You Cannot Plug Your Higher Power Into Another Human Being – Angie D.

I'm Angie, and I'm an alcoholic. I've got to get all my drinks here together. I think what the speakers are doing by and stuff up here is we're all so scared there. We're just kind of holding up to each other here. I want to thank the committee for inviting me to come and talk at the Jamboree and join you here, and I'd also like to thank my friends from Midland, Texas that heard me a few weeks ago for their patience and tolerance. I haven't done much growing in about three weeks. There's been several people come up and tell me that they've not heard me, but they've heard my shape, and I'm always really glad. It's usually the sickest women that really identify with me. I'd like to tell you that I'm just not in real danger of getting well, and I'm really comfortable with that today. I had a lot of secrets for a long time in sobriety because I wanted a full time job. I wanted to help people to think that I was well, but I'm not well. I'm intimidated tonight because JoJo and I have known each other for a long time, and it wasn't very long ago that she asked me to be her sponsor, and right now she told me that she would beat me up if I said that she was my pigeon, so that scared me to death. And over here is Les Eccles, who is my husband's sponsor that called him a pigeon. And so here I am. I'm kind of screwed up. The only thing I really know about is I know about me, and I know that because I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't drink today. And because of the grace of God, I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'd also like to tell you that I'm from Blythe. For those of you that don't know where Blythe is, it's over at the end of the world just before it falls off, and that's where God sends you when he's punishing you. For asking for specific stuff. And what I'm doing in Blythe is that some of us will go to any lengths to be married, and I'm one of those, see? I always look... I forgot to say that I wanted this knight in shining armor, but not in Blythe. Well, you've got to be either real specific or not specific enough, or something. Anyway, he is the greatest guy. I've never been with him, and I've had a few. And he's... He's the only toad I ever kissed that turned into a prince. Usually, I kiss them, and they're princes, and they turn into toads. And what... Let's just get it all up front, right off the bat. I 13-stepped him. And if there's any spiritual giants here, and it offends you, I'll tell you, it offended me. I was... 13 years sober at the time, but he's no longer a newcomer. He's sober eight years. And you know, he is so great, he is convinced that I'm the greatest thing that ever happened to him. And I tell him all the time he never had it so good, and he agrees. And we're both dedicated to making me happy. Think that a woman's place is in the mall. He never had it so good, and neither did I. I never had it so good for my whole life, it seems. The ruling emotion of my life, as far back as I can remember, before I ever took a drink, is hugging myself and rocking myself with a terrible loneliness inside of not knowing what is wrong with me. There was something wrong with me that didn't seem to be wrong with other people. I was born into a family that wasn't ready for me then and isn't ready for me now. They are not really very impressed with what they've done with me. They don't think I'm an alcoholic. In fact, my mother, if I'll ever go see her and she's got company, she'll pull me aside so I won't embarrass her and she'll say, now don't you be telling them people anything about you being an alcoholic. You're not an alcoholic, you're always that way. And you know that, I understand that. I was born at a time when they kept the mothers in the hospital a whole week. That was a long time ago. I'm really a young person in an old container, but I was born a long time ago. 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. My mother is of the little purple lips, you know, the ones that get smaller and smaller and get badder and better. In Alcoholics Anonymous it's called little blue lips, but she's a Mexican so it's little purple lips. I had an older sister that was perfect. You know the type I'm talking about. They always told her what to do and she always did it. And she always did it right and she screwed it up for me because I never knew how to be good. I never remember how to be good until after I was bad and then it's too late so they're always whipping on me. And I didn't know I was a battered child. I thought that was part of the price you paid for not knowing how to be good. If I'd have known I was being battered, then it wasn't my fault. I held it against them. Guys, I held everything against them anyway. And I had a younger brother and all he had to do was be there. And somehow, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't be good. And they were divorced when I was seven and my mother would say things to me like, you're just like your father. And I knew what her opinion was of him. She didn't like him too well. So she sent me to the nuns so they could teach me to be a lady. I don't know why the nuns always get it, but you know, them nuns, what they thought a lady was wasn't appealing to me then and it isn't appealing to me now. They always liked exciting stuff. I also, I may not have thought of doing it before, but as soon as they said, thou shalt not, I had an overwhelming desire to do it. I couldn't get it out of my mind, you know. Don't dare me to do something even today because it's so hard not to do it. And so somebody dared me and I raised the nun's thirsty what she wanted. The nuns searched me what she wore under all them clothes. They had to seek me from catechism and they didn't want me back. And I got home and got my whipping. And the next day when I got to school, all the kids thought I was terrific. You know, they was all just carrying on about what I had done. And you know, it filled up some of them empty places. Because me, it seems I was born with an emptiness in my soul. A big hole in there, a yearning, a longing, a hunger to be loved, to be wanted, to be accepted. Wailing like a wild animal. Just rocking myself back and forth. Not feeling that I belonged anywhere. And as a child, I used to worship my mother. Just wanted her to love me and approve of me at least as much as she did my sister. And no matter what I tried, I was always baffled because I couldn't be what they told me to be. I always knew how to be. I just couldn't be what I wanted to be and what they wanted me to be. So I believe that I always had the pilot lit but all I ever needed was a fuel. And what happened to me is that I lived in a terrible, terrible environment that I know today is unnatural and children are not to be raised that way. But that's what happened to me and I know I'm not alone. I had a stepfather that used to molest me and I told my mother and she didn't believe me. And there never seemed to be anybody there for me. I was never believed and there was never anybody there for me. And I know that that's part of what I had to go through to get to where I'm at today. But I didn't know that then as a child. I just know that I fantasized and read all the fairy tale books that I possibly could and would go home and just pull the covers over my head and put myself in that position of the heroine in those books and I had to live that way. When I was about 12 years old, I went off to be with my daddy because I knew it was going to be better over with my daddy. Now, I'm from Orange County in California and my daddy was over in San Fernando Valley where he's taking up light housekeeping with a lady with eight kids, right? And all he wants is one more and here comes trouble. All I wanted to do was find someplace where I can belong. You know, my daddy used to take people up north to pick grapes and prunes and we were fruit pickers. And God made two kinds of Mexicans. There's fruit pickers and them fruit pickers. And I'm not a fruit picker, but they try to make a fruit picker. They pick a lot of me. It didn't take, so I was whipped there too. And we stayed beyond the season with the Gallo brothers and they gave my dad a case of sherry wine and I remember having a big water glass of that sucker. Somebody must have dared me. And I had a big water glass of that sucker and when it went down, it went down good. I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, it did magic from the beginning. I mean, everything felt wonderful. It's just too bad something that good has to be wasted on social drinkers that don't appreciate it. Isn't that just so sad? I appreciate it. I love what it did for me. And anything going to make me feel that good, I want more. And then it's the next day. Somehow I overshot the goal almost right away. It's the next day. And my hair had come through and my hair stuck to my face where I threw up all over myself and my clothes had torn and I didn't know what I had done. And it seems to me, it seems to me I started a lifetime of looking at people's faces, trying to figure out what I had done, terrified to know and terrified not to know. I had a sense of shame, of being dirty, of knowing that it was unnatural whatever had happened to me. And I put on the wall that I always did, like, I don't care, I don't care. And we that build walls, it does keep people out. But there was always the terror and the loneliness back there with me. And I had to hide it any way that I could. It was shortly after that I came back to my mother and she didn't want me home. They'd been free of me over a year. And so this is the time when I started living here and there in any way that people would put up with me for a little while. This is also the time that I discovered the booze and the boys and the cha-cha-cha. God, I love the booze and the boys and the cha-cha-cha. You know, we Mexicans like to have them party the whole week and you get drunk several times. Love on somebody and somebody's husband. I was one of the original topless, bottomless dancers in them parties. I was always really popular with the boys. But you know, the girls were always trying to tell me what I did the next day. And so I used to beat them up. Because we Mexicans also like to join the gangs and beat each other up and call it fun. And so whenever they tell me, I just beat them up. I didn't know you weren't supposed to do that. I just know that anything that terrified me, I either ran from it or stayed there and tried to kill it. And I also don't know how to work, so I take up burglary. I know it's still not very feminine. I really wasn't a bad person. It just seemed to be a good idea at the time. I like breaking into people's houses and taking away their stuff. I was not being bad. I was just having fun. I was really surprised when the state of California discovered me. They don't like this. They didn't understand that my case was different. They took me before a judge. My mother and aunts and all them little purple-lipped little people were sitting there looking at me. You know, the disgrace of the family. And the judge asked me, Well, young lady, what do you think we ought to do with you? Well, I'm real cool. You know, you raise your collar up and sit down, squat down on your chair and you're the judge. You ought to know. I was the wrong person to have that kind of an attitude with. And... He sent me to do a little bit of time for the state of California. I don't know how to be good there either, so I do 13 months. I was only supposed to do nine. That really scared me. When they finally let me out, I thought I'd be the only gray-haired little old lady in the girls' reformatory. So when they let me out, I took my first inventory because I didn't want to go back there. I didn't have a home. I didn't have a job. I didn't have any money. I didn't have any education. Jesus, you know, I thought what an ordeal. I didn't want to go through with it. So I started... I started thinking because I'm always one that wants to live in the answer instead of the problem. So what I thought is I'd better go out and find me a husband because God knows I need somebody to take care of me. And I went out looking for a husband in places that husbands ought not to be looked for. Unfortunately for both of us, I found one. You know, there's a certain type of man that always caught my attention. You know, they got the big muscles, and they wear them little t-shirts, and they got them tattoos. They got real shiny, slick back hair, shiny, beautiful smiles and eyes, and they say, What's happening, baby? God, it just goes all the way through. Doesn't... Doesn't that just grab you? This is true love forever. This guy built them castles in the air, and I lived in them. And three months later, we were pregnant, and I was married in that order. And I... I married a mainline heroin user, and you just don't live happily ever after with one of those. Very exciting, but not very happy. He had an idea of what a good Mexican wife should be. I had an idea of what a good Mexican husband should be, and never the twain shall meet. And I got the scars that he's got, the scars to prove it. I'll tell you, we were ready for parenthood. He starts hearing them stories about me, he doesn't want people talking their way about his wife. So he only wants me to drink when I'm with him, and that's okay. I want to settle down, too. You know, every so often, I wanted to settle down, and this was one of the times. And he doesn't want... He knows I can't be with anything because I get on his back an awful lot. So he lets me take 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 them together, tear them apart. Put them together, tear them apart. It's the same one. Chew gum, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, and scratch. Don't you just love to scratch? Listen to the Mexican mariachi music and sing and clean your house with a toothbrush, all at the same time. It's just fun. I'll tell you, it was fun. After three or four days of this, it's like, God, just let me sleep. I just got to sleep. I'm tired of having fun. Anybody... Anybody that has gone that route knows that once you start taking uppers, you gotta take downers. You know, I used a lot of junk to control my alcoholism. I used a lot of chemicals inside to try to control and counteract one another. All I wanted to do is not to think and not to feel, because I couldn't stand it. You see, one day at a time, I went into literal hell. And that's not what I wanted from life. All I wanted was somebody to love me and take care of me. Somebody that I would be special to. So maybe some... Not a lot of things. Maybe a little house in some corner of some barrio where the tortilla smells and the enchilada smells and the little titties and the slippers. Kind of a Mexican, Aussie, and Harriet type of Aussie, you know? But it wasn't... But it wasn't to be with this dolphin and I. Because by the time I had my baby, I knew he didn't want to be married. And I knew it was because he didn't want to be married to me. He had found a thing out about me that everybody found out sooner or later. And they would walk away from me. When they put my baby in my arms, I felt like finally, finally, somebody belonged to me. My baby belonged to me. I knew that nobody could ever take that baby away from me because she belonged to me. I used to sit by the hour and look at my baby. And I worshipped her. I adored her. I promised her I would never mistreat her. Abandon her and discard her as I had been. And I mended with every fiber of my being. She inspired feelings within me that nobody ever has before or since. And if I could have been good for anybody, it would have been my baby. But I took that baby and her sister to places that children should not be taken because I'm an alcoholic. And I don't know that I'm an alcoholic. Way down inside of me, there was always a spark of the woman that I am tonight. But I thought that there was a monster that lived within me. And I couldn't be the way I wanted to be. I couldn't be the way them other people look, no matter how hard I tried. After the second one was born, I left that man because he was not. I couldn't stand the beatings and I couldn't stand the other women. And I felt so old. I was 22 years old and felt older than I am today at 54. I just felt old and used up. And I left that man because my mother told me that I was going to be like a rabbit and have a baby every year. I don't know why I always believed every crummy thing she or anybody ever said. I didn't remember any goodness or any kindness, although looking back I know I had some. Like you see, I always hugged everything that would discount me. Everything that would reject me, I hugged it to me as true and discounted everything that was good that anybody ever said about me. I went out looking for another husband and I didn't find another husband. But I fell in love, and I've always been in love. And when I fall in love, I fall in love all over my body. Every inch of me falls in love. Forever. I can't remember the names of some of the men I've fallen in love with forever. The faces change, it's the feelings that stay the same. This time it's going to be different. Oh God, this is the one. There was always, I don't know, I got the message that there was always going to be that one. And I spent such a lifetime. You know, one day I heard a lady explain it to me. It's like sitting, standing on the dock watching your ship come in. And then as your ship's coming in, your knight in shining armor is in that ship. And as he's watching it in the harbor, it sank. And that's the way I always felt that it was for me. Because I couldn't seem to fall in love with the right guy. The boring ones were so boring. You know, the ones that go to work and come home and watch television. I wanted me an exciting one. The one I fell in love with at that time was called C.B. That was the nickname. It stood for crazy bastard. The faces change, it's the feelings that stay the same. But if I'd have continued to drink that way, I'd have never come to alcoholics and honors. But many a time I had to come home where there was not enough chemicals to kill what I had in that cold water shack. And the light on the sink would be black as cockroaches. And there was mice in that filthy floor. And it was a filthy place. And you know, I was put up in this gorgeous room here at the Hilton this weekend. And I have since other weekends. And I've looked at the cleanliness and the beauty that surrounds me. And I know I come a long way, baby. From that cockroach-filled place where I was a dead woman that my soul was dead. And I didn't know that, you see. In that shack lived those two little girls that the romance of being a mother had long since died as a responsibility for them. Weighed upon me and choked me. And I felt so guilty about that. They had the big eyes. I didn't come here by myself. I brought those two little girls with me. Those little girls that got to experience things that children should not experience. That even today I can see the evidence of what happened then. They were not allowed to have any arguments. They were not allowed to watch television with any noise because they were terrified. If I would come to, I would start beating them. And once I started beating them I couldn't stop and I wouldn't stop. It was like watching somebody else and I'd say, God, for God's sake will somebody stop me? And nobody would stop me. I've heard many women come into the program and hear that they've taken away their children and they're very sad. And I know that they are. And those days I used to think, for God's sake, when somebody take those little girls and give them a normal life because I knew I could. There was something horribly wrong with me. I just didn't know it was something called alcoholism. And I had to run in a lot of men and a lot of bars. This is the time when I became an unprotected bar drinking female. For five years I drank out there unprotected. Everything that happened to an unprotected woman happened to me. I know the feeling of degradation that a woman goes through when she's unprotected. To be talked to in ways you don't want to be talked to and have absolutely no defense because deep down inside I thought that they were right what they were saying about me. After five years of that type of life I started getting letters to the mail from my dopey husband. There was some place in Texas over here in Fort Worth getting the cure. And he sent pictures home. And he says, babe, this time it's going to be different. And he had the muscles and the tattoos and uh... And so we made the Mexican geographical. We moved 20 miles from Mama. And we moved to Mira Loma. I don't know if anybody knows where Mira Loma is. It's by Riverside. And I think that it is probably the armpit of California. I suspect that that's what it is. Or maybe even worse. But anyway, this is the time there was a big geographical. We bought the chickens and the turkeys and the little acres of ground and the horses and planted the garden. I even married him in the Catholic church and that's going to any length for a Catholic. Especially since he was a Methodist. I was going to make this work with this guy no matter what even if he didn't want it. But you see, that life gets to be too tight gets to be too unbearable. And I'm a firm believer you can place me in the best of circumstances. Because it's what's inside of me. Because it's inside of me I can't live. And before long he's making the run for his connection and I'm making the run for the winery. The best thing about Mira Loma is it sits right in the middle of four wineries. It's right by Cucamonga. I'm sure you've heard of Cucamonga. You haven't lived until you've been to Cucamonga. It is in California. Anyway, my drinking chain. Where before I had been a party girl in my drinking chains and I became a bedroom drinker. All the fun was going out of life. All the fun was going out of the bottle. And all I had was the agony and the madness inside of me. Now is the time when I know what the words agony, despair, and utter loneliness. I know those words. I lived them in that bedroom in Mira Loma where I used to lay on my bed in a fetal position and cry out and cry out in agony. In agony for help. I started going to different churches and others and I go to somewhere they say, who wants to be saved? I'd be the first one down the aisle there to be saved. And nothing ever took because there was something wrong with me and God, though I believed in God I still didn't trust in God. Not the God that I know today. And I just planned to kill myself. Living had never been anything that I wanted. I saved my sleeping pills and I took enough to kill a horse and all I did was sleep for two days and I came to and raged because I couldn't drink and I couldn't be sober and I couldn't live and I couldn't die and there was no place to go. I came to on what has got to be the loneliest day of my life. The agony inside is incredible. The pain to knowing that that man had slept with me both nights while I was in that coma and never once did he consider taking me to a doctor or to a hospital. That felt like a piece of meat that nobody wanted. And even upon that day that I considered to be the loneliest day of my life as I looked back with some objectivity I realized that my higher power has always had his hand upon my life because even on that day there was a knock on the door of a lady from the PTA. Is there somebody I didn't want to see? The lady from the PTA. But in a moment of weakness I let her in and she sees in what condition I'm in and she stays with me and I tell her about this SOB he's done me wrong. You know I just always bad mouth him because he deserved it. She stayed with me and she talked about all kinds of things but the only thing that caught my attention was that she asked me if I ever heard of Al-Anon. I'd never heard of Al-Anon but I got the idea that if I went there he would straighten up. So she cleaned me up and took me to Al-Anon and somehow I didn't fit in in Al-Anon. I felt a little bit like a whore in a nunnery. There was absolutely no idea. I always felt that way around a bunch of women anyway. Some place I heard I had a beautiful smile so I just stayed there and smiled. Out to lunch, brain dead smile but I smiled. I remember that them women hugged me and every so often she'd come and get me and take me. In defense of Al-Anon I'd like to tell you that she had only been here something like 90 days and had found answers for herself and I didn't know what was wrong with me the likes of me because I wasn't about to tell her anything. And one day I heard the word release I knew I couldn't divorce him I married him in the Catholic church you're not supposed to get a divorce if you're a Catholic but I used to contemplate justifiable homicide. So when I heard the word release I came home and told him in detail how 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 like to go take a little peek at him and he'd go ahhh I mean that's isn't that so satisfying doesn't this feel so wonderful and he'd say unkind things to me he'd say baby I may have a monkey on my back but you got an orangutan isn't that just about right I thought he was so bad he made me look good One day I came home he was gone he took everything that belonged to him and some of the stuff that belonged to me he wasn't planning on coming back and that's the way it had to be though that life was unbearable it was familiar and I'd have stayed there until I'd have killed him or forced him to kill me because I didn't know there was a different way to go I just know that I was in terror and I just needed something I just didn't know what it was and around that time that same Al-Anon lady took me to an AA meeting and the Al-Anons had discovered me and they talked about me behind my back and decided to get rid of me send me over there to their husbands who they didn't seem to like either I'm not saying that's what went on in Al-Anon but that's what I interpreted as I couldn't even give them any eye contact when I walked into that that Alano club to the Al-Anons because I knew they knew and I walked into the young people's meeting in Pomona in 1964 and I found the old house and sat in the back and listened to the sounds of alcoholics anonymous I listened to that valley laughter that smile that reaches the soul that shine in the eyes and that happy talk and those are the sounds of alcoholics anonymous the very first thing that attracted me to you was what was happening between you because I had never heard it I often wondered what is it and where does it come from that which happens in here between you and I I had never experienced when I realized that these are just empty rooms that which happens in here we bring it with us every one of us and it intermingles and becomes a good conscience a higher power you call it what you are what you want but there's a dynamic something that happens when you and I come together that never happened any place I'd ever been and I just sat back there and I let it wash over my soul and I hungered for it and newcomers if you be like me I didn't have it I didn't have what them people had but I wanted it I just thought it's too bad I'm not an alcoholic laughter if there's another name for the disease that you and I have it's called I ain't got it laughter I knew I was weird and different and three steps ahead of a man with a butterfly net that hadn't discovered me yet but you see that had been an answer for me everything ran out sooner or later and I just had to switch the combination and that was what I thought what's wrong with me if I could just find somebody to love me and so I looked around and all them single sober good looking young guys and I said man I'm going to get me one of those laughter and I did it was the sickest one there I had radar I mean he picked me up and you know my eyes were spinning and for ten months I came around Alcoholics Anonymous as a visitor in Pomona they'd go around the room and if somebody came to me I'd say I'm Angie and I'm a visitor nobody ever said you don't belong here somehow you understood and I've been kicked in the peep by life and rejected by everybody I'd ever come in contact with and I couldn't have stood any more rejection you put your arm around me and you said keep coming back keep coming back you know what that feels like when you're used to people saying keep on going weirdo what a disappointment it was to me when I found out you were telling that to everybody laughter it was just me you were saying that stuff and I'm such a people pleaser I don't want you to kick me out of here so I get feeling a little uncomfortable and I stop drinking and double up on the Miltons and Benzedrine and got weirder and I didn't know I was getting weirder and this guy wants to get rid of me I'm not easy to get rid of cause I don't have a backup everybody's gotta have a backup before you give up too you gotta have somebody else already waiting so I moved to Pomona to be closer to the action and I walk into a room one day and there's this cute little boy talking he had big blue eyes and I have an affinity for blue eyes and blonde hair and today it's blue eyes and grey hair and he's he's saying he doesn't have a surfboard he doesn't have a car and he doesn't have a girlfriend and I think to myself come here little boy I'll take care of you and I did and he don't know what hit him I mean I came at him like a bomb but after that relationship was over he decided to become a minister and I'd like to think that somehow in my small way I helped push him over the bar screwed up everything up here spilled the coke I didn't wear it on my shelf it just looked that way but you see this man I didn't know what I was going through it's called withdrawals nobody ever told me about withdrawals all you ever said is you get sober and come to meetings that's all I wanted is to find some guy and live happily ever after preferably this cute young thing and he was 21 and I was 32 going on 92 and you see he loved me he was the first man that had ever been kind to me he was the first man that had ever been gentle with me and everywhere that he went he wanted to take me with him and he didn't want me to stay at the house he wanted to take me with him and he always seemed so proud to be seen with me and he introduced me to his parents and to his friends with all that pride in his voice and I'd have stayed there forever if I could have you see because I was so hungry to be treated that way and he was the one that walked them streets with me he was the one that took the brunt of my insanity he was the one where that madness would be so terrible the terrible anxiety the terrible fear and I would go berserk and I'd hit him and he'd hold me close and love on me and pray over me and I didn't like women and I didn't trust men and that don't leave you much but I seemed to trust that young man Bill Wilson said in his writings that the good is the enemy of the best I was always willing to settle for some little corner of good because that's all I thought that I had coming I know today that you and I do not come together by accident I truly believe that we come together by divine appointment by divine appointment and yet every relationship has its beginning that's not to say that I like partings even today but I know that when you go on your way you take a little bit of me with you and you leave a little bit of you behind and we're never the same because our lives are cut I'm grateful that my higher powers sent that gentle young man into my life at a time when I was so vulnerable so scared and he was gentle with me for a long time but see I didn't know anything about God and I didn't know anything about the program all I wanted was to just be happy and live happily somebody to love me and so hungry to be loved and live happily ever after and I turned my will and my life over to this man and after three months I got well and three more months I just thought maybe I'd been made a big deal out of this stuff and when he got drunk so did I it was not my worst drunk I had had a lot of worst drunk but it seemed to be my most hopeless one I knew I had tried Alcoholics Anonymous and I knew it worked and it worked for you but good things had always worked for you my case was different I came back to you because a man named Carson called me up on a rainy Wednesday night in December and brought me back to Alcoholics Anonymous now Carson was the type of a man that all people that knew him would say that he was a man that would prey on young women in Alcoholics Anonymous new women in Alcoholics Anonymous I don't know anything about that and today I watched very carefully before I joined in in character assassination because Carson never said anything out of line to me the only thing that Carson did for me is he brought me back to you and I don't know if I would have come back it's one thing for me to know what a failure I am it's another thing to make it out and reopen in the public he brought me back and the miracle for me is not that I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and not that I've come back to Alcoholics Anonymous the miracle for me is that I am still here and that last December the 22nd I celebrated my 22nd birthday you see that is the miracle for me and not because of anything that I've done everything that I have done with my life was up to them you see the victory is not mine it belongs to us whatever I have today in my life whatever consequences is because many people have come and shared with me I know that it isn't the messenger that it is the message and tonight I am your messenger but the message that I bring to you is the message of hope of the people that have shared their life with me for many many years of people like Les Eccles that's sitting over here that has been a part of my life for so many years and have shared with me not only in the good times but in the bad times I came here so terrified and I was desperate if there's anything that kept me here was the absolute drink all the fun out of the bottle and I was desperate for something I came back now thinking I was too alcoholic where before I thought I was a little alcoholic now I thought I was too alcoholic when it finally dawned on me that that probably was what was wrong with me that terrified me and scared me more because I'd never been able to stop anything I wanted to do today I can't stop anything I want to do and they would read stuff they would say rarely have we seen a person fail you know they never smile when they read chapter 5 have you ever noticed that rarely have we seen a person fail and I knew when they say rarely somebody wasn't going to make it and then they said there are such unfortunates they are not at fault they seem to have been born that way man I'm screwed I knew I knew I was born that way my mother will tell you I was born that way she can remember stuff I don't even remember but a little further on down it says and then there are those that have grave emotional and mental disorders that's got to be some of the wisest words in that book that's the catch all for those of us that think that our case is different because when they would read that it would come in the eye because I knew they were looking right at me but a little further on down it says many of them do recovery if they have the capacity to be honest now I'm not presumptuous to stand up here and tell you that I have the capacity to be honest because I truthfully don't know the difference between right and wrong you may think that's a horse puppy but I'm going to tell you that I can think of something and go home and pray about it and meditate about it because I don't really consider myself pretty spiritual especially when God talks to me and once I decide it's His will for me it ain't nothing to lay it on you but God sends people called sponsors that they ruin it don't they just ruin it my sponsor is a fascist variety and I'm glad I didn't know her then but I'll tell you what I know her now and she ruins everything for me I remember earlier today which was an ashtray I used to take ashtrays every time I'd go speak someplace I'd take an ashtray because it was a souvenir you got to have a souvenir matchbooks are not too good but ashtrays are big and some of them are real pretty and my sponsor found out about it she says it's stealing I said it's not stealing it's souvenirs couldn't convince her that it was souvenirs she got real disgusted you know how sponsors get when they can't reach you she says oh I don't know about you Angie but my integrity is worth more than an ashtray oh that really she really hurt me because I no longer could go pick up an ashtray because I'll be damned if her integrity is going to be worth more than mine so I'd like to thank Bob from Midlands I think he said he was from Odessa I'll be someplace in this big state here he brought me an ashtray and it's got a receipt to it under Mary Reagan's nose she wasn't my sponsor at that time the group was my sponsor I had a lady that had volunteered to be my sponsor now I don't like them women any more sober than I did when I was drinking the ones that got a lot of time look at you you know they look at you when they got a lot of time I don't want them looking at me because they're seeing something I don't want them to see whatever it was I didn't want it with a little smirk on their face you know them people that got a lot of time today I know why they look at you because they do know that's where they come from that's how they know and so I give them lots of room and them younger girls well I'm squiring this cute little guy here and I used to check out them young girls I'm glad they didn't have a lot of young girls at Odessa let's go this way honey you know I used to save him from young girls I mean they couldn't make him as happy as I was making him right very spiritual person today but the men were always so much friendlier especially if you're young and you're cute and you're always asking for help and in the beginning they all know more than me then I know more than some of them and then I hate some of them the day came when I hated a member of Alcoholics Anonymous I know none of you here has ever got tacky to hate a member of Alcoholics Anonymous but today I can tell you the truth I hated this guy I hated the way he walked the way he talked the way he smiled everything about him he was sober 12 and a half years and didn't know nothing and I don't say things like resentments are the number one offender for alcoholics he used to scare me because you know I didn't want to get drunk so I went to some of you guys that had a lot of time that looked like you knew what you were talking about and I put up my smile on my face so you wouldn't think I was a bad person and I asked how do you get over resentment tiny little bitty one nothing and you'd say turn it over easy does it this too shall pass one day that time go home eat the bookie come back and don't drink do what you tell me to do so I go home and I do all that stuff and I come back the next night and I test it you know you look around I wouldn't be happy till I find you there you can tell when you see him cause your guts go follow the rock or something you know I go to somebody else and you wouldn't know I didn't know what you meant and again I'd say how do you get over resentment and again they'd say turn it over easy does it this too shall pass one day that time go home eat the bookie come back and don't drink after a while I got the message you don't know the answer either trouble I didn't know that I had choices I didn't know that I was so smart I didn't know you could walk out of a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous I would just sit there and suffer I suffered one day he was talking and he started crying and I thought how embarrassing he's crying doesn't he know that men aren't supposed to cry only sissies and women cry oh hasn't he ever heard of John Wayne or Iwo Jima or Emiliano Zapata Pancho Dia somebody like that Jesus how embarrassing after the meeting everybody went on and put their arms around him while he's crying well I didn't want to I was the only dog among you so I went and gave him one of those you know the stiff hugs where you go and hug them cause you're supposed to love them Jesus you hope they don't breathe on you or the other way around I don't know I'm putting the stiff arm hug on him he puts his head on my shoulder and starts to cry I don't know what happened I learned about the magic of Alcoholics Anonymous because you see all that hate and all that anger melted away as if it had never been and I found out that in Alcoholics Anonymous the thing we do is survive that I just keep doing what you tell me to do and I don't even know it's going to work till after I do it and that's it and it worked and I'm wondering how come I didn't learn to do it all the time and then I'm thinking I'm never going to forget this again and between every two surrenders I always forget how I did it the last time I just know that I just keep doing the things I haven't got any big spiritual message to give you except to tell you that this program works even this program doesn't care who works it it just works if you work it it just happens and you know even in spite of me I've gotten better even in spite of me I have touched that microchip of my higher power that's inside of me and I didn't know that for five and a half years I was a visitor in Alcoholics Anonymous of a different sort I married that young man knowing one day he'd leave and I knew I had warped my children forever and I still had a lot of secrets I had a sponsor but she used to talk to me in sponsorship and I don't know what she's talking about she had 23 years and I had two years when she became my sponsor and I don't know what she's talking about and I'm such a people pleaser I couldn't tell her that I didn't understand what she meant I would just say yes when she'd come and visit I'd always have several problems to give her so she could solve them so she would get off my case in case she wanted to ask me anything significant one time she could see through that but I didn't think so and she'd say my you're so good at waving the red herring and I'm a Mexican I don't know about herring and today today I know what she meant she could see through that when she was trying to reach me but she couldn't reach me because a taxi used to say you can't see until you can see and you can hear until you can hear and those were the times I needed at that time in Alcoholics Anonymous to start claiming my share here but there was a big difference between believing in a higher power and trusting in one and what happened to me is that I had to make another big surrender another emotional surrender that I didn't want to do I was sober five and a half years and my children started taking drugs and drinking and I would pray God spare my baby God spare my baby can Hail Mary's can our fathers go to confession and communion that didn't happen and still went the alcohol and drug route and the day came when I came home and we had a big fight I hit them they hit me back they ran off one even went to Ohio I hated my mother I only went twenty miles away here she went to I didn't even know any Mexicans in Ohio the oldest one went to live in a commune and came home one day with a burn the size of a silver dollar on her chest where people have been putting out cigarettes on her chest and I died inside I just died I had a nervous breakdown again I contemplated an attempt at suicide in the back of my mind I always had the thought if this program doesn't work for me I'm just going to kill myself I just can't go back to that madness out there but I sure want to die living had never been anything that I really wanted drunk or sober life was just too hard 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 and there was nothing but devastating pain that made all them walls come down and the reason I stand before you is because of the people in Alcoholics Anonymous that came around me at that time it is from the women that I've learned to be a woman in Alcoholics Anonymous we share the secrets of our hearts with each other and I finally knew that I was not so different but it didn't matter whether you drank in your kitchen and in your bedroom and I drank in the bars we felt the same dirty and shame about who we were and so in here we learned to be each other's mamas and I have been mothered by the women in Alcoholics Anonymous you have taken me to your heart and you have rocked me and I realize that you do love me and that I love you back that is a miracle we are each other's mamas when we need it and it is from the men in Alcoholics Anonymous that have treated me like a lady that I've learned to be a lady there was a man named Dave that I went to and said Dave what's wrong with me that I can't seem to form I want to run relationships not even with a beautiful man like Bruce and he held me close and he said you are a beautiful warm loving lady and one day you will know the reason and I believed him I believed him me that had never believed anything good about me I believed that there was possibly something good about me I went home and got on my knees and I said thank you God for showing me the reason bring him back and he didn't come back and so I thought about them people and I thought screw them all what the god damn police I'm so tired I don't know about you but for me that means surrender in the only language that I understand I made peace with my higher power and said okay God I'm never going to be happy again all you ever want me to do is work with a sick woman drunk let them puke on me alright alright I don't know about your higher power but mine has a weird sense of humor when I want something so bad so bad I can't have it as soon as I say screw it here it comes here it comes why does it work that way I don't know why it works that way sometimes I try to fool him and tell him it ain't all that important he always seems to know it ain't all that important God now it was a turning point not only of my sobriety but of my whole life me that had always looked for somebody to plug in an umbilical cord I think it was more like a vacuum cleaner and an emotional parasite because I never had nothing just of my own but when I got to the other side there is another side there's another side when there's devastation and I was forced to live by myself and I didn't want to live by myself for I'm one of those ladies that has had to learn to live alone I lived alone almost 10 years until I learned to be comfortable just being with me until I got to the place where I realized whatever I wanted from them people they never had it to give I was an emotional parasite and they didn't have to give the fulfillment of my heart to the other side beyond the part where I wanted have you ever wanted to put a shotgun about 3 inches from somebody's belly and just blow all the little pieces all over didn't you just fantasize that or run them down on the freeway back and forth back and forth my sponsor assures me they don't lock you up for being crazy only for acting crazy and all my character defects are well intact she also has assured me if God removes all my character defects I'll disappear some of them are here to stay the seven step process that he removes only the ones that are useful to him and to my fellow men so I'm comfortable with the rest somehow what God thinks ought to be removed and what I think ought to be removed he just says you want what when I got to the other side I touched a power and a strength that was deep within me and I knew that nothing and nobody could ever own me again after all this said and done there's only you and me God anyway you know when they go away when they all go away there's only you and me God anyway if they don't go away there's only you and me God anyway because you and I have that micro-ship of the higher power that we touch together but it gets regenerated when I am by myself with my higher power that's what I learned at that time I don't care what happens to you I threw myself into this program without any reservation knowing I'm never going to be happy again and that is the reason that I walked tall with dignity and self-respect today tomorrow is not promised to you and it's not promised to me the only thing that I have promised in life is what you and I have today and what a joy to know that you and I have come together by divine appointment today to learn from each other I learned that at that time when I quit being an emotional parasite because my higher power said it was time I went to work with a lot of women I said okay God you never want me to be happy again all you ever want me to do is work with a sick woman drunk and let them puke on me and so I did I did a lot of twelve step work and somehow I learned the secret about when I care what happens to you and how you can hold me close feels exactly the way I thought you loving me would feel when you love me it doesn't make me feel that way but when I love and care about you all morning today there was a lady in my room that came and we rocked each other and I loved upon her you see that's all I have to share with you is the love and the freedom that I've gotten because I am a member of all qualities I'm not smart enough to manipulate my story enough to tell you how I work this program the only thing I can tell you is that I do everything that I did when I came in I read the books I go to a lot of meetings and I share myself with anybody that wants because I'm so grateful that I'm wanted do you know that you see something inside of me that nobody ever saw before and that you bring out the best in me if I had waited to love you till I love myself with both men and women I would have loved you but you see I learned to love you and I thought you had poor taste when you started loving me I just thought Jesus you don't know who I am but you knew who I was and you love me and you let it be okay just to be me and I learned so many freedoms I became self supporting through my own contributions and my children came back I didn't even want them to come back and one day I got to know what you've given me and that was a long time ago today but what happened is my sister who had always been held up as an example for me she chose to take her life you see she was heavy into booze and the pills and she still didn't want but we had I tried to give her this message a newcomer I don't come to save you I don't come to teach you I don't come to give you nothing my sister if I could save anybody it would be one of my daughters that's out there I don't know where she's at tonight but I know what she's doing she's trying to cure that madness inside with whatever poison works for her now I can't do that the only thing I can do is come and share my life with you because I truly believe that I am God's melody of life and that he sings his songs through me some place out there that I come from because his hand is always light whenever it is heavy two weeks after that I became a grandma I didn't know how to be a mother and I don't know how to be a grandma but it came natural them little babies that look up at you and they're so easy to buy I might have been a failure as a mother but I can hold myself up to any grandma they thought grandma and Santa Claus were synonymous you know Christmas time when everything comes on in the television they say grandma buy me that God I just can't hardly wait to get over that they're not very impressed with me anymore because they're getting bigger but when they were small you should see how their little faces would light up Grandma the little squeaky voice and the snotty nose what do you care? I'm good they came home one day and I ran out of milk because I've always been on a diet and so I was making out of powdered milk and the oldest one's little eyes got real big as this Mama, Mama, Grandma just made milk out of water I tell you I'm good I told you I'm good one day at a time I don't drink because I'm an alcoholic one day at a time I don't steal because I'm a thief and one day at a time I didn't get married they just didn't straighten up any better because you're a spiritual giant they don't get any better those princes that turn into toads I got a sneaking suspicion that maybe I had something to do with turning them into toads but we don't look at the defects those kind of defects we just make sure we accept whatever God's made up to now so I started settling in I had a job where I thought I was terrific and they were paying me more than I was worth and I was saving my money and then I met this six foot blue eyed gray haired cowboy I never knew any cowboys from Blythe that were farmers they wear the hats and the shoes I mean I'm used to people without tattoos and stuff you know he was brand new and I said Jesus Christ oh God God do you know what happened in my life I don't even like them 16 year old feelings you know I'm around him and I go let me get away from here I don't want nobody to know and he got out of the hospital and went home and started calling me all the time sending me flowers and phone calls and cards well I'm a sucker for all that stuff and my sponsor said he's a nice guy well what did I care what the rest of you were saying my friend Frank Sloan says Jesus Christ Angie that poor guy a break that's what most of you were saying but in AA I found out you better Les Echoes taught me here about if you got any secrets tell them cause then you don't have any secrets oh because you see it's the secrets that build them walls between me and you so I picked up picked up stakes and moved to Blythe where I thought I'd live happily ever after walked through the alfalfa fields and stuff like that it only happened that way there's a lot of work in a relationship even though he's easy God you know he says I'm the greatest cook so I'm over there making the tortillas and beans and all this kind of he loves Mexican food speaks Spanish better than me and so I'm over there cooking all the time anything he wants and he says his house never looked so clean I'm over there scrubbing it all he's got five shirts and they're all color coordinated he says God my shirts never look so beautiful I'm over there ironing all the time he never had it so good and we're both dedicated to making me happy as you see he knows what makes me happy he knows that when I go and do this thing and people say doesn't he ever get mad cause you're gone so much he says no you see he knows I carry the message he and I he carries the messenger and I bring the messenger here to you and I am so grateful sometimes I can hardly stand it to know that when there's people up here like this lady they came up before the meeting and said we heard your case and you know what they're really saying when they're saying you're so wonderful they say Jesus I'm so grateful there's another weird one out there I'm glad I'm not the only strange one that's staying sober by mistake and to stay here long enough to walk in the sunlight of the spirit I took that little granddaughter with me to a conference once and I put a long white blouse that covers a multitude of tortillas and beans and long white pants she looked up at me and she says Pamma you look just like the white angel and I looked at the little child and there was a something happened between us when we looked at each other because all she's seen is what you've done with me she hasn't had to see her grandma looking like a monster from being battered crawling around in her own field she hasn't had to see the battering that I did to her mother all she's seen is the warmth and the love that I have for her that you have given me if you ever were a person that lived in a bedroom and crawling around in agony in your own field where you can't drink and can't be sober where you can't live and can't die there's no road that leads from there to here when you will read to me and say we will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace and I will shout and I'll tell you that I can't remember the last time that I had that agony inside of me I can't remember the last time that I had a loneliness everywhere that I go there you go with me because I am today what you've made of me because he has touched me so much