The Spiritual Solution for the Social Animal – Beverly H.

Hi, my name is Beverly Hearn. I'm an alcoholic. Oh, God, it's good to be here tonight. It's good to be sober and in an AA meeting. Oh, my God. I want to thank Mike and Stephanie for being such wonderful host and hostess. They came and picked me up in this big Humvee, and she rolled down the window, and I went, wow, they didn't tell me they were sending a movie star. Felt so special. And I stood there, and as I stupidly said, Beverly, as if that was one of their names oh i don't know uh and then we went and had dinner thank you so much and i got to meet laurie and russ wherever he hit wherever he is and it was just a really really nice uh i actually i love las vegas i worked out here for a number of years my best friend lived here for five years i don t gamble so it s not a problem for me um i like to shop though and i like vegas because you can shop until midnight and then you can go see a movie it's perfect. I love that. Coffee, I love it. And there's nothing like, you know, shopping till midnight, having a chocolate truffle, a cup of coffee and going to a movie. Perfect for a drunk, a sober drunk, if you know what I mean. Anyways, I've been sober since October 30th of 1992. My home group is the Pacific Group. I have a sponsor. Her name is Sharon B. And I am blessed, blessed to have that woman in my life. I think she's an outstanding member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she gives me something to aspire to. And that's why I love AlcoholicsAnonymous, because I'm going to tell you, my whole life I never had anything to aspire to. I mean, it was offered to me, but I just didn't get it. I just didn't know what to do with it. And when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous it took me a long time to figure that out too. But I love coming to these rooms. I love coming in my meetings because you give me something to aspire to. You know, I was born an alcoholic. I don't get into that debate. You know, some of you crossed over a line. That's good. I was just born that way. I'm a 10 month baby. I didn't want to have anything to do with you guys. I Was born with long hair, fingernails. I came out screaming claws out, you know, and just full of fear. I, uh, you know, I remember when I was a kid, I, you know, just to give you a little something about my personality, I used to have night terrors. I don't know if you know what those are, but they're nightmares when you're awake. So you don't even have to go to sleep to experience this. And, you know, I would lay up at night in bed with the covers pulled over my head and just one little eyeball on a nostril sticking out, you know, breathing, trying to breathe under the covers there watching because I just knew something was coming to get me. And I had to have my bed pushed up against the wall and because something might get sneak up behind me and, and, uh, I wanted to be ready for it. You know, i'm four years old, but i'm prepared. And, uh and I would just, you Know, i'd be pumped full of adrenaline. I mean, just, you know, just like I am right now. Just sweating, pumped full of adrenaline and guarding the perimeter, you know? All night long. And then my mom would come in in the morning and she'd want to wake me up and of course there would be an argument because I'd just gotten to sleep about an hour ago so I'm tired because I've been up all night guarding the parameter. And it was just, you know it was hard. I needed a drink early. I didn't, yeah, I just needed a drinking in kindergarten. It just, recess was tough. You know, there were, you guys were out there in the playground and it was just all so overwhelming for me. I, oh God, I'd just go out there. I remember, I mean, I was so self-obsessed as a kid that I can remember recess in kindergarten, you know? And I'd go out here and I'd see you, you know, playing your little dodgeball or whatever you were doing and there was something between you and I. And I don't, you now, I know now that that was alcoholism. I know that it was feeling different. I couldn't have told you what it was then. It was just something that kept me from being able to approach you and to talk to you and to play with you. I couldn't do that. So what I did was I went out on the back fence where there was honeysuckle growing and I'd pick the honeysuckle and you could pull the little stem and suck the sugar out of that and that's what I didn't do. That's what we did on recess. And I was just a mess. I really was. My mom and dad tried hard. I grew up in a home with alcoholism and domestic violence. It doesn't make me an alcoholic. It just means that I learned a lot of really nice things in the home like if somebody scares you, pick something up and throw it at them. knives scare people act big they'll go away you know nice things like that so i just kind of honed my character defects living in a home like that but it certainly is not why why i'm alcoholic my mom and dad loved me with every fiber of their being those people love me more than anybody else on the whole planet and for me to think that they would be the cause of a life-threatening illness is just how insane alcoholism is because only people like us think the people that love us the most are the people that are trying to kill us. And I believe that. My whole life, I thought it was their fault. If my mom didn't drink, I wouldn't be an alcoholic. If my dad hadn't beat her, I would not be an alcohol. If I would have gone to private school, I will not be a alcoholic. I would start public school after seven years of private school, and I would be an alchoholic. If play violin instead of clarinet, I would not drink. I had all these reasons why I drank and none of them were...I did know what alcoholism was, you know? I just didn't know. So I did. I went to private school. I went high school in Christian school. We wore these little gray dresses. They were very cute and little blue ties. And I immediately started to get into trouble in the first grade some little girl. I'm a line monitor. How many line monitors do we have in the room? I can't stand that. You know, just get to the back of the line. I don't know who you think you are that you think you can skip line. And that irritated me from an early age. So in the first grade, you know, some little girl cut in front of me in the line to go to the bathroom and I just made me mad. I was just indignant about that. So when she came out, I pushed her and told her to go help. And those were fighting words in a Christian school. You do not say those kind of, that's like H-E double toothpicks. And you don't say that word. And so I got my mouth washed out with soap in front OF the whole class. And that probably wasn't my first resentment. I think my first resentment would have been birth, but it definitely was a close second. And so off I went through, you know, my very meager attempt at school. I'm not one of those people who excelled and then drank and it all fell apart. I just never tried. I really wasn't interested in anything you were saying or anything you wanted me to do. I had my own agenda. It was all up in here. I'm a daydreamer and probably brilliant if you could get me to pay attention, but I can't pay attention so we never figure that one out. And I just tell you, you know, in the seventh grade, I played in the band. You know, let me tell you what I was like before I started drinking. I went to private Christian school. My dad worked for the airlines. We got to travel a lot. It was very nice. We had two vacations a year in Hawaii. My mom was a bookkeeper. Yes, there was alcoholism as in the home. There was violence. The cops did come. You I was kind of a referee in a boxing ring, so that part of the picture was there too. It was very ugly. I don't want to minimize that. I did experience that as a kid. But there were all these other things that my parents tried to do so well for me. We went to church on every Sunday morning. I went to Sunday school at an early age. I heard the story of David and Goliath. I thought, you know what? I want to be like David. I wantto rock. I'm killing Golieth and the whole boogeyman thing. So I wanted to be baptized, and I sang in the choir at church. I played the clarinet in the band at school. I sang in the chorus at church. I mean, I had all these, you know, hell, if I just would have stuck to it, I'd be a Renaissance woman today. But at 11 years old, I transferred into public school in the seventh grade, and I'm sure that's why I drank. And I had this whole revelation that I'd been living this sheltered life. I'd never heard of the Beatles. I just didn't know anything about anything. And, you Know, there were all these different groups, and I didn't fit in any of them. there were no longer any uniforms people wearing shemendifers and dittos and earth shoes and i was just like my mom wanted to put me in these little strawberry jumpers and oh god it was a nightmare you know this little brown jumper with a strawberry on it and oh yeah god lover and um but anyway somehow you know and i felt ugly i mean just my whole life i would look in the mirror I saw this ugly human being. It just felt so ugly. I had this dark curly hair and one eyebrow across my face and long gangly legged, and I played the clarinet for God's sake. It was not an attractive instrument to play. It wasn't cool like the saxophone. It was the clarimet, and it's a beautiful instrument. It really is. It's an amazing, amazing instrument, but I never appreciated anything I had or could do, and I'd played it for a number of years, so I didn't play too shabby. Yeah, just by virtue of having the thing in my mouth for all those years, I had to play at least a tune or two. I had skills early. And I needed them later. Hey, a girl's got to make a living. Anyways, you know, I somehow fell in with the jocks and the cheerleaders. I don't know how that happened, but I ended up having this little party in my garage, and I drank that night. It's not the first drink I ever took. There was alcohol in all my life. But that night something happened to me. I was not consciously aware of it. I didn't drink and go, ah. That's not what happened to be. I drank at night, and I could finally just relax and enjoy your company. No longer was it you on the playground, and now I can't approach you anymore. Man, that night I danced. I danced with one boy. I kissed another boy. They threw a sheet over us while we were dancing. It was just fabulous. I mean, I had two eyebrows. I had breasts that night. My hair was blonde and straight. You know, I was Barbie. And, you know, by Monday morning they were talking about me. And they were saying things that wouldn't be true for a few years, granted. but uh i never ever associated those consequences with my drinking all i know is that drinking felt good it made me pretty it allowed me to be a part of you and all my life all my life i never realized how badly how desperately i wanted to be a part of the human rights you know i was in my hotel room today and i you know i'm part of a group very active and uh i've always been active in aa But, man, I went over to the Pacific Group in October, and I haven't slept since. And, yeah, you just get little brief naps. And there's got to get up, got something to do. We've got to go. We've Got to Go. We've GOT TO MAKE COFFEE. SET UP CHAIRS. I mean, it's great for somebody like me. I'm a type A, and now I need a lot of things to do to keep me busy. And I was in my room today, and I was like, I just don't like being here alone. And I like my solitude, yes, but I am a social animal. I'm very social animal, I love to work the room, I love to be a part of you. And I've learned how to do that here in Alcoholics Anonymous without having to take a drink. But up until that point in my life, man, I had to have a drink to do dat. And from that day forward, whenever I could get my hands on alcohol, that's what I did, I drank. And by the time I was a freshman in high school, we were up in the morning, first thing we would do, planning our demise, how are we getting out of school today, what are we going to do? You know, we're going to leave at break, we'll leave at lunch, whose house are we go into, who's mom's liquor cabinet, we're gonna mix some drinks, you know, we're hanging out at the liquor store, we're pimping bottles of T.J. Swan, You know, slow gin and Southern Comfort. Oh, man, that stuff is good. Put that little seven up. Perfect for a 13-year-old. It's nice and sweet. Goes down easy. You know? Beer bongs. Man, I want to drink like a sailor. I've never met a sailore in my life, but by God, I was dating a football player. If they could do three beers and a bong, I wanted to do four, you know? And I just loved it. You know?, we'd go to these parties. This was back when you could drink and drive, you now?, before they started all that fuss about drinking and driving. And, you Know?, we didn't put a case in the back of the car. We put a keg in the bag. back of the car. You've got to be careful with the bumps, but then you just pass around the tap. It's great. We'd drive up to Silverado Canyon. We just drink all night long, tequila, tap in our mouth, play let's drive with the lights off and see who can fall out of the car while moving and not get injured. It was just fantastic. I mean, we had so much fun. I dated a football player. We were like a roving group of bandits. We would go to other people's parties and beat them up and drink all their liquor. And it was fun. God, I had so much fun, you know. I just felt, you know, let me tell you, alcohol, you know, it's like if I could have had a drink when I was four in bed lying there waiting for the boogeyman, it is not that I would have gotten up and said hi to the bookeyman. I would've got up and kicked his ass. That is what alcohol does for me, you know. It just makes me feel good. It makes me feel powerful. My whole life I felt afraid. I felt afraid and I felt apart from and man, alcohol just, oh man, I just feel so good. It is like superhuman stuff for me and um but i started getting a lot of trouble consequently i mean when you're drinking like that at that age boy i'm gonna tell you you stop going to school you know your parents start wanting to know where you are you know the teachers how come you weren't in class none of your business you know it's my education i'm 15 i got a handle on things i don't know why you're so interested in why i'm not in class you know vice principal wants to see you again again really we shouldn't meet so often people are going to start to talk i mean it was just I just was in so much trouble all the time and I had become extremely belligerent I lived in a home where violence was the answer for everything so if my mom and dad had a question for me my solution was to break all their windows, tell them I hated them curse at them and then run out the door run around the corner to my friend David's house and drink some tequila and say you know if you had parents like me man who'd drink too and I barely managed to get out of high school I think they just got rid of me because they just didn't want me back another year. They were just like, get her out of here. They knew that it was actually better for me than holding me back a year. I went off to college. That lasted about three months until I met him. And by then, I was quite sure that living with my mother and father was my problem. They were my problem, my drink because of them. I don't even think that I thought that I drank because of him. I just thought that all the problems that I had were because of then because alcohol was always my solution. Whenever something went wrong, I drank. You know, I so identify with that. If you're new, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. If drinking is the solution for you, you are in the right place. Trust me, you're in the wrong place. That's why we're here, because we need a spiritual solution. We need something to take the place of alcohol. And the big book talks about that. You know? Have you a sufficient substitute for alcohol? Yes, and it is vastly more than that. Fellowship in AlcoholicsAnonymous. I love that part of the book. There you will find freedom from care, boredom, and worry. your imagination will be fired. You know, I love that. That's what I found here. You've replaced alcohol with something better and I don't need to drink to be a part of humanity. But then I did, you know, so I met this guy and, you Know, we start living together. We're shacking up as my mom calls it and he's a pharmaceutical technician for the Navy so he'd come home with bags of Darvon and, You know ,I mean grocery bags of this stuff and,You know, we just drink alcohol and pop pills and we decided to get married. That was a good idea, and I thought that would be great. And we did. We got married, and him standing at the front of the aisle that day, and I'm looking down that aisle at him, and I just knew right then I hated that man. But I was kind of marrying him by God. There were 300 people sitting out there, and we got an image to uphold here. At night, we got into our Chevy Nova. We were supposed to drive out of town. We couldn't even do that. And about 4 o'clock that morning, I am drunk and insane because I'm never just mildly intoxicated. I am almost always insanely drunk. You know, and he said the wrong thing to me, and I don't know why, but I'm always stark naked as a jaybird. That's me. That's my number. I'm Always Naked and got a butcher knife in my hand. He's trying to leave, and I can't figure out why you don't want to hang out with me. So 4 o´clock in the morning, I'm chasing him down the street stark naked at 4 a.m. down Huntington Harbor, you know, with a butcher knifes. I don´t know why you're leaving! And I always have very successful relationships. You know, and there began the series of me, you know, moving back to my mom and dad's house until I could find another him and then I'd move in with him and, you now, until I'd chase him down the street with a lamp or a knife or something or hit him with a hickory axe handle or something. And, you kno, then for some reason he didn't want me to live there anymore. And then I go back to by mom and dads and it was just, you kow, it was such a nightmare. there. And in the meantime, you know, I finally figured out I had to get a job that somebody wasn't going to always support me. Not that I ever paid a bill in my life. I didn't get here with any kind of credit damage because I never got a credit card. I never paid a bill. I Never had an apartment in my name. None of it. I'm totally irresponsible. You take care of me. Okay. I don't take care Of me. You know, let's not try not to be, you know to don't be too demanding on me here. And so I got a job in a beer bar and that's you know started my career of slinging things and a tea back and bra on high heels and you know my claim to fame was that I could do the splits on the pool table so that it would improve your aim of certain pockets and I sold more beer than anybody ever sold in that bar and I was so proud of that and uh let me tell you something Christian school the choir the chorus Sunday school the clarinet it's a long since gone you know I'm just a shadow of a human being I was before and every value that my mother and father had ever taught me was gone and every little piece the dignity that I had left was gone already and I was young. It was in my early 20s and it was all gone. And I just, you know, I started to become attracted to the criminal element because, you now, water seeks its own level and, you kno, lower and lower companionship and the more black tattoos you've got and I know where those kind come from, I can tell. And I want to date a hardened criminal. If you've done Chino, that's not enough for me. You've got to go to like Folsom, you kow, or San Quentin. I want you to have done a long hard time for things like murder. Now I want to date you. And I brought home my next husband. We rode off on the back of a Harley to Las Vegas and got married. They probably have a record of it somewhere here. We never could find the record, so I may still be married. I don't know. Mark Anthony Ampjack, so God bless him. I don' t know where he was, but he'd just gotten out of San Quentin. He'd done 11 years there for shooting a cop, and I thought that was real cool. You know, he'd been in institutions from the age of 7. You know? He had black cat ink from here to here, and if he was smoking a cigarette out the window, we were getting pulled over because they'd just see all that ink on his arm. I brought him home to my dad one day and I remember my dad stopping me as I'm walking out the door and he grabs my arm and he goes, do you realize that man's a hardened criminal? And I said, yeah, yeah I do. And that just so impressed me. You know, by now I realize that there must be some kind of a problem. I'm not sure what it is but I know there's something wrong with me. I've kind of known for a number of years now that something is wrong. What it is, I'm not sure. I'm starting to think that it may have something to do with me. And so I finally put my finger on it. It's a lack of discipline. That's right, I lack discipline. And my dad was a military man and I thought, you know what, that's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna join the army and I did. I joined the army. Why does everybody think that's so funny? I got along very well with all the mic-manning officers. Did every hot legs contest in town. I almost got in trouble for that. They said it was behavior unbecoming of a soldier. I was like, what? I have nice legs. I didn't get it. Anyways, so I joined the Army and they sent me off to, you know, Fort Jackson, South Carolina where they have basic training and I did, you now, eight weeks of basic training and I was sober the whole time. You have to be because, you kno, all you do is live, breathe, sleep, basic training basically And it was the perfect environment for me. You know, they tell you what to do. They tell you when to eat. They wake you up. I mean, it's a no-brainer. And you are so tired. It's like good Alcoholics Anonymous. That's why groups that are so active, that's why it works so well. It's Like the Military. It's, like, basic training. You know? If you're new, get commitments. And, you know, you think we want you to say, No, that night, we just want you to be so frickin' tired you've got no... You just don't even think about drinking. You just are so tried that you just can't wait to get home and go to bed. And then the next morning, bam, your phone's ringing and you're up again and it's all over again. It's just like the military. It was so easy to stay sober those eight weeks. And nobody recognizes that you're totally insane because you're running, you're sitting up, small PT drill sergeant, more PT. You know, you're out there, they give you a rifle, it's great. They give you automatic weapons, light anti-tank weapons, you're shooting at tanks. Those things are the bomb, literally. I had so much fun. You get to crawl around in the mud in the rain, drill sergeant comes along tries to steal your weapon in the middle of the night god i loved that i just loved that it was so much fun for me and uh but i you know i got put on a hold i i told him that i'd been to jail by then i've been in and out of jail a couple of times yeah minor stuff you know we are and um i actually been in quite a bit of trouble by then and uh you know I told him I told him about my record I forgot a few things you know a lot of times I get arrested in a blackout I don't remember things specifically I mean come on like today when I fill out an employment application, have you ever been to jail? Yes. Okay. If you want the answer to that, you know, you're going to have to look it up yourself. Okay? Because I can't remember the details for God's sake. So you know they said I lied. I didn't. I really honestly I didn' lie. You know I told them about what I remembered about and they did an NSA clearance on me. They found that there were some things that I didn''t tell them. But I got to tell you by then I'd already found the bulldog because I was in Fort Gordon Augusta by then and, you know, everything's a bulldog. And I found the bulldog bar and I got to tell you drugs are part of my story. I like to do coke. I started doing it when I was 16. By the time I was in my early 20s, I was smoking a lot of it and I was hanging out in the ghettos down in Georgia and I would smoke a coke. And it was drinking gin because I like gin. I don't know what you like to drink. I Like Gin. I liked that Bill story. It says three bottles of bathtub gin and then oblivion. I Liked That. That works for me. And now I'm hanging out places nice girls don't go where the taxi cabs won't take you and I'm doing really, really insane things. And my life is always on the line and I'm a soldier. And if I would have gotten caught they would have put me in Fort Leavenworth and they never would have let me out because they just don't mess around with that. Alcohol's okay but drugs, uh-uh. And I was released from the Army. I came home. I had no hope. And by then I... I don't know why but for some reason that was like my last ditch effort. I really thought that that was what was wrong with me that that wasn't going to solve my problem. When I came back I was just more desperate than ever. And if I wasn't insane and sick at that point, boy, did my drinking take off from there. I mean, I'm already a daily drunk. I already use and drink every single day of my life. And now I'm on that death march. I'm working out at some club in Upland. I'm a stripper by profession. I was for a number of years. And it's pretty hard to get fired from one of those jobs, although people like us have an uncanny neck for it. And, you know, I'm working at this really good club. We're making a lot of money, and I needed that money. I'm just going to tell you that right now. I needed it. And I come in one night, and real, real sick, and I haven't had any money. I've been on a nice long run, and we're making money. And I'm having, I mean, withdrawals. And I's lying on the floor, and shaking, and shivering. And I told my boss, I got to go home early tonight. I got a go. I just came in just to make enough money so I could get out of there. There's no alcohol served in new bars. I couldn't drink. I had to go get a drink. I had a go, I had go. You know how it is. when you got to go, you got to go. And he came in and he said if you got a leave early you're fired and I said I'm leaving early. And so that ended my career doing that and that's when I just turned to the streets you know and I'll do anything for five dollars or five hundred dollars I don't care. I'm not a lady by then but I don' t care anymore I just don't care. I just need my money to get where I'm going because I don''t want to live with you anymore because you have too many demands on me and I'm tired of fighting with you you know and I want what I want I want it so just you know I like money. Money sets me free to live how I want to live and I want to live in the gutter. That's what I like. So I'm running around with some girls, and we're just doing all the things that we do. And sometimes we're living indoors, and sometimes we'RE not. Sometimes we're working the streets, and sometimes WE'RE not, and we've been on a pretty nice long run, and this girl, Jenna, started talking about sobriety, and I'd never heard that before in my life. I'd NEVER heard the word sobriete. If you can imagine, my whole life I'd never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd Never Heard of Sobriety. I didn't know that people like... I knew in my heart by then, I was 27 years old, and I knew In My Heart By Then That People Like Us Live And Die Like That. That's it. We just live like that, and then we die like that. And I had accepted that. That was okay with me. That's my path. That's My Life. I don't know what you do with your little jobs and your little houses and your Little Kids and your Lil' Dogs and all that crap. I do what I do, and this is how I'm dying. And I just, I just don't know any other way. And she started talking about sobriety and I just got stored away. And I don't know, it was three or six months later and, you know, I'd sold the battery out of my little hot pink Baja bug. You know, when you drink a lot, don't drive a pink car. With a stinger on the back. Why? You know? I mean, just, hi! God, it It was just a walking ticket. You know, right now I've got warrants in three counties. I'm just flying under the radar all the time. And I'd gone out to, you know, we'd sold the battery and I'd turned some tricks, put enough money together to get some gas so we could get some drugs and we could go out to Palm Springs and something great out in Palm Springs. There was nothing in Palm Spring. It was a condemned motel. And that's where we were living and the plumbing was backed up. It was on the 111 where all those old hotels were, and they're starting to tear those down and refix them. But at the time, they were not. They were just condemned, and people were squatting in. And one of them was me. It was a lovely life. And, you know, I'm running around with these people. I'm stealing cars. I'm just doing all kinds of insane stuff and nothing unusual. Just I'm doing it in Palm Springs now. And, uh, you now, I go up to this one that the first one when you first come in on the 111, and I'm hanging out with these people and there were some, there were some gangsters there and I was you know, entertaining them. And apparently somebody didn't like what I was doing and she pulled a gun on me and asked me to leave. And that's when it suddenly hit me that I should get sober. And I picked up the phone. I crossed the street without my things. I was barefoot. It was July. It was like 126 degrees that day. I was sweating and sick across the street in my bare feet. It was hot. And I made a phone call to a girl in Painted Hills who had worked in that club that I'd been in and asked her if she'd come and get me, and she said, I won't. And I said, well, if my mom comes and gets you from here, she gives me your mom's phone number because I don't want you to stay at my house. If your mom is going to come, you know, I'll come and Get You, and then your mom can come and Gets You from here. But you can't stay at My House. I'm not giving you any money. Don't ask me for anything. You know, just let's be clear about that. That's how welcome I was. And by now, I don' t talk to anybody. Nobody wants me around. And the people I grew up with, they'd long since given up on me. They called me a serious diehard battery for a number of years until they finally just got to where, you know, they just didn't even want me there anymore. You know, my dad hadn't talked to me in a number of years. My mom will always talk to me because she's an alcoholic, you know? But she came and picked me up. I came around Alcoholics Anonymous. I thought you guys were cute. I thought a lot of the guys were cuter than me. I thought they were cute, too. And I sat around here for 60 days and I didn't do anything. And you know what? If you don't give me a spiritual solution and you don't get me into action and I'm not drinking, something's going to happen, okay? because I'm like a time bomb, and it doesn't take long for me. Two, three days, and I'm starting to hover. You know, I'm startin' to vibrate in the chair. You know? I'm started comin' to meetings and tell you, you know what, that I hate you, and you guys are full of crap, and what are you all so smilin' about? You know what's so funny around here? And, you know, and, uh, I just get, you now, restless, irritable, and discontent because I just, I... God, I just... I have to have a drink to be with you. There's gotta be something in my system so that I can be with your life. And, uh... If you think meetings alone keep you sober, good luck to you. Yeah, boy, I wish you the best, you know. Because if you're a real alcoholic, you're going to find that you're going to have a lot of problems just trying to stay sober on meetings alone. And I didn't, you Know, I had a lady who was trying to help me. God bless her. She was trying To help me, but I just don't listen, You know, because I'm smarter than you. You know? I'm living in the gutter, But, Boy, I'm a lot smarter than You. And I got up one day and I left a meeting of alcoholics and honest. I went to my mom and dad's house and I started pouring shots. And I don't know how many drinks it takes to take the edge off at that point, but it took me a few. And man, I'm telling you, when the fire finally hit my belly, oh God, it was just, oh my God. That was a close call. I thought I was going to implode or something. And I just, yeah, I went to the back refrigerator and got myself a couple of Budweiser's and I was ready to get on with the business of living again or at least living the way I know how to live. I went out to the car, cracked one beer, took a big drink, put it between my legs, put the other one between the passenger brake passenger seat in the emergency brake and lit a cigarette, started up the car and drove straight to the gutter. That's where I hang out. And it was like a nine month death march into Alcoholics Anonymous. I've got to tell you man, I met this guy and he was from Peru. You can imagine what he did for trade and we did a lot of drinking and we did lots of drugs. I tried so many times to get sober during that nine months. I wanted to get over so bad I realized that what I had let go of was the most incredible gift that I'd ever experience that what you had was what i needed that i really really really had a problem and wasn't sure it was alcoholism maybe maybe not whatever you guys were doing it was better than what i was doing and i couldn't get back because the craving had been set into motion that's it it's over let me tell you how i am when i need a drink okay i will slap myself in the face silly to get to the liquor store that's how i will drive slapping myself screaming at the top of my lungs to keep my eyes open bouncing off the 50 wall i got here with this little truck and and it was just like boom, boom, down the sides. There were weeds hanging out of the license plates from where I'd gotten stuck up on some bushes. I'd fallen asleep at the wheel one more time. I just like to drive by Braille. I just drive while sleeping. That's my M.O., and I'm living with this guy. And I'm just totally insane. I'm absolutely insane. I'm leaving with him, and if he doesn't give me what I want, I just go down to the corner, and I make myself a little bit of cash, and then I buy it from him. You know, and that's how I'm living. And it was so, I couldn't believe that it could possibly get worse than it was. But what had happened was it wasn't that I was living worse than I was living, it's that I had a touchstone by which to measure how I was living, and I didn't have that before. I mean, you live in all that pain for all those years, you don't even know you're living in pain anymore. You know? The book talks about that, that our only, our life seems to be the only normal life. You know we think that like this is normal, and it's so completely abnormal, but you know just that brief little time here in Alcoholics Anonymous was enough, enough for me to realize how I was living and I couldn't get back. And I tell you one day, man, I really, really, really needed to get out of that house. He liked to keep rum. I don't like rum, but that's okay. I'll drink it. But there wasn't even any rum and he wasn't going to give me any drugs. And God Almighty, I was just crawling out of my skin and he was just driving me nuts. And he said, I've got to have the truck, can't have the track. And so I went in, we He had just some little dots and something, you know. And I went in the kitchen. I got that screwdriver out of there and I ran down the stairs and I popped that ignition, rubbed those wires together, fired that thing up and right about then he comes flying down the stares and he opens that truck door and he yanks me out of their. He gets in there and he goes to turn that thing off and I look in the back of the truck and in the bag of the trunk there's a gas can and it's got about that much gas in it and you know what? I don't care. Don't stand between me and what I need and I reach back there and I open that thing out and I poured it down the side of the track through the rest of the window reached in my pocket and pulled out my trusty lighter and just walked away. You know, if you would have asked me right then, do I care about him? No, I do not. I do NOT care. I am absolutely insane with the disease of alcoholism. I need a drink. Thank God he got out of there. He got his shirt off. He managed to get out. He was fine. By the grace of God, not a hair on his head was hurt, which was too bad. He had an ugly hairstyle. I'm kidding I really am kidding God bless Willie wherever he is and I ran upstairs I'm smart enough to know I've just committed a crime changed my shirt you don't want to be walking down the street in a shirt that somebody might have seen you in when you just lit your boyfriend on fire in a truck by then I'm on an adrenaline rush and I went right out to the corner there and I did what I needed to do to take care of myself. In a short period of time later, I was having grand mal seizures and seizures regularly that really were not a big deal to me. I was dying. You know, I weighed about 40 pounds less than I do now. My skin was a gray pallor. My ribs were sticking out. My stomach was floated. I was, you know, I was dyeing in malnutrition and the skin was all peeling out of the inside of my mouth and I was just, you know... I was a wretched sight and I'd stand in the bathroom for hours putting on makeup before I'd go on one of my little calls in hopes that they could... You know? I remember one day I took my clothes off and this guy looked at me and he said don't you ever eat oh god that was just too much reality for me that day I was like gotta go oh god what a miserable life and I you know I had yet another grand mal seizure and I ended up back in Alcoholics Anonymous and this time I was ready and I was willing to do whatever you want I'm not I was not a model newcomer I called up that lady I said will you please help me she said Yes, but are you willing to do it the AA way? Whatever you want me to do. But, you know, the problem with somebody like me is that I've been living in the streets and living like an animal for so long that it takes years for me to recuperate from that. I don't just go out and get myself a little job in the coffee shop and start showing up and going, Hi, would you like a latte today? That's not my personality. I'm like, What do you want? You know, I wear all black. I'm foul-mouthed. I talk like a sailor, you now. You know these women would get up to the podium and they'd have on pearls and little skirts and I'm just a lady today and I wear a bra. I don't care. Why would I even want to wear a Bra? What's that got to do with anything? I just, you know, I mean... I mean, I'm like, I don' t want to be a Bra. I don''t want to stand up at the podium wearing Laura Ashley with pearls in my ears. I just... And people would say that. Well, I''m a lady. Who cares? I'm going to go out and hit this woman, you kno? And I knocked the lady right out of her. That's how I was. I just, my poor sponsor, God, you know, everything she told me to do, I just screwed it up bad. And, you Know, she told Me to get a job. I got arrested at 60 days. I called her up. I said, I got arrest. I got Arrested. She said, For what? I said Well, You know, and I told her What for? And she said, Well, What were you doing that for? I said You told Me To get a Job. She said Okay, I guess we're really going to have to start with square one with you. She was so sweet. I love her. she started to take me through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous teach me what the disease of alcoholism was and that's when I realized that I had been an alcoholic for a very very long time that at 16 years old I'd go out at night and I'd say I'm going to be in at 10 tonight I'm gonna be in at 10 10 o'clock we'd roll around and I would say midnight we're drinking we're shooting dice we're drinking midnight roll around well 2 o' clock will be okay bars close at 2 I'm 16 I'm living on bar time 2 o clock would roll around I'm not coming home I'm drinking you know we're doing shots we're playing dice we're having fun and then the sun comes up and you have that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach because your mom and dad don't know where you are you are not going to school that day you did not call you are NOT calling what are you going to do? call and say hey I'm not calling I'm shooting tequila shots, playing dice not going school and so you don't call and then that day turns into another day and another day and another day because I'm trying to control and enjoy my drinking, and I can't. And when I learned that, it was such a life-altering experience for me because that's when I realized what my problem was was alcoholism. That's what had been wrong with me. That' s what had been bothering me, and you guys had a solution for that. And I was angry when I got here. I was very angry. I'm a hoverer. You see them when they come in. They sit and they go like this. You know those? I love those. They're sitting there shaking their leg. I look at them and I go, oh, that's my girl. That's my Girl. I don't see a lot of them like that anymore. God, why do they come out so clean now? Jeez. Come in drunk. God Almighty. Come in dirty and ugly. You know? I saw one in our meeting a couple of weeks ago. She came in and she was just a mess. And I looked over and her leg was shaking and I was like, oh. I went over and I go, how are you feeling? Pretty bad, huh? You should see her now. She's still coming back. She's starting to get that spark in her eye and her legs sit still in the meeting. What a gift. So I don't know. You know, I went through a series of jobs. I don' t work well with others. I, uh, you know, my sponsor wanted me to get a job with my clothes on. I compromised. I got a job. I got my top off. I don't care what you think about that. For a girl like me, the road to recovery was long and I really don't know what to do with it. I don' t care what yo u think because I'm standing here sober with my clothes on today with a job with my gloves on today. Educated, well-traveled, well mannered. I don''t wear Laura Ashley but I do have floral skirts. I'll cop to that. Pink is my favorite color. It always was. I just didn't wear it for a long, long time. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I really do. So my sponsor said, look, I don't even know what to do with you. You can read. Go to school, okay? I'm dyslexic and I go to college. You can reading. You're going to school. All right. I don' t really want to go. You go to school! Okay, fine. I'm going to schoo. So I went to Orange Coast College and I signed up for class. And in the meantime, I'm working steps. And I'm starting to start to do my amends. and my amends with my mom and dad were some of my most challenging. You know, by now I've done a fourth and fifth step and thank God, thank God I had a sponsor who could tell me about all that stuff when I was a kid because I couldn't see how I had part in it. You know? How did I have a part in that stuff when I as a little kid? I didn't. My part was that I hated my parents for it. I hated them for that. She said, why don't you start asking your parents about their childhood? Come to find out, My grandmother was like Hitler. God, no wonder my mom was a mess. My dad was kicked out of the house at 11 years old. Go get a job. He joined the three C's at 13. He used to jump around, jump train cars. And one day they hadn't eaten for four days, so they stole a head of lettuce. And he was kicked from pillar to post until he finally could join the Army Air Corps at the age of 16. That's a tough life for a little boy. That'sa tough life. And it taught me to have a little compassion and understanding for where I came from and just have a little love and a little forgiveness. You know, I'm not perfect. I'm flawed. But none of that was about me. None of it was about me. She told me that I had to start going over to that house on a regular basis, and I didn't want to do that. My mom's an alcoholic. She drinks. It's uncomfortable. I go over there. I don't know what she's going to be like. You know how we are. Oh, I love you. Oh my God, I want to kill you. I mean, I don' t know what it's goingto be like, but I started showing up. She said if it gets ugly, you just make your excuses. You smile. You tell them you love them, and you leave. You don't argue, you don't participate. You just say, oh, God, I've got an appointment, I'm going to have to get out of here, I've Got to go meet my sponsor or whatever and get out. And if it's good, you stay. And I said, all right, I can do that. And so then I started going to school. And I went to school and I found out there was a brain in there, it wasn't completely damaged. And it worked pretty well and I started getting really good grades, real good grades. I made the national honor roll year and I joined the speech team and a year and a half into my career there at Orange Coast College my coaches told me you know what it's time for you to apply for scholarship nope not me yes you no not me apply for the scholarship fine i'm applying do school like alcoholics anonymous show up early and you stay late you have questions you ask the teacher they tell you to read the book you read the books they give you an assignment you do it you do in on time you do that you'll be a good student i don't care how stupid you are you don't have to have any brains you just gotta show up it's brainless just do what they tell you you'll be fine that's what i did so i applied for those scholarships and I got a letter that said I got a scholarship and a leadership award. A leadership award? Frightening. God almighty. They said I could bring two people to that honors night. It's a real big to-do at Orange Coast College. It's beautiful what they put on a huge banquet and they utilize the whole school, the catering, and it's just amazing. My mom and dad are sitting in there and mine are like for speech and the Peg Taylor Award and they're all done alphabetically so mine are on that end of the alphabet and I don't know that and so, you know, they get to M and I'm like, oh, there's been a mistake I'm not supposed to be here you know how we are cats fighting in my head shut up would you just shut up you could just swear that people can hear it finally they called my name my dad goes, they called your name and I called your name. And I, oh my God, and I stumbled up there and you go up there and you shake hands and then you go outside and you take a picture with the person that actually writes a check. They give you money and they, you know, and then You Take a Picture and then He Come Back and You Sit Down. I came back in to sit down and my dad looked up at me and he goes, they called your names again and you've got to go back down and I went back down and I got my thing and I took a picture and I came right back in and I looked at my dad and my Dad had tears in his eyes. My dad is a World War II veteran and he's an old dog-faced soldier and he does not cry. the buttons were just straining to burst off of his shirt there were tears in his eyes and he looked up at me and he said they just keep calling your name and I knew that night that the road to recovery with my father had started that he had finally had the opportunity to see his little girl become the woman that he always wanted that's all he wanted, just a good life for me that's why he provided a private education and made all those sacrifices for me my mom and dad were not rich They just wanted the best for me. They wanted me to have everything they never had. And, you know, it was tough with my mom, I've got to tell you. It was a couple of years later and I think I had four years of sobriety and I was over there and my mom went down to the hall and she took a pull off that bottle that was behind that door and I love that bottle. where oh she went down the hall she took a pull off the bottle and she came back up and came back out and i was sitting in her chair and she stood in front of me and she started to sway you know up to that point i'd always seen my mom's my drunken mom she's just a drunken mother and that day it hit me i saw my mom as a newcomer in alcoholics and on this i finally saw her as an alcoholic she was just another alcoholic woman and i'm so moved by that experience i stood up and i held her with every fiber of my being i said i love you she said i loveyou and i need you i said i need to mom and so began the road to recovery with my mom and dad so i'm staying sober and i mean uh you know i'm going to school and i I got a lot of accolades out of that college. I was given a scholarship to a little prestigious university in south-central Los Angeles. They have a good football team. And I went on to have an outstanding career there. I graduated with honors there. I had the privilege of inviting my mom and dad to come and see me graduate. I blew right through Phi Beta Kappa and right on to Magna Cum Laude. And a girl like me coming from where I come from doesn't stand doesn't does not stand up and take take degrees in honors like and finally that little girl that went to private school and sang in the choir sang in a chorus played the clarinet played the piano wanted to be baptized when she was five and finally returned because that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about it's about recovery of everything we've lost we don't even know what we've lossed we think we've last houses and jobs and stuff like that that's not what we lost. We lose our souls, we lose the very essence of our being and that fine little spirit that was starting to develop when I was a little girl that had long since been gone was starting to return. I'd like to share about this, I think it's important. A couple of years ago I was working for this company and I was very unhappy in my job and I just, I wanted to feel safe somewhere, I know I couldn't leave the job so I asked my mom and dad if I could come and move home and My mom was very, very ill. My mom was a trooper. Dad liked to say she had a strong constitution. She was an amazing woman. I used to look at her with such disdain and today I know that I will never ever even be half the woman my mother was. She was incredible human being. She was brilliant. She was social. She could dance. She covered her alcoholism like nobody I've ever seen in my life. All of the physical incapacities that we suffer from, she suffered those in her own silence. all in her own silence she didn't want to burden anybody so i picked up the phone i thought god that's an insane idea and move home with my mom and dad i just you know it was like one of those intuitive thoughts that you just go with it you just go with that i picked out the phone and i said i'd like to come home my mom and dad said come on home and i said oh okay and i i said ill move the first of september and that weekend i was moved out i just packed up everything moved out in three days i was just gone and um i went home and i started to realize how sick my mom had become and there were some stains on the carpet and I got down on my hands and knees and I quietly cleaned those up without her seeing that without her having to be embarrassed by that and I started to clean the house because the house was dying of alcoholism and instead of doing things my way you know how we are well I'm going to put this over here why don't we move the couch over here we just like to get in there and do things our own way Instead of doing that, I asked my mom. I said, you know, why don't we just do something maybe in the bathroom here? We'll get this cleaned out. What do you think about this? And she'd say, oh, why do we put them in there? You know, and we worked together. And my mom was just darling, just such a darling gal. And I'm down on my hands and knees. I'm scrubbing the floor. Me, on my arms and knees, scrubbing a floor. God, that's amazing. That's a miracle. And she's standing in the bedroom, and she's staring at me like a bug under a glass. And I looked at her, and she looked at me, and I said, what? She said, you have changed so much. God, I felt such a sense of relief that my mother could see what had happened to me finally. My mother didn't get sober. Three months later, she woke up in the middle of the night. She had chest pains three days later. They moved her to ICU three days after that. She was dead. I got to stand there sober. I gotto be there. I gotta be there, I gottaholdherhand, I gotttabepresent. You know, when I'm drinking, and I'm not present for anything. To stand there and hold your mom's hands in her last days is a gift that I will always cherish. And when she died, I called up a gal who had been helping me out and I said, you know, my mom died, I don't know what to do. She said, you know what you should do. She said suck it up and get busy. Suck it up? And I said she said I want you to look she says your dad in there and i said yeah she goes take a good look at him and i looked at him she goes how long have they been married and i thought almost 45 years they were 17 days short of 45 years of marriage they almost killed each other but they made it she said it's about him he's the one who won't be sleeping with her tonight she's your mother it's natural she said so get busy and so i did i got out the rolodex and i started making all the phone calls and i called the mortuary and i made all the arrangements and i did everything and my little father walked around with his hands in his pocket shuffling his feet looking at the ground i thought god he's just going to lay down and die he's going to go with her it just scared me to death and i got busy i got real busy and it was hard i'm going to tell you it was not the easiest thing that i had ever done but man i had friends in alcoholic synonymous i little alcoholic elves you know about those little alcoholic elfs they come on and they set up your house like clean your house while you're not even there you come back and like everything's done you're like wow Oh, I like that. I wish they could do it right now while I'm in Vegas. And I overheard my dad saying to somebody at the memorial service, he said, I don't know what he would have done without her, and he pointed at me. You know, I have such an amazing life today. I can't even imagine. I just couldn't even image it. I can never imagine a life like I have today. You know? It is such a good life. I have so many friends. My phone just rings off the wall. I just am so busy all the time. I have such a sense of gratitude in my life. I have a great job. I've had such wonderful experiences. I've been all over the world. I can't even tell you. I don't even know how to put into words the life that I live today, but I want to share with you my greatest freedom that I have, and that is that today I wake up without the desire to drink. I don'T think about it. I don' t think about where the next one's coming from. I don't have to worry about the cheap, little, undignified, nasty task I'm going to have to perform to get what I need. My life isn't like that today. I don'T spend three hours in the shower trying to scrub my sins off me today. I just get up in the morning and get myself a cup of coffee and go curl up on the couch with a big book. I get right with God because without God, I am nothing. I get on my knees and I say my prayers on my knee, on a pillow, granted. put my little pillow on the ground I like that, I would have made a very bad Catholic what's up with those wooden bar things jeez, pat them God almighty they pat them? it's about time alright I get right with my God and then I get busy when I go to work I try to be the best employer that I can be I'm successful in my business today because I do what you taught me to do go to work and do a good job. Go and give 110%. Some days I can only give 85. Other days I give 120, but I do the best that I can do. And then I go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have the privilege of sponsoring a number of girls. I have a little girl who just had a little baby on Sunday, and I'm going to have the priviledge of watching this little boy grow up. And Daddy's a football player for UCLA, so we're going to Have to get all that straightened out because he's not going there. I'd sing the fight song to his belly. I'm all fine I'd shake wavy little fingers and I don't know if you guys know about all that but anyways she's like stop that stop that gotta get him in the womb and you know I had to prove as you're going over there Tuesday night sitting with that little baby holding him on my lap and he's got these giant hands and feet like a hobbit it's kind of scary I see my dad every Thursday night for dinner obviously I won't be there tonight but that's okay we'll be there next next week he cooks me dinner and we hang out we watch a movie he talks i listen like i try to listen he mumbles a lot he's losing his hearing so i'm i just nod a lot yeah oh yeah and uh i just couldn't be happier i just couldn't have asked for a better life i'm so grateful to alcoholics anonymous i'm so grateful to all of the people who've gone before me who give me something to aspire to and i'm so grateful for those of you coming after me that remind me that it still doesn't work out of there. It's a good life. If you're new, I pray that you stick around. I implore you to just try, you know, to stay one day at a time. Do what we do. You know, just do what we doing and you'll get what we get. And if you don't know what that is, don't worry, it's better than what you've got because if you're sitting here, life isn't good. So thanks for letting me share.