The Freedom of Living Regardless of Public Opinion – Mary R.

And it's only by the grace of God and the people who cared about me when I couldn't care about myself that I'm here this morning. I want to thank the committee for inviting me, especially Barbara, and all the rest of you gals who stood up, and my chauffeur over there who carted me around and hounded me to death. And I especially want to welcome those new people that stood up last night And I wonder if that little gal is here That had one day of sobriety yesterday I would not be surprised If she went out and got drunk after that Anyway I was invited to talk about my drinking And I can wrap up my whole drinking career 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 now um i was born in spain and i came to this country when i was three years old and we moved into a wasp neighborhood where they hated catholics and foreigners And so right from the beginning, you can see I felt unwanted and put upon. And I hated where I was and who I was because I wanted to be an American. And I knew that right fromthe very beginning, I knew what I wantedto be the rest of my life. I wantedtodethe greatest dancer that ever lived. And I loved to dance, and I danced all the time. My father thought to it that I got dancing lessons, I got ballet lessons and acrobatic and tap and all those things. And I was dancing professionally at a very early age. And my mother and I weren't getting along, so the day after I graduated from high school, I was 16 years old, and I went on what is now known as the tail end of vaudeville. We used to travel around in caravans and cars, and it was during one of these caravan trips that someone passed around a bottle of slow gin. Now, when I mention slow gin, I know I'm dating myself because that isn't really the end drink these days. But as a matter of fact, I've been thinking about getting a facelift, you know. It's very popular in our area. I mean, what's the point in getting a face lift when everything else is sagging? I tell you, it's a sad day when you're trying on one of those cross-your-knees bras. I don't know what you're laughing about she's got the kind you can scratch a match on and she's sitting there laughing when do you get here honey just when do you get her when do you get here honey anyway I'm here to talk about my drinking I guess anyway you know I never was able to accurately predict my conduct like the book says i you know i just drank as much as i could threw up and passed out and i set a pattern for my whole drinking career anyway after this trip i um eventually i wound up in the nightclubs of san francisco and now i really had it made there because see uh i was wearing those fancy clothes that feature dancers wear and i was drinking uh i mean the booze was always available to me. I was table hopping, giving everybody a break, you understand. And I was written up in the column. Herb Cain used to call me the Belle of Bush Street. And God, you know, I was walking around there like Queen Bee. And yet inside, I felt there was something terribly missing in my life. I felt unfulfilled. And then I knew, I finally found out what it was that made me feel unfulfilled. It was the fact that Hollywood hadn't discovered me yet and made me the big star that I knew I was going to be, and so I endured that kind of pain for a while until I actually was invited to go take a screen test in Los Angeles. And so I went down to Hollywood with the attitude that Betty Davis had better start saving her money because I was on my way, and I had the type of arrogance that I'm sure some of you are familiar with. And so I went down there, and I took the screen test, and it was rotten. Well, how can you act when you're already acting? But I didn't know that. I was signed to a stock contract, however, and that means that you're assigned to a stock contract and they put you out on the lot with the rest of the herd, and sometimes you never heard of again. However, I did do some bit parts and I did some dancing and so forth, but what I mostly did was I got caught up with the drinking crowd. Does that surprise you? I got cut up with a drinking crowd, you know, and I made all the nightclubs, the Sunset Boulevard, you know those places that you read about in movie magazines, you have Cirros, Macombo, all those places. And I was a party girl. I loved that. I love that life. I just thought it was wonderful. And and I kept at it. And, you know, one thing I didn't realize was the reason I wasn't doing so well was because in that business, you have to have the soul of a butterfly and the skin of a rhinoceros. And you know I'm sensitive. And so, you know, I don't have that skin of a rhino. I had to pretend that I did all the time. I did have the soul of a butterfly, still do as a matter of fact. But anyway, I was a party girl and toward the end of the second year of that contract I started getting a little concerned because I wasn't asked to do very much except that I was out there drinking, partying it up all the time. The thing with me was that I drank with the right people but I slept with the wrong one. but toward the end of the second year i was saved from a fate worse than death um a guy from the uso office in beverly hills came on the lot and offered me an opportunity to go overseas and entertain the soldiers because the world war was world war ii was on at the time and uh i jumped at that chance because the first thing i thought it was all those men over there you understand that don't you you women understand that anyway I went overseas and needless to say I got into a lot of trouble over there like I said I couldn't accurately predict my conduct ever and so this trip took us to China Burma India and if there's anyone here any of you old gray beards that resent USO girls for fraternizing only with the officers I'm here to remove your resentment because um i drank with yard birds generals didn't make any difference to me just said where and let's go so uh anyway um we were in the himalayan mountains someplace and uh i remember drinking grapefruit juice and something with the guys the night before and i came to the next morning and i was paralyzed i couldn't move i found out since that it was some kind of denatured alcohol or whatever who cared you know uh anyway i was paralyzed i could not move and my roommate who was a big star ran over to the medics and they came trooping over and they gave me shots and oxygen and everything just to get me on my feet and functioning again they worked on me for about two hours and you know i blamed the altitude i just knew that i didn't even drink in denver after i wouldn't drink here at all for god's sake i had my well you know you have to defend your right to drink. So anyway, that was that. And so I came back from that tour very put upon. I felt very put on because the military had not told us that they wanted us to entertain between shows. Well, actually, that demand didn't come from them at all. It came from me because I was one of those people who desperately needed your approval and I couldn't say no to anything. I had to have your approval at any cost. And one of the great freedoms I've found here is the fact that I'm able today to live in a manner that's acceptable to me regardless of public opinion. Because, you know, as long as I was dancing to your tune or saying what I thought you wanted me to say, I was throwing away my own approval and that's the one I need the most. But anyway, I Was Now offered the opportunity to go overseas to the European theater. And so I thought to myself, this time it's going to be different. This time I'm not going to drink so much, and I'm not going to go to so many parties. And this time, I'm not going let everything go by me in a big gray haze. And this time I'm going to mind my P's and Q's. Well, you've read my story in the big book as chapter three. It was different. It was worse because I really didn't know how not to get caught up in the same thing again. So you're looking at maybe the only girl that was up for court-martial. I don't know of any others that were, because see, I was always madly in love, either that or recovering from love, and I don' t know which I enjoyed the most, to tell you the truth. You know, when you're recovering from love, you turn on that sad music and you get the jug out, and you play the music and cry. Did you ever do that? I used to love The Man Who Got Away. That was my favorite, The Man Who Gotaway. I'd get that jug out and start crying, and I loved the bittersweet agony that went with it. The other song that I loved was Is That All There Is? That's the one. That really got me just tear-jerking like mad. But anyway, I fell in love with this handsome lieutenant over there in Germany, and here I found myself several towns beyond where I first met him at a drinking party, naturally. And I suddenly decided, you know how you do, you suddenly decide. I suddenly decided I needed to get in touch with this man by telephone. So I went over and got on the field telephone, which means a field telephone you go through relays and it takes a while to make a connection. And so I got on The Phone and just about got through when this captain who was also drinking He came over and asked me to go drink or play or whatever. And I very dramatically, of course, I was always dramatic, I very dramatically said that I am waiting for the voice of my beloved on the other end of the line. And 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 you know he didn't believe me because uh 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 and uh i like to say i didn't i didn't mean to hit him quite that hard i don't think but um but anyway uh he was uh rather stunned or whatever it was he was drunk and when he saw the blood gushing out of his ear and down in his white trench coat. He screamed like a banshee and ran across the street to where the MPs were hostile and signed this complaint against me. And of course, they came trooping over and he pointed me out. That's humiliating, you know that? He pointed me out and I was ordered to appear the next morning for this hearing at 10 o'clock. God, you know, I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how I was going to get out of this one. You ever do that? So I figured that since there were 14 girls on this show, that you know, there was an outside chance that if I took two girls with me you've got to be clever, you know. Two girls with him that sort of resembled me, that I'm just counting on the fact that he was so loaded he wouldn't be able to identify me. And so we showed up the next morning and he was, this captain was sitting there. I mean, he had a hangover that was coming over in waves. I mean, you could feel it. You can feel it across the room. He had these poached eyes and red face, you know, and I felt sorry for him for about a second there. And then, you know, he just kept looking back and forth and back and forth and he couldn't identify me. And I always tell this story because I have this dream. I have a fabulous dream that in looking back, I'm almost certain that he was one of us. Don't get ahead of me, I've got to tell you this story. And you know one day I'm quite sure that I'm going to be standing at the podium. Of course I know that he found his way through the fellowship and this man is going tobe in the audience. It might even be this morning and when I'm through talking he's going to come up to me with his hand extended and say, Mary, I'm the captain that you hit on the ear in Germany. And I'm going to let him make his amends to me. We weren't always wrong, you know. Even a clock to stop is right twice a day. Now, I don't know any more than you do. i don't know any more than you do when it happened that everything went blank that they took they turned the lights out all over the world i don' t know i know that i was restless irritable and discontented and i couldn' t understand why because the booze was not working nothing was working and i was sad sad sad i was i was so depressed but i blamed everything onto the onto the war and the destruction I had seen and the things that I had gone out to the camps and I'd seen such terrible, terrible things. Man's inhumanity to man. And I just knew that the world was never going to be the same again and I tried to drink it back and I just kept drinking anyway and it wasn't working. It absolutely wasn't workiing and I made a decision that the only place I ever had any fun was in the San Francisco nightclubs and so that's where I headed as soon as I got back. and you know i get i went back there and uh they all seem to have changed all my drinking buddies all my friends even the place itself even the town itself seemed to change and and i was just in that desolate desolate place that we find ourselves in sometimes and i thought to myself there's only one answer for me i've been all over the world i've done everything the thing for me to do is settle down and get married so I carefully selected a victim and happened to be a bartender I couldn't stand now any Al-Anon in this place will tell you, Katrina will tell You that every pot goes out and finds a lid that fits it this guy didn't drink and I didn't hang around people that didn't drank but he didn't, he, you know, we fit because he was a compulsive gambler. Now I'll 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 that's a tense way to live. I can tell you that. But, uh, you Know, I, I just couldn't at this point, I couldn't stand another failure in my life because see, I had never achieved, I Had never attained any goal that I'd set out for myself. I always just missed it by a little bit, but now this marriage was going to be successful. It was going TO BE SUCCESSFUL. In order for that to be a good marriage, though, I had to get him away from all the gamblers, all the bookies up there. So we moved to Southern California, to suburbia, 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, couldn't stand for this marriage to be i knew it was we're in trouble i knew we were in trouble in order to save this marriage i said to myself what i should do is get pregnant and have a baby and then everything will be all right and so i got pregnant and now my whole idea of who and what i was going to be changed because i was going to perfect i was gonna be perfect i I was going to be like my neighbors. I was gonna do my laundry on Mondays, hang it out in that San Fernando sun and chit chat over the back fence with those women. I was doing to do all of, I was, I was to be a perfect mother, housekeeper. I was gunna be perfect in every way and above all this woman that I was now going to being did not drink and so I went on the way. God I can't you know. that's exactly how I felt. See? That's how I felt. So now I my obsession came out in other ways. I became a compulsive housekeeper. There's always one or two in the audience. I used to clean the corners with pins and I had Q-tips in one of my pockets that I got the underside of things with and I was like, And I had a toothbrush in the other pocket that I've got 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. That's a tense way to live too. You know, when that kid was born, it's a wonder I didn't boil him. Because by that time, I was washing the walls with hexol, you know. Oh, God, it was... I tell you, I had created the perfect child in this world and nobody could get near him. Nobody. It was just madness, total madness. But then this went on for several months until I found out I was pregnant the second time. And I hadn't planned this one. You know how that goes? I hadn't planned this one. I was outraged. I knew that my husband was trying to keep me pregnant and barefoot out in the country, and I couldn't stand it. It was all his fault. And I finally said to myself, I mean, what the hell is the use? What is the Use? I have been perfect. I have done everything perfectly, and this is the reward I get? I had this first child's whole life mapped out for him what schools he was going to what kind of clothes he was gonna wear what kind friends I was gonna allow him to have and here comes this intruder of course I always drank with two attitudes one was what's the use and the other is I'll show him so here it was, what's to use so I decided to go across the street and have a couple of drinks which I did and I got away with it. Next day, I went over and had a couple more drinks and got away with that too. Now for you new people, I want you to listen to me closely. For someone like me who is an alcoholic to have a couple of drinks and get away with it is like a guy jumping out of the Empire State Building as he passes the 30th floor and he says, so far, so good. and that's what happened so far so good i already told you i wanted to be a perfect wife and mother and all this but it was taken away from me and this is where i went back i decided to go back to my native habitat which is the neighborhood bar god i love the bars folks i love them i love to walk into that unreal atmosphere that smoky atmosphere were those guys telling me how sexy and desirable and smart I was. I used to love the smell from the men's room. I could walk in with a dollar and stay for three days. And you guys that were laughing were picking up my tab, don't forget that. So it was that my husband took a dim view of my activities, and after my second son was born, he left me and came back and left me and came always with the promise that he wouldn't gamble so much if I didn't drink so much. and of course we were never able to keep our own promises to ourselves, never mind anybody else and so it was that as a result of one of these joyous reunions I got pregnant the third time I was outraged womanhood but I tell you I couldn't stand I hated this man so badly I wanted to kill him I mean for real I wantedto kill him and now started my you know this is what I really wanted though, what I really wanted to do was to be a playgirl because I was terribly miscast in this role of mother and housewife. I now realize that I was terrible miscast. And so after my third child was born, I had the freedom to now do exactly what I want to do. And that is to be a play girl because my husband left me for what proved to be the last time. and now all those things that happen to alcoholic women started happening to me in rapid succession and i was amazed that these things were happening to me i remember coming to in an alley one cold gray dawn sick and shaking and scared and wondering what had happened to the great bell of bush street and how did i find myself in that alley you know just thrown away like garbage uh i remember uh being ordered out of that bar where I was once welcomed and the bartender saying out this is 10 o'clock in the morning. I had no recollection of having been there because I was into a lot of blackout drinking but I hope I never forget a Sunday morning such as we have this morning lurching down Ventura Boulevard which is one of our main boulevards there drunk and dirty. This is 10 o'clock in the morning and i hadn't had a bath and so i i gave up bathing because i came to one morning uh with my nose this far from the water in the tub and i knew right away it was too dangerous for me to do that anymore and so here i was lurching in those days i was splashing myself with huge uh huge amounts of taboo perfume because uh i tell you mixed with that 86 proof sweat it with something. But here I was on this Sunday morning, lurching and falling down. My knees could never hold me up and I was falling against buildings. And I came across this Catholic church where mass was just letting out. And, uh, I fell flat on my face in front of the steps there. And I hope I never forget the look on those two little boys that were coming down the steps with their parents. And you know, I was choking on my own disgust and biting back my tears and wishing to God that the earth would swallow me up because the shame was just too much for me. It was too much for me and I couldn't understand it. I couldn' t understand how this was happening to me. And those are only some of the things that were happening to me on my way to Alcoholics Anonymous. At that time, my anger toward my husband was homicidal by this time. I really in my madness knew that I had to kill him in order to have any peace for myself and so i was drinking behind closed doors and drawn shades planning on how i was going to kill him and i really mean that i was gonna kill him had i had the opportunity instead of that by the grace of god for some reason or another and i didn't realize how i did this or why but i picked up the phone and called uh the north hollywood clubhouse and a young man answered the phone you know it took me two years of sobriety to realize that uh where i got the message of alcoholics anonymous and this woman was drinking across the street for me she was a red-haired woman and she was uh drinking a coke and you know i didn't like women at all i hated women especially those who didn't drink and so I apparently had gone over to her in my own inimitable fashion, asked her why the hell she wasn't drinking. And she said something to me about having found a better way to live. And she also says something tome apparently about Alcoholics Anonymous because here I was talking to this young man at the North Hollywood Clubhouse and he sensed either my madness or my despair or whatever it was, but he said he'd be right out. Now, he broke the unwritten rule of AlcoholicsAnonymous that men are not supposed to be calling on women, but I can tell you that God in his infinite wisdom sent the right man to call on me because I was in no position to welcome a couple of salvation sues. I can say this. I can also tell you that if this man had any romance in his soul on his way out to see me, that when I opened that front 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, that's followed by do not be discouraged, you know. And he came in and I was standing there in my muumuu, very functional drinking garment, I'll tell you. You know, you can sleep in it. You can make the run in it and you don't have to wear underwear. And if you throw up, it doesn't show too much. But that was gracious living, you understand. But I'm drinking vodka out of my cheese glass standing there in all my regal splendor. And this man came in with the front cover of the grapevine, which was a serenity prayer. And I looked at it and I thought that was a nice little prayer. But see, I wasn't an alcoholic. I really didn't think I was an alcoholic because I had already established that fact by not drinking many, many times knowing that I could take it or leave it. But here he was and I finally just said, well, aren't you going to stop me from drinking? Because I still to this day don't remember what he said. All I know is he had this big A.A. smile on his face. And I kept drinking and I said, aren'T you going to stopme from drinking?" He said, no, go ahead. Well, God, that got my attention. Because no one, no one had ever told me that. And then he broke rule number two. He said, you know, you're an alcoholic. I thought, God. That's rather scientific sounding compared to what they have been calling me around here. I thought this man was brilliant. You know, brilliant. So anyway, I just, you Know, he kept chattering away. and finally he said would you like to go to a meeting and I said meeting he said yeah there's a meeting out here in Chatsworth and I'm going and I asked well you mean there are people other people who will talk to me and he said sure and I thought God you know long distance has been hanging up on me a long time now nobody's been talking to me and he says yeah come on so anyway I went in and got my raincoat on and I don't know why but it wasn't raining but I got it on anyway and uh so i poured myself another drink and i said are you sure it's okay if i have this drink before we leave and he said yeah and in typical alcoholic fashion i said to hell with it and i left it there and i've been allowed to stay sober since that very first night that was march the 29th 1961. You know, you shouldn't applaud alcoholics. I heard John Larapet, you know, the guy from Night Court, he was talking about his alcoholism on Phil Donahue's show one time, and I guess he's sober about 10 years now. He didn't mention AA, but he didn't want to mention he'd been sober for 10 years. But in the meantime, he was talking about where his alcoholism had taken him and it was just really pretty bad story. And at the end of this, some little housewife in the audience raised her hand and he called on her. And she said, Mr. Larapet, I'd like 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. I knew that would go especially well up here. uh anyway uh i got into that car with this man and uh i mean you none of you know how far it is from encino to chesterwood except maybe angie here but i'm telling you it was miles and miles and miles and out it kept getting darker and more desolate and i thought this guy's gonna take me out kill me well i really didn't care because i was a failure at suicide too so what you know i didn't dare really and so we finally got out to this little church and there was a little sunday school building behind the church and uh he told me to get out and he parked the car and told me go and look in the window and i looked in the windows and i saw these people they were all laughing and they were clean they were hugging and kissing and rubbing up against you know like we do and uh and i just knew you know i was so i felt so dirty and and i did you know how i felt it and i didn't want to go in there i didn t want to go in he came up about that time and i think he sensed that i i was backing off but he took me around to the front door he said look in the front door and i looked in the front door and he took his hand and shoved me in Now, that's promotion. That's not attraction, folks. So, anyway, he 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. I don't remember what was said that night at that first meeting that I went to but I have never forgotten what I felt in that group what I fell in that meeting and every meeting I have attended since then I felt a power I felt the power greater than myself I felt of power of unconditional love such as I had never experienced in my life I have never felt anything but that in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that power is with us here this morning feel it and that's what I took home with me that night when my sponsor dropped me off and told me she would pick me up the next morning at 8 o'clock and take me to a woman's meeting. God, I almost threw up. I couldn't tell her I hated women. And as she drove away, over her shoulder she said, and by the way, please take a bath. And I thought, what do these people want from me? Don't they know who I am? But you know, the next morning I was as sick as I've ever been in my life, I think. i was sweating and i was shaking and i was trying it took me all day long to get ready for that woman's meeting that night and you know trying to put lipstick on it was going up my nose and i was shaking so badly and that half a bottle of vodka was on that sink and i i wanted a drink just just a drink you know not to get drunk but just to get well but uh i remember someone at that meeting saying any damn fool can stay sober for 24 hours and i didn't want to think i was a damn fool So I just sweated it out, and I got to that meeting that night, and God, I tell you, I really didn't belong there. This was a very elegant group of people. These gals all had every hair in place, and they were dressed beautifully, and especially the gal that was leading that meeting. God, she was the most elegant gal I ever saw. She was sitting on platinum ovaries, this gal. I mean, she wasn't elegant. She was elegant now. She was arrogant. And I knew that I did not belong there. I knew I didn't belong there, but I think when the student is ready, the teacher will appear because the next gal that got up and talked talked in my native tongue, which was profanity. And you can bet I made a beeline for her right after the meeting. Needless to say, I really didn't think I was alcoholic, but I loved what I felt here and I wanted all of it. and so i started going 10 meetings a week god i was just i was just in love with what i felt here and what i the laughter and the hugging and the kissing and the rubbing up against you know i loved all of that and i went to all these meetings and like i say i was going to 10 meetings a week and my husband found out that i was going to aa and he started calling me and threatening to take in his own madness threatening to Take my children threatening to kill me and this went on and I couldn't tell my sponsor what was happening to me. I was really dearly hanging on for dear life and not drinking but I was just so enraged with this man and finally I had to call her and tell her that he was driving me crazy and he kept this homicide stirred up in me and I said, I don't know what to do and she said, well, hang up. It never occurred to me but they talked to me in very simple terms in those days but that's the hang up you know i'm i can i come from where you get even i don't hang up on anybody but uh the next time he called i just picked up the phone and i said i'm sorry but upsetting my serenity hung up real fast as i say i was in this group uh there was a group of hard-nosed old-timers god i have such a respect for those hard-znosed old timers that uh you know they didn't pat me on my head and tell me how wonderful i was doing they put their foot in my behind and it took a major operation to get it out that's what happened and i i thank god for those people because uh they cared more about my survival than they did my approval, and I think that's very important in our game of sobriety here. In this woman's meeting, I again received a phone call about three months after this first incident, and again he threatened to kill me, and against he threatened to take the children, and in my heart knew that he could take those children because I was an unfit mother and I went screaming to the woman's meeting that night and I was just crying and screaming and saying, I can't stand it any longer. I got to kill this guy. And you know what that elegant lady said to me? She said, pray for the son of a bitch. And you know, that was the last thing I wanted to do for God's sake. Of course, my whole program is the last things I want to do, starting with step one. Everything's been the last thing i wanted to do so uh that night at the conclusion of the meeting i started to pray for him and i didn't mean a damn word of it i'll tell you that i didn'T need a word of it but i prayed for him anyway because they told me to and uh the strange thing is i kept praying for him AND IT DIDN'T CHANGE HIM A BIT DIDN't change him a bit what happened was it changed me it took all that hatred right off of my shoulders and it gave me an understanding of the sickness and it gave me some compassion for him and it was then that i was ordered to make my amends to him which i didn't want to do but i was order to do that and i was privileged because of those people i was privilege to make my immense to him just two weeks before he died of a heart attack and now i was left with three little kids the restaurant that we had been running for 12 years was very deeply in debt because of his gambling and i guess my drinking but mostly and i thought i tell you i thought you know now that he died uh we don't owe the irs the hell we didn't uh we had a big bill with the iras and uh i went to my home group with the idea that you know now I'm off the hook you know everything's wiped clean and they said no you have to make your financial amends to all the purveyors and the IRS and everybody and so what happened was I was stuck running that restaurant I decided that I was going to get that restaurant paid the bills paid off as fast as I could with the help of the people that I knew. And so my sons and I lived on the Social Security that my husband had left for us, and I paid off all those bills. In the meantime, they decided that we needed a meeting in that restaurant, and we started a meeting. And before you know it, we had about two or three meetings a week going there. At the end of the year, all the bills were paid off and the old uh the old timers at that end of the valley decided we needed a clubhouse out there so we got permission from the landlord to turn the restaurant into a clubhouse and um that clubhouse is in is still in existence it is the sickest damn clubhouse in the world i can tell you that the reason for that is that we accepted all the rejects from all the other clubs and but a lot of sobriety has come out of it's called the nest I don't know what anybody's heard of it. Maybe Katrina is her husband. Maybe, see he's nodding his head. Sick place, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway, I became, I was in charge of the coffee bar and I became queen of the AA San Fernando Valley. I was running everybody's life, everybody's wife, because I was now queen of AA in the San Fernando valley. and i love that i love that job and while i was on that job you know across a crowded room i saw him angie remembers this and you know our eyes locked you know how it is and we fell madly passionately in love and we would have gotten married except he already was. And we know how that ended. They don't do that up here, do they? Anyway, along came a spiritual giant and I married him. Don't laugh. Biggest mistake ever made. Biggest mistake i ever made but how can you how can you admit you made a big mistake when you're queen of the aa valley how can you do that you don't you try to make it work somehow some way and people were betting i was either going to get drunk or go crazy and i was trying to be you know a good aa and keep it all within myself and it was thank god elsa c who got me to talk about it and gave me permission to divorce him and so here i was now still no money so I got a job in a hospital kitchen and I was supposed to be learning to be a diet aid there but most of the time the dishwasher didn't show up so I've got to wash pots and pans and clean employees toilets and I hated that job in the meantime I forgot to tell you that my first sponsor was transferred up to San Francisco so I had been following this little guy around listening to him talk best teacher we have I think I asked him to be my sponsored a lot of people here know him his name is clancy and he is a dictator and he's a fascist and he'S my hero i'll tell you that he is my hero he is the only one i know in all of aa that sponsors four people that that have 30 years sobriety we have our class of 61 that meets all the time and he's my hero anyway i used to call him up and whine and say i can't stand this job classy don't they know who i am my god this is a menial damn job and he'd say you got another job to go do kid and i'd say no he's well when god's ready to move you he'll move you and i just keep trucking thank god he made me take take steps that you know that were meant for my survival he forced me into taking those steps and so it was that i went along with this job for a while and came the day when i found out why god put me in that menial job that was the only way that my values could have been changed the only ways to put me an amenial job like that to know to recognize the spiritual gifts that we're talking about here in alcoholics anonymous they call us a spiritual program because we are talking here of the things of the spirit and i had finally been introduced to a feeling of gratitude that i had never had in my whole life when my oldest son made first string varsity in high school and invited me to his first game and i can tell you that i was so overwhelmed with this feeling of gratitude that here i was a fallen down drunk being invited to participate in my son's maybe the most important day of his life after that time and it was to me a miraculous thing that i was able to walk into that stadium with my head up to see it could have been so different It could have been so different. And I walked into that stadium, and I sat clear in the end zone. And I sat there watching those kids warm up out on the field. And I looked at them, andI thought, My God, I could have missed it all if it wasn't for those people who cared about me when I couldn't care about myself. And I broke down and cried when they called his name as a starting player. Such gratitude I had never, never, ever experienced with all the things that i had and my second son followed in his footsteps and i was out there every friday crying anything worth doing is worth doing to excess and those two those two kids have you know they have grown up to be such fine gentlemen they are they're both very successful in the insurance business and as a matter of fact my second son and his wife that he married after they'd been going together since junior high school. And they gave me three grandsons. They decided a couple of years ago, a few years ago to change their religion and they became born again Christians. And I was invited to their wedding and I went out to their wedding. And after the wedding, we went out through their home, which is a very beautiful home he's very successful and uh those women were those people uh those christian people were walking around sipping champagne and i was sitting next to a woman sipping champaign and she'd put it up to her mouth and put it down again and i tell you i i wanted to take that glass and shove it in her mouth said god damn it drink it that's what makes me an alcoholic see and then my son come and knelt down by me and put his hand on my arm and he says mother I got to talk to you seriously and I said what's that and he said mother you got to be saved well I said Jesus you don't know what it is to be safe I guess he got a flash of mother flaked out on the couch, you know. His eyes white and he said, you're right. And my oldest son has given me a grandson and a granddaughter. The granddaughter is going to be in the Nutcracker this year down there, which is a big thrill for all of us. And her little brother is a candidate for San Quentin. and um anyway um but you know we've had a lot of laughs this morning and thank god but uh you know i have found out for people like us we're either laughing or crying and everything else in between is dull right so i have to share my pain with you that i have to share that's why i came here my daughter at the age of 14 picked up her first drink and another alcoholic was born and i was to know the sleepless nights the running after her up and down the coast not knowing where she was or if she was and believe me i did not know that she had she was an alcoholic i thought she was going through a phase that part of denial that we go through once in a while and then came the day when she had she was in a crisis of her own and said that she wanted to get out of this whole thing and it was precisely at that time that god decided to move me out of the hospital because the bank on the corner wanted to buy my house and with that money i could quit and take my daughter to honolulu over to hawaii get her away from all those bad people now i should have known better but you know hope springs eternal in the heart of a mother and we went over to honalulu and i got a job in managing a woman's step house at saint francis hospital over there and that's where i learned to love women and my daughter did well for a few months but you finally got into deep drugs over there if you got into Deep Trouble and because we did not have an Al-Anon meeting in the house at that time we started an Al Anon meeting and that is when I joined Al-A-Non and thank God for those women because they gave me the strength and the courage to do the last thing i ever wanted to do and that was to take my daughter down to the hondaloo airport while she cried and screamed for another chance take her down there and put 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 and i walked away from her as fast as i could because i know that if i stood there long enough she could talk herself into coming back but I walked away and those Al-Anon women and the AA women were waiting for me to give me comfort and support a couple of months after that my supervisor gave me a leave of absence of a week and of course the one thing I wanted to do was to go up to up to the San Fernando Valley and get some of that industrial strength AA because my cup was getting empty and I wanted to visit all my home groups. And I walked into the Sunday night group and my daughter was reading chapter five from the podium. And, I wish I could tell you that from that day to this she has never had any more drugs or alcohol. Unfortunately, I have no such report to make because after two years of sobriety on our program she made a decision to turn her life and her will over to the care of cocaine and the nightmare began. A few years ago, it was necessary for me to legally take away her 18-month old son. And since neither one of my boys could take this child at that time, it wasn't possible. The doors were all closed. My then boss gave me a week, I mean a month to get this whole mess straightened out. I knew that I was going to have to give him up and I couldn't stand that idea. I could not stand the idea that I had to send him out into the world and never know what happened to him again. You see in that one month I bonded with him and I thought I would never see the fear go out of that little kid's eyes and i was crying inside and i stayed home with him for that month and the aaa people were calling me and supporting me but i couldn't hear what you were saying i couldn t hear and the pain was so great that i really the thought of suicide even entered my head because i could not let this kid go to a foster home i could not i couldn't stand that idea but see god did for me what i couldn t do for myself because through my born-again daughter-in-law she had a christian friend she had christian friends up in sacramento in the military who had been married for 10 years a good marriage and were not able to have children of their own and they wanted this child and i thought at least uh you know there's some cord where i could trick i'd find out how he was doing and how he would at least i'm not throwing him out into the world and so they eagerly took the child and gave him the love and and everything this kid needed and i want to tell you something that i don't want you to forget that god always compensates because this woman has written to me regularly, has sent me pictures regularly. See, I didn't even ask for that. But she has kept in touch with me. And God has compensated her also because she got pregnant and had a little girl. She gave him a little sister. And last year the people of St. Louis asked me to go and speak at their banquet. And I almost came through the phone because, see, that's where the kid is. And they didn't know that. God compensated again. And I was to walk into that home where this little kid is being raised and it was a home where you walk into and the love embraces you as you walk in. You walk into their front door. The peace and the serenity. And we went out to dinner. and after dinner we went to the mall i bought him every goddamn thing he wanted it's like angie says you know i may not be a good mother but i'm a wonderful grandmother wonderful and so it is that he's safe he's well he has another little sister too and I was just there three weeks ago again because they asked him st. Louis asked me to come back again and I saw him again and he showed me a new mall then I got a letter from and said they're looking for some more malls. And they found a new ice cream place, too. And so it is that he's safe. He's well. As for my daughter, the only time I know where she is is when she's in jail. otherwise she's in the middle of the dope area in Santa Ana doing what she has to do on the street corners for what she has to get and they don't have to be specific about that up an alley with a needle in her arm and so it is that my life is one day at a time a step of the time in a prayer at a time and I know that at the conclusion of these meetings all over the world that over two million recovered alcoholics are praying for her and people like her and I'm a living example as possible to say sober with a broken heart everything I have everything I hold dear I got from the people who cared about me when I couldn't care about myself but most of all for teaching me to walk in this dignity of sobriety thank you from the bottom of my heart