The Compulsion That Smacked Her Between the Eyes – Liz B.

Woo! You light up my life. Woo! You gave me the hope when I didn't know there was any hope for me. I want to say good evening to each and every one. My name is Liz Bailey. My anonymity's been shot to hell for a long time. Only thing, I don't run around telling who's in the fellowship and who's not in the scholarship. That's something I won't do. I would like to thank that, I wouldlike to thank Marilyn and Dan for meeting me at the airport today and a tremendous lunch and an AA meeting all the way to this hotel. Thank you both with my heart. I want to thank Stanley for coming. He surprised me. I'm glad I got a good heart because otherwise I'd have been over there on the floor. Michael and my Earl, I'm so happy to see them and Peggy and the other lady from Nebraska. So many of you I've met along the way. Thank you for being here to give me a tremendous reunion this weekend. You know, I'm 75 and I'm glad to be anywhere, to tell you the truth. And for those of you that have heard me before, I haven't gone out and gotten you a new story because the one I came in here with was a Lulu and none of you guys have told me it got any better after. I listen very closely. If you notice me this weekend, I make every meeting to listen to see what's going on out there because I don't want to go back out there. You know, there was a minister preaching and he says if you drink alcohol, you're doomed to die. And the little old lady down front, she said, Amen. He said, now if you smoke those cigarettes, you'RE DOOMED TO DIE. And the lil' old lady, she SAID, A-MEN. He said now if YOU CHEW TOBACCO, She said, look at that. He done stopped preaching and gone to meddling. So I'm going to go to meddling. You know, we hate the truth, but the truth will set you free. It will certainly set you freer. And I love the theme that you have here. I left out a Barbara, Bob and Winslow. Oh, he's sexy on the telephone, you know. Don't talk to him. you know and they've been calling me back and forth to new york and they been writing me letters oh they work hard to put this on and i'm so grateful to see you all come out this night to show them how grateful you are to them for putting on such a beautiful convention how about it It takes over a year to put these together, and there's a lot of work and personalities they have, their little battles up and down. But they all come out of it, though, to have a grand weekend. I'm the oldest of five children. I was born in Brooklyn, and I was raised in Manhattan on 163rd between Amsterdam and Edgecombe. I now live in Queens, which is 45 minutes from Manhattan. You can have Manhattan, you can call me the Manhattan Belle, you can call me anything you want. I do not like Manhattan. I'm sorry, I don't go in there unless I have to and I stop even booking meetings in there because the subways are really too dangerous. I have faith but not to walk water yet. to walk in the water. Being the oldest of five children, and my dad being a pitiful drunk, as I said before, I'm not allowed to call anyone an alcoholic but myself. I grieved about my dad's drinking. I used to see the policeman hit him with the billies and the blood would spatter. I'd see neighbors hit him mit frying pans and the blood would spatter, and he would come out of Mother Cabrinha Hospital, which we lived directly in front of. He would come dressed like a mummy many, many times. I'm ever grateful that I was in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous when my dad hung himself out at Central Islip. Till this moment, I don't believe I could have accepted his death if if I'd have been actively drinking. But I thank God I was in this fellowship, and you stayed by me. You haven't allowed me to do anything alone, and I thank god for that. And I hope to god I never get the pride that I don't need you or that I can do it by myself. I don' t want that sickness to ever hit me. But my mom, I've never seen her take a drink in my entire life. And for many 24 hours in here, I was always wishing I could give her two drinks and bring her to hell in here. Because she could use the 12 steps and the 12 traditions, she could do the whole thing. My mom lived three days short of being 95, so she had a good life. But my mom made my first drink at the age of 12 years old. And she made some rice wine from ingredients she received from the welfare such as rice and raisins, and she made this rice wine in large crockery. And she left myself and a little girl named Marion to sieve this rice vine through cheesecloth. And I'm going to show you the difference. Marion sieved and sipped two drinks, and she went home. But honey, I stood there, and I'm only 12 years old, and I was sitting there, and I said, I'm sieving and sipping, and I'sieving and I'Msipping, And I'm sipping and I'm sipping Twelve years old Honey, I sipped and sipped And I put on a drunk that was a drunk And of course my mom lectured to me all night long And I went out in the street the next day Shaking my little self Telling my friends Woo, what a ball I had I don't even remember what the hell happened And that began to be the pattern of my life If you didn't drink to get drunk and pass out, then you didn' t say too much for me. And so at the age of 14 I'm now selling King Kong booze. And I want you to believe it was King Kong. It stood just straight and knocked the hell out of your door. And the man made it in the bathtub next door. And I was buying it by the gallon. And I were selling it for 40 cents a cream pitcher. Now, someone suggested that I take mayonnaise, olive oil, butter, cream, line yourself up. You know how they told you to eat a good meal? Honey, that King Kong was so powerful it went all through the mayonnaise, the olive oil. The butter, the cream. So I stopped taking that sick stuff. I drank plenty of booze. I made good money. I had to be padlocked into a side room for my protection. Now, I'm laying out the window one night and I see this sharp dude. Oh, God, he was so sharp, I almost fell out the window. And he had a roll of money. And I said, oh, there's a live one. You know I was always looking for a live one. You know that. I look for the live ones in AA, too. I don't look for no deadheads in AA. No. I mean, I don t deal with no dead heads. I deal with people that are going and doing and giving. Those are the people I d deal with. While he was so cute and he was so fine, I ran downstairs and I latched on to him, and I found out it was a $5 bill around lot of ones. But I latched on to him anyway, and I started from uptown Manhattan to the Lower East Side, and if you wanted a good time, you sent for Liz and Al. Well, now I'm 14, I'm partying, I's hanging out, and say to my mom one night, would you please sign me to marry this man he is 10 years older than myself she says oh no dear over my dead body that man will have you out in the street and you'll live a terrible life with that man and i found out something about myself at the age of 14. don't you ever but never tell me what not to do don't do that i thank god aa suggested everything to me if they didn't i wouldn't be standing here tonight, I'll tell you that. So I quit school at 14. I took sleep-in jobs. I was drunk every Thursday and Sunday. Now, at the age of 17, I left New York with this very man. And I went to Baltimore, Maryland, right here. And Iím standing in a courthouse downtown, and Iím crying my heart out. And the minister said, ìMy dear young lady, would you mind just telling me what you're crying about? I said, well, at last I got him. I'm going to be honest with every one of you in this auditorium this evening. That was the sorriest day of Mr. Bailey's life when he said I do to Liz Ulrich. Mr. Bradley never to stop crying from January 3rd, 1939, until he went home with the Lord, August the 12th, 1986. That was a sorry day for that man. Now I came back to New York with the marriage license. No more mama. No more neighbors. Nobody's going to tell me how to live. Whoo, I told you before, I'm 75. Could you all picture what I was at 17? Whoo, baby! Oh, yeah, I'll get down with it. Oh, sure. I'm going to tear up New York. Nobody's going to tell me nothing. I done got a marriage license. Well, I got back to New York Mr. Bailey gave up every liquor joint. He gave up gambling. He gave us hustling. He gave up going to parties, and he sat down. And I became a mental case at the age of 17 because here I am raring to go, and he's sitting. And he sat from January 3rd, 1939 until he went home with the Lord August 6th, 1986. And I couldn't take that sitting down. There I am. I start to nurse my little drink through the week. I look forward to weekend drunks, and now I have to have a drink to wash, to iron, to cook, to talk. I watch myself change. Woo! I begin to curse. Every word came out of my mouth was a curse word. I watched me go through another change. I began to fight, fight everything and everybody. I watching me go though another change, I began to leave my house from one day to three weeks at a time, watching me going down. And when I was out there drinking, nobody was talking about alcohol or alcoholism. Good morning, what we drinking? I said, I just said good morning, What we chipping in for? They never did say good morning. See, and the minute I found out what we were chipping in for, I would do the running to get the booze. I'd drop kids, groceries, everything to get the booze. And I'm watching me go down. Many, many people pull me up on the carpet. Why do you drink the way you do? Why do You act the way You do? You have a beautiful husband there. You have A beautiful home. You don't have to work. You Have every material thing any woman would want on this earth. Ooh, I could rattle off excuses. A mile a minute and my main excuse was loneliness. I cried of loneliness all my life, looking for someone to love me, to understand me, to do something with me and I couldn't find it in the bottle and I didn't find that love until I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, something that I had been searching for all my whole life and of course I'm going down and I start to hit hospitals, broken fingers. Girls, don't you ever fry a frozen chicken drunk Don't do that I hit the grease over my legs And burnt up both of my legs Came in on a $2 beer drunk Fell down the basement steps Hit the concrete, bust my ribs up Mr. Bailey stepped over me and went to work I swore he whipped me till I came to AA The man never touched me Never touched me Just stepped over and went away Stepped over me And went to working and there I got busted ribs. I continued to watch me go down. One of my neighbors pulled me up on the carpet, and she says to me, I'm very much ashamed to live next door to somebody like you. I bought this house to get away from people like you Would you mind telling me what's the matter with you? I says, oh, Jimmie Lee, I suffer with my nerves, and she suggested that I drink rum. Isn't that nice? I left her standing in that little bitty kitchen I ran around to the Empire Liquor Store and I lived in Jamaica, Long Island Can one of you drunks please tell me how in the hell did I wake up in Brycliffe, New York with that bottle of rum I don't know how I got to Brycliff, New Yorke but a beautiful lady named Wig took me in off the streets and I became a booze fighter in her home I'd put a shot in the coffee in the morning, calling it Coffee Royal. I'd hide the bottle. I don't care where I hid it. I found it. And you remember we used to have those old-fashioned tanks up there with the water up top? I'd be up and down that pole all day long drinking that cold liquor. And when the lady would come home, I'd begin burping and burping, and the poor soul didn't know what to do for me. So one night she sat me down by the fire. She says, You know, Liz, you're a lovely person, but drinking is your problem. She says, I had to put my husband out of here for his drinking. Well, when she got through with me, I was filled with so much guilt and remorse that I wanted to die because here I'm up in this God-forsaken country. I don't know where I'm at. I'm fighting the booze. I'm away from my three beautiful children, and I decided that I will sit in the Catholic church all day just so I won't touch a drink and that I will peel this lady's potatoes and at least do a decent thing to get her dinner started. Well, I did. I sat in the church all day. Four o'clock, I came out the church. I walked straight into the bar and I say to the bartender, would you give me one to relax? I'm going to peel this ladies' potatoes today. Oh, give me two to get started because I've got to peel her potatoes. Then he gave me a third free drink. You don't walk out on a free drink, that's not nice. No, no, no. Then I have to buy one back to look good. It's very important that I look good and by the time I get to the fourth or the fifth drink they're hell with her and her potatoes, let's go. So you know the lady never got any potatoes from me. So I called up Mr. Bailey, he banged the phone up on me and I came back because my little girl, two years old at the time, wouldn't eat. And Mr. Bailey, you'd see him throw me out the front door in brown bags and shopping bags. And I'm now sleeping in down in unfinished basements. Don't drink down there! Don't smoke down there. Take care of my children in the day and back to the basements until Mr. Billy would let me back in. I watched me going down. One morning I woke up, my head was coming off my body. I took Anacin, Alka-Seltzer, BCs, Aspirins. I put a raw egg in the beer. I did everything to straighten my head up, and I couldn't get my head together. I reached over and grabbed the Bible off the night table. I figured maybe I'll find the answer in there how to straighten this life of mine up. By now I've been beaten to a pulp where I can't come out of my house for two and three weeks at a time. And as I grabbed the Bible, Mr. Bailey passed my room Put that Bible down, you hypocrite Put it down 20 minutes to an hour, you'll be so drunk You'll be slapping one of the kids down He was right, nobody got in the way of me getting a drink He says, oh, you're going to be hopping a cab And the cab driver used to say Please take somebody else's cab It took me three days to clean up my cab behind you or I would be swinging the corner. Now, I had asked Mr. Bailey many times, don't say too much to me when I'm on a drunk. Don't say Too Much to Me if I'm Coming Off a Drunk. And then when he'd give me the silent treatment, man, that's exit. Now he's not talking to me. You know, but what could the poor man do? He'd be damned if he didn't. He'd Be Damned If He Don't, you know. And so his mouth kept going. And he said, you'll be swinging a corner. This is the first time I thought of suicide. Never before had I thought of suicide, I literally ran and jumped up in a second floor window and as I'm standing directly in this window getting ready to throw my body down into the yard there's a little lady named Nana Backer down in the yard and she's screaming, Mr. Bailey! Mr. Bailey! You better get her, she's going to jump! His head comes out this kitchen window and I see his hands come out. He says, Nana, will you let that bitch jump? He said, I'll be rid of all my problems, all my troubles. Let that bitch junk. Well, you know, I looked over at him. I wanted to know who the hell did he think he was. I guarantee every one of you I got down out of that window. I got back in that bed. I pulled a sheet over me and slept that one off, you know, the nerve of him. And I continued to drink. I went out and had a lousy $2 beer drunk. Never will I forget it. I can see it just like it was yesterday. And, I came in and he's saying, look at this, you're drunk again and no dinner. I said, I've asked you, don't argue with me, please, when I'm drinking. Would you mind seeing me up the three steps to the bedroom? I came to, I had a black slack suit on and a gold coat. My front two teeth was doing like this. The blood was all over the front of me. There was a policeman sitting at the foot of me." I don't know what happened, and I don' t know where I'm at. I see people walking around on the ceilings. I see a big man in the door doing like that to me. And I get up and I go over to him. Please don't ask me how I answered his questions. But he said to Mr. Bailey, take her home. She answered all my questions and I said to Mr. Bailey, don't you dare lay down because if you lay down, I'm going to get you for taking me to some Kings County hospital. Well, it took me three days to find out. I had totally blacked out as I went up the third step. Took another three days. Three days to figure out I had tried to kill him in the blackout, why I had to be bashed in the mouth. And you know what? Mr. Bailey sat up for three nights he was afraid to lay down you don't blame that man because I might have gotten him he waited till I calmed down and I kept on drinking and I said to him one night and some of you non-alcoholics might know this one maybe if you drank with me I wouldn't want to drink so much and roam he went around and got a bottle of Gordon's gin we laid up in the TV room and the bottle got like this and if you're an alcoholic you know what happened to me I panicked because that's not going to take me through the night and that's no longer my morning drink I took my elbow and hit him I said daddy would you run around and get another bottle before the liquor store closed. He said, not me, Liz. I've had enough. Oh, I wanted to kill him. Oh, wanted to killing. You ever see an Indian on a rampage at two in the morning? Up, dress, out, zoom! Aren't you afraid to go underneath the Long Island Railroad at two o'clock in the evening? Two in the mornin'? Who the hell's thinkin' about the railroad? I wasn't thinkin'. I was gettin' to Sutton's Bar and Grill to fill my Coca-Cola bottle full and to sit there and close up the place. And I kept going down, and I'm watching me go down. Mary Macklin's sisters used to be patching me up. Every time you looked at me, I had a new patch somewhere else. And they asked me to come to an alcoholic clinic on a Tuesday morning. It went in this air and out that air. And every situation I took to Sutton's Bar and Grill on 177th Street and Jamaica Avenue. One day Mr. Bailey came to me and he says, you know? You're the nicest wife when you're sober. Drunk, you're a Jekyll and a Hyde. Why don't you try this AA? Whenever you feel like a drink, run over to the phone, pick up the phone, and call someone to talk you out of the drink. I don't hear this no more in AA. I don' t hear a lot of things no more AA, but I'm going to pound on this. Pick up that phone and call somebody. You might save that person's life on the other end. It has happened time and again, and I'm not going into the flowery words of what I said to Mr. Bailey because cursing is my character defect. I have tried to clean up my act in sobriety. I find that it's not ladylike for me to use profanity, and especially if I'm sober. That doesn't go with sobriety at all. It really doesn't, not in here. And so you know what I told him to do with AA, right? So he walked away, and he never mentioned AA again because Dr. Graniger had said to him, I want you to go home and tell Mrs. Bailey she's either going to drink herself to death, she will drink herself into a mental institution, or she will drinking herself into Alcoholics Anonymous. And once you tell her that, keep your big mouth shut and take care of Mr. Bailey. Thank God for Al-Anon because Al-A-Non teaches you the same thing, M-Y-O-B. Mind your own business. Al- Anon tells you that you didn't cause it, you can't cure it, and you definitely can't control it. And when you take care yourself, that's the best that you can do. And that's what Mr. Billy did. he walked away, and he never mentioned AA again. In eight to ten months, I saw myself going down. I'm going to tell you about my last drunk. I'm drinking with hard two-fist drinkers in the VFW Hall on 110th and Merrick Road. As I said before, I could never stand anybody who took a drink like this and sipped on it for a half hour. You got on my nerves, and I didn't bother with you. You didn't have no trouble out of me sipping that stuff for a length of time. And I remember there was a lady, Miss Lindbaum. I hadn't seen her since I was eight years old and she was coming to sell some insurance for the house. I got up, it was in July, and I straightened up. I left my dusting even to last and I really wanted to see Miss Lindbom. I really wanted to, made salads and everything. And the phone rang and it was one of the men from the post. I heard his voice and I took the phone and I banged it down. He called me back the second time. I said, oh man, don't bug me. There's a lady coming. I haven't seen her since I'm eight years old. And I really want to stay here and see this lady today Because, you see, Liz knows Liz now. Liz knows that once she picks up that drink, Liz is not in the position anymore to tell you what's happening to her or where she's even going to wake up. And that's frightening to have to live like that. That is terrible to have lived. And I had to livelike that because I didn't know any better. I didn' t know anybetter. And I remember banging the phone down on him the second time. I went around the corner to the store and I came back he was on the phone for the third time he said Liz would you do me a favor hop a cab I'll introduce you to the people I want you to meet I'll put you back in the cab and I'll send you home to your company I figured let me do that because he's going to run me up a wall today I got in the cabin I went over there the booze started lining up the jukebox is going and I'm singing, You Always Hurt the One You Love. And the one you don't want to hurt, give me another drink. Smile if you're happy, give him another drink." I could sing them old Weepin' Harry songs. As I said, I'm 75 and I haven't seen Miss Lindbaum until yet. And I forgot what the lady even looks like, to tell you the truth. And I woke up in one of my son's twin beds. And at the foot of this twin bed, and I can see that like it was yesterday, stood my mom. And she had her head going, and she was screaming to the rooftops, somebody done done something to her. Somebody's done done Something to Her. And I looked over at Mr. Bailey, andI saw his head going. and his head was just going back and forth and he was saying no mom nobody's done anything to her she happens to be a very sick girl he didn't call me bitch you know my name was bitch he said I was a sick girl I got right up out of that bed I went down to the basement of that house I stayed in the basement for two days praying to die I wanted out. My oldest son was 12 years old at the time and I looked at him and I said, Richard, I can't live like this. This is not the way I want to live. Look at this you can't depend on me for anything. I'm going to go up on the Long Island Railroad, I'm gonna jump in front of a train and I'm just going to end it door. And I started to scream, oh God, oh God, please help me. Never have I screamed to God so as I did that second night in that basement. Please help me and if you call upon your higher power he will answer you because he answered me. He said try this AA that your father has told me about. I took the telephone book down, I called AA. And when I came into AA, there were very, very few women. And they used to go out on 12-step calls, but they didn't have anyone to send me. And I got myself together and I went into Manhattan at 28th Street and Lexington Avenue. Intergroup was one flight up over a bar. I got in the vestibule and I said, the hell with AA. Then I said no, you've taken the bus, the subway, you've run a couple of blocks. Try to get up the stairs again. I got in the middle of the landing and as I went to turn to go down into the bar, a lady looked down the stairs at me and she says, are you having trouble? I said, yes ma'am. And I was having trouble getting up those stairs and I ran up the steps and I went up the upstairs to her. She escorted me in the front part of the office and she sat me down and she started to tell me about herself. Oh my God, I got goose pimples and chills. I started to fall off the chair. Who talks about themselves like this? My mother says put it in a closet. Put it in the dresser drawer. Shove it under the rug. But don't you dare go out and tell nobody where you got the black eyes, the busted mouths or the fights in your house. And I'm saying, Jesus, why don't you put this stuff in a garbage can? Make sure she got a lid on it. Because see, I would never tell you about me before AA. I didn't have time anyway, but there again. She says to me, it's the first drink. I said, oh, come on, sweetie, I've been drinking years. She said, when you pick up one drink of any type of alcohol, even down to cough medicine, It's only a matter of time that a compulsion sets up into you That you have to go all the way She smacked me right between the eyes with that I've seen myself take two drinks on a Monday You're looking for me Wednesday, Tuesday you'll be looking for my face When I take two drink I go to Gert's department store I buy a fifth I drank the whole fifth and nothing happened Thursday I run back there and get me another bottle Friday I'm knitting without needles have any of you knitted without needles but I'm walking up and down and I'm knitting and I've got to go get that drink to get me back in focus and she said and we do it with a sponsor now when I came to AA I didn't have to look for a sponsor they walked up and said I'm your sponsor you didn't look for one I'm the sponsor and you picked some tough sponsors told me, A.A. didn't need me I needed A.I. I tried another time I whined to her she said sit on the pot or get up off it boy she was the best sponsor I could have believe me because if she had pampered me she would have pampered right out the door see because I came from the streets in here not from a bedroom and so again she said we do it with meetings meetings, meetings, meeting meetings. And I don't want anyone in this audience or any of AA rooms to ever tell me that you cannot find a sponsor out of two and a half million people. There's got to be somebody good for you in one of these rooms so that you don't have to do this beautiful fellowship alone. And so there again she gave me the choice of two meetings. I don' know about you girls but my hair used to stay drunk. I'd get it fixed good and the minute I get drunk I forget the hair and Mr. Bailey would give me money for clothes, I never looked too tough but I'm now going to my first AA meeting so I get my hair done nicely and I buy a two piece blue suit and I'm going off to my first AA meeting and as I got down into this room walking towards the coffee counter, two of the girls and I am only mimicking them looked up at me and said you don't look like an alcoholic. I said, what the hell did I get myself into? Let me get the hell out of here. And I started running out that room as fast as I could get out of there. And as I got to the door, and once you got into a AA room, you never got out of it. No, they didn't let you out. He didn't left me out. He hit me. He said, What's the matter with you? Where are you going? I said, those girls said I don't look like an alcoholic. I don' t know what an alcoholic looks like. I'm about to lose my mind, my home, my children and everything through drinking. He said, have a seat, sweetie. You're in the right place. And they put two of those tables together that night and they sat around and they shared their strength, hope and experience with me. it's but for the grace of God but for the grace of God Alcoholics Anonymous Al-Anon Alateen Alatot OA GA PA NA EA the only aid that I refused to speak at in Seattle Washington was Sex Anonymous. I will not put my sex life on that tape to come across this United States, okay? Because I still have a family. If I live to July the 11th, I will now be celebrating 44 years away from my last time. I came in these doors July the 11th, 1952 at the age of 31 and you know I was only 13 when I was 31 because I was beaten down mentally, physically and spiritually from the streets of New York. And I had to come in here to find out who I was, and I'm ever grateful that you told me to stay sober for myself. You told me don't do it for my mother because if I had stayed sober for my mom I'd be drunk, drunk, and drunk. My mother did not like me telling you I was an alcoholic. It took my mom 29 1⁄2 years of my sobriety to tell me to stay with them A's, whatever they are. I don't plan to leave these A's. Mr. Bailey couldn't stand me sober and he took the first ten years and I mean he worked overtime to try to get me back into the streets of New York. But you didn't tell me to say sober for Mr. Baillie. You told me to stay sober for Liz. I had the honor and privilege 34 years ago to speak for our late co-founder bill wilson at the hotel commodore for bill's 28th anniversary mr bailey didn't want to come at first when i invited him he told me to get myself another husband for that night and my girlfriend said you're going to ask him again i said hell no i'm the speaker but the night before when you leave people alone they'll come home wagging their tails behind them don't bother them leave them if they don't want them and the day before Bill's big dinner. He asked what time should he be there. He timed me. He said I did a good job, but when we arrived back at the house, he banged every pot and screamed that he had to get rid of me, that he couldn't stand me in this sobriety another minute. I used the third and the eleventh step. That's your decision maker. Three and eleven. And God spoke to me just like I'm speaking to you. If you pick up one drink, you don't have Liz. If you pick up one drink, you don t have Mr. Bailey. And I just told you when I pick up a drink, I m not in that house. I'm waking up where I don t know where I m at. So I left Mr. Baillie thirty-four years ago in a $60,000 home at that time. I moved to a room, room and kitchenette, and then to an apartment. I went back ten years ago to take care of Mr. Bailey in his last days because I've stood on these platforms for so many years telling you how much I love Mr. Billy and the more sober I got, the more I loved him because you see, I could look and see how he kept the house, he kept his children, he kep everything together while I was in the streets. He could have cashed it all in but he didn't. Today I'm back in that home and it's paid for, isn't that nice? He left it paid for for me. And I was so grateful that I could go back and take care of him in his last days. And he told me in the hospital, he says, take my hand. He says, you know, Liz, I really love you. And I screamed, took me 47 years to hear that. But I got it. Got it. And don't give up girls before the miracle. Don't you dare. But I was so happy because he thanked me for coming and feeding him and saving his life as much as I could to help him. I have an older son who has hated me these 44 years, and he has let me know that he will never, never forgive me or forget me for my past. He lives in California. And you know, I had all these years asked God to forgive me for my past and God has forgiven Liz Bailey 70 times 7 for my pass. So any man, any woman, any child wants to hold my pass over my head has to be their problem it is definitely not mine because i have been forgiven by my god my son now has cancer and i just sent him the message two months ago that i will go to california and take care of him or he can come to new york to my home and i'll take care of him the choice is his because i love him he doesn't have to love me and this is what the principles that I've been taught in AA. I had a beautiful son, 28 years old and you young people, I love you and I hug you like I hug my friend here tonight over here and when I see the young people come in I get awfully excited because you're the next legacy here and you're going to walk in Liz Bailey's footsteps yes you are to keep AA alive and we need young people He was 28 And I used to say to him Dennis, the right road may be hard But you'll be the winner The easy road, the price is heavy The 25th of this month 26 years ago Dennis was shot and killed In between two houses And right behind Dennis My sister went into Manhattan 1730 St. Nicholas And jumped 30 floors Right behind that A nephew, 26 years old shot and killed on amsterdam avenue right behind that a cousin who was too smart for this program he didn't need this fellowship beaten to death up in connecticut and am i ever grateful that i did not have to pick up a drink a drug or anything about these tragedies in my life because i'm in the most powerful fellowship in the world again, we can do together what I could have never done alone I've come this far through many beautiful people like Stanley, he calls me he writes me beautiful letters and notes these are the things that add to my life and I appreciate them, I don't take it for granted and I thank you for loving me until I could love myself I have an older daughter that little two-year-old that wouldn't eat She was five when I came to AA. Thank God she doesn't remember me as an active drunk. And I'll tell you what I've been talking throughout the United States and the different countries I've Been in. I'm begging you all to be role models for the children of today. They need role models, he and she. Please, our children are in trouble, serious troubles, because they have no role models. and thank God Judy has just come out of the sixth mental breakdown and by her living with me and me carrying the principles of this fellowship to her Judy is now back working with the federal government driving her car got a beautiful home that she has and she's doing beautiful today thank God because she has a sober mother sober mother she says to me sometimes aren't you sick of hearing yourself no not sick of hearing me because every time I talk this drunk along I relive it so I don't have to go back to it I don' t want to go back and I'm always praying that I reach somebody in my travels I have a beautiful AA baby she's 40 years old Her name is Adrian Anita. I named her after AA. And about 20 years ago now, she became a Muslim. She let me know today is her wedding anniversary. 20 years old. 20 years to go today. And her name is Aisha. And we walked into the AMP. And she says, the guy behind the counter says, Ooh, it's a stick-up! And I went hysterical on the floor. She says, Mother, are you accepting me as a Muslim? I said, You join whodism, buddhism. I really don't care whose ism as long as it helps you be a better person. I'm not raising no adult children today. No way. I'm never raising any more children. I have 12 grandchildren that I see by appointment only. And I want you to believe that. I'm nicht babysitten. Oh, you should see me packing my bags every weekend. See you later, sugar. I just heard them tell on the television up in my hotel room they want us grandmothers to stay off these planes. I'm one grandmother who's going to be hard-headed. I'm going to keep flying, I'm gonna tell you. Because I don't feel within me anything's going to happen to me up in those planes. I don' t feel that way. And that's my belief and my feeling. But there again, I have these two great-grandchildren. I came to believe. It took me five years. I admitted and accepted and surrendered to the fact that I am an alcoholic. I have no choice to pick up a drink if I want to live this beautiful life. I have choice about many other things. And then I came TO BELIEVE. There was a power. I happen to say to Dan today, I hope it don't take you all as long as me to get the key to your life. it took me 20 years in AA to get the key to my life and that was to seek God first he was so sick of me putting him in between people places and things, he said you seek me first and my kingdom and my righteousness for all things to be added unto you and what a change my life has been in this last 24 years I've gone up and had 9 operations in 41 years I went up and had three operations in six weeks the doctor told me I had cancer he says, I'm going to give you six months to live I said, oh no, you don't talk to me like that I'm in a fellowship that teaches me I live one day at a time I'm now 29 years an arrested cancer patient and my motor's running fine sugar. I've never had a car in my whole sobriety and every night a different white dude picks me up you know and we got this instant love and my neighbors say oh my god from a drunk to this what she put them down but you know i laugh at that because there was a time i didn't know what i was putting down but i thank my god for many years now i know what I'm putting down i know where i've been what i've said and what i'm doing it's so beautiful and i learned that i have to take my inventory that's an important step and fifth steps are very important steps to take i have to clean up myself change my thinking and my actions a lot of changes I've had to do on me today I can admit to God to myself in another human being the exact natures of my wrongs I have to do that if I want to be free and if I want to celebrate life every day and let it begin with me right here I keep a sign up in my kitchen it says have a good day unless you've made other plans And I love that because I don't plan to be miserable. I told the girls and the fellows today when I came here, I said I set myself up to have a good time everywhere I go, and I have it. As a man thinketh, so be it. You want to be down? You can be down. You wantto be up? You can come up right here with loving and caring. I want to see the old AA come back, whether you like it or not. I want to see the old AA come back where we work with one drunk to another drunk, not just go to a detox and come out and sit, that's why you get drunk so fast come out and find another drunk like Bill did Bill found Bob, that is how AA came about you find a drunk I remember when I first came in, I brought the drunks home he or she and laid them on my living room couch. And I took care of the drunks until I could get you on your feet. And once I got you on Your feet, I took You to seven meetings a week and three times on Sunday. And I've never sobered up anybody but Me. That kept Me sober. That kept Good. I was taught in this fellowship never to say no to anyone who asks anything of me. And from July the 11th, 1952 to this very moment of June 13th I have never said no to anyone and God is good all the time. There's only one person I haven't made amends to and that's my bartender. I owe him two dollars and he will never get the two dollars I sent his children to college sitting on the bar stool, yes. I bought him a new Cadillac every year. I saw it going up and down while I'm sitting in the bar and I just want to take one of you to Vermont and show you the home I bought Him. It would injure me to give Him the $2 because the place closed down when I stopped drinking in it. The place hasn't been there in 44 years. It's an athletic club. Who are you supporting? and so again, I've made amends to my loved ones thank God my neighbors are happy that I'm sober they kiss me in the head, up and down the arms they're so happy I don't have to say too much to anybody they're still happy and there again, i take time out to when I'm wrong, I promptly admit it and when I'M RIGHT, I SHUT UP I DON'T TRY TO PROVE TO ANYBODY WHERE I'M COMING FROM Three of you hear me three different ways. To be a people pleaser leads me to low self-esteem, and to be a person who loves others and to a people pleasing leads me to resentments. So I don't try to please. I try to do my best and leave the rest. God will take care of it. I want to express my love to each and every one of you, the deepest love that I can give you, because without you I couldn't be here. I couldn' t be here, and I know it, and when they say you go to any lengths for your sobriety yes, I go to many lengths for my sobrietry yes I do and give love to one another don't let AA get cold, please don't a lot of places I go you speak to people they don't even speak to you and when you do that to me you know what I do to you I say didn't I just speak to yo I'll do it I'll so it yes I will do it And I just because I'm in a fellowship where we speak to each other. We care about each other, we love and I want that to stay here. I want it to stay. Thank you with my heart, the committee and all. I hope I didn't leave anyone out. Don't get no resentments because you're only allowed two seconds of one if you do get one. That's the eater, they'll eat you up. Get into your steps. Traditions, don't be running out the tradition rooms. because when you learn the traditions you learn how to keep your 12 steps and how to protect AA and yourself you really do learn the legacies, it's nice to know about them and also please care and love and share with one another if I, Liz Bailey because I have a primary purpose never had a primary purpose before I got here and that is to stay sober and I always hope and pray every time I'm allowed to share that I just touch one of you I'm not looking to save the world like my daughter says oh there she goes to savethe world I'm just want God to use me where he puts me he put me here today and if I can just touch 1 of you then I, Liz Bailey I have not lived in vain. Thank you so much.