Conversation with Debbie D.

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0:00

Moderator Welcome to the Tuesday Night Recovery Speakers History Workshop. Thank you, everyone, for joining us tonight. My name is Tim, and tonight's presentation is a conversation with a long timer, and tonight's long timer is Debbie D., who just celebrated two weeks ago, a little over two weeks ago, 50 years. So she is our long timer for February, and we meet here every Tuesday night at the same time using the same Zoom ID number, and we do a different history presentation every week, and the last Tuesday of the month, we do these conversations with long timers, and March, our long timer is Lee M., Jr. from Washington, D.C., and I will be sharing the flyer in the chat in a moment, and you can save that for next month.

0:16

Debbie This meeting being recorded and all past audio presentations are available at recoveryspeakers.com, and we are not affiliated with any 12-step organization, though our focus is the history of AA and other 12-step fellowships. Recoveryspeakers.com is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to preserving and sharing the audio history of AA and the 12-step movement for today and for future generations. We also send a daily email featuring a speaker talk from our archive. The emails include the recordings of these meetings and information on upcoming presentations. If you'd like to subscribe, you can use the link that I'll be sharing in the chat, or you can send me an email at info at recoveryspeakers.com, and I will get you added to our email list, and if you are able to support our work, contributions are appreciated.

0:33

Moderator The donation link is in the chat, and tonight, as Penny was just saying a minute ago, we should have some time for questions from the gallery. If anyone has questions for Debbie at the end, please maybe make a note and write them down and be ready to ask questions at the end, and I close the chat during the conversation. I will open it back up at the end of the meeting, and that is it for me. I am going to go ahead and turn it right over to Penny, and I am so grateful for Penny's suggestion to do this type of meeting and taking it on as her own responsibility of booking all the long timers and interview, well, having the conversations, and Penny, I am so grateful for you and glad that you're still with us from sunny Honolulu, and I see that you're having trouble unmuting, and I keep pressing ask to unmute, and it's not doing it. No.

0:53

Moderator There we go. Got it. Got it. Okay. Thanks, Tim.

0:54

Debbie Hi. My name's Penny P. I'm an alcoholic, and normally I'm coming to you from Livermore, California, but today I am coming to you from sunny Honolulu. Well, it's sunny right now. It was raining a little bit earlier, but the good thing about Hawaii, you just wait a few minutes and it stops, and I am here for the Pacific Regional AA Service Assembly.

1:03

Moderator I went to the Aloha Roundup this past weekend, and some of the folks that are online, I think, are going to be joining me this weekend at PRASA, and some folks are already in, so I'm really glad that I was able to do this from my hotel room. I am on my iPad, which is not familiar to me, so if it's wonky, just let me know. So every month, we do this meeting. For those of you who've not been here before, Conversation with a Long-Timer was an idea that came about after Nancy Kay was doing a talk on women pioneers in Alcoholics Anonymous, and we were asking some questions that none of us could answer because those women are gone, and I'm sitting watching Nancy and listening to these questions and thinking, wait a minute. We've got people that know our history.

1:21

Debbie Let's talk to them. And if you haven't learned this lesson yet, Debbie and I know it well. The first person to complain or make a suggestion is the first volunteer, and so when I reached out to Mike and asked him what he thought of the idea, I did tell him that I'd be willing to do it. I did not be thinking I'd be doing it this long. I thought I'd do it for a few months and maybe not.

1:31

Moderator I didn't even think I'd do it a year, and I think we're going into our third or fourth year now. So thank you for joining us. Thank you to those of you who are new to this meeting. We do do it on the last Tuesday of every month, 6 p.m. Pacific time and 4 p.m.

1:39

Moderator Honolulu time, but that's going to change with Daylight Savings Time. So my guest this evening is my dear friend, Debbie D. Debbie, would you like to introduce yourself, give us your name, your sobriety date, your home group, your sponsor, etc.? Well, hi everybody. I am Debbie Davis, and I'm an alcoholic.

1:45

Debbie My sobriety date is February 8, 1976. I come to you from Concord, California. My home group is the Primary Purpose Group in Dublin, California, and my sponsor is Marilyn S. from Los Angeles. So because I know that you just celebrated 50 years of sobriety, and I was there when you did it, the first question I have to ask is, did you ever imagine, did you ever imagine you would be celebrating 50 years of sobriety?

1:54

Debbie No, Penny. Every year has been a surprise in the sense that, I mean, I never expected to see 30 years of age. Yeah. And so when I actually saw 30 years sober, it was pretty shocking. And then, you know, I think there's some kind of interesting milestones along the way, just fun numbers, right?

2:01

Debbie So the first one was, I drank solidly for five years and had a couple of slips, relapses, I don't even know what you call, I wasn't in AA, you know, I just visited, so I don't even know what to call those things, drinkings, events. So I was first five years sober, then the next one was probably 18 years sober, because I got sober at 18, then like 30 years of age, 30 years sober, then 36 years being sober twice as long as I had drank. And then it became 50. And I think, well, 40 plus, because AA was 40 plus years sober, or around when I got sober, like 40 years and seven months and some days. And then, so I'm not exactly sure what the next, if there is some kind of goalish there is, I was born in 1957.

2:18

Debbie So maybe it's 57. I don't know. We keep making up stuff as long as we go, right? But isn't it just amazing. But I'm of the attitude of, I can't wait to see what God has in store for the next 50 years.

2:23

Debbie Yeah. The likelihood is pretty, pretty shy, but I'm going out strong, you know, whenever that day comes, it's going to be strong. Well, I am very grateful to be trudging the path with you, my friend. Very grateful. So I know that, as you said, you weren't really in AA, so they were really slips, but I know that you came to AA and then kind of played around a little bit and then came back.

2:33

Moderator We don't need to talk about the Molotov cocktail drunk car, but do you want to give us just a little bit about that when you went through treatment and then got that little package in the mail and then finally came back and got sober? Well, I think that was the biggest shock in a way for me was to have that psychic change on the 7th of February of 1976, because that was not how the day started. And I've looked back at that day so many times of how that one stupid little joint, and it was just going to be another secret. And yet the longer the time went and the greater the conflict began and then being all over, and it just like, I really felt like the visual was like the atomic explosion. It just, it had that secondary nanosecond of a white light in my gut, which I believe was that little flicker that God tossed in there.

2:53

Debbie And then just the obliviousness of all the things that had been preventing me on my own, the denial that my case is different. I'm too young. That was the number one thing. And it was so odd that that night, my age was like not even a thought. And yet that had been my number one defense.

3:00

Debbie I'm too young to be an alcoholic. And this weird, just repulsion of being altered and this weird magnetic draw, like I'm out of my own will to be drawn to these AA people. I think they know what to do. They seem to be living a life that they enjoy and is joyful. And the new experience that next day, the 8th of February, I got going to the meeting early, 20 minutes early and feeling like, my God, I'm like, who goes this early?

3:11

Debbie Like the day before is what it felt like. And yet it was such a new experience that I had no idea what AA was really about until I began that new journey that day. Yeah. So I know, I love that part of your story where you got here and you started coming to meetings early. You asked some of those questions.

3:18

Moderator Were there, before we get to that part, were there any young peeps meetings in your area? Were there any groups of young people that you had been going to meetings with or anything like that? Oh my goodness. I was so fortunate that when I got plopped into Minneapolis for that halfway house, there were, I mean, it really is the land of 10,000 lakes and the land of 10,000 treatment centers at that time in the mid seventies. It was nothing but treatment centers, detoxes, halfway houses.

3:29

Debbie They were on every corner, it seemed. And so I was very much enveloped by young people's groups and young people getting sober. The one group I went to, it was one of the first like Alano clubs that was started by Pat Cronin who had a 12-step call paid on him by a couple of guys from Chicago. They got stranded in November right around Veterans Day. He had written a letter to New York in like 41 and they sent it to the closest to him.

3:40

Debbie Somebody's unmuted here. They sent it to the closest people to Pat, which was in Chicago. Now it wasn't Earl Treat, but it was a couple of guys. They were going up for a football game, big rivalry football game, got snowed in and they 12-stepped and worked with Pat all weekend. So he left and they left back home and he started in Minneapolis, which grew.

3:48

Debbie And he started this club, which was a beautiful, beautiful clubhouse. It really was the marker for me, 2218, because that was its address too. So they kept it real simple. And they had different meetings that you could break out into and they were called squads. You had a squad number and the young people's meeting there was the biggest they had.

3:55

Debbie And they always came to the young people's meeting when they needed like some fundraising. They'd encourage us to have a dance or something. And we, of course, we were always for it and we would always be a big proponent of them. And that, so there were loads of young people's groups. I have never, ever had anyone say to me that they spilled more than I drank or made those kinds of comments.

4:05

Debbie Never did I have somebody tell me I wasn't qualified. I'm too young. Oh, you have a watch? Oh, you have a car? Yeah, it was my little drunk car with the Molotov cocktail in there.

4:09

Debbie But no one ever said that to me. And this is now 76. Yeah. And you know, I don't remember anybody really saying that to me. I remember joking about it.

4:13

Moderator Somebody saying, but I got sober with young people in Hawaii too. And they had kind of their own little, I didn't go to, I went to meetings with long timers, but yeah, I didn't get a lot of pushback on coming in either. So you got sober, you came to that meeting, February 8th, 1976, you got there 20 minutes early. And there was a question that you had asked. Now, had you asked the question before you got there or did you ask the question after you got there on February 8th about how do you guys do this thing?

4:26

Debbie Oh, it was after. I was ready to ask the question. I had not asked it before because I wasn't staying. Right. I mean, there's no need to make any investment here.

4:30

Moderator You know, join. I'm not a joiner. There's no need to waste anybody's time as a sponsor. You know, I'm not staying. But that day, from that night before, I knew I wanted, I was sick of my way of life.

4:35

Moderator And, you know, we want to do it all on our own, but we I had zero tools to do any progress on my own. And we don't get extra points or extra sobriety when we do it on our own and how less fun it is, you know. So, yes, I had that was the first time I asked the question, which was a big, big surprise to me, too, in addition to them. Yeah. And, you know, that's really an interesting point about those, you know, those of us or the alcoholics who just insist I can do it myself.

4:48

Debbie It's like, why? If there's people I can trudge the path with what? Why? Why am I insisting on being by myself? So, so, so you come in February 8th, 1976.

4:51

Debbie And, and you start asking those questions about how do you do this thing? So how did you get into what was what was their answer? I think it was something about service, if I recall correctly. Well, they they what I remember was there was like a series of things and I'll just I won't elaborate on each one, but it was sobriety date, that we go to a lot of meetings, get a home group, that we get a sponsor, we take the steps, very specific about that taking not working, but taking. Those traditions are just for the group, why don't you see how you can apply them in your own life, be of service, and that service they were implying was the stuff outside of the group comfortable service, you know, whatever you did in your group, and they were really clear.

5:09

Debbie If you don't have a commitment in your home group, you cannot call that your home group, you're just a taker, then you're not a member, you're just a taker, you're an attender, you can attend lots of meetings, but you've got to have that home group, that solid foundation, that non-negotiable, whether it's your dog's birthday, or my anniversary, or it's Christmas, or it's New Year's, you're there. I mean, that was they really implied that attitude of commitment, and then to carry the message. However, you know, fumbling, bumbling, tumbling I did, it was more than, you know, I was doing before, I was getting out of myself. So, those were the things that they shared with me, that as I remember them. And Glenville used to talk about that, taking the steps, not working this, he said, I never worked a drink, I took a drink.

5:29

Debbie Yes, yes. So, what was your first commitment? Do you remember what your first commitment was? I really don't, but I know I was in general service within a couple of years. Oh my God, because that question comes a little bit further down my list.

5:35

Debbie I mean, I've done the coffee, and I've done the greeter, of course. I can't remember what my first commitment was, though. And I, you know, the first AA meeting I ever went to was, is very, very vague. It was on a home visit from the treatment center. And it was like, oh my God, that guy runs the car dealership, and that guy, you know, I knew them from that way, right?

5:44

Debbie And it just didn't collect and connect with me. But yeah, so I don't remember what my very first one was. Okay. So, get a home group. What was your first home group?

5:48

Debbie It was actually the 12 and 12 group, which met around one of the lakes. Although I went frequently to the 2218 club, that 12 and 12 was really a three legacy group. And again, I've often said, I wouldn't have known to look for that. I was attracted, though, to what they did. They were active in, as I would come to learn, all the legacies.

5:56

Debbie They were, they studied the 12 and 12. So, applying the traditions in your life was like right from the gate. It wasn't something, that's what weird kind of attitude. It was right, just as natural as the steps. And they were active in service and fellowship.

6:01

Debbie They did a lot of fellowship. But that's where I got my first GSR position. And how did you get your first sponsor? Well, that really, I got to say, sponsorship was not something that was, OK, let me rephrase that. I'm sure it was frequently talked about.

6:07

Debbie But it wasn't like I would learn in Southern California, name, rank, serial number, what's Friday sponsor, home group. And so I got, I would ask a couple of women. And they didn't know what to do with me. And I didn't know what to do with them. But I got my first official sponsor.

6:15

Debbie I was working on a convention, the Gopher State Roundup, actually. Gopher State Roundup, which was still one of the largest in the country. I was on the Gopher State Roundup. So was she, Marguerite. And I asked her to be my sponsor.

6:20

Moderator And I was about two years sober at that time. She was my first official sponsor. And did she take you through the steps? Or had you, since you had a 12 and 12 for a home group, you were already working through the steps? Yes, I haven't had any sponsor sit down, knee-to-knee, book-to-book in my years.

6:27

Debbie And so that's why, when I was in Southern California, moved down there, I started sponsoring the way I wanted to be sponsored. And that was knee-to-knee, book-to-book, and have done that ever since. And so I didn't have a sponsor specifically guiding me. I was maybe sort of self-guided or group-guided, if you will. But yeah, so she showed me service work, committee work, 12-step work.

6:35

Debbie She showed me that, how she did things like that. Yeah. Yeah, my experience was similar to that in early sobriety with the steps when I got sober out here in Hawaii. I got to go to the meeting that was my first home group. I got to go to it last Sunday.

6:41

Debbie And the guy who was the chairperson at my very first home group, my very first meeting was there. So I got to see him. And his wife was one of my early sponsors. But like you said, it wasn't eyeball-to-eyeball, knee-to-knee. But it was also before the big book renaissance that AA went through in the 80s with the workshops, the Joe and Charlies and the Joes and all of those other people that were bringing the big book more into the program.

6:52

Debbie Yeah, it just wasn't common. You just didn't, you know, that's why I'm so grateful. I was in a book study, and I went to a big book study as well. So this is where I was getting fed that information and experience. Yeah, what was happening in the 70s was, I don't exactly know if, you know, many people get, let me slow down, they sponsor the way they've been sponsored.

7:01

Moderator Yes. And so my Marguerite sponsor was a guy who'd moved to Arizona. And they would talk all the time on the phone and so forth in a sponsorship relationship. But nobody was doing that. I mean, if there were, they were, I didn't hear about them.

7:07

Debbie Yeah. That wasn't, that's something we evolved into doing. Yeah. But so February of 76, so you got sober on the second edition. The third edition was not published until later that year.

7:11

Debbie And you're getting sober with people who got sober on the second edition. Exactly. And the first edition, because you would have gotten sober with some folks that got sober in the mid 50s. Yes. So with it being that way, how did you do a fourth step and then do a fifth step?

7:18

Debbie Because it was, I'm thinking back on my own experience with that, of course, because we're fairly close in sobriety. What was your experience with writing down that fourth step? Who explained that to you, how to write it? And what did you do with that for that fourth step because of the way sponsorship was in those days for us? I don't remember so much the first one.

7:26

Debbie I mean, I know I wrote a first one. I don't remember who I gave. Well, in treatment, we had to write an inventory and do step five in order to get out. So I was inspired. And so I wrote that inventory.

7:32

Debbie But it was really more of that part in the inventory where it says, told someone else all our life story. And it was more of that kind of a thing column-wise. And I did the first fifth step with one of the counselors. Then when I was in the halfway house was kind of another go through the motions and clean up some stuff. And I told it to the counselor there.

7:41

Moderator And then the next one wasn't until I was almost seven years sober when I was having that kind of crash and burn. And then I used more the format out of the book. And my sponsor at the time was a man, Joe, in Atlanta. And he recommended, as was common in those days, to go see a monk. And he was a sober monk.

7:49

Debbie And that's who I told my inventory to. And that really was probably the most revealing to me. It was like a page and a half, if I recall, roughly. And I talked 10 minutes. And he talked 50.

7:53

Debbie And I walked away. And I did feel better. I have done a few more inventories after that. But again, I enjoy helping someone else through that inventory process the way I'd like to have been taken through. But I think I came out OK.

7:59

Debbie I think you did, too. So you got sober in Minneapolis. And then you moved to Atlanta at some point. How long were you sober when you moved to Atlanta? I was just shy of my fourth birthday.

8:03

Debbie So I moved to Atlanta. I got sober in February. And then I moved to Atlanta in January of 80, at the end of January, because I'd had enough winter. Everybody says that every year. Oh my god, I'm getting out of here.

8:09

Debbie Well, I meant it. And I did. I was done. And so I moved to Atlanta because I had a job. There was between Dallas and Atlanta.

8:12

Debbie I liked them both. But I had been to Atlanta and Houston. And then I went to Atlanta in, no, it must have been 70, yeah, 77, then 78 was Atlanta. And then, so I got that real taste for the South. And a job became available in Atlanta.

8:17

Debbie So that's what made my decision. And then my home group there was the Skyland group. It's still going. Looks a little different than when I left it. So the snow is what got me to Hawaii.

8:22

Debbie And then I got sober here. But then I moved back to Washington DC. And I thought it was the South. I cannot tell you how surprised I was the first winter I was there when they had snow on the ground. We won't even talk about what they've gotten this past weekend.

8:29

Moderator So almost four years sober, just shy of four years sober. And I relocated first with about two and a half years. How was that move for you? I went to meetings for a while, say, introducing myself and then saying, I'm Penny P. I'm an alcoholic.

8:35

Debbie And you're not doing it right. I bet you made a lot of friends that way. Oh, I did, yes, yes. I really endeared myself to them. So how did you make that transition from Minneapolis AA to Atlanta AA and get involved in?

8:40

Debbie How did you find a home group? How did you find the people that were doing the deal, showing up, and talking about recovery? Well, because at the Atlanta Icky Paw, I met Joe. Now, Joe got sober in 1949. He was 27 years sober, longer than me.

8:46

Moderator He was a retired businessman with grown and gone college-age children. So he was retired. And he was a delicate, either right around that time, just soon to be elected or had just been elected. He was the delegate from Atlanta, Georgia. And so he was a light of enthusiasm.

8:52

Moderator And he always was. And he was such an attraction. And I went to his group, the group that he went to. And those were some wonderful long-timers. I have a sponsee in Moldova.

8:56

Moderator And she calls them old comers, newcomers and old comers. And the first time she said that, I just giggled. And she didn't realize why. But I just thought it was so endearing. So they were long comers that were there.

9:01

Moderator The group had been, gosh, at that time in 1980, it was probably at least 20 years old at the time. Started probably late 60s. Joe didn't start it. He moved to Georgia. But it was already started by a little fellow named Clarence Roberts.

9:06

Moderator He also would go on to be a Georgia delegate. And so they started that group. And Skyline was a power group for a long, long time. And it was like primary purpose. It was like love and service.

9:11

Debbie It was that kind of respected group in the community. And boy, if you were invited to speak at Skyline, you were like, you sat up taller. It was really that kind of a wonderful feeling. And another guy named John had moved from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. And he and I had both been raised on book studies and 12 and 12s.

9:18

Debbie And John and I were going crazy, because those were slim picking type of meetings. We just could not keep stomaching, I'm sorry to say that, but the just discussion groups. It was too much to do it. So we asked Clarence, would it be OK if we, off in this side room here, started a step study? And we got the blessing of the founder, and we did.

9:27

Debbie And it was really amazing. There were people, you could tell, who had never been introduced to the steps, and they were sober longer than me. And I think the one thing I really remember was Joe said to me one night, he says, so what step are you guys on in there? And I said four. He said, oh, it'll be interesting to see how many people have taken it.

9:35

Debbie And I'm like, oh, Joe, you're an old fuddy-duddy kind of thing. So there were probably 15 people in the room. And we said, before we get started, just curious, how many people here have done a fourth step? Three of us rose our hand. The wisdom of the longcomer, right?

9:42

Moderator The wisdom. And I thought, my god, the good news is the next time we were at step four, we had a whole lot more hands go up. Yeah. Yeah. Because see, for so many people, it was just don't drink and go to meetings, and you'll be fine after nine years of telling them that.

9:49

Debbie But even in our area, where we do have very strong AA, when we did that first four-step workshop about 20 years ago now, when Kathy and I did put together that four-step workshop, Kathy and Mary and Dave C and Steve B, there were a lot of people. When we set out the tables, we wanted at least one person at each table that had done the four-step. And we struggled to find people that were willing to do it and answer questions about their experience with the four-step. And so I think that even though we're in an area where AA is very strong, we might need to do something like that again. So did you get involved?

10:03

Debbie So you've already been involved in general service when you're in Minneapolis. So you moved to Atlanta, and now you get involved in a different, it's still general service, of course, but you're in a different area. You're in a different district. And what kind of commitments did you get with general service in Atlanta? What was your experience with general service in Atlanta?

10:12

Debbie Well, I want to toot my little horn a little bit here, Penny. Back in Minneapolis, I helped, I felt almost single-handedly, revived a district that had been dead. I went to the Atlanta ICIPA, and they asked us, because words are different depending upon the community you're in. And so they said to our bid committee, how many of you are in service? And we're like, well, we don't quite know what you mean by that, because we call it commitments.

10:22

Debbie And we're young. And they said, well, things like general service and intergroup, and a ton of us stood up. But I'm thinking, general service? Is something going on in AA I don't know about, was kind of my attitude. And so I helped.

10:27

Debbie Yes, there sure was. And I jumped on that. And I came back. And you cannot believe the hunt I went on. Yeah, we used to have one.

10:31

Debbie Go talk to so-and-so, and they'd leave me here, and they'd leave me there, and bing, bing, boom, boom, boom. And finally, it became, it's been inactive for so long. This is pre-computer, pre-cell phone, and we're doing stuff by going to meetings and phoning people and Rolodex cards and all that kind of stuff. And we revived that district. And a guy named Don Bruner became the district DCM.

10:40

Moderator I knew Don Bruner. Yes, and he became a trustee as well. And Bob Bazans was a delegate at one time after we had gotten this revived. And I mean, it just became, you know, I got to know a lot of these men who had served as delegates. But it had, because Minnesota is divided into northern and southern.

10:47

Moderator So we're in southern Minnesota. And just some of the, we revived that district. We brought it back to life. And it was so gratifying. And so when I moved to, I was a GSR for Skyland at that time.

10:52

Debbie And Georgia had a central meeting place in Macon, because that was the central area. So you went to Macon for meetings. And that's when Joe became our nominee for Southeast Regional Trustee and would get it on the first ballot at the conference. Wow. Rarely, rarely ever seen.

10:58

Debbie Yeah. That's a rare bird. But he lived in a program of action. And he said, you need to get a woman. You need to get a woman.

11:02

Debbie You need to get a woman sponsor. I said, you know what, Joe? Soon as I find someone as active as you are, I will. And maybe I just didn't look hard enough, OK? I never found anyone as active as he was.

11:07

Debbie And so that was, but I did all kinds of commitments at the Skyland group. They had a variety, kind of like Primary Purpose does. And I did a lot of variety of commitments there. But general service there as well. Yeah.

11:12

Debbie Yeah, I know somebody is going to be calling you. I think she's on this meeting tonight. She's going to be reaching out to you because she moved to an area where there's a dark district. So how long are you, you moved from Minneapolis to Atlanta. How long are you in Atlanta before you moved to Southern California?

11:19

Debbie Well, I moved here and then moved back to Georgia. Well, I didn't know that. I moved out here like September of 85, I want to say. And I was in Southern California for a month-ish, thereabouts. My furniture was on the loading dock.

11:25

Debbie And we put a halt to it, and I went back to Georgia. And then I came out in October of 86 to stay. And I've been here ever since. And you and I met in the summer of 87. And you probably don't remember, but I remember.

11:30

Debbie We can talk about it offline. So we met through those two guys. Yeah. So you're in Southern California, and you're finding a home group. What was your home group when you were in Southern California?

11:35

Moderator Well, it automatically became the Bellflower Big Book Group. It was a natural fit for me. And my move to Southern California was perfect timing for me. I didn't know there was these open spots that needed filling, and it filled all of them. I loved the structure.

11:41

Debbie I loved the dressing up. I mean, I did that in Atlanta, too. But I loved the stepping up of your sobriety and just moving in and into the structure that was created. I loved it. It fit me beautifully.

11:46

Debbie Yes, it did. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yes, it did. And you know, I had a. similar experience when I moved from Washington to Northern California.

11:50

Debbie And it was one of the reasons that I asked my company to transfer me was more because of AA because of the job. Yeah, yeah. And then you move up to Northern California. I just want to see. Yeah, you move up to Northern California.

11:56

Debbie And so you're still involved in general service. Have you ever stood for delegate? No, no. When I moved up here, it's been 25 years, Penny. I know.

11:59

Debbie When I took my cake at Primary Purpose and realized half of my 50 years has been in Northern California, it blew my mind. And I've been living it. I couldn't believe it. It just seemed when you put the numbers to it, it just didn't seem possible. But when I moved up here, I was a little disillusioned and discouraged by not only do they have the district meetings, but then they have sub-district meetings.

12:08

Debbie And then they have these meetings and that meetings. And I thought, that's just too many meetings for me. And so I ended up getting involved with general service, filling the rest of a general GSR term at a group that wasn't my home group. But it was just as close as one could be to Primary Purpose. And it was so important to me that that group have a voice.

12:17

Debbie And so I filled out the rest of that term. Then I went on to be DCM. Then I wasn't going to go for DCMC. And I was given a little elbow by the incoming delegate. And I thought, well, OK, I'll do it.

12:23

Moderator And I was elected to be DCMC. Now, the other people running might have been more qualified. But they elected me. So it was time to really step into the big shoes. And I tell you what, it was two years.

12:28

Debbie My first year, I was very enthusiastic with it. I wanted to be an educator and have people really look forward to that first Tuesday of the month and help them grow and learn about general service and all that, why it's vital for them to be here. And the second year, I still brought the same enthusiasm. But I did my countdown of how many more meetings I had to do because I got tired of having the bullseye right in front and the back row just zing, zing, zing. And every month, I wanted to quit for some reason.

12:40

Debbie I'm a great starter. But I don't always want to finish. But I knew it was important for many reasons, like how am I going to sell this to sponsees? I can quit midway through a commitment. But you can't, right?

12:45

Debbie Right. And I wanted to leave clean. I really should have. I brought everything every month organized to my very best. I did not chip at anything.

12:49

Debbie So when I left that last meeting in December, I knew I was good. I was clean. And I did my very best to the end. And I had a decision. Again, you never know if you're going to be elected to something.

12:54

Debbie But you have to act as if you did. Will you be willing to step up into that? And I had a choice I had to make in my mind. Do I want to make myself available or not for area service, which I'd love to do? But if I did that, what I did in my life before DCMC would be gone.

13:02

Debbie There wouldn't be all the weekend workshops and traveling and doing what I love to do as well. And when I looked at area six people, oh my god, if we are not blessed with a tremendous amount of capable, qualified men and women, it wasn't like I was going to bring something they really needed to the table. There are so many. I've been to area assemblies where they still cannot get their area office filled. We don't have that problem.

13:12

Debbie We do not have that. When you've got 17 people standing for any position, you're like, yeah, we're good. We're good. And so I felt, where do I feel I can be the most useful? I'd love to have had area experience, but I felt I can be most useful out here.

13:19

Debbie And I still do all of the general service things that I am able to do when I'm in town. Because my first year as DCMC, PRASA was in Hawaii. And I was booked to be in Rochester, New York that same weekend. And so I missed Hawaii. I missed a few other things because I already had to go.

13:26

Debbie I'm thinking Debbie, PRASA in Honolulu, Rochester, New York. I mean, there's just like, no. But that was where the first commitment was. And that's why I did that. I know it.

13:30

Debbie It isn't always easy, is it? So my second year, having gotten elected, then everything in my second year, I got my general service calendar filled up right away and got those dates marked so I wouldn't miss anything the second year. But again, that's why we have alternates. But I had to make a decision, area or what my life was like before. And I've never regretted the decision.

13:39

Debbie Because I still feel very connected to general service. I go to the assemblies. I do agenda topics, discussion. I'll be at PRASA this weekend. I have no horse in this race.

13:43

Debbie I have no commitments. I don't have to be there. I go because I want to. I want to be connected to this worldwide service structure. And so yes.

13:47

Debbie So yes, they can't get rid of me. And that's the good thing, is I can keep going. And I can tell you, as I look out the window of my hotel room, it's not a bad place to be right now. Indeed. So I want to keep talking.

13:53

Debbie But we do have people that may have questions for you. But before I turn it back over to the folks in the room, when I thought about doing this with you, I just had no clue where it was going to go. But that's how most of our interactions go anyway. We wind up talking about stuff I just never thought would come to the service. Is there anything that I didn't ask you about that you thought you might want to say, or anything that this is your opportunity to share something that you maybe thought you wanted to say or get out there or?

14:06

Debbie Yeah. OK. Yes. It's not my original. But years ago, but it was something I felt.

14:08

Debbie It would just someone put the words into it to be perfect, to state it perfectly for me. And that was many years ago. Scott L. from Tennessee was speaking. And he shared a story about his close relationship with Don Pritz.

14:13

Debbie And Don had been a Class B trustee. He had served and led the delegation that had been invited to Russia, et cetera, did much, much service work. And Scott asked Don, who was some years senior, not only in age, but in sobriety, what's the biggest change you've seen in AA? And this is what I want to pass on. When he said this, it just went, bam, gut punch.

14:22

Debbie He said, the focus used to be on recovery. Now it's on sobriety. And I think what's happening been over the years, we have gotten lazy. We have gotten lazy by not taking people through the steps, through our literature. We've used all kinds of outside literature.

14:28

Debbie We're not focusing on, these are the steps. We really need to remember, these are the steps that will give you that spiritual awakening. And I don't know if there's anything more selfish than an unwillingness to do that for someone else. Now, I didn't have that one-on-one done for me. But I do it for others, because I want them to have, I have an amazing life in recovery.

14:37

Debbie My life is not the same. And I wanted to encourage us to, if you're not sponsoring somebody right now because you're afraid, and I just talked to somebody yesterday, I'm afraid to sponsor. Seven years sober, I said, here's what I'm going to recommend that you do. I'm your grand sponsor, so I'm going to give you some direction. I said, every meeting you go to, because it sounds like they're all discussion meetings, you're going to end your share with telling people, and I am available to sponsor if you would like one.

14:50

Moderator And don't worry, you're not going to have 50 people rushing you, bum rushing you. You're just, but be lucky if you get onesies, twosies, threesies. It's time to get over the fear. You might be in service and doing all kinds of other things, which is fantastic. But this, this has unique unselfishness about it, by watching the dead come to life, by watching people reunited.

14:58

Debbie Because we have gone too long by saying, don't drink and go to meetings. That might be fine for the first two weeks till they know what day of the week it is. But then let's get down to work. Let's get down to business. And so that's what I want to say.

15:05

Debbie Let's make sure that we share recovery, not just sobriety. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. And the thing about putting yourself out there for sponsorship, one of the truths that has been my experience is that one of the best ways to never hear from somebody again is to say, I'd be happy to be your sponsor. Here's my phone number.

15:13

Moderator Let's talk. And all of a sudden, they disappear from the face of the earth. So Tim, if you would take us off spotlight, and we can see if anybody in the gallery has a question for Debbie. And we do have some questions. And first up is Chris.

15:19

Moderator You can unmute and ask your question. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Penny. And thank you, Debbie. Just to pick up, Debbie, on what you just talked about, if I may, the difference between recovery and sobriety.

15:24

Debbie What I'm hearing is that you're talking about recovery being something you share with other people rather than sobriety being in a singular state of being. Is that about correct? Yeah, so recovery being the taking of the 12 steps. That it's important that we get into our literature, our big book, and the 12 steps, and to apply those in our life instead of just not drink, put the plug in the jug, and show up in meetings and think that's enough. OK, and you just said something I was going to ask you about the difference between taking the steps and what we now hear in meetings, working the steps.

15:37

Debbie If you wouldn't mind elaborating on that, please. For me, Chris, taking is really internalizing them. And working is just the busy work, the busy, busy work. It's so topical. It's checking off the list.

15:42

Debbie Taking them is really in the corporation into my life, the practice of my powerlessness, and my unmanageability, and the decisions I make. Yes, we write the inventory, and we may write out our A-step list, and so forth. But it's the application. And that's the verb that the big book uses. So I like to incorporate that language as much as I can.

15:50

Debbie And it does have it feels different to me, too. Yes, me too. Thank you so much. That's beautiful. Thanks, Chris.

15:53

Debbie Carol? Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you, Debbie and Penny. You two are really my foundation to this new way of living many years ago in the beginning of this way of recovery. And so my question is, what is a DCMC?

15:58

Debbie Not all areas of the country, or there's 93 areas in the US-Canada structure. Some of them, because of population, have what's called a DCMC, which is a District Committee Member Chair. And those districts are so large, they're then divided into sub-districts that have the district committee members, the DCMs. There isn't a lot written about it, maybe a paragraph-ish, but it's really the chair of the districts that would norm. If we had all of our districts, the DCMs, we'd probably have 150 DCMs, which is unmanageable.

16:09

Debbie So we have 23 districts in area 06, which are further broken down. But I would be, the DCMC is the primary contact for the delegate to disperse information. OK, thank you. Sure. Shirley, Charlie.

16:13

Debbie Can you un? There you go. I sure did. Thank you, ladies. Great meeting tonight.

16:15

Debbie So what caught my ear was when Debbie, you were talking about all the different committees when you moved to Northern California. And I, last summer, moved to Chico from Indiana. And things are different here. And the first thing, kind of what I want to talk about is how there's H&I here in Northern California and how that's separate from the area. And to me, it's kind of like disunifying in a way.

16:24

Debbie Back in Indiana, and as far as I know, the rest of the country, hospitals and institutions are treatment and corrections in normal area. And so, I don't know, just in here in Chico, we also have an intergroup, which is baffling to me because the intergroup covers what the district covers. So I guess, I don't know what my question is, but other than trying to, do you have any suggestions on, or I guess, what would your opinion be on how the H&I is separate from the area and how that affects things in Northern California? Well, I believe Chico's in area seven. And so we're in area six.

16:38

Debbie I remember that, of course, each area being autonomous. But in California, hospitals and institutions was started so long before, back in 42, with San Quentin. And it grew from there. And they are looked at as a tradition nine subcommittee of general service in that status. Again, Penny, you can correct me if I'm wrong on this.

16:45

Debbie They are collaborative. And they're actually kind of a subcommittee of the Northern California Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous. And so they serve their purpose. I remember when I first got into area six service, they were talking about adding a treatment corrections committee to the area structure. They talked about it for three years, three years.

16:52

Debbie And the end vote came with no, because they couldn't see it as separate from the already established H&I committee, which goes into treatment facilities, institutions, et cetera. All I could encourage you to do is be open minded. Know that you're not going to change it. Many have tried. And it is different.

16:59

Moderator It's just unfamiliar. And I love the fact that I have moved now three times since I got sober. All of it has been unfamiliar with its own personality style of what works for them and doesn't. And I know Lori from Chicago is on here. If you think that's confusing, try talking to somebody about the Illinois-Chicago structure.

17:07

Debbie Oh, yeah, that makes my head spin. Charlie, one of the things I would encourage is we have a conference coming up in March. The Northern California Council of Alcoholics Anonymous, NCCAA, is one of the oldest AA conferences in the country. It was started as a result of a visit from Bill Wilson here to the Bay Area. And a lot of those questions can be answered there.

17:15

Moderator We'd love to see you. Please reach out to me. I can't get my contact info in the chat, but Tim can get you my contact information. I think I have it, Penny. And really, we can take this offline since this is not just a California meeting here.

17:21

Debbie But a lot of our H&I is because of that first meeting at San Quentin when Warden Duffy invited Alcoholics Anonymous to come in before the general service officer, the foundation were ever created. So Mike, would you like to come in with a question? Yeah, hi. I'm so glad I just got home. I thought most of it.

17:29

Debbie 15 minutes late, but I always get excited. I'm in Rochester, New York. I got sober in Atlanta, so I got excited when I heard you talking about Skyland. I used to go to meetings there. I went to more meetings at NABA, which I would imagine you were familiar with as well, and Bill Rupp was around who got sober in Chicago in 1957.

17:36

Debbie I'm not sure if he came. I can't imagine you didn't come across Bill. Oh yeah, I sure did. Yeah, he was a character. Great guy.

17:40

Debbie But the Joe and the Johns that you mentioned, I couldn't help but wonder, was Joe Phelan one of those guys? Yes, Joe Phelan was my sponsor, yes. Okay, he was. All right, small world. I still go to Zoom meetings with some of those guys that got like 52 years sober now, so I'm sure you know some of them, Dickie B.

17:48

Debbie and Wes A., but whatever. I just think it's pretty cool, so thank you for sharing, and I appreciate all you do. I'll just say this real quick. It was 20 years before I got involved in general service, and I'll tell you what, it changed the whole complexion of my sobriety, and I would agree it changed my sobriety to recovery, so thank you for commenting on that. I appreciate it.

17:57

Debbie Thank you. Good to have you here, Mike. Eduardo, do you want to come in and ask Debbie a question? Yes, let me make sure I'm, oh, I got my videos on. Good.

18:01

Moderator Hi, Debbie, thank you for sharing. Thanks, Penny, and Mike, and Tim. When you were in Minnesota, and my history tells me that an offshoot maybe of Mr. Crone, and I forget his first name, is it Bill or Pat? Pat.

18:06

Debbie Pat. An offshoot of that group, the 1623 group, was the Joliet Club that grew shortly there out of. I was wondering if you were familiar with the Joliet Club, and the process they had of going through the 12 steps as a group, and they called it Novalco or AWOL is what it was when it came down into the Boston area in the 70s, and that's how we went through the steps, many of us, and they still do it to this day. It's an intensive six-month step study, and where you actually work the steps, if the facilitators oversee and see to it that you're getting the work done. I wonder if you had any familiarity with the Joliet Club and that form of going through the 12 steps.

18:22

Debbie No, I sure don't, Eduardo. No. Oh, okay. Thank you. Okay, we'll go to Gina, and this will be the last question, and then we'll close the meeting.

18:25

Debbie Gina, you want to come in and ask Debbie a question? Yeah. Hi, I'm Gina. I'm an alcoholic, and I'm fairly new, especially compared to over 50 years of sobriety. I'm working through day 77 right now.

18:30

Moderator Welcome. Thank you. My question is, it's been brought up, it was kind of a lot of a topic last week in some of these meetings, and it was about speed, speed of the steps, and I kind of have just the opinion that as long as you're working, the whole thing is progress, not perfection, but I guess it's kind of a mindset that hurry up, rush through it, get them done, run through them, and I was just curious what your thought was on that. Well, I like to get the biggest bang for my buck, so I'm not about, there's parts of the country, I don't know where, how this got started. They do a step a year, and I think, you've got to be kidding me.

18:47

Debbie It'd be 12 years before I'd have a spiritual awakening. Oh my god, I won't live that long, and then there's those who, I remember being in a meeting, and a woman raised her hand as being new, first meeting ever, and I was speaking, and after the thank yous, I went to look, and here she's on her knees doing a third step. I mean, somebody had gotten to her and like, bam, bam, bam, bam, on your knees, and I thought, you know, for some, this may work really well, but it doesn't, to me, getting her done, for the sake of getting her done, versus taking those in best as I can, being new, I mean, getting familiarity with it. I don't want it to be a check thing, that's why I'm a momentum kind of taker on the steps. I can't necessarily meet with you every week, six o'clock Tuesday night, so we always make sure we have momentum, and we have our next appointment, and our next appointment, and our next one, especially when it comes to the fourth step, and we have an appointment for the fifth step.

19:11

Moderator It's about momentum. It's not, for me, about you have to do this within a certain time. It's just, I want it to be organic, if you will, and I know a favorite group I used to regularly attend, I wasn't a member of that group, would be, you know, the goal was always to have your inventory done before, by your first year, and so that might be that you just didn't get started right away with a sponsor, or you've been sponsor hopping, and you're like, okay, or you've been sponsor hopping, or something, but that was always the goal, that you had your inventory done by the first year. I don't have a time frame. I just have the belief in momentum, that once we get started, let's build on the next block, and the next block, and the next block.

19:30

Moderator You can always, at some later time, and most people do, take the steps again, because now they have a little more awareness, a little more clarity. I did not have the language to describe things in the beginning. My inventory depth was about as deep as a dime, okay? It just wasn't going very deep. I don't have any feelings at this point.

19:38

Moderator It took a long time to get any of those, and some people are, whoa, I mean, they're ocean depth on feelings. That's not been my case, so momentum, I would be more interested in than not speed stepping, like speed dating, so no. Yeah, I appreciate that insight, not that I really needed to just, I love my sponsor now, you know, love her. I had another sponsor, and within, I was under 20, I was under 30 days, you know, and I was expected to be on step four, and like you said, I barely knew how to feel. My ups and downs, and my emotions all over the place, you know, and it was cool, though.

19:52

Moderator I love where I'm at, and thank you for that. You're welcome. Thanks for your question, Gina. Debbie, I just want to thank you so much for being willing to come and do this, and because I know it is very, and Tim, if you would let people unmute, and thank Debbie for the meeting tonight, that'd be great.

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