The Controlled Drinking Rule That Only Applied on Airplanes – Marilyn S.

hi i'm maryland and i'm an alcoholic so happy to be here and uh how's this better testing one two good Let's see, where am I? Ah, I'm an alcoholic, yes. That's where I am. And I am so pleased to be here. I am grateful to the committee for this honor and privilege of participating in this, probably the most beautiful of all roundups and conventions. No setting like this one. I've been to Yosemite several times and love it very much. and I anticipate that corner, you know, as you drive into the park and I know what I'm going to see. And yet whenever I go around that corner I just have to stop and cry because there's El Capitan, there's Half Dome and there's nothing like it in the world. And here we are in the middle of it. It was wonderful to hear Keith last night. Keith and Sally are from my home group and I met Brianna and some other people there is no place anywhere that I go that I don't see people that I know these days Alcoholics Anonymous has kept me sober now for over 30 years and I take no credit for a test to the power of this program in fact that's really all I have to say this morning but I'll rave on of course but it's all an elaboration of that basic point that I'm an alcoholic and we know what that means we try to drive like normal people but it is a bad end for us and the people around us usually but there is something so powerful here that my disease has been arrested for over a quarter of a century. And that's the miracle, that's the magic. I came first to the program in 1969, but my sobriety date is February 2nd, 1972. So it took a while for me to understand what was going on here. I came first and I sat in the back, tried to understand what people were talking about, and And it seemed that people were saying something like, if you have a strong faith in God, then there's a little bit of a chance for you. People talked about an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind. And I had no idea what that was. Allergy suggested hives and rash. Now, I turned all yellow and my hair fell out, but no rash. And obsession didn't really mean much to me either. Now I realize that I lived in a state of negative obsession all of my life, but I didn't recognize the word because I'd never experienced anything apart from that. But obsession of the mind, these words were peculiar. So I thought to myself, I am not a real alcoholic. I'm not even an alcoholic. Other people think I'm an alcoholic, Like every adult left in my life thought that I should go to AA or do something about my drinking. But I couldn't see it. And I think that's one reason why so many of us die of our disease. And that is that we can't see that we have it. Everybody else in the world comes, or everybody else that knows us, it's obvious to them because we're drunk all the time and cause embarrassment and drive on the wrong side of the road. But to us, it just seems that it could not be that. Why is that so? Even having the disease, I don't understand why it's so hard to accept that. So that's where I was in 1969. I thought to myself, I'm not an alcoholic like everybody else in these rooms that I go to, so I am going to distance myself from this strange fellowship that's probably good, but it doesn't apply to me. Now this program is very strong. As long as I was going to meetings, I didn't drink. And after I stopped going to meetings, I stayed sober. There's a lot of power here. And yet, a plane trip was coming up for me. And I didn' t like to fly. I'd studied science for a lot of years. I even understood Bernoulli's principle. but those things are heavier than air so I was nervous and I thought to myself I'm going to make a little rule for myself now I've been to AA, I'm probably not an alcoholic but just in case there's a chance that there's some kind of a gene that might propel me into alcoholism at some point well what I'm gonna do is I'll just make this rule. I will only drink on airplanes. And that was good. I now look forward to the flight and I enjoyed it. I stayed in Ohio for a whole month and had no desire to drink and that was a revelation to me. I look forward to the trip home, of course And I certainly enjoyed that trip. And as I got back to Los Angeles, I realized that I did the one thing that an alcoholic can't do, and that was that I controlled and enjoyed my drinking, certainly enjoyed it. And I had heard chapter, the chapter that we heard at this very meeting read that the great obsession of every alcoholic is somehow, someday to control and enjoy his drinking and I had done that impossible thing so I said to myself I know I'm not an alcoholic but just in case I have those tendencies I'm going to make a little rule for myself I'm gonna have two drinks a day no more and I love beer That was my favorite drink. Loved that. It was an all-purpose drink. I mean, it had so much water in it, you didn't have to drink anything else. So much sugar in it. You didn't even have to eat anything else, which took care of all my needs. So two cans of beer a day and that worked. And it worked so well that I upped it to a six pack. And then pretty soon I had retired to my garage and was sitting out there with many cases of empty cans, just wondering how did I lose count? How did it go so terribly wrong? And I just sat there contemplating the sorry state of my life. I think that's another reason why so many of us die of our disease, and that is that while we're drinking, there is always that illusion that controlled drinking works. A lot of times it does. Enough times so that I remember those times, and all I had to do was get back to those times with just the right circumstances because I had engaged in controlled drinking many times. So it nearly killed me. It took me about three years to get back To Alcoholics Anonymous. and there's a friend of ours that speaks a lot in A.A. Clint Age, and he once was talking and said that there are three kinds of prayer. Help me, give me, and use me. And I listened to that, and I liked that, because that told the story of my recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous. At first I could only say, help, help. Please help me. I am so lost and then a little bit later I was able to make the give me prayers like grant us the serenity to accept things we cannot change give us this day our daily bread I could say those things and mean them I needed help from God and I needed to be given certain things so that I could maintain sobriety so that i could understand this program and eventually way later in Alcoholics Anonymous I was able to ask in a sincere way, use me make me an instrument of your peace help me to say something that might reach someone who's new help me dear God to be of use to the alcoholic who still suffers that was much later in sobriety but that does tell the story of my recovery back in those days when I was sitting out in the garage I could only say help and I had studied science as I said and I was a confirmed atheist so of course I didn't say help me God because I didn' t believe in God I had a lot of scorn for that whole thing I couldn' t belief that there could be a transcendent force that somehow presides over us all as people talked about in this strange fellowship and I said help me, and I prayed to the great higher power central office in Los Angeles. And that was a good one, because it was bigger than I was, more powerful certainly. And it could help me. And it sent a 12-step worker. Her name was, and is, Lorena. And she's sober in Ojai, and it's still very active in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's good to be active. It keeps you sober a long time. And she came to see me. and she came early in the afternoon and told me that she would take me to Alcoholics Anonymous and I expressed out to her that I don't think I'm a real alcoholic, I told her. I just seem to be drinking way too much and I need help to cut back so that I can really deal with whatever it is that's wrong with me. She said, yes, we have a program that's just right for you and I told her that I had certain requirements and one was that I needed to be taken to a dark, quiet intellectual meeting and she rolled her eyes and said yeah we have a meeting for you and I explained that there is one group that I should not be taken too And that is, in West L.A., there's this big active group called the Pacific Group. And Keith talked about that last night. Now, I had been there because, as I said, I visited Alcoholics Anonymous three years previously. And as I went to meetings, somebody would always come up to me and take my hand and say, You're pretty intense. I know a group that's just right for you. and I would be led sometimes willingly off to this big active group and I didn't like it because there were bright lights intrusive people they ask questions like what's your name? how long have you been sober? they ask other questions like do you have a home group? do you Have a job at this meeting? Do you have sponsor? Do you go to lots of meetings? And the answer was no of course but I didn't want to tell them, and I did not like that kind of intrusiveness. And so I explained that I really didn't ever want to go to that group because there would be no hope for me in that kindof environment. And Lorena said, Oh, there's so many meetings in L.A., you don't have to goto a group like that. No, not at all. And I said, There's one more thing, too. Now, I'd like to meet somebody named Marion, Mary Ann W., and I've seen her before, and I heard her talk, and I really understood her. I was always too afraid to talk to her, but I want to meet her again. And Lorena, my 12th stepper, said, I don't know her,but if she's still sober, and if you get sober and stay sober, you'll meet up with her because we all meet one another again and again and Again in this fellowship. So off we went that night. She stayed with me all afternoon. So I couldn't drink my beloved beer. I could have, but I want approval. I'm desperate for approval. And that's why, one of the reasons why Alcoholics Anonymous, I think in the end was effective for me. That sounds like a character defect, being a people pleaser. But it's funny, I've come to believe that as we come into Alcoholics Anonymous. God acting through the fellowship takes whatever we bring in here, it's all broken and twisted and crazy, and works with whatever we have. And for me, it was a pile of character defects and brokenness. And so I needed every bit of that. I needed my helplessness. I needed mine. I needed desperation. I needed everything that made me useless in the world, but that worked to my advantage. My desperation, my willingness to scream help me, my terrible dependence on other people, my need for approval. And I wanted Lorena's approval, so I knew I couldn't open that can of beer while she was sitting there. And my head hurt and I felt bad. But off we went and sure enough we went to a dark, quiet meeting and I was able to sleep and that was good and the coffee break was jarring and troublesome and I said to myself I wonder how long this will go on and I looked forward to the quiet but before I fell asleep the leader got up to the podium and said our main speaker tonight is Marion W. And I looked, and there she was, my Marian. And I just thought to myself, this is an amazing coincidence. She talked, and I heard my story. But I heard a lot more than my story, because she told what it was like. And she told me about it. She told what happened to her, and then I could see what it Was like now. She radiated a kind of joy, a self-assurance, a sense of purpose that I had never had. And yet she told a story that was very like my own. She talked about being desperate and afraid, terribly afraid of everything. After the meeting, I ran up to her, I dropped to the floor and grabbed her ankles and screamed, be my sponsor, bemysponsor, and she said she would be. if I would go to her home group and her meetings. You guessed it. Yes, you did. So she outlined all the meetings in the Pacific group, and I said, oh, Marianne, no, you don't understand. That's out of the question. I've been there before, and that's not for me. And she said, Oh, I do understand. I understand. I'm sure there's a program that's just right for you. This is Los Angeles. There are many, many meetings here. Of course I can't be your sponsor. And I grabbed more tightly and said, no, don't ever go away. And I was struck with the gift of willingness. I said, even that, Marianne, even that. So off I went again into this big lighted bunch of rooms of the Pacific group. But this time it was a little bit better because people were intrusive and they said, do you have a sponsor? And I said yes with pride, it's Marian and they said oh you have a good sponsor and that made me so happy and you go to lots of meetings and now I could say yes I do because Marian encouraged me very strongly and he still had those doubts though this did not apply to me but I've got to stop drinking so much so I've just got to somehow get this secret here. And here I was enrolled and trying to follow along. I found early sobriety not to be very pretty. Now, mind you, I had sort of, well, I hadn't, not sort of. I had come in from my garage. Anyplace else was far too scary for me. And here I was, thrown in with lots of people. I hadn't been around people for five or six years. And I was pretty terrified. But now I had an advocate. I had somebody who would interpret the program for me. And there were just terrible things, I mean, things that had baffled me all of my life, like, what do you do if somebody says, how are you? That had caused me trouble for years. I would listen to it, and I think I understood the question, so I'd explain, well, I have a lot of anxiety, and I'd describe that for ten minutes, and then I'd talk about periodic suicidal depressions, and usually looking at the floor, and thenI'd look up, and they had fled away in terror long ago. And I just, I didn't know how people did it. And so I finally summoned courage enough to ask Marion, what do you do with that question? And she just laughed at me. I mean, she often did that when I asked her questions. And she said, Marilyn, most people regard that as a kind of greeting. Really, all you have to do is say, fine, how are you? So I went home and practiced in front of a mirror and came back to a meeting and it wasn't long before somebody sprang that question and this time I could just say, fine, how are you? And they began talking and it was wonderful. I just looked around and I thought, people think we're in a conversation. It's just like normal people, happy. and I ran back to Marian and grabbed on tightly and said we were in a conversation it worked and Marian said that's wonderful what did you learn about Judy and she said yes that's the person you were talking to what did you learn about her and I said well nothing I was thinking about what I was going to say to her. Marian said yes, yes and she began to give me a whole new vocabulary like self-obsession many, many words and then she began to quiz me so I'd have to listen to other people now early on her husband was standing in as secretary one night at our home group the big Pacific group And her husband, Byron, asked me to speak that night, give a 10-minute talk in my home group. And that's how newcomers are treated. But I didn't know that. I just ran into Marion after saying, oh, no, to Byron. And Byron said, well, go talk with your sponsor about that. And so I did, knowing that Marion, who surely loved me desperately and wanted me only to be happy, would back me up. On the other hand, she said, no, Marilyn, that is an AA request. You must say yes to AA requests. If you want to recover, you have to trust that the fellowship knows what is good for you. you will get what you need only if you say yes to Alcoholics Anonymous it was so dramatic and wanting to please Marian more than anything else on earth I went back to Byron and said well I talked with Marian and she says that I have to say yes so I was up at the podium and talked and talked for 10 minutes and sat down, and there was the mild applause. You can't really do anything wrong in Alcoholics Anonymous. People encourage you for any kind of attempt. So I sat down and ran to Marion at the coffee break, and Marion patted me on the head, and she said, It was good for you to say yes to an AA request. But my heart sank, and I braced myself and she said, but you're going to have to start mentioning that you drank. I had displeased Marianne, my goddess of sobriety and I was heartbroken. However, I did begin to talk about my drinking. I talked to other newcomers and talked and talked about my drinking. Whenever I was called to participate, I began to talk about my drinking. I began to put my life into the context of an AA story. I began to listen to other stories and tell my story in that way. And a whole new world opened for me. I had not realized that I drank so much. I had never seen that until I told the chronology of it, I realized that I knew when I'd had my first drink. Now, a lot of normal people don't know things like that. My husband is a normal person whatever that is. A non-alcoholic let's say. In this world of alcoholics and non-alkoholics if you say to a non- alcoholic, when did you first taste alcohol? They just sort of look at you. It's like, when did you first ride in a Chevrolet? Who cares? But many of us realize we have encountered something really special with that first drink. I mean, I was eight years old and I had a toothache. And my mother back in Ohio said, we have a remedy for that. So she filled up a little cotton ball with scotch and told me to hold it on my tooth. And I sucked that cotton ball dry. And I asked for a refill. And she left the bottle of scotch in the room, and I enjoyed that toothache all night long. Now, the next day, I didn't realize that And that stuff is the answer to all the pain that I feel in this world. I didn't learn that for a long time, but I could really go after it and take care of all of my needs. I just waited for somebody to put a glass in my hand, and that came up now and then. I went to a party with her when I was 12 years old, and there were lots of mixed drinks. I finished all of those that I could see that were just sitting around. Lots of non-alcoholics were there, and they have the ability to take a few sips and lose their glass. and I found it and pretty soon I was I think my first blackout was what it was because I came out of it and I was out in the bushes outside the officers club making out with my mother's boss a colonel in the air force he was pawing and groping, and I was looking up at him and saying, this is the happiest moment of my life. All 12 years of it. And a little bit later, we were back in the officer's club and this time I was pawing and goping the colonel. And he was looking nervous now. He was trying to explain to his wife sitting next to him that he didn't know what was wrong with this terrible child, and then I was riding home in the backseat of the car, singing at the top of my lungs, a perfectly wonderful evening, and that's the way these encounters were. I saw that this is a little bit different from non-alcoholics, it's very like my friends in Alcoholics Anonymous. As years went by, I grew ever more miserable. I didn't know why I grew every more miserable, I was... Actually born into a happy, wholesome state, Ohio, with farmers and joyful people. And they get up in the morning and they go out and grow crops and take them to market and work in the grocery stores. And when people are sick, they visit them in hospitals and they take pies to new neighbors. And I didn't get it. I lived for the happiness of Marilyn Slater. I thought, I am so sad and so miserable and nobody quite guesses what's wrong with me and nobody pleases me enough and so I must spend every waking moment trying to be happy because I am a woman. I'm so miserable. I felt that I didn't have any friends and I wanted desperately to get you to like me and respect me And the harder I tried to achieve that, the worse it seemed to be. The more tense and nervous I became. The more resentful I became, I become convinced, of course, after the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, that a life lived for happiness, for my happiness, is the one thing that's guaranteed to make me miserable. a life that is lived just to get you to love me, to approve of me, to respect me will ensure that I will always feel unloved and disrespected. Now how could I ever figure that out? It just seemed to be the opposite of what I worked so hard to achieve. I hid in books and I studied science and I thought that maybe if I someday win the Nobel Prize I can pin it on my shirt, and I'll finally get some friends. But I was getting ever more miserable. I didn't know this, though, until Marion got me to talk about my alcoholism. Until I took the steps and wrote inventories. I began to see my life in the context of Alcoholics Anonymous. And then I began zu see these two things were happening. i was living a selfish and self-centered life it made me miserable and there was a solution for me because i was physiologically different from my fellows alcohol did something for me that just didn't do to other miserable miserable people that were seeking happiness uh there are selfish and soft-centered people and they're usually a miserable lot but many of them are not relieved by alcohol. So they are destined just to, I don't know what they do, actually. It would be a horrible thing, but we have a solution. And more frequently over the years, people began to put those glasses in my hand. I looked to science, as I said, and thought that that would make me happy. That was my higher power for a lot of years. It's kind of a good one. It certainly can answer a lot of those deep questions like, why are we here? And I felt that if I could understand enough of those basic laws then I could figure it out and understand the universe and what is it all about. I could understanding some things like the formation of planets even how massive granite formations like half-dome could appear. I thought that I can develop some kind of mastery and understanding and then I will be at peace if you do science well enough it will take care of you it will give you a paycheck and give you some friends what we look to a higher power for in Alcoholics Anonymous so I was looking to science for that and I was thinking I was asking for scientists I thought maybe if I can learn that esoteric language, I'll finally have some friends. Now my luck seemed to change when I went off to the big university in Chicago and wanted to get a job. And a scientist came out to give me a little test to see if I could get a Job. A real scientist. He had on a white lab coat and he was all pale like he'd been in a laboratory for all his life. and he had a slide rule in his pocket. Now, mind you, I'm old, and for you young people, a slide role is an old-fashioned calculator. So he had one of those. And it was just kind of a symbol of science. And I looked at... I wanted to grab and fondle his slide rule. after a few weeks I did now I got that job and Bill my scientist and I used to go out and eat a little dinner together and talk and we could talk about things like Einstein's special relativity and Schrodinger's equation. And no man had ever talked to me like that before. And one day he said, do you want to get married? And I said, yes, yes. And his dad was a Lutheran minister of all things and I was this confirmed atheist and we went back to Ohio and we were standing before his dad saying those traditional vows for better or for worse in sickness and in health and things like that. and Bill was agreeing he said yes I do and he had no idea what he was agreeing to but he's a noble guy he's the man of his word and he believes in keeping commitments and he tried in sickness and in health for better or for worse and I heard those vows and I said yes, yes, I do but what I meant was now I can attach to you like a tick on a dog and suck out your mind but you see I had to because that's the only kind of relationship I knew and that was a sick and hideous dependency I could not take care of myself in the world and I was always looking for those worm mammals that walked by and most of them sensed tick in the neighborhood and fled but Bill was locked into this strange thing and he's a scientist and he took a job in Los Angeles and we moved to California and after a while things did not go well I mean, you can just talk about Gegenbauer polynomial so long. And pretty soon it turned to, you really don't love me, do you? That's why I'm so miserable. You see, one more time, I was looking to him to make me happy, to love me so much that I stopped hurting inside. And the more desperate I got, the more I begged him to makes me happy. And I'd say things like, you don't care for me. That's why I'm so unhappy. And he'd say, well, what do you want? And I'd say well, will you never take me skiing? He'd say Well, we could go skiing. And I would say No, no, because you didn't think of it first. So this was love and we were hanging in there together and he was doing science and I was trying to do science and I wasn't able to do it. And I was working in a lab and this was the 60s by this time and gosh, that was an interesting time. As if I weren't miserable enough. My work was not going well. I seemed to cause a lot of explosions. I broke a lotof glassware. And the Vietnam War was going on and I had a sense of that. I was one of the few American-born people in our lab. And there were many people from other countries that would tell me, your country should not be in the war. And I'd say, yes. And I began to feel insecure and doubted everything. I didn't even know what was going on. But whatever it was seemed bad and a reason to have a drink. My lab mates took me out after work, and we went to various interesting bars around L.A., people playing guitars and singing protest songs. And it was a time of great discontent, and that matched my mood because, man, I was discontented. And I still didn't know what we were protesting, but I was mad. And the wonderful thing is that alcohol flowed freely and other things too, but they never interested me. I seem to be a pretty pure alcoholic. I began to see that as A taught me to tell my story. I beganto say that indeed I am a garden variety alcoholic. I just came to depend on it more and more. And pretty soon I began to realize that I will not feel so bad if I just bring a lot of beer into the lab. And I did that and hid it in a big refrigerator and changed my research project. It was the biochemistry of muscle, and I changed it to the biochemistry of muscle at low temperatures and moved into this big refrigerator with my beer. and i had the feeling that now i am finally doing super science the reality was that once i began to drink beer constantly i stopped working entirely it was a relief to some people who resented the explosions but but nevertheless i stoppedworking entirely and after a couple of years now this was the 60s There was a lot of money for research in those days. And so they didn't notice people like me quite so quickly. And after two or three years, the director asked me what I'd been doing in that refrigerator, and I had no idea. Well, what it was seemed to be the end of my career. And I just went home. Now, if I had just sat there on the couch, it would have been a good thing. But, well, first I kind of moved to the garage I felt persecuted. My husband came home from work one night and said, now that you don't work anymore, maybe you could make a dinner for us now and then. And I just thought, how dare he? Doesn't he see the kind of pressure I'm under? But we learn words in AA, like geographic. So I planned my escape from the persecution. And I got to the garage, and there was a refrigerator out there that I loaded with beer. And I sat down to plan my trip and never left the garage. Well, actually, I left it now and then. I know I did because our house started filling up with little children, and they were mine. And now I sat in the garage and I just thought, my gosh, I am a mother. And this little girl from Ohio was deep inside. And I had wanted to grow up, I secretly wanted to be like all those people in Ohio so desperately, and I didn't know how to do it. I wanted that kind of peace of mind, that happiness. And they were good moms. I wanted to Be a Good Mom. And I'd have a few drinks to go in and steady my nerves and be a good mom. and I'd get inside and they'd make me tense and nervous and I would be in a blackout one time I was in the house and carrying my little daughter and the reason I was carrying her instead of just sitting where we'd both be safe was that Paul Harvey was on the radio and he was saying things like women alcoholics go down quickly it's usually about 10 years between the first drink and institution, page 3 and as I heard that I thought, I've got to go turn that radio off and as I was trying to get to the radio, I can remember putting my right hand over my little daughter's head because I knew I'm probably going to bump into a wall and I wanted to keep her little head from getting injured and I didn't get to the radio in time. I heard the whole story and I began counting. There were many incidents like this. My husband would come home from work and say, what is wrong with you? Why are you drinking so much? One time I came in from the garage and there was a great big one in the house and I did not know what that was all about and I realized that it was my mother-in-law and she had been there for a long time things were going well in the house now and i was the mangy animal that you know like a possum or something that just wanders into the backyard i was living in the garage and it set food out and but i resented my mother-in-law i resanted my husband for doing for me what i should have been doing i felt terrible about my children i knew that i was a bad mom and i seemed helpless to do anything about it. My mother came to relieve my mother-in-law, and there was this alternating grandma trips in and out to take care of the children. My family's wholesome, and they treated me like a broken machine. That's what they do. If they can't fix a machine, they just kind of work around it. And they were living a relatively happy life there in the house, and it was like a Grand Canyon was between me and them. And I felt bad. Every now and then one of them would come out and encourage me to stop drinking so much and come in and see the children. I resented that. But that kind of stuff is what got me to go to Alcoholics Anonymous because even through all of my resentment, I wanted to please. and I could begin to see that I saw that from telling my story that again I had a story that when I drank my way out of work I should have known that I was an alcoholic and yet I had several years of sitting in the garage completely isolated and crazy before I even attempted to do something about my drinking and even then I couldn't see that I wasn't an alcoholic and then it was clear I am an alcoholic I'm a classical alcoholic it gave me great hope because I thought that since that is true since I am so much of an alcoholic like everybody else then this program will probably work for me I didn't know how it could possibly work I really then began to talk to old timers and I said please, I need help with these problems so I can concentrate on the steps I need you to help me to get rid of this guilt I have about the children and I need to go back to work again I don't even know my husband I haven't talked to him for years I feel bad about my mother and my mother-in-law and everybody I've burned and they'd say things like well do you go to lots of meetings have you taken an inventory do you have a job at this meeting and I think you don't hear me I'm saying I can't do those things until I straighten out my life my home life so that I can concentrate on the program. I'm too nervous and guilty and tense to do any of these things. Well, have you talked to a lot of newcomers? I don't have anything to say to a newcomer, I'd say. I'm so miserable. So anyway, I just felt like I was in that movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. People did not understand. They just said the same thing, and they had no idea where I was coming from. They did. Of course they did. I was desperate, I had nothing going for me so I did what they suggested I wrote an inventory even though I wasn't ready for it I took a searching and fearless moral inventory of my mother-in-law but that was the beginning because my sponsor listened to it and she talked about now let's look at your part Marilyn I didn't like the sound of that I've had to write several other inventories of course to get at what she called my part I believe that if our program ended after the fourth step it would be good but all of us alcoholics would leap off a half dome but it would be a societal good because it would rid the world of alcoholics as we plunged over like lemmings and we're bad for the world but there's eight other steps so it's good for us too and just getting into the fifth step letting somebody else know who I was and realizing that I still had a place here was very healing and writing letters to my mother-in-law and my mother and calling them and going to visit and saying I see that I was sick all those years what can I do to undo some of the damage I've done, visiting the director of that lab where I drank all the beer explaining about alcoholism knocking on those doors just doing what every other alcoholic does it took a long time though before things began to feel better I got acquainted with my husband because of practical advice from my sponsor I wanted to work on the relationship and she groaned and said no Marilyn you've tortured him long enough she knew she knew what working on the relationship was grab his lapels and scream you don't love me she gave me a list of things I could say nothing else for a while and it was things like what would you like for dinner sweetie how was your day honey things I'd never said before but that was a beginning he had answers for those questions like pizza and pretty soon we began to get acquainted because I was learning how to listen to people in Alcoholics Anonymous what the old timers said was really true if I throw myself into Alcoholics Anonymous, especially into this fellowship I get rehearsed for these things that come up in the real world I learn how to talk with people it's just a constant dress rehearsal I come across everything that I meet up with in the real world. Amazingly so. And I stumble around, and then there's lots of old-timers that very gently help me out. Sometimes not so gently. But I think that there are probably 375 rules of behavior in my home group. And you never tell a newcomer what they are. You just wait until they break one. and then you say bad dog and those are things like we don't cut into line in front of other people and we take jobs at every meeting that we are a part of and if we have a commitment, we show up and do it rules, ethics things that serve you well in the real world and I began to learn those things because I learned those things I began to get acquainted with the folks at home eventually I went back to school and went back to work and I've been working ever since and enjoying it very much because AA taught me how to work I grew up with my kids I counted them after I got sober and there's only three of them and we grew up together two girls and a boy and there were things along the way my daughters often had a broken heart and I have been rejected so many times I could talk with them say that I understand share my experience strengthen hope with them just like with newcomers my son really scared me because when he was a little kid he began stealing things stealing everything stealing out of my purse stealing from the neighbors as he got a little bit bigger he stole from stores and I just could project it into the future. And I saw him behind bars and I felt bad and I said to my friends and Alcoholics Anonymous, what can I do? I need help with this. And they suggested that I pray about it and try to listen to him and understand him. And that wasn't working. I was doing that. I was saying, God, please stop him from stealing. Now, it's a funny thing. By this time, I had come to believe that something was listening. For me it was, I'm sure, a result of taking these steps but one day it was just as if the veil parted and it was oh my gosh you've been there all along haven't you? I'd even suspected it when Marion was the speaker at that first meeting although it didn't make any sense to me and it still does not make sense to be in the way that physics equations make sense I will never understand the power of God, but I can recover in that power and I can find my recovery in that power. I've come to believe that doing God's will is pretty much equivalent to being a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous because I find God's Will through participating in this fellowship. Somehow, this fellowship, this group conscience seems to know exactly what I need. So I was praying to this God about our son, and I was so worried about him. And finally, you can only worry so much. But meanwhile, he said that he wanted to learn how to go rock climbing. Now, I had even done that before when I was working in the lab. I had a climbing partner from England who took me out for a while until I began drinking so much beer that I lost all my climbing partners. Well, not that way. They just stopped climbing with me. But I remembered that and I said, David, I've done that before. But you have to do it safely because that's a strange sport. So let's join the Sierra Club and we'll get good training there. and we got into the rock climbing section and basic mountaineering we signed up for basic mountain nearing BMTC I had to go along because he was a minor at that time he was 13 and so mom volunteered and we went through basic mountain nearing training together and we came to Yosemite we went up in the Sierra we did a lot of backpacks and we'd make camp and then we'd do a summit the next day and then to drive home all tired and happy. And David began to become a very good climber, very careful. And I began to climb with him and we'd go out on our own. He'd usually take the lead. And one time I was climbing and it was growing toward evening and we could see the evening sun come through clouds and it were shining bright gold and red on the granite in front of us. And I looked up at David who was growing into a beautiful young man, strongly taking the lead. And I was holding the rope, and he was placing protection and climbing up ahead of me. And I just said, thank you, dear God, if that's all there is. This has been enough. Seeing my young son so confident and knowing that when I was out in the garage, I couldn't be trusted to go in and make their meals. And now I was holdin' his life in my hands on that rope. I was belaying him. And he got up to a place where he could anchor in and belay me up, and I climbed up and sat next to him. And I just thought to myself, man, it's been a long time since David stole anything. He had found his thing, and he went on to find other things that were wholesome. And he became a physicist like his dad, and as a little company of his own and made Papa proud. And as years went by, my mom got too old to take care of herself and she came to live with us in her last three years. And I was able to feed her and care for her and I just thought how odd and wonderful it is that I have a chance to repay her in the way that she took care of me when I couldn't care for myself or care for the kids. She, unlike me, had led a happy, outward-directed life caring for other people so she could accept that love and caring with happiness and was grateful that she had a family to live in in her last years. It was funny, all the people that I sponsor came to visit with her and one of them makes her living by cutting hair so I would hire her to come in and do my mom's hair. And she'd come into our house and make her look pretty. My mom was saying one time to Brenda, Oh, that Marilyn is so sweet. She never smoked. She never drank. And my sponsee just laughed up her sleeve. But we humored her. We let her live in that bubble in her last years. But I thought to myself, how amazing it is that somehow things are orchestrated in this way, that I can finally clean the slate. I had always felt dirty and bad for being so abusive to my mom, to my mother-in-law, and yet I was given this opportunity like no other to do that. Another thing that's happened is that I've been able to work at UCLA and give my time because I was... I had lived off the university system for so many years, and while I was drinking, squandered so many opportunities. I always felt so guilty about that. But I was given an education, and I've been able to work in a scholarship program at UCLA and organize a lot of information. And this program makes it possible for young students to have an opportunity that they would otherwise never have. And there are bright-eyed, sober students that take full advantage of these opportunities. And in a way, that's been given to me so that I can kind of repay the universe for squandering these opportunities and thinking that life owed me a living, that sense of entitlement that was so deadly and so terrible. So I've been allowed to do that. in the last five years or so our three offspring have walked down the aisle taking those vows for better or worse in sickness and in health and so forth and i got to sit up front with the father of the bride my mother my mother-in-law and we look like one big happy family and i look around because i'm a self-obsessed alcoholic and i just thought they're just thinking oh they're just happy family, and I thought if they only knew. They didn't know, and they couldn't know. No one could understand the kind of miracle that Alcoholics Anonymous can bring about. And our two daughters have given us three and a half little grandsons. One's on the way, and it's going to be another little boy. And I just felt so guilty and so bad for so many years. One thing that I missed was that I was not sober when my children were born. I was in outer space somewhere and I missed those moments where they said their first words. I just don't even have memories of things like that, their first steps. And I saw women that I sponsored that I loved so much had sober babies so I could see sort of what that was but knew that that opportunity would never be given to me. But a funny thing happened when our first little grandson came into the world. I was in the room coaching our daughter along with my son-in-law, and we were there when this little guy came intothe world all pink and screaming. And I got to hold him moments after he was born, little Peter James, and I got to hear him say his first words and take his first steps and I just said to myself thank you God, thank you for this second chance I believe that we get a second chance as long as we want what God wants for us we're given an eighth or a tenth chance however many it takes to get it we have enough time to do what God wants us to do to learn what God wants usto learn We just simply have to be willing, and the kingdom is ours. Thank you. Thanks for listening.