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Source: Diana H – Youngstown AA – Hubbard, OH. – 1971 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: diana-h-youngstown-aa-hubbard-oh-1971-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:52:41
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My name is Diana and I am an alcoholic. Would you join me at this moment of silence and then followed by the serenity prayer? God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. When we drove up tonight and saw all those cars out there tonight, I said, oh my heavens, this just scares me to death. My husband said to me, he says, what would you have done a few years ago if you had seen all these cars and you had to speak at the meeting? I said, I wouldn't have shown up and I wouldn't have either. My family always usually had highballs or drinks around the house. I never saw anything as far as drinking was concerned ever out of line at my home. On the occasion of my 15th birthday, we went out to one of the nightclubs in San Francisco, which was my home at that time. My father took me to the bar and bought me a drink. I was really elated over this because I could pass for 21 at a bar in San Francisco. My mother was furious, but this could be no wrong.
I had felt that I had grown up so much and this was the all important thing at that particular time. If that was my first drink, maybe that's it. That's what I look back as ever having my first drink. As far as ever having any breathtaking reaction, whether it was good or bad, I really couldn't even tell you. I don't even remember exactly what it was. It was the effect that I had passed for 21 that made a big impression on me at that time.
It wasn't too long after that that I did go out on a few dates, let's say on the weekends. We would go to different bars and I would be able to get these drinks and I had them. I think I tried a few different ones and I got pretty sick. However, I didn't say that I would never have anything again. I always went back for a little more. Perhaps I found at this time, I don't remember for sure, that maybe this gave me a little self-confidence, this drink. We would have drinks for the evening or whatever time we were going out for the weekends. This was all when I was around 15 or 16 years old. It would make me feel good.
I wouldn't feel so, I don't know, whether I thought I was inferior or what happened, but I seemed to be able to blend in with everyone and things were funnier. I would say things that were funnier, put me to ease or something. It wasn't long after this that I became very upset with things as they were going at home and I decided that I was going to go off on my own, which I did. This was when I was around 16. I went down to Los Angeles and I was able to get myself a job as a cocktail waitress. Here I drank too, but as far as the drink having any effect on me, this was just something that everybody did and so I did too. I seemed to enjoy my drinks. I wasn't taking medicine. I liked the drink and it seemed like everyone was having a lot of fun and it was a big party and I enjoyed myself. I did return back to my home. My story is I'm going here and going there because I traveled all my life. I think it was around in this time I thought that maybe things, I seemed to be very mixed up and I really didn't know exactly what I was mixed up about. I thought one time I was thinking of this just the other day that had dawned on me. I thought I'd throw a pin at the map and where the pin landed this is where I was going to go and settle. Now what I was going to do there I don't know, but this was way back before I started off in some of my more adventurous things in life I guess. The occasion, I had gone on the weekends and did my drinking and I had gotten a job, went to work and everything was rather normal. We had cocktails around the house and sometimes my dad would fix me a drink when the rest of the people would be in and have one. It was always a very small one and I didn't go back and fill it up that I could remember to get more and things were rather normal. This went on for a few years.
I think I was about 18 or so. My occasion came up for me to go to Alaska for a six weeks visit and I took this up. My father had been transferred up there and was working in Alaska and I went up to visit him for six weeks. When I arrived up there it was really, I was very disappointed because I had expected to see igloos in Fourth Avenue and Anchorage and certainly swinging doors on the bars and here they had parking meters on one of the main streets in Anchorage and it was rather disappointing. I had spent all my money before I arrived in Alaska and arrived up there with 50 cents which was kind of not very much.
You couldn't go anywhere. Maybe make a telephone call for 50 cents at that time. It was sort of a whirlwind. My father took me around and introduced me to a lot of people in Alaska
[00:05:02]
and I kind of liked them. They were all very friendly and gee, there was all this partying going on every place you went and the bars were open 24 hours a day there all the time and there was, this is what everybody did. They partied and I kind of liked this. The group that, my dad and the group that was around there, they drank scotch and I would take the scotch and it was just awful and, but however this is what was convenient and I wanted to drink, I wasn't going to abstain from this and there was something that I was getting out of this alcohol that made me a little more relaxed, I believe, when I didn't have it. So I cultivated a drink for scotch and I eventually went, the six weeks visit stayed into rather a long stay. I went to work for the Alaska Railroad and I worked from 8 to 5 there and then usually partied just about every night and sometimes most of the night long and then into work in the morning and it was along this time that a couple times I went uptown to have lunch and we'd always have a martini or two before lunch and a few of these times I decided I just wanted to have the martinis. I didn't particularly want to eat any lunch and I think I got to feeling rather good and so I'd call and I'd tell them I had some real estate transaction and I wouldn't be able to go back to work or something rather than I would be tied up and if I could get back I'd make it and then I'd sit and drink martinis or whatever I was drinking all afternoon. And I really had fun. I don't know, we were doing something, it seemed like everything was crazy. We would take off and charter a plane and go someplace to eat and everybody had a big ball and it was always ha-ha and I was really having a lot of fun. At least I thought I was. I wasn't having too much of a hangover in the morning. I had little shakes now and then and I would not go into work and drink because I'd stay home from the lunch hours. I thought this was something I shouldn't do. It was at this time in my drinking and looking back on my story it's hard for me to relate which happened first. I know that these things happened and whether I get them in sequence really no one knows the difference but I get rather confused because I don't know where I am too much in my story sometimes. But it was at this time that I would be talking to the girls in the office and somebody would say, oh, they had been out on a party the night before. My heavens, they had four or five drinks and oh, did they feel awfully good. Well, you know, I would never relate how much I had to drink because I knew that I had more than four or five and I really did feel sincerely that I guess that I drank beyond what I considered the ladylike quantities of alcohol. I did consume quite a bit. So I made a practice at that time and I never did count. I never kept track of exactly what I had but it was always more than one once I had one. I've had people tell me what I drank and sometimes I didn't particularly like that and I never left one empty either.
There could be four or five on the bar and somebody would say let's go someplace and believe me those four or five, I'd be getting out of my seat but those four or five drinks that were sitting in front of me would be finished before I was out the door. I don't know how I did it but I did it. I decided that I had too much spare time on my hands so I went to work on a different job. I worked from 8 to 5 at the Alaska Railroad then I worked in a drug store up in Main Street of Anchorage from 6 to midnight. And then occasionally this is pretty good, I'm working so hard so I would go out after I got off of work at midnight. Well, this would mean that I'd be up maybe all night long and I'd go home at 7 o'clock, take a shower and off to work I'd go. I don't know how I did it. I don't believe that I ever got more than four hours sleep for I don't know how long a time because I really just didn't need it. I think now and then I would just maybe go home and completely collapse and sleep around the clock but I went for a long time. You know, I never smelled any liquor in anybody else's breath but I just happen to think, they must have smelled something. I never smelled onions, nothing. But certainly there must have been something from these times that I was up all night and just took a shower and went into work. There had to be but nobody ever said anything to me. The occasion came up and I transferred from the Alaska Railroad up to Mount McKinley Park and I worked up there and this was even more drinking. Here they had a bar and I started to work there on the desk. I started working from 8 to 5. I finally and I could never make it to work on time. I was very irresponsible.
I got there and you know everything was just, it was a big party. It was a big joke. I eventually made it so that I was working the 3 to midnight shift and there was several occasions that
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I'd go down after the bar was actually closed and we'd reopen it because this was on government property. You weren't supposed to do that but anyway it was done. And there was parties all the time. I really thought I was leading a hilarious life. I didn't have too much. It was always still fun for me but I wasn't having any hangovers. There was not too much remorse or anything and I was about 20 years old at this time. I did leave, I don't mean to confuse people about going from here to there but I did leave Alaska for a little bit at this point and I went down to the states and spent a little time in Las Vegas. And it was in Las Vegas that I found out the first time that I had this, I will go back, I awakened one morning, I had a terrible, terrible, terrible hangover and I found out that if I took a little of the hair of the dog as it was advised that I would feel much better. Well it came up the first time and then I went ahead and took it again and it stayed down and I felt much better. In fact I just thought this was just wonderful. So I would, I was still very picky at this. I only drank scotch or maybe gin or brandy or something like that, very finicky drinker. If somebody served bourbon to me I was very put out. I tried to cut the taste with lemon and get along but usually I stayed around where there was scotch. And my drink stayed down. Now since I came into AA I found out something about a morning drink and I always thought that meant about 5 in the morning or 6 in the morning but I consider my morning drinks, when I got up, if it was noon and I started drinking then that was my morning drink. You know that was quite a realization to me. All of a sudden I did drink in the morning. My drink stayed down and I'd start out for the day. Now this was usually on weekends that I would drink, perhaps in the morning and drink the whole weekend.
But there was something happening. I don't know. It wasn't old funny ha ha anymore. I was sort of getting a little periods of depression and perhaps some remorse. I felt that people weren't really understanding me. I don't know where this came from. I had received this boost but I was getting depressed. I was doing a little traveling around and I can remember in San Diego I felt so terribly, terribly misunderstood. Naturally when I was misunderstood or any of these things were happening because at this time I think I was drinking practically constantly. I did eventually have a job in the particular 8 hour or 9 hours that I was on that job I didn't drink but when I was away from the job I drank constantly. It was my way of life and actually I felt this is the way everybody did live. When you got off work the first thing you did was you go and you have this cocktail to relax yourself and this was my way of life and this is the way I thought you lived. And I felt that some of my feelings of what is it inadequacy or perhaps the people didn't understand me, all of these things dwelling on myself, these seemed to be coming very, very prominent in my mind and I thought this was just something wrong with me. I contemplated doing away with myself this one particular time. I think this is the first time that this happened.
I had a loaded gun on my lap and sat for a long time thinking it over drinking my scotch and I must have been really thinking hard because this is one of the times that it happened that I really guess maybe one of my first blackouts if this is what you want to call it but when I actually came to my mouth was kind of thick with cotton and here I was on an airplane headed for San Francisco. So something happened there. I must have gotten all upset with everything. I really don't know. There are periods in my life that maybe I'll learn something about it. Then again maybe I won't. I guess I'll take what I can as I get it. I went ahead and did a little more drinking. I was rescued. I ran. I had bought a ticket just as far as I could go. I guess I didn't have much money because all I did was go to San Diego, from San Diego to Los Angeles and that's not really very far and came to with that thick wad of cotton in my mouth. Thirsty too.
I went on back, went back to work down in San Diego and then again I got in one of my pits of depression again and I thought of doing away with myself. This time I drank a lye highball with ice cubes and I ended up in the hospital. I believe I was about 21 at the time. It's funny, I don't remember, I didn't remember any part of this particular part, in fact most of my story until after I came in AA. But I do remember something about when I was in the hospital having my stomach pumped. I think one of the doctors said it's certainly a shame she's so terribly young to be drinking so much. But I promptly put that out of my mind because apparently I didn't like that particular saying. I went on and on to more drinking.
On to more drinking. I ended up back up in Fairbanks, Alaska, and this was even more drinking, and it seemed like I was involved in parties and did quite a bit of entertaining and was responsible for some of the clubs as far as their food and punch bowls and all these sort of things, and I was sort of in a, oh, I don't know, had a lot of responsibility toward these things, but it was also a lot of fun.
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To a point, because I had lost whatever, it was always the fun that we had way back when, or remember when we did such and such and what a ball we had. It was always talking in the past. I was getting ready one time for one of these parties, it seemed like most of my things were cocktail or formal that I was going to, and I was getting ready for one particular formal occasion, and I was going from room to room as I always did when I was getting drinks with my glass of scotch.
I never really had too much trouble as far as having a liquor supply around. I usually had case scotch at all times available, so the supply wasn't necessary, and therefore I didn't have to keep track, I guess, of how much I drank. On this one occasion, I can remember going up to the mirror to comb my hair and setting my drink down, because I didn't go anywhere without my drink. I thought, Diane, I wonder if you could be an alcoholic, and then immediately in my mind I looked at myself and I said, oh no, because an alcoholic woman that I would picture would be, well, she probably would have the baggy stockings and her hair wouldn't be combed, and it just didn't fit me, and I immediately put this aside and that was the end of that. I guess I finished my drink and probably poured myself another one.
It was somewhere in here, it actually had been a little bit earlier, I think, way back. My dad had told me one time, he said, Diane, why don't you pace your drinks over 45 minutes, make each drink last 45 minutes, which I think I tried once, and I think I lost track of the whole thing. I didn't like that. It's awfully hard, too, when you go out on a party and you're at somebody's house where they don't pour the drinks properly and your drink is gone and there somebody sits that drink down over in that fireplace, and I'd really like to get up there and go over there and have a drink of that drink because mine's all gone and they're too slow in refilling, but I would not do it.
I would not go out to the kitchen and pour a drink because I couldn't think of a very good lady-like way that I should walk out in the kitchen in some place and pour one. So I made this sacrifice, so to speak, and wouldn't do this. I never thought, in some of these parties that I was having that I said was such gay fun and everything, you know, I could be in a group of people and, in fact, I never, I always had to be well fortified before I went to these parties where I'd be in a group of maybe three or four. I never talked to more than three or four people unless I had quite a few under my belt.
I was the type of person that used to be way back, I guess, where I would get upset about what people would think or I wouldn't feel things were right and I'd cross the street and walk to myself or I'd sit on the steps wondering what in the world was wrong with me and why didn't I seem to blend in with everyone else. I don't know. All this time I worked from eight to five. I did this partying and this party planning and everything afterwards. That was all extracurricular and I thought it was an awful lot of fun. But it's terrible to be out at a party and you're laughing and you think you're having fun and all of a sudden this terrible loneliness hits you. At least it did me.
And I'd be talking to people and I'd just feel real lonely. Or I'd be sitting maybe at the end of the bar or way off in the corner at a table and looking out at everybody else and having fun and wondering why I can't be that happy and have to look so happy and not really be as happy as the rest of them. Really wondering what was wrong with me. Never did really find the answer. I just felt I was just of a different makeup than the rest of the people. Because I felt this is the way you live. There was certainly nothing wrong. I tried to do everything but I just apparently didn't blend.
I again moved down to Anchorage. This is in and out of Alaska and these were kind of transfers. Therefore my noontime things, these real estate transactions that I had would always work pretty good because I was usually at a different job being that I had been transferred to one department or another. So that worked for quite some time. In Anchorage, after I moved down there, there was an occasion that came up. I guess things were rather upsetting or something. I don't know exactly all of it but I had a period where I stayed away from drink for about several months. I didn't have anything to drink.
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There was a couple occasions in that time that I did have some cocktails at somebody's house but I just didn't drink very much. But prior to this period of six or seven months, I would say there must have been five, six, seven years or something that I did not go a day without having quite a bit of alcohol because I never had just one drink. I always had quite a bit. Especially the one after work, after that hectic day, I had to have that drink and that went on.
But I did have this short period where I didn't have too much to drink. Then when I did start drinking again, I was working at the time for an accountant and we had a heavy, heavy tax load at the tax season and I started taking taxes home to work. I was doing an awful lot of work, really. I needed something to sort of calm myself down so I got some brandy and put a little brandy in my coffee. Then I would put less coffee in my brandy and away I'd go. It was like the time where I tried so hard I thought perhaps that if I drank more water or something it would be all right and I would order a scotch and water and then I'd order a glass of water in between.
Then I'd have to drink more scotch, I guess, to cut the water I'd had. My thirst just seemed to double. I don't know. Whatever happened when I started drinking, I just couldn't get enough of it and I didn't seem to be able to get it fast enough and there would be, I don't know how much scotch but very little water because I always felt they were watering down the whiskey or something, I don't know.
I did drink these brandies at night and a couple of times I was there by myself and I was drinking a little bit at home now, not so much out after work. One weekend, I can recall, I decided to have myself some martinis. So I mixed the martinis up. I even frost the glass all by myself, wandering around. I drank a few martinis and I picked up this magazine and I looked at this contest they were having and I don't know but it seemed like everything I started out to do in life, I always went so far and then ended it.
My main thing was I was going to be an artist at one time and I had quite a few, was doing pretty good in that field but I just went so far and quit that one and started something else. Went into modeling, didn't get too far there either. Everything that it seemed like I would start into, I would get so far and then I would turn and do something else. Never completed anything. Anyway, this particular thing is to do with my artwork and I read this contest thing and I had this martini and it was a safety thing. So I started doing a little bit of drawing with my martini. I was having a new martini for each little idea I was getting.
And I completed this little contest for the safety poster. And I had another martini I guess. And then I looked at this poster again and the more I looked at it the better it got. Meanwhile, here I am all in this apartment all by myself on a Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening. I don't really know what time it was. I don't even know what time of the year it was. I couldn't tell you from one season to the other. It all blended.
What happened on one New Year's or one fourth of July or a period of eight or nine years, I couldn't tell you. I don't have the slightest idea. I began to get real worried, well somebody's going to steal this from me. And this was so good I was sure to win this $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 they were going to give out for this particular poster. And I had another martini. And I can remember thinking that I was going to call my attorney and ask him to get some sort of copyright going on this because I didn't want anyone to steal this poster from me. You know that's a terrible thing. I worried about that when the next day came around. I was drinking myself practically to oblivion every night and I did that day too.
But I did recall that I had this contest and I looked at the thing the next morning and it looked kind of dumb to me. And I did remember that I was going to call my attorney and ask him to do this and I didn't remember whether I had or not. And I kind of lived in kind of a terror until I saw him. If I had called him, he was very gentlemanly. He didn't say anything about it. I do not know to this day because I assure you I wasn't going to ask him if I had called him.
But there were many, many occasions like that. The times that you go out and you're on a big party and everything is just fine. And I couldn't remember what happened to a certain point. And I would just actually be in terror really until I'd see these people the next day to know that maybe I hadn't done anything wrong. Because there was certainly, I didn't want to hurt anyone. I really wanted everybody's approval is what I wanted. So I wanted to do everything right. And this bothered me quite a bit.
It was always a relief when everyone smiled when they saw me. That to me sort of meant that apparently I didn't do anything too drastic because truly I did not remember. I remember lots that happened but there'd be a lot that I wouldn't remember.
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I had decided that apparently my life wasn't right here. I was going to make a geographical change. I got ready to ship. In fact, I shipped all my things out to California and I was going to move and start anew. Maybe it was too fast to life that I was living in Alaska. I don't know. Again, drinking certainly never entered my mind that it would be any problem. It was in this period that my boss called me into the office and he said, Diana, some people can drink and work and some people can't. Well, I actually had never taken a drink and gone to work. Eight to five I didn't drink and if I drank at noon then I just didn't go back. And so it really shocked me that he said this. But I really didn't understand it because when somebody, when he mentioned this I thought that meant that I was supposed to be drinking while I was working and I didn't do this.
So maybe I thought that it was a, I don't know what I thought except I was very hurt and maybe very shocked at the thing. That was the only thing that was ever said to me about my drinking. I had told him I was going to leave and I had shipped my things to California and I had a little bit of stuff that I had to stay up to get completed and I was going to leave. And I moved in at this time with a friend of mine who had quite a bit of property around Anchorage. She was rather sickly and I was going to stay with her and help her out. And we were going to have this siding done on the house, or she was, to her property and there was this man that was supposed to do this construction work and he wasn't getting there fast enough and I was the type person that if something was to be done it was to be done yesterday and I'd get very impatient if these things didn't happen.
So I kept hounding this fella until eventually he did come over and I told him, I said, well I'll even help you paint. I'll show you what I'll do. I don't know anything about painting but I'll help paint so that Seal could get this stuff finished up faster. And I can remember that, that apparently the time that he showed up, I don't know, I always felt people planned these things. They didn't know that I was going to go out and get so old, just really been out of shape the night before. And I came in and I just had, but I must say at this time I never drank to get drunk because I didn't think this was right. I just apparently just had quite a bit, that's all there was to it and I had a terrible, terrible hangover.
And this didn't happen to me too often or perhaps I had gone without anything a few days, I don't know exactly what because usually all I had was the inner shakes and I would take cold Coke or cold soda or anything to get me by up until five o'clock when I'd have something else again. Funny how alcohol is. I've been so sick that I was sent home from work one time, I actually was turning green I think and I think that actually all the liquids that help your stomach to dissolve the things were coming up and even beyond that and I pulled myself across my apartment floor just terribly, terribly sick.
And it was just a good hangover is what it was. Do you know the occasion came up at five or six o'clock for me to have a drink and you know I took it? Funny how that works. Well, I was in real bad shape for this painting and you know I had really mouthed off quite a bit about how I was going to help and I always like to live up to what I said I was going to do so I went out to try to paint and I could hardly raise the paintbrush let alone anything else. It was really very painful because I had a very, very bad hangover.
So I went and I excused myself and I thought if I lay down for a while I'd be alright and then I was sure that they were pounding the siding right outside my window because it was going right through my head. So I went out to the kitchen, I wouldn't draw the shades but I just sort of got down below the window and I chug-a-lugged a big drink of scotch and I knew that eventually I would come to which I did and I was able to fix some lunch and get through the evening and go out and help paint.
Well this fellow that was doing the work there, he started talking to me about different things and some way or other a conversation got down around to this, he was saying, I was saying things weren't right and life was kind of bad and believe in human nature but don't trust it and all these real good negative things because I was getting in a real, I was in a real good state of mind and I don't know about friends how much they stay with you or anything, my thinking was all quite negative.
So he told me, he says, well he said he had a little prayer that he went by and he found that this little prayer could sort of answer everything and at that time he quoted the serenity prayer to me and I thought that was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard in my life and he started talking about some of his philosophies or some of his way of life.
[00:30:01]
He said, you know, he says, if a person tries to do right, goes along one way, there's two ways you can go, and if you can have miseries in one way, and then maybe you can stand up straight and walk the other, and you can find something beside a lot of misery. You know, all these things sounded just wonderful to me, and it really clicked and made sense. I went out with this fellow a little while, and after a little bit, we went out several times.
He explained to me that he was an alcoholic, and he was in this program of Alcoholics Anonymous. This really didn't click with me. I didn't even know what that was. I had never heard, I think I had seen the personal ads in quite a few different papers of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I never even put any label. I didn't even know what it meant. I knew myself at the time, when he was talking, that this really sounded just wonderful, this way of life that he mentioned, because I was on a merry-go-round, believe me.
I couldn't let off, I couldn't let go, I couldn't hang on, I didn't know what to do. I really felt that if I stood in the middle of the room, I could just scream and I would just go all to pieces. That's just about at the state of mind I was at, but certainly I didn't believe that drinking had anything to do with this, even at this time, even with that bad, bad hangover. He asked me, I did think that he had poured my drinks a couple for me, and he had taken me out a couple times, and I'd have the drinks, and he'd drink ginger ale, and he'd just say something about not drinking today or something.
I didn't really register what he did say to me, and I thought there's something wrong. He's just got too nice of a personality, I like him too much for him not to drink, because I never trusted anybody who didn't drink, and I don't know, I don't know, there was just something sort of leery about him, and I don't know why this established, but I didn't trust anyone who didn't drink, and I figured he had to, you know.
But anyway, he drank his soda, and I had my scotch, they'd always serve him the ginger ale, and me the ginger ale, and him the scotch, and we'd switch, and then after a while he asked me if I'd like to go to one of these meetings. Well, I guess again I was being good, because I said I would, but I don't think I really did want to, but he had something, I don't know, I can't remember exactly how I felt.
So I went to this meeting with him, and we had gone out quite a bit, and I had started so that I wasn't, no, I think I was still drinking at the time. Anyway, I went to this meeting of AA, and it was in a small room, I don't remember what happened, I know that everyone introduces themselves at the table, and I'm sure when it got to me I said I was Diana, a non-alcoholic, and I was glad to be here. And then I went out, and after a while things got serious, eventually we got married.
I went to a few more meetings, I abstained from drinking, because he was in this AA program, which I knew a little bit more about, and I thought this was a wonderful thing, and I made the supreme sacrifice of not drinking, because he was an alcoholic and couldn't drink. So I didn't drink. And I went to these meetings, and things began to bother me. Apparently I, maybe I associated with a few people up here, I'll have to say that in reciting my story of what it used to be like to you over these past few minutes, I didn't remember any of this when I came into AA, this has all been since I've come into AA that I have been able to recall a few of these things back, and sometimes I tell my story and come out with something new that comes back to mind, it's always a big surprise.
I didn't remember the times that I had the hangovers, or the capacity that I drank, and that everything I did was drinking. I put this all to the back of my mind. Certainly I couldn't be an alcoholic, because again, it flashed into my mind what a woman alcoholic looked like, and heavens, I didn't even fit in this. I wouldn't even go into a cocktail lounge unless I was escorted. It just couldn't be me.
But I was getting very worried. There was some association that was going up. These people were awfully, awfully nice. They seemed to be very, very understanding. Maybe I could be an alcoholic. And this really worried me. My husband apparently saw that I was going through quite a bit of turmoil at this time, and he said, well, take this road test. What I really wanted him to do was say, yes, Diana, you are an alcoholic, and you should be an AA.
Then I could always turn around and say, no, look, you made the wrong decision, or something, I guess. But nobody would say anything, and he wouldn't. After all, I had attended several of these meetings, and I'd said I was an non-alcoholic. I actually said this, so this kind of bothered me, because I've already put myself in one place. I wouldn't take any road tests, such as saying I was only going to have one drink of scotch a day, or something, because I knew this wouldn't work.
By the same token, I never, ever took any pledge that I wouldn't drink for a week, or
[00:35:01]
a year, or anything, because I just guess in my subconscious I knew if I was offered a drink, I never said no, except at this time when I was making this sacrifice, because my husband was an AA. I began to think that perhaps I am. I wouldn't take this road test, and so, yes, I guess I am an alcoholic. A girl asked me at an open meeting one time, down in Anchorage, she was a tall Indian girl, and she came over to me, and she says, are you an alcoholic or a non-alcoholic, and boy, I'll tell you, that really worried me.
I somehow worked around without answering her, but this bothered me quite a bit, because I felt now that I was an alcoholic, but I certainly couldn't say, gee, to say Diana and I'm an alcoholic. This would kind of be stepping down. This is exactly how I felt. I don't know where I thought I was stepping down from, but that was the way I felt. I guess I was much sicker than I really thought I was. I decided that, yes, apparently I am an alcoholic.
I read all the literature, and my husband would go to the meetings. I stayed home. When he got home from the meetings, I would have him tell me everything that had happened at this meeting, and he would, in Anchorage, usually they had two speakers in their hour or three, or sometimes there were discussions, all types of meetings. I would have him relate what happened and what the speaker said, and I figured this is the way I can get an A. I don't have to go down there, and I don't have to say that I'm an alcoholic, and I'll just do it this way.
Well, that didn't work. I was still worried and still very bothered, and by this time I was sure that perhaps everybody knew that I was an alcoholic, and here I was, the most honest people I had met and the friendliest people I'd ever met, and here I was lying to them, and I was sure that they all knew it. I would go into the mirror in the bathroom and say, my name is Diana, and I'm an alcoholic, and I'd choke.
I really would. I really, it was, but this was, this was really bothering me. It was really bothering me. In fact, it was on my mind just about 24 hours a day, because I couldn't make up my mind, apparently. I don't know what it was in my subconscious. But eventually I decided that I was an alcoholic, that I could not stand the state that I was in. I went to all these places, and by now all our friends were, just about all our friends that were around were in AA.
All those friends that I had that I drank with, when I had all that supply of liquor, you know when that was gone, something happened. I don't know. But anyway, haven't seen too many of them. Anyway, I decided that they had a closed women's group in Anchorage, the Women's Chachako Group, and this met in, usually in the women's houses, and it was meeting at this time in Pat's house. I was familiar with everyone, so I'd been to Pat's house, and I decided that I was going to go to the next closed women's group, and by my walking into a closed women's group, this would take care of it, and I would not have to say I was Diana and an alcoholic.
And I had to go clear across to the city of Anchorage, or the, in the outskirts of Anchorage, and there were a few stop signs and everything, and you know, or lights or something, but you know, it was real funny, none of them hit. I went all the way, I didn't have to stop at all. There was snow on the ground at the time, and I went over there, and I went into the house, and I sat down, nobody was shocked to see me, eventually, there's the meetings in that time, all went around, and I don't know, there could have been seven in the front room, or eight, there weren't too many of the women there.
When it got to me, I did say I was Diana and I was an alcoholic, and oh boy, oh boy, was that ever the most wonderful relief I have ever had. I must have just gone up to cloud 19, I don't know what happened, but I know that I couldn't stop talking when I got home, I felt so good. And I started going to the meetings, and no one was real shocked, everyone was very friendly, and here I had said this, and I really did, I really felt wonderful, and I did start attending a lot of the meetings around, and it was at one of the meetings, and I was trying to work the 12 steps of the program, studying them, and trying to find out, I was real concerned of why should I be an alcoholic, what was it that happened to me that made me an alcoholic, and the rest of the people were just, and I studied books, and I read all these things, and I just became more confused and more confused, and then finally I guess I just decided to accept the fact that when I take alcohol, I have a compulsion over which I have no control, and I cannot tolerate it, and I accepted it, it was very simple.
After many, many months it seemed of just all kinds of turmoil. I was at this one meeting at the 5040th Hospital, and there were an awful lot of little meetings around Anchorage. We had to more or less draw on our old supply up there, because people wouldn't run up from Seattle to give us a talk or something, so we talked at these little meetings, and then on Saturday night down in the Loussac Library, we had the big meeting.
[00:40:05]
And Millie, this is a girl that I sort of picked up to be my sponsor, maybe my husband was my sponsor, but I picked this girl to be my sponsor. He carried the message to me anyway. And Millie said, Diana, would you talk Saturday night now at the Loussac Song Library, or down at the Saturday night meeting is what she referred to. Oh, Millie, not me, no. I just can't, you don't know how it, I practically don't hear anything that goes on in the meeting when there's six in a room, and I know that it's going to come around to me and I'm going to have to make some comment, and I didn't.
There was a lot of the things, I was so worried about what it came to me and what I was going to say. I don't know what approval I was looking for or what happened, but this bothered me tremendously. And I said, Millie, I just can't. I don't know, apparently I have just a terrible inferiority complex or something, but I can't get up and talk to all those people. I just couldn't. Maybe they had 70 or 80 or maybe 100 down there, and I couldn't.
She turned to me and she said, Diana, did you ever stop to think that if you weren't thinking so much about Diana, maybe thinking about somebody out in the audience or somebody that might be down there, something you might say might help instead of thinking so much about yourself. Well, you know, that really kind of put me down, and it's so true, because perhaps if some women hadn't gotten up and told a little bit of their story, maybe I would have had an even more difficult time associating than I did.
I have never said no since to talk, regardless of whether I get nervous or not, I'm talking to the person who might get something out of what I say. I have really tried to work this AA program, the 12 steps, as it's suggested. To me, there's been ups and downs, and there's been the times, I can remember when I first came into AA, where I went out to a dinner party one night, where they happened to serve cocktails, and I can remember that waitress coming out with that double martini and a frosted glass and a little bead running down there, and I watched that thing go from where it came out at the bar, clear over to that table, and my husband said, oh, there's such a terrible longing in your eyes.
I guess I wanted that so bad I could taste it and fought with it, and yeah, just terrible, because I did. I, myself, become transfixed immediately with that. I didn't remember one of those little upset things that I talked about. That's why it's so necessary that I do get up and relate a little of my experiences to everybody. I don't ever want to forget where I was when I came into AA, and it seems like if I would get away from AA, it seems like I forget the bad things, and I don't want to, because that's all I had toward the end was nothing but remorse, feelings of guilt, feelings of inadequacy, nothing, and I have so much now for really having given up so little.
Look, I'm up here talking tonight. I wouldn't even have made it here to talk to four people, let alone anything else. I had to judge an art contest one time, and I was so drunk, I think they had to hold me up. I don't even remember. I don't even remember whether it was abstract or whatever it was, but I had to drink all afternoon to get ready to make it. That's just one of the little rewards. There's been so much that I have received in trying to work this program.
Something that helped me so much, it said, as Nellie read in the fifth chapter, first portion of the fifth chapter from the big book, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not, something to the effect they don't have the capacity to be honest with themselves. Well, I certainly wanted to say that I could be honest with myself, or so just by that one statement, that I'd fail if I don't have the capacity to be honest with myself.
This has helped me tremendously, because I'm determined that I'm going to be honest with myself and try to work this. Another thing that has helped me so much in my sobriety is the fact of I couldn't let the other AA members down, because here is where I found people who understood me. It wasn't the drinking and the feelings that I had. I wasn't unique. It's a marvelous relief to find out that other people have these same feelings, and that it isn't that I'm just completely off and never, never land, this isn't necessary, and that I'm able to do a few things about it.
I now know, or at least sometimes I know, when I start getting to my negative thinking and I'm able to perhaps pull up a little bit, pull short, maybe I'm doing too much of the oring, as people have said, and I'm not turning my thoughts over to my higher power, trying to do His will, which I find is very nice. Or maybe I'm taking off what's going to happen next week too much, and I know that if I could possibly bring it back into this 24-hour, It's very difficult for me to do sometimes to keep my life in a 24-hour span,
[00:45:01]
but it is very important that I don't forget it, because I'm able to bring things more into perspective if I try to do the best I can. I wasn't too proud of a lot of the 24-hour periods that I had behind myself. There were quite a few things that I did that perhaps I didn't mention tonight, things that I felt dishonest, at least dishonest in my own heart, and I was very ashamed. And when I first came into ACoA, somebody says, well, take today, do the best you can, and then you'll have a few behind you.
And so that's what I did. I started right there. I did the best I could that day, and now I do have a few 24-hour periods behind me that I'm not as ashamed of as I was with those others. And you know, that's a great comfort, because I really felt I was from nothing. We left Alaska and went to Georgia. This was a very, very upsetting experience for me, because I had found a way of life in Alaska, and I really depended upon these people, and I was terrified, just terrified of having to go to another place.
I had found friends, and these were sober friends in my way of life, and I really depended upon the girls that I knew and everything. They knew more about me and everything, and I had found this wonderful peace of mind in AA, and I had been working hard at it, and they'd gone through all my ups and downs, and here we were going to have to leave and go to another place, and this was just awful. But this was something that I had to accept, I couldn't change, so we took off and we went to Georgia.
Well, the first thing that happened when we got to Georgia, we picked up our telephone book or our directory, which we carry with us, and we called downtown Georgia Group, and my husband called, and we attended an AA meeting that night. We did become very active in Georgia. This is the time when you travel and move to a new place, you know no one, and it's kind of a lonely period. It's always hard to go out and meet new people, and they have to kind of study you, you know, they have to kind of look you over and size you up as to what you are.
So it's a lonely and it's a difficult time. I was scared stiff, I had worked all the time, and here I wasn't going to work. I took sewing lessons, I took all kinds of lessons to find something because I had a fear of being bored. Because when I had been bored before, I think I turned to drink, and this is something I didn't want to do because I was an alcoholic. Perhaps it was fear, I don't know what it was, but I wanted to keep a hold of what I had, and I just had all kinds of upset inner emotions.
But I don't know what happened. We went to AA meeting. I started, I got several telephone numbers, and when maybe I got depressed or something, I started calling other AA gals and talking to them, and I became very active in AA town in Georgia. We even started a group in our living room. We started out with three people, and it grew, and it's kind of a reward in itself. There was just one group there in Columbus, and we went in there, and I think now there's, I don't know, five or six different ones all over town.
The one we started is still going. We came back through Columbus not too long ago, and we were able to stop there, and it's kind of nice to talk in a group, and it's one that you first started at. It's quite a reward in a way, really more than anything you'd ever expect. We had an occasion after that to go to overseas and participate in some of the programs overseas in foreign languages, which is in itself a very, very moving experience.
There isn't any place that you can go in this world that you can take your AA directory, pick it up, and call people. We have traveled across the states, and all of a sudden, maybe we're kind of upset. Maybe it's been a hot day or something's wrong, or maybe we just want to talk to another AA. Maybe we've been out with some people. I don't mean to say anything about people away from AA, but sometimes when you get out with them, it's kind of difficult, and maybe the patience gets worn a little thin, and we'll pick up our directory and figure we've stopped.
We've stopped in little towns across the states and just came in and said, well, we're from wherever we happened to have been from last. It was Georgia or Alaska, and we're coming through, and we just wanted to talk to another AA. And it's a wonderful experience. Sometimes these are loners that don't see people too often, and by golly, they haul out the coffee pot, and maybe they've got a tape or a record or whatever it is, and you have another AA meeting right there.
And in Europe, a moving experience we had. When we came back to the states, we again became active around AA in Texas for a while. We went up to Nashville, and around here there was no AA. It was quite a ways away, and for some reason or other, we didn't go to AA so much as we had. I wanted to kind of go, but then it seemed like it just was inconvenient. I think the closest meeting maybe was 35 miles away,
[00:50:01]
which really isn't too far. If you had to go that far back for a drink, you kind of made the 35 miles, but didn't attend AA as much. You know, there was something getting wrong with my thinking, too. It wasn't doing too good. It was getting very negative. I was thinking maybe I had missed something in life, you know, denied all these parties that I'd missed. Right there, right there is a very, very important lesson, at least it is for me, because I must get up, and I must relate and relive my story.
Repetition or what it be, somebody hears it so many times, it's very important for me to tell it because I don't want to forget it, because my thinking got very, very bad. I did eventually. We came around and we moved up here. I was able to. I got scared. I got the big book out. I got our grapevine out, which we get every month, and I started reading like crazy, and I took off and went to a meeting, and then came to a meeting.
We moved up here, and then I've been coming to meetings again. I need the meetings, and I need people in AA just as well as I need water and food to keep me going. And I know that if it wasn't for AA and the people in AA, I wouldn't be here now. I owe my whole life to AA, to the Fellowship, and it's so wonderful. I can't believe I'm the person I just finished telling you all about. I just can't believe that I thought those things and had those terrors and things.
It's just hard to believe. It's kind of like it's another person's story I'm telling. I'm very grateful to what I have. I've been able to see my mother. I worried about it because I hurt her so much, but when I left Alaska and came back through, I went over to my mother, and I just put my hand on her shoulder, and I just said I was sorry. And, you know, she knew just exactly what it was, and she's very happy for me.
I could probably go on and on about what I have received, and it seems like I have been given up really so little and have received so much. We've come up into this area, and we've been here for about two years now, and we have more friends, and it's just wonderful. We recently had a house, and we've been kind of busy on that. We go to a meeting, and we talk around and see all these wonderful people.
It is really wonderful. It's wonderful to know that you're liked. It's kind of nice to know that you're needed. It's kind of nice to know that other people have the same feelings that you do. I'm very happy for the opportunity to have shared a little of my experiences with each one, and I want to thank you very much. applause