The Surrender That Happened After 12 Years Sober – Nancy M.

hi everybody my name is Nancy Morris and I'm an alcoholic hi I'd like to thank Al and Allison for inviting me here and I think that they've done a great job there's a lot that goes into planning something like this and I know that Al is a pretty detail-oriented person And in other words, he's kind of anal. But I mean that in a kind, loving way. And we tried to take care of that problem on Thursday. I came in Thursday morning and Al and Allison and I went out cruising around and we went to this weird place. And Allison andI settled for a steam bath And we got Al hooked up with colonic hydrotherapy. And we were hoping that would get him through the weekend okay, but it lasted a little while. It's like a 45-minute enema is what he had. And, uh, his eyes were blue when he came out of there. But, um, oh, and then this morning Allison called me up at 8 o'clock and she said, I have your sponsor's pants in my room. My sponsor's Clancy, by the way. So it's like, who said you can't, you know, we don't have fun here. We have fun. And if you want to know more about that, I think you'll have to speak to them. I don't know. So I've been looking forward to being here and I've enjoyed hearing all the speakers so far. It's like good, solid AA is what I've been hearing since I've seen you. I've had a lot of fun since I'd been here. And I've been around for a little while and that's how I got it and that'S how I like to pass it on to people and sometimes there are obstacles in the way nowadays. days, it's a little bit harder. But I've heard some good solid AA and I was just sitting here this morning when Dick was talking and just really looking around at the people that I know here and the people I've met around the country and just thinking it's just a miracle that we're all here. We may have our little tiffs with each other in here but it's absolutely a miracle that people like us can be here enjoying something like this and all doing relatively well. And I'm proud to be a part of Alcoholics Anonymous. I love Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm glad to be here to help my sponsor celebrate his 39th birthday. I think he's been my sponsor for almost 25 years now. And early on in my sobriety when I got sober out in California in the Pacific group, and actually I lived about 40 miles away from there. And when I got sober, I threw up on a man's shoes and he took me over to the Pacific group. And I pretty much have gone there ever since except when living in Minnesota for 10 years. But we started a similar group there. But early on in my sobriety, I was just sitting here last night when Clancy was talking and just thinking about the early years and how I was just very restless, irritable and discontent. And I never knew what to do with myself. And especially when my kids would be gone, their dad would take them. And and I would just I just didn't know what to doing with myself and we get together in Clancy's backyard on Saturdays and I was in charge of buying all the groceries for the lunch for a number of years but some and that would be hot dogs and hamburgers and salad and things like that but sometimes when I just didn't know what to do with myself and it would be 11 or 12 at night, I'd think, I'm going to make burritos for everybody. So I would go to the store in the middle of the night and buy all this meat and tortillas and everything and just stay up all night making 250 or 300 burritos and bring them to the yard. And then these guys in the group, when I was in my early years, one time Clancy would travel a lot and people would take him to the airport and pick him up and these guys in the group came to me and they said we're going to dress you up in a disguise and we're gonna take you to the airport with us so that time they dressed me up I just dressed up as a real old lady and I had a hunchback and a hat and a cane and everything and they put me on this bench and told me to wait there until they came back with Clancy and they were walking toward me and I got up and I hobbled toward them and I'm like Clancy and he looks at me for one second And then he yelled out, I don't even know your daughter. He's pretty quick, you know. And then he gave me a big karate chop on the back of my neck and I fell on the floor and they just continued walking and there I was. But then I get pretty obsessed with things, and so then I decided it would be nice to go every time he came in and wear a disguise. So I think now we kind of remember this differently. He thinks I was a pregnant nun. I don't remember being pregnant as a nun, but I did dress up as a none, and I really worked hard on that, and I had a long black dress and beads hanging down my side and a white collar and a big headdress. And I went to the airport, and this guy was picking him up, and I watched them from afar. And then I walked alongside of him for a little while, and he just thought I was a nun. And thenI took his arm, and I said, Would you like to get into the habit? And... And then I walked a little bit ahead of them, and then he yelled out as loud as he could, Sister, sister, you've got my wallet. And then there's one more. And I went there as a double amputee in a wheelchair one time. and um i got him for a couple seconds because i saw and i had a disguise a hat on and glasses and i saw him look at this poor lady in the wheelchair and then i looked up at him and i i just said something can you push me over there and um and so he looked at me for a second he dropped everything he had and he went and sat down but he came back immediately and he put his hands up on my head and he said, in the name of Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson, I heal you. And I got up and walked away. So I did whatever I had to do in those early days to get through the night i was working on my next disguise but i think i got well before i i went to the store and i bought about a hundred bags of cotton balls and i was going to be a sheep like hi honey welcome home and then i was gonna be pregnant i think this is where the pregnant nun thing came in i was going to be pregnant and have a water balloon between my legs and break my water at the airport. So that's how I was. I got sober in a group that's very active, and that's always been very important to me. I can go to meetings and I can read the books and go step meetings and book study meetings and have my books at home and read them but it's always been very important for me to um know where everybody is to have a home group to know what you know i can just go to this meeting and that's where they're going to be and it's been important to me to make commitments and learn to keep them even when i'm toilet paper lady at 10 years of sobriety it's like that was my job and um that's because one of my ex-husbands was the secretary of the meeting, and he wanted me to be the toilet paper lady. But you know, the way I was taught, it wasn't like I could say to somebody, can you bring the toilet paper for me this week because I'm going to the movies or whatever. It's like I had to do any commitment I took, I had to honor it, and that's helped me along in my sobriety. It has helped me to have a home group meeting and to know there is no question in my mind ever when i get up about what i'm going to do on certain days i have certain meetings i go to and i just go to them and that's it it's part of my life um i i come from a alcoholic family i have five brothers and a sister and a mother and a father and my family was very wild the the neighbors put their house up for sale because of my family that's what the kids told me one time. Their parents said they had to move because of us, and it was just a pretty wild family, and my, you know, growing up with brothers, I became very competitive. I don't know why I did, but I am, and I had to fight for anything that I wanted in the house, including alcohol, because one time I went to the cupboard when I was a young teenager, and I wanted to get some vodka, andI got the bottle down and snuck it into my room real quick and took a big drink, and it was water already. It was pure water. So you had to get up early in my house to get what you needed. But I just grew up drinking, and I can't look back and ever say why I took my first drink. I don't remember my first drunk. It seems like I always drank. As a young teenager, I just did, and I just didn't drink. I didn't do it until I got here, and I couldn't do IT anymore. and during that time I tried to live a life. I tried what I thought I was supposed to do and I got married and had a family and I tried so hard just to, you know, there's been talk this weekend about drug addiction and alcoholism and to me when I have tried to work with people who I feel are drug addicts, to me they're people who take drugs to get out of it. They don't want anything to do with any of this and alcoholics and myself, anyway, I drank to fit in. And that's all I want to do now is fit in and be a part of all of this. And so I just drank until I came here and I did what came along in between, what I tried very hard to fit it in and to look normal and I tried to act normal like you were acting, not you but them, okay? Not you people. But, you know, I just, in school, I tried it. But, in high school, I barely made it through high school because whether I was drinking alcohol or not, I've always had what goes along with that, with this disease. And I did whatever people dared me to do or asked me to go through. And that caused me to get in trouble because I would show off. I would call the teacher's name. somebody would dare me to call the teacher a schmuck and I didn't know what it meant and I did it and then and I mean just and um I got up and I don't know I mean it's like small things but I gotup and walked across the desks in the room one time because somebody dared me to walk across the desk and and um but I just did a lot of things in high school I drank in high school too I brought it with me and um and again it'slike I never consciously said why I'm bringing alcohol to school with me. I just did it, and I drank it. But I barely made it through high school. I didn't get to graduate with the class because I'd been in too much trouble. And I didn' t learn anything in high school, I was always very self-obsessed and just wondering what you're thinking about me and trying to impress you and get you to like me. And so I never really learned anything, I didn''t really care. And the night that was supposed to be my high school graduation I did get to go there and pick up my diploma but not go through the ceremony and afterwards I had a maybe a pint of vodka and I met two of my friends in the back of a gas station and we sat there. I had my mother's 59 Chevy with the kind of Chevy with those big fins on the back and and I was I was kind of dressed up and we'd sat in the back of this gas station and drank our vodka. And then they went off somewhere, and I was driving home. And I threw up all the way home. I always threw up when I drank and threw up. And and I was driving on the Ventura Freeway out in California, and i just was driving along knowing i couldn't throw up out the window because somebody might see me. And i just threw up all over myself in the car and kept driving and throwing up and got home, opened up both doors, got off garden hose and squirted the car out and put my clothes in a plastic bag. And, you know, so I just always drank. And then I got married because I was supposed to get married. And I had these kids, and I was trying to live in this house and do what I was opposed to do. And I would always be looking out the window at the neighbors. What are those ladies doing out there? I wonder what I'm supposed to be doing. I'd always be like peeking out my drapes at everybody. and um and i was inside my house drinking and and um in my it got progressively worse i would try not to drink until noon thinking that would be okay and then um then i would have to drink earlier and i would say well the men are out um the businessmen are out they're having a drink now and um you know at lunchtime and then i Would say well i got up at six o'clock and my lunch showers at 11, so I'd have a drink at 11. And I just justified it all the time why I could take a drink, trying to take care of these. When I got sober, I had three little boys and I wasn't taking very good care of them. And it just got to the point where I kept them in the house and I had a lock on the outside of their bedroom door because I couldn't take care OF them. They would go outside and I didn't want them to go outside because I had alcohol on my breath and I didn't want anybody to smell it I had tried to join in some different organizations and do things that I thought I was supposed to do so people wouldn't notice that there was something wrong with me and and I always had to drink to go to these things because I didn't know how to fit in or how to talk to the big ladies and I just felt like a child myself and I would go and I would drink and somebody would always start sniffing and I smell alcohol and then I you know i couldn't go anymore so i just stayed inside my house and and um kept my kids inside as much as i could and i locked them in their bedroom and this was toward the end and i felt very sad about my life and i was young and i thought nobody understood and nobody ever would understand i didn't know what was wrong but i just felt like there was there was a lot inside of me that that nobody understoodand this is i thought that that's the way my life was going to be it was just going to go on and on and on and like that. And I used to lock the kids in the bedroom, and I lived in a house that backed up to this mountain, and it was a mountain, and I would get this big bottle of Spagnato wine, and I would sit up on the mountain and just drink the wine and just look out over the valley and just be real sad, and then go back in the house. And I'd leave all the empties back there. One time, the kids in their neighborhood went behind the fence where I had all these empties, and they found a treasure because they found these all these big green bottles and They thought their mothers who made crafts could put candles in them I guess and I I looked out the window one time and I saw all the neighborhood kids like marching down the street with big green bottle from their hands and But I went back in the house at one time I went Back in I had the boys locked in the bedroom and I opened the bedroom door and one of them had climbed up the front of a dresser big heavy dresser and cut his head open and there was blood everywhere and another time they were in the backyard and I wasn't watching them and and one of them drank charcoal lighter and um there there were things like that that happened that I know I have to know now that God was watching over me and and my family and taking care of us and I really feel lucky that uh my boys the twins were three years old and my other son was one year old when I got sober and I feel very fortunate about that because, you know, I've had these years in sobriety to try to do what's right for them. But, you Know, I just went on and on and On and On and I just didn't know what to do about this. I got sober in 1971. There wasn't a lot of talk about this disease like there is today and treatment centers and things like that. I really didn't Know what to Do and I didn't have anybody to talk to about this And one day, the day I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, we had people over to watch the Super Bowl. It was in January of 1971. And I just made Bloody Marys all day. I stayed at the Punch Bowl. I just remember standing there making Bloody Maries, giving them to people and drinking them. And, you know, we did try to – I tried to do this thing of having people over. I was married. my husband had he took me to business functions um i he would go to get the babysitter and i would be so scared about going to these things and talking to these people i didn't know how to sit with a group of people like that and um and he'd leave to get The Babysitter and I'd take a quick drink and then I'd be looking out the window and he's not back I take another one and I just kept doing that till he got back then he'd have The Babiesitter there we'd get in the car go to this thing and almost every single time they would give me one drink and something bad would happen because and they they would say gosh you know one drink really does you in doesn't it and um and it would always be that kind of thing where it was just something that was maybe not terrible but very embarrassing when i would wake up at three in the morning and my mouth would be so dry and i'd be waking up and think oh god i i uh through the i was like pushing people in the pool it wasn't a pool party either they weren't dressed for this and it's like i just kept pushing them in the and um one time i went to to some people's house i remember we were sitting around and and i started telling a joke and then i must have passed out and then i woke up and i thought i was still telling the joke and then it was like time to go home and um and and then you know it was just and one time i was on my way to go somewhere and i picked up a hitchhiker and he needed to go to san diego so i drove him all the way there it was only like three hours away from where i live but um but um so i don't know where i was now allison you're supposed to be the one keeping track of where the speakers are I know, isn't it hard? But anyway, it doesn't really matter. Pardon me? Thank you very much. You have a good memory for a 70-year-old man. Okay. So these people were leaving our house that night after, you know, I drank all day. And one man left. He left. He was by himself. He was the last one to leave. I got in his car with him and thinking he'd drive me around the block. And he took me somewhere else to have a drink. And we stayed a while. And then I called my husband and asked him to come get me. It was the first time that he said something to me about my drinking. I knew he marked the bottles. I was way smarter than he was. And I just made new marks all over the bottle. He just couldn't keep track of all of this. But he said something to me, you know, when he came and got me, he was very mad at what I did, and he said, You wouldn't do the things you did, you wouldn't act the way you did if you didn't drink so much. I knew that. I knew I couldn't quit drinking. So I went in the house, I picked up the phone, and I was calling this old boyfriend. And it's the old boyfriend, I think we all have them, where I think it was probably 10 years since I'd seen this guy, but the kind you think about every single day so you feel you can just call them up and say, Hi, it's me. So I called this guy up and we only had one car and I didn't want to take the car but I didn' t want to stay with my family anymore because I felt sorry for them and I was asking this guy to come pick me up and drive me to Oxnard which was just down the road from where I lived and I was going to go live in Oxnard by myself and leave my husband and my kids alone. During this conversation, my husband came into the room and he said, I don't care where you go, but you can't run away from it. And, you know, it must have been my time. It must have just been that moment for me. And I hung up the phone. I called my then-brother-in-law who is a Catholic priest and I thought he could pray for me because he lived in Pennsylvania. I was in California and he happened to be home and he was the first person that I ever said I cannot quit drinking and he had been to AA, to some AA meetings and he recommended that I go and I went to my first meeting that night the meetings out there were starting like 8.30 and going until 10 o'clock and we didn't know this but my husband got on the phone he found a meeting and I was in the meeting and I got dressed in this orange polyester pantsuit and um I was really heavy because I drank a lot of beer and wine and I was bored during those days trying just staying locked in my house peeking out the drapes and I dyed my hair like every other day and it was kind of dry and crackly and orange and greenish and different colors and my face was all blotchy red and blotching and I went and put this orange polyester pantsuit on And it was nicer than how I usually dress. I wore cut-off Levi's and a white T-shirt most of the time and made fun of the neighbor ladies out there while I was peeking out the drapes at them. I always made fun of everything I couldn't do or have, you know, or be. And so I got dressed up and this thing was very tight on me. But I thought I looked real nice. And we went off to find this AA meeting and we actually found it about five minutes before it ended. And it was a small meeting in Thousand Oaks, and we walked in the back door. There were probably 30 people in the room. There were folding chairs and a center aisle, and we locked in and sat down, and a man was talking. He finished talking. The meeting was over. All 30 people from that room came to that newcomer, which was me. Now, I wondered later, why did they all come over to me? How did they know? and um and it was like like a neon you know i was like neon and um and then if they didn't know by that time that's when i started throwing up on the floor so um they were these people were gathered around me and they had coffee and cake and and literature and phone numbers and they're all handing me these things and the room was going around and i threw up on the floor and i ran outside to the parking lot because i didn't like throwing up in front of perfect strangers And I like throwing up in front of, you know, familiar people but not perfect strangers. And so I went out to the parking lot and they all came out to The Parking Lot. Every single person came out there. They hadn't had a newcomer in Thousand Oaks in quite a long time. And newcomers are very important in this program. And so they all wanted to get a part of this, be a part of this thing that was at their meeting. And I continued to throw up for them in the parking lot. And once I started, I couldn't stop. And they're all gathered around me, and it seems now like they're holding hands and they're singing songs and they ring around the newcomer out there in the car. They're in the same parking lot and they were real happy. And this one man, I remember this, he looked up at the sky and he said, we alcoholics are such lucky people, we're chosen by God. And then I would throw up again. And then they'd be like, yes. And so that was my beginning. That was January 1971. I stayed sober until May 23rd, 1971, which is my sobriety date now. I loved Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, not that night. I had no clue what was going on. I didn't have a clue what Was going on for an awful long time even after I was here. I just came. I met a lot of good people who told me what to do, and I believe that I was desperate when I got here, and I did not want to feel like I was feeling before that. And to this day, I don't want to feels like that anymore. That's why I continue to do the same things that I've done since I came in here. I continue do those things today. It's very simple. It's easy. It doesn't change. There are just basics that we have here, and it's just not that complicated. and uh but i uh the next day after that night these two ladies or three ladies came over to my house and they i didn't know they were coming over i didn'T know they knew where i lived but they showed up at my door it was like a good old-fashioned 12-step call kind of thing and they came in my living room and they read some books and they talked to me and they told me things that i had never talked to what a best friend in my life about the things that these strange ladies were talking to me about and um i felt instant relief i felt like there was hope i never felt hope before that i tried very hard many times not to take a drink and um and it was it was all i ever thought about not taking one or when i could take one or what how i was going to get it or whatever but it was it was all I ever thought about and um and these and I felt instant instant hope with these ladies and they told me their stories and um, and that was my beginning. And, um, I love, you know, I just really took to it right away. I was out there in thousand Oaks and, uh, and I think I mentioned before one of the guys who was out There was like kind of holding me up when I was throwing up and I threw up on his shoes. He he and his wife took me over to the Pacific group in California, in Los Angeles, West LA. And there were a lot of young people there. I was young at the time and they took me there and I just got involved in that group with everything I had. And eventually I got to move closer to that area but I drove over there every night. I would drive over there 40 miles or so. But this journey has just been incredible and I you know I was told to get a sponsor I had lots of phone numbers lots of ladies gave me their phone numbers and I would sit by my telephone with this phone number and I would try to think okay I remember this lady her name's Betty here's her phone number okay well I'll call her but then what will I say because she won't know who I am then she'll ask me who I then I'll have to describe myself to her then i'll say okay i'm fat and i'm um kind of orange looking and um you know i mean i of course i didn't think anything good about myself at the time and um and then i would think maybe she would remember who i was it would she'd go oh yes it's her and then she would think oh god i didn'T really want her to call me that'S what i thought and so i wouldn'T call these people i didn't want to put them in that position so um i went to meetings and and then um in the pacific group a lady came up to me and she said let me be your interim sponsor and um and and i was so grateful that she did that so when when i do meet new people today i try to be kind to them and and and not you know say you call me and if you don't call me you know that's it i try to make an effort in the beginning to welcome people in but i think it's also been mentioned i don't i don t try to sell them on this i just try to welcome them in because we feel scared and uncomfortable and and uh and and when i first went to the pacific group i felt like everybody there knew each other forever and um and that i would drive home and and i would think i would just picture that they all lived in this there was this big apartment complex that they all lived there together and now they're all having their little slumber party you know and their pillow fights and everything and and i'm just driving home all by myself and and um you know i remember going into a meeting one night when i was very new and a lady just came over and she said sit down here for a minute and let me and tell me a little bit about yourself that was like the biggest thing that ever happened to me that somebody was took a minute and paid attention to me and um so i try to do things that were meaningful to me i try to do the same thing for newcomers now you know in alcoholics anonymous um so that was uh you know that lady became my sponsor for a while and um and then i had another lady for a little while and um clancy's been my sponsor for close to 25 years and the um what he you know has started in that group and what he himself does is what we do. And I'm still sober and I'm feeling good most of the time. And so that's what works for me. I was told that AA had to be first in my life because when I got sober, two weeks after being sober, I wanted to get a divorce and go to college. And I was taught not to do that and that AA has to be the first in your life. to be first in my life and and and i didn't get it right away it's not like i just would say to people oh you're absolutely right you know i'd go around and complain to everybody and and um but but that's what i ended up doing is um is aaa had to be first in life and i was going to meetings every single night and this it was just like a whole new world to me even though i you know before i got here i thought i'd done you know a lot of things and and um and i thought i knew a lot it was i lived in the smallest world before i came here i just i lived inside my head is where i lived and um and uh i came into aa and it was just like it was so exciting to me i just wanted to go then what are they all doing what's going on tonight and meeting new people and hearing people's stories And it was just like this. It was like I hadn't lived. I really hadn't lived up until that time. And so I got involved and I, you know, I was always willing to do what a sponsor told me to do. I might go and complain to people, but I was always willing do it. And, and so I stayed married to my first husband for about three years and into my sobriety and it was i was advised to just go home and try to be the best wife that i could and if the time came when i had to leave i needed to feel good about myself and so i did the best i could there and tried to do that and and um you know but in the meantime it's it was i can always go to a meeting no matter what's going on in my life i always have meetings to go to um i my life is is filled with um sober people and that just keeps me out of trouble because it doesn't really matter i'm sober 26 years now and um you know just a couple months ago and ed and i were moving to california from minnesota and i went out there by myself and and i was um i it was something you know i got very scared i got sehr insecure about this whole thing we had a good group in Minnesota and a lot of good friends and people that meant a lot to me. And there were people in California that did too, but it was just my security at that time was with my group in Venezuela, I guess. And I, and I just had, it was disliked. I was new when I used to sit on my front porch and rock back and forth and, and get up on the roof of my house when I was newly sober and just it was like i couldn't stay inside and the walls were closing in and and i was just scared and um you know this other speakers have talked about it too this happens from time to time but the difference now is that i i have i have developed a relationship with a higher power the first time that kind of thing happened to me it it it was we don't know what's going on and and maybe that's when some people need to feel they need to take a drink or something but i remember early on in the early years of my sobriety trying to pray i just i was just um coming apart at the seams and and i was trying to Pray i was i was kneeling down at my bed and i just thought i'm just praying to this bedspread i don't get it and i Was scared a lot of the time and i would cry and and um i would drive around in the middle of the night and leave my kids there because i was just i just didn't like to go to sleep i i thought too much when i went to sleep and so that that was like the first really difficult time and and it and i ended up coming out of that because i came to believe in a in god for me it's god i um you know i just continue to try to pray and to go to my meetings and um i felt very alone and very scared most of the time but um i just continued doing that and um and and then something happened inside of me where i just started to feel like i was going to be okay so now when that kind of thing happens it's not like i can immediately get rid of it just by going oh i forgot to pray so you know but i do pray and i do know now that it's never going to be as bad as it was the first time and um so you know if anybody's new or you've never gone through it before you know you're going to make you are going to get through it and and it won't ever be as sad again and um i've had a just such a great adventure in my sobriety no matter what life goes on for all of us it seems like now there are so many people in my life with um having very serious physical problems and car accidents and a girl i sponsored in minnesota lost a baby and things just like all these things these things go on and when i sat with that girl in minisode after that happened you know i said i'm not going to sit here and um try to tell you now this is god's will you know I said what god can do for you is get you through this and um you know we prayed together just that she would have the strength and the courage to get through this deal and um she told us later um that the aa people saved her life because we would just show up we would you show up with food and we would just show off and sit sit with her or whatever um i remember one time early on when um i didn't want to go see somebody who was very sick. I was living in Minnesota, actually, and I went back to California to visit a friend, Patty, who has since passed away, and she was kind of taking care of a guy who had AIDS, and he wasn't sick when I left, and now he was almost. And she said, I have to go over and see John. Do you want to come with me? And I said, no, I don't want to go with you because I was thinking of myself and how would I act, not thinking of this man that was dying so i changed my mind then and i decided to go in and and um you know uh it was a good thing i mean if i can get myself out of the way what am i thinking about myself in this situation everything is fine and um in that particular situation his mother was there visiting him that day too and this john was adopted and for some reason i started talking about adoption and that my kids were adopted and i was sharing some things with them and john passed away just maybe a week after that and i went to his memorial service and his mother came up to me and she said i'm so glad that you were there because johnny and i never talked openly about the fact that he was adoptedand um and so then you know i thought i was in the right place at the right time if i just go and do what's in front of me and get myself my thoughts my selfish feelings out of the way everything is you know as it should be and let's see where should we go we should have a drink of water so gosh Gosh. So many, I mean, Clancy said this last night and I've said this and thought this too. I mean we all, once you catch on to this thing, what you get here, what I get here from working with other people is all I need in my life. It doesn't matter where I live, what kind of house I live in. It really does not matter how much money I have. It doesn'T matter what kind oF car I have I mean, yes, you have the initial excitement of these things. I do. Going on a great vacation or something like that. But then it goes away. It's gone. And it's not new anymore. But what I've gotten here by working with other people, which is, I think, what God had in store for me. It's not like I came in and said, this is what I want to do in AA. It's just kind of like I come and I showed up and I started sponsoring people. And I sponsor people because I need to sponsor people for my sobriety and for my sanity. And that's all there is to it. It's like, I don't know anything that you don't know, and as I said, it's very basic here. But I believe that I need that to keep me feeling good most of the time. But the gifts that I've gotten from being with a part of other people's lives is just incredible. and um uh i got to sponsor um a couple nuns in california too and um that you know i was just thinking of that because one of them was in her 40s she was the principal of the school and um and she did her fifth step with me and we both sat there and cried when she was finished and it was such i felt like i was blessed to have been a part of this because this this nun um told me a member of alcoholics anonymous things that she had never told anybody in her life now isn't that something when she can go to confession and talk to priests and things i felt very blessed but um but i still you know i was taught by the non-catholic school for ten years until I got pregnant and had to leave because they didn't make maternity uniforms but anyway I still I have these two nuns and I really like I would I got my ruler and I'm like seven meetings a week sister or else but part that you know ed and i just moved back from minnesota to california about three or four weeks ago and it was very very emotional for me to do this and part of and it's okay but the reason is is because everybody i sponsored there and everybody that ed sponsored there we saw them come into alcoholics anonymous so they're a part of my very being and um and i just grew to love these people so much, almost all of them. And I had to participate the very last night before I left. And and I was emotional about this move. But there's this one guy in the group who really bugged me a lot. And so I started to say that I started saying, I just really love all of you. Then I caught him out of the corner of my eye. So I said, I Just really love almost all of you. So, so then they were all like, is it me? Did you mean me? Which one was it? So, um, but, uh, you know, in my sobriety, I've been married and divorced and married and divorced. And, um... And, you just, no matter what the circumstances are, those situations are difficult but um you just go on and you do alcoholics anonymous in the meantime and uh when i was about uh 12 years sober i was or i don't know doesn't really matter 11 10 11 years sober i was married to my second husband and he's a very nice man but we brought out the worst in each other and we did that before we got married but we liked playing this game so we got married and um he bought a ring and i felt bad we were gonna break up but then uh but then i knew he i found out he bought this ring and I felt gosh wouldn't that be awful now if I didn't marry him so um so that's why I'm still here after 26 years you know we don't just at least I don't get better you know right away but um but uh I was married to the to my second husband and we were just fighting just having terrible fights all the time and my three boys lived with us for a while and um and i was getting ready to leave one time and uh and uh the father of my three sons had since come to alcoholics anonymous he's a very nice man he married an ex-nun after i left and um and uh but he had called me many times and he had said uh patty and i would love to have the boys come live with us. If you would, if you would ever like them to, we would love to have them live with US. Well, I would thank him and hang up and cry. And I just thought that I can never, that was a never, I will never do that. Um, they were pretty much my image and my security and they were just everything to me. And, um, they Were just my reason, you know, for going to work and just doing whatever I did. And so, um he said that several times and I just would thank him. Then Tom and I were fighting a lot and I was going to leave him and then this thought came into my head and I believe these thoughts come into my head because I do get on my knees every morning now and I just say, I'll say thy will not mine be done and I try not to complicate it at all and I try to just go on about my business and whatever happens happens that's god's will it's not a big mystery to me anymore it's just whatever is going on is supposed to be going on and um and this thought came into my head because i had room for it i guess i'd cleared away a bunch of stuff and and umand it said you know um you should let the boys go live with joe and patty and it was it's like where in the world did that come from And then I called Clancy and I went down and talked to him and he suggested that I call Joe and Patty and go meet with them and talk it over with them. And they, you know, what I felt and thought throughout that it didn't come from me because I wasn't capable of thinking that way but it was like Joe and Party have a big house. um you all you live in an apartment and you run around and do this and that and they'll be able to take good care of the kids um i think i you know had done things along the way to feel more secure i had done thing that made me feel better about myself so it was so i could do this now wasn't like you did a bad job and they're going to do a good job it was like you do the best you could and this is the way your life is and this what they have to offer and if i was a kid i'd want to go with them i would want to live there and that was okay it was okay to um and so joe and patty had this big house and he had more money and they had a swimming pool and dogs and patny had never had children that we know of because she'd been in the convent but um she could have but she wanted you know she loved the boys too and um and it was like i want them to be a family and that is like um like i said that didn't come from me because i don't think that way and uh but but i but i'm sure now it's just because i was secure enough to do that i think i did the best i could and that's fine so i talked it over with them and then i also asked god to help me to do this in a kind you know in a dignified way that i didn't do it and then go cry to everybody about it and how hard it was for me it's like i'm gonna do this and that all there was to it. But Joe and Patty invited me to come live with them, too. They said I could stay there, too, and I do, whenever I would take trips to California when I was living in Minnesota, I would sleep at their house. I have a key to their house, sleep like on the end of their bed with the dog, and they're good friends of mine, and They're just like old friends now. I do, I stay there and they're just like old friend. But I did that with the boys and I let them go and live with Joe and Patty and then Tom and I ended up not splitting up at the time but then you know, I just tried to hang in there and hang in here and it's like I understand why he's this way and in time it'll get better and I can help him and blah, blah, bla. And it just i just got sicker and sicker until one day um i just like packed up two suitcases and i bought an airplane ticket to hawaii if you're gonna have a nervous breakdown go do it in hawai it's very beautiful um it's not even like it was a conscious thought i don't think i would ever do anything like that consciously i was just i was just emotionally distraught and didn't know what to do about it and it was and um i sponsored a lot of women and i uh i sat up the night before i was gonna do this and i um i wrote about 60 or 70 little notes and i think they said something like i'm having personal problems in my life i need to leave i'm going away and i'm never coming back and um and i you know it was just uh i i was very just drained out emotionally i had nothing in me and i got on this airplane and i just went to hawaii i had a couple brothers living there and um and i stayed there for seven months and uh but i got i went to aa right when i got there i knew some people there i went into some small meetings um they didn't do it like i did it in california so i tried to retrain them and um i tried to explain what sobriety was free from alcohol marijuana pakalolo to them which they practically sat in meetings and smoked it. And they didn't agree with me, and so I wrote a letter to New York, and I reported them. But you know, it's like whatever, it just keeps me busy, you know? And so I got a part-time job. I couldn't get any job there. I lived in a small town in Hilo, and there weren't Howleys there, which I'm a Howley. And I couldn't get a job, but this guy in AA helped. He knew a guy who owned a bar. It was like a real alky bar, and he got me a job there. And I tried to dress up and look like a barmaid, and I couldn'— I mean, people would say, what are you doing here? You don't really look like you belong here. And so I put on more makeup and black on my eyes and stuff. But I went to work in this bar, and it was really an alky bar. And there was a guy there who just came in and spent his whole paycheck on himself, and all these women would take advantage of him. So I gave him a little lecture one night that he really should be getting something in return from these women if he's going to buy them all these drinks. And I would also write my number down on a piece of paper for Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'd serve somebody their drink with my number underneath it. and um but i worked in the bar at night time and then in the morning i worked in a bakery real early in the morning i went there and i and um one night at the bar this couple came in and the lady was like about ready to have a baby and i commented on that and um and uh the next morning i was at the bakery she came into the bakery the next morning she'd just been to the bar the night before and i came out from the back and she said well what are you doing here and i I said, well, I work here in the morning. And then a couple days later, I was at the supermarket working there. I gave out free samples of fake abalone. And I was doing this, and this lady came wheeling around the corner, the pregnant lady, and she stopped and she said, I don't believe this. When I wake up in the hospital, you're going to be the nurse. I know. But, you know, I just did whatever I had to do. I got emotionally. I started feeling better, and I knew I couldn't stay there and I went back to California and I got off the airplane and somebody in Hawaii bought my plane ticket to come back, I didn't have any money I got up in Los Angeles and I thought boy, I really didn't think this thing through did I? I had maybe a dollar in my wallet and I had to stay with people in the group and I was 12 years sober and I didn' t want to do that but I think I needed to do that and I needed to get to know people and women you know let me sleep on their couch and and um you know it was a very it was a difficult time because I didn't think I should be feeling like this and going through this at 12 years sober I thought I've worked so hard all these years and I've gone to meetings and I've given people rides and I had people live at my house and it shouldn't be like this. And and I complained to everybody and talked everybody and again it was I don't know what to tell you just do the basics of Alcoholics Anonymous give people your phone number I barely had a phone number you know I didn't know where I was going to be the next day but I did that I gave up I surrendered again I just surrendered to this it didn't matter if I was 12 years sober it doesn't matter from 26 years sober I just have to do the basics and so I I made it through that you know that situation that time and and I was telling dick before when I left that I was about 38 years old and I left with two suitcases and that was it and um and when I came back it was like I had these two suit cases and my kids were with their dad and and it was like this whole new beginning for me and you know I didn't want I didn t want to fight over a lamp or whatever it's just like I'm taking these two suitcases and that's it and I have more now than I've ever had and I have a great life and you know none of that really it just doesn't matter a couple months ago Ed and I were living in Minnesota for ten years and he got a job offer there and we went there and liked it for a long time and we have these great people in our life and then it just it's just awfully cold in minnesota and um and uh so we the last couple years we've been talking about moving um back to sunny california and um thing you know i've also come to to the point in my life where i don't want to force anything or manipulate anything it's just like i was i'll say god would you know this is in your hands if there's a way show us the way that's all or just guide me And then I'd just forget about it. It wasn't like, I've got to move back and I'm unhappy here. It was just like we thought about it and then a couple months ago in July I was going out to California to babysit with my grandchildren and before I left I said, well why don't we just put the house up for sale and see what happens? And then i said, I've always kind of wanted to live on a houseboat and Ed said, well go get one then. So I did. And I just found a house boat And then I went to a pay phone, and I called him up and said I bought the houseboat. And so it's a new experience, and it's just like I've always had this dream of living near the water, on the water. Not on it. I mean, we're on the Water now, and it is really small. It is 26 feet long, and 10 feet wide, but it is on the Water. And when I moved, I was packing, and I gave away 32 big bags of crap that I bought impulsively. and um i got a credit card delivered to me in minnesota for a department store and i needed a vacuum cleaner and i went to the store to buy the vacuum cleaner but before i got to that department i saw this really beautiful mirror i wanted so i bought the mirror then i walked on farther and i saw some shoes and then i walk down farther i saw them kids clothes for all the kids i know i wanted to buy them clothes then i went back to the department and they said you have to order it mail order so I went back there and I ordered it and I drove home with my car full of this stuff and the phone rang and it was the department store and they said you don't have enough credit to buy the vacuum cleaner so that's why I still need to be here going to meeting I mean that wasn't that long ago so so we I gave away like 32 bags of stuff that I absolutely needed at the time because it was on sale and it's like something you can't pass up and then we left a lot of furniture in the house a guy had sponsors bought the house and two other AA guys moved into it and that's really great and then I gave stuff away and packed up a 14-foot truck and moved on out there and I found out you did I mean I just don't need all that stuff and so you know we've been out there about a month or so it's good to be back in the in in where I got sober and I talked to the people of Minnesota every day and have trips planned back there has just enriched my life and it's like here I have so many people here that I've met around the country and your end that are a part of my life in that that I love and and my life is full it's just very very full And if I just stay out of the way and go to do my AA thing in the meantime, you know, everything is okay. Thanks again for inviting us here this weekend. And you're doing a great job, Al, doing a Great Job. And I was the one that made the microphone squeak last night because I knew you were really concerned, so I just squeezed the cord down there a little bit. i was testing i wanted to see if he like you know had some serenity about him so um i'm having a great weekend this is it's it's wonderful for me to be here thanks all of you