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Source: DICOBE-00271 – Margaret C – GEORGIA STATE CONV – 1978-10-27.mp3 File: dicobe-00271-margaret-c-georgia-state-conv-1978-10-27.mp3 Duration: 00:55:04
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There's an AA meeting. It's a double pleasure when it's a lady. It's a triple pleasure when she's beautiful. You can tell that. Let's look at her. Margaret is from Springfield, Massachusetts. She's a past delegate and a past trustee, so you know she's a good AA. We're all looking forward to hearing her message tonight, and I know that you'll welcome her with all the enthusiasm of a Georgia convention.
I give you Margaret from Springfield, Massachusetts. I'm shaking too much to get the water. My name is Margaret, and I'm an alcoholic and a member of the downtown group in Springfield, Massachusetts. Hi, everyone. I'm really extremely grateful to be with you this weekend. I'm trying to pack, you know, and I hadn't had time to pack last night, and I'm trying to jam things into the suitcase, and, you know, things are just going wrong, wrong, wrong, and then struggled out of the house with this overweight suitcase. I think I was planning on staying a year, but as I came down from the apartment and came outside, the pouring rain that we'd had during the night had stopped, and the stars were out, you know, really bright.
The air was crisp, and it was dark, you know, and the stars were there and the little moon, and all of a sudden that feeling of aliveness and joy of living that we have being sober and Alcoholics Anonymous came over me again, and I knew it was going to be a good day, and I knew it was going to be a good weekend, and so far it has been, and it's going to get better tomorrow after I finish this. But I just love conventions, and I want to congratulate you on having your 25th Georgia convention, and, you know, you think of the years flying by.
I just am, as I get around a little bit to some meetings, you know, I'm hearing 35th and 25th, and, you know, it just doesn't seem possible that AA has come along that length of time, and that this whole beautiful fellowship stemmed from our co-founder Bill and Dr. Bob. As they discovered that together they could do what neither one of them had been able to do alone, and that chain, you know, that they started that has gone around the world, it's just a very, very exciting thing to me, and I know it is to you, too.
And so when you hear about the 25th, you know, it makes you think we're really getting very mature in AA, you know. I think I want to tell you tonight something that I don't usually say, and that is that standing up here is a person who a few years back, before I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, could not express an opinion in a smaller group of two or three people unless I had alcohol in me, unless I was half-bombed.
And there were many times when I wanted to say something or express, you know, some thought or voice some opinion on something in, say, even a very small church group, and my throat would paralyze. And as Bob said this afternoon at lunch, it was almost as though I had polio of the tongue, you know, because it just wouldn't operate. I couldn't get any words out at all. And for me to be standing up here before this kind of a group is a miracle.
And, you know, if you don't believe, if you're having trouble believing that there is some power operating in this program, take a look at this person who's standing here and know that a few years back, I never could have stood here. And the only reason I am tonight is because there is a power operating through Alcoholics Anonymous. And I am one of the miracles of this program.
[00:05:01]
And I want to speak to the women. The last couple of times I've spoken, I've said something special to the women. Our survey that was taken last year of the entire fellowship shows that one in every three of the people who are coming to AA now are women. And, you know, I don't know about you, but up in our area, some of the women aren't willing to speak. And I've got to say that I was one of the ones, I was one of the ones who could not make myself, I said no so fast.
I couldn't make myself get up and talk for a long, long time. But, you know, I have to feel today that we women have got to begin taking the risk, taking the chance. I know that whatever I do up here tonight, you're going to love me. In fact, the worse I do, probably the better you're going to like it because you're going to know that I'm struggling just like you are, you know, to stay sober and to speak and to share my sobriety.
But I think that we women, you know, the woman walking in that door tonight, new, needs to be able to know that she isn't alone. She needs to, I need to be able to say to her that I too have felt the guilt and the shame and the aloneness of being an alcoholic daughter or an alcoholic wife or an alcoholic mother. You know, she needs to hear us say this. She needs to feel not alone anymore. And she needs to know what we're feeling inside.
And that's what we have to share with each other is what we feel. And I don't know, you know, how I look on the outside today other than I'm sure I look 19 and a half years older than I did when I walked in the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. But, you know, I know how I feel on the inside. And I feel very, very different. And alcoholism is an inside illness. It's not how we look on the outside. It's what it does.
It's the dehumanization that goes on and the deterioration that goes on inside of us that we have to share with each other. And, by the way, I want to tell those of you who heard me speak a couple months ago that I feel better. We're supposed to tell up here exactly how we're feeling right now. There's no sense in getting up and giving a performance. And a few months ago I spoke at a large meeting like this and I really was feeling very badly and I shared it.
But I want you to know that I'm feeling good again. I feel marvelously alive again because I've gotten back to doing the things I need to do for Margaret's sobriety. And, you know, if I leave you with no other message tonight, let it be that I don't care how long we're sober. I don't care if it's 19 years as I've been, 15, 23, 5, 10, that we cannot ignore the very simple basics of this program. The things that we heard when we first walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I don't know, you know, if you were looking at the slogans, for example, easy does it and live and let live and think and those kinds of things. And you're looking at those and you're saying those are asinine and you think, you know, and you're a little ashamed to admit it. Don't feel that you're alone because probably 50, 60% or more of us felt exactly that way. I thought I'd come into some kindergarten when I walked through the doors of AA.
But I found out, you know, that I took on a second full-time job responsibility and I took on some new responsibilities in the community. And about eight or nine months ago. And I found out that I, that even though I had been sober through this fellowship for 19 years, that I could not ignore the very simple basics of living in the present. Not worrying and reliving the mess that was yesterday or projecting too much and worrying about the future.
And that I couldn't skip meals, I couldn't get overtired. And I was one of the lucky ones because I kept coming back to AA. And I knew, I knew that when Margaret was depressed and when Margaret felt like crying all the time, that this wasn't the Margaret that was sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I knew I was in trouble. But luckily I was one of the ones who didn't get away from the program. And I got back, I have gone back now into the very simple basics.
I've started over again, just not getting tired.
[00:10:02]
Just not skipping meals. And we cannot, regardless of the length of sobriety that we have, ignore the basics of this program for very long. If we do, eventually we're going to pay the consequences physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And that's what had begun to happen to me. But I'm back to feeling like myself again, which is 99.9% of the time I feel great. I feel comfortable with myself. I like the life I'm living.
I don't feel afraid most of the time. I have a lot of faith in a power greater than myself most of the time. I feel love most all of the time. I think I would have to say all of the time today I'm able to feel love. I feel that I'm honest today. Little things like, you know, honesty for me has come very hard because I was so patterned to being dishonest in the way I lived. And the little tiny thing of being honest by, for example, in a public bathroom, throwing the paper towel and missing the trash can and leaning over and picking it up again.
And, you know, this is the way I can be honest today in the little things besides the big things. And this is great. And it's a beautiful way to live and it's a beautiful way to feel. And I hadn't always felt that way. My life had been a mass of negative feelings up until the time I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. And those negative feelings began, as a matter of fact, when I was a child. When I was a child in an alcoholic home with a mother who was an alcoholic and a father who was an alcoholic.
And when I came into AA, I learned that I don't have to dwell in the past anymore. I not only learned I don't have to, I learned I can't. And so today I don't think of the past. It is gone. It is behind me. But I need to just allow you to feel me. And in order to do that, I have to just say that there were criminal things that happened in that home that would have been punishable by law. And that I can remember coming home from school many afternoons and seeing my father's car outside that house.
And being filled with absolute terror of going into the house because I knew what would happen. And on the other hand, being filled with more terror at not going in because I knew what would happen then. And so I would go into that house and a little more of the hate would be born and a little more of the fear would be born. And it was a horrible way to live. And I eventually ended up trying on several occasions to make myself jump out of a third floor window.
My third floor bedroom window. My third floor bedroom window. And I can remember sitting there with one leg hanging out over the windowsill, just sitting on the windowsill. One leg inside, one out. Looking down at the concrete retaining wall down below and just trying to get the courage to jump. And I couldn't get the courage. And I was ashamed that I couldn't. And I guess that I just withdrew into myself.
I couldn't stand the pain. And so I withdrew behind something in the line of that barrier Bob was talking about this afternoon. And became almost like a robot. Almost like a robot. And I didn't relate to the other kids in school. I don't remember ever doing the things that I hear other gals, women talking about. The dreaming of marriage or having children or having a home. I just sort of existed in a vacuum.
A lonely, dark vacuum. And finally, like Bob, I had an opportunity to go away to school. And that school was located a 12-hour train ride away from my home. And I'm going to date myself, too. Home. And I'm going to date myself, too. That was the days of the trains. It was the
[00:15:03]
days when the trains were mobbed with service people. And there was a tremendous atmosphere of live today because tomorrow you may die. And there was lots of booze on that train. And I was offered a drink. And, of course, it was all a jolly good time. And so I came into contact. I guess I had just felt a little tiny bit of hope, you know, that I was going to get away from that home and that I would be able to live now. Just a little bit of a feeling that wasn't like a robot, that I was going to be able to live. But on that train when I was offered alcohol, I was again under the influence of alcohol, not from the outside, but now inside of me. And as a matter of fact, I was, you know, it's a wonder I even ended up on the college campus. I was half bombed. It's by the grace of God that I didn't accept one of the propositions that were made to get off the train a couple of stops early. And so alcohol began to influence my life again right then. And I gravitated toward the drinking students, gravitated toward the drinking students, just sort of attached myself to them. And I must have had an affinity for third-floor windows because, again, I found myself in a third-floor window. But this time it wasn't to jump out of the window to destroy myself. It really was, but it was in an indirect way. It was to jump out of the window in some kind of a fire sling, and like Tarzan, float through the air with the greatest of ease down to the ground so that I could get out to the bars after hours.
And I was already drinking out of control within a few months after I arrived on that college campus. I never did acquire a real college education because I had run into a bottle. And I did many things, which I won't go into, and finally the school caught up with me. And I was brought before the dean, and I can remember this really wasn't until into my second year of college that they caught up with me. And I was brought before the dean, and I can remember thinking to myself, my God, they're going to expel me, you know, and I'm going to have to go back to that house, to that home, and I don't want to. And I was really panic-stricken. And so I dragged down inside of me, you know, to think, what can I say that will influence the dean? And I pulled out, of all things, I pulled out the truth because I had hidden my childhood experiences deep down inside of me. I had repressed them with a bottle of alcohol. I didn't talk about them. I tried not to think about them. But I needed something dramatic, and they were certainly dramatic. And I poured it forth to the dean, and she looked at me when I finished, and she said, oh, Margaret, isn't that a shame? And isn't it wonderful that you've turned out this well? You know, and I looked at her, and I, you know, I was, my excuse for drinking was born right at that moment. I never needed to think again of an excuse for why I had drank that way. There it was, right on a silver platter. I drank that way because of what had happened to me in my childhood. And I used that from that moment until I walked in the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. I took a job after I left school, and I went from job to job, and I ran from city to city, and I really ran from the kind of person that alcohol was making me become.
And then I made another decision like Bob's that we make so often, one of the series of decisions that we alcoholics make as our alcoholism progresses. And that is I decided that I would find a nice stable gentleman, and I would pursue him until he caught me, and I would settle down, and I would begin again. Famous last words, I'm going to turn over a new leaf, and I'm going to begin again. And I did find a nice guy. He was great, as a matter of fact.
[00:20:06]
He drank drink for drink with me during the courtship, and I thought, this is beautiful. He has a good job. He will support me, you know, well, and he will make an excellent drinking companion. The only thing is that the bubble burst on my honeymoon, because this guy who had been drank, you know, as a drinking companion during the courtship became a one-drink man. And it isn't fair for you guys to do that to an alcoholic woman, you know. And it wasn't funny, really. I can remember sitting in the Hotel Taft in New York, in the bar there, and I, or in the dining room, I guess it was, and we, and he, after the one drink, wanted to order dinner. And I can remember the shock. I can remember the panic, and I can remember that gnawing fear and that compulsion, that craving that I had for another drink.
And so, you see, I had become answerable to someone. And my life changed drastically, because prior to that, I had been on my own. I had been working. I could drink when I wanted to, as much as I wanted to. And I wouldn't say exactly that you guys put us under your thumb, but I will have to say that when we women get married, we do become answerable to you men. And it becomes very, very difficult for an alcoholic woman to drink as much as she needs to drink. And I began to, you know, you guys can stop at the corner on your way home, you know, or stop at your favorite pub on your way home and have a few, but the woman has to have dinner on the table at a certain time. And it's tough. It's tough. I can remember the shame as I began to hide drinks, as I began to pilfer from the food money, as I began to go into the pants pockets at night, as I began to hide the drinks all over the house, but particularly in the area that became my corner cafe, and that was the bathroom.
Doesn't everybody go to the bathroom for a social drink? But that was it. That's it for so many of we women, because it's the only place we can have any privacy. And all the time I was feeling a little less like a woman, a little more degraded, you know. Going to parties, going out for Saturday evening, or going out anywhere for that matter, where even if liquor was going to be served, I can remember getting out in the car and the compulsion to drink being so great that I'd have to make an excuse, you know, I've got to go to the john or something, dash back into the house, slug it down rapidly, sometimes throw it up again. Terrible way to live. Terrible way to live. And yet had you approached me at that time and said that Margaret, you're an alcoholic, I would have been highly insulted.
And I say this for anyone who's new in this room, who wants to believe that maybe their drinking just isn't bad enough, because I tell you that I was constantly under the influence of alcohol day in and day out, but I never got falling down drunk, and I never was hospitalized, and I never was arrested, you know, for drunk driving or anything else. But I was as drunk inside, and you know, sometimes I think we scare newcomers when we say, you know, I was drunk. We get very casual with that term, but I was drunk inside, even if I wasn't staggering on the outside. I was a sick gal, and I had to drink to live. And so I made another one of the decisions that we alcoholics are famous for, and that is that I decided that if we had a child, everything would be all right. And somehow or other, I hadn't been given the privilege of bearing a child of my own. And I was sitting in church one Sunday morning, giving lip service to God, as I was wont to do, and worrying about whether the people sitting on either side of me could smell the booze from the Saturday night, the night before.
And the pastor on this particular Sunday announced that they were looking for homes for little children. They were looking for foster homes for children from broken homes.
[00:25:00]
And so all of a sudden, very magnanimously, I decided that this was the answer, and I went and signed our name on the list. And a little three-year-old girl came to live in our home, and I will never forget the night that she came to live with us. It was two weeks before Christmas. She was a little, tiny, tiny youngster, and she had brown hair, blonde hair, rather, and brown eyes, and a very nervous little smile, because, you see, she had been the daughter of alcoholic parents, and she had been taken away from them because they were judged by the court not to be able to take care of her. And here I had had the gall to say that I could act as a substitute parent. And I guess I have to believe that this says something to us about the illness, alcoholism. And it says to me, you know, I don't think we do these things to be bad. I don't think we're bad people. I think we're sick people. But I think at the very point at which we really begin to need help, we also cease to be able to see what we're really like.
And so this little girl came to our door, and she carried with her a little store bag, a brown paper bag of clothes. And that was the sum total of her belongings. And I can remember standing in the dining room and pulling, my husband was sitting there, and pulling the clothes out one by one. I guess I was looking for something to put her to bed in that night. And I came to this nightie, and it was, I found out that it was one of those white, formerly white infant nighties, those old Jersey nighties we used to put on babies.
And this nightie had been allowed to stretch with her body as she had grown, and it was all full of holes. And I can remember holding that nightie up to the light and saying to my husband, isn't it a crime that anybody would treat a little child like this? And I meant it. And yet the things that I was to do to that youngster in the next few years were so much worse than any putting her in a holy nightie.
The merry-go-round of alcoholism really began to go faster and faster. You know, sometimes we think we alcoholics don't have consciences, and I don't believe this. I think we have very active consciences. And I know that each day I would go to bed, and I had nothing to give this little gal except to put the food on the table at something like eight or nine o'clock at night and have her eat alone and live her life alone, just as I had lived mine alone as a little kid. That's all I had to give her. I couldn't pick her up and hold her in my arms. I can remember a couple times the desire to pick her up, but I couldn't make myself do it because I couldn't love anyone. And I would go to bed, you know, at night, and I would have drank more and more each day because there was only one way I could get any relief from the way my conscience was bothering me, the guilt I felt about the things I was doing to her. And I would go to bed at night just absolutely zonked, just intoxicated because I couldn't stand myself without alcohol in me. And the symptoms began to increase, and I can remember that I would, at that point, I got to the point where I really couldn't talk to people. And I got to the point where if I was with one person who I might, you know, even have nothing against, that I could all of a sudden want to strike out at that person, even if we were just talking about the weather. And it got so bad, and I share this with you only because I find that this has happened to other women and other men. It got so bad that when I was in the kitchen peering potatoes or peeling something with a peering knife in my hand, I got to the point where I had to throw that knife on the counter if my little girl came into the room because I was afraid of her.
[00:30:05]
And you know, I finally reached my bottom. And I believe there comes a point in each one of our lives of alcoholism where we are in such pain that God has mercy enough not to let us stay that way any longer. And the day I did reach my bottom didn't start any differently than any other day. I struggled out of bed in the morning, sick, sick, sick. Went to the bathroom, threw up, went into the kitchen, stopped at the liquor cabinet and decided that if I just had one, I would feel better.
And since I've been an Alcoholics Anonymous, I will argue and I'll debate on anything, but I will not debate with myself about whether or not I would have one drink, because it's an argument I never won. And on that particular morning, just as on other mornings, I began to get my little girl ready for school. And she had a long ponytail, and because she was too young to take care of it, I used to have to comb and brush it for her.
And I began to comb it, and I was suddenly filled with that compulsion to strike out, to hit her, just to hit her. And I was so frightened that I just shoved her away from me. And I got up and I walked around the room and I shook my hands, you know, trying to get them to relax, and then I would start over again, and I'd begin combing and brushing her hair again, and the whole feeling to hit would come over me again to strike, and I'd push her away again, and I'd get up, and this thing went on and on and on.
And I guess on that, on one of those particular mornings, because this happened more than once, I had my moment of truth that Bill talked about. The moment when finally a power pulls away that barrier around us so that we can really see that it isn't the husband, it isn't the child, it isn't the job, it isn't the neighbor, it's alcohol that's doing this to us. And I knew suddenly, and I wish I could say to you that I went to the phone and I called Alcoholics Anonymous, but I did not, and I would not have called AA by myself, I believe.
And so I'm one of the people that came into this program because sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous were a power of example to me. And I am so grateful, I'm so grateful that they understood the anonymity traditions. I'm so grateful that this, and I've got to call this a miracle, you know, it was a coincidence that God placed in my path at that time, sober members of AA, and you know when people say a definition of a coincidence is God intervening in a situation and wishing to remain anonymous.
And I believe that was true of what happened to me. Because I watched these AA members, you know, and they were willing to share with me the fact that they were recovered alcoholics. And I'm so glad that they knew it was perfectly all right for us to tell each other on a private level, or to tell people outside of AA on a private level, that we are sober, and that we're sober through Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I'm glad they understood that the only place you and I are supposed to be anonymous is not from each other, but at the level of press, radio, and television. And because that saved my life. And I watched them, and I didn't believe what I saw, but they didn't change, so I had to believe it. And finally, finally, I began to think about coming to one of these meetings that they talked about. You know, and I firmly believe, you know, that the traditions, the traditions are given to us before the steps are.
The traditions are very much a part of my personal recovery. Because I began to wonder, you know, what have you got to do to join AA, and what have I got to be to join AA? And I found out that there were no requirements for membership. And that I could just walk through the doors. And finally, I did walk through the doors. And I'm so grateful that what happened that first night I was at an AA meeting was that the fifth tradition was very much in evidence.
[00:35:00]
The fifth tradition that tells us an AA group has but one primary purpose, and that's to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. And that was an undiluted message that came to me that night. It wasn't all mixed up with hospitals or a message about alcoholism. It was a message of how I simply didn't have to drink for today if I would take the hands of the AA members that were reached out to me.
And they were reached out to me that night. The hands were out. And you know, I have to feel that nowadays, as we're not receiving so many telephoned 12-step calls, I have to believe that a lot of our 12-step work today can be done right in the AA meeting rooms. Because so many people are coming to AA by themselves. And you know, I hear people crabbing up in our area will say, oh, I haven't had a telephone call for a 12-step call for months now.
But there is something we can do about it. We can walk into our AA group meeting and we can look around and see who's standing alone or who looks shaky, and we can consider that our 12-step call. And at that first meeting, somehow or other, hope was born. Hope was born. I remember that simple message of AA that came to me that night. It was a beautiful thing. It was said to me simply that this person up there in front of me had been sober for two months by not drinking today.
And I took a look and I said, two months? I can never do that. And here it is 19 years later. Any of us can live today without one drink. And I remember one other thing about that first meeting, and that was, oddly enough, when they said the Lord's Prayer at the end of the meeting. And it wasn't the words, because I wasn't very religious at that point. It wasn't the words. It was the feeling that went through that room, that flow, that unity, that oneness.
There was something about it that somehow or other I felt like I belonged, and I didn't feel alone anymore. And then AA gave me its greatest gift, and that was a sponsor. And my sponsor was just right for me. He was a janitor, and he was absolutely perfect for me. Because I knew, I had read about alcoholism and put it way out there. But what I needed to do was to begin to learn to live. And he recognized this.
He recognized this. He was one of those old-fashioned sponsors that pushed and pulled and cajoled and babied and then threatened and then said that sponsor is not your friend, and don't you forget that. And it just helped me to learn to live. You know, when the newcomer is coming through the door today, some people say, well, you know, they don't need sponsorship help as much as people used to. And I don't think that's true either, because I didn't know I needed sponsorship-type help.
I don't think the people coming in know what they need. I think it's up to you and I who have been here, who have experienced sponsorship help, who need to turn it around and offer it to other people, to the newcomer. And thank God the sponsor offered it to me, because it was a – I simply – if I had been left on my own and somebody had said to me, meet me at the meeting, I wouldn't have made it. Because I needed to learn how to just plain get out of bed in the morning, just get up in the morning without taking a drink.
And that's where he started from. And he told me how to get out of bed and what to say when I got out of bed, to be grateful – just take one minute and say, I'm grateful for the gift of life today, because if you're – and my sobriety, because if you're grateful for it, you're not going to want to throw it away. And I said, baloney, but he said, do it anyway. And I did. And all of a sudden, a few weeks later, a little thrill went up my spine one morning, and I began to feel good about living.
And I had to learn to vacuum a rug, sober, without a drink, and I had to learn to cook a steak without a drink, and I had to learn to iron without a drink. And speaking of ironing, there's that little favorite story of mine, you know, about how
[00:40:01]
our attitudes change in AA, and our – you know, attitudes is where it's at. It's how we feel about our sobriety, how we feel about putting effort into staying sober, and our attitudes change when we begin to get active in AA. And so that, you know, we women who always had piles of ironing, a basket of ironing that we had to hide – we were always behind in our ironing, we had to hide it someplace when company came – you know, after we came into AA, our attitudes changed, so that instead of our being behind in our ironing, we were just a little ahead in our washing.
And it were these simple kinds of little things that began to help me to rebuild my life. And I became happy sober. I became happy sober, and I was physically sober, and I began to go to parties and be able to do all the things I thought I would never be able to do without drinking. But I was still taking from this fellowship. I was a taker. And I hate to tell you how much later I became – I had enough pain as a taker to want to become a giver, and it was probably close to two years.
And it happened this way. My sponsor, who had given so much of himself to me, you know, who had babied me day by day until I began to get sober and put some sobriety together, was a janitor, as I said. And I had gone to his apartment block one morning to pick up a woman to go play golf. And as I drove up to the building, here's my sponsor in his work clothes, his overalls with all the holes in them, and his sneakers, you know, ambling up the street.
And all of a sudden, you know, I just – I was ashamed of him. And I went to the golf course, and on that day, I began to see Margaret. Because I didn't play golf well, I couldn't even see the golf ball, but I began to see me. And more of that shell of alcoholism, that cocoon just broke away, so that I was – I was able, I guess, on that day to have a feeling for another person, finally. You know, to be able to trust in that first glimmering of loving someone more than myself, or as much as myself.
And I went home from that golf course that day with some kind of recognition that we may not be responsible for developing the illness alcoholism, but we certainly are responsible for what we do about our recovery. And as I drove up to that apartment block to drop the woman off, there was my sponsor standing in exactly the same spot he'd been in that morning. And I have to believe that that was another of the coincidences.
And of course, I ran up to him, and I, you know, got the woman involved in the conversation, and I bubbled all over the place. But he knew, and I knew. And on that day, I think I really joined AA. And all of the things that I'd been hearing, you know, and storing for later, began to surface. And all of a sudden, the steps were not just something up on the wall for other people, but they became something for me.
And I learned a lot of beautiful things about the steps. And one point I would like to share with you is that the steps work for all of us, regardless of the length of our sobriety, or what point we are at in our sobriety. People say, well, let's wait two or three years to get into the steps. We don't have to. The steps will work for us, as long as we're trying to work them. And as a matter of fact, the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous work for us, even if we misunderstand them.
And that's a beautiful thing. And I began to want to make amends to my family, to people. And it was a very, very slow process. Very slow process. I can remember driving over 100 miles, over and over again, trying to establish a relationship with my alcoholic mother. And I would arrive at the door, and I would try to kiss her, and she would turn her head away. and she would turn her head away, you know, and then I would go back to my group, and my group all discouraged, and my group would pick me up and put me on my feet again.
[00:45:04]
But I grew in that period of time. I grew. And I love the grapevine article that we had here, oh, probably six or eight months ago, that had to do with step groups. And it said that this particular step group, you know, when people met each other, they didn't say, you know, have you worked, have you done the steps? Instead of that, when people met each other, they said, what step are you working on? And I think that's a great principle for me to apply in my life.
What step am I working on now? And my life became a little more emotionally sober. And there was some satisfaction in being able to give something of myself for the first time in my life. And, of course, I, in typical alcoholic way, overdid it, and I did too much, and I had too many pigeons, and my sponsor passed away, and I drove myself to take his place. And very, very gradually, things began to change inside me. And instead of the comfortableness, all of a sudden there was a little fear developing.
And, you know, there would be a perspiration on my upper lip, you know, and that might be perfectly all right when you're newly sober to have the shakes and the inner tremors and the perspiration. But when you had been around as long as I had, that was, you know, really not quite what one would expect. And I went through the period of time of feeling, my God, I can't talk to anybody because I'm supposed to have the answers.
And, you know, I don't think that we people who have been sober in AA for a long time or for quite a while are trying to be big wheels when this happens to us. I think we truly believe we don't want to disappoint our pigeons, for example, the people we're working with. And so we try to pretend everything is all right. But there's a wonderful thing about this program, and it's described by a word that is interdependency.
And, you know, I had to come to learn that I needed the newcomer just as much as the newcomer might need me. And it was an experience, I believe, that saved my life once again because I finally got to the point where I was in such pain and I was resentful and I was angry. And it was the newcomer who was able to look at me and say, hey, baby, you're a faker. You know, this business of big smile on your face and how are you?
Fine, fine, you know, you're a faker. And they handed me a poem with about 100 verses to it that said, you wear a thousand masks and none of them are you. And they did an awful job on me. And, of course, I shoved them aside, but they wouldn't give up, these newcomers. And, you know, you have to keep at us. If you see that our eyes are not quite as sparkly as they should be, if you think that smile is pasted on, don't let us go.
Don't let us go because we need you. And they finally got to me. And I finally had to realize that, you know, you just can't stand stationary in the middle of that 12th step where we're carrying the message unless things are happening to us inside. And I had to go back and I had to begin reading the directions all over again. And I had to realize that my life was just as unmanageable right back at that first step, that my life was just as unmanageable as it had been when I was drinking.
And that I was powerless. I, Margaret, was powerless over my life. And that I had to empty myself out of me so that there would be room for a power to come in. And my pigeons had said, Margaret, you are running your own life again. You've gotten totally away from the third step. And they were entirely right. And I finally had to make the effort to bring the God that I knew was there, but way out here, and bring him in to me and to fill that void.
[00:50:02]
And there had to be something in the line of a surrender. And I'll have to tell you that finally, finally, I literally got down on my knees. I had been one of the ones who had prayed and meditated, but I never had to get on my knees. And now I did. And now I do on a daily basis. And I want to tell you that it's pretty hard to be boss of your own life when you're in that kneeling position. When you're down on your knees, it's pretty hard to be the boss.
And since this happened to me, a whole new beautiful world has opened up. Bill said that we will never be relieved of an alcohol problem except through spiritual means. And I believe this, that this illness is a threefold illness, and that if we are to have a full and meaningful life and a full and meaningful recovery, it has to be a threefold recovery. And today, great things are happening, and I just know that it's only beginning.
And believe me, that's a good feeling because I don't want to ever have the feeling that I'm graduating. And so the love that was given so freely to me in the beginning, but I hadn't been able to accept it, finally really began to flow into me. And, you know, I have to say today that love is the core of my life. And as I began to be able to trust and to love, I began to want to give this love to my little girl.
I began to feel an intense love for this little girl that I'd hurt so much. And I tried very hard to tell her I loved her, but she just, you know, she wasn't buying it, and I don't blame her. I don't blame her. And finally people said to me, don't just tell her you love her, show her. Put your arm around her shoulder, touch her, touch her. And so I began to do that, and this was a long, long process.
But if you're trying to make amends to your children, just have hope. Because she would shrug my arm away and just push it away, you know, and this went on and on and on until I thought it would never end. But somehow or other, the love that you had been giving to me came through me to her. And she gradually began to be able to trust, and she gradually began to be able to love. Because all of a sudden, one day when I had been away for a weekend, I drove up in our driveway and got out of the car, and the screen door slammed, and she came running out of the house, and she's as short as I am tall, by the way, and she did a monkey climb up me and said, hi, Ma, I'm glad you're home.
I missed you. I loved you. And she kissed me all at once. And that was, that was the day for me. And that day has expanded and expanded. My little girl's married today. Her husband has left her. She has a little boy. And she needs her mother. And I'm here. And we have a beautiful relationship. If you're new in this program, and you're just coming out of the depths and the hell of alcoholism, know that it works.
Know that it works. Take our hands and walk with us as we try to practice all of these principles in our affairs. We have a legacy, you and I. We have a legacy left to us by our co-founders. And we need to keep it safe. And we need to give it away. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:55:01]
Thank you, Margaret, for a beautiful talk.