Why the Big Book Tools Are Made for Arrogant Egomaniacs – Peggy M.

Oh, thank you. She's taking over my job, you guys. Good evening, everybody. My name is Peg Martin, and I'm an alcoholic. And through the grace of God and fellowship of people like you and sponsorship, I've been sober since February 4th, 1964. I'm very grateful for that. First of all, I'd like to thank you all for the committee and Sandy and everybody, Jackie, for asking me to come out here, my husband and I. I love to travel. I get to travel with all three of them, the two guys and me. And I really love that. I love coming with our son and Dick places because we have a very, very busy AA life. And the phone rings all the time, and people are in and out of our house, and we have two grandchildren, and they're just the light of our lives. And, you know, my daughter-in-law is on the fire department. She's a paramedic, so she's in and Out of Our Lives. You know, she's making calls all the times. So it's really nice to go on a trip and to be together with the two guys that I just love better than anything in the world. So I thank you for that privilege. I'd like to thank Jackie for this. I tell you, it's like a shack bag is what it is. I mean, it'S this thing. We used to call them shack bags. You know, you take along a little thing with a change of underwear in it and stuff. Well, this thing, that's back before we could go to motels. Anyway, this thing has everything in it It has all kinds of stuff It has a manicure Even foot gel stuff I mean, it's unbelievable I couldn't believe she had that much imagination To go around and do that all year long But I thank you for that And for all of the hospitality We live in a relatively small town Although it's large, I think Compared to Port Angeles But we live in an relatively small Town, and the nice thing about living in a small town is that when you walk down the street, people meet your eye and they say hello to you or you smile and say good morning. You know, in the big city, that's not true. I mean, they won't look you in the eye. It's a rule of the city. You just don't look people in faith and it's that way in our town and I love that. I lovethat feeling of being a community and I believe that that's one of AA's great strengths is that we have, because of the framework of Alcoholics Anonymous, the steps and the traditions and the concepts and those things that are not really traditions but are things we traditionally do in AlcoholicsAnonymous. That makes us a community. That binds us together like no other fellowship has. You know, that's what we used to do in our families. In our families, we usedと sit around tables and talk about Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Helen and Uncle Bruce and the time Douglas, you know, got drunk and burned up the airplane. You know, stuff like that. I mean, we just talked about those sorts of things. We sat around our tables and we told each other our stories. We told each another about our families, and we learned a sense of family, and we felt connected to those people who were our progenitors. And I think in some respects in this country today we've lost that sense of But in Alcoholics Anonymous, that's exactly what we do is we sit around the tables and we tell each other our stories and we develop a sense of community and we developed a sense family with these people. And that's why I think it's so very important to have a home group and it's important to give back to that home group, to make that group your place, you know, take a job in that group or do something in that group so that it becomes a vested interest for you to have that group be your place. I think that there, you know, I learned something when I was sponsoring. It's wonderful. I have a great sponsor today. I lost my sponsor of 27 years a year ago in January. And, I mean, it's hard. It's hard to have somebody for that long and have her die. I know she went on to the big meeting in the sky and, you know, they've got her on ashtrays up there, I'm sure, or whatever. But it's hard to do that. But one of the things she used to always say is she used to really stress this sense of community and this sense of family and of putting stuff together because we are people who normally would not mix. We don't mix there. We don' t mix out there. You know, I don' d know about you, but I'm an oddball. I mean, to this day, I'm a bubble off a plum. You know, and that's just the way I am. As a bricklayer would say, you're one brick short of a load. You know? I'm not like other people. I don't want to be like other People. I think they're boring people. You know. They play bingo, and they're sober playing bingo. I mean. That's terrible. I mean, that's a terrible thing. If you're going to play bingo, drink playing bingo. That way when you really do get a bingo which of course sometimes you do and sometimes you just think you do you can jump up and the beans go everywhere and you can cause a big kerfluffle. That's really playing bengo, that kind of stuff. I'm just not like other people And I think that we are a roomful of people who don't fit. We just don't sit anywhere. I don't know about you, but I didn't feel like I fit in my family. I didn' t feel like fit in the neighborhood. I didn''t feel like i fit in school. You know, I didn ''t feel I fit a job or whatever it was that I was doing. I was doing. I had this secret thought inside of me if they knew what I was thinking, they'd kick me out of the universe. And there wasn't anything self-important about me, of course. It's me and the universe, but I think that's one of the reasons that I drank. I'm sure it's one of the reasons that I drank and I'm one of these people who think that you don't get to be an alcoholic you've got to have something going for you before you ever drink you've gotta have a weirdness about you, you know you've GOTTA HAVE SOMETHING ODD GOING ON and then when you drink and you happen to have this allergy you just go UGH THAT'S IT I FOUND IT You know, I'm whole again, you know. And it's really kind of funny because, you know, I congratulate the men who are here tonight and I congratulate the committee for having a woman on Saturday night. It's an unusual thing. So thank you very much because mostly they're men and mostly they're long-term sober men. Well, I am a long- term sober woman. So I thank you very much for having me. It was very brave of you. I mean, it's a brave thing to do because normally there's an awful lot of men in AA and a lot of times they don't show up because there's a woman speaker. And I have a story about that and I hope I remember to tell you. But I congratulate you for being here and I thank you for that honor because I'm glad you're gender blind. You know, I'm just glad you'RE gender blind anyway. So I had this weirdness going on. I just, you know, I just I've always felt that way. So when I have a sense of community with something, it develops for me what I call a heart string. You know, I have an interesting experience with this. I certainly have a heartstring to Karen. I have heartstring Jim. I certainly my husband and to my son. And I have hearts strings with Inez who is my sponsor. I have with Terry who is sponsored by somebody that I sponsor. And there are a number of people in this room that I am directly or indirectly involved with because of sponsorship. I'm one of these people who believes my sponsor was the first person that I felt like I fit with. And because I didn't trust anybody, you know, I came into this world with a ton of fear. And I don't know where it came from. I wasn't taught that. I had a great family. I was not abused. I never had any bad sexual experiences. I never Had strict discipline, but I didn' t have any kind of abuse. It was a good, solid family, and I still didn't. I mean, the stress of being in that family with those good people, it drove me to drink. I mean that's what happened. I just drove to drink because my sister was just this, oh, God. I mean she's the kind of person you love to hate. You know, she's just cute, and she loved people, and she had blonde hair with curls and she always smelled good and she was always on the phone and she never had any zits or nothing she was just so cute and I just hated her because the comparisons were so obvious and she even had a few little boobs and I never had ANY boobs they were just flat as flitters It was just embarrassing. Even when I got bigger, I didn't get boobs. My mom said, when you have children, you will develop, my mother is such a wonderful woman, she says, you'll develop bosoms. I like hydrangeas myself. Well, my hydrangea has died in the bud, let me tell you. So I didn't even feel like I fit in my family. You know, I just didn't fit anywhere. And so when I went to Alcoholics Anonymous the first time, this lady walked up to me. And somebody was asking in the sponsorship seminar this afternoon something about she was talking about wanting to get a sponsor, but she wanted to have one that was all rolled into one. You know? It was a sponsor who did service and was good at the steps and took you through the book and all that. And that's certainly a natural thing to want. The only thing is it's almost impossible to find somebody like that because we all have our special interests in Alcoholics Anonymous. But anyway, this woman walked up to me and said, my name is Jane, and you look new, so I'll be your sponsor. Well, I didn't know what, I had no idea of the language of AA. I just said, okay. You know, I mean, I'm so, like, I could not even think for two years. I don't know how people, we call them two-year wonders. You know, they're like come in, they get well immediately, and then suddenly at two years they disappear. You know? They just like wonderful their way right out of AA. Well, that certainly was not going to happen to me. I couldn't even think for two years. So my sponsor, I just said, okay, okay. And she intimidated me. And you know, it's okay. It really was okay that she intimidated me. Now, it's okay if I grow out of that, which I did. But I was intimidated by her at the beginning. And she said, you'll sit up in the front row. Sit right next to me in the first row. And I thought that's where they punished people. You know, they put people in the fourth row. And she said, sit up there in that front row and I didn't find out for a number of years that the reason she wanted to be sitting in the front row is so that if I got up to leave Alcoholics Anonymous, she could trip me, you And I would fall flat, and then she'd sit on me or something. And she said, my name is Jane, and I'll be your sponsor. Now, let me just, she was my sponsor until I left Nebraska, until I lived for Nebraska. That was God. I mean, that was God working. And that's why I encourage you. It doesn't matter. I mean if you've got a year longer or two years longer than that person walking in, you walk up to them and you say hey, you're new I'll be your sponsor they don't know they can say no I didn't know I could say no they don'T know they can say NO all they gotta do, there's only one way to establish dictatorship you gotta have a dictator and a dictatee all the dictatee has to say that's why I laugh about this business with Clancy and being a dictator all you have to say is, no Clancy and he'll or whatever but you cancelled the dictatorship right there well I didn't know I could say no I didn' t know what the deal was here in Alcoholics Anonymous so I just said yes and she took me under her wing and I followed her everywhere and I felt such comfort in that because I was a scared little kid even though I didn''t look like it I felt such comfort You know, I would hang on her backside. You know? I'd hang on to her shirt. I mean, that's how close I was. I'd take her shirt and we'd walk up the aisle, you know, and then she'd drop me off in my seat, you know, and I'd sit there like this. I was just, I had been given the greatest gift I think you can ever be given when you get to Alcoholics Anonymous, getting in here. And I have been given that gift since. And I think it's a very strange gift. It comes in a weird looking package. It's not something that you would say to yourself, I want this as a gift. This is a great gift. You would never say that. I'd never say it. I'd say that because the gift is desperation. I was desperate. I didn't have a single better idea, not one single better idea, none. And I had been thinking my way out of situations ever since I could remember. I would think my way out of things I could use my brain it was all I had and it failed me you know, my brain failed me my body failed me and I was desperate somebody mentioned this today but I couldn't agree more the sensation I had when I right before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous was this you know I couldnít have articulated at the time all I know was I was so tired. I was desperately tired, so tired I felt like I couldn't even move. And so when Jane walked up to me and said, I'll be your sponsor, I just said, okay, you know, okay. Now did I act like a great pigeon? Did I act Like a willing newcomer? No, no, no. No, I was nasty. I was sulky. But I did it. I did the things that I was, I call it doing the deal. And I'll tell you something. I'm 40 years sober and I have the greatest life. It's a fabulous life. It really has nothing to do with what's on the outside. It's what I feel inside. I mean, I have an appreciation for life and for people and for love and for God and for my fellow man. And I can't even, I mean, I feel so privileged to have this life. I have a ton to lose, ton to loose. So for me, Alcoholics Anonymous is more important now than it ever was then in terms of what I have to lose because when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't have a brain. I had a lot of false conceptions. I had a lot of lying, I had a lot cheating behind me I had all those things that are just the things we develop when we're drinking the things that we do to survive I had those things and now I have this peace and serenity and this stuff that's inside and I'll tell you I have a million dollars worth of that to lose a million dollars where in the beginning it was a plug nickel I didn't have a lot to lose but I was so blessed because I had this desperation. And that's where I arrived at the doors in February 4, 1964. And I just said, I need help. I need health. And I started to cry. And I had not cried in years. I cried and they couldn't shut me up. I mean, I just kept crying and crying. And my mother went upstairs and got me and dragged me down the stairs and threw me in the back seat of a Porsche and drove me off to a drying out place. and they took me out of the porch and laid me out on the porch there at this drying-out place and they put me in a chair and they got sober and I met my first sponsor and that's how I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was 25 years old I had cirrhosis of the liver I had my sister had tried to my sister said to me some months or so before I came to Alcoholic Anonymous she said you look road hard and put up wet she said let's frost your hair and maybe y'all well my hair had died like about two years previous to this because you drink enough you drink Enough and and there's this little thing that goes on when you drink anybody anybody drinks and you drink the way we do this it's really freaky because this this is actually a physiological fact I'll use funny terms to explain it but this is a physiological fact when we drink it goes in our mouth it slides down our throat it goes to our stomach and it goes and our stomach takes it into our bloodstream the first place it goes is our head and it go up into that all these little networks that we have in our head and they're there are whole it's a whole system of synapses and neurons okay these neurons are bunches and the little nerve fibers go out from there and they touch at synapses which is just another word for connection. And they're like, all the time all the times in our heads there's millions of these little things and they're going all the time. Just our regular brain. millions of them if you really want to think about that you'll drive yourself nuts oh yeah and if you drink again you're going to remember this so when we drink it goes in, it goes up it goes through and here's little synapses just doing what they do and we drink and the alcohol goes through these synapsis and it goes like this These little things don't like it. They don't lack alcohol, so they go back like this. They go more or less in synapse language. You know, they go like that. And you do that off, and then when these little things are going like this, they develop this spark that jumps across to make the connection. And it's like we remember where we parked the car. we remember essentially to breathe in and out because of these little things giving sparks and when we drink and these things go like this eek it goes like that the spark goes across and fries the ends of these neurons millions of them so you've got these eek like this fry, fry like bacon in your head and sooner or later what happens to them is that they get you get fried i mean you get like a fried brain and you remember when you said i'm so drunk my hair's drunk remember that my hair feels drunk or when you wake up in the morning you think my hair hurts you know it's so bad you try to go like this so you tryto comb your hair but you're afraid to touch it because it's like, ah! It hurts. Your hair is drunk. Everything about you is drunk and these things, oh and the great thing about alcoholics, I love this, I Love This Part we have in our midst a lot tonight, a lot who've smoked those funny little cigarettes including my erstwhile progenitor back there who smoked a lot of funny little cigarettes with no names. And those things have resin in them. I know, you used to resonate bombs, right? Okay, you have resin in the bottom of these. That's glue! It's glue. It is glue, like Elmer's. Alright, so you're drinking and you're smoking dope. This is the new generation scares me to death but this is the new generation. You're drinking, you're smoke a little dope you got alcohol going in here and these little things go eek and then the dope follows right on and they go and they get glued back they're glued so I call them glue heads you know they're like glue heads because what happens is whereas when I sobered up I was quick I mean people say answered the door oh god you know i was just quick i was just stop kicking me your foot swinging in this you know I'd sit right up here and my foot would swing back and forth really hard which was nervousness and sexual tension I knew that you know it's just like blue heads they kind of go huh you say how are you and they say wow and you tell them go do this and then you sort of chat a little while because they're so slow they like go like this so they're easy to catch you know just catch them and drag them back So that's really only the difference. But these synapses get all burned out, and I was burnt. I mean, I could not think. I could no reason, and I am so glad that I got fried. Because I think that was what gave me the desperation. I had been using these things all of my life. All my life I'd been using These Things to Reason, and I couldn't use them anymore. I was out. I Was Done Out of Ideas. Just out of ideas. And that's how I arrived at the doors of Alcoholics and Alarms, February 4th, 1964. I was done, cooked, fried, willing. You know, willing whatever. Not nice, but willing. Not happily, but willingly. And I started out my life as a kid who felt different. And we traveled around a lot. My father's a doctor. It was during the Second World War. I'm 60, I'll be 66 this year, and we traveled around the world. And, you know, I got to see things and do things and live in this family that I didn't feel like I fit. And it was really a wonderful life. It should have felt wonderful to me. But I always felt like an alien in it. You know,I just, I was scared all the time. But nobody could ever tell that because I was also always really mad at the world. I was so scared, I was mad. I was just like a Tasmanian devil. I've always had a lot of energy, and I'm like whirling. When I'd stop long enough, I'd have fangs, just like Taz. These fangs would come out. When people threatened me, I hit them. I liked smacking people. I was really small. I was 56 pounds in the sixth grade. And I loved especially smacking little boys because they scared easy. Little girls would just smack you back, you know. You can't do that to me, you Know, like that. I don't want you to think girls. So I'd just get a little gang of boys and I'd Just order them around. Life was wonderful as long as they minded. But when they didn't mind, I got very upset. You know, I was very, very upset, and I'd go home. So anyway, in the sixth grade, of course, we're always, all of us are always, we're Always vying for some position of power. And this was during the Berlin candy lift, and I lived on an Air Force base, and we were airlifting candy into the children of Berlin. And I had been put in charge of taking up the money for the sixth grader. and I took my job very seriously and there was one guy and I only tell you this because this is just the way I was there was this one guy who was like 640 pounds I mean he was a big kid he had little tiny shoulders and a little like head that just wanted to go like that and just knock it right off he had these he looked like a big avocado he had big old fat hips And he was just like one of those clowns that you sock in what they call anger management. I love that. Manage your anger, you know. Anyway, so he looked like that and he wore jeans and white shirts and high water. High water jeans. They were about this far off the ground. White socks and tennis shoes with lightning bolts on the side. And we called him Flash because he was the antithesis of a flash. And he didn't like me, and I didn't like him. And I said, you better bring in your money. He was the only one who had brought in his money. I said you better bring in your money tomorrow or I'm going to beat you up. He goes, oh, I'm really scared because I weighed 56 pounds. But I was mean and he wasn't. So I said I'll tell you. He didn't bring his money in so I said meet me after school out on the sidewalk. Now this was at Randolph Elementary School at Randolf Air Force Base, San Antonio. You know, he didn't bring it. And so after school I hid in the bushes alongside the sidewalk and he passed by and I jumped out of the bushes and I landed on his shoulders, these skinny little things, and grabbed ahold of him like this and I hit him up like this and just lucky shot hit him right under here. The bridge right here hurts terrible. You know how that hurts to have it. And his nose started bleeding, and I got scared because I'm way up high. I mean, he's tall. So I just like rode him to the ground, you know. All the way down, I'm thinking, oh, no, oh no, because I've a rebel and a coward. You know, I get myself into these things. I'm 56 pounds on this huge 640-pound guy, and I'm riding him to ground. I knew I was in trouble, and we were on the school grounds. I was fighting. All the kids are screaming, fight, fight! fight you know and they're all running around i loved it because it got me attention but then i realized that i'm in big trouble this is a sergeant's kid i'm an officer's kid this is not good i spent the next i don't know how long in my room listening to airplanes take off and land take off in land take off inland because i'd been grounded but he i ended up with that guy on my first set of amends, my first people I had to make amends with too and I've always said well you know okay I'm willing to go to him and say I was wrong for smacking you. I was wrong and then under my breath I'd think but I've never been sorry and I never have. I love that feeling. I mean that was what I was after. That's what we're all after I think. We We have no power. Power comes from a couple of places. It comes from outside of us and inside of us, and I had no inside power. I was doing everything I could from the outside. I wasdoing everything Icould to intimidate people or to make people do things my way, and it wasn't working. And I'll tell you that inside power is the real McCoy because once you've got that, nobody and nothing can take it away from you. And that's what we strive for in Alcoholics Anonymous. We strive for, it says in our book of AlcoholicsAnonymous, lack of power. That was our dilemma, and it says that's what this book is all about, is to show us how to get to a power greater than ourselves. And I needed that back when I was little, and I need it every day today. And that'S what this is all abOut, is that willingness, that ability to get that piece of power that sense of peace inside of us and I think we do that or at least certainly I have done that through a lot of different ways in Alcoholics Anonymous I was not a person who came to AlcoholicsAnonymous believing in God, I didn't believe in God I came in in a generation in the 50's where we just it was peace, love, burn it up blow it down, whatever You know, I was a beatnik. I tell you, it was just one of those days when the whole nation was confused. And, boy, I fit right into that, I'll tell you. I just was confused and upset and took it out on everybody around me. And I just, it Was, if I, you know, I would be on one side or the other. If I was anywhere at a party and you believed one way, I would believe another, you Know. But whatever I believed, I believed whoever was buying me the drinks. You know, if somebody would buy me drinks, I'd be on your side. If somebody else was buying, I changed sides politically completely. So I was just sort of like this person who I was juste drinking. I was jest drinking. And when I drank, it made everything fine. I lost my fear. I lost mijn inhibition. my waist would nip in and my hips would flare out and my boobs would grow just grow right out and I'd be Dolly Parton and I developed this twitch in my butt and you've seen newcomers walk across the room with that twitch new girl newcomers they twitch like this and I never could do that because I was way above that when I was sober I was way above twitching let me tell you But when I drank, I twitched. And I'd end up in the backseat of cars with people like Bob Van Orden that I could not stand. He was one of these people you want to throw up on because he was just such a nerd. But he had a blue Fairlane Ford convertible and I wanted to ride in it. And I got to ride it and I got sitting in the backside of that car steaming up the plastic window in theback of the convertible top. it was unbelievable and I would have never ended up with a guy like that I never endedup with guys it was just a bad choice and that's what happened to me when I drank and the funny thing about it was that gradually the very things I drank for the courage that it gave me when I first drank drank. It drank away the fear. The courage came. It drank away what I considered to be my ugliness. I became beautiful. It drank way my flat boobs. It gave me boobs. It drank away all these things. All those things that I drank for gradually began to disappear and I would drink and I would get more afraid, uglier, less coordinated, more antisocial and more paranoid until one day that day, early February of 1964 I'd had enough I mean, I just when people talk about surrendering and they say you know, I surrendered well, I don't surrender what I do is I go, okay, okay alright, okay alright, I get it okay, alright I'll do it for a little while and if it doesn't work then I'll think about it and I'll be like, I don't know and I'm going to do what I think I'm gonna do that's how I surrender i don't think i surrendered i think i was surrendered there's a whole different meaning i was surrounded by john barleycorn he laid me out you know he we he gets a bad name but i'll tell you he's our best friend he is our best friends because he will be the one that lays us out and he laid me out. Now, in case you think I was a panty waist drinker and some of you guys in here would think she's just a borrow a cup of sherry from the neighbor kind of drinker. Let me tell you that's not the way I drank. I drink a quart of vodka a day. That's a lot for a little kid my size. Now, when that happened I smelled like a rotten potato because that's what it's made out of it's from fermented potatoes and the reason I drank vodka was because I thought nobody could smell you they told me you couldn't smell my breath well god it's so funny because I'd suck clorets and drink vodka and my mother would say she's drunk again and my dad would say how do you know that look at her tongue it's green I mean we think we're fooling people we're not we're deluded we are not just a tiny bit tad off we're like deluded remember getting into elevators when you were drinking oh I was at Washington D.C. when I got sober I'd get in an elevator and I'd hold my breath all the way up because I'd think somebody's gonna smell me you know they're gonna smell me well you can save your breath because it comes out of our pores you know it's just we're reeking of it you know just bubbling out through our brains and our hair and our pores and I mean you know and I you know I worked for I worked at this the last job I had I didn't have very many jobs but I had I had an interesting kind of life. I went over to Paris, and I was in the interpreter school in Paris, and I could really speak a lot of languages drinking really good, you know, because I didn't care what I sounded like, you Know, there's a we were talking about horoscopes at the dinner table one time, and they said, What is your sign? And I said, Je suis verge. Well, in French that means I am a virgin. And it was kind of like a turd in a punch bowl, you know. It just kind of sank to the bottom and everybody's like looking at me like this, you know, and I was, oh God. And I didn't know what I'd said for a long time. But that's the kind of, you know, anyway. So I was in the interpreter school there and I was there for a year. And then I went on from the interpreter I went to the University of Geneva where I was in a graduate course in interpreting. And I had a lot of friends when I was over there. And there were two people who said to me during that whole time, that 2-year time, they both said something very similar. They said to you drink too much. And when I as in Paris it was a gal that was the secretary for the Secretary of the United Nations Nations, which was then the League of Nations or something. It was in Geneva and it was the United Nations. And NATO was there and so forth. And she said, you drink too much. She said, there's people who can drink and people who cannot drink and you drink too much and she sent me to, she was kind of a social worker and she thought like a lot of people that if we just have something to do, you know, if we have something meaningful to do that we will not drink the way we do if we have something that will fill our lives I always thought that maybe I should be like a writer and I'd write poems about dead things, I mean everything was dead it was just the leaves fell and then he stepped on them oh you know it was so beatnik anyway and then I tried painting well I painted in a coal hole You can't paint in a coal hole. I mean, coal holes, they have no, it's no windows in a coal hole, it is like a coal hole. It was a place they put the coal, you know, there was a little trap door and they'd pour coal in there, you know, and I painted it up and made it my studio. It was in the basement. You could have grown mushrooms in that room, you know, it was so dark. So I painted and I painted everything black. Dark purple. you know depressing no skies just so i wasn't finding myself you know i mean i i had been tested i had an iq of 170 somethings on my and my family has thought she just is a mouth she didn't fit oh they were right i didn't sit but i but it was mostly because i was drinking so i was supposed to find myself you don't doing something well i couldn't find myself i couldn find my hands. I mean, I'm so drunk. So anyway, she sent me, Katerina, this other friend of mine, sent me to a charity hospital in Paris. I don't tell this very often, but to me it's very significant. She sent me this charity hospital because there was an old prostitute in that hospital who was dying from syphilis and alcoholism. And she spoke English because she had consorted with some GIs. You know, she was a prostitute in Paris. It was a legal profession. And so they took advantage of the legalities of the system. And this woman was dying. And she had no people. She had no friends. She had not family. She had children. She had nothing, nothing. And she was dying in this hospital and she spoke English. and Katerina said, you know what, let's take you down there and they need your help because she speaks English. I know what she was doing now. What she wasdoing was she wanted me to go to that hospital and see a person who was suffering from the same disease that I was and she wantedme to see where it would end up. She wanted meto see an example of somebody who was doing what I was doing at the end of the road. and what she doesn't understand what nobody understands when they try to do things like that because there are people who try to help us you know, there are always people who tryto help us well-meaning people and she was trying to help me she sent me to this place her name was Elena and Elena she was really pretty far gone the charity hospitals in Paris are really, really bad or they were then Nobody comes in and changes those people's sheets. Nobody comes in there and tends to them nursing-wise. If they have... I remember a nurse coming into her room one time and sticking a thermometer down in a flower vase and shaking it off and sticking it in her mouth. She didn't know. She didn'T know the difference, but nonetheless, the treatment was one. They treated her like a second-class citizen, and I could see that. So I made it a kind of a deal to go down every week. And I would be there, and I'd bathe her head, and I'd talk to her, and I'd change her, I'd help her up on the bedpan. And sometimes I'd get there, and she'd still be on the bedpan for hours because nobody would come and take her off the bed can. And I'd talked to her and she just slowly, slowly disintegrated in front of my eyes. And one week I went and she was gone. And I said, where's Elena? Oh, she died. Elle est morte. And I asked, where is she buried? Le Grave de Paupierre. Pauper's grave. A pauper's grave. And you know what? I knew that was me. I knew it. I knew it. But I had no solution. And that made me drink even harder. because I knew that's what would happen to me. I knew it. And, you know, when I was, I think I was 30-some years old or 40-some years old, in our town the fire department broke down the door of a small rent by the week apartment and in there was a woman who was exactly the same age that I was that year. and she was an alcoholic, and there were empty bottles of vodka all over that room. A half a box of Triscuits and the woman who'd been dead for three days. Nobody ever claimed her body. Nobody ever came. That's what happens to us. That'swhat happens at the end of the line for a lot of us. and I'll tell you what I compared my life and some people around the town took up a collection and they bought a box and we more or less buried her it wasn't just AAs but other people did and they buried her in a decent grave and I thought about that and the difference between me and that woman same age look what I had and look what she had and it was stark And let me tell you, I get really mad. I know that I shouldn't, but I'm human. I get realy, realy mad when I see people taking AA for granted. I get reallly upset when they don't take their own chair, when they dont carry back their own cup to the trash. You know, I just get so upset because I want to say, look what we have. Look what this program has given us. Look at what the tools specifically designed for us, specifically. These 12 steps and the traditions and the things, the concepts, this is a program designed specifically to fit you and I. specifically and we'll find something wrong with the tools or the people who are using the tools how dare I judge another man I do, but how dare I? I'm a human, I do but my actions don't have to reflect that I need to do what I need to do to pay back to those to whom much is given from them much is expected and that's me I have been given so much and a lot is expected of me and I'll tell you what it's the least I can do this is the deal This is a deal for us. This is what we were born to do. This is our unique and marvelous gift. This is God given to us. This is something that God said, I'm going to tweak and I'm gonna take this proctologist and this stockbroker and I'm going to uniquely design tools for them that they're going to think are their own and I'll let them write it down and carry it to a generation after generation after generation of alcoholics and all they have to do is follow a few simple rules and do a few simple things on a daily basis to pay that back and the big secret is they'll never get even I'll never get even because I've been given so much more than I have ever given and think about this we're given these tools specifically designed for nuts like us i mean it couldn't be more perfect i mean you know powerlessness came to believe i'm powerless over alcohol my life's unmanageable you know i i made it a sin turned my will in my life over the care of God as I understand him. You know, those kinds of things are just made for arrogant, egomaniacal, egominiacal inferiority complex people. I mean, that's who we are. We're like egom maniacs who believe we're terrible, you know, just awful. And it's, I had that feeling All my life is being stretched. I'd think, you're presidential material. But you're lower than whale poop on the ocean floor. So it's like, ah! I mean, I've lived as a human dichotomy all my life. That's why I drank. I mean you know, it just sort of put us together in the middle. You know, like the two of me. And I'm like that today. I'm still dichotomous, but I don't care. I don' t care anymore. I mean, I just think I'm funny. I mean I just, you know, when somebody said to me, I think it was, I've forgotten who it was. Said to me I laughed and I cried at the same time when you were talking. I said, yeah, it's kind of a schizophrenic experience, wasn't it? And he said, yes. And I said, it is for me too. That's true. I mean, and I can do any of this stuff sober, and I don't hurt people. That's a reward in itself. I don'T have to look in my dad's eyes and see that look. And you know what it is. You've looked in people's eyes who loved you, who wanted the best for you. I was his oldest daughter, the most like him. You know, and just, it just killed him. And I'd look in my mother's eyes, and she just, was just hurt. And Iíd look in her brother's eyes and it was disgust. Iíd looked in my sister's eyes and she'd think, I won. I won! We don't want those. I don't ever want to have to look in those people's eyes again and see that, and I don' t. And I have this, but I always have this personality. I love football. I mean, there is – I love foot ball. I love foot ball. I love fut ball. I love fot ball. I mean I love fut ball. i love the green bay packers which is like a that's like an illness all in itself you know we just we're kind of like the chicago cubs you know we just never quite win you know and it's just a terrible thing but i love football i lovethe plays i lovethelove the line play i like shoving against people i like the butts on the guys going by you know i just i like nice tall wide receivers that catch them and their little buns just tighten up you know I went to this terrible terrible retreat in southern Missouri it was truly a terrible retreat some stuff went on that should never have gone on and I was so glad to get out of there and I got on an airplane in Springfield Missouri and flew to Kansas City got off the plane took a cab to cheat to Arrowhead Stadium went to the game and it wasn't until about the third quarter when you know at that time a guy named Christian Akoye was this big heavy back and he would plow up the middle and knock people out of the way he was called the Nigerian nightmare you know and I I love that you know. And I got in the stands and Christian barreled over somebody and I just it just like I went ah I'm home you know it's just whoa I love football on the other hand i'm an artist and that doesn't go i mean you know i love football unless you're a guy named leroy neiman who paints all these different athletes and stuff but i love baseball and i love art and i draw big colorful diaphanous watercolors i just you know it's just i love classical music i love listening i with our representative from the um from the prison systems here. I take, I'm on a rotating committee that goes to the Sharpie County Jail on a six-week basis and I never fail but have a good meeting at that prison. I'll tell you I never failed because the people that are in that meeting, the women that are that meeting want to be in that meetings. They want to there and if I can encourage you to do anything please get into institutions work. If you don't have gratitude on a daily basis after you go to one of those things, you will when you leave there because we get to walk out. They have no keys. We get to work out and we have made a difference in somebody's life. Maybe not then, maybe not right away but somewhere down the road they will never forget that two members of Alcoholics Anonymous came in and brought a meeting to them on a Monday night on a rotating basis and I do that and I love it and I was on my way over to the meeting and I Was playing Pachelbel's Canon. I don't know if you know that but i love it and i have a jeep i had that thing turned up cranked right up you know i'm going you know it's got the it's a simple seven or eight note refrain and which can be you know added at the adaptations to it are endless and and they adapted it and it's the only thing he ever wrote that made it was worth a damn but it was wonderful it's just wonderful and i can do that and then I can turn that off and switch it over to rock and roll and I just happier in hell you know just I'm American woman you know I just love it and I love things like what's that one oh god the Mexican one what is that one it's not La Cucaracha but anyway La Bamba oh god I love La Bumba but I mean just have that eclectic So I'm still all these different things. But you have made me the person that is able to be those things, you know, and just love it. I like to say I'm a person of passion. Dick says it's character defects, you now. And I think it's true. I mean, I know it's, I love my passions. I love art. I love family. I love meetings. I have a vested interest in all of them. And there is no place I like to be better than at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous when a new person is there. And we're looking at them right in the eyes, and you're pitching it. I mean, you remember how good it feels to just pitch it? You just pitch. You pitch AA, andyou tell them how goodit can be. You tell them what happened to you. And at first, there's nobody home. You know, they got that nobody home look. And then the miracle. All of a sudden, there was just a glimmer, and it goes beep in their eyes, beep. Just somebody jumped up over the windowsill, started looking out just for a minute. And then you go, I got them. And there is nothing in my life that feels any better than that, nor in yours, because that's when we get the gift. That's the gift we have just selfish, self-centered, egocentric jerks have just taken a piece of us and said here it's yours for the taking we don't do that but that's what we've learned to do here it's like I had an uncle, Uncle Douglas and he in the state of Missouri had agreed that he would not drive until 2005 now this was years ago in like 1985 they were serious he had gotten so many DWIs he'd been in the Salvation Army he'd be at the downtown mission in St. Louis he was at one time the guidance counselor in the city of St. Lewis he was the first guidance counselor in the state of St Louis The bright man, Navy test pilot. Great guy. But he drank. And I can remember Dick and I sitting. He had just gotten out of that mission one more time, and he had a little job as a teacher in Dixon, Missouri. And I remember sitting down at the Lake of the Ozarks in my grandpa's kitchen across an oil cloth table from him. And Dick and I were telling him, when you get to Dixon, go to a meeting. And I see it, red and white, cane chairs, Dick, me, Douglas. It's as clear as anything. And I said, Dick said to him, get to a meet-up. And he said to me, and Douglas said, but you don't understand. And I'll tell you, the hair on the back of my neck went up because I knew he was a dead man. He had all those excuses that we give. You've got a principal whose father is an alcoholic. That principal would never let him drink. He couldn't go to meetings in Dixon because it was a small school district and they wouldn't let him teach there if they knew he wasn't AA. All those things, you know, those things that we did. He went and took that job. in two weeks he was having liquor delivered to the little apartment over the garage where he lived he had been fired from the job two months later he was back in the mission in St. Louis two years later he died in that same mission and he died from alcoholism and I knew when he said those words that he was not going to get it we folks have been given the gift we have been how do we know that I'll ever be given it again how do I know that I don't know that I see people sober 25, 30, 40 years who go out and drink they never make it back I don' t want to take that chance I don''t know about you but I don'T want to go back to having a plug nickel I DON'T want to go up back to being empty on the inside I don't want to go back to that fear, that terrible gnawing anxiety, that looking over my shoulder, that hurting people that I love. I don'T want to GO BACK TO THAT. THIS IS THE DEAL. ALL I HAVE TO DO IS A FEW SIMPLE THINGS. A FEw LITTLE THINGS, AND I DON'T HAVE TO do that. You ever notice when people stop going to meetings, They stop so slowly, you don't even know they're gone until they're gone. That's the way it happens at home. I just go up. I go. I take what I call foot prayers. It's a foot prayer. My head tells me, I don't want to go and listen to Mr. On and on and on again. I mean, he's going to go on and on and again. He's boring. And my feet say, shut up. They just walk into the meeting and sit down. I got smart feet and a dumb head. That's exactly what I have. I got a smart car. Drives me. I think, I'm going to the movie. I am going to the movie tonight. I are not going to that meeting. I'm going to movie. And my car just drives right to the meeting. Just won't even think about it. Just drive right into the parking lot. I remember this kid coming in one time and I said, where were you last night? He said, I had a drive-by meeting. What's a drive by meeting? He said I drove through the parking lot and went out the other end. I don't want to do drive by meetings. I just want to go to meetings. I have, you know, I have this sponsor friend. I think sponsorship is so important because they're in your corner. It's like we're in a boxing match. We're in an event. We're going to a boxing matches. It's a tough world. I don' t know if you've noticed but it's tough. We're at a boxing mat. I want somebody and I want a second. I want a guy in my corner. I want somebody who's going to say, get up, give him another punch, honey, you know, and I'll pat you up, you Know, come on, do it again. Let's see how much it gets you this time. Remember what it got you last time? A big black eye. Okay, I'll patch you up. Come on back in here. You're a McGurl, you Now, give me a pat on the back. I want Somebody in My Corner. That's my sponsor. I had Jean for 27 years. I loved her. I loved Her. She was a feisty doctor's wife, swimmer, artist, same as me. And we knew she was dying, and a couple of days before she died, we pressed a 40-year medallion in her hand because she died when we thought, well, she's not going to make it to her 40th birthday. So we pressed this medallions into her hand, and the nurses had to pry it out of her hand because it was making marks. They couldn't take her blood pressure, so she was holding on to it so hard. So they hung it on the chain around her neck. And this really good friend of ours, Father Schwartley, came into the room and he said, Hey! Because we were this way with her. She was so full of it. Hey, why you got that 40-year medallion on? You haven't been sober 40 years. He said, If you don't live until you're 40 years sober, I'm going to take that medallium. She died at 5 o'clock on the morning of her 40th birthday. And the reason she did that is because she didn't walk shortly in there taking that 40-year medallion. I know her, and that's exactly what it was. She was one of my heroes. I have heroes in AA. I don't think it's even wrong to have heroes. I have superheroes in my parents. My parents are still alive. They're great people. I've been making amends to them for 40 years. I need to keep making amens to them, you know, because I'm in a position to. You know, I can really make amends. They live in my town. They live across the street. I'm really taking care of them now, and that's a huge privilege. It's a privilege for me to be an Alcoholics Anonymous. I hope you feel like it's a priviledge for you to be an Alcoholic Anonymous and not a right. I don't want people to say, you know, that I have the right to be sober. No, I don' t. I don'' t. But it's a privilege to be sober and it's a privilege to be in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. And so, you know, I'll do whatever it takes. And I'm going to tell a couple of stories and sit down. Thank you for being so indulgent. I have a lot of character defects and I think it's, I really kind of like having them come back once in a while because it just reminds me, you know it reminds me again that i'm not done you know that god's not done with me that that he's you know going to keep working on me that i've got these and you know just when i think i got one licked you know and i think oh i'm now it'll go there it is again you know it just pops right up again and i'm oh shoot you know here it is and dick always says this and i think it's really it's truly true they come out, the longer you're sober they come back disguised as something you can't quite tell that it's anger it's just like this mild irritation or something it comes back disguized as things well I got afraid to fly actually I was afraid of crashing and burning is what I was scared of not afraid to flight and I had started to fly a lot So this was a problem. So I had all kinds of things that I would do. You know, I'd wear medallions and I'd clutch them and I's say prayers and I do all this stuff and it's just a mantra kind of thing and it quiets my mind. I'm on this plane from Kansas City supposed to go to Fayetteville, Arkansas and I mean it's bad. It's one of those dragonfly planes where there's just like two seats down each side. There's seats on each side but there's only one seat. this tiny little thing, you know, tiny little things with wings. And the pilot gets on and he looks like the guy out of Airplane, you know, that guy. He gets in and there's this curtain between us and the rest of the plane and it's like raggedy and oh I'm thinking this is great. He moves one guy with a bunch of cameras over to one side and puts all the rest on the other side. He says we have to balance the plane. Oh God, this is not what I want to hear. I'm scared to death. We get up in the air, it's terrible, terrible thundersnow. I don't know if you've ever been. Thunderstorm and snowing. And we try to land in Fayetteville, and we come down, and the runway's frozen over. I mean, I'm like sweating like a dog. I'm just, oh, oh. I'll never swear again from the podium. Just get me out of this one. I'll cook dinner every night. I promise you I'll cooked dinner every day. I promise I won't get mad at Dick ever again. You know, just ooh. And the guy says, well, we didn't make it in the Fayetteville. And I thought, no, because we took back off again. Stall alarm went off, curtains flapping, lightning everywhere, St. Elmo's fire running. Oh, oh, I mean, I'm just like, ah! You know like Red Fox used to say, I'll come and I'm coming. that's exactly how I felt and I heard this rustling behind me and I turned around and there's a woman there and she's got a brown paper bag and she pulls a bottle of vodka out she takes the lid off she takes this huge slug out of it and I felt better oh my god I could have felt so bad. I could've felt sorry for myself. I coulda been mad, and I just laughed. I mean, I just go, ha-ha-ha. Woo! You know, it was just unbelievable. I'm out in San... So, you know, so I'm not in San. Once again, God shows up. He shows up with a woman with a bottle of vodka. I mean here he says, hey honey, look, see? You can do it like sort of whatever that thing's called, you know. Live vicariously. This woman's drinking. You're feeling better. That's great. You know, see? I'm in your life. I'm at San Jose. I'm scared to death. I'm supposed to talk to these people. They keep announcing the deal. It's like 5,000 people, 10,000 eyeballs. Oh, my gosh, I'm scary. I'm thinking, what are you anyway? You know? I'm just sitting outside in this. I put on my yellow silk speaking dress. I'm sitting outside in this amphitheater, and they're doing this Susie the Souths, this little play, and we're all singing, ha-ha-ha, dancing and stuff. It was really cute. It was outside. But I'm humming. I'm thinking, what are you going to say? You're just abroad from Nebraska. I mean, what Are you going To say? You're going to have to go, ha, ha , go big red. What are you Going to do? You don't know anything. You know how your mind Talks to you. You don' t know anything! You've been in AA for 35 years, and you don't know nothing. You know, it's just screaming at you. This big fear guy that's in there going bleh, bleh. Louder than anybody. And I felt something wet hit my hand. And I looked up. You know I thought it was raining. And then I looked down. It was white. My friend who was sitting next to me. Oh, oh she says a bird has crapped on your back. There was this huge, as a seagull, it had fish in it. It had fish, a piece of fish in him, white. And all of a sudden I thought, for some people, birds sing. For me, they cry. You know, and then I thought, God sent me that bird. He's saying, honey, don't worry about it. You're just supposed to get up there and talk. Go up there, and tell them your story. Tell them about the bird. So I brushed out the fish. I went in, told my story, and it was like I had that stigmata, like those saints get, you know? people came, let me see your bird crap. That's all they heard. Just look at your bird crap. Oh, it was fabulous. I had a great time. You know, so once again, he was in my life. So I'm in South Carolina. I rush out to the seawall. I love going to the ocean. I love it. It makes me feel good next to the Ocean. And I run down to the sea wall and there's this captain's table. It's a restaurant. And there was this, you know, I wanted to see the sea, and it was dark, and there was this big light shining out to the sea. And I looked out in this light, and there were thousands and thousands and thousands of seagulls. Thousands of them. And they're like all in the light, in the path of this light. And Iím thinking, theyíre like visiting, you know, they're bobbing and visiting, you know? And theyíre making funny nice little sounds they're not you know they're raucous seagulls are but they were like visiting you know whatever seagills say to each other and they were having a nice time floating so I ended the restaurant I said to the waitress because I don't want anybody to think I'm gushy I said so what's with the birds she said we don't know but we think it's the light of course it's the light what are we doing here where are we where are not in the light are we not sitting in the light AA at its best is supposed to be a safe well lighted place where we don't shoot our wounded and that's when I want Alcoholics Anonymous to be. And my 40th anniversary, I really mean this, the roles in my family have been reversed. My husband, a lot of help from my husband, with some help from his son and his wife and my two little grandchildren who are the light of their great grandmother's life. My mother can't remember anything, but she remembers them, and she remembers me, and She remembers all of her loved ones, but she can't remember her dental appointments. I mean, she can remember anything. My father, she's 92, my father is 94. My father physically is deteriorating rapidly, his congestive heart failure, but his mind is sharp. And I get to take care of him. You know what? It's the least I can do. My father was a physician, and I'm sure he knew Jim's dad because they served at the same time in the same place. They're fabulous, fabulous people. And it's very right and just that I should be the one to take care of them. It's just karma. and at my 40th anniversary which was back in February they had a big party in celebration of Alcoholics Anonymous and a few people who have been sober a long time spoke and I spoke for a short time and when I sat down, my father said I want to say something there's like 700 people there And I thought, oh, no. What's he going to say? And he got up to the podium. Now my father, much like Jim, has lived all over the world. He has met the leaders of every country. He has served in diplomatic posts all over. I mean, he sat on a committee that was a super secret committee for years and years and years because of his knowledge. He's a great guy. He had fabulous experiences all his life, and this is what he said. He got to the podium and he said, I would like to thank all of you in Alcoholics Anonymous because if it were not for Peggy being an alcoholic, and for you helping her, we would not have met the very finest people in the world. And then my mother said, and I got her sober! Because she took me out and dumped me on the doors at the treatment center It was a fabulous night, but I'll tell you what. Those little words express everything. And I want to thank you for everything and for putting the light of pride, respect, and love back in my parents' eyes, of putting the light of gratitude and love in my brother's eyes and for putting the light of tremendous love and respect in my sister's eyes I want to thank you for that and if I only ever got that I'd be way overpaid so I want to thank him thank you for my life and thank you for having me Thank you.