The Self-Obsession That Made Her a Neon Newcomer – Nancy M.

you were going to put it down hi everybody my name is Nancy Morris I'm an alcoholic hello I would like to thank the committee for inviting me here and keeping in touch with me and giving me such a beautiful room with the ocean waves outside I have to play tapes in Minnesota to hear that so it's just um i'm having a great time um it's really nice to come to these things and see people that i've met all over the country and i met um these three women valerie and alison and mary and jekyll island and we've stayed in touch since that time and um we talk on the phone and share our aa experience strength and hope and you know i feel like i fit in here i belong here And that's a feeling that we look for all of our lives. And my sponsor is Clancy. He's here. I was with him last week, and that's about enough for one year, I think. But, you know, it's really nice to be here with him and with Byron and Russ. I've known them. I've know Byron & Clancy since I got sober. And so, you knows, there's a part of me that's sitting there thinking, you know, back to then, 23 years ago, like, I can't be up here doing this. I'm scared and I hide outside the door of the meeting so I won't get called on. And, you know, just seeing them and being with them helps me to remember those days and what it was like. But also having Clancy for a sponsor all this time and learning to accept him as he is helps me to accept anybody in the whole world. So every time I come to one of these things and it's time for me to talk, I think, well, I should have a convention talk. And I don't. I just talk. And I went into my room to change clothes, and I got on my knees, and I asked God to just give me the words, andI'll stand up here, and I'll share my experience, strength, and hope because that's what I'm supposed to do. And I come from a large family, and Keith was talking about that and the religion he grew up in, and we were Catholic. and um but when he was talking to i thought of something in aa i've had the um pleasure of sponsoring two nuns i actually got to make a 12-step call on a nun and so it was really neat because i got to get back at them and um i got out um a ruler you know after i started sponsoring her and i'm like seven meetings a week sister or else but i grew up in this large family and um uh people when we were growing up my family was very wild i have five brothers and one sister a mother and a father and my family was very wild the people next door put their house up for sale and they told me the kids told me that they heard their parents saying it was because of us and they had to move you know they just didn't want to live next door to us we and there was a lot going on at our house all the time and there was a lot of drinking and my father died of alcoholism when i was six months sober and um i also got a gift in that um i was able to take my father to some meetings i don't know why i was the first one in my family to to uh want to quit drinking and to find alcoholics anonymous because certainly my brothers drank more than i did and gotten more trouble and um but i was here already when uh i was unable to bring my father and he got to read the big book and learn about this disease shortly before he died, and so that was a real gift that I got in that. And growing up in my family, I remember one time when I was a young teenager, I went to the cupboard to get some vodka. I snuck in the kitchen, you know, and I got to get the bottle of vodka. I got it down, I took a big drink of it, and it was already water. And I didn't do it that time. So it's like, huh. And my father had an extra refrigerator in the garage, and he put a beer keg in there. And every weekend, he'd go buy a big keg of beer and put it in there and during the week, I would save up empty jars, big mayonnaise jars, and when nobody was looking, I Would just go into the garage and fill them up with beer and put them in my closet and save them for later because the keg was empty in a day. I mean, everybody came over to our house and drank, and we all drank so much. And so I would hear the keg emptied, making its noise. My father would be screaming, who drank all the beer. And then I would just go up in my bedroom and shut the door and drink the beer that was in my closet. I never knew why I drank before I got here. I never gave it much thought. It was something that I just grew up doing. And my family did it, and I did it. And I hung around with people who drank. And I didn't really think about it that much during that time. And, you know, after I got sober and after I was here a while and started learning what we learn here. You know, I mean, I never paid attention to the fact that I was afraid and insecure and no self-worth and all that kind of stuff that we learn here. I didn't know it then. You know how we fake it and we act in a certain way. You know I could beat people up because my brothers would fight with me and I'd have to fight back so if somebody made me mad I would just beat them up. The last time I tried to beat somebody up I was actually 13 years sober And I was in a woman's stag meeting in California, and this one girl was making a lot of noise during the meeting, and I wanted to tell her to be quiet, but I didn't because I wanted her to like me. But finally it got to me, and so toward the end of the meeting I said, would you just shut up? And she said, make me,and you can't say that. So I stood up, I jumped up, my chair fell over backwards, and I said I'll make you come outside with me. And then she was a newcomer, and I'm 13 years sober. So luckily something in my head said, you are 13 years sober, sit down, and you shut up. But I had a fight in Clancy's backyard with a girl one time. She said make me because I told her to be quiet. She said, make me. So I knocked her over. And all these women are sitting around like, what is going on here? But growing up, I just did that kind of thing. And so I didn't know I was afraid of people, and I thought I was tough and not afraid because of the things that I did. And all my life, too, I did what I found out. What I started to say before is everything I know I just found out here. I knew absolutely nothing when I came here. I kind of wandered through life and did what – I watched other people doing and acted maybe like – I tried to act like I thought other people wanted me to act. I did everything for approval. I did Everything So You'd Like Me. And, you know, when I found that out when I got sober, I hated being like, I did not want to be this way. And I think that's why, anyway, I was told to do my fourth step. I was almost a year sober, and it was, I'm glad that I was sober that long because it was so, because I didn't like what I saw. I lived in my mind before I got here, and I was what I thought I was in my head. my mind. And I hated being afraid and just feeling like this little wimp, you know, I just hated that. But I was sober long enough. So actually the day I was going to do my fifth step, I called my sponsor and resigned from Alcoholics Anonymous. I had this lady, I had some women in the first couple of years of my sobriety, but I called her up and I said, I'm, I am resigning and I'm not going to be able to do this. I didn't, I just felt that I could not share these things with her. I had written things that, you know, nobody, I had never told anybody and I was ashamed of it and I just hated what I saw. But luckily I did talk to some other people during the day and I finally called her up and I wasn't able to go with her and ride in the car and do my fifth step with her and looking back on that, it was a giant step for me and it kind of opened the doors for me to, you now, in Alcoholics Anonymous and make me feel like I belonged. I'd done something I didn't want to do. It was very difficult to do, and I all of a sudden felt like I maybe had something to give back in these rooms. But growing up, that's how it was, and I just always drank, and in high school I had this flask that looked like a transistor radio. And this was in the old days. You know, they're like a little bigger than they are now, but it had fake knobs on the outside of it, and inside was my whatever I needed to drink. and um you know i just did it like i said i just did it and um i do remember one time i had to give a speech and um you know I I went and drank something somehow I knew that it would be a little easier for me to give my speech and it was I was banging on the podium I just got all out of control and I liked that because I couldn't do it otherwise and um when I was 15 years old I got pregnant that was a very curious situation because I had never been on a date in my life and I didn't have a boyfriend so it's like huh i wonder how this happened and um but you know it happened because a man dared me to sneak out of my house in the middle of the night i used to hang out at the stable and ride horses and i just hung out there all the time and he was a lot older than i was and he dared me to sneak out ofmy house inthe middle ofthe night and come up there and meet him so i had to do it i had to do anything anybody ever asked me to do so i climbed outmy window went up there and um so the first time i ever had sex in my life i got pregnant so that kind of told me something about you know that god was just up there like watching me walk across this field and sneak up to the stable and it's like there she's being bad so um but i you know my parents sent me away supposedly live with relatives back east because they were ashamed of this whole thing and i was calling my friends and telling them how big i was getting and and um but it was not like it then when that happened it wasn't like it is now and people did I felt like everybody looked at me like I was just this slut you know and um so I had this baby and gave it up for adoption and went back and finished in another high school and got out of high school and had no clue what to do so I became a dental assistant and I just saw something in the paper one day and I did that I was told that I'd grow up and get married and have a family and that's all I was ever encouraged to do so I became a dental assistant and you know I always like to drink I always preferred drinking but I you know, I think I always did kind of hide it. I mean, especially in the dental office. My main job was sucking water out of people's mouths with my vacuum. So I'm like this close to them, you know and I knew alcohol smelled so I got into a lot of pills that were in that office and I ordered everything I was I did the books and I ordered supplies and i took care of the patients because that's how we are you know and this other girl had quit and i said don't hire anybody else i can do everything and i did and um but he didn't pay me enough money to do everything i wouldn't ask him to pay me more because he might say no so i was the bookkeeper so i helped myself to more money and um in my mind it was completely justified but then i found out that was called embezzling when i got here but it was it made perfect sense to me to do that like this is how much i deserve and um but i took a lot of pills in that office because i didn't want to smell like alcohol and i guess i needed it i just would go in every day and take a handful of pain pills and take them throughout the day and sometimes i'd say i don't wantto do this i'm not going to do it and then i would do it anyway and it was the same thing with alcohol all the time i don' t want to do this but i'll just have one drink today And that's what I did for several years toward the end right before I got in here. Every day it was, please God help me not to take a drink today. And I would get up and after a little while I would find a reason why I thought I could take one drink and then I would have another drink and another drink. But, you know, I just kind of, I got married the first time because a man asked me to marry him and I got buried the second time because he didn't want me to do it again. Because a man told me to bury him and then i was twelve years sober actually he had he bought a ring and I felt sorry for him so I thought I better go ahead and marry him and it's like oh well what the heck you know we can I can handle this and but I got married the first time and then you know it was during this time and we had the kids that I really had to start looking at my drinking and I ended up you know being at home with I had three little boys when I got sober. I have twins who were three years old and a son who was one year old so based on the age of the twins, you know, I just that's when I would get up every day and try not to drink. And I was becoming more and more aware of my drinking because I had this family. I would look out the window at the neighbors and I knew they weren't doing what I was doing. I tried to socialize with them a little bit. And this lady would drink. They had these little teensy seven ounce cans of Oli. And so she would drink one of those and I'd drink two six packs and all the cans would be in the trash and the dogs would come knock the trash over and my husband would say where did all these cans come from and i said the neighbors were all over drinking beer and um and uh you know i tried i i tried to do some things that i thought i should do as a wife and a mother and i always had to drink to go do these things because i didn't fit in and i would drink i would drink vodka and kool-aid to go play tennis and i Would bring it in a thermos and then somebody would start sniffing and say i smell alcohol and then i would leave and i would never go back to that group again and um you know every day i just tried really hard to do what i thought i was supposed to be doing and it got harder and harder and hotter because alcohol was the most important thing to me and i needed it and when i didn't have any in my own house i climbed over the back fences in my neighborhood i lived on a cul-de-sac at the end of the street and i I would climb over the fences and sneak in my neighbors' houses and take their alcohol and take pills and take money and whatever. And then I'd be out trying to socialize with them, like, oh, my God, if they only knew. And I had one neighbor who was very, very nosy, and I didn't like her. And I'd always be in my living room, andI had the drapes closed a lot, and I'd peeking out at these ladies all the time to see what they're wearing. Then I'd make fun of them because they're wearing dresses and things, and, like, who do they think they are wearing those dresses? They're just cleaning their houses. What's the big deal? But I would always be peeking out at these ladies. And so this one was so nosy. I'd get the phone by the window, and I could see her, and I'd dial her phone number. And then I would watch her run really fast because she'd hear her phone ringing. And she'd run really quick. She'd run real fast up to her front door, and she was really top-heavy, and she'd be plopping across the street. And then she'd get to her friend's door, and I would just hang the phone up. And then, so she'd wait there for a little while and I'd wait here peeking outside out the curtains and then she'd go back out to talk to the ladies again and then I'd dial her number again. And I also went, she had this patio put in and she was telling everybody how expensive it was and all this stuff. And so one day I went over into her backyard with some eggs and I threw eggs all over her patio and I made them look like they came from the house behind her. So when she told me about it, she told my about those rotten teenagers that lived behind her that ruined her patio. And you know, these things aren't that bad, really. I mean, you know... But I felt guilty. I'd be out there. I'm like a grown woman, really I'm in a grown women's body anyway, okay? And I'm just thinking this... I am so weird, you now. and um but i had to stay in my house quite a bit because the boys were small i used to let them go out sometimes on their big wheel and um they'd take off like a mile away and i couldn't find them and i was already drinking i would drink you know earlier and earlier every day and it was just too much trouble for me to try to find them and and not have people smell alcohol on my breath so So I was keeping them in the house more and more. And, I mean, my disease was progressing is what was happening. And I started locking them in their bedroom. And I would feel really sorry for myself and my life and think nobody understood me, nobody knows what's going on. And I'd lock them in Their Bedroom because I could not deal with them. I just could not handle them. And I Would Go In My Backyard. There Was A Mountain In My Background. and I'd get a big bottle of Spagnato wine, this big half gallon. You know, that's what I was drinking a lot of, just wine and beer because it worked. It did what I needed and it was cheaper. And I would sit up on top of this mountain and I drank the wine out of the bottle. The kids would be locked in the bedroom and I would just sit up there and cry and think, I don't really know what I thought. Nobody understands me. And I thought, this is the way it's going to be forever. This is a horrible life and this is just the wayit's goingtobe. I tried so many times not to drink before that, and as I said, I would just get up every day. And it started where I would drink like at noon, and I thought that was okay because other people drank at noon. And then I would Drink at 11, and that was Okay because that was my lunch hour that day, and I had gotten up earlier. And every day I just had to sit and think of all this stuff, and now, okay, so I can have a drink. Fine. Yeah, great. And then, you know, then it would be earlier and earlier and later. and my husband was trying to catch me and he marked all the bottles and I knew he marked them and I just made marks all over them and he would look at them and he'd look at me and I would never say anything. He could just never quite catch me. I was too smart for that guy and I put vodka or water in our vodka one time and I didn't have a chance to replace it or I didn' t have the money or something and it was water and we did have Unexpected Company come over that night and they had water and tonic for their drink, and they didn't seem to notice. So I just gave them water and Tonic every time after that. But I remember when they came to the door and the first thing I thought of was, oh, no, I'm in trouble because I knew we were going to make them a drink and I knew what was in the bottle. You know, every day I was trying to think how I could drink and get away with it, and I didn't know what to do. We had a little newspaper that we got out there, and in the classified section it said, if you're a woman with a drinking problem, call this number. And I would always get the newspaper and look and see if that little ad was still in there. And it always was, but I could never call the number. I didn't know what you were going to do to me or who you were. And I just didn't Know. So I kind of thought that I was just going to be locked up in the basement of a hospital when people found out what I was doing. And so, you know, I did other things that, you know, got me here, things I was ashamed of doing and that I didn't want to do. And then I'd feel really bad. And it just became harder and harder every day to do what I was doing and try to take care of my family. And we had, you Know, I tried to, I had to go places with my husband sometimes. I tried To like do what i thought i was supposed to do so nobody would notice that there was something wrong with me. and so I did have to go to business functions with him and he would go to pick up the babysitter and I hated going to these people's houses with him because they were grown-up people and I didn't know how to act or how to talk to them and so he'd go to get the babysinner and I'd just be having, okay, one drink, one more, one more. One more, and I don't know how many I'd have and then he'd come back with the babysetter. I'd get in the car, we'd go into these people' house, they'd give me one drink and I would pass out or I would fall in their swimming pool or I'd throw food at somebody or I'd put my head, my head would be in my food. Lots of things like that happened and then, you know, the next morning I'd wake up and I'd remember those stupid little things that happened and I would feel terrible and I called the people, the lady, to say, did I leave my purse at your house? Well, I didn't leave my curse there. It was with me but I wanted to know if they hated me, you now. So I was just consumed with all of this drinking, not drinking, what I did when I was drinking or not drinking. So the day that I made it to AA, we had company come over to watch the Super Bowl. And I made Bloody Marys all day long. And I never left that area. I just stood there and made them and drank them and made they and drank they. And around 6 o'clock this man was leaving. And he was by himself. And I walked out the door with him and got in his car. And we drove away. And I had no reason for doing that. I just did it. And he took me to somebody else's house and we had some drinks. And then I called my husband. And I asked him to come pick me up, and he was really mad at me. He finally, you know, I just pushed him over the edge. And he came and he got me, and He said, You know, you wouldn't do the things you did. You wouldn't act the way you act if you didn't drink so much. He had never said those words to me before. Nobody ever had. And I knew that was true, and I knew I couldn't quit. So He was really upset with me, and I decided that since I couldnít quit drinking, I was going to leave my family. And, you know, God intervened in my life at this time. And I'm so grateful because I could have been off, that my intention was to leave my family and go live somewhere by myself because I was a bad wife and a bad mother, and I knew it. And I felt sorry for my family. And I picked up the phone, and we only had one car, so I didn't want to take that car. And I picking up the call and called this old boyfriend to come pick me up. and I was going to ask him to drive me to Oxnard, which was just a little ways away from where I lived, and I wasn't going to live there. And I got him on the phone, and my husband walked in the room, and he said to me, I don't care where you go, but you can't run away from it. And as I said, I believe God intervened in my life, and that was my surrender. I really did want to quit drinking, but I didn't know how, and I got help. And I hung up the phone, and I dialed the number of my brother-in-law at the time who was a Catholic priest, and he lived in Pennsylvania. Now, I was living in California when this happened, and I thought that he could pray for me because he was a Christian. He was a good Catholic priest. That's the only reason I called him. And he came on the phone. And he was now the first person in my life I ever said I can't quit drinking. And he told me to go to an AA meeting. He had been so he could see what it was like, so he could help people. And so my first experience was in an AA meeting. And this was 1971. I got sober and I didn't ever hear about treatment centers or things like that, or I didn' t even hear that much about the disease of alcoholism. But I found my way to a meeting that night. My husband got somebody to watch the kids and I went upstairs and I put on this orange polyester pantsuit that was probably, it was the nicest thing hanging in my closet. Well, I had like this gold crushed velvet dress that I had stolen from the department store, but I didn't even like it. I didn'T even know why I took it. But so I opted to wear this orange Polyester pants suit instead. And I was really pretty heavy from drinking beer and wine and my face was blotchy and my hair was longer. And what I did quite often was dye my hair like about every other day because I was locked in my house with these kids and I never knew what to do with myself. And so I'd dye my hair and I'd rearrange the furniture. And we had three levels in the house, and I actually would get a couch and push it up the stairs. And, like, guess what? The living room's upstairs today. And the bedroom, oh, it's down there. And so this is what I did quite often. So my hair was, like , longer, and if you just touched it, it would just like fall out because it was like very dry and crackly. And it was different shades of orange and so then I had this orange polyester pantsuit on and we finally found this AA meeting and it was over at 930 and we finaly got there because they had moved and I figured they know I was coming. It's like gather everything up, here she comes because we looked in three different places we were told where this meeting was. We finally got there and we walked in the back door and there were about 30 people in the room and they were sitting in folding chairs and there was a center aisle like this and I thought I looked really nice because normally I wore cut off Levi's and a white t-shirt and no makeup or anything because that's what the big people do and so I thought I looked pretty nice but I sat down the man was talking he finished talking the meeting was over and every single person in that room all 30 people came and made a big circle around me and they had cake, here's some cake here's my phone number, here is some literature and it was like why are they talking to me it was this neon newcomer I looked back on it so I had been drinking all day and I was very aware of what was going on but I just started throwing up on the floor I threw up all the time I tried everything I knew everything I read not to throw up, but I used to throw up all the time and my blood vessels in my eyes would break. And so I'd have these red ugly eyes. And I would be in the grocery store and I'd hear these little kids say, look at that lady's eyes, mommy. But here I am, so I'm throwing up all over the floor. Oh, you know, I don't like throwing up in front of people that I know, much less people I don'T know. So I ran outside to the parking lot and here they all come outside tothe parking lot, and I found out later they hadn't had a newcomer in their midst in quite a long time, and they all wanted a part of this thing that was in their meeting. So we're all out in the parking lot. I'm just heaving my guts out, and there are standing around me holding hands, singing songs. They're happy. Ring around the newcomer. So I remember This was in January. My sobriety is May 23, 1971. This was on January 21, 1971, and California, it's nice in January, and it was a nice evening, and this man looked up at the sky, and he said, We alcoholics are such lucky people. We're chosen by God. And then I'd throw up again, and it's like I didn't feel that I was chosen by god for anything, and I thought my life was over. This is it. You know, I've had it. And I went home. Some ladies wanted me to stay there, and I wouldn't because they scared me. And I Went Home, and the next day they showed up at my door. And they came in, and they sat in my living room, and they talked to me, and it was instant relief for me. I was just overwhelmed with what these women were telling me because I did have secrets and all these things that I was ashamed of doing and thinking, and these women weren't sitting there. A woman and I had just met the night before, barely. And they're sitting in my living room telling me all these things about themselves. And I just couldn't believe it. And I really felt relieved instantly and like there's hope. I felt that for the first time. And so they took me to a meeting that night. And I remember when they asked for newcomers to raise their hands. And there were maybe 30 or 40 people at the meeting. And I just remember feeling so ashamed and just barely being able to put my hand up and putting my head down and looking at the floor like everybody's staring at me. And that's been one of my worst offenders my whole life is my self-obsession. Everything has to do with me, whether it's good or bad or indifferent. It has to deal with me. But I just felt very ashamed that night, and it was hard for me to realize that everybody in that room that was there that night had come in like I had or similar or, you know, we just come in looking like that and acting like that. And so that began my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm just going to briefly, I did stay sober for four months and then I loved it. I wanted to be sober. I went to the meetings out there, but I did not ask anybody to be my sponsor. And my reason was because they didn't want to and I didn't want to burden them with me, and I would sit by my telephone with their phone numbers. Everybody was so nice to me and gave me phone numbers, and I would think of this lady, okay, this is Mabel, and here's her number. What does she look like? Okay, I'll call her, and then I'll say, this is Nancy. Then she'll say who, and then I'm the orange one that was at the meeting, and then she'll think, oh no, it's her. I didn' t really want her to call, so I just wanted to save people the trouble, and And I didn't know what a sponsor was for. I didn'T know what to talk to a sponsor about. And I DIDN'T like to complain and talk, you know. So I just would go to these meetings. Well, you KNOW, I WAS THERE, BUT I WASN'T DOING ANYTHING. AND I WAS GETTING LITTLE RESENTMENTS. LIKE ONE WAS THIS LADY. I STILL HAD LIKE A DOORMAT STAMPED ON MY FOREHEAD. AND THIS Lady Asked Me To Watch Her Daughter For The Evening. And She Came Back Like Three Days Later And Picked Her Up. now you know i didn't really like that and but i to her i said oh that's no problem me she can live here if you want her to it's all right and um but inside i hated that woman for what she did to me and and when i was younger i um you know I I hated everybody for what they made me do all the time the things you made me doing that I didn't want to do and you took advantage of me and so I would walk down the street with a can opener and scratch the paint off of cars. And it's like, there, there I'm getting back at all of you. I could never say anything to anybody's face. I can never have a confrontation. It's very important to me that everybody likes me and that you approve of me. So, um, and you know, it's still, I say, I used to talk like that was in the past and it's really not in the pass. I just have a better grip on it nowadays and I don't have to compromise myself, you know? To make you like me. And as far, you know this whole codependent thing came out and I just thought you know if you're a human being you're codependant and um you know we'd like to do things for people sometimes and I think that's okay you know and um but that began my journey into Alcoholics Anonymous and then um oh also you know when I look back on that and how I really wanted this but I didn't know how to approach anybody and um I hadn't gone to the Pacific group yet I lived about 40 miles from there but right away i met this couple who did go to the pacific group in west la and they said right away we want to take you to these other meetings and so they took me over there and i really got hooked on it right away and i um a lady came up to me in that meeting and she said let me be your interim sponsor and i think that was the difference of what we are taught to do there as opposed to these Other people just didn't do that they just didn t know i guess and so um i always look back on how I was, and when I meet a new woman now, I will always get her phone number and call her the first time and offer to take her to the meeting because I remember how scared I was and how I really wanted to call you, but I couldn't. And so this lady became my interim sponsor, and she was my sponsor for a year. And she just got me going. And in this program, in this group that I belong to is very action-oriented, and we go to meetings every night and we move people and have showers, wedding showers and baby showers, and have people live at our houses if they don't have any place to live and that kind of thing. And that's the best thing that ever could have happened to me because of my self-obsession and me thinking about myself all the time, which leads me nowhere except to trouble. There's nothing to think about. And so, except, I mean, it's like now, if I just sat home for two days, I'd start thinking about how old I am, I'd start holding my arm up to the mirror, wiggling the fat, checking out the wrinkles, all my missed opportunities and all this kind of stuff. So I don't want to do that, so I stay real busy. And that's what that group taught me. And so I really embraced it right away. I really liked it. Now, I won't say it's like every day, oh, I want to go to seven meetings a week and I wantto do all this stuff. But it's like when Keith was talking, you know, and he didn't think he would drive the car through the hurricane. But then he felt better. And it's, like, I've done it enough now that I know I feel better. So I just don't even think about it. I just do whatever I'm supposed to do, whatever's in front of me. And, you Know, I was involved in that group for 15 years and went through a lot of the men there. But stayed sober through it. And, you know, I wanted to get divorced about one week after I was sober when this lady became my sponsor. And I stayed sober four months. I drank a half gallon of wine, threw up again, face down in my own vomit in the blue shag carpeting. So that was it. Now I'm sober, okay? So I – and you know what? When I first came here, I didn't think I'd drink again. And it was like, oh, I found it. I am never going to drink again." That's a scary thing now when somebody says, I will never drink again. It's like, I know you don't want to, but you could, and I could too. I could drink tomorrow. I could Drink Next Week. And I've seen people do it. I've seeing many people do that have time, that had years in this program. We were talking a little bit before. We have a friend who was sober, I think, over five years. And she was at meetings every night, and she sponsored a lot of women. But I believe in her case she had a lot anger and resentment and she wasn't taking care of them, and she just let them grow. And she was at home one day talking to an insurance agent on the phone, and it was kind of confusing, and he didn't get it, and she hung up the phone and there was a bottle of mouthwash on her kitchen sink, and that's like 25% alcohol or something, so she picked it up and drank it, and it made her feel tingly. And being a good alcoholic, like any of us would do, she said, I'm not going down on mouthwash, and I wouldn't come back here and raise my hand and say, I drank some scope. And so she went and got a big quart of vodka and she started drinking the vodka and she woke up and she thought to herself, that's the worst drunk dream I ever had. And then she thought it through and she realized it wasn't a drunk dream. She really drank that time. And I think of that a lot. I've had thoughts of drinking in my sobriety. It's not an obsession anymore. In the beginning, it kind of was where I bought a bottle. I played these games. It's like I hurt so bad that if it doesn't get better, I'm going to drink because that's all I know until I started learning how to work this program and doing things that I didn't want to do. I think a part of me liked to get called up at a meeting, but I hated being up here. I shook so bad and um but you know I was taught to just do whatever you're supposed to do get up there no matter what we don't care you're not here to entertain us just get up there and um so you know by um now I lost my train of thought so okay hi I'm Nancy an alcoholic and um it doesn't really matter but um you know so I got involved in this program and I did you know these things and I've had my moments like everybody else has and that time I bought the bottle you know it was uh I I had gotten divorced finally I told you I wanted to get divorced right away and go to college and my sponsor said you go to AA meetings every single night you have to learn that AA is first in your life this program is first In Your Life that's what you need now and um and I did that and it's like I guess I did it because I was desperate and I really wanted this program, so I did it. And sometimes maybe I didn't want to and maybe I would say she's wrong or he's wrong or they don't know what they're talking about, but I would always end up doing it. But I bought a bottle and I was like three and a half years sober and I had had hurt feelings for months and I wasn't able to get out of bed and I felt like I was aching inside because I hadn't really established a contact with a higher power yet and I felt I was divorced and I had these kids and I was lonely and life was a struggle and it was never going to get better and I wasn't going to be able I was rejected and I just ached inside it was probably the worst time I will ever have it is up to this day and I used to get on my knees and pray and I would pray for God to make me feel better and it didn't work and I didn't know who God was And I would get up and say, I'm just praying to this bedspread. I don't get this. And I Would try it the next day. And this really went on for a couple months. And I cried all the time. And I'd go to work. And I was a dental assistant again. And I opened the little window to greet the patient. And I just started crying. And I did go to meetings during that time. But it was a very important part of my life. And it was a turning point because I made it through without drinking, without getting anything in my life, anything to come in and make me feel better. There wasn't demand. There wasn'T like a big bundle of money. And there wasn'T anything like that. And all of a sudden one day I felt stronger. And it WAS a feeling I had never experienced in my whole life. I felt this strength. And I felt a connection with the higher power. and it occurred to me that indeed there is a god because if there wasn't i'd be drunk because i cannot do that so that's when i started believing in in um god in my life and i started and i was able to believe and kind of learn to let things go like you know we were always told god you know do god's will what is god's Will that's our big question you know and we try to figure it out well we don't have to figure It out at least I don't now I just get up every day and go on about my business and that's God's will I just say whatever I'm doing is God's will and I don't have to think about it and so that was like that was a big turning point in my sobriety and I grew up a little bit and I never said I was going to drink again after that and I never said I was gonna kill myself after that those weren't options for me any longer and I you know really started working this program but I um you know I went through a period of time then too for about six years I think when I was alone with these boys, and I had no skills. And all I had done was my dental assisting. So now I have to do dental assisting again. I don't know how to type. I never learned because I didn't want to. I barely learned anything in high school because I was busy doing what you dared me to do. Somebody one day said, I dare you to walk across the tops of all the desks in the room. So I did it. Then I get called to the principal's office. That's what I did, and i never learned, and I never studied, and we'd have a test, and I'd give my test to the person next to me, and they'd do it in a different writing. So I didn't know anything, and I felt stupid. Now I'm stuck here. I'm sober, but I will never be able to do anything in my life. I'm a dental assistant. I suck the water out of people's mouths. And I felt like that for quite a long time, like I can't do anything else. And I tried again to go back to school. I would take some classes, but I really, you know, AA was very important to me and I was very involved. And then I had the kids and then I was working, so I really didn't have time. I'd make it to two or three classes and then that was it. I just couldn't go anymore. And, you Know, by doing what I've been told to do in Alcoholics Anonymous and getting up to the podiums and doing this kind of thing and talking to people that I don't want to talk to and having people over and just doing whatever I'm supposed to do here, really has been my school and my learning. And what I got by doing all of this was what I needed, the confidence and the self-worth and feeling of security. I feel secure now in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I can go anywhere in the world and walk into a meeting, and I've done it so I know it's true. I don't have to know you. I don'T have to have ever seen you before. I can walk into that meeting and feel just fine. and um but i uh i have you know since been able to i've had a lot of careers now and it's and it's just because of what i was told to do here do these things over and over and again to where things would come up and it is like okay i will try it and um i did so during this period of time though the six years it was a very difficult time for me because i felt like that a lot at the time i went to my meetings i gave rides i had people live at my house quite often And people, I was trying to help them stay sober. There were a couple women, one in particular who could never stay sober, she was a periodic, that was Kay, remember Kay? And she would stay sober for a couple months and then just get so drunk she was just obliterated. So I had this idea one time that if she came and lived with me and I would read her the big book every morning and I Would play tapes for her and I Would take her to meetings with me, then she'd stay sober and of course she stayed sober while I was doing that And then she didn't stay sober again. So I think I've had to try things like that several times. I brought a man home from a meeting when I was brand new, when I first got sober, you know. He'd probably hit everybody else up, but I didn't know that. And he's like, you now, poor me, I can't stay sober and I'm alone. So I said, well, come home and join our family. And I brought him home to my husband. Here's a nice man I met in an AA meeting. He's going to live with us. and um so uh but i have you know really come to understand that uh we are not going to do this until we're ready i have five brothers who all you know they drank bad and and i was over three years before one of them showed up at my door one night crying and he he was like like our speaker last night he he his car was banged up and he didn't know where he'd been or what he'd done and he was real scared, and so he came to my door. And from that night until like 11 years later, my five brothers have all quit drinking, and they knew they could see what was happening to us one by one, but they didn't want to quit yet, and I just don't believe we can until we're ready. This intervention thing was all new to me when I moved to Minnesota, and I thought, God, if somebody came to me and said, okay, you need to quit drinking. You have a problem. I think I'd still be running. That's just my feeling. I don't know, but it doesn't really matter. But I just try to leave people alone now, and I introduce them to the program. I mean, I bring them to meetings, and I offer to sponsor them or make sure they have a sponsor and make sure that they know which meetings to go to and try to make them feel welcome. But I can't go pick them up every night and bring them if they don't wanna come, then they'll come when they're ready. And so, okay, so where was I? Back to the, okay. with my boys you know i just struggled along and um and i never had any money and um it was just day in day out the same old thing go to work get a babysitter pack lunches do laundry two o'clock in the morning and it was just seemed like day in and day out and i know one time i drove over to clancy's house and i just like was shaking and i said you know it's this we say what's the use i can't do this what i just can't doing this anymore and um you know he said well look at betty over there she came to me one time and said the very same thing and you know what I believed it somewhere along the line I had to fully believe that I wasn't different and you do understand and for a long time I did say that I know you say you understand but I think my pain inside is a little deeper than yours is I would always think that like we all do and um you just don't understand but i did believe that i believe that that Clancy understood and the lady he was telling me to talk to understood. And so I was able to just go on one more day, one more day. We were also talking this morning about, you know, I look back to when I went to that group and I was newly sober. And now it's like 23 years later. If somebody had stopped me then and said, okay, you're newly sober now, but in 23 years you're going to be in Virginia Beach, you'll be speaking, you will be dressed nice. You're going to be living in Minnesota, you're going to be a flight attendant, you know it's like there is no way. So we just really don't know. I don't know.I never have any idea what my job may be or who my husband may be. You know what? I don' t know what's going to happen. I just kind of have to get up every day and do what I'm supposed to do and since I do have this feeling inside now about God's will It's like it's happened to me. It happened with my son, Chris. One of the boys ended up getting in trouble a few times, and he went to jail. And what was I? Oh, before he went into jail, he was, like, gone for six months, and we didn't really know where he was very much at the time. And I worried about him, but I had come to rely on God. And every single day I got on my knees, and I said, God, you know, he's your child and you please take care of him because I don't know where he is right now. And you let me know what to do. I did that for six months and that's all I did. And one day I was saying my prayer and it was almost like a voice, but it wasn't. So don't think anything. Don't think I'm still that weird. But it was like, go get Chris. It was just a feeling. And I went and I found him. And he was waiting for somebody to come get him he needed somebody to come get him then and i took him straight to the navy recruiting office and um they took care of him for six years um he got arrested a couple more times before they actually got him in but we managed and um but you know there this new job i have as a flight attendant um i've been doing this almost three years and uh i never in my life thought i'd be doing this and one day one night i was in a meeting and a woman was talking about the fact that she was applying at this airline and i was saying that's a great idea that would be a fun job i think and then it was like why don't you do it too it's like where did that come from so i um thought i was way too old and i checked that out thoroughly before so i wouldn't be rejected or feel foolish you know and um i applied and i got the job and and also having to do with that job is, like, before I was 30 years old, I never went anywhere in my life. I never left California except to sneak into Tijuana every now and then. And that was another thing. It's like, I'm never going to be able to do anything except dental assisting, and I'm not going to go anywhere. And I'm going to never go anywhere Now, about, I don't know when it was, earlier this year, I was riding a camel in front of the pyramids in Egypt. And earlier, let's see, I guess it was last month, I was driving a car in Ireland and, you know, on the wrong side of the street and all that kind of stuff. And it was just I went to my husband's mother's hometown in Ireland. And I've been a lot of places. I've had I've seen places that I never thought that I would go to. Things have happened to me here that I ever thought would happen. I mean, they weren't even in my mind. And so it's it has been quite exciting, really. My sobriety has been very exciting. and um you know there are the hard times the difficult times but that's all part of it it is just part of It we were talking before too with somebody about getting depressed I used to get very depressed we all did when we come in I think that's probably how we should feel is pretty darn depressed and so um you Know I would I mean even years into my sobriety I would like sit in the closet in this little house i lived in because i was scared i was scared of having to do what i was doing and be responsible and take care of these kids and i would sit in this closet because i felt safe in there and i Would just kind of rock and i Would cry and but you know what i kind of like get my flashlight oh it's time for the meeting and i Would go i was trained to go to the meetings if i Stayed home and thought about it i would be locked up probably right now. And I would go to the meeting. I wanted, I don't, you know, in the beginning maybe I wanted people's approval. It doesn't matter. I went to the meetings. I went to all the meetings that I was supposed to go to. That's something that's never changed for me no matter what's going on in my life. If I can get myself there, I'm going to be okay. And I guess something inside of me told me that. So I'm on my third husband now and he's a good one, and I think it's going to be all right. We got married in Clancy's office in Skid Row on the Midnight Mission downtown L.A. I don't know why we did that. We just did it. It was just like, well, he said, hey, wouldn't it be neat if we got married at Clancy'S office? I go, yeah, really neat, huh? No, it was great. It is. It's been a long time. I can't imagine it being any other way we were the only ones that have gotten married on skid row so far i think and um and uh the judge we had this judge and um he was a little bit late so clancy got out his crown spiking crown or whatever and he got the big book and so we have pictures that's my wedding picture to me that's mijn wedding picture of clancy standing there with the big book and this crown on his head marrying us you know and then the judge came and then we let him do his little thing and then and then in fact Byron and his wife were on vacation at the beach that day with two other AA couples so we left the mission and we drove down to visit them at the Beach because my one of my sons was there with them and we wanted to pick him up and take him on our honeymoon with us so um we drove up to their house and they had a big banner congratulations and um we had pizza pie and then like other pies for dessert so we just like pigged out on this gross food for our wedding and it was the greatest that was it and um so how i don't know lots of you know um i kind of went nuts around 12 years of sobriety i was in my second marriage it wasn't going that great um i had let the boys lived with us And this is, I'm going to just be really quick with this because I think it's pretty, it was very important to me anyway. I always thought these are my boys, my three boys, Nancy and her boys. You know, they're me. They're part of me. And it's like I even used to look at other women who let their kids go live with another parent and think how could they do that? Well, the time came in my life when I had to do that. And my ex-husband was always a great father to them, and he was always there. and we never fought over the kids, and we tried to just be good parents for them. But he had told me many times. He had remarried. He married an ex-nun, so I don't know why, but he did. No, she's very, very nice. And so he had called me many time, and he said, if you ever want the boys to come live with us, we'd love to have them. And I would say thank you, and I would hang up, and I would cry. The thought of them living not with me hurt me too deeply. I could never think about that. Well, this marriage was not going very well and I was going to pack my bags again and go live in an apartment and go to work and do all that stuff and the boys were young teenagers and here was God again because something just inside me said you should let the boys go live with Joe and Patty And I, like, where did that come from? Because it did not come from me. And I prayed about it and I called Clancy and he said, I think that's a good idea and you should go out and talk to them. And, you know, when I prayed about it, I went off by myself and I said, God, you know, I had this idea. It must have come from you. So please give me the strength and the dignity to deal with this in a mature way and not act stupid about this and cry and make a big deal about it. So and then when I was praying about it i had these thoughts that that i'm not capable of thinking like why shouldn't he have them he's their father and he loves them and he's always loved them and she's always been there for them um she's not she hasn't had any children we hope she was in the convent all that time but you never know but um she has not had any child and she loves them too and they love her and i really couldn't have picked a better woman to be their other mother and um and it's like why she she she should have them in her life too, and it's going to be okay. And that was amazing to me because I am not capable of doing that. So that's what we did. And I go out to California. I have a key to their house, and I have an apartment. We have a bedroom in their house. And we're all like good friends. And my youngest son Joe just came to live with us in Minnesota recently. And that's really neat because I like having him there. And we've always just been able to share them. You know, and so, you know, things can happen here that I'm not capable of doing as long as I'm here and as long as I show up and do what I'm supposed to do. I, you Know, haven't had a drink in a long time, but I learn new things every single day. And I don't think I'll ever outgrow this. I mean, I know that I won't. I'm real hooked on this and the theme, you know, pockets of enthusiasm and the other speakers were talking about that. And I was just sitting there thinking about the things in my life that have happened, and it all has to do with other people. It's like I'll sit in a meeting, and somebody turned around to me, and she said, I just don't feel right. And she turned back around, and I was thinking, well, what am I thinking about here? I'm, like, wondering where so-and-so is, where she is, what's happening with her. So I tapped her, andI said, like how many people do you sponsor? Eight. I said, You need, like three more. and that's it that is the answer I've shared in a lot of joy in women's lives with babies being born and tragedies and you know and I've been there for these people I'm a part of their life I'm part of living and that keeps me excited that keeps wanting to come back here and I feel very lucky that I'm still here that I can be sober And thank you again for inviting me here. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you, Nancy, for sharing with us tonight. And thank you, Alan Alston, for asking me to chair the meeting. And if we could close with the Lord's Prayer. Lord, in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. for God is kingdom and power over the world forever and ever. Amen. Keep coming back for worship and work.