The Rigorous Honesty That Took a Few Years to Land – June G.

Good morning. My name is June, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. I want to thank Bob and the committee and all of you for inviting me back to this conference again. I love Alcoholics Anonymous, and I had one of those weeks really where I didn't need a meeting, I needed a convention. and so I'm very happy to be here and I'm happy that you were kind enough to include me. I have to tell you that I'm going to have to race out right after this meeting because I'm involved in another event that was scheduled for last Sunday and there's about, well, there's a couple thousand people that I've been able to meet that I am supposed to be over there helping on my committee and because of the rain last week it got scheduled until today So I'm here, but I need to get back there and help at least clean up and finish up that commitment as well. And I just knew that I needed to be here. I really, you know, I love Alcoholics Anonymous. It has given me a life I never would have wanted, and it has made me a person I wouldn't have even liked when I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I am continually, almost, I'd say on a daily basis, amazed. It talks about, you know, in the book, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. I don't know where the halfway mark is, but I will tell you that I am often amazed at what's going on in my life. You know, sort of like Earl H. will say, you know, all the problems that I have in my life today are in areas in which I didn't even have areas. So it's just really a remarkable thing, you now. I really want to welcome the people that are new. I want to start out by saying a few things that I always try to remember to say when I'm asked to share in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And they're really about Alcoholics Anonymous rather than certainly about me. And I can only hope that, I know when I was new, I probably had about two minutes of listening time out of a regular talk. And I never know, of course, which two minutes you'll fade in and out of if you're like me. But I want to start by saying that I'm just a member of Alcoholic Anonymous I've been asked to stand up here and share a little bit as the book suggests that we do in a general way what it used to be like, what happened, what it's like today. And no one is any higher than a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. So I'm not being paid to stand up here and talk. And I want you to know that for a couple reasons, you know, because, of course, after the meeting if you don't like the talk, I don't want you have to sit around saying, you mean we had to pay her for that? You know, so you don'T have to worry about that. But one of the most important reasons that I want you to know about that is in case you're new because we all come in from so many different ways and, you know, I don't really think it matters where we come in from. But I want you to know that Alcoholics Anonymous is absolutely free. Had Alcoholics Anonymous not been free, I never could have come here. Had Alcoholics Anonymous not remained free, I never could have stayed. I was over 10 years sober in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous before I could afford to put a dollar in the basket for the seventh tradition on anything like a regular basis. So this is not about money. And I want to be sure if you're new that you know that, that it doesn't get confused in case you're coming in through some kind of a program where you do need to pay, but they're bringing you to Alcoholics Anonymous. I want you to know that separate thing. I am not an expert on alcoholism, AlcoholicsAnonymous, or anything else. Certainly nothing that I'd be standing up here sharing about today. And i want you know to that too. I'm just a member and I'm going to stand up here for a little while and tell you my experience, strength and hope. You know, I I talked at a meeting. It's been some years now. I don't know exactly when. And this guy came up to thank me after my talk, mostly because his sponsor was standing behind him and made him. And he said, I really want to thank you for your story. He said, it was a good story. He said. I don' t really believe it was your story, but I liked the way you told it. and i've never forgotten that because i thought you know only when we're like really new in alcoholics anonymous sort of like otto was saying you know last night when he'd sit in the meetings and he was you know thinking where are they getting this information you know that we would we think that they would make up the stories you know just to try and pull in the newcomer you know but like they don't have anything else to do with their lives but anyway uh i also thought i thought about it and I think about that because when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I looked like my story and I looked like my history for a hell of a long time after I was here so it's really quite a tribute I think to Alcoholic Anonymous that someone could walk up and question that I came from where I came from and that I lived the way that I lived. I am one of those people that believes I was born an alcoholic I do not want to have a philosophical discussion with any of you about that after the meeting it's what I believe And I believe that because there was something very wrong with me long before I ever drank, and alcohol fixed everything for me for a while. But I want to tell you a little bit about that. You know, I grew up in an alcoholic home. I knew a lot about alcoholism. I didn't know it was alcoholism, but I knew all about it. I knew about alcohol, and I knew lot about violence, and there was a lot of broken promises, and there was a lot of other things that go on in alcoholic homes that I knew a lot about. And I knew I didn't want anything to do with that way of life, but I certainly didn't have a lot of control about it as I was growing up. And I know now, as I'm an observer of people, that most of the people that I was observing were alcoholic, but I didn' t know that then. And I saw the men and the women in my life handling exactly the same situations, but in very different ways. You know, in my life, I've seen men shot, stabbed, arrested. I've seen their kids overdose. I' ve seen their wives leave them. I see a lot of things happen. I have seen the same things happen to women in my life. But before coming to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I do not remember under any of those circumstances ever seeing a man shed a tear. I thought that meant that men never felt pain. I saw the women in me go through those same events, and most of them seemed to have a breaking point, one thing or another. And I looked at those two different groups of people, and I decided immediately which one I wanted to be like. And I spent my whole life before coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, and maybe even some of it afterwards, trying to be what I thought a man was. And to me, a man with someone who cared about no one, who felt absolutely nothing, and if they did, they never let you know it. And the only exception, the only emotion that I believed men experienced was anger and rage. And that was fine with me. That's exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, I seem to have been one of those people that Clancy will sometimes talk about or used to who was born without any emotional insulation whatsoever. So that from my earliest memories of four and five or whatever, I would go to school and they would tease me about being tall or skinny or poor or curly red hair or whatever, and it would hurt me so much it felt like I was being physically cut inside. It hurt so bad. And I would just start to cry or certainly want to, but mostly I would. And so I found out from my earliest memories about myself that I was the thing that I hated the most in the entire world. And I never forgave myself for it. I found OUT that I WAS WEAK. and I never forgave myself for that weakness but I did everything that I could to make sure that no one else ever would find out about that I you know before I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I don't believe that from the time that I was about maybe seven years old I don' t think there were any days in my life where I didn' t try and take my own life put myself in a position where someone else would take my life or pray to a God that I wa s slowly losing faith in to take my live and I really believe you know after inventory and everything else as I look back I really believe I wanted to die and I know many of you are not going to identify with that that's not your drinking story or if it was perhaps it was in the last you know year or two of your drinking but that was mine before I even started okay so I mean I just really wanted out I didn't like anything about the world I didn't want to go anyplace I didn'y want to be anything I didn''t want to meet anybody I didn'T want to grow up, I wanted out. And I wasn't able to, you know? So from the time that I was five years old, I began to take overdoses of baby aspirin. I began to cut my hands and fingers and wrists with razor blades. I would take the car lighters and burn myself all over my body. I would beat myself. I did a lot of different things. I just wanted away from the emotional pain. I always preferred physical pain. And in my life as I was to live, I was to learn that it was much better for me. I would much rather you punch me in the face than hurt my feelings. And I spent a lot of my life with black eyes and swollen lips and, you know, those kind of things, trying to make sure no one ever hurt my feeling. I started to use drugs on a regular basis when I was seven years old. I began to drink on a regualr basis when I was eight. By the time I was nine, I found a combination that I never altered in any way because it was perfect, it worked for me, and that was alcohol combined with other pills, reds, yellows, downers, whatever you might know them as, and the combined effect of those got me where I needed to go go. And it was basically for me, alcohol worked so that I didn't have to feel anything. And again, I know a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous are not going to identify with that. You know, I've never been a party girl. I've ever had a social drink. I'd never not been drunk when I was drinking and nor did I ever want to, you know, none of that attracted me in any way. I drank so that didn't feel the pain that I always felt. And I am so grateful that it worked that way for me because I truly believe I would have had to have been locked up in some kind of an institution. I couldn't make it out there. I just couldn't handle it. And as I was growing up and, you know, I was a little kid and I mentioned I'm this observer of people, you know, and they would say, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I'd say a boy. And it wasn't as easy back then to do as it is today. but it it really bothered the people who were asking me that I kept giving that answer you know it wasn't like sometimes a nurse sometimes a teacher sometimes a boy it was like a boy I want to be a boy you know and so they began to take me to priests to talk to me about this we were on welfare and we began I began to see psychiatrists and psychologists at a very early age, I really can't give you any kind of diagnosis about why they thought that I was the way I was or doing the things that I felt the way that I was because I felt about those people just like my friend Patty Hicks always did. I thought they should have to work for their money so I never told them anything. I sat there the required 50 minutes. I looked at them as long as they looked at me. I didn't play with one toy. I didnt answer one question. I did not fill out one form. I just had nothing to say to people like that and so I really wasn't able to get a lot of help, somehow I realized I wasn't going to be able to be a boy. And again, as I looked around the world, the best possibility that I could see for me was to try and be at Tough Broad. Now, I grew up in a town called Venice. It's a beach town not too far. I'm sure a lot if you guys know where it is. And so I began to do everything I could to be at Tuff Broad in Venice. And tough broads at the beach in Venice don't wear shoes, so I never wore shoes. And tough brods in Venice were in a gang, and I was. And tough Brods in venice did a lot of fighting, and i did. It's important that i remember to let you know that i've never won a fight in my life. But i've Never fought less than five people at a time. And my sponsor explained to me that the reason for that is if you fight one person and you lose, some people might think, you're not a very good fighter. If you always fight groups of five or more, no one expects you to win. And they think, oh, she must be kind of tougher. Why would that many people have to jump her? So I had it worked out. And I can remember standing down in Venice Beach and touristy-looking people would look at me and I would take my cigarette and I Would throw it down on the boardwalk and I'd put it out with my bare feet. And the tourists would whisper back and forth. And I knew what they were saying. They were saying, wow, that is one tough broad. And I was pretty impressed that I could do this. And after I'd been sober for a while, my sponsor said, you know, maybe what some of those people were saying to one another was, did you see that? That person just put flesh to fire. Why would anybody do anything so stupid? But I didn't know there was another way of looking at it. I just thought it was just very tough and I would impress people all over. So, as I was growing up in Venice with my alcohol and with the situations that were going on in my life, you know, I'm not one of those people that, as a result of my alcoholism, I lost my self-worth and my self respect. I don't honestly believe I ever had any. And it's interesting because, you know,, in the years my mother was an alcoholic and is, and my mother's alcoholism led her a lot of places that alcoholism leads people and women. And yet, my mom always struggled morally with the places that it led her. And I judged her very harshly. But in the years that I have been sober and I've done my inventories, I can see that I went places that my mother never even went and I went there right away because I just didn't have the moral character at all. I just didn't have it because I didn't care. I didn' t care about you and I most certainly didn' d care about me and none of it mattered and I didn''t want to go on anyway and I was just hoping I'd die real soon so there were just weren' t there wasn' t any stop gaps for anything in my behavior and I hurt a lot of people and I did a lot o f things and I just thank God for alcohol so that I could just get by I was brought to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous by my mother I didn ''t ask for help. I din ''t want to come. She brought me because she thought I might get her evicted from another apartment if she left me alone, and I went to that meeting that night, and I did not raise my hand because I was not going to join an organization that was allowing my mother to belong to it. That was for sure, and also I just wasn't an alcoholic, you know, and there was a guy at that meeting that I admired more than anybody else in the whole world, and so the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous began for me that night even though I didn't get sober, and I admired Paul for a lot of reasons. Many of you may not identify with them, but I admired Paul because he was one of the most hostile and violent people I had ever known. If I had to tell you what I wanted out of life in one sentence when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I wanted the ability to clear rooms and have everyone back away from me in terror. Well, when you're 87 pounds, that almost never happens. But Paul was actually a drinking friend of my mother, and there were some pretty rough bars in Venice. And I saw Paul, and when he walked into those bars and he'd been drinking, if he wanted your table, you just really should give him your table. And people did. He could clear rooms and tables. And so I looked at this man who had achieved everything that I wanted out of life, and he was sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was very impressed that somebody that strong would need to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I was willing to talk to him because he was strong and tough and violent, unlike all the other lame people in the AA meetings. So, you know, and I talked to him in those next couple of days. I didn't stop drinking. And I explained to Paul that I wasn't an alcoholic, that I couldn't possibly be an alcoholic. That I was far too young to be an alcoholic. But it wasn't anything like my mother who was obviously clearly alcoholic. Everybody knew that. And then I had places to go and people to see and things to do. I had my whole life ahead of me and I was just very clearly not alcoholic. I later found out that non-alcoholics don't have to spend any time trying to convince other people that they're not alcoholic, they already know that and finally Paul turned to me and he said you know June I'm pretty new in this AA thing and they told me I can't diagnose anybody's disease but my own he said but in your case I'm going to make an exception so I've seen the way that you drink and I've see the way you use chemicals and I happen to believe if you don't come into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and take what these people have to offer you within a period of six months or less you're going to be out on the streets, you're gonna be shooting stuff, you'll be selling your ass. And I knew he wasn't trying to scare me. He wasn't just talking about something that, you know, high school teacher might read about and share with the class. He was just talking about facts. He was talking about things that were happening and beginning to happen in my life, and I thought a little bit about what he said, but I did not want to be an alcoholic. And yet in that two-week period of time as I went to meetings not raising my hand, absolutely every alternative but Alcoholics Anonymous was removed from my life. I had been living with my mother at that time for a very short period of time, and she asked me to leave because I mentioned already, of course, how I hated myself. I also hated my mother and blamed her for most everything that had ever gone wrong, and take it from me, the short version, a lot had gone wrong. And I was very violent, and I would attack my mom, and she was sober at this time, and she didn't think she had to be subjected to attacks in her home, and she asking me to believe, and they did. The rest of my family would not talk to me and didn't for a long time afterwards, after I was sober even. I couldn't call them I'd been in a lot of foster homes I'd be thrown out of all of them or wasn't able to go back to them for a variety of reasons so there wasn't any of that There were some drug rehab and alcohol recovery homes in the LA area at that time not very many but there were some none of them would take me some because of my age and some just because of My Attitude and then I thought well you know what who cares who cares about these families and these programs and you know all that none of that really matters because if you're really a tough broad there's only one thing that really counts there's one thing that's important and that's your gang and then one day as I walked down an alley all five members of my own gang beat me up and so I found myself sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I had a black eye, a swollen lip I was barefoot I had no place to live I had nobody to go to I had the clothes that I had on so I raised my hand at a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous and you can see where it was really kind of simple it wasn't like would you like to go AA or go to Hawaii that was it and I was there and I know today that there were some people in that meeting who did not know about the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, in particular the third tradition, the one that says the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. And the reason I know they did not know about that tradition is some of those people knew who I was because my mom had been in and out of Alcoholic Anonymous for, I think, almost, well, for a number of years, maybe 10 years at that time. And so they knew whoI was and how old I was, and they came over to me at the meeting and they told me I was too young to be an alcoholic and they didn't want little kids coming to their meetings while they talked about serious things. And they told me if I came back, they'd get together and throw me out. And so I left, and I fell back on the answer that I'd been using since I was five years old. And I went over to a friend of my mother's house. I went into her bathroom, which is the first place I went at anyone's home I ever visited, found enough pills to kill myself, and then I took enough of them to do it one more time. And then I ended up at a noon meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And by the time I got to that meeting, I could not stand, I couldn't sit. I was laying in the meeting. I don't know about where you guys go to meetings here in Santa Barbara, but in West L.A., where I got sober, They almost never called on people to share who were laying in the meeting. But they did call on me that day. I certainly do not know what I said, and they realized that I needed to be in a hospital, and that was where I woke up next with a doctor giving me medicine to make me throw up and explaining to me that the pills I had taken were to slow down my heart, and had I been there five or ten minutes later, I would have been in a coma that they probably could not have brought me out of. And I really can't tell you why that overdose was any different than all the others that I had inflicted upon myself. I just know that it was, because one day at a time, since that time, I haven't taken anything that affects me from the neck up, and that's how I personally define sobriety. I came out of that hospital, and I became very, very active in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I went to 37 meetings a week most of my first two years in the problem of Alcoholic Anonymous, and that was not because I wanted to get a gold star in AA. It was because I had absolutely no place else to go, nothing else to do. No one wanted to be around me, truly. And there were good reasons for that. It may or may not surprise you, but I came into Alcoholics Anonymous with a very bad attitude. I did not like me. I didn't like my mother. And I didn'T like women at all. I didn' t want to be one still, and I just didn' T like them. So I did NOT sit next to women. I did not shake hands with women. I most certainly did not hug women, and I didn't like listening to women's speakers, which is something that always makes me feel better because I know there's never as many people listening to me as it looks like. The only men I had really known in my life were alcoholics. They were extremely violent. So the men in Alcoholics Anonymous scared me, and I don't want anything to do with them either, and that was a problem because when I came to AlcoholicsAnonymous in July of 1972, all they had were men and women. I didn' t like any of them. I had a very limited vocabulary. It consisted almost solely of profanity. There were a few exceptions, the and mother. And I found a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous who were extremely offended by the use of that type of language and so I tried to use it more when they got near me. I did not wear shoes most of the first two years that I was sober. I wore motorcycle chains on my wrists and ankles. I had a jacket that on the back said, Do unto others, then split. I smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and I lit all of them myself. Occasionally, someone would hold a match and I let them hold it as long as they liked. But they never lit my cigarette with it. OccasionALLY, someone would hold the door for me. I let him hold it as longas they liked When the door closed, I opened it for myself and I went through the door. I mostly didn't get rides. I mostly hitchhiked or I walked. If I had enough money, I took the bus. I usually didn't. I walked to the beach a lot at night. Sometimes somebody in AA would let me sleep on their floor or their sofa, and the people in Alcoholics Anonymous were incredibly kind and tolerant, and I will never forget to be grateful to the people who treated me as kindly as they did because I didn't deserve it at all. If you choose to come into AlcoholicsAnonymous and act the way that I did, dress the way that I didn, smoke and talk the way that I do, you too can sit in a meeting almost this big and have an entire row all to yourself. but I got very involved in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I got Very Involved in Service in Alcoholics Anonymous and I am just so grateful that I was taught that way. So I went to these meetings most of those meetings that I went too, I had a commitment at those meetings and I had different commitment at the different ones but I just didn't have any place else to go and I can remember I would leave a noon meeting that would get over at 2, and it would take me five hours to get to the next meeting that I was going to by walking or hitchhiking or bus riding or whatever it was. And I would do a commitment at that meeting at 7 and be there until 10 at night. And then I would either walk or hitch hike or whatever that night afterwards. But it was the only place that I had to be. And I'm so grateful that there were so many meetings and that I Was taught to keep these commitments. You know, I was told at my home group it was important to get a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And they said that they would make credit arrangements if, you know, I didn't have the money or if anybody new didn't Have the money. Or, you Know, they said if you're too afraid to talk to somebody or you don't want to, you can just go ahead and steal it. Well, I'd been stealing longer than I'd Been drinking. But I had this feeling that it looked like you didn't want To steal from an AA meeting. It could just, Like, jinx your sobriety or something. So I went to the library, and I stole the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. While I was there, I stole The Twelve and Twelve because I heard a lot of people talking about that. I thought that might be a good book too. And I can remember after I'd been sober a while, I realized I needed to make amends for stealing these books along with the 20 or 30 others that I still had, like Misty the Seahorse, you know, the things you steal when you're 10 and 11 or whatever. And I took them all down to the librarian in Culver City and I gave her all these books and I explained to her that I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and that I wanted to return these books but I was hoping they'd let me make payments because I'd had some of the books for like 11 years or whatever and she said, well, you know she said that's fine but you know I used to work in this library in Laguna Beach and this man came in and he said the same thing she said I guess you guys do this all the time and so I thought I was so unique I mean, I haven't come up with anything unique yet. One of my commitments was being the greeter at the Tuesday night 2 plus 2 meeting. So I would stand there barefoot with my motorcycle chains and cigar, welcoming the newcomers as they came to AA. Sometimes as they'd walk by, I'd hear their sponsor whisper, you see, if you keep drinking, you can end up like that. When I came in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, people were guessing my age at 37. I was 13. And today, as I stand up here, I'm 45 years old, and I feel about 1,000 years younger than I ever believed AlcoholicsAnonymous could make possible for me. So I'm sure that I'm going to have my issues with aging, and I've had some in some different ways. But I was so old when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and we had so many incredible old-timers here when I got here. Just incredible, powerful, wonderful, amazing people. And not one or all of them put together could have convinced me that somehow, someday, I wouldn't feel as old as I felt, you know, when I walked in these doors. And, you know, again, sort of like Otto was saying last night, when he stopped drinking and the nails were still... You know, that whole thing. Well, getting sober did not suddenly make me like myself and like everything about my life and like having curly hair. I mean, it was very hard. It was horrible, really. I mean I hated everything about myself as I always had and I didn't have anything to make it any better. And that had a lot to do for me with why I needed to have my own row. Because I didn't want you to touch me, because I felt like throwing up just being me, you know? And I figured you might touch me and go, ah! You know, I mean, I really, that's how I felt, you Know? And I didn' t take baths and showers even after I got sober and alcoholics and I was for a while. I mean I didn''t have a place to live. I didn ''t know how often you were supposed to do that. You know? I never stood around with my gang saying, hey, do you use conditioner? You know. I mean it wasn''t like, you Now? It wasn'' t part of what we did, you now? And I've learned in sobriety there are some tough broads or whatever that were makeup-wearing tough. I was a non-makeup-wearning tough broad because there wasn't any way I was ever going to look at a mirror long enough to put makeup on my face. In fact, for me, one of the great hopes as I sat in these meetings, countless meetings of alcoholics and obstetrics and heard these amazing people share and stuff, I would think maybe someday if I try this thing 110%, maybe someday when I walk down the street and I happen to glance at myself in one of those storefront windows where you can't help but see a reflection, maybe someday I won't feel like throwing up at what I see looking back. And that was enough hope to keep me coming back to Alcoholics Anonymous, but not that idea that I'd walk downthe street and look people in the eye and want to be me and not want to trade places. I thought that was just a fairy tale for me. It may have been true for you guys, but not for me I, well, I have to tell you a little bit about my sponsor then. I got a sponsor, and she was a woman, which is just such an amazing thing, really. And Gail became my sponsor, clearly, and I verified this, you know, because she had been taught to never say no to an AA request. and um you know it just is so remarkable to me that i even ever asked gail to be my sponsor really you know i went to all these meetings and uh and many of them were speaker meetings and it seemed as though gail spoke you know at more than 10 every week no matter where i went it was always gail speaking gail gail you know so i think part of it was i think i asked her to bemy sponsor hoping maybe then i could find out ahead of time where she was speaking and I wouldn't have to go hear her all the time. But when I think of Gail and her becoming my sponsor, or just Gail in general, I think Of The Line and The Big Book that says we are people who normally would not mix. And there is no one that would know Gail Wilson and me and not know that we are a group of people who are going to be a part of this. We are people whom normally would never mix. I mean, first of all, Gail came from a warm, loving family. I hated people like that. She had traveled around the world, seen things, gone to college. I hated people like that because I knew they never suffered. They didn't live in the streets of Venice and know the real world. And so I just hated them automatically. I didn't know anything about them, but I just hate them. And Gail not only did not use the same words that I used, she didn't what most of the words I was using meant. And as if all of that was not bad enough, she had been seen on numerous occasions in public wearing pink. Something that I didn't even sit in a row with someone who wore pink until I was 10 years sober. You know, no pink anywhere near. I mean, just keep the pink away. So it was just really, you know. And I would see Gail at the Thursday night Brentwood meeting, which was her home group. And I'd walk up and I'd say, hi, Gail. And she'd say hi. She'd now look. She'd say don't tell anyone that I am your sponsor. And so, well, that's okay. You know, I didn't want anybody to know I had somebody lame like that either, so it was fine, you know. And we would meet secretly after the meetings and we would talk about AA. And it was just, it was really, it was like a couple of different languages, which I think having a sponsor is anyway, really. You know what I mean? If you've been new, if you've seen AA, if you haven't been around a while, then you know what it's like when you talk to your sponsor. You know how a friend of mine kind of put it, It's like, well, you talk to them about a problem. You know, it's a simple problem, but they just can't get it. There's something that happens to them. So, and I can remember you call up your sponsor and you're going to tell them a little bit about how, I don't have the rent. The rent is due in three days and I don'T have the rental. And they say, go to a meeting. Say, okay, maybe I was talking too fast. Okay, I'm going to break it down for you. I don't have the rent. You know, that's money. And they want money. This is the real world, not in the meeting. Now, I mean, they are not in the program. My landlord doesn't go to AA and they want money. And I don' t have the rent. I was like, go to a meeting. You know? It's sort of like if you walked up to someone on the street and you go, excuse me, what time is it? They go, it's a horse. You know this is not we are not communicating here. and that's sort of what it was like sometimes talking to Gail you know I can remember trying to explain to her that I wasn't really lying and she thought I was lying and we were talking about she just you know she thought everything was lying it was unbelievable like when you call up at work and you say I'm not gonna be able to get there my car won't start well I didn't mention I didn'T put the key in or turn it so I don't think that's lying if they had asked did you put the key in and turn it then I would have to say oh no I didn't do that yet but people don't ask those questions and if they don't ask they don'T need to know you know so and that was you know and so Gail felt that I was lying a lot um and we would you know have these talks about that and I thought she was just way too strict on that rigorous honesty stuff I just thought she was really pushing it it didn't really work out in the real world anyway uh after I had been sober For a couple of years, Gail helped me get into a college. It was a secretary college, which if there's anything in my life I never really wanted to be, it was a secretary, but Gail wanted me to get a job that was in an office. So she got me into this program where I got signed up and I was taking these classes and stuff. And then when I passed these classes, well, I didn't pass all of them. I started out typing 17 words a minute with 9 errors. And then I went to school one day at a time for 14 months, and then I could type 37 words a minutes with 19 errors. So I wasn't really doing very well on that, but they thought maybe I could do filing. So anyway, I went out to start looking for a job. And for me, I was a couple years sober. It was one of the hardest times in my sobriety to go out and look for a work. I mean, I felt like I would put these clothes on people had given me in the program. I felt Like, you know, look at the little Venice broad in the citizen costume, you Know? And I had never, like, you know, walked into offices. I'd never done these kind of interviews and stuff, but I got a job. It was so square. It was in an insurance company, and I knew Gail would be so proud. Very square. So I went to work. I worked really hard on the seventh day they called me in, and I thought maybe they were going to give me a raise or a promotion or something, and they fired me. I just couldn't believe it. And, you Know, she said, I'm sorry, we're going to have to let you go. You don't have enough experience. And she said not only that, you don't seem to have any common sense whatsoever. Now, I didn't really know what that was, But I knew I was being insulted. And I went downstairs. I still didn't have a car or anything. I went upstairs, and I called the L.A. Central Office because I had been to a lot of meetings. You figure 37 a week, you know, two years sober. I've been to allot of meetings I had never heard of anybody sober being fired. And I wanted to report this company because I figured we would picket or something, you now. And they just laughed like you guys did. And, you kno, I was just shocked, you kow. And I can remember talking to my sponsor, And I'd say, you know, I never got fired before I came to AA. She'd remind me I'd never had a job. So sponsors, they see these insights that we forget about. Anyway, I had to go out and look for another job after that, and this person took me to look at a bank. I had never been to a bank in my life. And I walked in, and I interviewed for this job in the bank, and they were going to have to bond me for all this money and these millions of dollars. And I was just so nervous. I did not want to fill out that application. I thought, first of all, they call one library, You know, and I've had it. Whatever. But I ended up, I got that job, and I worked there. And while I was there, I ended up taking a class at night. They called it a dummy English class because I still, sort of like Otto was saying, I could read the words on a page at two or three years sober, but they didn't stay in my brain long enough to make any sense still. So someone suggested I take this class that they referred to as a dummy English class at college at night, and so I went and signed up for this class. I had dropped out of school in the seventh grade, so I took this class at night, and I took another class with it. And then I kept working full-time, and I take a couple more classes. And eventually, I got a chance to go to school and get a job working in the cafeteria and in the library. I knew a lot about libraries. So I got to work at the school library and the school cafeteria, and switched over, and was able to take more classes and change jobs and things like that. And I just kind of kept showing up. And right around this time in my life, Gail got a new baby. And, you know, I don't know if you haven't been sober very long, you might not know what that's like, you know, but she got a perfect baby. She got Linda, you know. And I mean, you know, you guys all here especially know Linda. I mean I talk about Linda when I go other places and they just think I'm probably making stuff up, you know. But I mean you know Linda was and is one of the most physically beautiful people I have ever known. And Gail begins to sponsor her. And Gail says, you know, I want you to be friends with Linda. Linda doesn't need friends, you You know, I don't want to hang out with Linda. I mean, I hadn't had, you know, two dates in a row yet. You know? I was a couple years old. I don' t want to sit next to Linda except for to get trampled by all the guys saying, Does she have a book? You know. Where does she go to meetings? You know! It's like, Oh my God! You know and I would try to explain to Gail that Linda and I are people who normally would not mix. You know, Linda doesn't need a friend, I tried to explain to Gail. And Gail finally got really mad at me and she said, you know, did it ever occur to you that when you are ready to die, it really doesn't feel any different whether you're in a hotel room in Paris or on a street alley in Venice? It's the same feeling? I thought, no, it never occurred to me. I mean, I really thought only the street people in Venice had the kind of pain that I had up until that point in my sobriety. And so she said, I want you to be her friend. So I had to, you know. And of course, you know, part of what means so much about being here at this conference is that I got to spend time with Linda and Jim. Because, you know, I could only wish for anybody in this room that you could have a sponsor that would be mean enough to make you have a friend like Linda. because we've walked through so much together over the years, and she's taught me so much. And she made such a difference for me as I went on in college because I would meet people who were beautiful inside or out or who had had loving families and who had a car and all these people that I hated before, and I could realize that we're all just God's kids. And Linda was a big part in teaching me that it doesn't really matter what you're like on the outside or really what's going on out there, but that we'RE all God's children. And it was just a really, really important lesson and one that I still am reminded of. When I go to a party or some kind of a social event and I get intimidated myself by someone's beauty or appearance or wealth or intellect, whatever it might be, I'm able to remember that we are all God's kids and that I'm not any better or any less than anybody else. I just am who I am, and they are who they are. And that doesn't mean I like everybody. I'm one of those people, I mean, I heard a guy in Texas say, if you like everybody in AA, you're not going to enough meetings. And I support that idea. So I do not like everybody, I went ahead and you know and I did keep taking classes and after a couple years they told me that I'd finished all the requirements for what they called an AA college degree I mean I never even wanted a college degree I dropped out in 7th grade but I was just I thought it was a fun name for one and and I went and I ran ahead and I meant to graduate and Linda took me and we bought a suit it was the first suit that I had ever worn that nobody wore before me, and she bought me shoes, and nobody had worn those shoes before me. And at that point I was about five years sober, and that was the first time that, and he bought them. I still couldn't afford to buy myself shoes at five years sober, but I had this beautiful outfit, and I graduated from the college, and all my sponsors there and my friends were there, and they announced that I was graduating third in my class out of 400 and some, you know, students. And I don't have any doubt in my mind ever, ever, not one second have I ever had a doubt that I could not have done that. I just, I never went to school a week straight in my life. And it was what I'd learned in Alcoholics Anonymous and what you guys made possible that that was able to happen. And I went ahead and I went on to college after that. And I worked real hard, and I really met a lot of interesting people, and I had some fun, but I had this dream that I was working on. And I graduated from college, andI did my footwork for my dream. And here it was a few years later, and I got a letter telling me that I'd been accepted as one of 300 out of 3,000 applicants to go to law school. And I'll tell you, I always planned on spending a lot of time in court. But never on that side of the table. And I was able to go to law school. And again, you know, I had more lessons about God's kids because I was very, very intimidated by some of the people and where they'd come from and their moms and dads were judges and I'd never even met my dad and it was just all these kind of things, but I just had to keep remembering we're God's kids and whatever and I just kept showing up and I worked real hard and I was scheduled to graduate in May of 1983 by February of 1983 it became very clear that my sponsor Gail Wilson was dying of cancer at 48 years old and I spent a lot of time with Gail and I had been but in those last few months we spent a long time talking in the hospital and it was just so funny really because there was a lot of people coming in to take care of Gail in the hospital room and nobody ever walked into that hospital room when I was there that she didn't stop and say, nurse, I want you to meet Junie. Junie's like a daughter to me and she's going to be an attorney. And then they'd leave and they had no interest in meeting me whatsoever, I might add. But anyway, but then Gail and I would talk and I'd say, this is the same person who used to say, don't sit next to me at the meeting and don't tell anyone that I am your sponsor. And we talked about that same sort of, that idea about her being taught never to say no. And that's why she became my sponsor. She said, June, she said, when you asked me to be your sponsor, she said I knew you'd never make it. She said with your attitude and your background, she saidI knew you were going nowhere. But she said l had been taught not to say no to an AA request, and so I agreed to sponsor you. And she saidl you know, and I can remember after you were a couple years sober, and she said and you just were one of the biggest flakes that I'd ever sponsored. I mean, you were just all over the place, you know except for keeping AA commitments. Your life was just one disaster after another. And she said, but, you know, I remember you called and you said, Gail, I'm going to take a class at college. She said, I knew you'd never finish. She said but I didn't say anything. And she then you took some more classes and you went to a few more things and she said and then you called me and said Gail I think I want to be a lawyer. She said I had to force myself not to laugh out loud. She said that was eight years of school that you had to go to. You know, she said it just was not going to happen. You hadn't had a job yet for a year, you know. But she said she didn't say anything, and we talked about why she didn'T say anything. Basically, it was never that Gail believed in June or what she could accomplish. It was just simply that Gale had seen incredible things happen in Alcoholics Anonymous, and she didn' t know what was going to happen for anybody else because amazing things had happened in her life, and so she didn''t feel that she could tell me something couldn' t or wouldn' t happen for me. And I, Gail did pass away in April of 1983. I graduated in May of 1983, I worked really, really hard that summer to take the bar exam, which is what you need to do in order to be able to pass, and went ahead and I took that exam and took the classes and, you know, whatever, and then I got a job that I had had to work and then you have to wait a few months to get the results, and, uh, you I was real active with my group and went to all my meetings and everything was doing pretty well. And I got a letter Thanksgiving weekend that year telling me that I did not pass the bar exam and that I would not be allowed to practice law in the state of California. And I absolutely could not believe it. I had worked so hard. It was like November 26th. I had enough money to pay my rent on December 1st, and that was it. I couldn't put money in the car to go talk at a meeting I was supposed to go talk at that night. You know, I didn't have enough food. I still wasn't buying my own clothes, and I just thought, God, you know, I mean, I am such an AA failure. You know? I'm 11 years sober, for God's sakes. How come I'm not buying other people dinner yet? This is unbelievable, you know, and I thought, you know, this must have been my will. This wasn't God's will anyway. I mean, I just went off on some strange trek here that was, you knows, out of insanity and so I called my best friend in the program, a guy I met when I was nine days sober. Did I hit something? Okay, and, um, I'd met Mike. I was at Westwood 2 plus 2. I was standing in the back. Everybody was running around passing out flyers, come to Mike's surprise party. Mike's won. Come to Mike'S surprise party." Mike's going to be won. Don't tell Mike. Shh. You know, I stood in the background and I was in the room like I always did and I'm standing next to this guy after a while and I go, you're going to Mike''s surprise party? He said, I'm Mike. So... That's my best Marine buddy and we've been, he's my longest friend in my life. And so I called Mike that night and I told him I had to talk and he met me at that meeting and God, if there's ever a time I didn't want to show up and talk. I mean, I didn'T even know what could I possibly say. Hey, keep coming back, go to lots of meetings, don't drink and you won't be able to pay your rent or get gas to get to a meeting either after 11 years. I just thought, oh, I just don't even know what I'm doing here. But I don't know what I said, but we went out afterwards and I showed Mike the telegram that they'd sent me And I said, you know, Mike, I said You know, it wasn't God's will He goes, well let me see the telegram And he said, I think it says you're supposed to take the test again I said that is not what it says I owe so much money I had to borrow all that money just to get through school And I have to pay that money back You know and now I can't get a job And you know I'm just telling him the whole thing And he says, borrow some more money Well alright So I did and I took the test Again and I had To study really hard and I Had to wait and got a telegram in May the next year telling me that I had passed. And that the swearing-in ceremony, which is really just another way to get another $100, I think, but anyway, that the Swearing-In Ceremony would take place on June 13th, which was my sponsor Gail's AA birthday. And so I was able to become a lawyer and I was able to get a job after that that I loved very, very much and be able to have a job where I believe I'm able to be of service and where I have not ever had a day where I don't know where but for the grace of God and people like you and being sober where alcoholics would be. So I'm very, very grateful and I like this job a lot. And I'm going to tell you about one other area and then I'm gonna go ahead and sit down. And I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was single. And I think if you're 13, that's a really good idea. But I didn't think so, really, at the time. My mom had never been married, and I think in my mind I sort of thought that was a big part of all our problems. But anyway, so I have some very bad news for you if you are single. At least it was bad news from me. It might not be for you, but it was good news for me. And if you're single and you're in AA, then you're probably going to have to date. And I hate dating. I've always hated dating. I'd much rather fall in love. And if your in AA then you'll probably have to go out on a date. And after the date you'll go to coffee and talk about the meeting. And by the time you get home you don't know whether to kiss them goodnight or say the Lord's Prayer. A lot of those kind of dates. When I was in law school this guy asked me out. and I wasn't really sure if I should go out with him because he didn't have any tattoos, he'd never been in prison. I just didn't know if we could really have a common something to share about. Not that I had been to prison either but I just sort of felt like that was where I would be more comfortable but anyway, so we started to go out and we dated for quite a long time and in 1988 we decided to get married and Linda helped me plan my wedding and every member of my family was there and all of them had to pay money except for two that lived in California to get there. And you know when I got sober I was almost 10 years sober before I got a Christmas card from anybody in my family. It was a really slow recovery with my family, you know and two of my relatives came from another country who had never been to this country to represent my grandparents at my wedding And it was really, really amazing, you know. And I wore shoes. And anyway, I had had, from the time that I got sober, I had a number of physical problems and they were pretty severe. And I was told by the time I was 15 that I needed to have a hysterectomy but that no doctor would do one because I was too young that my body had just undergone so much damage that that's what I needed, and it was just a question of either having insurance or finding someone who'd be willing to do the surgery. So I never really planned on having children. I just knew that that was just not going to happen, and I didn't want children. I think in large part the idea that I could have a child that could experience and live anything like the way that I had experienced or lived, I just thought, oh no, this could never be. So it wasn't even on my list. But after we'd been married for a while, I did get pregnant, and I had a miscarriage, And then about a year later, I got pregnant again. And I had a little girl. And they said this was really remarkable and I'd had to use some kind of fertility things to help. And so they said, you know, you probably will have to start those again. It'll probably take another couple years. But then six months later,I didn't really have the flu. I was actually pregnant with my Irish twins. Not twins, but my second daughter, who they're so close together, they call them Irish twins, or we do. And so I then had Samantha and Jessica. And then a few years later, I had my little girl, Casey. And so, I am a mom of three daughters. And I'll tell you, you know, sometimes people come up, especially to Samantha, and they say, you now, she looks just like you. Except for she doesn't have my beautiful curly hair. But, you can't have everything. But I thought, you know, years ago, I would have thought those were like fighting terms if someone had said that to somebody. And I think it's just unbelievable. I have to tell you this story about Jesse real quick too. I read all these different spiritual literature things in the morning because I'm sort of a story person. I always have been. And I read this one story about Gandhi. And Gandhi was running to catch a train and he was wearing sandals. and as he was running to catch this train, one of his sandals came off and he just managed to jump on the train and he grabbed on the chain and he reached down and he ripped off his other sandal and he threw it back. And one of His followers was with Him and the follower said, why did you do that? And He said, well, because if a man comes along and he finds one sandal, it will be of no value. But if he finds a pair, perhaps he could get some use out of it. And I thought about this and I've thought aboutthis many times because I just am thinking, you know, I don't know about you guys, but when I'm missing one earring, I really don't want someone else to find a pair. I want the pair and I'm trying to figure, I mean this kind of thing and I really struggle with it, but where is it? I mean why do I, I'm just missing one, I don' t want to just throw the other one in there and these little kinds of things and I think just what an interesting way to think and to look at it and I was picking Jessie up from school and she was about, I guess about seven and I hadn't really discussed any of this literature or anything with her. But anyway, so she was running to the car and I have one of these big trucks because I'm a soccer mom and so she's climbing up into the back and she goes, Mom, Mom. I go, What? She goes, I lost my shoe. I go Jess, what do you mean you lost your shoe? It's like I go over there and we look and sure enough as she's coming up and she's just climbing into the truck her tennis shoe fell off and it fell right in a storm drain. and she says I said Jess I'm sorry mom should I throw the other one in there oh my gosh I'm living with Gandhi you know anyway I don't know where she gets this stuff I really don't have very many days in my life where I don' t look around at my life and think what Norm Albee always talked about which is that I've been overpaid I don't know how this all happened wouldn't have been on my list I wouldn't of planned it most of the things that give me the greatest joy in my life would not have even been on it because you know really when I came to the program I didn't even have a list I didn'y have any dreams I didn''t have any hopes and I know you're not all going to identify with that but I got to tell you how it was for me I still, my number one thing I would have wanted if you'd given me a choice was to die I just couldn't die so I'm not one of those people that stayed sober because I'm afraid I'll go out on the streets and die I tried to die as long and as hard as I could out there I'm worried I could go on living the way that I was living for another 10 or 20 or 30 years and I'm telling you by the time I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous I could not go on breathing in and out three more times hating myself any more than I did when I got here so I just am overpaid And it's, again, you know, when I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, we did have a speaker named Norm Alpe. He was my all-time favorite speaker. Every time I heard Norm Alope talk, I'd think, ah, I want to join AA, and then I'd remember I already belonged or I wouldn't have been there hearing him, you now. But he just had so much enthusiasm and so much love for AlcoholicsAnonymous. At least that's how I heard it, and it meant a lot to me. And what Norm always would say, you kno, when he was finishing is he would say but for the grace of God, people like you, rooms like this, I could have missed it all. Thanks for not letting me. Thank you.