Why She Threw Herself into the Program Without Reservation – Angie D.

I'm Angie and I am an alcoholic and I have been called worse this really is a very special day for me as some of you know that my daughter Norma spoke this morning and and it is her 10th anniversary of being sober and a member of all colleagues the incredible blessings Johnny Harris was right when he told me a long long time ago that the answers to all my problems were between the covers of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and that all I had to do is throw myself into this program without any reservation. I didn't believe him, but he was so gorgeous that I tried it. As Norma was speaking, and it was such a blessing to hear her, I remember her when she was three weeks old and she wouldn't stop crying. And I was so into taking the poison that I was taking and she would not stop crying and I was bathing her in a basin and I just got her and I held her down in the water and I wanted her to die, you see, because I could not stand the motherhood, the responsibility. And you see the only thing that saved her life was that i thought i would go to prison again yes and to have her now stand before you and before me on this day and to see what an example of alcoholics anonymous she is i am so grateful that god does for me what i cannot do for myself huh that's how i feel today There are mothers and fathers out there that need to know what has happened to Norma and I in this time. You need to now that God does bring blessings and does heal the pains that are between us and our children. And it doesn't come overnight, but if it came overnight it wouldn't be as valuable as it is for today I am from Blythe and you all know where Blyte is it's over where God sends you when he's punishing you for asking for stuff what I'm doing in Blyth is that there's a man in BLYTH that's what I am doing in Blys We're both dedicated to making me happy I have I have him convinced he never had it so good And the woman's place is in the mall If he croaks tomorrow I'm out of there tomorrow night I like Norm I am a Mexican I was born and raised in Orange County in a little barrio you know what a little varrio is it's a little Mexican community in the days that I was raised there we didn't let any Anglos in and they weren't too anxious to come in there either I was born a long long time ago in a planet far far away into a family that never was ready for me. I was born in a hospital, and when they came home with this baby, they still didn't have a name for me, and the reason for that is because my daddy wanted to name me after his girlfriend, and my mother's narrow-minded. I mean, I did not ever belong to that family. I had an alien takeover a long time ago. I had another sister that was perfect. They always told her what to do and she always did it right and she almost screwed it up for me because I never knew how to be good until after I was bad. And so they're always whipping on me. And I didn't know I was a better child. Even if I thought I was a betterchild, then I held it against them guys. I held everything else and blamed them for everything else. I just thought that I got whipped because I didn' t know how to be good. Now they were divorced when I was just a little kid about seven and my mother would send me to the nuns so they could teach me to be a lady and she said you're just like your father and I knew what her opinion was of him she didn't like him too well not only did i not know how to be good but as soon as they said thou shalt not i may not have thought of doing it before but as long as they said thou shall not i had an overwhelming desire to do it and i could not get it out of my mind until i did it and so somebody dared me and I raised a nun skirt, see what she had under all them clothes in the 86 me from catechism. And when I got to school the next day, all the kids thought I was terrific because it seems that I was born with an emptiness in my soul. There was a yearning, a longing, a hunger to be loved, to be wanted, and to be accepted. As a little child, I used to worship my mother I ached for my mother to love me so desperately. It seems that most of my life, I was so hungry for love, I would just give my heart to anybody that would take it. I wasそう hungry. And no matter what I did, I was never enough. It seemed that I was an old lady long into Alcoholics Anonymous, still trying to seek that love and approval that was never Enough for me, There was never enough for me. So when I got all that attention, when I got to school, it filled up some of them empty places. I believe that I always had the pilot lit. All I ever needed was the fuel. Now I'm just a little child. I didn't have a drink but I used to have to resolve my life in any way that I could as a little child. I used read the fairy tale books and pretend about the princess and the prince and live happily ever after. All i really wanted was to be happily ever after that's all I wanted and I mean I still want to be happily ever-after I'm still in the process of happily ever after it just all keeps changing around somehow now when I was about my mother got married to a man that was starting to get funny and and I went to her and I said well look here and and she said we you lie you can't ever stand for anybody to be happy and you lie and I knew I wasn't lying but I had lied about everything else so I know today that I could not be believed. So I used to think if I could only get to my daddy I knew that it would be better with my daddy. Now my daddy was over in the San Fernando Valley where he'd taken up light housekeeping with a lady with eight kids and all he wants is one more but he used to take people up north to pick grapes and prunes and we were fruit pickers God made two kinds of Mexicans as fruit pickers and non-fruit pickers And I'm not a fruit picker They try to make a fruit Picker out of me I've gotten really close and next to a lot of things I really like but I've never really been in any danger Of getting addicted to work I've always liked to do what I like to do When I want to do it and I want To stop when I want To stop I don't like nobody Telling me what to do I had a slight problem with authority. I still have a slight problem with authority. Some things don't change. Anyway, we stayed beyond the season with the Gallo brothers. And somebody, they gave my dad a case of sherry wine and somebody must have said thou shalt not. I remember I had a big water glass. It looked like a big old glass That sherry wine And it went down It went boom I felt like I put my finger In the light socket Everything felt wonderful And I loved it I just knew If anything felt that good The next one would be better So I'm a pig from the get go I'm no sipper I'm chug-a-lugger It's just too bad Something that good Has to be wasted on social drinkers that don't appreciate it. I appreciated it. I loved how that felt. I mean, I loved how I felt. Everything felt good. But then it's the next day because I always overshot the goal and somehow I come to and I'm from the Pachuco days a long, long time ago when you used to be wearing big hairdos long before normal time. And I came to the next day, and all that hair is all over my face. I don't know if your first drunk was a wine drunk, but you know when that happens and you come to from them wine drunks. You're so dry, you feel like you've been mopping the floor with your tongue. You drink water and get drunk all over again. My clothes is torn, and I'm all in disarray, and I knew something terrible happened. I don't know what it was because I couldn't remember, but it seemed they started a lifetime of looking at people's faces, trying to remember what I had done and trying to see what I Had Done, terrified to know and terrified not to know. And that's the way it was with me. I had a sense of shame of being dirty that went all the way through me and it never was any different at any other time. You see, it just got worse, but I always remembered that this time it's going to be different. I never planned to get that bad again. Now, I'm just a child. I went back to my mother's and I wasn't wanted there. She told me they'd been free of me over a year and I was 13 years old and I never felt 13 years old. I always felt like this was it. I could not get out of this one this time. And I started living here and there with anybody that took me in for a little while. And people would feel sorry for me and take me in FOR A LITTLE WHILE. But I had a personality disorder, and I also am a drunk. We Mexicans like to have them parties from the whole weekend. We like to get parties where you get drunk several times a weekend. If we haven't had knifings and shootings and the cops and the paramedics, we ain't had no fun. We like to join the gangs and beat each other up and call it fun. You know, you read about us in the papers, then poor people, how ignorant they don't know we're having fun. That's what's fun. And I always drank more and got into more trouble. I was the only one having fun, Nobody around me ever had any fun when I drank. And I always wanted to fight the girls and go with their boyfriends. You know, it's just fun. Didn't the girls want to tell me what I did? Yeah, I was one of the original topless, bottomless dancers in them parties. I don't even get paid for it. I don'T even remember it. You know that girls always want to tale you the next day. Them girls, they get that look, you know, of contempt. That how bad you are, how dirty you are and how clean we are. So then I beat them up and then they didn't tell me because violence is how I handled anything that was embarrassing, humiliating or I was ashamed of or afraid of. I also don't know how to work because I'm just a child. So I take up burglary. It seemed to be a good idea at the time. Your things were always much more interesting than mine I really wasn't a bad person It's just that you had more than me I'm just taking yours I know there are some people here On my age If you lived over in Lemon Heights In Orange County In the Late 40s Or 1951 I'd like to make my amends Tonight When Mary When Mary talked about Getting sober in 1951 I remember that was the year I was discovered by the state of California And they took me before a judge And there sat my mother And all them other purple lip people Looking at me with that I told you so look in their face You know how they look at you We told you so. And here I am sitting there, and the judge looks at me and says, Well, young lady, what do you think we ought to do with you? Well, I'm sick, hip, and cool. I slip down on my seat and pull my collar up and say, You're the judge, man. You ought to know. That's the wrong person to have that kind of an attitude with. He sent me in my attitude to do a little bit of time for the state of California. They didn't understand my case was different. And when they finally let me out, I'm supposed to do nine months because the child just turned 18, but I do 13 months because I don't know how to be good there. I'm a walking bust. I always got caught at everything I ever did. I thought I'd be the only gray-haired little old lady in the girls' reformatory. When they finally left me out I took my first inventory. I don'T have a job. I DON'T have an education. and I'm thinking, what an order. I can't go through with it. I better go out and find me a husband because God knows I need somebody to take care of me. The bad news is there's a certain kind of man always caught my attention. Usually they got tattoos and they wear them tight T-shirts and they got muscles and they walk with a little slouch. Their tattoos usually say, born to lose. Mother. They walk with a little slouch, got greasy hair and shiny eyes and all teeth and they walk with the little hop, don't they? Say, what? What's happening, baby? Oh God, it still goes through me. I used to think there was charisma. today I know it to be psychosis my sponsor used to tell me you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit so I tell you I'll try the guy I found built them castles in the air and I lived in them and three months later we were pregnant and I was married and he was a mainline heroin user and he had an idea of what a good Mexican wife should be and I had an ideia of what a good mexican husband should be and never the twain shall meet been apologizing to my kids ever since for the genes we put together but you know all things work together for good for those that take the third step so there's my daughters over today Anyway, we were quite equipped for parenthood. He decides, he starts hearing about me and them stories about me. He don't want nobody talking that way about his wife. So he wants me to stay home. And while he's partying, well, I don't stay home silently. I like to tell him about his heritage, his mother, his father, blackout. And he don't wanna be talking that away about his mother. So he used to say, if you don't shut up, I'm gonna knock you out. Well, that certainly sounds like thou shalt not to me. So I used to jump him all the time. I always got my first one in there. We had quite a marriage. And he introduces me to little white pills with crosses on them. I don't know what they are, but I sure knew what they did to me I had one eyeball over there and one over there and I'd make baby clothes all night long. put it together and tear it apart I never remember which one I was doing sing with the mariachis drink coffee and scratch yeah scratch and scratch can't stop scratching clean your house after three days you say for God's sakes I'm tired of having fun I just want to lay down your brain says get up and let's have more fun I don't know how you are about I was busy I was busy Once I started taking uppers, I had to take downers and I found the cure for blackouts. Man, there was nothing like taking Benzedrine and downers and drinking with whatever would get me right there because I couldn't stand the madness inside of me where there wasn't anything because you see whenever there was anything that seemed like I was going to have anything inside of me, there was a rage. There was a fear. There was a terror that would come upon me. So by the time I had my baby, I knew this man didn't want to be married to me because nobody liked to be around me. There wasn't ugliness about me and I knew an evilness about me and I knew this. Never did it occur to me that I was an alcoholic. By the time they had their baby in my arms and they put that baby in my arms, I felt like finally, finally somebody belongs to me. That baby inspired feelings within me that nobody ever had before because you see she was my baby. Nobody could ever take her away from me. She was mine but you know I am an alcoholic and I am a woman alcoholic and when I drink i have absolutely no choices and no rights when i drink i'm gonna do what's in front of me to do because it's there to do i never think about tomorrow and i never thinking about prices i just know that i gotta get away from the now and i took that baby and her sister to places that children should not be taken because the ugliness in me became more than me if you know If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. After the second one was born, we're sitting here tonight. I left their daddy because I knew that he would never change. I would look in the mirror and I was a 22-year-old woman and I felt older and more used up at 22 than I do today at 65, you see. I would Look in the Mirror and I said, I better go out and find me somebody else. So I left our daddy and went out And I've spent five years as an unprotected bar-drinking woman. I know the feeling of degradation and self-loathing that a woman alcoholic goes through when she's unprotecting and she drinks in bars. The feeling of being dirty, of not being wanted, of being treated so bad by the men. And all I ever wanted was somebody to cherish me and love me. I used to look at them clean women with them clean houses And it was like looking at somebody from a different world. And many times in those five years, I would come to strange places with strange people, never knowing when I was on my way someplace or I was in my way back from someplace. I would coming to that cold water shack when I would turn the lights on, the sink would be black with cockroaches and there was mice in that filthy floor. and then checked with those two little girls that the romance of being a mother had long since died and the responsibility for them choked me. And they would fight and quarrel in whispers because they were terrified. Sometimes I would come to before I was ready, and I would start shrieking and screaming at two little girl's. I didn't come here alone. I came here with two little girls that got to have the brunt of my disease. You and I have got tohave an ugly side of our disease, and I will never forget the pictures of this girl that's sitting here today kneeling in front of me saying, Mommy, Mommy please don't hit me anymore. Please don't hurt me. But it was like I was somebody else, and I would hit and I hit and hit until there was no more strength in me. All that rage and terror inside of me would be taken out at them. And when a semblance of sanity would return, I would say, for God's sake, somebody please take these little girls and give them a normal life because I knew I couldn't. I never thought I was an alcoholic. I just thought there was a monster that lived within me. See, those things, those are the pictures that make me grateful today with what God has done with the trash that I brought here. After five years of this, I started getting letters from her dad that was someplace in Texas getting the cure and he says, Babes, this time it's going to be different. And so he comes home and he doesn't want me to drink. You've got to be kidding by this time. So he knifes me and I carry a gun and four days later he calls and apologizes to me, so we ran off to Las Vegas to get married. I mean, he wouldn't knife me if he didn't love me. Besides, he was the only man that ever wanted me. Really? That I thought wanted me? And we made a Mexican geographic. We moved about 20 miles from Mama. hated mama never could stand mama but never could go too far i was always afraid i'd come back they wouldn't know who i was we bought a little ranch with the turkeys and the horses and we were going to be farmers as dolphin and i i even married him in the catholic church that's going to any length for a catholic especially since he was a methodist and we joined the pta and we We're going to be just like all them other clean people are. But I'm a firm believer you can place me in the best of circumstances, and sooner or later I have to create what is inside of me because it's inside of mí the madness lives. And when he starts making the run to his connection in Orange County, I start making the runs to the wineries. The best thing I can say about a little place called Mira Loma is it's in the middle of four wineries Blythe has been called the armpit of California, But my experience with Mira Loma is another part of the anatomy not worth mentioning. At least that was my experience there. You see, every hope and every dream went out of my life in those years. I lived in a fog. I remember Norma told me one time they went to Catholic school, and I said, when did you go to Catholic School? And I said who drove you? She said you did. I said, whoa, I don't even remember them going, much less driving. But this is a time when every hope and every dream went out of my life. I had married him in the Catholic Church. We joined the PTA. We were going to be like everybody else, and it went through my fingers. Every hope and dream went through our fingers at that time. This is a Time When I Know What The Words Despair, Loneliness, Agony. I know those words. I learned them in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I experienced them in a dirty bedroom in Mira Loma. I got to the place where I drank and I drank and no matter how much I drank, I couldn't kill the madness inside of me. There was a madness inside of me that wouldn't let me go. And I started looking for answers. I started going to churches because that's what I always heard were answers. And I've been sprinkled, dunked, blessed, prayed over. everything you can think of and little by little I every hope and dream went and all I wanted to do was to die and so I had a bright idea to die. And I saved all my sleeping pills so I could die I waited until this man was home because I couldn't stand the guilt of having those little girls find me dead. So I waited Until he was home and he was he and they them were watching television while the monster was in her room and i came out and i said told him i was going to kill myself and he said okay so they went back to why we had a slight communication problem so i i went and took a bath do you know what i mean when i said i wentand took a bad got all the dirty clothes and threw them in the trash just to clean my house because Because I was going to die. And I felt relieved that I was going to Die. I didn't feel anything but relief. And I took enough pills, I guess, to kill a horse, but you know I had had a tolerance. I slept for two days and two nights. And when I came to and realized that I Was Alive, I was not glad to be alive. I was enraged to be alive because I couldn't drink and I couldn't be sober and I couldn' t live and I cou' n't even die. This man had been in bed with me both nights when i came to and realized that he too wanted me dead i felt like a piece of used meat that nobody wants and i come to and what has got to be the loneliest day of my life where no place to turn and when i was able to look upon that day without some semblance of objectivity i realize that my higher power has always had his hand upon my life even upon that day, there was a knock on the door. It's a lady from the PTA. If there's somebody I didn't want to see, it's a ladies from the pta. And there stood Mrs. Clean. She said hi. I must have been down wind from her because she said what is wrong? You know I must of smelled ripe because i'd slept in the same clothes and i never went to the bathroom except on my what i had on so you know i wasn't looking very good and she said what is wrong and you know i just started about all about this sob and how he done me wrong i never knew about telling anybody anything about me it was them if they were if them were okay if them hadn't treated me right I'd have been better but it was them so she stayed with me I don't know how you are but I always talk a lot and usually when I talk people get a glazed look after a while that's okay I'm used to that but when they get when they have a glazed look and all of a sudden because they come to attention I know I talk too long because they get come to intention and I went uh oh because I didn't know what I said and what she said was had I ever heard Ayalanon, and I'd never heard Ayalonon, but she wanted me to go there and said that if I went there, he would be straightened up. And I wouldn't do anything for him to straighten up so I could be okay. So he could take care of me. So she got me cleaned up and took me to Ayalenon. And I felt a little bit like a whorewood in a nunnery. There was absolutely no identification between me and them square broads. But you know, they hugged me. They didn't have no cause. They hugged Me. Them nice, clean, white ladies hugged Me. I smiled at them. I gave them one of those. I had heard someplace along the line that I had a beautiful smile. Probably somebody wanted more of my smile. So I gave him one of those, the lights are on but there's nobody home smile? I thought I fooled them. I found out years later they were laughing at me. I thought I fooled him. I didn't hear anything. Obviously I didn' t hear anything and then she took me home and every so often she'd come pick me up and one day I heard release so I went home and told him I was going to release him. So he used to sleep with his clothes on and a knife under the pillow and I'd sit in the corner with a big black coat on and watch him. When he'd be a-dozing off, I'd go take a little peek at him and he'd go, Ooh, gotcha! That felt so good it was almost sexual. You know what I'm saying? I thought he was so bad, made me look good. One day I came home and he was gone. He took everything with him. He wasn't planning on coming back. And because bad luck comes in bunches, they kicked me out of Allen at that time. They found out there was a fraud among them, and they kicked Me over to their husbands who they didn't like either, and they designated that poor soul that had inflicted Me upon them to take Me over there to their husband's. So she come and picked Me up and took Me to Pomona, took Me through an old dilapidated old house and brought Me around through the back because I'm a Mexican. That's why she's bringing Me around the back and took me through the kitchen where all the melanins are standing around doing whatever melanins they're doing. And I'm not looking in their eyes because I know they kicked me out. I just look at my feet, and I walk through them because I don't want them to have that triumph of having me see that disgust that I knew was in their face because people always had a look at disgust for me in their faces. But I walked through them, andI walked through then and listened to the sounds of Alcoholics Anonymous. I walked into a room where I heard people laughing. They were laughing! They were laughin'! Do you know what it feels like? The last time I had laughed, I could not tell you, they were laughing and talking and carrying on and loving each other. The music of Alcoholic Anonymous was what attracted me to you and brought me here and kept me here because I wanted what you had. And I looked around, and I wanted so desperately to have what you have. I just thought, it's too bad I'm not an alcoholic. If there's another name for the disease that you and I have, it's called, I ain't got it. now I know I'm strange and I know I'm different and three steps ahead of the man with a butterfly net but I'm not an alcoholic I used to be an alcoholic when I was a kid I was an alcoholic but I cured it with Benzedrine and I just hadn't found the right combination again that would work but I loved how I felt when I was with you and you know what You put your arm around me and you said, keep coming back. The most important words that you and I have to say to one another, keep coming back, what a disappointment it was to me when I found out you were telling that to everybody. I looked around at all them sober, single, good-looking young guys, and I said, I'm going to get me one of those. And it was the sickest one there. it had to be, I got right up. But it takes what it takes and that's what it took for me. For ten months I came around Alcoholics Anonymous as a visitor. I'm not telling them I'm an Al-Anon, they kick me out of Al-Anon. And I'm no an alcoholic, I might be a little bit something like potential, I used to be but now I just have not found the right combination. you let me be a visitor for 10 months. I started feeling uncomfortable, so I stopped drinking and doubled up on the Miltowns and Benzedrine and got weirder. Everybody gets weirter, don't they? Without alcohol to keep them sane. And this guy wants to get rid of me because I'm trying to kill him. I always try to kill them because they don't behave. That's why I want to kill Him. I wanted to kill Heim, and they don' t like for you to want to Kill Him when they're sober so that he'd try to get rid of me, I'm not easy to get rid of because I don't have a backup so I moved to Pomona to be closer to the action and I walked into our room one day and there's this little guy sitting there, he's really cute got big blue eyes and blonde hair just got out of the reformatory and he says he don't have a girlfriend, he don' t have a surfboard he don''t have a car and I think to myself, come here little boy I'll take care of you I don't know. Maybe they saw the insanity in me, but I didn't have any trouble drawing him in. It's keeping him in that I had a little trouble doing. And this guy didn't know what hit him. He thought a Mack truck hit him, but after their relationship was over, he decided to become a minister, and I'd like to think that somehow in my small way, I have pushed him over to God. I don't like women and I don' t trust men and that don't leave you much. And I never heard about withdrawals. All I heard was about keep coming back and live happily ever after. And so I just kept coming back. I got weird. I mean, I got strangely weird. Where I got blacked out sober. I used to work for Fender's Guitar making the bridges for the guitars And they'd bring me boxes and boxes of guitar bridges that I made all wrong. And I was sober. I didn't have blackouts, sober. And he was the first man that had ever been kind to me. He was the First Man that had never been gentle with me. Everywhere that he went, he wanted to take me with him. And he always so proud to be seen with me, me that had always been abused and misused by every man I'd ever had. And I'd have stayed there forever if I could have with him, I always had a feeling in the very core of me. Not only did I want to belong, but I would say do anything you want to me, just don't leave me. The fear of abandonment, the loneliness of the abandonment that I couldn't stand. I know today that you and I do not come together by accident. I truly believe that we come together via divine appointment. And yet every relationship has its beginning and its parting. The only relationship that keeps on growing is a relationship that I found with my higher power. But it took so long. I am grateful today that it took what it took, you see. Because I am one that is so arrogant that if it comes easy, I'll not value it. I had another drunk in me. Because when he drank, so did I. It was not my worst drunk. but it seemed to be my most hopeless one because I had tried Alcoholics Anonymous and I knew it worked. It worked for you, but nothing ever worked for me. And I came back to you because a man named Carson went and brought me back on a rainy Wednesday night in December in 1965. In December the 22nd of 1965, I celebrated my 30th birthday. And the victory is not mine. How could it be mine? I am not a miracle. The miracle is Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, you don't have to be desperate to come to AlcoholicsAnonymous and be teachable. It just helps. It just helped to have no place else to go. Nobody to turn to. My family had long since quit talking to me. I had nobody but you. So it helps to come here with no place else to go. As long as I fulfill the conditions that are laid down in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I don't believe in prayer and medication. As Johnny Harris told me, he says, do these steps according to the book, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others, as it says in the books. And I didn't have any other choice except to do it according to the book. I'm glad that they didn't add some of the blockers that they have today to keep me from feeling my feelings, because I've got to feel my feelings in order to take them steps to the way they were laid out for me. I don't want to miss anything here. I didn' t miss anything out there, and I don' t want to missing anything here When I first came, they were all my heroes. Aren't they all just oh so wonderful? I liked them guys. I didn't like them women just because I was sober. Guys were always friendlier. It helps to be 32 and cutesy cute. At least I thought I was cutesy cutesy. I remember one time I walked into a market to buy cigarettes because I wasn't afraid to walk into liquor stores. And I had my hair dyed red, kind of a little bit redder than what I have it now. i had a royal blue dress skin tight with um black stockings and candy apple red shoes and makeup about an inch thick and the people were staring me and i'm thinking i'm looking good so i was trying to they must have thought i walked out of a cat house but But our disease is of perception. And I loved how I felt when I was with you, and I went to a meeting every night. You told me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days and then to take the cotton out of my ears and put it in my mouth. It was not difficult for me to not say anything. I was always afraid to open my mouth and you kicked me out of here. I didn't know you couldn't kick people out of AA. I just went and smiled. Well, I'm cruising the guys, right? So in the beginning they know more than me, then I know more than some of them. Then I want to talk and tell you how wonderful it is. But I hated a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn' resent anybody. I had no resentments when I came here. I had two emotions. I either loved you or I hated you. You had nothing in between. I didn't have any character defects. They all did it to me. So I had a wonderful attitude. I hated this guy. I hated the way he walked, the way she talked, the way you looked. Everything about him was just obnoxious to me and when he would talk I would just and I would go to some of them guys that look like they know what they're talking about and I asked him how do you get over resentment with my smile and they say turn it over easy does it this too shall pass one day at a time go home read the book keep coming back and don't drink alright so I'd go home and do it and then I came the next night and I'd look I was never happy till I saw him oh I just love seeing him you know there's a there's an there's phase in resentment that you just love too bad it turns on you and you just I didn't go back to you so I go to somebody else Now, I tell you, I didn't like women just because I was sober. Them older ones, they had a lot of time to look at me. I don't know what they're seeing, but whatever they're seen, I don' t want them to see them. And I don''t like them younger girls. Thank God there wasn't very many young girls at that time because I'm with this young guy, and I'm like a monkey with its monklet. I paid my price for these chairs, didn't I? so one day this guy is talking and he's crying I said Jesus Christ how embarrassing he's praying hasn't he ever heard of John Wayne Iwo Jima, Pancho Villa Emiliano Zapata somebody for God's sake he's trying after the meeting they all went and put their arms around me I said oh shit so I went and gave him one of those stiff arm hugs. You know of those stiff arm hug? You're reserved for people that may have something contagious. What I had was bad enough without getting what he had. But he didn't have no class. He just came right in and put his head on my shoulder and started to cry. And that startled me. It startled me because the pain in him reached out and touched the pain in me. I don't know but you and I know what pain is. I don't know about loving and caring for anybody else. I'm just so busy hugging my pain to me that I don' t know how to care for anybody else. But he blindsided me and I truly believe that it was from that day to this that I belonged in Alcoholics Anonymous. And somebody asked me one time How does it feel to be sober 30 years? I said, exactly the same way it did when I was sober 9 months and that man intruded into my self-centeredness. That's how it feels like today. Because you see, it is true that I am my own world. Enemies like me, I don't need enemies. That's a job I like for myself. And I believe that my journey began then. I had a lady volunteer to be my sponsor, and she told me I had to stay home and learn to be a mother. My kids became teenagers, and they became everything that I was afraid they would become because I turned them that way. How did I know that all teenagers have alien takeover at 12? I thought it was just mine because I was a monster I had been. And she said, you've got to give up that young man or one day he will give you up. Now, I had never lived without a man. And I'm not talking about sex. It's somebody that get away, that horrible, lonely something. Somebody that would just cherish me at least for the little while. So I did the most reasonable thing for me is I gave up the sponsor. She made me feel guilty. if you're from a small group like i was getting rid of sponsors is like getting rid of empties it's very difficult it's easy to get and hard to get rid of so be careful who you get as your sponsor because i'm a moral coward i will not tell anybody the truth if it comes and hits me in the face because i'M TOO BUSY BEING A PEOPLE PLEASER I WANT THEM TO LIKE ME I'LL TELL them whatever they want me to tell them so they can like me. I never knew anything about the truth. I took my first, I took the steps really fast because they're easy to take if you read them and just say, yeah, I agree with that, yeah. Took my first inventory, wrote the greatest story ever told, and took it to a lady minister because I ain't telling and them women in Alcoholics Anonymous anything about me because I didn't want him to look at me the way my mother and her friends and my relatives and the melanins, my perception. I know today the melanin could see right through that, you see. But I thought that I was fooling everybody. So I went to a lady minister and kept on my merry way, doing it my way. I said, yeah, well, God, you know how it's wonderful and easy to talk about gratitude. It's easy to talk about it. I'm so grateful that God, like Santa Claus said, Give me, give me, thank you, thankyou, giveme, givemethankyou, thankyouthankyou. Never do I ever think about that gratitude is an action word. If I'm grateful then I'm going to stand up for what I'm grateful for. I believe today that if I say I'm grateful, by golly I better be ready to stand up and be counted. I better be ready to stand up and make sure that this program is passed on for the new ones, the way it was passed on to me from them old timers. I always respect the old timERS that kept the doors open till I got here. I don't want the doors to close from the way Alcoholics Anonymous was brought to me because I walked through it. Now, you know, I married that young man, always afraid he'd leave me. And because I lived in terror, the day came. The day came when my higher power said it's time. I was sober five years. My children started drinking and taking drugs. And I said, God spare my babies. But he didn't spare my baby. I had two daughters. One ran off to Ohio. This one here. I hated my mother. Only went 20 minutes from her. The other one went to live in a commune, came home with a burn the size of a silver dollar on her chest. and i died inside i had a nervous breakdown and again i contemplated an attempted suicide that young man went and took me to the psycho ward went home packed his clothes and left me and everything that i ever feared came about me and the only reason that i stand before you tonight is because my higher power has had other plans for me it was at that time that i made my complete surrender that i believe today it couldn't have happened any other way for me because i was not in touch with reality i thought i had taken those steps i know today that i was just gathering information the first few years i was just gathering information it was like having an hourglass all the sand is on top but it only goes down one sand at a time if I have something happen that is so called tragedy maybe two sands will come down but most of the time it's one sand at a dime he went and took me to the psycho ward, went home packed his clothes and left me and the women of Alcoholics Anonymous came around me and held me up I got sober in toast burner country and those toast burner ladies that had never drank out of their kitchen came around me and held me I was finally able to share the secrets of my heart with them and I realized that we were not so different in Alcoholics Anonymous we get to be each other's mamas you see I never had a mama not really but here I have been mothered by the women of AlcoholicsAnonymous that listened to my pain, that hugged me and identified with my pain. And it is from the men in Alcoholics Anonymous that have treated me like a lady, that I learned to be a lady. But because I was left with absolutely no more props, then I threw myself completely and absolutely into this program without any reservation and made peace with my higher power. I said, okay God, I'm never going to be happy again. and all you ever want me to do is work with the sick women drunks and let them puke on me. All right, all right. So I threw myself completely into this program, and that is the reason that I was taught with dignity, self-respect, integrity, that you have taught me in this program. I moved to Orange County, and I got a sponsor. My sponsor learned to be a sponsor from Hitler And when I grow up, I want to be like my sponsor She talked to me in ways that If I talk that way to the women I sponsor They never talk to me again And me, I just wanted to be Like My Sponsor My sponsor's name was Mary Reagan And my sponsor spoon-fed me, Alcoholics Anonymous. Just like you spoon-feed her. She taught me how to get this program out of this book and apply it in my own life. I was having a little bit of trouble in my life when I came to her. I was involved with a man that just happened to have a wife. And I came up to her and said, I came into her with this shame. I said, look at what I've gotten myself into. And she said, well, Angie, some of us just got to eat shit with a rusty spoon until we can't stand it anymore. I could feel the bayonetta coming out the end through the back of me. I remember one time we went on a cruise, first sober sailor cruise, and Duffy, you know Duffy. And we were all sitting around, and I wanted to take a napkin as a souvenir. and I used to take ashtrays as souvenirs when I go speak and she said you know that's stealing I said it's not stealing, it's souvenirs and Duffy said yeah that's why they put their name on it Mary and she says you shut up and he did too she said to me with disgust because she couldn't convince me and she goes and yeah I don't know about you but my integrity is worth more than an ashtray that's how she did She bayoneted the truth into me. I threw myself completely and absolutely into this program, and I found out the secret. The secret was that when I threw, after all that's said and done, there's only you and me God anyway. That which I demanded from these people, they never had it to give. I started working with the women from 12-step houses. I used to take them to meetings and give them money and bring them into my home. They thought I cared. I didn't care. I got problems, but I just did it because I'm supposed to do it. But God throws in the joker. When I act as if I care, one day that day comes when I care what happens to you. And that's what made me feel like I thought you loving me would feel when I started really caring about you. And that was a gift. If God removes any character defects from me, it's been by accident. Because Mary always told me, if God removes all my character defects, I'll disappear. So he's got to take them cafeteria style. My job is to do those steps to the best of my ability to tell the truth. Whenever I used to come up to her with elaborate schemes, she'd say, for God's sakes, what's wrong with the truth? Oh, never occurred to me to tell the truth. My kids came back. I don't even care if they come back or not. They came back, went to work. I went to school, became self-supporting through my own contributions. And Norma lived with me. And this was a time when we lived in a corner. And her window had a big shelf by that window. And she used to have all these big old bottles of booze there. I never thought she was an alcoholic. And it never occurred to me that any of the people who had come to pick me up thought they were my bottles. They'd look at them and say, oh yeah, they're Norma's. Never saw Dawn to be done. I used to think I was really brilliant. And I found, I'm one of those ladies that had to learn to live alone to find out the difference between being alone and being lonely. I worked this program, and I did a lot of institutional work, 12-step work, and I was just feeling great living by myself. I said, man, what was this all about? And the day came when I found out what I had, when my sister, who had always been held up as an example, chose to take her life, and it was my destiny to be the one to find her. And I could not believe what was before my eyes. and I truly believe that I have been spared that her life was none of my business just like my life is none of my business I truly belief that I am been spared because I am God's melody of life and he sings his song through me I told you my children went on their way doing their thing and Mary taught me that you can have happiness and joy in your life with a thorn in your heart Norma taught me that her life was none of my business, too. So I tried to help her. And if I love you, get away from me because I'll kill you. She came over to my house one day, weighed 75 pounds. She said 76. I said 75. What does she know? She was loaded. I was sober. I thought she had AIDS. She looked like a shriveled up little old lady with gray hair. And gray looked like Dracula's wife or something. I thought I'd never see her alive again. My other daughter, two weeks after my sister killed herself, two weeks later I became a grandma. I don't know about you guys. I never knew how to be a mother. Didn't even have a clue on. But I'm good as a grandma." Man, I didn't tell myself up to any grandma. they thought grandma and santa claus meant the same thing i finally found out how to get along with kids just give them everything they want one time i took my oldest granddaughter to a conference and i had a big white blouse covers a multitude of tortillas and beans she's grandma you look just like the white angel it was also at that time that I fell in love I fell in love with a newcomer if it offends spiritual giants I want you to know that it offended me I went to a conference once and he went with me in a place where I didn't think anybody I knew would be and here comes my friend Frank Sloan coming and I you know it's going to come he says well is he with you I'm trying to hide him over here I said yeah you see one of us well he says his nose is still red how long she been sober while his head his head used to go like them little dogs in the Mexican cars how long this guy been sober I said five minutes for God's sake give that poor guy a break let him get sober first so I went to Mary I said Mary because I'm also like the Hawaiian And she said, Angie, he's a nice guy. If you don't want him, I'll take him. She said, if you're afraid somebody's going to find out something about you, just tell them. And then you won't be afraid. Because it's the fear that makes the walls between you and me. And I don't do that anymore. You see, today I know that I'm a stand-up person for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. That man and I have been married now 18 1⁄2 years. I believe it's going to work. We both know that I am not the message, I am the messenger. I bring to you the message of Alcoholics Anonymous to tell you that there is joy and happiness in our home, that I have two daughters members of Alcoholic Anonymous and that we are friends, that all the pain is gone and now the only thing there is, is love. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't tell my loved ones how special and how much they are loved. I allowed my daughters to share their poison with me. I let it be, I was a safe place for them to dump their poison. Yes, I did it to them, whether it was by genes or by environment. And I had to come to the place where I had to say i can no longer pay for my past you got to forgive me for your own sake i could give you a disease but the recovery is yours you see i am now a great grandmother i think it's absolutely insane to try to raise little kids when you're 65 but you see my granddaughter is one of us how do I know she feels guilty just breathing oh yes she goes out looking like a doll and comes back looking like she's been dragged around the block I just love watching her and the little guy stays with me he calls me granny and everything that he wants I give him I don't care when he's 16 he's going to come and hit me and say, give me the money for the drugs, Granny. And I'm going to say, isn't he wonderful? I walk in the sunlight of the Spirit. I work them steps. There are five things that I do today and have done for a long time. I go to meetings. I read that book. I take those steps. I continue to take those tips because I'm unfinished business. I have a sponsor, and I am sponsored. I was a stand-up person for my sponsor. I went to the last mile with my sponsor, I have another sponsor today, because I believe that me and my, if I don't have a sponsored, there's a reality check, two reality checks, meetings and sponsorship, if one of them is missing, guess who's the reality check? I ain't taking no chances today. I am so grateful that I have been touched by my higher power in yours. Thank you.