. I wasn't capable of taking a bath or washing my hair or taking care of myself at all. And furthermore, I didn't care. At the end, I absolutely didn't care. In fact, I was wishing this stuff would kill me and I wouldn't have to go on living like this. Because, see, when I'd run my own life and I'd been an island unto myself and I'd never asked for help and I'd never admitted I was free, I'd never asked for help and I'd never admitted I was free, I'd never asked for help and I'd never admitted I was free, I'd never admitted I was wrong, I could not conceive of anything being able to help me. In other words, the one thing that I counted on and turned on me was killing me and I knew it. And I just, you know, at one point, it was interesting, I just accepted it and just said, I wish I would hurry up and die. And I drank all the harder. And, you know, it was maybe a day or two after that that I had a flash, that I had a really warm, interesting thing happen to me in which it occurred to me that I did not want to die. A tongue-chilling. I was a badling idiot drunk. I did not want to die with the record and the travesty and the things that I had done to my family hanging over their heads. I didn't want to die and have them talking about me after I was gone as if I was some low-life creep that had done nothing but let them down and disappoint them. And, you know, that just came through in a flash. And when that happened, I allowed myself to be taken to a doctor. And it was, you know, he wanted to hospitalize me right away. And, you know, you won't, yes, you will believe, I keep wanting to say you won't believe this, but I had to go home and think about it. I had to go home and get ready. And I got ready between January and April of 1974. And on my way to detox, I bought a quart of vodka with me. And when I arrived at detox, I had finished that bottle. As they were trying to get me into my room, I decided that I wasn't done yet and I wanted to go out and have some dinner first. Actually, I wanted a few more drinks. And it was at that point that they stabbed me with something. And that's about all I remember for about three or four days. My introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous came in a bathrobe and slippers. And attendance from that detox on each arm because I was not interested in going to one of your meetings. In fact, I was dragged there for the few weeks that they put up with me. I, you know, I share with you I was incorrigible as a kid. And I mention that because I became just as incorrigible in that detox. I rebelled against everything. Against the vitamin whatever. Against the vitamin whatever shots that they gave you. And I rebelled against the eating regime. I rebelled against the therapy meetings. I rebelled against everything they tried to do. And I also tried to incite others to riot. And I would, um, you know, I ran into a couple of those people in Alcoholics Anonymous when I was six years sober. They nearly fainted. They could not believe I was alive, let alone sober. They were totally astounded. And they had taken bets because they said that I nearly closed the detox with my behavior. They were just so angry. They were worn out. Plus the fact that I didn't help the other patients to behave either because I was always trying to get them to act out. But they threw me back out on the streets. It was the best thing they could have done for me. They threw me back out on the streets. And I went out with this attitude like, I will show you. I've got willpower to burn. The rest of you are crippled invalids. I mean, you need all these crutches in what you're doing. I will show you. I accepted alcoholic intellectually. But I will show you that this is one who can continue to drink in my own life. Thank you very much. Um. What happened to me was, you know, probably the best thing that could have happened to this particular alcoholic. I was allowed to reach, you know, find out about all those yes. Reach total degradation. Reach total incomprehensible demoralization to all of the gutter prostituting things that I needed to do to get that next drink. And the last three months out on that street were pure hell compared to what I'd done before. And the interesting thing about that was that when I was done, I knew where to go. And there was no more doubt in my mind. And when I crawled, crawled through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous on August the 30th, 1974, I was home. Because God had allowed me in his infinite goodness and wonder to run out of all my own resources so that I had no other choice if I wanted to live. And that spark deep inside me wanted to live. I did not want any more of what I was doing. And somehow, in spite of my awfully naughty behavior, I knew you guys had the answer. Even though I rebelled and I sat in the meetings and detoxed like this, and I would not talk and I would not identify myself, they'd go around the table and I would just say, Diane, pass. Wouldn't say alcoholic, wouldn't identify, that's Diane, pass. And I came crawling into you and experienced another six months of the walls being worn down, being worn away. I had a fierce pride and I had a lot of fear. And on the one hand, you know, I had never let anybody into my life. I had never let anybody close to me. I'd shut down at the age of seven. And I had not let anybody begin to know who I was. I had never shared at death, not with a hostage, not with a husband, not with a girlfriend, nobody. And so what you were doing was really foreign and very difficult to even begin to grasp. I wanted it. I kept coming around. But what my head said to me to do was, look, you're strong. You can run your own life. What you really need to do is get your family back, get your friends back, get a job, get this marriage back on track. You know, go to a little meeting now and then. Don't let them get to know you too well. You know, it was just the pride fear thing. See, if you got to know me, you would, you would, you know, I'd have to run like I have everybody else because you wouldn't want me. And pride wanted me to look better than the rest of you. Pride said, you know, you don't need to do what they do. You've been an island unto yourself all your life. You don't need to do that. So, you know, I was a little bit scared. So, you, in your infinite love and understanding and patience and tolerance, let me do it. I communicated with a few of you. I tried to get an occasional handsome man or two to sponsor me because men had always understood me better than women. So, I sat by the doors because I like to come a little late and leave a little early. So, if there was a male companion that liked to do that too, I would reach out to him and tell him that I was looking for a sponsor. And I didn't care how much time he had. And, you know, luckily for me and for them, they were people that were far too wise and gently reassured me that it was girls with girls and boys with boys and it worked better that way. And so, I would shrug my shoulders and go on for another period of time. But what happened was I reached a point where family wasn't interested, okay. I think they would have liked to have seen me in the early stages, go back to drinking because I was more docile. And I lay around. I didn't get into trouble as much. I went charging back into the car. I didn't get into trouble as much. I was just a little bit of that family fool. Like, here I am and I'm wonderful now and I'm not drinking. Look at me. You know how the dead book, ain't it great, Ma, the wind stopped blowing. You know, the tornadoes wrecked everything. Everything is a disaster but ain't it great. That was my motto. I did that with my friends. They didn't want me. I ran all over the Santa Clara Valley, the public school system. Forget it. They told me later I was ricocheting off the walls. They actually had the nerve to tell me when I was making amends that, you know, I just bounced off the walls and they couldn't get me out of the, it made administrative offices fast enough. I tried to get a job waitressing. I mean, I tried everything and nobody wanted me. And it was at that point I reached an awareness one day in which literally I had reached a frustration of just enormous proportion. You know, when you're used to trying to think you can run your life and control things and nothing, nothing is cooperating. You know, I went to a day in which it just seemed like driving across the Santa Clara Valley, every light was red, every light was red. And they stayed red for minutes, five minutes at a time. I mean, it was a lot. There were thousands of cars and nothing, none of them were doing anything right. I went into the supermarket and there were people in every aisle and they were getting in my way and the checkout stands had ten people in it. It was awful. And I got home and I was so frustrated and so angry that I, you know, I just reached a point in which I felt like a bomb went off inside of me. Like a mammoth explosion occurred inside of me. And I felt incredible pain. It really felt like I had been physically blown apart. I can never, ever remember that kind of pain. Even in the hospital when I was operated on. It was instantaneous and it didn't last long. But what