White Knuckling the First Nine Months of Sobriety – Ann P.

Hi, my name is Ann and I'm an alcoholic. And it's good to be in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd like to welcome all the people here for the first roundup. I also would like to congratulate that young man for receiving the big book tonight. And I hope you read it and I hope you stay around AlcoholicsAnonymous because I'm going to tell you you are in for an adventure of your life. Just hang tough and I love what Charlie said if they just stay sober and don't die and become an old-timer in alcoholic synonymous. I just love that. It is so good to be here, and I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me here this weekend. I feel like I want to start talking real fast because I get real nervous, and you won't even be able to keep up with me. I'll feel like there's a train chasing me here. I also would like to think Bill for taking me out at the airport and being real patient with me. He kept writing letters and sending me stamp address envelopes to send back to him, and he never heard from me. I just don't write. And so I told him that too. I said, I don't write. Sorry, but I got here. It's really, really neat, and everybody has just been wonderful. And I had a real great day today with Diane, and I just feel real honored. And like Diane said, to be asked to do anything an Alcoholics Anonymous is really a privilege. It's really good to be with my friend Franklin. Franklin always tells me that when I get to a podium of Alcoholics Anonymous please don't scratch your nose, no pick your nose or scratch your butt because he's very well known in these parts of the country and I want you to know that I spent some time with Franklin and he spent some time in my room and I had to call security in the middle of the night because he tried to attack me with a dead weapon you get the opportunity to spend some time with Franklin please spend some time with Frank Franklin Franklin's got a lot of wisdom and I just love him I just love him to death I met have the privilege of meeting Franklin many years ago in my early sobriety and and I've just loved to be with this old man he's just he's sober longer than God you know that's enough of that I came to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1967 and I was 23 years of age when I came to Alcoholics anonymous and I looked around AA and I want you to know that everybody was really old I mean they were old they were 35 and older and I I most certainly did not want to. They looked like they had one foot in the banana peel and the other foot in a grave, and I thought, my God, life is over, and I most certainly cannot be an alcoholic. I didn't know anything about projection, but I immediately projected into being 40, and I though, I've got to sit in these hard chairs until I'm 40 years of age? You gotta be kidding! And so I left Alcoholics Anonymous. I graduated. I failed to hear that in between that one meeting that I went to for a week was that you were not to drink you don't drink in between meetings and so i went out and i started drinking again and i drank for eight more months and i'm truly truly grateful for that eight months and i don't consider that i had a slip because i never got sober and so I didn't have a slip i just was not ready to do what was asked of me here in Alcoholics Anonymous but there was a gal in that meeting that had taken me to those meetings her name was Carolyn C and Carolyn kept calling me in that eight months and she called me every two weeks or three weeks or whatever time it was. She would give me a call and I would tell her, I just had a cup of drinks today. And she would say to me, I'm not interested in your drinking. I want to be your friend. And God, I longed for a friend. But the price to be her friend meant I would have to come to these lousy AA meetings and I wasn't an alcoholic. And I grabbed the phone and I think, I bet she wants to be my friend the only reason she wants to be my friend is she wants you to go to those AA meetings and I'm not an alcoholic and so I decided what it was a recruiting thing I would recruit somebody for you and get you off my case so I called this friend of mine in Long Beach and I said I mean you're an alcoholic and you ought to go alcoholics anonymous and she said okay so I call this other gal back and I say I found somebody for you and she said good i'll come and get both of you and that wasn't part of the deal it really wasn't a part of deal but this gal had a whole year and a half sobriety and i couldn't say no to her so she came and got both of us that night and she took us to anaheim to the anahea club out there in california and after the meeting there was another girl there and she's still sober and sue had got sober very young so about 26 years of age and sue came up to me after that meeting And she said, Annie, when are you coming back? And I said, I'm not an alcoholic. She is. Look at her. And I walked out of that meeting. And, you know, you'll hear it here in Alcoholics Anonymous that God works in strange and mysterious ways and God works strange and mysterious ways in my life. And every time I picked up a drink, I would hear that woman say, When are you going to come back? And it didn't take too long for alcohol to take its toll on me. And in that eight months, I lost everything. And I'm now talking about material things because I didn't have any material things. I'm talking about everything inside of me. There wasn't very much to begin with. I didn' t get a real good start in life, but it was all gone. Alcohol used it up. And I came back to you eight months later on June 16th, 1968. I weighed 85 pounds. I was now in the Tricia's and my liver was shot. And I come back in here and there was nowhere else for me to go. And I didn''t know what you had here. I had no idea what you hade here at the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. all I knew was that I didn't want any more of what I had and the last year I've been having some problems with uh well it's okay now but I in the early part of this year I was having some physical problems and so I went I changed doctors and I ended up with this doctor and ran a whole bunch of tests on me and my liver was very damaged from alcohol and so they ran some tests on me and I didn t fail to mention that because it was a new doctor and I just don t even think about to be honest with you and i didn't mention i was a member of aa or you know so there was something wrong with my liver and she came up and she said uh you know this doesn't usually happen we're going to have to run some more tests because your liver is not functioning and so then i just told her i said i'm a member va and i have to sober a long time and she says well this only happens before i told her as a member she said this only happened with people who are hard drinkers or heavy drinkers she did not use the word alcoholism and so she said if you drink she said you could die from this and I looked at her and I said no shit I mean really give me some information here that I don't already know you know I mean when you people told me many years ago that I can die from this disease I bought it you know i know that i can die from the disease you know there's a little yellow streak in the back of my back that gets whiter every year you know yeah i've watched some of my friends go back out there and do it you now i've watch them do it and what some of those new people that come in and they cannot seem to get it, and I don't know why. And it's not for me to question why, except that I got a great lesson in it, and they have to go back out there and drink until they die. So when I came back to you, so I'm not worried about my liver, I just figure if I don' t drink, I'll be fine one day at a time. The Publishers of Alcoholics Anonymous, I can do anything. And so when I cam back in here on June 16th, like I told you, I came in here not with an attitude of gratitude. i came in here very angry and that was the only emotion i knew was a lot of anger and i can tell you stand here before you tonight and i kan tell you that you can stay sober under the best circumstances and under the worst circumstances and you can say sober being angry and alcoholics anonymous i stayed sober being for a long time and i came here in my first year of sobriety i walked around and gave everybody the finger and i cursed you up one side and down the other and in my whole group I used to tell him that God sent me to teach them patience and tolerance and they used to look at me and think my god maybe he did you know and uh they knew when I walked into a meeting and I hear them talk about these I am truly truly grateful to the people that were there for me when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and you know in the last year there's been a lot of stuff happening in my life and and because we continue to grow and continue to change here. All of those people, I always seem to have a tendency to run back to those people that were there for me when I was new in Alcoholics Anonymous. I need those people because they remember me when and they've seen the changes. And I'm really, really grateful to those people because these were people who talked about the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and they talked about The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholic Anonymous and they talk about cleaning house. And i want you to know that I had one of the cleanest houses in west minister until they found out what i was doing and they said that's not the kind of house cleaning we have in mind for you you know yeah they also talked about these 12 steps and i wondered where they were you know i would sit in meetings and i think where are those steps and how often am i going to have to run up and down them i thought that was part of the punishment for being an alcoholic you know and i don't know how to share me with you any other way but to share what i found in the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous and i want you to know the steps have changed for me through the years the same steps I worked last year most certainly will not work for me this year because I'm not the same person I was last year and I believe that and I ran into a meeting and this man named Jerry Folek and I just got to be I hadn't seen Jerry or Gloria in about four years and and I became a real part of their family and when I was very new in the program I spent a lot of time with Jerry and Gloria and I got to his father-in-law just died of cancer and last week in fact it was on Wednesday of this week this past week and i got to go to marty and marty had 40 some odd years in sobriety and i Got to go over there and I got to cut Martin's hair and I Got to cut his wife's hair and I've got to give back one more time to people that gave to me you know i will never be able to give back to you all the stuff you've given to me through the years here in Alcoholics Anonymous but i ran into jerry and i ran up to that meeting when i was about four months sober and I demanded to know where the steps were. I mean, I didn't ask, I demanded. And I said, where are those steps, Jerry? And how often do I have to run up and down them? And Jerry kind of looked at me real strange but in those days everybody looked at my face and they looked at you real strange, you know? I mean... You know, I used to wear them I used call me Crazy Annie and they used to call me crazy Annie right to my face. They didn't go behind my back and say here she comes, she's crazy. They said here, crazy Annie. And, you now, I mean they weren't hiding it. I used wear my hair sparkling sherry it's this mixed sparkly sherry and flame together and I had bright red hair and I had a real loud mouth and so they saw me when I came in and then the mouth would go and so Jerry looked at me real strange he said Annie you go to a lot of meetings and he said if you listen he said tonight he said you listen to when those chapter five is read he said and you will hear those steps he said interview work those steps the best of your ability in your life he guaranteed me he said I guarantee you your life will change and I sat there and I listen to those steps and i understand so well today when the old-timer tells the newcomer bring the body the mind will follow because i was six years sober and alcoholics anonymous when all of me came here i'll never forget it was the first miracle i ever had that was a spiritual awakening i was sitting at the garden growth club and all of a sudden i pinched myself and i said i'm here and my mind was here my body was here and i heard the five and i hear chapter three and i heard those traditions and i read what the man was saying from the podium and i thought that's what they mean bring the body and the mind will follow because i would come to a meeting in the first five minutes i'd be there and then after all of a sudden i would be tripping out there somewhere else and so and i keep coming back because i have to stay try and stay in that state of mind when i'm an alcoholic synonymous i got a short memory and so i listened to those steps and the first step says we admit we're powers of alcohol and our lives become unmanageable now i could admit i was powers of alchohol i did not come to alcoholics synonymous because i drank too much coffee i never drank the bloody stuff until i got here you know but i could not admit my life was unmanageable i never managed my life i roared right through it you know it's what i did and i thought about something i went and did it nice up the consequences of it later i have learned since coming to alcoholics anonymous that i should have gone into management i would have been marvelous at it and i have to go because i manage my husband i manage my kids kids and i manage all those girls i sponsor and i had to go back and remember but my life is unmanageable and I've got no business managing anybody else's life. And the second step says that we came to believe that our power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity and I came to belief when I was nine months sober because for the first nine months of my sobriety, I sat out there and I white knuckled it and every time I went to a meeting and you talked about drinking, I wanted to drink. I was totally obsessed with drinking and I could taste it and I was thirsty and I would think why do they talk about drinking? Don't they know that I want to drink? Every time they mention alcohol, I want a drink and i would sit there and my hair would stand on my neck and i would white knuckle it and when i was nine months sober i lost the obsession for alcohol the obsession for alcohol was removed from me and i really believe that was when i took the second step in Alcoholics Anonymous because i really believed that for me to pick up a drink would be totally insane for me today and god again removed that obsession from me i've had a lot of bizarre behavior here in Alcoholic Synonymous but not insane enough to pick a drink and the third step they want me to make a decision i don't know about you and your decision making when you got to alcoholics anonymous i could not make a division and when i got to alcoholics known so they want to make me a decision to turn my will in my life over to care of something i can't feel or touch now if he was tall dark and handsome had a nice car i could make a decision real fast you know but if you're new here tonight you're going to find out that you've joined a group of very narrow-minded people and uh that's not the kind of higher power they had in mind for me and the kind higher power that had in mine for me was not a man and so i could not make a decision and but i knew that those meetings i was going to that those people there was something happening in those meetings so i made a decision at that time determine my will of my life over the care of those people in that meeting not one individual but all of those people in a meeting because they were doing something with their lives or i couldn't possibly do and that worked for me until i was about two and a half years sober and when i was two and a half year sober they took me to orange county psycho and i said you don't have to go to a psycho ward at two and half years over but i could not surrender and i could knock and that this is all his thing of surrendering and letting go and i had surrendered my alcoholism when i got here but i couldn't surrender all of me and at that time in life i found something within me that my life has never been the same i got in touch with that power within me and i really believed that that was when I did the third step in its entirety now I'd like to give you the illusion that God and I have walked hand-in-hand all these years and I hate to disappoint you because I like to go sightseeing and so I kind of get a little stray here every now and then you know anybody always brings me back to the center of where I'm supposed to be and so i know where my sort of source of power comes from today and I know that my life is okay when I center myself back into that power that is within me not out there but within me and my once or told me that for years all you got to do is turn within and you will have touched with that power within yourself now they want me to take a fourth step and I wasn't going to take the fourth step that was for those of you who drank for 15 or 20 years you're much sicker than those of us only drank for 10 and you really definitely needed a fourth and fifth step and now I let them know that too and I figured I was going to be an exception to the rule I was not going to do the fourth and first step and it was a guy in my home group and I think every home group has one and his name was John Brown and John Brown was a great big guy and his wife was my sponsor at the time and he's one of these AAs that like to get in your face you know those kind yeah those kind that got their finger going like this and he comes right up to me when I was about eight or nine months sober and uh he looked at me and he said hey kid he said you're gonna have a birthday pretty soon aren't you and I said yes I am John he said have you done the fourth and fifth step and I says no I haven't John and I'm not going to and he says if you're not going do the fourth or fifth step he said the night of your birthday he said I'm going to announce it all over Huntington Beach for them not to listen to you that you're not working the steps of alcoholics in our elements i want you to know i took my first inventory under pressure i am i was pressured into that inventory it wasn't an inventory that i did with because i wanted to do it i was terrified and i just knew that that was the reason why they call me crazy annie and i knew that they know that i was crazy because i wasn't working the lousy steps in alcoholics and ornaments and so i went home that night and I went out to 50 drugs the next day and I picked up all this stuff. I picked off a lot of paper and I took up a lot at their pens and I didn't drive for the first four and a half years of my sobriety because I couldn't take that stupid little test. And I want to tell you, I don't know if you've got the same problem here but we have it in our area where people come in and they say I don' t have a car and so I can't get to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous or the D&D has taken my license and I can' t drive and I could only get away to Alcoholics Aanolimus. i never had a problem getting to a meeting of alcoholics anonymous nor did i have a problem getting home from the meeting of alcoholic synonymous and if you're new here tonight and you've got that problem i'm going to tell you how i'm gonna solve it for you because i solved it for myself when i came to alcoholics synonymous i found out real early that we're full of guilt we're loaded with guilt just loaded with it and uh so they give you a list of names used to give a list names in my home group and and i used to go down that thing and i'd know who was sober a few days longer than me or a few days less than me. And I would go down that list and I would say, if you don't come and pick me up and I die from this disease, it's going to be your fault. So I never had a problem getting to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Nor did I have a problem get home from a meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous, so I want to tell you, don't try that with old-timers, okay? Because somewhere along the line, you know, as you stay sober in Alcoholics Anonymous we lose that guilt. We start working on it. And i tried it with an old-timer and he told me I could walk or ride my bike or take a bus, you know. But he wasn't going to come and pick me up. But you get those newcomers and they're so full of guilt, you now, because you're full of guilty too. And so they will come and get you. So I never had a problem getting to a meeting. So I got over to Lois' house and I sat down at our kitchen table and I handed her all this paper and I gave her this paper and I give her these pens and she kind of looked at me and she said, what is all this for? And I said, well, I'm going to tell you all about it when you start writing. And, you kno, I picked the most narrow-minded people in the world. i got them all in my home group and uh so she said to honey i've done my inventory and i said now you get to do mine and uh we argued and argued and uh and so i the only thing i could come back was you're supposed to do that that's your sponsor you're not supposed to doing she said not this sponsor you know i look back on that time of my life and i realized that for the first time in my life i was going to start being disciplined for the First Time in My Life I Was Going To Be Start Made Do Things So I Didn't Want To Do If I Could Have Found One Of You To worked the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, I would have made you do it. I tried desperately to get somebody to work these 12 steps. I didn't want to do it, I wanted someone else to do it. That way I wouldn't have to be responsible when it all got screwed up. It would have been your fault not mine because I was a great blamer. I blamed everybody and I'm glad today that you didn't work those steps for me because I really believe that I tailor-made a program that fits Annie and it fits Annie real well and I like the way my program is today and my program probably wouldn't fit anybody out there in the room but it fits me you know and i've had to take a lot of scenes and i'd have to do a lot of stuff in order for it to fit me they fit me comfortably inside i uh went home that night and i uh the next day i called her for the next couple of weeks and argued with her about this inventory and i swear to god i think she had a machine and she'd say right right right and i just hang up the phone and so finally i had to tell her and i want you to know that this is absolutely nothing to do with my alcoholism nothing to deal with my alcoholism it's got to do with the setting i came from and where i came from and because of people that did not know what was wrong with me and i had couldn't tell her that there was absolutely no way that i could do that inventory and i really really believed i was going to be an exception to that rule because i couldn't read nor could i write when i came to a program of alcoholics anonymous now i know that that has nothing to do with my problem with alcoholism and people like me don't get to be at podiums i don't gets to be sober in alcoholics enormous and i was told lois i said i can't do it and i was a secret that i was going to take to the grave with me because i'd worked real hard and heightened that and it's because of the setting i came from and lois lifted me and she said i don't care how you do it honey but you do it and i made a lot of marks on that inventory and i've taken many many inventories since that inventory and i met a lot of marks and in steps in the twelve and twelve and step six it says the wishful thinking is a character defect And to this day, I wish I had kept that inventory because there is absolutely no comparison to the girl that took that inventory to the woman that stands before you tonight. I graduated in 1983 from high school. Now, I know you're not impressed, but I was impressed. And I want you to know that everybody in Orange County was impressed I was 15 years sober and they were so impressed and they was so grateful that I was not going to go on to college. They just could not take another English class if they had to. and they took a sigh of relief and said thank God she isn't going to go to college we don't have to go through that one with her I do know how to read and I do now how to write today and that has come to me because of Alcoholics Anonymous it took you a long time to calm what was inside of me that was always enraged and always so scared and always so fragile you had to calm it you had nurture it and thank God for the women in AlcoholicsAnonymous they were able to do that for me I am I am truly truly grateful that alcoholism, that alcohol does not choose a victim. It really doesn't care whether you have an education or you don't have an eduction or you're overeducated or you are undereducated. If you have the disease of alcoholism you have to be educated if you have got the disease of alcoholics and because of that there were school teachers that came into my life in that time of my life that took an interest in my case and took me to some of those doctors those educational doctors those psychiatrists and I want you to know that my head has been examined more ways and I care to tell you I've had more things crowded in my brain for them to find out what was wrong with me and they had all kinds I've got tapes I've go all kinds of little certificates little papers what they diagnosed me as and what they came up with is a thing called dyslexia and I see things backwards and they said that I don't perceive things like other people I even tell my story backwards and they tell me that alcoholism is a disease of the perception now you see I come by mine real honestly I don' t know what the rest of you are doing here tonight you know i uh i went to lois with that inventory and i did that inventory with her and i'm absolutely totally positive that she pointed out some of my character defects i want you to know though i had no character defects when i came to alcoholics anonymous no character effects when i came to alcoholic synonymous i didn't know what character defects were you know it's really difficult to have character defects quando you've got no bloody character to start with you know now i want you to know that god has removed those character defects in me that stand in the way of me hurting my fellow man or me hurting me but i want you to note that i got a lot of character defects i wantyou to knowthat for some reason or another god has not rendered me vital snow yet in the program of alcoholics anonymous and there's some ofmy character defects i like because that tells me i'm getting character here in the problem of alcoholic synonymous and god only knows i need some character here i want to share a little one of my character defects and that is i have when i got sober i had a tremendous feeling problem now i don't think we've got any thieves out here in this meeting you all look like you're pretty respectable people and uh and if you've never been a thief you don't know what i'm talking about because if you're never been an alcoholic you don'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT EITHER uh you know the palms of your hands get real sweaty and you start shaking and it used to be just a swallow away now it's just a steal away and uh you kind of get that high it's magic you know and you just start shaking all over and you just got to do it and so i god removed that for me because for many years he took that obsession it was total obsession i never stole anything until i got sober and i want to tell you if you're new here there's somebody in alcoholic synonymous they'll always have an answer for you for that you know they'll almost be able to tell why you're doing what you're doing and when i was 17 years sober i uh quit smoking now i if i was to quit uh drinking like i've done smoking through the years i would never have made alcoholics anonymous and i am now not smoking but i am not stealing yet you know i went to the store today i didn't tell diane that she'd have to watch me but i didn'T walk out with a rack either you know so we're safe i uh when i was 17 years sober i quit smoking for another time and and i ended up there i'm up at the checkout stand and and I get some dentine gum i see the dentine gun i got two hundred dollars in my wallet i want no my head says we're going to take the gum no we're not going to take the gun yes we are going to take the come no we are not going to take a gun yes we are so we take the gum now the gum was all at fifty-five cents right and so I thought my God here we go again you know the next time I steal a stalk of celery and if you learn anything I've I've learned anything here in Alcoholics Anonymous I've learnt to rationalize and justify and I have learned to rationalise real good you see all of those old Catholic things come up even though I think I resolved a lot of them I will tell you that it's a greater sin to waste than it is to steal. And I only needed one stalk of celery to make a tuna salad. I didn't need the whole bloody bunch. So I take the stalk of salary, and Mary Reagan's my sponsor, and I go home and I tell Mary I stole the stalk of celery, and Mary said, You've got to go to the produce man. You've got to make an amends. And I said, No, Mary, I'm not going to the produce man, and you're going to make no amends to the produce man." That step says we made God to another human being the exact nature were wrong then I'm not going to the produce man and making amends to him and she said well you're gonna have to do something about it you know you're not gonna look real good if you get up in front of one of these judges that's an AA in Orange County Court you know and she's gonna really give us a bad name here you've got to take care of this problem and so I uh I shared that somewhere and this little old lady came up to me and she says I'm so grateful that you share that she said I like to steal radishes and I told her I said let's get together after this meeting we'll go steal a whole salad you know so i um went to the to the manager at the store and i told him my problem and uh he said well what do you like to steal and i said i like to still everything and i say would you walk around the store with me i like the shop early in the morning and i said until i get over this obsession it's an obsession and i thought and i will get over i'm working on it you know. So he walked around the story i'm surprised he didn't get the guys that apply coats come and get me because on a thursday morning when i said I don't have it today. I'm okay, you know. I'm safe. You know, I can walk around your store. And so this one day I'm off at the checkout stand and this guy and I are on name basis. His name is Paul. And Paul was talking to me and I said, well, I forgot my gum. And he said, you quit smoking then? I said yeah, I did. He said, I quit drinking. I said you did? And he says, I said I quit smoking some years ago. And he goes, do you know Bill W.? And I said do I know Bill M.? Immediately I knew that you were watching me. Immediately. I want you to know I will never steal again from Alpha Beta as long as I'm sober I just knew that you had set out to watch me so I haven't been stealing I keep turning that one over to God I did go back to smoking but I haven' t been smoking after the last eight months but I have'nt been to too many stores because I'm scared that I will get obsessed with the stealing I think I'm going to have a sexual obsession instead of stealing I think I'll try that one for a change I um so that's one of my character defects I have here folks I uh I'm steps my character defect seven you know shortcomings you know my shortcomings don't show up in Alcoholics Anonymous very much today they did when I was new really new and I've come to meetings when I wasn't new to you and I would tell you all the things I was doing at home and it was absolutely totally insane and you would pat me on the back and you Would say I was Doing okay and I will go home and I'd take my coat off and I would go in that house and I really believed that that was the last place I got to work the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is in my home and I went to that house and I was an absolute screaming raven maniac I stopped chasing my husband with butcher knives when I was four and a half years sober when my three year old came and said mommy I'll get the knife for you you know it was kind of like someone throwing cold water in your face and you start thinking well what's wrong with this program but I'm supposed to be working here you know I'm opposed to getting better you know I'm ready for sainthood and my kid is now going to help me kill her father you know and so i had to take a look at that at that time in my life i made a list of people i'd harmed and i put me on top of that list and you know even today you know it's much easier when you come to me and you tell me some of your slimy sneaky things that you're doing here and i'm able to look at you and i will not judge you and i would direct you to a step and i Will love you and I will know that there's something that you have to learn in this but when i do the same thing i have those expectations because i've got next number of years of sobriety i should be somewhere else and i have to i have to remind myself that this is a spiritual journey and i didn't come to alcoholics anonymous to get good you know when i got here they said you're not here to get good if you want to get goods you go to church you're a sick person trying to get well and there's lots of stuff that needs to be worked on and i had to keep coming here and i'd have to have people like franklin in my life that i can go to and people like diane in my lifestyle i can go to and share some of my things so that i can get some direction and do what God wants me to do the best. You know, and I have to do that. And I have always to remember that I must forgive me. I must forgive me because I'm a human being and I'm going to make human errors here in this life. I like to tell you I take a daily inventory and I don't take a daily inventory. I don' t take a written daily inventory like it says in that step but I want you to know there isn't a day that goes by that I don''t look over my day and I need to promptly admit that I'm wrong. I will promptly admit I'm wrong but there was a time in my sobriety when I was doing Alcoholics Anonymous I could not promptly admit anything. My attitude would screw you and the donkey you rode up on and there was the guy in my home group and I hated him and his name was John E and I hated John Eskey and I just hated him. And I would sit up nights thinking about how I was going to get John Esky and I would pace that floor and I will say he'll say this and I'll say that and we'll go on back and forth and I get down to the meeting and this one night this guy told me he said they don't care. They go home and they go to bed and they go to sleep, and they don't even give you another thought. And that upset me even more. I thought, how dare they go home and go to bed and go asleep? How dare they when I'm up all night long thinking about them? And so I know what the old-timers do today. They like to give resentment, you see. And I like to get resentments today. I really do. You know, I let you stay up all night long, and I go home, and go back and go sleep, but I don't give you any other thought. So I learned that one real good. Step 11, start your prayer meditation to improve my conscious contact with God praying only for the knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out you know that was a real difficult step for me when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I knew what medication was I did not know what meditation was but I listened to those old-timers and they were real quick to tell you in those meetings and they would sit there and they'd tell you how they meditated and for years I used to carry the big book under my arm I used hold it under my arms because it's going to up through my arm and into my head and I was going to get all this wonderful knowledge that's how I was gonna learn all this stuff and I'd sit in this old chair and I close my eyes and they'd say that you close your eyes and and you clear your mind and i could never clear my mind i could not clear my mine and i'd sit in this chair there's all red stuff here i had and i closed my eyes like into all these sexual fantasies far out sexual fantasys i could use some of those today or i'd fall asleep you know i just fall asleep so i had to give up meditation it was affecting my life you know it was not working the way they said it was going to work for me and i went to somebody one day and i asked him i said what is meditation and he said the definition for meditation is in webster's dictionary and the definition of meditation is a higher plane of thinking now when you're eight nine months sober and your mind is still in the gutter it's really difficult to have a higher plan of thinking i'd like to think today do i have a better way to work on that step on a daily basis i can stand here before you tonight and I can tell you for the last two and a half years every single day I do that step because every single day I used to do it five days and give God the weekends off you know and someone said God was probably grateful he got the weekends off and then sometimes I get mad at him and I wouldn't talk to him at all and he probably was glad I didn't talk to them either but I do it regardless of how I'm feeling and I do it every single day for the last two and a half years and I believe what the big book of alcoholics anonymous says because David touched on this today and it says free contingent on my spiritual maintenance and i really believe if i don't expand and i don't grow in that area then i am doomed to go out there one more time and i have to continue to do that because i believe what it says and it says in the abc's that no human power could relieve us of our alcoholism but god couldn't would have you a sock so i must continue to seek god i must consider to do this and i'm going to continue to do it and i will continue to do that here in Alcoholics Anonymous i come to you because when i come to you you really bring my spirit and you really replenish it and I am no longer thirsty when i keep coming back because i gotta keep coming back to give back to you what you so freely gave to me many years ago the 12 step haven't had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we try to carry this message to alcoholics and the practices principles in all our affairs i want you to know that the newcomer is the lifeblood of alcoholics anonymous without the newcomers there will be no alcoholics anonymous but i want you to know do i need the old timer in alcoholics anonymous and you saw the countdown here tonight And there's not many old-timers in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I need the old-timer in Alcoholic Anonymous to let me know do I want to go through the things that I'm going to get through and I'm gonna stay sober because, you see, when I was new, I had this illusion. And this illusion was that if you had X number of years in sobriety, you got it all together. And my sponsor said she got it altogether once and she forgot where she put it. So you don't get to get it all altogether. It just gets different and you're able to deal with it in a different way. and i need that old timer to let me know that i can get through some of those things because you see i thought i would never feel again and i thought that nothing would ever happen again and things happen our children go wrong we get divorced and people die and people leave and we must not drink here because for me to drink is for me today and i don't want to die because i'm now finally catching on what living is all about and i must stay here closer to you here in alcoholics anonymous i told you i do everything backwards and now i'm going to give you a real quick run through of what it used to be like and i give you a lot of information already but i want to tell you what it needs to really be like for annie and i go back to being very young and i went back to them when i was about six years of age and i simply tell you this part of my life simply because i really believe that i was getting ready for alcohol way before i ever picked it up i really believed for me if i had not found alcohol i would have been absolute stark raven mad alcohol saved my sanity until i found the program of alcoholics anonymous and through you people and the 12 steps of alcoholic synonymous and a god of my understanding you've made me a whole person here and i am i'm irish and catholic that gave me two strikes against me right off the bat and i'm not one of those irish has never seen the skies of ireland i lived there for 17 years of my life and uh i'm just i come from a large family i'm a family of 10 i'm the eight child out of ten and my father's an alcoholic and i don't know that my father is an alcoholic until i come to alcoholics anonymous and i start listening to you people and i started putting all this data together and my follow would get drunk on a friday night or saturday night you go to flanagan's and you come home and he would beat on my mother and that is a custom in my country it's nothing i mean it went on all over it wasn't just at our house i used to think it was just at our house it's just that's the way it was it's a tradition you can't keep that woman in shape and uh my father even sent my husband a big blackthorn stick to beat me you know i thought the other way at our house i beat him worked against him my father would be to my mother and i remember as a child i'd be upstairs in that room and i put the pillow over my head and i would be praying to that god i was absolutely terrified of and i will be asking him please let him kill her or maybe she will die or maybe i will die and i get the next morning i had all these things going on inside of me and what they were was guilt remorse and i was a bad child for thinking all these bad things of my parents now i went to catholic school not because you're rich simply because that's all there is in a part of ireland i came from and people have asked me how come you didn't get an education i used to say it's because i had irish frustrated irish nuns i want you to know that i used that psychiatrist cry about some of the horrible things that happened to me as a young child and going to Catholic school in Ireland. I was sitting with Mary Reagan one day and I was telling Mary about all these terrible, terrible things that happen to me. And Mary looked at me and she said, honey, you really had it bad. She said, you know, I had German nuns and they were trained by hitler so do you see this all with somebody in alcoholics anonymous is going to have a little bit worse than you i am the big book of alcoholics synonymous says that the brainstorms are not for us and i had my first brainstorm in the second grade i decided i was so tired of this none hit me every morning i went for catechesis and every morning I could not remember because there was so much commotion and so much stuff that went on in that house it was a very small house and it was a lot of anger and it Was a lot of emotion in that how and I could not I would shut off and because of my dyslexia and because of my fear level I was riddled with fear for years and years and years well into my sobriety fear controlled my life and I decided that I was going to get this none this particular morning and I went into the classroom and I sat down and she asked me a question it was kind of a little pillar hole in this room where I was sitting kind of whole and I couldn't answer and she grabbed a hold of me and pulled me out from that seat and I was fighting her and she pulled me up and I up and hit her like any little second grader can hit somebody across the face there's a glass petition in this particular classroom and mother superior happened to be teaching there that day and she just happened to turn her head and she just happened see me hit her and I stood there in front of 30 kids and mother superior and said i didn't do it you know it wasn't me and i was to do that until i came to alcoholics anonymous and it didn't matter what i got caught doing i would stand and i would look at you and i would say i didn's do it because i could not take responsibility for me i could NOT take responsibility for my actions or my behavior they took me out of there and moved me to another grade and i assumed i was going to have to pray and I always say three weeks and it probably was a week but it felt like three weeks to me and I was kneeling on these hardwood floors in front of these two big statues and I got tired of kneeling on these hardware floors because they had great big knots in the wood and I went back up and I had apologized to that class. I remember standing in front all those kids in that classroom. I remember Sister having that round pointer and she's kind of nudging it in my back. I remember lowering my eyes as she hit me real hard to say it out loud and I remember saying I'm sorry but I remember something else happening inside of me and what happened inside of me was you against me. And it was always you against me from that time on. I left school, and my memories of school was stuck in dentist's corners and put with big Ds in her hat and put outside the door. And I remember this one nun beating the heck out of me one day, and she said, we are going to break her spirit. And you know, they almost did break my spirit. And I left that school. I was 13 years of age, and I went to work in a factory. And that's what we do in my country. And I had all those hopes and dreams every other girl had. I wasn't going to find me a nice irish fella and get married and have kids and i want you to know that i am truly truly grateful that god doesn't answer stupid prayers you know i found boys and i found alcohol all in the same week and my first drink was half a bottle of cognac and this guy told me if i drank this half a bowl of cognic he would give me a pound note which was equivalent to three dollars in your money at that time and the deal was i was to drink this half ball of cognak and i wasn't to stop and i drank that half a ball of coniac and i didn't stop and I went into the bathroom and i got very very very sick and i threw up and i came back out and i said give me my money i would have sold my soul at 13 for three dollars and i went up to the bar and i ordered me another drink because if you know anything about my country and you know everything about our customs if you don't know how to name it they will serve it to you and i would ask and i order me another drink and i continue to drink and I can tell you exactly what happened for me and what happened for me was that knock that was in the pit of my gut from the time I was six years of age was no longer there and it didn't matter whether my father beat on my mother. It didn't matter whether I had no education. It doesn't matter where there is no food in that house. I found the secret to living. Now, I didn't drink every day from that time on but I drank at every opportunity from that timeline. By the time I was 17 years of age, my father made a decision for me had absolutely nothing to do with this decision. He decided I should come to California because the streets were paved with gold. Now I've been almost 29 years in California and I'm still looking for those streets paved with gold and uh my aunt took me up to Dublin and uh I do have some people in my family that know how to take care of these kind of things and fill out all these papers and got me ready to come to this country and I remember and I didn't know that this was alcoholic thinking at this time either I knew that once I got away from this family it was going to be different and that's alcoholic thinking it was always going to be different somewhere else now if I could have left me home I would have had a wonderful time but i brought me with me you know and me always got into trouble and so i uh and i remember i was never going to tell a soul i was irish ever gonna tell us all i was irish again in my life nobody was ever going to find out that i was irish i had a broke like i stepped off the boat but nobody was going to know it i was irish now i want you to know i like being irish i really do i really like being irish today because i really believe if i wasn't first irish you could hold your meetings in a phone booth. I know that a lot of you will kind of object to that. You don't have to be Irish in order to become a member, it just helps. My sponsor told me that the reason why God creates whiskey was he's afraid the Irish are going to take over the world so he thought he'd kind of stop them a little bit. I remember getting on that plane and I remember drinking champagne and I remember the feeling and the feeling was freedom. I wanted to be free. I wanted to feel more than anything in my life. I didn't know that That feeling of freedom was false freedom from alcohol. And I was never to feel that feeling again until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And it didn't happen for me in my first 90 days. My freedom has come very, very slow here in the program of AlcoholicsAnonymous. I came and I stayed with family up in Palos Verdes and I was really impressed. I was very impressed with this family. I was impressed with her home and I Was impressed with her bar in our house, she had a beautiful bar. And these were people I did go back and I did make an amends to. They were very, very good people to me and they loved me very, very much they just didn't know what to do and they were very grateful that I found the fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous. They didn't have what hit them when I arrived at their house and I used to drink this woman's 108 pure vodka and then I'd fill a bottle up with water and she could never understand how come she couldn't get a buzz on what she was drinking that good water that she was buying and these people were good to me. This woman wanted to go to school and I remember her taking me down to Redona Beach High and I remember I used shake a lot and when I drank and got drunk, I used to break out in wells. I was really allergic to alcohol. And I used it to break up in these big wells all over and I'd have to sit in baths of cool water to try and get these wells off my body. And I was shaken a lot. But when you've got a lot of secrets and you're hiding and you lie and you cheat and you've gotta hide a lot of stuff and you don't want anyone to know anything about you and that's the freedom I have here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't go down alleys anymore. I'm free today. My life's an open book today. If there's anything you want to know about my life, I will be glad to tell you because i don't want to have to hide things today not the fellowship of alcoholics nuns i've lived that way i know how to live that way and this woman i couldn't tell her that i couldn't read and i couldn'T write and i COULDN'T TAKE MESSAGES FOR HER AND SHE TOOK ME DOWN RENAUMA BEACH HIGH AND I REMEMBER STANDING OUTSIDE THAT OFFICE AND I COULDEN'T GO IN BECAUSE I WAS TERRIFIED AT MY PEERS AND I COULDN'T BE IN THAT OFFice AND I couldn'T FILL OUT THOSE PAPERS AND i STANDED AT THAT DOOR AND I CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT I'VE EXPERIENCED I'VED GONE INTO A CATATONIC STATE of mine with absolute sheer fear that someone was going to find out something about me and I slid down that door and that woman looked at me and she said you don't have to do this and I didn't have to go through this. And I ran around Redondo Beach Pier and ran around people use a lot of hard drugs and I never got involved in drugs and i really believe the only reason i didn't get involved in drug is simply because i was absolutely totally terrified that if i was caught i would be deported back to Ireland where my father'd meet me at Dublin airport and kill me first and ask questions later my father caught me smoking when I was 10 years of age and as I stand there and he's running that cigarette down my mouth I mean literally putting it down my throat and I'm telling him I'm not smoking and he took a dog leash to me and he whipped me and he kicked me and my mother ran in and she said Jack you're going to kill her and he said yes I'm going to care for her she's no good and never will be any good and they couldn't let me out of that house for a couple of weeks because I was so badly beaten I was black and blue I was whipped like a dog that's what I was and I don't know what they would have done to them but i wasn't allowed out of that house for a couple weeks and that memory stayed with me and i knew that if i was deported out of this country that that man would meet me at the airport and he would kill me first and ask questions later and i moved on uptown at that time of life i want you to know today i had a shower and i just said feels real good and i tell you this because i don't ever want to forget there was a time in my life that i didn't take showers and today my hair is all fixed and today My makeup fell in the right place my eyebrows are not on my cheek and i you know i'm clean i'm keen today and that's not the way it has always been for any and god don't ever let me forget don't never let me regret because i don't want to be condemned to relive any minute of my past and i used to walk along catalina avenue and i walk along catalina avenues and i give all the cars a finger and i cussed with everybody and i didn't fit and was a horrible feeling of not fitting i could not seem to fit anywhere i didn'y fit with you americans because all you ever talked about was education i didn''t have any education so how could I sit with you and now whether you talked about it or not in my mind that's what I heard and I didn't want anything to do with the Irish because all they did was change addresses and I did not want to be an Irish anyway and so I walked along Catalina Avenue to wear rubber go-aheads and a pair of jeans that were way before they were fashionable and a t-shirt and I used to carry a paper sack now I don't know if you have any Ripple drinkers here but I used drink Ripple I drank everything and anything anybody ever bought me but when I bought, I drank Ripple. And if you've never got drunk on Ripple, I guarantee you've missed a trip. It was 37 cents a bottle and it came in a long neck bottle. And you could get two drunks for the price of one when you drank Ripper because the next day all you do is drink water and you get drunk all over again. And I walk along to Catalina Avenue and I took the message here that there's a set run around with Mexicans. Now I don't know if you know anything about Mexicans down in this part of the country but we have them California. And my best friend, the President of Alcoholics Anonymous is Angie and I know probably some of you have heard Angie. Angie and i have been friends for 19 years and we talked to each other every Monday morning. She calls one week and I call her the next week and we talk every at least for an hour every week and they were very very close and she's really my sister. I love her very very much and Angie and our years ago sat down and we kind of dissected the two nationalities and what we came up with. The only difference between the Irish and Mexicans is that we ate potatoes and they ate beans, you know. They drink hard, love hard, and beat the hell out of you on Saturday night whether you need it or not. And I got involved with different Mexicans over there in Torrance, La Mida, and I learned to speak Spanish like a native to their tongue. And I'd long left these people, and I couldn't hold a job. And these people... This guy drank in the morning. I only drank inthe afternoon, and he introduced me to the morning drink. And it was a very, very exciting time in my life. It was getting beat up and jumping out of cars. And it were just really exciting times that we get into all of this wonderful stuff that we give up in order to become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And so Norm Alpers, God rest his soul, Norm always says that when you drink, don't think. And I got to thinking one day, I was taking several geographics from the top of the hill all the way over to Gardena and I got the thinking, and half again on the Red Mountain, I got thinking that this guy ought to marry me. And I hitchhiked a ride over to Torrance, LaMita and I found him. And I want you to know, you could smell me way before you could see me and I proposed to him. And he laughed at me and he laughed and said he wouldn't marry me if I was handed to him on a silver platter. And I don't know how you handle rejection, I don' t handle it real well. And my next thought was, I'm going to kill you son of a bitch because one less Mexican in this world, we'll all be better off. And so I've always been able to do a lot of things under a lot of false courage behind booze. And I got him in the car and I got them on the Harbor freeway and I turned the wheel of the car in the Harbor Freeway and I took 25 feet of guardrail and went down 30 feet in the bank and I thought I killed me a Mexican. Now, what I learned out of that, folks, they said, you want to kill one Mexican, you've got to kill the whole family. You know? For some reason or another, they don't take too kindly to you messing with the people even if they do call you any of the Irish-Mexicans. I also learned that when you run with Mexican people, you don't ever yell cop. And I yelled cop one time and I was downtown Long Beach and I used a phone booth. Used a phone boost in California and they don'T have it anymore and I WAS IN THAT PHONE BOOTH AND KICKED ME AND I YELLED UNCLE. Now, you see, I HAVE NO LEISURES, NOT SOMETHING MISSING HERE IN MY HEAD. NORMAL PEOPLE GO HOME and they get away from things like this I crawl out of that phone booth I go to the bar again and I said let's have a drink and we'll discuss this you know I learned in that inventory that I will stay somewhere forever because I'm absolutely totally terrified of being abandoned I'm ultimately totally terrified I've been left alone and I've had to learn how to experience those feelings here at Alcoholics Anonymous when I was new and people would come into my life and they would go out of my life to do what they had to do and I will go through that terrible feeling of being abandoned here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I know today that you did not abandon me. I now today that what you do is there's a bond formed here and if you were to come back into my life, you will come back into my life. And I ended up with, there was another thing that had gone for me at this time in my life was that I antagonized the talks about my type of personality in the 12 and 12 and Step 8. In fact, I bring it out to find a courage to give back to other people. I was very good at that and I still am very good at that i don't mean to do it but i do it and uh i ended up i wanted somebody to hit me and they hit me hard enough to kill that part of me that kept screwing up and i learned here in alcoholics anonymous if you kill that part of you you kill all of me because that's the part of me that you love here in alcoholic synonymous i ended up in arizona with this man and i ended up one more time it seems a best period of my life all i did was just drunk i couldn't hold a job and i was just drunk all the time and i ended up here i was drunk and i got loud mouth and i said things i shouldn't have said one more time to this guy's wife and i don't even remember what i said and i went out to her back seat to the car to pass out and four mexican men came out after me and they pulled me out of the back to their car and it worked me over and it works me over good and there's one guy so we'll go get the truck and we run over her and the guy gets to get the track and as these three guys that got me down on the third road it was in prescott Arizona and as the truck comes and the headlights are coming and these three guys jump and they ran until this day I don't know where I got the sense to roll off that dirt road but I rolled off that third road and my face looks like that truck is running over here and I'm somewhere in Arizona I get up off of that dirt world and I walk along the road and I don' t know how I'm ever going to get back to Los Angeles and I need a drink god I need to drink another type of drunk I live by full mailboxes a rough market or some sign and the guy comes along and he picks me up and we go to a liquor store and we pick up a bottle of wine and we're going to a dirty motel and that's how I learned to solve my problems. I have no idea how to solve my problems until I come to Alcoholics Anonymous. When I came to Alcoholic Anonymous you talked a great deal about dying. I know what it's like to die. I know what it is what it looks like to die when you're out there sitting in meetings and they tell you that you have to let go of all your old ideas and I would literally just die inside. I said, my God, I can't let go of all my old ideas because I knew where my old ideals took me. I did not know where your new ideas are going to take me. I will ever be truly grateful to those people in Alcoholics Anonymous that knew how far down that scale I had gone, that knew that they would have to spin through the AlcoholicsAnonymous in order for me to say, I am truly grateful that I tried your new idea and I tried them because I would have missed a whole lot, but it took a long time. You just don't come out of a dark room when all of a sudden you start to trust people here in Alcoholic Anonymous. But I also know it's like to die when you're out there drinking. I ended up in this little room over in Gardena and I used to call it my 4x4 and I want you to know the only time I was ever free of what was going on inside with me was under the influence of alcohol. I was absolutely, totally terrified. Absolutely terrified. And I would start drinking and get up the courage to go down the hall to take a shower. I used say it was a 4x5 and I had a hot plate and I didn't know how to think and I'd cockroaches and I was gilding in and that room was $50 a month and I couldn't make that $50 a month to pay for that room and we had to go down the halls to take the shower and I could not get down the halls to take show because I was plagued with this terrible fear. And I would fly and I'd start drinking to get the courage to go down the hall to take a shower and I would always overshoot the mark. And I'd never get down the aisle to take the shower. I remember one night lying in this bed in this room and I remember sucking off a vodka bottle and I remembered screaming as loud as anybody could scream saying, God, please send me somebody to understand. I want one lousy person to understand me. I didn't ask for rooms full of people to understand I wanted one lousey person to understand me. I just thought there was nobody in this whole world that could possibly understand me. And I got out of that bed and I found those old pair of rubber go-aheads and old pair of jeans, and I head out on that street one more time. And all I want you to know is that I always found somebody. I want to know what I always laughed at for a very brief time. I wanted to know that my life got in the way. I got beat up one more time and I left to my own self. And then I went back up into that room and two people came into my life at that time. One little girl's name was Carol Poole and another girl's My name was Ann Wilson, and Carol taught me how to write my name. It took a long time. I used to think she was so much older, younger than me, and she probably was a couple of years younger than you. And she spent hours, hours teaching me to write mine. And this other gal moved me out of there and moved me to Long Beach. I had a paper sack, and I had green cards, and that's all I owned in the whole world. And another gal had come off of Beacon Street in San Pedro. And they had mentioned Skid Row. I was in Skid Rock for eight months, and there's no way I could have lasted any longer than eight months. And it was in Anaheim Street in Long Beach, and I did a little time down there and while I was down there this skinny, puny little guy came down into that area and I want you to know you could smell me one more time way before you could see me. And he asked me to go out and I asked him if he had a job and he said he didn't work and I said, they don't date guys who don't work. And, you know, I had a lot of nerve in those days and he went out and got himself a job and he's been working ever since. I've been married to this man for 25 years and I'd like to give you the impression that we have this wonderful, wonderful marriage. People in AA just get tired to listen to the saga of my marriage I don't talk about him very much today I will tell you that we have this strange relationship he's strange and I'm beautiful so you can kind of sum it up wherever you want to sum it after I feel like there I have found myself an alan on meetings and thank god for the alan on women and I just love the alan on news I make one alan on meeting a week because I found myself married to somebody that likes the bottle and I don t like it but I and I go talk about it because I m not ready to do anything about it at this time my life and i tell you if i my head wants to do it but every time i try to do this feels like my feet are in cement and i can't move forward and so i just have to do what i have to do and i just keep going to meetings and i keep doing what is right in front of me here in alcoholic synonyms and i sponsor a great many people in alcoholics knowns i got a lot of history with this man and i've got a lot history in the program of alcoholic synonymous and i got a whole lot of people that love me and are pulling for me and i know that when the right answer comes, it will come and I will be able to do it. And I will do it with dignity and i will do this when it's time to do is when God is ready to move and not a minute sooner because every time I try to do, it it's not time and and when it is not time it just doesn't work. I ended up marrying this guy and he didn't drink at this time. He took me to Minnesota and he tried to control my drinking and he started pouring it out and I went crazy behind that. Five months into this marriage I made this terrible mistake. I knew I made a terrible mistake that i should have checked this guy out a little bit closer that you know i met his parents and he didn't drink it didn't smoke and they went to church on sunday and his mother didn't gossip and she didn't screw around and i had absolutely nothing in common with this woman and uh i thought my god i should've done something with this guy and you know and he's and i'm still wanting i was going to drink in the manner i always want to accustomed to he's just going to take care of me and five months into his marriage i decided what i needed was a divorce and i was gonna back to california find that he took me way up Minnesota and the horrible, horrible northern part of Minnesota with 500 people in this little town. You know you can't hide there all those people from Long Beach moved up there. The legs are different, the face were different but they're all alcoholics. And so we came back to California and I decided what I needed was a baby. Someone told me that when you have a baby you automatically grow up and they lied to me one more time you know. And I got pregnant and five minutes after I'm pregnant I no longer want to be pregnant you know and the doctor put me in beer and wine. I I said one glass of wine a day and one beer a day and that's having six packs a day and a half a gallon. And I spent that nine months by the toilet bowl and there was five other girls in that apartment building that had babies and all five of them went in and had their babies and came home and they were all so happy and I have to believe that they were normal because, and I knew that that was going to happen for me that I was going to be the same way they were and I went in and I had my baby and they put that baby in my arms and I wanted to be a good mommy and I want to feel all those things I've heard the mommies talk about here in Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn't feel it. I didn' t feel that overwhelming feeling of love and I was going to be do all these wonderful things I got an overwhelming feeling of responsibility and what do we do now? And I took that baby home and I tried to be a good mommy and to this day I don't know what a good mom is but I want you to know that I've got three of the finest children you'll ever want to meet and I want to thank you one more time for giving me that gift because I'd like to take credit for it but if it wasn't for the women and the people in Alcoholics Anonymous my kids wouldn't be doing as well as they are today. All three of my kids none of them at this time. And I say at this time, not yet. None of my children are into alcohol or drugs. My oldest girl is 24 years of age. She just graduated a year ago from one of the finest universities in California and she's home right now with me and my boys up in Maryland in the Army. It was his choices and MPs and he was home for a month. And Ronnie and I have always had a love-hate relationship and things are working out with him and I. And it's because of people because of Alcoholics Anonymous. My youngest daughter is down in San Diego and she can't decide whether she wants to be a doctor. I mean, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to go off the streets or stay on them. She's trying to decide whether she wants me a doctor, you know? I mean these are big heavy decisions and I look at these kids and I wonder where the hell they came from, you now? And I could have missed it all, you know, I could've missed it and because of you and Alcoholics Anonymous. But it wasn't that way in my early sobriety and I don't ever want to forget that either. I got a good relationship with my kids today. I love my kids very, very much. but it wasn't that way when I first got here and I had this little girl and I abused her and I was into abuse and I don't tell you that because I'm proud of it I tell you about because I was real sick and nothing else Alcoholics Anonymous has given me that I can break the chain that was passed down from my grandmother to my mother that was pass down from generation to generation and in AlcoholicsAnonymous I get the opportunity not to do that I get to break that chain so it no longer will go on down to another generation now some of the stuff will go down, but not all of it will go down because it's been put to a halt here at the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I would, for the next couple of years, I abused that little girl and many nights my husband would have to take me off of her and I would take off and I'd be gone for ten days at a time. And I'd call this man up and I said, you straighten up and fly by it, I'll come home. Because I couldn't take responsibility for me. And when I called Alcoholics Enhanced, it was the second time that man sat and he looked at me and he said, You go ahead. You go head, he said. And he said because You've never completed anything in your life. And that little girl was 22 months old, standing by the couch. And her little legs were all black and blue, and her little diapers were half off, and her eyes were sunken on her head. And you know, when I left on Thursday night to come here, I was real scattered, and I don't know what was going on. My psychic was kind of off, and I was kindof apprehensive and a little scared. I had a lot of feelings. I'm a real feeling person. And my daughter called me the next night. Last night she called me here at the hotel to make sure that I was okay and to let me know that she loved me. And she said, I was really concerned about you, Mom. You were kind of scared or whatever was going on. I said, I'm okay. I'm with people who love me and I'm all right now. I'll be fine. It's just when you have to do something new and having to come to people that you don't know and yet you know you. You see, I know you and yet I don't know you, you know? I ended up with this little girl and when I looked at her and that gal that came that wanted to be my friend that when I told you earlier in my story and Carolyn came and she took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I sat by the door and it sat in my hand from June 16, 1968 and I shook all over and the only thing I wanted the only things I wanted from you that night was please stop my head from racing take this terrible nut out of the pit of my gut and make these shakes go away and that's all I wanted and you know if that was all I was going to get here I would have been cheated out of a whole lot And the man stood up like I am tonight and he told me what I suffered from. And I never knew what I suffer from. He said that I suffered from a threefold disease, that I had an allergy to body because of an obsession with the mind and I was spiritually sick. And he told him there was a first drink that got me drunk and I never know it was the first drink that got my drunk. I always thought it was the fifth or the sixth drink that got mine drunk. And he taught me that I could get sober and I could stay sober the same way I drank. Now I'm a daily drinker in a period of drunk and I left that meeting and I want you to know that I wanted to drink. God, I wanted to drink more than anything in my life. I wanted to drink because you see you hadn't done the things I wanted you to do. You hadn't stopped my head from racing. You hadn' taken that knot out of the head of my gut and I hear the man say if you don't take the first drink you won't get drunk because you see I knew if I had that drink it would stop my head for a very brief time and would take the knot out of the head of my gut and would make those shakes go away but i hear that man say you don't take that first drink you won't have to get drunk and i went to another meeting and i went through a lot of meetings and i still go to a lot of meetings i probably make more meetings than most newcomers make today because i love alcoholic synonymous i love alcoholism more than anything in my life because my life began 22 years ago when i came to you and i had no idea what you had in mind for me you know when it talks about the big book alcoholics now is beyond your wildest dreams beyond my wildest dream it's been a journey and it's a journey guys it's in a lot of pain there's a lot sorrow within a lot of joy probably a lot more joy than sorrow when you're in that joy part of it and i ended up when i had another baby i had a baby boy and i was nine months sober and i wanted to be a good mommy and i wasn't a good mom and i very quickly abused that little boy and I abused that husband and abused a little girl and that sponsor was coming over on a daily basis that woman there had five children that was always at my door always there you know always lois would show up when i needed lois to show up and i had another baby a baby girl and another girl who said i just told this down in san diego she did not get the abuse the other kids got and it shows and her it really shows in her and her personality and and she's really a neat neat kid she really is and so are my other two children you know they really need me people i ended up there and i tell you this time in my life simply because this is her turn for me and if you're new and you're going through some changes and you in a period of two two and a half three years sober i want you to know just don't drink just don't dream because it'll pass just around the corner there's an absolute miracle if you just can hold on and when i was two and half almost three years silver i beat my son him and I beat him. And I'd beat him until his eyes were back in his head because I couldn't deal with it no more. And someone came to my door and they were ten miles away from home. And he came to our door and he took that baby away from me and he said, you call somebody right now. And then I called Mary Lee. And Mary Lee came and got me and she took me to a meeting. And when I went into that meeting and I asked her to help me because to see i was worse now at almost three years of sobriety than i was when i was brand new and alcoholic synonymous because now i'm feeling and now i don't know what to do with it now everything is just i just can't cope i can't i'm pacing and i can function and i'm getting sicker and i can't do this and i need something the only thing i knew was i wasn't a drink or take a pill or run and if i was going to run i was gonna run in the right direction i was to run to a meeting and I went in and said please somebody help me because in page 83 and 84 the big book of alcoholic phenomenons you talk about no matter how far down the scales you've gone you can see how your experience can benefit others and they also tell me that fear people would leave me and I would intuitively know how to handle situations you promised me all these things and I'm not getting any of these things it's hurting for death and I asked you to help me and somebody said something and I threw a chair down and I ran out of that meeting and a lady came out after me her name was Edna and I mentioned Edna every podium I get to I mention Edna Edna grabbed the whole of me and I know today why I didn't drive a car I know now I know why Edna was there for me and I couldn't cry when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because I could not cry a guy held me one night and punched my face and he wanted me to cry and I told him to go ahead and kill me because I wasn't going to cry because I had no more tears left all the tears were gone I was cold inside and there's a guy in my home group and his name is Walt Stiles and Walt's gone today and Walt was one of those people that learned to love unconditionally and I was one of the people that he loved unconditionally him and his wife Millie that had taken me into their home and had treated me like one of their own children and Walt would get her up holding me as a great big man and Walt could get up here and he would cry and I would sit out there and the hair would stand on my neck and I'd say why does he cry because to me tears are a sign of weakness. And I didn't want to be weak no more. I had no more tears. And Edna grabbed ahold of me and I started crying. I laid in Edna's arms and I cried and I thought I was never going to stop crying. And Edward tells me, and I want you to know that I know today why we have tears. Because today I know the tears are really the cleansing of my soul. I want You to know when I came to You 22 years ago that I suffered very deeply from a very bad soul sickness. I was so sick spiritually. And sometimes I still can get sick spiritually. But I know there's a solution here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And Edna took me to Orange County Psycho. Now, I didn't stay at Orange County Psychо. And I want you to know that Edna gave me life. Edna and Edna's arms that night, I was reborn. And it talks about that some of us felt that we were reborn, and I was reborn in Ednaís arms. Edma was nine years sober, and three months after Edma gave me life, Edma chose to commit suicide. And to this day, I don't know why Edma quit or chose to commit suicide, but then they gave me life. And I ended up, and I'm not here to give you a plug for psychiatrists, but I ended back in a group of women who were child abusers. And I was defined that I ran from that too because they tried to take my babies away from me. And even if I did beat them, I didn't want them taken away from me. And my own record doctor, he wanted to help me. And he told me, I went to this man for two and a half years, and I really believe for me that I would not be standing before you tonight if it hadn't been for Alcoholics Anonymous and this man. I really believed that, and the God of my understanding. This man told me because, you see, I got in touch with something within me that I never thought was ever possible. I know today that when the old-timers and AlcoholicsAnonymous say, there are those who know and those who don't know, and I want you to know I'm one of those that do know. I do know where my sense of power comes from. I do now where it is, and I know where it ends for me, and it's inside of me. And this man told me that I wanted somebody to love me. And this little Al-Anon gal took me out there and she'd take me out there once a week. And I said, there wasn't anybody that loved me. Now, Lois had told me on a daily basis that as a child of God and God loved me, Lois would tell me on a day-to-day basis that she loved me and I couldn't hear it. I'm one of those that believes we're here and ready to hear and we see and we're ready to see. And I left that meeting with that doctor and he said, Annie, there's got to be somebody and I said there isn't anybody. Absolutely nobody. He said, what about those people in AA? I said, those people in AA tolerate me because all they require in a brave membership is a desire to stop drinking. And God only knows they know I have a desire to stop drinkin'. And he said, Annie, there's got to be somebody. And I went home and I called Lois. And I whispered in the phone to Lois and I said Lois, do you love me? He said Annie, I love you so much. And it came to me. I'd heard it for the first time. I'd like to tell you that I was able to love my kids from that moment on and it wouldn't be true. I had to be loved an awful lot before I could ever feel that feeling for me. The surrender prayer says that we accept the things we cannot change and courage to change the things you can and the wisdom to know the difference and I accept that I didn't own that emotion called love that you talked about here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I started to touch my kids and I didn' t abuse them as much and today I can love my kids and hold my kids and the hair doesn' t stand on my arms and I'm not pushing them away and you gave me that gift and a little gal came into the program and nobody ever asked me to be their sponsor nobody old timers used to take those newcomers and leave them away from me they said I was going to contaminate them you know they'd say come over here honey Annie's very sick and so a little girl came into program and asked me if I could be her sponsor and I was five years sober and I told her I would share with her what I found here in Alcoholics Anonymous and I talked to her this little gal came into a meeting one night and she had used a lot of LSD and a lot drugs and she sat by the door and she was hallucinating she was six weeks keen and sober and I want you to know that it was a long walk from here to that doorway to that little girl and I walked over to that door away to that girl and I took her out of that meeting and I went into the bathroom with that little boy and I sat on the floor with her and I rocked her like a baby in my arms and she looked at me with the bluest eyes I've ever seen in anybody in Sydney you love me so much and I felt love for the first time i had three children i had two african silver they put in my arms and i never felt this in my kids and the tears ran down my face it was like electricity even through my body and i tears ran down my faith and i looked at her and i said god cindy i love you so much i felt love for the first time for little human beings and i have to that little girl i'm one of those that believe it's not so much what i can give you it's what god wants me to learn through you and through that I've been able to love an awful lot of people here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I want you to know that I'm one of those who believe there's only two kinds of alcoholics, male and female. I need the male in my life as much as I need a female in my life because I've got an awful lot of men in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, some of you have been my father, some of them have been my brother, and some of you just been my friends. And everything I know today I've learned from the women here in Alcoholics Anonymous I've been home to Ireland several times and there's been several deaths in my family. My dad died in in 81 and my sister died in 83 and my brother died four months later and my mother is still in Ireland and I got my family's still over there and it's still totally a lot of alcoholism a lot of drinking when I was two and a half years sober I went home to Ireland my father went to hit me with a poker because I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous 11 years sober i went home again to Ireland looking for something from this man I wanted something from him I want you to know that I have been given this to me a thousand times here in AlcoholicsAnonymous from the people I have met from the waltz styles and and the Don Bruno's and some of the people that have come in my journey you know along the journey for me but when I was 11 years sober I wanted something I wanted something desperately I wanted this man to look at me and say that I was doing okay and that that he loved me very much and we were home he called us in the bedroom and he told us he hated every one of us that everyone was a terrible terrible mistake and every one ever should have been drowned at birth and you know my brothers reach for a drink I'd like to tell I come from priests and nuns. I don't. I come form alcoholics. And they reached for a drink and I stood there and I turned into the word mistake. All my life I thought I was a mistake. All my wife I felt I was a terrible, terrible mistake until I came to you and through the years you told me I was not a mistake but God does not make no mistakes and I'm not a mistake today and I don' t ever want to be a mistake again. I read a lot today and I read a lot of self-help books and I want you to know the old timers told me years and years and years ago that everything I need to know is in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous but I had to find out that for myself and everything I need to know is in The Big Book of Alcoholic Anonymous. There isn't anything in that big book that their self-help books can help me with. They didn't give me a lot of information but all I need to know was in that this book, but I do read a lot different books and I read one book for meditation and it's called Gabon the Prophet and then there it is one line in there says that our children come through us they're not others and to see my children came through me they're not of me i can no lot more live in their world than they can live in my world and to see i came through the people i came through but i'm not of those people i'm of the people of alcoholics anonymous you are the people you're the ones have always walked the extra mile with me you're the ones that sat and held my hand when nobody else was sitting hold my hand you're one such senior nanny that nobody else could possibly see and you pulled her out and she walks proud with dignity today because she is a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous if you're here tonight when you get one fourth of what I found God I could wish I could give you to you I really do I wish Icould give you what I got here in Alcoholics anonymous I want to thank you one more time for all the stuff you've given me I love each and every one of you God bless each and everyone