The Serenity Prayer as a Litany for Every Problem – Marty M.

About This Speaker Tape

182 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, 1939. Marty M. walked trembling into a house filled with strangers and found she had come home to her own kind. Before the rooms, there was the wreckage: a wealthy Chicago upbringing, a whirlwind elopement with a New Orleans drunk, and a decade of rushing from pleasure to pleasure until she hit the bottom of two suicide attempts and a ward at Bellevue Hospital.

A charity patient at Blythewood, she clung to the Big Book as a lifeline. For Marty, the 12 Steps weren't simple, but they were the only key to a life where she didn't have to be alone. She describes the Serenity Prayer as a litany running through her life, a tool to navigate a world she views as being made up of problems. By surrendering to a Higher Power, she traded the twilight world of drinking for a rare sense of belonging and the flexibility to face the strain of existence one day at a time.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction to Marty M.'s role as a pioneer and author of 'Women Suffer Too'.
• 1:30 Discussion of the early women in AA, including Mary C. and the 'feminine victory' of Florence R.
• 2:15 Marty M.'s early life as a Chicago debutante and her disastrous elopement in New Orleans.
• 3:45 The wreckage of Bellevue Hospital and the suicide attempts leading to Blythewood Sanitarium.
• 4:30 The first meeting in Brooklyn and the feeling of 'coming home' as salvation.
• 5:45 Marty M.'s contributions to the National Council on Alcoholism and the Hughes Act.
• 6:30 The private relationship between Marty M. and Priscilla P.
• 7:30 Applause: Marty M.'s final public appearance in New Orleans in 1980.
• 8:45 Analysis of the 12 Steps as the heart of the program and the importance of meetings.
• 10:00 The use of the Serenity Prayer as a litany for daily problems.
• 11:15 The 24-hour plan and the necessity of AA thinking in old age.