The Difference Between Believing in Higher Power and Trusting Him – Angie D.

Hi everybody, I'm Angie and I am an alcoholic. I've been telling everybody I was sick all week just as a disclaimer in case I give a lousy talk. You can always say, oh well she was sick, that's why. I don't know if you guys noticed this flower arrangement up here, it's got chili peppers on it. I wonder if that's for me so I can take them for my breakfast. I come to you... Is it too high? I thought it was loud. Oh, I'm Angie and I am an alcoholic. Did you see the... I want to thank Diane and the committee for inviting me to come and talk for you and Bob. I also want to thank Claire. Claire over here is my daughter's sponsor and Jesus, am I glad You know, it takes the heat off of me. I don't have to be mean anymore. I'm from Blythe, California. You all know where Blythes, California is? Almost as bad as Modesto, ain't it? Actually, I'm in Blyths because you know when they tell you be careful what you pray for because you might get it. Whenever you're going to pray for something, be sure and be specific. I mean, there's a guy in Blythe. That's what I'm doing in Bleythe. I should have got a Y1 in Newport Beach to head a yacht. Anyway, he's a great guy. He's not here tonight, but he was here in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago with me. He didn't come to the meetings because, you know, usually he can go to the meeting. He can hear me any time he wants, and most of the time when he doesn't want, he can hear me too. But I like for him to go with me when I'm going to talk Because he's my bag man and sits in the middle seat He's just really great about that He's really a great guy in that we're both dedicated to making me happy And I've got him convinced he never had it so good And at a woman's place is in the mall That's what I'm doing in Blythe I wasn't always from Blythe, just in case you didn't know I'm a Mexican. I was born and raised in a little barrio in Orange County. You know what a barrio is, don't you? It's a little Mexican community, and the days that I was raised there, we didn't let any Anglos in, and they weren't too anxious to come in there either. We used to join the gangs and beat each other up and call it fun. I guess they're still doing it. They're doing it harder now, though. In those days, we just used to call it fun and go to a mass on Sunday morning and beat on our chest through my fault, through my most grievous faults. I'm looking at the guys. That's the type of background I have. I really was born a long time ago. I'm really a young person in an old container. I was born when they used to keep their mothers in the hospital a whole week. and I was born into a family that wasn't ready for me then and isn't ready for me now when I was in that hospital they came home they didn't have a name for me and the reason for that is because my daddy wanted to name me after his girlfriend and my mother's narrow minded my mother was of a little purple lip variety you know them good people that got that little purple lip she's a Mexican so she don't have blue lips little purple lips My dad, he just liked to have a lot of fun. And I had an older sister that was perfect. You know the type I'm talking about. They always told her what to do and she always did it and she screwed it up for me because I never knew how to be good until after I was bad and they're always whipping on me. I don't know I'm a better child. If I didn't know that I was a betterchild, I held it against them guys. I just thought they were always beating on me because I forgot to be Good. That's all I thought. And they were divorced when I was seven, and my mother would say to me things like, you're just like your father. And I knew what her opinion was of him. She didn't like him too well. So she'd send me to the nuns so they could teach me to be a lady. And what the nun saw was a lady wasn't appealing to me then, and it isn't appealing for me now. In fact, I thought it was very boring. I loved the thrills and excitement as far back as I can remember. You know, so when they sent me to the nuns and somebody dared me, because not only did I not know how to be good, but as soon as they said, thou shalt not. I may not have thought of doing it before, but as long as they had said, Thou shalt Not, I had an overwhelming desire to do it. It's like you would get in there and I couldn't get rid of it until I did it. And so somebody dared Me and I raised the nun's skirt, see what she wore under all them clothes, and they had to take me from catechism. And I got home and got my whipping. But the next day when I got to school, all the kids thought I was terrific. You know, there isn't something. There isn't any feeling like feeling like something and somebody when you feel like a nothing. Because you see me, I was born with an emptiness in my soul, a yearning, a hunger, a longing to be loved, to be wanted, to being accepted. I worshiped my mother so much. I always seemed to be so hungry for love, and I would have given my heart to anybody that wanted it. I had an emptiness inside of me. And as a child, I used to worship my mother, andI wanted her love and approval so desperately, and it seemed that no matter what I did, I just was never enough. It seemed to me for long into this program that there isn't anybody in the whole wide world that could ever make me feel like I was five years old and I was bad. You see, I always felt that way. I never felt good enough. I never fell loved or wanted. I don't ever remember kind words or hugs. Now, I might have gotten those things. I just don't remember them. It seems to me that most of my life all I ever hugged to me was a rejection. All I ever looked for was rejection. Even though I dreaded it, it seemed that I always did what I could to create it. I didn't know I was doing it. If I knew how to do it, if I knew who I was, if I had known how I was going to do that, I would have been able to know how to stop it. I just know that I had a feeling inside of me. The overwhelming emotion of my life that I can remember as far back as I can remember is having an emptiness inside of myself. A wailing like a wounded animal and just hugging myself and rocking, you see. Way back, long before I ever took that first drink. I'm one that believes that I always had the pilot lip. All I ever needed was a fuel. You see, I don't know whether I was born an alcoholic or that I became an alcoholic. I know that when the day came when I took that drink, it was an answer for me. Things happened before that in my, there was things were going on in our home and my stepfather was getting funny and I went to my mother and told her about it and she said I was a liar. I know that she couldn't, that I was, I was the liar but when I was telling the truth nobody would believe me either. There was a feeling of total aloneness and I started to think for answers because you and I cannot stand that kind of pain without having something for an answer and when I thought I'm going to go with my daddy because my daddy, I know he must love me because certainly I'm not wanted here. Now, my daddy was over in the San Fernando Valley where he'd taken up light housekeeping with a lady with eight kids and all he wants is one more and here comes trouble. And my dad used to bring people up north to pick prunes and grapes and we were fruit pickers. And God made two kinds of Mexicans as fruit picker and non-fruit pickers and I'm not a fruit picker. They tried to make a fruit picker out of me and it didn't take. In fact, I've gotten very close and attached and loved a lot of things but work ain't one of them. I always have liked to do what I like to do at the time I want to do it on my pace. It isn't that I'm lazy I just like to do what you want to do and I don't want nobody telling me what to do. I don' t want nobody telling me to stop doing anything I want do either. I mean And I think they call it self-wheel-run riot, don't they? But I loved it. I loved that excitement. So we stayed beyond the season with the Gallo brothers in some place out of the Twilight Zone, like called by the name of Livingston. I saw a commercial for foster farm chickens. It says Livingston, California. Oh, Jesus, the Twilight Zone. I don't think that that place ever saw the sun, especially around the long rows of vineyards. I mean, forever and forever. Spiders and wasps and dirt. It's just awful. No wonder I didn't like to work. Today, I don'T even like gardening. But we stayed beyond the season with the Gallo brothers and they gave my dad a case of sherry wine and somebody must have said, thou shalt not. I had a big water glass of that sherry win and when it went down, boom! Boy, oh boy! That felt wonderful! Huh? It's just too bad something that good has to be wasted on social drinkers that don't appreciate it. I loved it! I loved it, and I knew that any minute now, that feeling was going to stay forever. If that feeling had stayed there forever, you'd have had somebody else up here tonight, I'll tell you that much. I know that with the next one, it's even going to be better. So, you know, I'm a pig from the beginning, and I'm not a slipper. I'm chug-a-lugger. And then I don't know what happened. Then it's the next day. And I come to, and I'm from the pachuco days when we used to wear them big hairdos. You know, I come through and all that hair is all over your face. And you're like, oh, Jesus. Throw up all over myself. Your clothes are torn. And you'd hate to drink water. As soon as you take a drink of water because you used to dry, you get drunk all over again. It's just awful. Awful, terrible feeling. Anybody with any sense would have never tried it again. I had a sense of shame of being dirty. I knew something terrible had happened. I didn't know what it was. I just knew it was terrible. And I don't know what to do with these feelings. It seems that every time that I came to this way, I always either had to play the clown like I didn' t care or I would fight when people would tell me what I had done. But you see, it never occurred to me not to do it. Every time I thought this time is going to be different. Every time. It was shortly after that that I went back to Orange County to my mother's when I found out I wasn't wanted over here either. And I went over there, and she didn't want me back. And I'm just a child. I'm 13 years old. And I started living here and there and everywhere. I remember I had a knot the size of my fist on my throat when my mother said they'd been free of me over a year, and they didn't Want Me Back. So I started running the streets. I'm not just a kid. I live here and there and everywhere. We don't live out. We live with friends, friends of my mother for a short time. I don't know how to work. I babysit. And this is the time when I discovered the booze and the boys and the cha-cha-cha. God! In that order. Maura and I, I love them. You know, we Mexicans, we love them parties. You get drunk two or three times, you know. I had a lady say that they used to get drunk and they have like some kind of hassles. I said, God, when we used to get drunk and have them parties if the cops didn't come two or three times if there wasn't any knifes and shootings we didn't have no fun, you know. I loved all that bullshit and also don't know how to work because I'm just a child so I take up burglary I really wasn't a bad person it's just that your things were always much more exciting than mine and much more interesting I really was surprised when the state of California discovered me they didn't understand that my case was different they took me before a judge and they said, my mother and all my aunts all them purple-lipped little people they're sitting there looking at me we told you so, look about them you know that and the judge asked me well young lady, what do you think we ought to do with you well, I'm slick hip and cool I slouched down on my chair and pulled up my collar. And I says, well, you're the judge, man. You ought to know. There was a wrong person to have that kind of a... He said me and I had to do a little bit of time for the state of California. Now I'm a walking bust. Everything I ever do, I would get caught at. And so I was going to do nine months, so I'd do 13 months in the girls' reformatory over in Ventura. and I thought I'd be the only gray-haired little old lady there when they finally let me out I took my first inventory and I said, man, I don't have a job I don' t have an education I don''t have a home I don ''t have any money and I'm thinking what an order I can't go through with it I better go find me a husband because God knows I need somebody to take care of me and I went out looking for a husband in places that husbands are not to be looked for And unfortunately for both of us, I found one. I've been apologizing to my kids ever since. There's a certain kind of guy that always caught my attention. You know, usually they got them big muscles and them tight T-shirts, huh? They walk with the little slouts and they got tattoos. Usually it says, born to lose and mother. and they got their all wavy, all slick back hair, you know, and shiny eyes, all teeth. And they look at you and they say, what's happening, baby? Oh, God. Still gives me chills. I used to think that look was charisma. Today I know it to be psychosis. My sponsor says you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit, but we tried. I'll tell you what. Three months later, we were pregnant and I was married in that order. And I married a mainline heroin user and you just don't live happily ever after with one of those. Very exciting, but not very happy. He had an idea what a good Mexican wife should be and I had an idea what I should be. And there was a train show meet. And we both got scars to prove But, and I don't stay home silently. When he comes home, I always jump in first, you know. I lost every battle, but I always wanted to get the first one in, you know. I'd go straight for his face and scratch his face, let him explain that to his partners, you know. I don' t know. When they find, and he doesn' t want me to drink because he starts sharing all them stories about me and them bars, see? But he'd left me take little white pills with crosses on them. I don't know what they are, but I sure knew what they did to me. I had one eyeball over there and one over there and I'd make baby clothes all night long! I could never tell if it was time to put it together or time to tear it apart. I could not ever... I'd play that mariachi music and sing with him and clean my house with a toothbrush and smoke cigarettes, chew gum, and scratch. Drink coffee there? After three days of this, my body would say, for God's sake, let's lay down. And my head would say get up, we're having fun. But once I started taking uppers I had to take downers and I used to have to drink whatever I had for drink to try to keep that balance. You know that balance where I can't feel? Do you know thatbalance where I can't think? Because I couldn't stand the madness inside of me. I couldn'T stand where that down road, the spiral down that my life had taken. You see, because I knew by the time I had my baby that this man didn't want to be married and I figured out he didn't want to be marriage to me. It was me that thought there was something horribly wrong with me.I could always seem to attract people into my life. I could attract men into my life, but it just seemed that in a short time they would have disgust in their face and contempt. When I finally had my baby and they put that baby in my arms, my heart sank. I felt like finally somebody belonged to me. She belonged to be. That baby inspired feelings within me that nobody ever has before or since. I love my baby, but I am a child in a woman's body, and I would hold my baby by the hour, and I promised her I would never beat or abandon her and discard her as I have been. And I meant that with every fiber of my being. If I could have been good for anybody, it certainly would have been my baby. But I'm an alcoholic and I am a woman alcoholic. When I drink, I have absolutely no choices and no rights. When i drink, i'm going to do what's in front of me to do because it's there to do. I don't know anything about later. I just know that at that time, I don't know anything about the prices that one has to pay. And I took that baby and her sister to places that children should not be taken. They got to see things that children should never see. And it died inside. I left their daddy after the second one was born because I figured I was going to get too old and I could never find somebody. I went out and I fell in love. And when I fall in love, I fall all over my body. Every inch of me falls in love forever. I can't remember the names of some of the men I've fallen in love with forever. The faces change. This time it's going to be different. This time it is going to different. After I left that man, I spent five years as an unprotected bar drinking woman. I know the feeling of degradation and self-loathing that a woman alcoholic goes through when she is unprotective and she drinks in bars and she is a blackout drinker. That's the kind of drinker that I am, you see, the shame and the self-disgust that goes along with the behavior. And many a times I had to come home where there was not enough chemicals inside of me to kill what I had in that cold water shack, that when I would walk in and turn the light on, the sink would be black with cockroaches, and there was mice in the filthy floor, and in that shack lived those two little girls that the romance of being a mother had long since died, and the responsibility for them choked me. Choked me, you see. I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't want to be their mother. I would leave them alone or with anybody that would take care of them because I gotta go. I gotta go. That's all I know. I got to go. And they would have their little quarrels in whispers and sometimes I would come to before it was time and I would start screaming and yelling at them for making any noise and then I would started hitting. And once I started hitting, it was like I couldn't stop and I I wouldn't stop, and it was like watching somebody else. And I'd say, for God's sake, stop, and I wouldn'T stop until there was blood and tears and screams in our home. You see, this is the ugly side of my disease. We laugh a lot about the things that happen to us during our drinking, but now that we feel a safe sense of safety and a sense of self when we come to Alcoholics Anonymous. But there's a part of sadness inside of me that never wants to forget what I did to those little girls, you see. Because my disease is an ugly disease, and I'm not the only one that it affects. It affects everybody that's near and dear to me of any value, you See. That's why I am so grateful that I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and don't have to live that way anymore, you say. But there was a long road from there to the time I got to you. After five years of this, I started getting letters from my dope fiend husband that was someplace in Texas getting the cure. You know, there's nothing like a dope fient when they clean up, don't they? They just lift weights and take vitamins. Man, he looked good. Says, babe, this time it's going to be different. And so it was. He decides that he comes back and he decides that I should not drink again. Well, by this time, you couldn't stop my drinking. I just couldn't stopped my drinking, but I didn't want to. It's when I was doing the time like I can stop any time I want. I just don't want, you see. And he tried to get me to stop so I wouldn't stop. So he knifed me and I carried a gun with me. And it's a wonder I didn' shoot myself with it. It didn't have any safety on it. Four days later, he called me up and said, Are you sorry, baby? You know I love you. so we fixed it up the way we know how we went to Las Vegas and got married I've been married in Las Vegas three times with three different husbands I'm a multi-marrier I've Been Married five times to three men I don't know how you're going to figure that one out one of them was one of him was bigamy well anyway that was in sobriety You didn't hear that, newcomer? Well, we bought a little ranch and turkeys and the horses and we moved to a place called Mira Loma. Now, Blight has been called the armpit of California, but my experience with Mira Lomai is another part of the anatomy not worth mentioning. At least that was my experience there. We joined the PTA, and I married him in the Catholic Church, and that's going to any length for a Catholic, especially since he was a Methodist. But I was going to make this marriage work with this guy no matter what. I mean, he was goingto be happy whether he wanted to or not. But you know it isn't long before that life gets to be too tight, it gets to being too unbearable. I'm a firm believer you can place me in the best of circumstances, And sooner or later, I have to create whatever is inside of me. Because it's inside of that madness lives on Chanel. When he starts making his run to Orange County to disconnect him, I start making the run to the wineries. The best thing I can say about Mira Loma, I was in the middle of four wineries and it closed to Cucamonga. Cucumanga is wine country south. At least it was at that time. I don't think any other wine I ever drank at that times ever saw the grape. I think it was just an ether. But whatever it was, it did the job. That was a time when I started drinking in my house. Long gone were the parties and the nightclubs and the guys and the dances and the get up and go, you see. Now I just wanted to be at home. And I started pushing away everybody that was near and dear to me. People in my family were always coming and telling me how to be. For God's sake, I always knew how to beat. I just couldn't be it. I was from, nobody ever told me how to do it. They just said, why aren't you like this? I wanted to be way down inside of me. There was always a spark of the woman that I am tonight. But there was a monster that lived within me. And I started drinking in my bedroom. Now is a time when I know what the words agony, despair and utter loneliness, I know those words. I learned them in Alcoholics Anonymous. But I lived in a dirty bedroom in Mira Loma where all I could do was drink and drink and drink. I got to the place of my drinking where I drank and I drank, and my body was drunk, and my mind was in agony. It just seemed like there was no more, no more fun for me. Not only was there no more sun for me, there was not enough sun for my body. There was no peace for me and I couldn't stand the madness inside of me. And I tried everything I could to look for answers. I went to different churches. You know how they say? I started reading the Bible and going to churches looking for answers for this madness inside of me because it wasn't in the places that I found it before. I've been to churches where they sprinkle you, and they dunk you, and they throw petals at you. I even went to some of them where they say, Who wants to be saved? I'd be the first one down the aisle. I'm getting mine before you get yours. And I always got saved and got home and got unsaved. And I did this over and over and Over and over again And what happened to me is I just got so tired And so weary And all I wanted to do was to die I saved my sleeping pills And waited until this man was home Because I couldn't see killing myself And having those two little girls find me dead I just waited until he was home And he was watching television And I told him I was going to kill myself And he said, alright and we had a slight communication problem. So I went and took a bath, you know. I hadn't taken a bath in a long time and put on clean pajamas and kind of cleaned my house. You know how we do it? Just in case I die, I don't want them to know how I live. Not that anybody was coming around but just in case, you now. And all I did was sleep for three days and three nights and two days or three days and two nights her, but whatever it was, it was a span of time of more than one night. And when I came to, I was not glad or grateful to be alive. I was enraged. I didn't want to come to anymore. You see, I had come to my place in my drinking where I couldn't drink and I couldn' t be sober and I cou' n't live and I could' n even die. And I came to on what has got to be the loneliest day of my life. I realized this man had been in bed with me both nights I was in that coma, and never once did he consider taking me to a doctor or to a hospital. And I died inside, felt like a piece of used meat that nobody wants. I could always say at least he loved me. This time there was a loneliness inside of me. I'd like to look upon that day today because on that day I sunk into a pit of self-pity. And I did that for the longest time until I realized that my higher power has always had his hand upon my life, Even upon that day. Because that day there was a knock on the door, there's a lady from the PTA. If there's somebody I didn't want to see, it's a Lady from the PTAA. And there stood Mrs. Clean. Said, Hi! She took one look at me and I must have been downwind from her because I hadn't made it to the bathroom except in bed for a while. And in a moment of weakness, I let her in when she asked me what's wrong. And I told her my tale of woe about this S.O.B. and how he'd done me wrong. I didn't tell her anything about me. I never knew you could tell anybody. I mean, don't tell nobody nothing about you. Tell about them. And she stayed with me. I don't know why, but she stayed mit me and she cleaned me up and she talked to me. Somehow, I don' t know about you, but I'm always been a talk too long. And then all of a sudden they have a look in their face and you say, uh-oh. That's what I did. And she asked me if I ever heard Ayalanon. And I never heard Ajalanon, but I got the impression that if I went there, he would straighten up. So, I mean, I was willing to go any length to get him to straighten up because then he could take care of me. That's all I wanted. Somebody take care on me. And so she cleaned me up and took me to Ayalonon and somehow I didn't fit in in Ayalamon. I felt a little bit like a hallway in a nunnery. There was absolutely no identification between me and them square broads. But I remember that they hugged me in defense of Al-Anon. And I don't have anything, any animosity, but I didn't listen. I didn' t hear nothing. All I knew were a bunch of angels that seemed that way to me. I don't know how to get they told me years later they used to laugh at me I just thought that I had them fooled I'd give them that smile you know that the lights are on but there's nobody home I thought I had him fooled I go there every so often I don' t know how how to say no I don''t want to go there anymore and I heard the word release one day I came home and told him in detail how I was going to release him so he used to sleep with his clothes on and a knife under the pillow and when I'd sit in the corner with a big black coat on and he'd be a dozy now, I'd go take a little peek at him and he would go, Oh my God! It was almost sexual. It felt so good. And he would say, I'm trying things to me. He'd say, Baby, I may have a monkey on my back but you've got an orangutan. And one day I came home and he was gone. He took everything with him. He wasn't planning on coming back because he knew that though that life was unbearable that I'd have forced him to kill him that I would have killed him or forced him to kill me sometimes that madness would be so great that the only peace I would ever have is physical violence I don't know if you understand that but you see I was not a battered wife I was one that had to have the physical violence to quiet the inside and like bad news comes in bunches it was at that time they kicked me out of Al-Anon and they designated this poor soul that had inflicted me on them to take me there and so she came and got me one day and took me to a meeting in Pomona which is about 30 miles from where we were living and she took me on a Friday night to an old dilapidated old house and they brought me around through the back I'm a Mexican that's why they're bringing me around through the bag and they took me through the kitchen where all the malamans were standing there in the kitchen doing whatever alamans do in the kitchen. And I ain't looking at their face, I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of having me see that look of contempt and disgust that I know I'm going to see there. I just look at my feet and walk right through them. And I walked into the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and listened to the sounds of Alcoholic Anonymous. The very first thing that attracted me to you was the sounds of alcoholics anonymous. The music of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's words and there's music. I never heard the words. I don't remember anything that was said for the longest time. But I felt, I loved how I felt when I was with you from the very first time that I was with you. I listened to that belly laughter, that smile that reaches the soul and that shine in the eyes. And those are the sounds, the music of alcoholics anonymous. And if you're new like I was, you don't have it. Way down inside of me there was that spark of the woman that I am tonight. But I knew I didn't have what them people had, and I wanted it, and I hungered for it. And newcomer, if you be lucky like me, I just let it wash over my soul, and I want it, what them People had. I just thought, it's too bad I'm not an alcoholic. Is there another name for the disease that you and I have, it is called, I ain't got it. now I know I'm weird and I know I'm different and about three steps ahead of the man with a butterfly net I know I'm crazy that is much more socially acceptable I don't know why it is but I used to be an alcoholic when I was a kid I was an alcoholic but I cured it with Benzogreen I just haven't found the right combination again you know when you take other chemicals along with the alcohol you're very busy You see, I'm just trying to keep my head. All I wanted was not to feel. And so I looked around at all them sober, single, good-looking young guys, and I said, man, I am going to get me one of those. And I did. It was the sickest one there. I have radar. But it takes what it takes, and that's what it took for me. My higher power knew what would attract me to you. You see? And I kept coming back. And in Pomona, in those days, they used to go around the room. Everybody gave their name. When it came to me, I'd say, I'm Angie, and I'm a visitor. I'm not telling them I'm an Al-Anon. They kicked me out of Al-Al-An, and then I said, I don't know. I'm talking about an alcoholic, but I loved how I felt when I was with you guys. And you said to me probably the most important words that you and I have to say to one another, huh? You said, keep coming back. Keep coming back! Do you know what that feels like when you're used to people saying, keep on going, weirdo? Huh? What a disappointment it was to me when I found out you were telling that to everybody. I thought it was just me. I loved it, you see, you put your arm around me. Huh? And so for ten months I came around as a visitor. Now someplace along the way I started feeling funny drinking. So I stopped drinking. It wasn't very hard for me to stop drinking. In fact, it was very easy. It's very easy when you're not an alcoholic, especially when you double up on the Miltowns and Benzedrine. You've got to take more other junk because you can't feel. I never heard anything about totally sober. I just thought that's for them guys. I got weirder, and this guy wants to get rid of me. Now, I'm not easy to get with him because I don't have a backup. So I moved to Pomona to be closer to the action, and I walked into a room one day and there's this cute little boy talking with big blue eyes and blonde hair and he just got out of the reformatory and he says he don't have a girlfriend, he don' t have a surfboard and he don''t have a car and I think to myself come here little boy I don'''t care about you. And I did. God and he dont know what hit him. He thought a crock hit him and I educated that young man in sick blood. But, you know, after that relationship was over, he decided to become a minister, and I'd like to think that somehow, in my small way, I helped push him over to God. Now, I don't like women, and I don' t trust men, and they don' d leave you much. And I didn' t know what I was going through because of withdrawals. All I ever knew was you come here, get sober, and live happily ever after. I didn't know about walking around without any skin. I didn' t know about you can't stand to sit the charley horses on your thighs so bad that you just can't sit still for any length of time. I didn''t know about the madness. You see, once I removed anything inside of me, all I had was madness in the raw. The terror that comes. and he was the first man that had ever been kind to me. He was the First Man that had ever been gentle with me and everywhere that he went he wanted to take me with him me that had always been abused by every man I'd ever had and I'd have stayed there forever if I could have because I always had a feeling inside of me that said do anything anything you want to me just don't leave me that terrible fear of abandonment and rejection was so incredible inside of when I didn't have anything inside of chemicals to ease that pain. I know today that you and I do not come together by accident. I truly believe that we come together by divine appointment. But every relationship has a beginning and its party, you see, every relationship. The only relationship that keeps on growing is the relationship that I hold with my higher power today. But I didn' t know that then. I just said, There's nothing new to me. Just don' t leave me. And I don't know anything about this program. I don'T KNOW WHETHER I'M AN ALCOHOLIC OR NOT. I JUST KNOW THAT I LIKED HOW I FELT WHEN I WAS WITH YOU GUYS. AND I TURNED MY WILL AND MY LIFE OVER TO THE CARE OF A MAN BECAUSE I DIDN'T TRUST GOD. AND WITH THAT KIND OF A BEHAVIOR, WHEN HE GOT DRUNK, SO DID I. IT WAS NOT MY WORST DRUNKS, BUT I GOT WELL AFTER SIX MONTHS. AND I'M ONE THAT HAD TO GO OUT AND REMOVE ALL DOUBT. I'm one that had to go out and try it one more time so I could be convinced that all the fun is out of the bottle. My sponsor says there's only one good drunk in every alcoholic, and that's the one that removes all doubt. And I'm the one who knows. It helps. This program helps to come to it desperate. No place else to turn, you see. And that's how I came. And the miracle for me was not that I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. The miracle for my is that I'm still here. And that last December the 22nd, I celebrated my 28th birthday. That is a miracle. I am a miracle And the victory is not mine, it belongs to us You have heard me say, those who have heard before me say That I am not a miracle I have been allowed to touch the miracle that is Alcoholics Anonymous As long as my hand is touching the miracle that is Alcoholics Anonymous, I will be part of that miracle. I am not the miracle. Because once I separate from that miracle that it's Alcoholics Anonymous I'm on my own one more time. It has been proven over and over and over again. And dear God I hope it's not me. I hope its not me but it could be. It could be me. And my journey began. It has been quite a journey. You can't just live in a cold, dark room without any structure, without any guidance, without anybody to depend on, and all of a sudden come to Alcoholics Anonymous and believe and trust. It wasn't that way for me. I didn't know whether I wanted what you had. I just couldn't stand what I had. I heard a lady in the recovery house once read the steps and read the first chapter and said, we're powerless over, admittedly we were powerless over alcohol and that our life had become unbearable. Yes, that's what it was. My life had becomes unbearably. If my life had not become unbearable, why would I need to have gone anyplace? Why would I have needed? I am so grateful today that it took every minute and every inch of everything I experienced before I came here. Nobody was ever there for me. Had there been anybody there for you, for me, I would not be here tonight, you see. I was forced to come in here and depend on for you. In the beginning, they all know more than me. You know how it was a step up for me to be called an alcoholic from some of the stuff I'd been called? In the begining, they'll know more then me. They used to read stuff like, well, only have we seen a person fail. I knew when somebody said rarely that somebody wasn't going to make it. and they say they are such unfortunates they are not at fault they seem to have been born that way I thought I'm screwed my mother will tell you I was born that way but a little further on down it says and then there are those who have grave emotional and mental disorders I am grateful they have that in there because in that area comes everybody that thinks my case is different have you ever heard I'm an alcoholic and something else and something else who cares we could be called Plenty Wrong Anonymous, because there was plenty wrong with me. I mean, we always... If you were like me, my type of drinker, I never fit in anywhere. I always felt different. Didn't I want to come here and feel different too? No, here we sit. They told me to look for the similarities. And I'm an alcoholic that would be capable of doing anything, so I wouldn't have to feel the madness of my disease, the terrible loneliness, the terrible self-consciousness, the terror of impending doom, of what's going to happen. What's goingto happen to me? To me? To me. The incredible pain of self-centeredness. Self-centered is painful. And the book says that selfishness and self-centredness that we think is a root of our problems. And the self-censoredness hurts. Other people's center and God's center doesn't hurt. It was the self that hurt. In the beginning, then after a while I know more than some of them. Well, a little further on down it says many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Now, I'm not standing up here and telling you I have the capability to be honestly because I don't know the difference between right and wrong. You may think, well, how come? Well, I'll tell you. If I want to do something bad enough, I can go home and pray about it, meditate about it. Pray about it and meditate about it. Sooner or later God will decide His will for me. Once I tell me that story, it ain't nothing to lay it on you. But you know God sends people into our lives that ruin that kind of thinking. They're called sponsors. My sponsor learned to be a sponsor from Hitler. She's really she talks to me in ways that when I talk their way to the people my sponsor, they never talk to me again. Yeah, you'll come to your sponsor with problems and she'd look at me with that look, you know, the sponsor's half like dummy, you know, and she says, and do you have to sit in your own shit just because it's warm? Or you go with a, oh, I really whine good when I whine. And she says he's not doing it you away. Don't they just piss you off when they tell you stuff like that? Have you ever stopped to think about that's the only time I'm ever miserable is when they don't do it my way? When they do it my way, I'm never unhappy. She wasn't my sponsor. I didn't have a sponsor. The group was my sponsor。I didn't like women anymore just because I'm sober. The ones that got a lot of time, I don't like them looking at me. I don' t know what they're seen, but whatever they're seeing, I don't want them to see it. So I stay clear away from the women with a lot of time. And I don' t like them new young women because I got this cute young thing with me. He's 11 years younger than me. Remember that cute little thing? Huh? I'm going around like a monkey with its monklet. But the guys were always much more friendlier, especially if you're 32 and QCQ. At least I thought I was QCq. And they'd say things to me like, I told you in the beginning, they know more than me after a while, I know more then some of them. I'm a girl that goes to a meeting every night. I'm supposed to go to a meetign every night, I'm an newcomer. But there was a guy, I know nobody ever hated a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I came to the place where I hated a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know anything about resentment. All I know is I love you or I hate you. I never had any in-between problems. It's like having a measuring stick from zero to 100 with no numbers in between. That's the way I dealt with everything. I hated the way this guy looked, talked, sat, smoked, everything about him. There's a certain phase of resentment you just love, don't you? It's just, ahhh. Then you'd hear stuff at meetings. At meetings I went to them all the time where they'd say, Resendance is the number one offender for the alcoholics that are fatal. Because that would scare me because I don't want to drink anymore. So I'd go to some of them that looked like they know what they're talking about and I'd put my smile on. And I'd say how do you get over resentment? And they'd turn it over and he'd say does it this too shall pass one day I said, I'm going home with a book. Come in back and don't worry. So I'd go home and do it. Johnny Harris was my hero. A lot of my early program was formed around the teachings of Johnny Harris. It did not hurt that he was so gorgeous. He was my monkhead sponsor. Anyway, I'd come home and I'd do it, I'd look around, I never was happy until a hundred people would look at that And it didn't work, so I'd go to somebody else. And again they say turn it over easy, does it, this, do, shall, plus one day at a time. Go home, read the book and come in back and don't drink after a while. I got the message. You don't know the answer either. Either that or you're going to find out there's a fraud among you. I just keep doing it anyway. You know, what I found out at that time that the steps don't care if I believe in them or not. It's amazing how they don't care. I change anyway. I didn't even plan on that. I wanted you to change because mine was what an order you can go through with it. And one day I was in a meeting and he was talking and he starts to cry and I, you know how you learn to you say the serenity prayer for them a thousand times You know how they tell you to pray for them? You've got to pray for your children. Well, I was doing this when he starts crying and I'm thinking, oh Jesus Christ, he's crying. How embarrassing. Hasn't he ever heard of John Wayne? Pancho Villa? Emiliano Zapata? Somebody, for God's sake, woman and sister is crying. After the meeting they all went and hugged him. Well, you know, I got to thinking, oh shit, feeling, you know. I've got to go put my arm around this guy too. So I went and gave him one of them stiff arm hugs, you knows, that weak hair hug, just in case whatever he had was contagious. I mean what I had was bad enough without having his too. He didn't have any class, he just came right in, put his head on my shoulder and started to sob. And I don't know what happened, but that pain in him reached in there and touched the pain in me. You see, because certainly I had known pain. That was the very first time that I ever felt somebody else's pain. And that's God's truth for me. And I found out the love that you had taught me about one drunk talking to another. I cared about this guy. And everything that I ever felt for him melted away as if he had never been. And that was a turning point for me. That was the beginning of my rocket into the fourth dimension. It seemed to me that in this program, I had been like on the outside looking in through a glass wall. And I was now in here, a part of you. I don't know how that happened. I just know that it happened to me. And there was when I came to about that. Many things have happened And to me, many experiences from that day to now, not all of them have been pleasant. What happened is I married that young man, always scared one day he'd leave. And the day came that I was always scared that I had ruined my children forever by the type of mother I had been. The day came when they started doing the same things I had done. And I said, God, spare my babies. Please spare my baby. I'll do anything just to spare my babys. And He didn't spare my babes. They went through the same road I had been through, done the same things I had done. And the incredible pain of watching your children go down the sewer is probably as bad as mine was. I came home one day and they were so loaded and so drunk and I yelled and screamed and I slapped them and hit them and they hit me back and reminded me that the rotten mother I had bent both drunk and sober. And they ran off. I had one run off to Ohio. I didn't even know any Mexicans went to Ohio I hated my mother, only went 20 miles away. And the oldest one went to live in a commune, the one that I had held in my arms so many years ago with all the hopes and all the dreams of a child in a woman's body. She came home one day with a burn the size of a silver dollar on her chest where people had been putting cigarettes out on, and I died inside. All I ever wanted was to be a good mother and have a home and somebody to love me. And it was there, and it wasn't it either. And I had a terrible depression. I sunk into a pit of depression. I had an nervous breakdown. Again, I contemplated an attempt at suicide. That young man went and took me to the psych ward, went home, packed his clothes, and left me. And everything that I ever wanted was gone. And I was sober a little over five years, almost six years. And the reason I stand before you tonight, all I wanted to do was to die. I didn't want to drink. I wanted it to die because of the people and alcoholics and all this. They came and held me up at that time. It was from the women. There isn't anything for me like devastating pain to have all them walls come down. with the women. I got sober in toast burner country. You know, they'd never been out of their kitchens and but there was something like devastating pain that made all them walls come down and I was able to share the secrets of my heart with you as you shared the secrets of your heart with me and I realized we were not so different. Maybe I felt dirty in the bars but you felt dirty in your kitchen. You had, at least I didn't have to maintain some kind of image for them out there. It is from the women that I have learned to be a woman and that I had been mothered in Alcoholics Anonymous. In AlcoholicsAnonymous we become each other's mamas. That's how it is. I never had a mama, not really but I have been rocked and loved by the women of Alcoholics Анonymous. My sobriety sisters have healed the terrible wound inside of me that I never had a mama. And I have been allowed to do the same for you, and it is quite a feeling, isn't it? And it is from the men in Alcoholics Anonymous that have treated me like a lady, that I've learned to be a lady. Johnny Harris told me when I came here, he said every woman that walks into the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous automatically becomes a lady and needs to be treated, deserves to be treated that way in a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous. I had never been treated like a lady before and with a respect. But it is because I threw myself completely and absolutely into the hands and arms of my higher power that I learned to walk with dignity and self-respect. I made peace with my God at that time. I found out the difference between believing in God and trusting in God. I said, okay, God, I'm never going to be happy again. All you ever want me to do is work with a sick woman, drunk, flat, and puke on me. All right, all right. And I knew that I was not going to die. And I new that the only thing I was spared for is to be of service for the women in Alcoholics Anonymous. I went back to Orange County and threw myself completely into this program without any reservations and I know I don't know about you but my higher power has a weird sense of humor when I want something so bad so bad I can't have it but as soon as you say ah screw it here it comes you see that's the way I don' t know why it happens that way sometimes I tell him it's not all that important and he always knows when I got to the other side you know there's a place there's something that we have to go through at least I had to in that type of a situation I had touch that anger in me I wanted to get that guy and put a shotgun about two inches from his belly and pull the trigger watch all the gore come over or running down the freeway like a tortilla back and forth, back and forward And my sponsor assures me that if God removes all my defects of character, that I'll disappear and that they don't lock you up for being crazy, only for acting crazy. So the only thing I knew is that that's how I felt, but I didn't do anything. When I got to the other side, I touched a power and a strength that was way down inside of me, And I knew that nobody and nothing could ever own me again. Because I knew what you, what I needed, you never had it to give. After all that's said and done, there's only you and me, God, anyway. That we, that you and I, I didn't, I had to go out and get a life. I get out and I get a wife. Do you know the type of person I was? I wanted somebody else to take care of me. Also known as parasites, you see. Also known as parasites. Somebody else do it for me. And another thing I discovered. When you love me, it feels wonderful. Feels good for you to love me. But it's when I love you, I started working with the women. These women come to my house, I pick them up and take them to meetings. They thought I cared. I didn't care. I didn' t care about them. I didn't care whether they got sober or got bitter or not. All I did is because I'm supposed to do it. But God throws in the joker. One day I do care. And you know, when I do care about what happens to you, that feels exactly the way I thought you loving me would feel. It's funny, ain't it? It's not when you love me don't feel up but that's okay. But it's when I love you and forget it because of self hurts. Yes, God-centered doesn't hurt. And I made another turning point. My children came back one at a time. I don't even want them back. They come back, went to work. I went to school and became self-supporting through my own contributions. I found out one day at a Time I don�t drink because I'm an alcoholic and one day At a Time, I don �t steal because I�m a thief and my sponsor won�t let me. And one day at a time, I don't get married because there ain't life after marriage. I kept falling in love. I don' t know what happens to guys when I kiss them. They turn into toads. As a perfectly good guy, I can kiss him and turn him into a toad. I wondered why. And I started living good. I started feeling good about myself. I started having self-respect. Very involved in my steps. Very involved. In the traditions. And very involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. The podium has healed my feeling of inadequacy. It has fulfilled the need for love. I have been loved from the podiums of all college and honors. You've got to stand up here and be willing to be a jackass, but it's worth it for the hugs. It's worth IT for the HUGS. My sister, who had always been held up as an example for me, chose to take her life. And it was my destiny to be the one to find her. and I could not believe what was before my eyes. But something came together inside of me that said, God is the only giver and the only taker of life. She chose to go home, and he let her go home. His hand is always light whenever it is heavy. Two weeks after that, I became a grandma. You know, I never knew how to be a mother, but I was as good as a grandma and kind of slacked off in that area now that they got big. But them little kids used to think Grandma and Santa Claus meant the same thing. I loved them little things. I used to go to Alaska where he had taken them, and there's no feeling like it in the world when I would hear this squeaky little voice say, That's my grandma! Hug you with and snort it all in the nose, you know? They'd come home one time, and I was making, I'm the only one I know that gains weight on diet, was making a venerable diet forever. and then making milk out of powdered milk. Well, she saw me making that milk and she says, Mama, Grandma just made milk out of water. Okay? She's now a mother. I have become a great-grandmother. Do you know how old you have to be to be a great grandmother? I wish I could tell you I'm sweet all the time but I just had a big old fight with her a week ago because I wanted to move away and have a life. There's still a little baby, baby sick. Not much, I just wanted to go and blow her up and run her down the freeway back and forth like I sure did. Just did a little baby thing like take her name off my credit card. Anyway, I fell in love again. God, and I fell in love with a newcomer. Do you know how fast that is when you're 13 years sober? Thank God now that he's sober 15 years. But Jesus, when I first fell in love with this guy, he was sober five minutes. And I was his counselor. If there's any spiritual giants here and it offends you, it offended me. But you know, I just... I didn't go picking on newcomers, but I sure picked on this one. And one day I took him to a conference with me once, and he was coming along behind me. And here comes my friend Frank Sloan. I want to avoid all my friends. And here he comes, and he looks at me, and he says, you know it's coming. You know it'S coming. And he says,"Is he with you?" Well, he sees this guy trailing me around like a zombie. And he said,"Is she one of us?" Well, his nose looks like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. and his head's going like those little Mexican dogs in the back of a cart. He says, how long you got them sober? I said, five minutes. He says Jesus Christ, and to give that poor guy a break, let him get sober first. It hurt my feelings. So I went out and talked to my sponsor. I said, Mary, don't you find good? He says, Auntie, he's a nice guy. If you don't want him, I'll take him. What if he's good enough for my sponsor? He says just tell him you scooped him in before somebody else did. What I found out at that time is if you're afraid somebody's going to find out something about you, tell them and then you won't be afraid. You see, it's some sequence that keeps me separated from you. I don't need to be alone out there anymore. I like walking in the sunlight of the Spirit. I mean, he went over there with his cattle car. He's a cowboy farmer with his pachuco from the farm. He speaks Spanish better than any Mexican, but he speaks Mexico-type Mexican here. He never knew anybody like me. But we have a wonderful way. He went over here. We got, he whispered in my ears and sent me candies and phone calls and tells me how much he loves me, whispered it in my ear, and I followed him to life. Huh? And it's been great. You know that come Sunday, the day after tomorrow, we will be married 14 years. Huh? That's like 25 for normal folks. he's the only husband who I've only had to marry once and he's a nice guy I told you we were both dedicated to making me happy he thinks I'm the greatest cook there is so I'm cooking all the time he thinks his house has never been so clean so I am scrubbing it all the same he uses the right psychology on me he loves his shirts he's got 85 shirts And they're all color-coordinated. He thinks I don't have bright, huh? They're my shirts. I just let him wear them, huh, because we're both dedicated to making me happy. I found out something else. I love how it feels to have a loved one. The lights come on in their eyes because of something I've done or said to them, you see. I took my little granddaughter to a conference once where I had a big white blouse that covered a multitude of tortillas and beans. And with big white pants. She's looking up at me as I'm getting dressed, and she says, Grandma, you look just like a white angel. And I looked at this child, and I saw the little sparkly innocent face. Because all she's ever seen is what you've done with her grandma. She never had to see her grandma growing around in her own field. So battered she doesn't look like a human being. She's never had the battering as her mother did. Because I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Both my daughters are members of Alcoholic Anonymous I have one that is sober 13 years. And one, my baby that belongs to Claire, that's sober by five and a half years. It's wonderful to be friends with my children. I'm not afraid anymore about what my children will tell their sponsors about our relationship. I can't remember the last time there was an argument in our house. There was an agreement with my granddaughter because she ain't doing it my way, but I had to go and apologize to her. She says, you know, now I know why I don't like to be ugly to other people because I hate to make amends. I can remember the last time there was an argument with my daughter. It's wonderful because I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I do the very same thing I did in the beginning. I go to meetings, I read the book, I work those steps. I protect AlcoholicsAnonymous to the best of my ability by speaking out about the tradition. I carry the message to wherever anybody needs me. I belong to you. I belong to Alcoholics Anonymous and I call my sponsor because I like to be abused. My sponsor has been my sponsor almost 19 years and I know she loves me. I feel safe with my sponsor but she tells me she knows we she and I both know that in our home is Mary Reagan God and then Richard. If you were ever a dirty person like I was In a dirty bedroom Like I was in Mariloma And couldn't drink and couldn't be sober And couldn' live and couldn' die That there isn't any road that lives From there to here Except he touched me I am worth something to him Thank you