The Financial Amends She Made by Running a Restaurant – Mary R.

My name is Mary. I'm an alcoholic and I have a cold. I hope I don't have to blow my nose or cough or anything. You know, you're the kind of people I drank with, just rowdies, you know. I always follow rowdies. That's why I feel right at home here. First, I want to thank the committee for inviting me because I always feel privileged to share whatever I have with rowdies and i'm supposed to talk about my drinking and i'll tell you if my whole drinking career can be wrapped up by quoting what the cat said when he got through making love to the skunk he said i didn't get all i wanted but i got all I could stand. I left home the day after I graduated. I was 16 years old, and I knew that I was going to be the greatest dancer in the world. And in those days it was called vaudeville or you know roadshow and i joined the roadshow and uh while i was on this roadshow someone passed a bottle of slow gin around and uh i know i hate to mention slow gin because i know it dates me you know and god i hate it you know it's sad um i've been thinking about getting a facelift though you know that's fashionable in my area in california you get faceless but i mean what's the point in getting a face lift when everything else is sagging I mean, it's a sad day when you're trying on one of those cross-your-knees bras, ladies. What the hell are you laughing about? Look at her. She's got the kind you can scratch a match on and she's laughing. Anyway, I better get back to talk about my drinking here. Anyway, I was always restless, irritable and discontented as the book says and I could never accurately predict my conduct. Now, I took a swig out of that bottle of slow gin and I just loved it. I just love that booze and it just took all those insecurities and the fears and everything just disappeared and the pattern of my drinking was set right that night. I wound up in the nightclubs of San Francisco as a feature dancer. And, you know, I wore those fancy clothes and went to all those fancy places. And it was written up in The Columns. And, uh, you now, I table hopped every night giving everybody a break, you understand. And booze was always available to me. And I had a ball, you kno, I just loved it. I loved that life. But every once in a while I would think, you know, something's missing in my life. something is missing there was something hollow within me and I didn't know how to fill that up but I finally decided that the reason I was feeling that way was because Hollywood hadn't discovered me yet and how am I going to be a big star if Hollywood doesn't discover me well the day came when I was invited to go down and take a screen test and I immediately set sail and knew that Betty Davis had better start saving her money because I was on my way see so I got down there and I took a screen test and it was rotten well you know I could not function without drinking so they did sign me to a stock contract however and uh it's a strange thing I know that this will come as no surprise to you but um I immediately got caught up with the drinking crowd I don't know how that happens but I always did and so my uh my career consisted of doing a a bit in the part but mostly uh being a party girl and going to those fancy nightclubs and this on sunset boulevard you know cirrus mocombe all those places that you read about in the movie magazines and i was hobnobbing with the with the you know with the drinkers and the the stars and the starlets and all that and uh i was riding high there for a while but my career started to diminish and kind of fade and go over the hill, and that started to worry me a little bit. I was on that lot for a couple of years, and I wasn't getting anywhere. I'll tell you, I was having a lot of fun, but I wasn'T getting anywhere, and about that time, the time I started to worry about my career, a man came from the USO office in Beverly Hills and offered me an opportunity to go overseas and entertain the soldiers because the World War II was on at the time and uh and i jumped at that chance because uh all those men over there you understand yeah yeah i've been talking to her all those women over there and all the attention i was going to be getting going over there so i went over there this trip took took us to china burma and India. And there may be some of you old graybeards out there that still have a resentment against U.S. old girls fraternizing only with the officers. I'm here to remove your resentment because I was democratic with my drinking. I drank with yardbirds, generals. It didn't make any difference to me. If you had it, I went. That's it. And, you know, it's a strange thing, but i had to defend my right to drink i i was drinking something a grapefruit juice and something with the guys the night before and i came to the following morning and i was absolutely paralyzed i couldn't move my eyelids were fluttering i guess because uh one of the gals on the show saw that i was in bad shape she went and got the medics and they came over and they gave me shots and oxygen and walked me back and forth and i just knew damn well that it was the altitude because we were in the Himalaya Mountains. And, in fact, I had myself so sold on that I didn't even drink in Denver after that. I just knew I couldn't drink in altitudes. Thin blood, you know. So, anyway, I came back from that tour and I felt very put upon. I thought, you Know, the military, they didn't tell us they expected us to party between shows. Well, they didn t. I mean, I was one of those people that desperately needed your approval and I couldn t say no to anything. But one of the first freedoms I got here in Alcoholics Anonymous was the fact that I don't have to make nickel and dime compromises and I don' t have to dance to your tune because in order to get your approval I was throwing away my own and now I've got my own and that's the way it is. But anyway, I came back from that tour and I was then offered an opportunity to go to the European theater and I said to myself this time it's going to be different. This time nothing's going stop me from just really enjoying myself i'm not going to drink so much and i'm not going party so much, and I'm not gonna go to so many parties and this time well you people have read my story it's in the big book entitled chapter three um anyway uh i just knew that it was going to be different this time so i went over there and it was uh it was worse Because, see, I had no way of getting out of this routine that I was in. And you're looking at maybe the only girl that I know of, USO girl that was up for court-martial. And I have to tell you about that. I was always madly in love, you know? Either that or recovering from love, and I don't know which I enjoyed the most. Right? you know when you're recovering from love now listen to me when youre recovering from love you know you turn that sad music on you know like my favorite was the man who got away and you get the jug out and you start drinking and crying and keep that music going and you know some other thing like is that all there is you never put anything on that has any hope for it right okay anyway i fell madly in love with this lieutenant over there handsome guy over in germany and here i was several times beyond where i first met him and again involved in a big drinking party and uh i suddenly decided you know how it is you suddenly decide um that i needed to talk to the great love of my life so i went on and got on the field telephone and a field telephone you have to make it goes by relay so you know you haveと wait for a while to make the connection while i was waiting uh this captain who was also drinking came over and asked me to go drink or play or whatever and i very dramatically of course i was always dramatic dramatically told him that i was Waiting for the voice of my great love of my life and that captain did something terrible he took his thumb and disconnected the phone and i said to him captain if you do that once more i'm going to hit you and he didn't believe me because i just about got through again and he did it again and since i had the phone right here in my hand i whacked him on the ear a little harder than i think i wanted to and uh i could not accurately predict my conduct i told you that uh anyway um he was stunned or loaded or whatever it was but he didn't realize what happened until the blood was gushing out of his ear and down his white trench coat and with that he got you know he screamed like a banshee and ran across the streets where the mps were hostile and signed these papers and they all came trooping over, and he pointed me out. That's embarrassing, you know that? He pointed me out, and I was ordered to appear the next morning at 10 o'clock. After all, I was under army orders, and striking an officer, you know. So the rest of the night, I just couldn't buy the idea of being sent home in disgrace. I just, I didn't know what to do. I just couldn't do that. So I had to figure something out. And the best thing I could figure out is the fact that he was pretty loaded and if i took two other girls with me that sort of resembled me uh there was an outside chance that he wouldn't be able to identify me and so we showed up at 10 o'clock as ordered and that captain was sitting there i mean he had a hangover that was coming over in waves you could feel across the room and he looked uh looked at us and looked at one and the other and the other, and he couldn't identify me. Now, I want to tell you, of course, I'm hoping, in looking back, I'm hope that this man found our fellowship. And my big dream is that one night or one day, I will be telling this story from the podium, and he'll be in the audience and when when the meeting is over he'll come up to me with his hand extended and he'll say Mary I'm the captain you hit on the ear in Germany and I'm gonna let him make his amends to me we weren't always wrong you know, even a clock that stopped is right twice a day. But anyway, where was I? Anyway, I don't know why it's somewhere around that time. It seems to me that the booze had stopped working because I was getting so morose and I was always on a downer and the boozer wasn't working. And I was just I blamed it on to man's inhumanity to man because I'd seen, you know the destruction and the terrible things that the war had brought. And I just thought the world is never going to be the same again. I knew that the only place I had any fun was in San Francisco, so when we got through with that show, I immediately went to San Francisco where all my old drinking buddies were. And strangely enough, everything there seemed to have changed, and even my best drinking buddies. I don't know, it was just kind of a lost... I felt like a lost soul with no, you know, I tried to drink it back and I tried to laugh it out and I tried to pretend it and I tried everything I could to get it back and it never came back. Never came back and so I decided that the only thing I could do really, I'd been everywhere, I've done everything what's left? The thing for me to do is get married. So I carefully selected a victim and And having to be a bartender, I couldn't stand. Now, I never hung around with people that didn't drink, but this, I don't know how I got into this, but he didn't drank. And any Al-Anon in this room will tell you that every pot goes out and finds a lid that fits it because he turned out to be a compulsive gambler. And to give you a clue as to what kind of a marriage we had, he gambled my drinking money and I drank his gambling money. And I'll tell you, that's a tense way to go. And so in my own mind, I knew that in order for this marriage to have any chance at all, I had to get him away from all those bookies up in San Francisco. And he may have thought that he wanted to get me away from all the drinkers, but the point is that I just could not stand another failure in my life. See, I never attained a goal. I never got to where I wanted to go The booze was there, but that was just part of the deal. I just knew that I had to make this a success. And so we moved to suburbia, moved to San Fernando Valley and he found some bookies right up on the corner and I found a drinking buddy right across the street and the race was on again. And like I say, I couldn't stand another failure. So I thought, well, the thing for me to do is to really get this marriage cemented, get pregnant. have a baby and that'll fix everything so i got pregnant and now my whole image of who i was going to be changed i was going to do everything by the numbers i was gonna be like my neighbors you know uh hang your laundry out on the uh on mondays and chit chat over the back fence and wear pink curlers to the market and uh do all those things but what what this woman that I was now going to be did not drink. So, I went on the way. God, I can't use that phrase. It chokes me up. I tell you, I became just totally nuts because I became a compulsive housekeeper and there's always one or two in the audience. I used to clean the corners with pins and I had a pocket full of Q-tips that I got for the underside of things and I had a toothbrush in the other pocket to get the lettering on the appliances with and if the old man got out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the john his bed was made before he got back and that's a tense way to live too but I was going to be perfect I was gonna be the best wife the best mother the best everything and I tell you I was just nuttier than a fruitcake you know by the time that kid was born it's a wonder I didn't boil him because by that time I was washing the walls with hexol, and I tell you, I knew that there was something wrong with me. I knew there was Something terribly wrong, but I just couldn't do anything about it. I just Couldn't do Anything about it, and this went on for several months Until I found out I was pregnant the second time. I hadn't planned that one. You know how that is? Nothing, nothing, doesn't everybody know how perfect I was? What's the point? What's The point in even trying? Because I always drank with two attitudes. One was, what's the use? And the other is, I'll show him. And here was, what's to use again? I mean, I tried my very best. Everybody knows that. So I thought, oh God, you know. I might as well have a couple of drinks. So I went across the street to my lady friends and had a couple de drinks and got away with it. Then I had a coupla more de drinks and I got away wit' that. now there's only one thing wrong with that for anybody who's new in here tonight I just want to tell you that to have a couple of drinks if you're an alcoholic and have a few drinks it's like a guy jumping out of the Empire State Building as he passes the 30th floor he says so far so good and that's what happened because now I decided we decided my drinking lady friend and I decided to go back to my native habitat which was the neighborhood bar god i love the bars i tell you that's where i met all you rowdy people uh i love a lot of people i love that unreal atmosphere the smoke-filled rooms and the tinkling glass and the smell from the men's room and jesus you know i love it you know how sexy and desirable and smart i was I could walk into a bar with a dollar and stay for three days. And you guys that were laughing were picking up my tab, don't forget that. But that's the way it went. And, you know, I was floundering around that neighborhood. And I don't take any particular pride in telling you about this, but the point is I'm just giving you a report on what happened to me on the way to Alcoholics Anonymous. and uh after my second child was born my husband left me for uh you know promises he'd never he'd stop gambling if i'd stop drinking now you know we always made those promises to each other and of course we couldn't even keep our own promises to ourselves never mind anybody else and so it was that uh i got pregnant the third time now i was outraged womanhood god i knew this guy was trying to keep me pregnant and barefoot and out in the country, and I couldn't stand it. And so I had to drink at him. Like I say, I'm not particularly proud of the fact that I had a baby. I had my first child when I was pregnant and floundered around that neighborhood, but it's part of my story, and the point is I don't have to live that way and do those things anymore. And so the third child was born, and my husband left me for what proved to be the last time. And now I was free to do what I wanted to do and live the way I wanted to live, which is party. Because after all, I'd been terribly miscast in this role of mother and wife and all this. I was kidding myself. I'm a party girl. Don't you understand that? And so it was that my mother and father used to come over and take care of the kids while I was out partying. And finally they got tired of it and they turned their backs on me. And it's probably the best thing they ever did for me. But I did have a neighbor lady that would look in on them. And I look back now in horror that I, you know, I left those kids home alone and the oldest one was like nine. It just really churns me when I even think about it. But that's the way it was. And, you Know, now all those things that started to happen, that happened to alcoholic women started happening to me. All those things I knew would never happen to me those things happen to other people i remember coming to in an alley one cold gray dawn sick and shaking and scared and wondering what had what happened to all my dreams this isn't what i planned for my life but it's the only solution i had it's the only thing i had i remember also being ordered out of that bar where i was once a very welcome 10 o'clock in the morning and the bartender sang out mary and you know i had no recollection if I hadn't been there, because I was into blackout drinking for a long time. But I hope I never forget the day that I was lurching down Ventura Boulevard and I was dirty. I hadnít taken a bath in a long time because one morning I came to in the tub and my nose was about this far from the water and I knew it was too dangerous. So I had to give that up. But instead of that, you know, I would splash taboo cologne all over me and a mixture of taboo and that 86 proof whiskey sweat you know that's something to anyway um anyway here i was lurching down ventura boulevard which is one of the main thoroughfares and my knees would never hold me up i was always falling down just falling i could not falling against buildings and and you know it it was that my body was drunk and my head was sober you know you know what i mean and i came upon this catholic church where mass was just letting out, and this family was coming down the steps, and there were two little boys, and I fell flat, right flat on the cement there. And I tell you, I was choking on my own disgust and biting back my tears and wishing to God that the earth would swallow me up. I was just sick, sick, six. And those things and others, which I don't talk about from the podium, happened to me in rapid succession and it drove me to drinking behind closed doors and drawn shades. And needless to say, I blamed all of this on my husband. I knew that he was at fault. And I mean that really, I really, that was valid in my head. It was his fault. Otherwise I wouldn't be in this position at all. And so my, in my madness, I was drinking around the clock and plotting how I was going to kill him and i mean that sincerely i don't mean that as a joke i was going to kill him and but for the grace of god you know i'd i'd be in prison tonight you'd have a different speaker but instead of that while i was drinking i for some reason picked up the phone and called the north hollywood clubhouse now i didn't remember where i'd heard about aa until i was sober for two years it seems to me that two years prior to this call i had been in a drunken brawl across the street from my house and there was a red-haired woman there who was drinking a coke and i hated women especially those that didn't drink and no i i imagine i went over and asked her why the hell she wasn't drinking and she said something to me about having found a better way to live. And something about AA, I don't remember. But anyway, I called the North Hollywood Clubhouse and a young man answered the phone and he sensed my despair or whatever it was that I had on that particular day and he said he'd be right out. Now, he broke an unwritten rule. What the hell are they trying to tell me here? He broke an unwritten rule. You know, men You're not supposed to call on drunk women. But thank God, you know, God in his infinite wisdom chose exactly the right person to call upon me because, like I say, I was in no position to welcome a couple of salvation sues. So anyway, he came out and if he had romantic inclinations on the way out, when I opened that door, especially if he was downwind you know I often wonder if he thought what an odor I can't go through with it of course followed by do not be discouraged but in he came with his big AA smile and the front cover of the grapevine which was the serenity prayer my birth is march 2 uh and so i was standing there in my moo-moo drinking my vodka out of a cheese glass and being very sophisticated you understand and he came in with that big smile and i to this day i don't remember what he said to me much, not much at all. But I just, you know, drank and he was talking. And finally, I said, well, aren't you going to stop me from drinking? He said, no, go ahead. Well, that got my attention. And then he said, you're an alcoholic. You're not supposed to say that, are you? Rule number two, he broke. I didn't find out until later though, but he said you're an alcoholic Well, God, I thought that sounded rather scientific compared to what they had been calling me around there. I thought this man is brilliant, brilliant. So you know he started talking to me and finally said would you like to go to a meeting? And I said a meeting. He said yeah. I said you mean there are other people who will talk to me? I said long distance is hanging up on me. He says no there's a whole bunch out there. So anyway I said okay and I put on my trench coat i don't know why because it wasn't raining or anything but uh there's john are you guys gonna there's jon ackland and his wife karen they're gonna are you in for a treat are you people in for here anyway you see you screwed up my story john anyway uh where was i all right i was drinking oh yeah oh okay i was just on my way to the meeting and uh so uh you know i get over there and i poured one more drink in the glass and uh i said you sure it's all right if i drink this before i go to the meeting and he said yeah and i said to hell with it that's the last drink i've had uh i've been allowed to stay sober since 1961 you know you really shouldn't applaud people for their length of sobriety you really shouldn't i heard john larroquette on phil donahue one day and he was talking about his alcoholism. And he was telling, you know, how terrible everything was for so long and it almost killed him and he went on and on and when he got through a little lady in the audience raised her hand and she said, Mr. Larroquette, I want to congratulate you for not drinking. And he said, Lady, congratulating an alcoholic for not drinking is like congratulating a cowboy with hemorrhoids for not riding his horse. see so don't applaud don't applaud anybody it's too dangerous anyway I got in that car with this guy and we I'm telling you we drove for miles and miles and miles from Ancino out to Chatsworth you know how far that is and it just kept getting darker and more desolate and it just kept getting worse all the time and I thought this guy was going to take me out and kill me and I didn't really care because I was a failure at suicide too, so who cared? But we did get out to this little church and there was a Sunday school building in the back of it. And he said that meeting is in there. You go look in the window while I go park the car. So I looked in the window and here is about 20, 25 people. They were laughing and hugging and kissing and rubbing up against, you know, like we do. And I thought, oh God, I just, I don't fit in there, my God. Those people are all clean and they're having fun. And, uh, you know, there's nothing sad about their lives, but I think he, about that time, he sensed that I was backing off. So he took me around to the front door and he said, I want you to look in the front drawer. And I looked in thefront door and took his hand and shoved me in. And he broke another rule there. You know, that's promotion that's not attraction folks so uh anyway i don't i remember very little about that meeting all i remember is that this man introduced me to the woman who was to become my first sponsor and she represented everything i hated in women she was soft-spoken spiritual well-groomed cunning baffling and powerful and she spoon-fed my soul that woman i i look back now and you know i don't have the kind of patience that she had with me however she did drive me home that night and uh as as she was driving away she said i will pick you up at eight o'clock tomorrow night we're going to the woman's meeting god i almost threw up i couldn't tell her that i was hated women uh besides i couldn't tell her i wasn't really an alcoholic you know i was just faking it so as she drove away and she said and by the way please take a bath before i pick you up and i thought what the hell do they want from me you know nothing i mean it wasn't lacking in arrogance at all you know and so it was that the next morning i came to and honest to god i was as sick as i've ever been in my life and I'd left a half a bottle of vodka, and every pore in my body wanted just one little drink. Not to get drunk, just to get well. You understand that, don't you? Just to get wel. But no, I remembered somebody had said in the meeting the night before that any damn fool can stay sober for 24 hours. And I didn't want to be a damn fool. So I just sweated it, and I tell you, I sweat, andI shook, and i try to get my makeup on and putting lipstick up my nose and god i was so sick but then uh i did get to the meeting that night and uh i knew i didn't belong there i'll tell you those women oh were they fancied up i mean every hair in place especially the gal who's leading the meeting i mean she was sitting there under platinum ovaries for god's sake looking Looking down on everybody, you know, just elegant as hell. I mean, I'd never seen anybody like that before. And I knew damn well I didn't belong there. I mean this was, I mean who's kidding? But you know I think when the student is ready the teacher will appear because the next gal that got up talked in my native tongue which was profanity. And I loved that, you now. She was a rowdy too and I felt a surge of hope there. well as it turned out that I start going to ten meetings a week see the reason I went to ten meanings a week is I didn't understand damn word you were saying but I couldn't get over the feeling that I got from the very first meeting that feeling of unconditional love that power power greater than myself and I went to all these meetings because I wanted to get it all I wanted to get at all you know anything worth doing is worth doing to excess and so I So I went, and I started 11. I started to understand a little bit, and then my husband found out I was going to AA, and he in his own madness started threatening me and threatening to kill me and threatening take my children, and it just drove me up the wall. I was hanging by my fingernails most of the time. I really truly wanted to stay sober. I wondered what you people had. And I finally, you see, I still had so much arrogance in me I was afraid to tell my sponsor that I had such a jerk for a husband. And finally, I couldn't stand it because I knew that every time he called, the homicidal feelings inside of me were surging up again. And I wasn't too sure that I wasn'T going to kill him when I'm stone sober. And so I called her finally and I said, Rita, he's just driving me crazy. If he doesn't leave me alone, I'm going to tell him I'm not going to drink, but I'm sure as hell going to call him. I said I don't know what to do. What will I do? And she said, why don't you hang up? Well, never occurred to me. Never occurred to me. Hang up? My God, I come from where you get even. You don't hang up for God's sake. But, you know, I ran out of my own resources so I had to do what she told me and each time he called I kept saying, I'm sorry but you're upsetting my serenity, and I'd hang up. And finally after a couple of months he stopped calling me and then I was you know I was very privileged to be introduced into a nest of hard-nosed old-timers I mean hard- nosed for you young people who get patted on the head and treated kindly I feel sorry for you I really do because if it hadn't been for those hard- nose old- timers I tell you they put their foot in my ass and it took a major operation to get it out. And that's why I'm here. That's why I am here. Because as I said, I'm arrogant, feisty, fighting back. That is the way I was. But unfortunately, I couldn't get away with it. See they thought more of my survival than they did my approval please remember that when you're dealing with people because I was set on a path that a path of survival that's what it was and I didn't even know it but I loved the AA meetings and finally this one guy said to me I think it's about time yeah yeah you got to make amends to this guy I said hell no the last thing I wanted to do of course everything has been the last thing i wanted to do starting with step one but um i said no and finally uh for some reason out of clear blue sky he called me again and again threatening he must had a bad day at the races and i went screaming to the woman's group that night and uh jumping up and down and crying and and saying i i gotta kill this guy and and you know what that elegant uh gal said to me she said pray for the son of a bitch you know and um i knew that when she said that that she understood so the conclusion of that meeting that night I started to pray for him and you know I didn't mean a damn word of it I didn' t mean a word of but I kept praying for him and then as a strange thing happened you know it didn't change him a bit what happened was with my praying for Him all this time it just lifted that terrible hatred right off of my shoulders and it finally disappeared and you see I was I was able I was privileged to take direction and make amends to him just two weeks before he died of a heart attack and here I was desperately broke we were very deeply in debt because we'd been running a restaurant for about 12 years I had three little kids and I thought well you know we owe the IRS like 15,000 that's a lot of money in those days and I just couldn't see any way out but I said to those hard-nosed people out there i said well you know after all i'm off the hook now because it wasn't my fault and they said oh no that is what we do here we make financial amends and i you know that really pissed me off you know uh so uh anyway uh i was told that i had to run the restaurant and pay the bills off in which i started to do and of course you know what happened all the aap people kept coming in buying coffee and sandwiches and so forth and so on and uh in the meantime i was living on social security um i was paying those bills off as fast as i could go and at the end of the year now by the end of the years we had three meetings going there at night three a.m meetings and by the year uh those old uh hard-nosed guys out there decided what we needed out that end of the valley was a club. So, um, the bills were paid. Uh, the landlord, uh, allowed us to turn the, the lease was up. So he allowed us to turn that place into a club called the nest. I don't know whether you people have ever heard of it. It's still operating. It is the sickest goddamn club in the world, but, uh there's a lot of, a lot sobriety has come out of it, But anyway, see, I was just there. Anyway, I became the coffee lady and queen of AA in the Valley. Isn't that right, John? Anyway, it was about this time when, what I was telling you this afternoon, when my eyes locked with him, with his eyes. You know, across a crowded room. Him. You women, you know what I'm talking about. See, they're all bobbing their heads in. Across the crowded room. And we fell madly, passionately in love. Just madly passionately. And we would have gotten married, but he already was. So you know how that ended. Anyway, I went along with this. And then I married a spiritual giant. and that was the biggest mistake of my life but how can you make how can you admit you made a mistake if you're the queen of AA you know it's hard you try to tough it out I'm not going to use those words on the podium that I told you today anyway that ended in divorce and it was again I had no money and we were struggling living hand to mouth and the women of AA bought me clothes The men of AA were seeing to it that my kids got shoes and had a good Christmas, so forth and so on. Sometimes I forget that, but I hope I never do. And I got a job in a hospital kitchen. I was supposed to be learning to be a diet aide, but as it turned out the dishwasher was drunk a great deal of the time time so I got to wash pots and pans and clean employees toilets and I also learned how to be second cook and all that and I hated it now in the meantime my first sponsor had moved up to Northern California so I got another sponsor and I had been following this guy around listening to him talk and I thought he was absolutely the best thing that I ever heard and he made more sense to me than anybody and some of you people have heard him his name is Clancy and you know I'm I'm a masochist I guess I don't know but you know I needed I needed the kind of direction he gives I really needed that kind of Direction and of course I I personally think he's the best teacher we have but I used to call him up and say Clancy I can't stand this damn job I don't what I'm gonna do I just hate it I just hate it and he'd say you have another job to go to kid and I'd say no he'd He'd say, just keep trucking, just keep working. And I just hated that. But you know, it was the wisest thing, the wisiest direction that I got at that time because God in His infinite wisdom knew that that kind of menial job was the only thing that would change my values. See, my values were always rooted in money, property, and prestige. And I had those things at one time. You know, I was a featured dancer written up in columns and, you know stardom and all this stuff. And yet I had no gratitude at all, never did. And so it was that one day when my son, my oldest son made first string varsity in high school, he asked me to attend his game. And you know, I got a surge of gratitude that I had never felt, but it was strange. I had ever felt gratitude. It was then at that moment that I realized that all this was for this very moment when i stood there and i and tears came to my eyes because see it could have been so much different it could've been so different that he would not have invited me or if he did i would not of shown up probably and i would have been a disgrace to him and an embarrassment to him if i did show up but instead of that here i am sober and savoring this moment of gratitude and i walked into the game that day i walked into the stadium thinking of all those people that made it possible for me to be walking in there with my head up sober and i walk in i sat clear in the end zone and i watched the kids warming up out on the field and i thought to myself my god i could have missed it all i could have missed at all if it wasn't for those people who cared about me when i couldn't care about myself and when they called his name out over the loudspeaker as a starting player I broke down cried I couldn't contain that gratitude I couldn't maintain it it was so new to me and my second son followed in his footsteps and I was out there every Friday crying every Friday and those boys have been such a joy to me both of them are very they're very successful in the insurance business have both different insurance companies but they have given me six grandchildren I know I don't look at that down anyway I want to tell you especially about my second grandson he and his wife you know they got beautiful wives but he and this wife decided to change their religion a few years ago and they became born-again Christians and I was invited to their wedding and i went up to their wedding and as i said he's very successful he has a beautiful home so we went to uh we went through his home for the reception afterwards and all those christians were walking around with the little glasses of champagne sipping sipping champagne jesus and i was sitting next to a woman who was you know picking it up and putting it down and picking it off and putting it done god damn it are you going to drink it what. That's why I'm an alcoholic, see, that's why. But anyway, I had to tell you about there being a born-again Christians because it has to do with the rest of my story. Now the other boy, that is why I am an alcoholic see, but anyway I had to tell you about uh there being a born again christmas because it has to do with uh the rest of my story now the other boy is uh you know he's giving his grant only granddaughter i have anyway um you know uh my sponsor clancy has said many times that aa works best when things go bad because my daughter, at the age of 14, picked up her first drink and another alcoholic was born, soon to be followed with the drugs. And it was a nightmare. It was a nightmarish. I went through many sleepless nights. I went not knowing where she was or if she was, running away, going to the police stations signing APB's going to juvenile hall to pick her up it was just a just a terrible nightmare until one day when she reached a crisis of her own and she wanted to get away from that life it was precisely at that time that God decided he was going to take me out of that job in the hospital because the bank on the corner wanted to buy my house and I was able because the boys were now in college and i was able to get the money from the house and pick up my daughter and move to honolulu get her away from all those bad people you understand and we went over there and uh she did well for a few months and in the meantime i got a job running a recovery house for women you think god hasn't got a sense of humor at the st francis hospital over there and since we didn't have this you know she my daughter was back and forth again she was uh into the drugs again and uh i i was just falling apart and uh since we did not have an al-anon meeting in that in that uh hospital we started one there and And that's when I went into Al-Anon. And I thank God for those women because they're the ones that gave me the strength and the direction to do the last thing I ever wanted to do in my life, and that was when things got so bad for my daughter, I had to take her down to Honolulu Airport and shove her on the plane and tell her to get the hell out of my life because I knew I was killing her and she was killing me. Several months later, my supervisor gave me a leave of absence of a week and what I wanted to do was to go up to Southern California and visit all my home groups and get some more of that industrial strength AA. And so I did and I went to all the old groups and walked in on a Sunday night and my daughter was reading chapter five from the podium and it tore me up and I would like to tell you that from that day to this she has never had another drink or used any more drugs however I don't have any such report to make because a few years ago it was necessary for me to take her 18 month old son away from her legally and put him up for adoption and I tell you it almost killed me neither one of my boys at that time were able to take him and my mother was dying in the hospital and my brother had just had a heart attack and here I am with his kid knowing I had to give him up and I didn't want to I could not put him in a foster home I could not send him out in the world and never know what happened to him again because I had become so close and bonded to him but you know God did for me what I could not do for myself in that one month that I was in such agony the only thing that was echoing in my head was some days you just hang on this is what Clancy always said some days You Just Hang On and that's what I did don't ask me what steps i was working don't ask me about any of that spiritual stuff all i did was cry and agonize and knowing that there was just no no way out but god had his own plan because my born-again daughter-in-law had a friend in sacramento who uh was married to this major in the air force they've been married for 10 years a good marriage and were unable to have children of their own and they jumped at the chance to take this kid and here it was you know a connection a connection whereby i would know what happened to him and i would know that he was in a loving home and so with great difficulty i gave him up and let me tell you how god works he always compensates please remember that god always compensate because from that day to this the woman who adopted him has written to me and sent me pictures they were now back in st. Louis sent me pictures and I'm known to him as Aunt Mary and last year the people of st. Louis invited me to go speak at their banquet and I almost came through the phone because they didn't know that my kid was there. And I went back to St. Louis and I got to spend Saturday with this kid. We went to lunch, then we went to the mall, and I bought him every damn thing he wanted. I might add that God was always good for her, too, because she had a little sister for him not very long ago. So he's got a little Sister. And we stay in touch, and he writes me little notes. Isn't God wonderful? This is something I never bargained for. This is the first time I've ever written to him. This is this is something that I wouldn't have thought of in a million years. God did for me what I couldn't do for myself. So all is well there. as for my daughter and I want you young people to please listen to me when she's not in jail she's down in the dope area Santa Ana with a needle in her arm doing what she has to do to get what she had to get and I don't think I have to be more specific with that so it is that for me it's a day at a time step at a time and a prayer at a times but I know that you know the conclusion of these meetings all over the world over two million recovered alcoholics are praying for her and people like her and I am a living example as possible to stay sober with a broken heart everything I have of any value whatsoever I owe to the people who cared about me when I couldn't care about myself but most of all for teaching me to walk in the dignity of sobriety thank you from the bottom of my Thank you from the bottom of my heart.