The Madness That Only a Higher Power Could Quiet – Angie D.

I'm Angie and I'm an alcoholic and Judy was going to introduce me as a hot tamale so she didn't and I called her a coward I just thought so glad this people are introducing themselves as grateful to God and sponsorship for their sobriety no the people that I sponsor usually say things like thank God and in spite of sponsorship I want to tell you that I'm so grateful that you invited me to come and share my life with you I really will probably tell you about an example about that you don't have to be well to stay sober and you don t have to do it right all the time either and mostly what I I come to do is I want to share my life with you, the miracle that has been my life in Alcoholics Anonymous and that I belong here. I come from Blythe, California. You all know where Blyth, California is don't you? That's where God sends you when you ask for stuff. You know how they ask you like be careful what you pray for? Well I always wanted a And that's what got me in Blythe, a man. I would have, if I had known I had choices, I'd have asked for one that had a lot of money in Newport Beach in a yacht club or something like that. I'm over there in Bleythe where it's not the end of the world, but you can see it. And it is about as close to hell as I want to be. but i am married to the greatest guy in the world he is just a marvelous person he thinks i'm the greatest thing that ever happened to you and i've got him convinced he never had it so good and we're both dedicated to making me happy he thinks a woman's place is in the mall that's what I'm doing in life do not despair women I had to kiss a thousand toads before I turn one into a prince actually what happens I usually kiss him and as princesses and turn them into toads I don't know how I did that but this is the first toad I ever turned into a prince I mean he came in spite of me I guess but anyway I'm gonna get it right out of the way right away I 13 step this guy and we've been married 12 and a half years and and so on there for Kim won't be so uptight about her babies here and how I found this guy I was born and raised in Orange County and you know the California being the land of fruits and nuts and now I'm a Mexican you probably already know that and I was boring raising Navarro it's a little Mexican community in 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 and we used to beat each other up and call it fun and i guess they're still doing it i was born a long time ago i'm really a young person in an old container but i i was i was brought a long long time a go-kart and they kept the mothers in the hospital a whole week and when they came home with his baby they still 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 daddy was a good time guy and my mom was a little purple lip variety. She's not an Anglo, so she don't have blue lips. She's got little purple lips. 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 always didn't write and she screwed it up for me. I had a younger brother and I didn't like him And you know what flows downhill So I always got somebody else And I never knew how to be good I never remembered how to Be good until I was bad And then it's too late, they're always whipping on me I don't know I'm a better Child, I thought that's what happened to you When you didn't know how to being good So if I'd have known I was a better child I held it against them guys I held everything else against them they were divorced when i was seven and my mother would say things to me like yeah you're just like your father and i knew what her opinion was i am she didn't like him too well so she would send me to the nuns so they could teach me to be a lady and what the nun's thought was a lady wasn't appealing to me then and it isn't appealing to be now because uh what they had was very boring and I never liked anything that was boring. And 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 shall not, I had an overwhelming desire to do it. And I couldn't get it out of my mind. That's all I could think of. And I wouldn't rest until I did it. And so somebody dared me and I raised the nun skirt to see what she wore under all them clothes. in the 86 me from catechism and I got home got my weapon and the next day when I got to school all the kids thought I was terrific man you should have seen the attention I got and I loved it because you see me I was born with an emptiness in my soul I was burned with a yearning a longing a hunger to be loved to be wanted, to be accepted. I was always so hungry for love. I'd have given my heart to anybody that would take it you see. I didn't know that what I had was alcoholism before you drink you see I'm one that believes that I always had the pilot lit all I needed was a fuel and I loved my mother. I ached for my mother's love and attention. I would not give it anything at that time because that's what I said my mother could only love me like she loves my brother and my sister I tried so hard to do the things that she wanted me to do I don't know why it's not enough I don' t know why I'm never enough I just know that I'm not you see and that's the way it was long before I ever took the first drink so when I got to school that day and I got all that attention from them kids it filled up some of them empty places you see it was like hitting wine for me all all that attention from the beginning. It was shortly thereafter, or a few years maybe thereafter that things started happening in our home that we are only now starting to talk about where my stepfather was getting funny with me and I hated it and I hate him and I had myself and I would go to my mother and she said I was a liar. I felt so alone, so terribly alone and so many secrets. I started thinking I'm gonna go off to be with my daddy because I know it's going to be better over there. I always have to fantasize it's gonna be better over there because I couldn't stand it where I was. And 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, right? And I don't know how to be good there either. I'll tell you, he used to take people up north to pick grapes and prunes. We were fruit pickers, and God made two kinds of Mexicans as fruit picker and non-fruit pickers. And I'm not a fruit pickter. They try to make a food picker out of me. In fact, I've gotten attached to a lot of things in my life, but work ain't one of them. I always pray that Richard has a long healthy life so I don't have to work. And he assures me that if he feels that he's gonna croak, He's going to run to the freeway and need a truck so I can get double indemnity on his insurance. That's what I'm doing in life. I'll tell you, 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 shery wine. I don't know about you guys, but when that went down inside of me, he said, yes! Everything felt good. It's just too bad something that good has to be wasted on social drinkers that don't appreciate it. I loved it. From my very first drink I had, man, this is it. Anything that feels that good any minute now is going to feel better and it's going to stay there forever. And isn't this all I ever wanted? And then it's the next day. I don't know what happened but I come to you I'm from the Pachuco era where we had them big hairdos you come to the next day and all that hair I know something happened too I don' t know what it was but I know something happened because I don''t remember it and it seemed that I start you know how you start to think what did you do but you're scared to know and scared not to do look at people's eyes knowing you're going to read it there and you do i always read it it's called contempt it's cold disgust and it's gonna call that they look at you as a fool above food and uh i had a sense of shame of being dirty that went all the way through me and i don't know what what to do with those feelings. I don't know what they are, but I know they feel so bad. And I just put a wall around me like a clown. I learned to handle situations that were embarrassing like that with either violence or laughter, you see. Because I don' t know how to handle those feelings, I don''t know what the are. And that's the way it always was. You know, a lot of situations happened in my drinking as has happened in yours. But the feeling inside never changed. It just reinforced the same thing over and over again. I came back to my mother shortly after, and I wasn't wanted there. And they told me that I was incorrigible. So I started running the streets. I started living here and there with people that would take me in for a little while. At that time, there wasn't a lot of people living out homeless or people running the street. So I didn't either. I just lived with certain people and relatives a short period of time I'm just a child I'm 13 years old for gosh sakes I also don't know how to work so I take up burglary it was seemed to be a good idea at the time I really wasn't a bad person I just like to have a lot of fun this is also the time when I discovered the booze and the boys in the cha-cha-cha good this is that time when we'd go to you know we Mexicans would like to have them parties all weekend long the cops don't come two three times if there's any knifings or shootings we ain't had no fun and so this I was one of the original topless bottomless dancers in them parties and I don't even remember it I don' t even get paid for it you know but the girls always want to tell you about it the next day so I used to beat em up and then they didn't tell me I never didn't like women I liked the guys I didn't especially like them and it really wasn't a surprise to me when I was about 17 years old when the state of California discovered me they didn't understand that I wasn't a bad person they my case was different they still took me before I judge in there said my mother and all them other purple-lipped relatives you know they look at you with that contempt in their eyes and I'm sitting there slick hip and cool you know with my I pull my collar up which is what we did at that time when we were and slunk down on my chair and that judge asked me well young lady what do you think we had to do with you and I I said, well, you're the judge, man. You ought to know. That was a wrong person to have that kind of a letter to me. So he sent me up to do a little bit of time for the state of California. And, you know, I'm a walking bust. I never got away with anything. Today I've got a poker face. They can read a mile away. I never sit in on poker because if I've Got a Good Hand, everybody backs out. If I've GOT a Bad Hand and want to bluff, everybody stays in. So, you now, I never have been able to get away with everything. And I thought I'd be the only gray-haired little old lady in the girls' reformatory. And when they finally let the doors down, I was supposed to do nine months and was there 13. When they finally left me out, I took my very first inventory because I'm always one that wants to live in the answer instead of the problem. And I'm thinking, I don't have a home, I doesn't have an education, I don' t have a job, I d' n't have any money. And I m thinking, what an order, I can't go through with it. I better go out and find me a husband, because God knows I need somebody to take care of me. And so 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. There was a certain kind of man always catches my attention. He usually got big muscles. They wear them real tight T-shirts, you know, and they got tattoos. they usually have born to lose on their arms and they walk with a little slouch and they got slick greasy hair and shiny eyes all teeth and they look at you say what's happening baby oh I used to think that look was charisma today I know it to be psychosis my sponsor says that you can't make chicken salad at a chicken ship we tried he built them castles in the air and 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 for a good Mexican wife should be and I had an idea for what a good mexican husband should be and never the twain shall meet and we both got scars to prove it now he starts hearing them stories about me so he don't want me to drink except when I'm with him and he wants me to stay home while he still goes to the bars and And I'm a good wife. I want to settle down. You know, I go through these times in my life where I want to have a change in my Life. And so I want to be...I want to have a good marriage. I wanna have a marriage. I don't know what that is, but whatever it is, I want to have it. And it isn't long before I realized this man doesn't want to be married to me. There were so many fights and there was violence and black eyes and screams and all those kind of things that go around with a real toxic marriage and by the time I had my baby I realized he didn't want to be married to me because it found out that thing that everybody finds out about me that I am just incapable of being living at peace with anybody that I turn everybody away in disgust so when they place their baby in my arms I felt like finally finally somebody belongs to me you see I I felt that baby inspired feelings within me that nobody ever had before since if I could have been good for anybody it would have been that baby. I loved her so much but I'm an alcoholic and I'm a woman alcoholic and 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 why I do these things I just do them anyway by the time she was born I had been so into drinking and Benzedrine all second all I you know I just know the street names from them Blanca's Amadeus and so I all I know is how to have a bunch of chemicals inside of me they promised me so much and delivered so much health because one day at a time I went into literal hell and that's not what I wanted from life all I ever wanted was somebody to love me and take care of me some man that would cherish me some little house in some corner some barrio with a little tortilla smells and enchilada smells and the slippers at five o'clock you know kind of like a Mexican Ozzie and Harriet type of thing between this alcoholic this and this dope thing and then I had one baby and then a year later I got another baby Jesus once bad enough the first ones good you know it's like a doll but there did require things from me I don't know how to be a mother I need a mother I never had a mother and when they had that though and I had that second baby I just was mad to have another baby and I started to think again it says this guy ain't changing I bet I look in the mirror I look old at 21 years old I look old at 22 years old. I think I better leave this guy for it's too late for me can find somebody else so I went and checked one out I had one over here just you always gotta have just-in-case this don't work out so I left this guy and I went out and I fell in love and you know when I fall in love I fall in love all over my body every inch of me falls in love forever I can't remember the names of Sarah the man I've fallen in love with forever the face is changed it's a feelings that stay the same this time it's going to be different this time is good this one's the one I can tell is the one cleans out my sinuses in my life I've spent five years the guy I fell in love with at that time was his name is Danny and his nickname was CB would state stay as stood for crazy bastard so you know that just the face has changed a feeling stayed the same but I know the feeling of degradation and self-loathing and a woman alcoholic goes through when she's unprotected and she drinks in bars I know what it is to be talked to in ways you don't want to be talk to and touched when you don' t want to touch and don't know how to defend myself and just laugh it off or call them names and they call your names back and the names they call me back were always worse than the ones I called them I felt so degraded so degrading so I know those feels I know about coming home at all hours of the night not remembering where who brought me back or coming to and not knowing who it was I was with. I know about coming in and turning the light on and the sink would be black with cockroaches and there was mice on the filthy floor, and I know by living in that dirty shack cold water shack with those two little girls that the romance of being a mother had long since died and their responsibility and obligation of them just choked me. I felt so trapped because you see I know I knew that they needed something from me that I didn't have to give two little two little girls that were so terrified see I didn t come here by myself I brought two little girls with big eyes big guys they were terrified to cry little girls they were terrified to say anything because if they said anything before I was ready to wake up if they would wake me up I would start screaming and yelling and then I would start hitting and once I started hitting it was like I couldn't stop and I wouldn't stop until there was blood until there were screams and there was begging you see that's the ugly side of my story that's the part that I would have rather not experienced is the people that I hurt my children that I loved and I couldn' stop myself I used to think for God sakes for God said stop and I wouldn' stop I used to think when somebody please take these little girls and give them a normal life I knew I couldn't I couldn t give them to my mother because of my stepfather the way he was. Their father was out running the streets and all they had was me and it was me they needed protection from. So I had to drink a lot and I had go a lot, and I have a lot more secrets, a lot of self-hatred went along with that. After five years of that type of living, my husband, I heard from him again, he surfaced again he was in Fort Worth, Texas getting the cure and so the hospital over there and he sent pictures home and and again he's got the muscles and again he says babes this time it's gonna be different and I'm one that clutched at straws and and so he came back and again you want me to stop drinking but by this time ain't nobody stopping me from drinking so he knifed me I carried a gun he called me up and apologized to me and so we ran off to get married isn't Is that the way you handle those kind of situations? You are if you're me. And we were, I think, well, I really tried. I wasn't too sure about him. We made the Mexican geographic. We moved about 20 miles from mama. We bought a little ranch with the chickens and the turkeys and the horses. We were going to be farmers, this dope fin and I. And we joined the PTA. How about that? But I'm a firm believer you can place me in best of circumstances and sooner or later I have to create whatever's inside of me because that's where the madness is inside of me and it isn't long before this man starts making his run back to his connections in Orange County and the best thing I can say about Mira Loma is that it's in the middle of four wineries it's close to Corona whoever told me the new word Corona was Blythe has been called the armpit of California but a Mira Lomas another part of the anatomy of California not worth mentioning. At least that was my experience there. You see, my drinking changed. My drinking always changed every so often. It changed where before I had been a party girl, before I had drank in the bars, when I had taken so many speed and downers along with my drinking, I became a bedroom drinker. Everything went away except me and my bottle of wine. Then my drinking changed, I started drinking in my bedroom. is the time when I drank all the time all the time I could when I would come to to go to the make the run and I would go to bed for two three weeks at a time and just drink around the clock I got to the place in my drinking where I drank and I drank in a drink of my body was drunk and my mind was in agony and I could no longer kill that madness inside of me if I could only stop thinking and I started looking for answers I didn't start looking for answers for my drinking drinking had been my answer it just wasn't answering anymore I started reading the bible I started going to churches I started studying the bible because I knew I had always heard that God was the answer and I never stopped believing that there was a God I just needed to get away get so I would so he'd listen hey here I am and so I'd go to these different churches I've been dunked sprinkled thrown flowers at I go to some churches that say who wants to be saved i'd be the first one down the aisle to get saved i'd always get saved and it felt wonderful and i don't know what happened between that that and getting home i'd get home and get unsaved i don'T KNOW WHAT and you do this over and over and over i just got tired i got so tired and so weary i JUST WANTED TO DIE i just wanted to die all the time i felt you get to die i didn't feel you get to live i felt your gift to die and i say my sleeping pills and i waited until this man was home one day i told him i was going to kill myself he said okay we had a slight communication problem and um i went and took a bath and cleaned my house you know how we do wash the clothes and throw away some of them that you don't you know you do just put your pajamas on all clean and then go to bed to die just in case you died they won't know how you were and when I came to a couple of days later I was so enraged to be alive I was not glad to be a life I was angry to be and I came too on what has got to be the loneliest day of my life when I realized this man had been with bed in bed with me but two nights it while I was in that coma and never once did he consider taking me to a doctor or to a hospital. I came to without my pajama bottoms on and I felt like a piece of used up meat that nobody wants. What can I tell you about the loneliest day of my life? When I've looked upon that day with some semblance of objectivity, and it took a long time, I realized that my higher power has always had his hand upon my life. Always. Even upon that day because you see that very day there's a knock on the doors a lady from the PTA if there's somebody I didn't want to seize a lady run the PDA and there stood mrs. clean hi I must have been downwind from her because she said was wrong and I tell her what's wrong about this sob and how about me I just tell why I do these things I don't know why but that's what I think is why and so in a moment of weakness I let her in and I tell her my tale of woe and she listens to me and this lady stays with me and somehow throughout the conversation she asked me if I ever heard of Al-Anon I'd never heard Al-anon and in defense of Al Anon I would like to say this lady had been there about 90 days and had found answers and didn't know what else to do with me because i had told her that this gory story about this man she cleaned me up and took me to al-anon and somehow i didn't quite fit in in al-anan uh i felt i felt a little bit like a horwood in a nunnery you know there was absolutely no identification between me and them square broads uh you know but somebody along the line had told me i had a beautiful smile so i gave one of those the lights are on but there's nobody home smile you know i found out years later they used to laugh at me i thought i was fooling them and i don't hear anything obviously i live in a fog during this time and i don'T KNOW EVERY SO OFTEN THIS LADY COMES AND GETS ME AND TAKES ME THERE I DON'T HEAR NOTHING I DONT EVEN WANT TO GO ANYMORE BUT I know how to say i don't want to go and i heard the word release one day and i came home and told him my wife was going to release him and so he used to sleep with his clothes on and a knife under the pillow and i'd sit in a corner with a big black coat on and watch him when he'd be a dose enough i'd go take a little peek at him and he'd go that felt so good it was almost sexual you know and he would say unkind things to me he'd say baby I may have a monkey on my back but you got an orangutan he was so bad he made me look good and one day I came home and he was gone he took everything with him he wasn't planning on coming back and he he was of the type that always left something so he could come and claim it in a couple of weeks and then stay this time he took everything I mean he wasn't planning on coming back he had to do that I know today because I had killed him or forced him to kill me because sometimes the madness would she be so unbearable that the only way that it was then I would get any pieces through physical violence today they exercise I did too I beat him up then he beat me up and it was like like it's just so much rage so much energy had to come out some way so I know today that even though their life was unbearable it was familiar and fear has been the great compromise around my life and not a stayed there forever it was at that time that they kicked me out of Al-Anon also and they elected that poor soul that took me there to take me out of Al Anon and what they did is they threw me with their husbands who they didn't like either and so this lady was elected to take me to alcoholics anonymous and I ain't got no place else so she came and cleaned me up and on a Friday night to take me to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm so ashamed I know what's wrong I know that's going down here I'm not no stupid so they took me to this old dilapidated house and brought me in through the back I'm a Mexican that's why they're bringing me through the beck and they walk me through the kitchen where all them Al-Anons are standing doing they're doing whatever Al-anon's doing kitchens I'm just going right through them like you do that gangplank you know you just well I look at my feet I'm not looking at their eyes I am NOT looking at the contempt and disgust and triumph in their faces I just look at My Feet and I walked through there and August of 1964 and I listened to the sounds of Alcoholics Anonymous I listen to that belly laughter that smile that reaches a soul in that happy talking those are the sounds of alcoholics anonymous the very first thing that attracted me to you was the music of Alcoholic Anonymous there's music in their words I don't know what they're talking about you know we have a whole way of talking here that's completely different but I felt you I felt I walked in there and I sat back there and let it wash over my soul and I hungered for it. I often wondered what is it and where does it come from? And it came to me one day and I consider it a spiritual experience when I realize that these are just empty rooms, that which happens in here we bring it with us, every one of us and it intermingles and becomes a group conscience, a higher power, you call it whatever you want but there's a dynamic something that happens when you and I come together that never happened anyplace else for me I never heard any place else for me and I wanted for it newcomer if you'd be lucky like me I just let it wash over my soul I'm good for it I just thought it's too bad I'm not an alcoholic if there's another name for the disease that you and i have it's called dying got it now I know I'm weird I know i'm different I know on three steps ahead of the man with a butterfly net I just ain't been discovered you see but I'm not an alcoholic it had always been an answer I just gotta find the right combination again that'll work for me again and so it programmed the only thing that I understood I looked around at all them sober single good-looking young guys and I said man I'm gonna get me one of those and I did it was the sickest wonder he had to be I got radar it really helps to talk sometimes when he's there and say these things and but I believe that it takes what it takes and that's what it took for me because I didn't think as an alcoholic and so I came for ten months I came alcoholics anonymous as a visitor in Pomona they'd go around the room and 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 in Al-Anon they kicked me out of Al-A-nan and I am NOT an alcoholic so I'm a visitor nobody ever said you don't belong here somehow you understood I've been kicked in the teeth by life and rejected by everybody had come in contact with and I couldn't have stood any more rejection you know you put your arm around me and you said keep coming back the most important words that you and I have ever got to say to one another when we're very new but one of us is very new is keep coming bad it was for me I'm used to people saying keep on going weirdo it really was a disappointment when to me when I found out you were telling that to everybody I thought it was just me I felt so I felt so warm so warm with you all i gotta do is keep my mouth shut and keep coming back because i open my mouth i'm out of here i know that i got a little uncomfortable i think it's called guilt a little unconfortable so i stopped drinking and doubled up on the mealtimes and benzadrine and got weirder and when you get weirter what you do is you think more and when you think more, you've got to find solutions more drastic. And this guy ain't behaving that way I think he's supposed to behave. So I try to kill him and they don't like for you to try to killing them when they're sober. They don't mind it if they're drinking. Then try a bag. Them Anglo guys are easier to want to kill because you can scare them more easy than the Mexicans. They're not too sure how nuts all you are. And this man wants to get rid of me. I'm not easy to get rid of i didn't have a backup so i moved to pomona to be closer to the action and i walked into our room one day and there's this cute little boy just kind of the boys reformatory got big blue eyes and blonde hair i have an affinity for blue eyes and blond hair today's blue eyes and gray hair because time should do my child and he's talking he's saying he's talking he says he don't have a girlfriend, he don't have a surfboard, he don' t have a car. And I think to myself, come here little boy, I'll take care of you. He was 21 and I was 32 going on 92. And I educated that poor guy on sick broads. He thought a truck hit him. But we all have our place in each other's life and after that relationship was over, he decided to become a minister and I'd like to think that somehow in my small way I have push him over to God now I don't like women and I don t trust men and that don t leave you much and I didn t know what I was going through is called withdrawals nobody ever talked about withdrawals they talked about things like DTs whatever that is. But anyway, what I had is I didn't have no skin on and I could not predict my behavior in ten minutes. I might be on top of the world right now and in ten minutes I either want to kill you or me. You know? And I go berserk every so often. I mean, when I go beserk, I go berserk. One time I went berserk and I threw the hairspray can on the floor, jumped up, and broke the sliding glass door window. My cat ran away from home and never came back. My kids wanted to do the same thing. He was the first man that had ever been kind to me. He was a first man that had never been gentle with me. And everywhere that he went, he wanted to take me with him. He was so proud to be seen with me, he would introduce me over here and say, this is Angie, my girlfriend. And I heard the pride. Me that had always been used and abused by every man that I'd ever had. And I'd have stayed there forever if I could have, you see. He was one that walked them streets with me where the only thing I can do to keep away that madness is to walk and walk and talk and walk. He was the one that held me close when the madness would be so bad that I'd scream and yell and hit and hit and he'd hold me close and pray over me. I know today that you and I do not come together by accident. I truly believe that we come together by divine appointment, you see. I am so grateful that God sent that gentle young man into my life at that time when I was so vulnerable I could have had my guts ripped out by somebody that wasn't more insensitive, you see. But he held me close and he loved me. But every relationship has its beginning and its parting. Every relationship has Its beginning and Its parting. The only relationship that keeps on going, it keeps on growing, is a relationship that I hold with my higher power today. But I didn't know that then. I had to turn my will and my life to somebody that I thought cared because I didn' t think anybody else would ever care. and so when you do that type of decision, then that day comes that God has to do for me what I couldn't do for myself because he has run my life even when I didn't want him to, and what happened is this man drank again. When he drank was when my husband was going to get out of the penitentiary and he thought that I would go back and leave him, and when he got drunk, so did I. It was not my worst drunk, but it seemed to be my most hopeless one. My sponsor says there's only one good drunk and that's the one that removes all doubt and that was mine. That was mine! I went out and I drank all the fun out of the bottles. There was no longer any fun in the bottle for me. All there was was again the desperateness, the depression and the suicidal feeling and the absolute terror And the reason I stand before you tonight is because a man named Carson went out and brought me back on a rainy Wednesday night in December. And Carson was the type of man that, as always said, would prey on young, newly sober women in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know about that. Carson never said anything out of line to me. If he did, I didn't recognize it. I know that Carson came and breathed life back into me by bringing me back to you. And the miracle for me is not that I've come back to Alcoholics Anonymous. The miracle for Me, because thousands of people come and don't stay, the miracle For Me is that I'm still here and that last December the 22nd I celebrated my 27th birthday. That is the miracle From Me. Yes, it is. And the victory is not mine. It does not belong to me. My sobriety does not belong to us. It belongs to me, it belongs to us Today if there's anything of any value in me, its because of us not because of me For God's sakes I've told you how my life was when I had it all by my very own self When me and God had it You see when me and god had it, it went very hot But you come into the picture and you taught me. I didn't want you teaching me but you taught anyway you know in the beginning they would read stuff like rarely have we seen a person fail as soon as they said rarely i knew somebody wasn't going to make it you know and then then and then there's they go on to say that there are those that have grave emotional and mental disorders i'm so grateful they have that in there because my sobriety sounds like some people's drunk aloud i kid you not you can't live in a cold dark room without any structure without any guidance, without anything and anybody to depend on, and all of a sudden come to Alcoholics Anonymous and believe and trust. It went that way for me. You see, it took a lot of one day at a time to get the cobwebs out of there. I had a lot OF secrets and a lot Of fears. But a little further on down, it says many of them do recovery if they have the capacity to be honest. Now, I'm not presumptuous to tell you I have the capability to be honestly. I don't know the difference between right and wrong at this length of time with you i don't know the difference between right and wrong if i want to do something bad enough i can go home and pray about it and meditate about it sooner or later god will whisper in my ear that it's his will for me he wants i sell me that story it ain't nothing to lay it on you but god sends people into our life that ruin that kind thinking. They're called sponsors. I don't have a sponsor. I don't like women anymore just because I'm sober. The women that got a lot of time, they look at you. I do not want them to look at me. Whatever they are seeing, I do want them to see it. So I stay away from the women that got a lot of time. I do not like them young women either because I got this young guy i'm like a monkey with its monklet you know i just but the guys were always so much friendlier huh and in the beginning they all know more than me god they were all such heroes weren't they oh they're all so wonderful it was a step up to be called an alcoholic from some of the things i've been called and after a while i know more then some of them and then i had my heroes you my hero was Johnny Harris and it didn't hurt that he was so gorgeous you know it was just so good but he would say he to talk to me in Alcoholics Anonymous one of the best things that Johnny ever said to me and he don't even remember saying it wasn't every woman that comes into Alcoholics Anonymous must be treated like a lady you see and I had never been treated that way and I liked how I felt when he called me a lady you see and so i began to know the difference of what dignity felt like you see even though i didn't feel like i deserved it but uh in the beginning uh i started doing these steps and i doing this you're hitting me as i don't open my mouth for 10 months i didn' t get on beyond my first name in the begining they were all better than me then i was better than someone then i hated a member of alcoholics anonymous i don' t know about resentments you you see, because I either, I love you or I hate you. I got like a measuring stick from zero to a hundred with no numbers in between, you know? And so I hated this guy. I mean, I would go, I hated the way he walked, the way she talked, the way her looked, the way he smoked, everything I know because I watched him diligently. I didn't know if I wanted what you had, I just couldn't stand what I had, so I kept doing what you were telling me to do and I wanted you to know I was doing it. And then when you'd say resentment is the number one offender for the alcoholic, they would catch my attention so I'd go to some of those guys that looked like they knew what they're talking about, put them a smile on my face that smile. How do you get over resentments? And they'd say turn it over as he does it this too shall pass one day after I'm gone with the book he'll call me back and don't drink. Isn't that what they say? Isn't That What They Tell You Here? So I'd come home and do it and I'd test it so i'd go to somebody else and again they say turn it over easy does it this one day at a time go home with the book you're coming 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 oh jesus you'll kick me out of here where do i go so I acted as if I just kept doing that stuff and you know the steps they don't care if you believe in them or not I found out they don' t care they work anyway one day I'm in a room every time he starts talking I try to tune him out sometimes I succeed one time I succeeded and he was talking he starts to cry I come to him he's crying how embarrassing he's praying hasn't he ever heard of John Wayne Iwo Jima, Pancho Villa Emiliano Zapata for God's sakes only sissies and women cry I was so embarrassed for him after the meeting they all go and put their arm around him I said Jesus Christ I didn't want you to I didn' want you not as the only dongabong you are they used to say you know I could never hate anybody bad enough oh no they'd say I know nobody could hate me bad enough they ever want me to pick up a drink. Oh, God. Anyway, so I went and put my arm around him too. I gave him one of them stiff arm hugs just in case whatever he had was contagious. He didn't have no class. He didn't even accept the rejection at all. He just came right in and hugged me and put his head on my shoulder and cried. You know, that kind of caught me off guard. Something happened to me. The pain in him reached out and touched the pain in me because certainly I have a known pain. The overruling emotion that I remember most of my life is sitting and wailing like a wounded animal and rocking back and forth with it whale when it way down inside of me and I felt that in him and the love that you had showered upon me that I didn't even know what's happening change something and rearrange something inside of that the love was able to go through me and reach him and I hugged him I huged him and i cared and that was removed from me as if it had never been just like everything that's ever been removed from me has been removed as if it had never been once the lesson is there to be learned you see I know that's that's way ahead in the seven step but I experienced at that day and it was a turning point in my sobriety it was not the turning point. In my behavior, it was the turning point. I got married to that young guy knowing one day he'd leave me I had a lady volunteered to be my sponsor and she told me I had to give him up because there was too big an age difference, that I had stay home and learn to be a mother and I didn't like being a mother any more sober than I did when I was drinking. I didn' like them and they didn't like me and I don't know how to live without a man. I'm not talking about sex I'm talking about somebody to hold me close, somebody that cares on a one-to-one that makes that lonely horrible something go away at least for a little while so i did the most reasonable thing for me is i gave up the sponsor she made me feel guilty you know getting rid of sponsors when you're from a small town is it's very difficult like trying to get rid of empties you know it's easy to get and hard to get written because everywhere you go you run into them so today when people ask me to sponsor him in the little town I'm at. I said, you better give that a little bit of thought there. Anyway, after I fired her and I got married, then I got a sponsor. She was sober 23 years and would talk to me in 23 years. And I don't know what she's talking about. And I make up problems to tell her, kind of like I used to make up the sins to go and confess to confession. I did that for that sponsor, keep her occupied and happy. But I didn't tell her anything. you know what does she know she's not a mexican she's an anglo lady from chicago probably never never knew anything yeah that's a little bit of a spiritual contempt arrogance or whatever probably scared to death that she'd give me some direction i didn't want to follow so in spite of no no sponsorship through the miracle of alcoholics anonymous i'm still here but i paid my prices i won't tell you but the prices are paid well first of all my children started drinking and eating pills and they did it with gusto yeah and i said god spare my babies and he didn't spare my babes he didn's bear my babies and they were going through the same thing that i went through and i knew it was all my fault and one day i came home they were so loaded we had a big fight and I hit them and they hit me back. And we had a terrible, terrible time again in our home. And I was over a little over five years. They ran off. I had the one I had held in my arm so many years ago with all those hopes and dreams. Come home one day with a burn the size of a silver dollar on her chest where people had been putting cigarettes out on. The youngest one ran off to Chicago and this one went to live in a commune. And i went into a terrible depression. She wouldn't to even take 50 cents from me for a hamburger, you see. She said she hated me and they hated me and I was the best me I'd ever been. I had a nervous breakdown. Again, I contemplated an attempted suicide. That young man went and took me to the cycle ward, went home, packed his clothes and left me, you say. I felt abandoned again. I was a best me, I'd never been in your lied to me. You told me I would be good to think good things would happen to me and nothing but bad things are happening all at once you see i stand before you because of the women in alcoholics anonymous i got sober in toast burner country and everything that entails and i'm not a toast burner you'll understand that i'm sure by now and uh it was this ladies that had never drank outside of their home that saved my life i realized when there was nothing nothing but devastating pain makes all the walls come down and I realized I sure was able to share the secrets of my heart with you and you were able to show the secrets on your heart with me and I realised I was not so different than you maybe the things I did I did him out there in the bars and you did him in your bed in your kitchen but we felt dirty and ashamed the same you and I so it is from the women that I've learned to be a woman and in Alcoholics Anonymous we become each other's mamas I never had a mama there are some relationships that really never get healed the relationship between my mother and I never got beyond politeness you see that's not what I wanted but that's the way it happened but it is a women in Alcoholics Anonymous that have mothered me and I've mothered them we become each other's mamas and we have a safe mama when we have uh we have each other i have felt so safe so loved and i have been privileged to have you feel the same about me so it's from the women that i learned to be a woman a woman and it is from the men that treated me like a lady that i've learned to feel like a to feel the respect and ah i went to a man named dave and i said what's wrong with me dave that i can't seem to form i want to run relationship not even with a beautiful man like bruce and he held me close and said angie you're a warm loving lady and one day you will know the reason because i came with honesty and he told me this i believed him so i went home and i told god thank you god for showing me the reason bring him back and he didn't come back and they didn't want to come back my kids so i looked at him all i ever wanted was to be a good mother and have a nice home, a good happy home and it wasn't happiness. I said screw them all. Let them do it. God damn please. I'm so tired of being something I'm not. I don't know about you guys but for me that means surrender in the only language in the holy language I understand. Also make peace with God. You know when you used to oh God damn hell marriage fathers they don't come. i said okay god maybe you know how you i bargained with okay god i'm never gonna be happy again all you ever want me to do is work with a sick women alcoholic and let him puke on me all right all right i moved back to orange county because i had to move someplace in orange county was where i was born and raised i told you and i went to i threw myself completely and absolutely into this program and i acted as if i cared for all those women i was 12 stepping i don't care about them you know there's a place that you have to get over with it could get through you know the part where i wanted to uh run him down the freeway back and forth back and forward till he's flat like a tortilla you know my sponsor assures me they don't lock you up for being crazy only for acting crazy she also tells me that if god removes all my character defects i'll disappear so when i want something so bad oh god i can't have it as soon as you can say they say hell with it here it comes here it come now i'm not here to tell you that that man came back because he went on to another life but i got 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 nothing and nobody could ever own me again. After all that's said and done, there's only you and me, God, anyway. You see, no matter how much you give me of affection and love does not heal anything inside of me you see if you're um i'm talking about a man woman relationship i'm talking about a mother relationship you see they never had it to give that which i demanded inside of them the secret that i found out at that time that uh when i act to see if i care for you and i did all this 12-step work and brought women into my home i've had women come up and say to me you remember when i I don't know. I didn't care. I don'y care about you, but God throws in the Joker. I act as if I care and one day I do. One day I DO care because when I care about you...when I care about your feels exactly the way I thought you caring for me would feel. See what can I do? What can I say? Bill Wilson called it that one drunk talking to another. That was so simple it eluded me, but when I i care for you and i give you all those things all that love and care and attention and i fake it pretty soon it happens pretty soon i care that was the victory you see that's when i knew that after all that said and done it's only you and me god anyway all the relationship has its beginning and it's partied now my children came back i don't even want him to come back they came back they went to work i went to school and became self-supporting through my own contributions i had one get married and i still i still got kept falling in love you see i told you my defects are well intact my behavior didn't change too much i still kept falling and laughing i found out that one day at a time i don't drink because i'm an alcoholic one day at a time I don't steal because my sponsor won't let me and one day at a time I get married because there isn't any life after marriage. I turn them into toads you know they're perfectly nice guy and pretty soon they're just horrible so I know I knew that I would I'm one of those ladies that had to live alone to find out the difference between being lonely and having solitude i learned to like living alone i said for god's sakes is this what i've been fighting all the time you know you can clean your house anytime you want you get married any weekend you want and go out to dinner every time you want come home anytime you were just just it was wonderful huh and my life got really good and time went on and it was okay with me that i would not get married and have a man again it got okay withme i don't know where that went either and i started saving my money for my old age and another thing happens you know you get a little bit good and then something comes up knocks you on your note you know what and uh what happened at that time is my sister who had always been held up as an example for me killed herself now it's a tragedy it's not terrible thing i know but i know today that we're all going that route anyway of course at that times i wanted to explode and i called you and you came. And something came together inside of me that said God is the only giver and the only taker of life, and she chose to go, and he let her go home. What I found out by her death was that you and I come together for a short time, that life really is one minute at a time, that tomorrow is not promised to anybody. Life is so tangible, and that all I need to do is to be with you all the time right here where I'm at and not wish I were someplace else with somebody else because if there's ever any life it is right this minute that's what she taught me she also taught me that I cannot 12-step anybody I cannot save anybody I tried to carry the message to her I tried but she always said Angie you are worse than me she had a smug sound in her voice She's dead today and I'm still here, you see, because God has had other plans for me. So newcomer, I don't come to give you nothing. I don'T come to teach you nothing I come to share my life with you I truly believe that I am God's melody of life and he sings his song through me I know as that I can be very profane But I also know how close and spiritual that I AM you see I know the world who what he has done with me i know where he's brought me from uh it was uh shortly after that that i became two weeks after that then i became a grandma you know when his hand is always heavy turn around and see where the blessing is because that's coming too that's come in too i never knew how to be a mother but i'm good as a grandma i'll tell you what them kids thought grandma and Santa Claus meant the same thing. I finally found how to get along with kids. Just give them everything they want. They think you're the greatest. And the reason grandkids and grandparents get along so good is because they have a common enemy. My life is going okay. you know i have my grief over my my sister but it's not it's not like there's a sadness but it has taken my whole life it was shortly after that that i fell in love again god i didn't want to be in love anymore i hated them 16 year old you can't think of nobody else day and night they're good for the diets though don't Don't think that just a weight just falls off. And I was ashamed of him because he was sober just five minutes, and here I've been sober 13 years. Oh, God, your friends are just got no class. You know, I used to go. I was speaking at that time also, and I took him with me to a conference one in Ventura. And you just want him to be about 10 feet down that way, you know. and he just wants to be close and here comes my friend Frank oh you know it's coming your friends are so crass let him be your enemies and talk behind your back your friends just talk to your face he looks at me and he looks at him and he says is he with you and I say yes and you know what's going to come and he sees one of us well he sees his red nose and his eyes are still spinning. And he says, how long has he been sober? And I said, five minutes. And he said, Jesus Christ, why didn't you give that poor guy a break? Let him get sober first. So I go to my sponsor. You know, my sponsor, when I grow up, I want to be like my sponsor My sponsor talks to me in such ways that when I talk to the women that I sponsor that way, they never talk to me again. For those of you that wonder who my sponsor is it's Mary Reagan and Mary Reagan's been my sponsor for 17 years and she's a fascist type of a sponsor and she says things to me like Angie, you don't have to sit in your own shit just because it's warm or when you that's when you're obsessed with something you know, when you are in love with something or else if you go with a problem I love to whine I whine good too and she says, Angie, who is not doing it your way? and that hurts me because it's true she sends me off to read the last page in step 7 in the 12 and 12 about expectations i don't want to hear that why can't they change sometimes why does it always have to be me anyway that's who i went to about the mary regan frank she said he's a nice guy if you don't mind him i'll take him if he's good enough with my power my sponsor and she says just tell him you scooped him in before somebody else did. And you know that, what can they tell you then? What I found out is if I'm afraid somebody's going to find out something about me, tell them. And then you won't be afraid. It's the fear that causes me to feel different and dirty. It is when I'm not afraid of you anymore, so whatever your opinion is of me. Those that love me are going to love me in spite of me! Those that don't care for me, I don't I don't care how good I am, I'm never going to be enough. And it is impossible for me to be loved or liked by everybody. And it's OK because there are plenty surrounded with people that make me feel good about who I am and the people that validate me. First of all, this guy. Here he was from Blythe. That's about 200 miles from where I was at. I at least waited till he was sober 14 months before I married him. He's a cowboy farmer, for God's sakes. I'm a barrio Mexican. We're so different as night and day. And we just are the greatest friends. You know, the men in Alcoholics Anonymous taught me about being friends. Richard and I talk about everything. We have about one or two fights a year, and they're usually in a public restaurant or someplace. I have the privilege of being the first woman he's ever said a four-letter word to. I thought it was so funny he used to cuss me out but call me a hay baler I said you want to know what cussing out is let me show you it's been wonderful it's been a wonderful experience and that's I went to Blythe and I didn't know you're not supposed to change the AA where you go I just changed it you know I made a lot of enemies but I didn'T care My sponsor says, it's your turn to stand up for Alcoholics Anonymous. It's your term to pass on what was given to you. That's what you're doing in Blythe. It's not to walk tiptoe through the alfalfa fields. That's not it. It's to be an example that AlcoholicsAnonymous don't care who you are. You'll fix anybody. All I have to do is say to my God, here I am, use me. You see, I really adhere, the hardest step and the best step for me has been the one that I've built on my third step. The one where on top of page 63 it says he provides everything that I need if I stay close to him and perform his work well. And my book also tells me that my whole purpose is to fit myself to be of maximum service to God and the people about me. It doesn't say alcoholics only either. It says the people above me. and that my prayer must be how can I best serve you on a constant basis that this is the right use of the will. And I do that all the time. And, you know, I always say prayers like, God, I sure don't feel like talking. Just before I want to talk, I say, God. Let me say whatever you want me to say. At that time I came to and this bread, I think it's really quite in order. I can't go through with it. And I said thanks, and I sense a humor. You know,I have two daughters. both of my daughters are members of Alcoholics Anonymous I have one that's going to be sober next month if she stays sober 12 years another one is going to have four years tonight tonight in about an hour she will take her cake and I know this and it's great to be friends with your kids the last time i had seen this daughter before the four years ago she came home wanted help she was shooting heroin she had quit drinking long before he should heroin weighed 75 pounds and said mom help me i brought her home and she couldn't stay there she stole the truck and went back to her connection the next night she ran away from home and was hitchhiking down the road i went and picked her up and said baby you don't have to hitchhike i'll take you back And I took her back, and I gave her $20 to get a fix because I knew she was sick. I never believed in giving anybody money for drugs or alcohol. But I gave Her $20, never thinking I'd see her alive again. It's in today she's celebrating four years. I know what this program can do. I know What God Can Do. He has the mantle of His love around our family. All of us are members of Alcoholics Anonymous, and we're all friends. The bitterness that those girls felt about me I gave them permission You know there's so much You did it to me today When they told me you did it I said yes I did And I'm so sorry But the recovery is yours Their life is none of my business Through working on my third step Through my sister's death I realized that their life is not of my Business My husband's life Is none of mine business what's my business is my father's business what is that to care for fit myself to not to attempt not to lie cheat steal compromise rationalize myself to just keep myself and attempt to keep myself as close to my higher power courtesy and politeness as i can and you know it works it works i don't do anything different today than i did when i him in. I go to meetings, I read the book, I make myself available for the women that I sponsor. I make sure that the people that I sponsor go to meeting and take those steps. I don't know whatever they experience is not my job to tell them to do it different. The only thing that I do and tell them is that if you want to eat shit with a rusty spoon go for it i just throw in a little mary reagan every so often i took one of my grandchildren my oldest went to a conference once and i had a big white shirt on covers a multitude of tortillas and beans and white pants and she looks up at me and she says grandma you look just like the white angel And I looked at this child and there was a soft hero worship look in her face. You see, she's never seen what her mother saw. She never had to see me so beat up, so like I looked like a monster, so drunk I crawled around my own field, so battered that I didn't even look like a person. And she didn't have to have the batterings that her mother had. All she's done is seen is what you've done with me. me. How could I ever say that I had anything to do with it? The only thing that I have attempted to do is keep myself honest, open-minded, and willing. That's what the book says are the essentials. My life is none of my business. Well, I may have to experience some other stuff that'll make my story juicier. I hope that it's not drinking because I know that if I keep doing what I'm doing, I'll keep getting what I'M getting. And what I have is a wonderful life. i tell you this man adores me and i adore him too i found out how to get along with men girls just give them everything they want and he just acts like he wants something i get it for him i got him a bramer bull for christmas year before last yeah he says i'm the greatest cook he's ever i'm cooking all the time he's got 85 shirts they're all iron color coordinated they're my shirts i just let him wear them he says his house never been so clean so i scrub it all the time he says i'm the greatest of anything amoy i'm knocking myself for him i love him so much i'm so grateful but god has done with my life if you are a dirty woman like i was in a dirty bedroom and couldn't drink and couldn't be sober and couldn'T live and couldnT die and the madness would not leave there's no road that leads from there to here where I walk in the sunlight of the spirit may he do the same for you