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Source: DICOBE-00442 – Mary R – OKLAHOMA STATE CONF – 1978-01-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00442-mary-r-oklahoma-state-conf-1978-01-15.mp3 Duration: 01:23:28
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Mary from Tustin. Hi, I'm Mary. I'm an alcoholic. Before I get into this thing, I would like to show my appreciation to C.B. and the committee here, because I brought you a little gift. C.B., would you come up, please? It's a very special prayer that I have that I had framed, and I think it applies to us. And it says, Please, Lord, teach us to laugh again, but God, don't let us forget that we cried. C.B.?
Thank you. As I said, I'm an alcoholic, and I'm very proud to be a recovering woman alcoholic. I want to welcome the new people here. I've had the opportunity to talk to some this afternoon, and in particular, some of the new women, and I hasten to add that the latest news from California has informed all of you that it's pretty classy to belong to AA this year. We're getting some high-class people.
As a matter of fact, for the benefit of you Al-Anons out there, there is a very great possibility that our next president might be a member of Al-Anon, you know. You know, if he could break his anonymity, he could be guaranteed a two million votes right off the top. I was also charged by my out-of-town sponsor, Jack W. Buttermilk has offered. He very kindly came up and said that if I was too nervous, if I didn't feel well enough, he'd be glad to talk for me up here.
And then Franklin told me to be sure and tell you folks how much he's meant to me. But as I said, I'm proud to be a recovering woman alcoholic, and I've never been ashamed of the fact that I was an alcoholic since I came to this fellowship, and I've never found it necessary to take a drink since my first meeting, which was March 29th, 1961. Applause That's not exactly the truth, though. I have found it necessary, but I've been allowed to stay sober.
That's closer to the truth. For the benefit of the new people, I can only pass on to you what was given to me so freely, and they gave me a lot of advice. One of the pieces of advice I got was if you want to stop drinking, you got to quit drinking. Very simple advice. But how do you do that? Well, they said you got to go to a lot of meetings, because people who don't go to meetings don't get to hear what happens to people who don't go to meetings.
But then they gave me a direction that just scared me to death. They said, all you got to do is change your whole life. That's all you got to do is change your whole life. And thank God they talked to me in simple terms, because I was too rum-dumb and too insane to assimilate anything more than four or five words in a sentence. I really was. I couldn't even read the book for six months, because the words were coming out on stems.
Anybody have that experience? But I'm happy I'm here, and I'm always glad to be invited to these gatherings, not because I bring the message, but because I get the message. And I got it this afternoon when Frank talked, because he took my whole internal inventory. I just identified with that guy right down the line now. I was never a social drinker. I'd like to say that right off the top. I was an alcoholic when I picked up my first drink, which was somewhere around the age of 15.
The reason I say that now is because I drank alcoholically. I didn't know what an alcoholic was. In fact, I didn't know what an alcoholic was until I was sober about a few weeks.
[00:04:59]
I, when I came to AA, I came to find, well, to really have you people tell me that if you,
[00:05:08]
if, you know, if you had my troubles, you'd be drinking too. But they kept laughing at me, those people, you know. And finally, when I admitted I was an alcoholic, all it did was make it unanimous. And if any of you people who are here and are new and are wondering whether you're an alcoholic or not, it's like, it's kind of like, you know, you're here on a Saturday night at an AA meeting, for God's sake, and you're wondering whether you're an alcoholic.
That's like, you know, a virgin going to the doctor for a rabbit test. So I say, welcome. You might as well stay because all roads are going to lead back here anyway. I don't care if you go to a treatment center or a psychiatrist or where you go, you're going to wind up here anyway. I hear a lot of people say, well, I don't like AA, and I have some news of great joy for them, too. It isn't required that you like AA.
I hear other people say, but those meetings bore me. They, you know, those speakers bore me to death. And I say, well, listen, why don't you get up there and bore us? See, so we have to close all the doors just like they did for me. I love being sober. I'll tell you that right flat. I love being sober. I, again, I didn't know I was an alcoholic, and I sure didn't want to be one. I didn't go to my high school counselor and tell him this was my big aim in life, to wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous.
But I'm sure glad I got here, but it was a rough road getting here. I, as I said, I picked up my first drink when I was on a road show. I came from show business. I was a dancer 40 years and 40 pounds ago. And what I was introduced to was slow gin. Now, I know that dates me, right? Slow gin isn't the end drink these days. But knowing that kind of thing dates me and having realized that, you know, I'm really not, well, I'm not over the hill either, you know, but I'm not one of those, you know, teeny boppers.
I have given some thought to having a facelift like some of the women are having these days. But then on sober reflection, I figure, you know, you get your face lifted and everything else is sagging two inches below where it used to, so what the hell's the use? So to hell with it. Besides, they told me if you haven't got it going on the inside, the outside's not going to make any difference anyway.
And that's what it is here. It's an inside job. The whole thing's an inside job. So anyway, I wound up in the nightclubs of San Francisco after I got off the road show, where I, you know, I drank the slow gin and threw up and passed out, and I figured that's part of the deal. See, alcohol was not my problem. Alcohol was my answer. Alcoholism was my problem. Alcohol was my answer. It made me feel secure and understood and liked and not afraid.
Now, I didn't even know I was born scared until my sponsor pointed this out when I was about five years sober, because I had built up a wall of being big, brave, and strong all these years, and I really thought I was. But in looking back, I really was, you know, and in looking back, I was a kook before I took my first drink, you know. I felt different all the time. I was wired different than other people.
I was an uptight character all the time. I lived in a fantasy world, and of course, I got a lot of fulfillment out of being a featured dancer, because I was out in that other world with a spotlight on me, and, you know, you people weren't even here. I was in that fantasy world, and it kind of satisfied that need until it got bad. I wound up in the nightclubs of San Francisco with a spotlight on me, and I had, you know, I was in an alcoholic's paradise, because I was wearing beautiful clothes and getting a lot of attention and being written up in the columns and having the music played exactly the way I wanted to and everything was going my way.
[00:10:03]
And even then, you know, to the outside world, you would think, they thought, you know, I really had it made. But there was something unfulfilled inside of me. There was always this big vacancy or this void that I really couldn't fill. And my big hopes were always, the answer was always, you know, in the future someplace, when I got him or when I went there or when I got that. And I used to get those things, and I'd always come up empty.
And my big, big dream was when Hollywood discovered me. Then that would be my total fulfillment. And one day I got an offer to go down to Southern California and take a screen test, and I was on my way. And I went down there with the attitude that Betty Davis had better start saving her money. And I was scared to death, but I didn't even know I was scared. I did so much pretending, you know. So I took the screen test and it was rotten.
How can you act when you're already acting? I didn't even know I was acting. But they did sign me to a contract, and here came the great disillusionment in my life. Because the stock contract, you're just part of the herd, and no one was giving me all that attention that I'd been used to. I was a spoiled showgirl, and nobody was paying any attention to me. I was getting a little bit here, and nobody, you know, the big, my big dream was fading over the horizon, and I thought, where do I go from here?
I immediately, naturally got, you know, caught up with the drinking crowd. Now, I hear a lot of new people come in and say, God, you know, all of my friends drink. Well, of course they do. It's like Frank said this afternoon, we don't hang around social drinkers. God. For you new people, if you really think you're a social drinker, let me take you emotionally through a little episode that I had after I was sober a few years.
I went over to my brother's house. He had invited me and an AA friend over to his house for Christmas, and there were about six other people there, and the first person I met was a little old lady at the door, and she had one of these tall, anemic drinks with mix and ice and garbage in it, and she was sipping it, and she was tiddly and giggly, and I wanted to bell her in the mouth. And then I go in there, you know, and she's got a son there that's pretending to be drunker than he was.
I had a real pain. And I saw a guy, now this just, I hate to say this because it happened at a relative's house, even, it just embarrasses me, but I saw a man put his drink down on the coffee table and walk into the next room and leave that drink there unattended for about 10 minutes, and it just scared the hell out of me, you know. Then I, you know, they were talking about eating, for God's sake, and I went into the kitchen where the supply was.
My sister-in-law was in there cooking, and I went in and there was a pint on the table with the lid on it. There were six of them drinking, and you believe that? Then there was a jigger right next to the pint. God. Then, you know, my sister-in-law really put the frosting on the cake because my brother came in and he said, Would you like to have another drink, Connie? And you know what she said? She said, No, thanks, I'm beginning to feel mine.
God, how does that grab you newcomers? And yet it is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker that somehow, someday he will return to that kind of drinking. God, I would have given my soul to take that pint and upend it and tell them that's the way you drink, for God's sake. Come to drink, drink. Of course, I always, I can't get rid of the feeling that I've always had, and that is anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.
I still hold on to that. I'm still an excessive person. I got caught up with the drinking crowd, and I made all the nightclubs and supper clubs that you read about in the movie magazines. You know, I used to say that I had fun when I was drinking, but… When I was drinking, but inventories and some self-honesty that has been the result of those inventories really told me the truth, and that was I pretended a lot of fun, because I was never able to accept me and the way I drank, because I was totally unpredictable to me at all times.
[00:15:22]
I stayed on that movie lot for a couple of years, and I was getting more despondent and more discouraged and wondering where I was going to go next, when out of the blue a guy from the USO office came and offered me an opportunity to go overseas and entertain the soldiers. The World War was on, World War II was on at the time, and I jumped at that opportunity because the first thing that came to my mind was all of those men over there and all of the attention I was going to get, and I, of course, pretended fierce patriotism and went overseas and I got into a lot of trouble.
The first trip we went on was through Africa, Egypt, Algeria, China, Burma, and India, and for any of you fellows that were in the big war, who still hold resentments against USO girls that fraternized only with the officers, let me tell you I was very democratic with my drinking, I never asked what, I just said where and let's go. Alcohol was important to me, but it seemed strange to me, you know, I got a lot of clues along the way, but I wasn't looking for clues, I was looking for answers.
It seems strange to me now, looking back, that we were in China someplace, you know, in the Himalaya Mountains, and I had been drinking grapefruit juice and something with the guys the night before, and I came to the following morning and I was paralyzed from the chin down. Couldn't move, except my eyelids were moving, and the gal that was my roommate and on the show with me noticed that there was something terribly wrong with me and she went and got the medics and they came trooping in and they gave me shots and oxygen and I don't know what all, but they worked on me for a couple of hours just to get me up on my feet and functioning again, and you know, I blamed the altitude.
I had to protect my right to drink, you know, I had to protect my right to drink. I really believed that I couldn't drink in altitudes, I sold myself on that. I didn't even drink in Denver after that because I knew I could drink at altitudes. Now, you know, we are supposed to be great con artists. I think we con ourselves more than anybody else, and so I came back from that tour thoroughly exhausted and feeling very put upon because the government and the military had not told me that they expected us to entertain between shows and drink with the guys and go to the parties and do all these things.
Actually, they hadn't demanded that of us at all. I had demanded it of me because I was one of those that desperately needed approval, and I couldn't say no to anything. I wouldn't dare do anything to offend anybody, and God, if I didn't drink with them, they wouldn't like me, and if I didn't party. But now, you know, a strange thing and a miraculous thing has happened to me since I've come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and that is the fact that today I'm able to live in a manner that's acceptable to me regardless of public opinion.
In other words, I don't have to make nickel-and-dime compromises anymore, and that's a hell of a freedom that I never knew before in my life. And so when I got back from that tour, I was offered the opportunity to go to the European Theater this time, and I thought to myself, this time it'll be different. Just like Chapter 3 says, this time it's going to be different. This time it was different. It was worse. Because I didn't know how not to do the things that got me into trouble before, and I got into a lot of trouble in Europe.
As a matter of fact, I'm probably the only USO girl that was up for court-martial. See, they gave us a temporary rank of captain during war to go over and entertain, and so I always kind of aim this at the women, because there are a lot of them that will identify with this, and that is, I was always madly in love. Either that or recovering from love, and I don't know which I enjoyed the most.
[00:20:06]
See, when you're recovering from love, that bittersweet feeling you get when you turn on the sad music, you know, and get the jug out and sit there and cry over what could have been, and if only he, and oh, God, and, you know, that edit all the crap out and keep all the good parts, you know, how romantic and sweet and everything was. You just edit the crap out, though, you know, the mean guys and all this stuff. I used to love to listen to, like, Judy Garland, because with her there was no hope at all, you know, and Frank Sinatra and some of those really torchy songs. God, I used to love it, you know, and just sit there and cry those bitter tears. God, I loved it.
Well, I was, I want to tell you about this episode, because I always tell it, because I have a dream. I had fallen madly in love with a lieutenant in this small town, and here I was, several towns away, maybe 50 kilometers away or something, again involved in a big party and everybody was drinking and everything, and I suddenly decided that I had to get in touch with this great love of mine. Suddenly, you know how things are, everything seems to be a good idea at the time, and I got on a field telephone, and with a field telephone you go through relays, and sometimes it takes 10 minutes to complete the call.
And I just about got through, and this captain who was drinking, too, was leaning over me, asking me to go drink or play or whatever it was, I don't know, and I just very dramatically told him that I was trying to reach this great love of my life, and he did a very bad thing. He took his thumb and disconnected the phone, and I said, yeah, oh, is right, you know, and I said to him, Captain, if you do that once more, I'm going to hit you, and he didn't believe me, because I just about got through again and he disconnected the phone and I took it and I hit him on the ear as hard as I could, inadvertently, I like to say.
And he didn't, you know, he was kind of stunned or whatever it was, maybe drunk, but he didn't know what happened until he must have seen a very stricken look come over my face, and that look came from seeing the blood gush out of his ear and down his white trench coat. And when he saw that, he screamed like a banshee and ran across the street to where the MPs were hostile and, you know, signed a complaint, and they all came trooping over, and he comes and points the finger, you know, you've all experienced that, and there she is.
And God, and, you know, I was so embarrassed, even though I was half, you know, half in the bag myself, but I was still mad at him, and I was ordered to appear the next morning at 10 o'clock. So I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how I was going to maneuver out of this situation, and the best thing I could come up with was, since there were 14 girls on the show, that if I took two other girls that most resembled me, that there was an outside chance that he couldn't identify me.
So, you know, you've got to be swift to be an alcoholic, you know. So, anyway, that's what happened. We showed up the next morning at 10 o'clock, as ordered, and there sat the captain, and he had one of these hangovers that was coming over in waves, you know, one of those. And he couldn't identify me. And I always tell that story because, as I said, I have this dream, because in looking back, I'm quite sure he was one of us, when I consider his behavior and all this stuff.
And my dream is that somehow he found his way to the fellowship, and that I'll be talking some night. Might be tonight, I don't know. And he'll come up to me after the meeting with his hand extended and say, Mary, I'm the captain that you hit on the ear, and I'm going to let him make his amends to me. See, we weren't always wrong. Even the clock that stopped is right twice a day, you know. But I just kept, you know, I think that it was eroding my emotions by then.
[00:25:00]
Of course, I had no idea what an alcoholic was, and booze was so important in my life. My whole life revolved around it. There were times when I wish I didn't drink so much. There were times when I got tired of drinking. There were times I went on the wagon. God, I hate that expression. But I really never had any idea that it was possible to live an abundant, happy life, such as I'm living today, without alcohol.
And the fact that I was able to not drink for, you know, for periods of time just proved to me that I wasn't an alcoholic. Because, you know, that booze always held out a promise to me. It always promised me that something wonderful was going to happen in about 15 minutes. Something wonderful was going to happen. And in the meantime, I got drunk while I was waiting for it to happen. I guess. I don't know. That's kind of mixed up. That's the way it was. Anyway, I got back from that tour, and, you know, I really, it seemed to me that the lights were going out all over the world for me.
Everything seemed to turn gray. I don't know whether anybody else has experienced that, but everything was kind of hopeless and dead and gray to me. And really what it was, I was gray in here. I think my very soul was dying. Because I, you know, I blamed my emotional state on seeing, like, the ovens in Dachau, and man's inhumanity to man, and all these things, and I was terribly, terribly depressed and lost, and I don't know. It was just a terrible, it was a terrible time in my life.
And I knew that the only place I really had any fun was in San Francisco, in the nightclubs. So that's where I headed when I got back to the United States. And everything there also seemed to have changed, even the people that I drank with, my drinking buddies and people I had so much fun with, seemed to have changed. And I really made a very concerted effort to drink back some of that feeling, or to manufacture the laughs, or to, I was struggling. I was struggling to, I don't know, it was just a terrible time in my life.
And so I thought, finally, since nothing was changing, that the thing for me to do was get married. Change conditions and things, that's always been the answer, right? That was my philosophy, change conditions and things, and then everything will be alright. And so I carefully selected a victim. It was a bartender, I couldn't stand. And I asked him to marry me. And you know, I remember standing in front of the Justice of Peace in Reno and saying to myself, what the hell am I doing here? I don't want to marry this guy.
But I didn't have that thing called courage to back off and say, look, forget it. Instead, you know, what I had to do is to make this the marriage of the century, right? When I got him straightened out. Well, um, I didn't marry a guy that drank. He didn't drink at all, as a matter of fact, and that should have been my first clue right there. It's like Frank said this afternoon, we don't hang around people that don't drink, except AA's.
But you women of Al-Anon know that every pot goes out and finds a lid that fits it. And I did. I found a compulsive gambler. Yeah. He gambled my drinking money and I drank his gambling money. And I'm telling you, that's a pretty uptight way to live. Now, you can't even imagine the hatred we had for each other because we were both trying to straighten the other one out, you know, and both getting even with each other. And I was drinking at him and he was gambling at me. And the race was on.
But I was determined, because I felt like such a failure at everything, I was determined that I was going to make this marriage a success. I couldn't stand another failure. And so we took the geographic. I'm sure that he felt that if he got me away from my drinking buddies in San Francisco, that I wouldn't drink so much or I wouldn't drink or whatever. And I knew that if I got him away from all those bookies and those people, that I was going to be a failure.
I knew that if I got him away from all those bookies and those people that were leading him astray up there, that, you know, we'd have a chance. So we moved out to Encino where
[00:30:05]
Marge knows, has a brother, and found a drinking buddy right across the street from me. One in the back of me, too. And he found some bookies right up on the corner. And the race was on again. And I couldn't stand it. I was damn determined. You know, we don't give up easy. I wasn't famous for giving up easy. So what I thought then was, well, change conditions. Maybe if I have a baby, then. So I decided that I was going to have a whole new image.
I got pregnant, and with this pregnancy I was going to be that woman that you see in Better Homes and Gardens, you know. I was going to be a perfect housewife, housekeeper, mother, everything. And I knew that this woman that I was going to be did not drink. So I went on the wagon. God, that chokes me up when I even use that thing. I went on the wagon, and I became as sick as a non-drinking drunk can be. I think this was probably the craziest period of my whole life, because I became a compulsive housekeeper. I know some of you Alamontans identify with this. I was cleaning the corners with pins. And I had a toothbrush that I cleaned the lettering on the appliances with. You did? There's always one. And if the old man got out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the john, his bed was made before he got back. Now, I'll have to admit that's a little bit of alcoholic exaggeration, but not very much, because I was talking one time, and an Alamont lady came up after the meeting, and she said she identified with all this. But she said, you didn't do something I did. And I said, what's that? And she said, I used to blow the dust out of the keyholes. And you know, these are the things, you know, those kinds of things were the things that I was ashamed to even admit to myself. And I come to a place like this, and we're talking openly and freely about these things. And it just makes me feel good to you. I know I'm in the right place when I get reports like that from these women and some of these men, too. Anyway, I went along like that and just, you know, with gritted teeth and clenched fists and white knuckling all the way, I was determined I was going to be that woman. I was determined I was going to be a success of this stuff, this marriage and the whole bit. And when the baby was born, it's a wonder I didn't boil him, because by that time I was washing the walls with Hexol and spraying the room with Lysol. And oh God, it was just a whole insane mess. And I, you know, it was that way. It was just crazy.
I kept that house looking like, you know, Better Homes and Gardens were going to come in and take a picture any time. Nobody could live in it, and nobody could come near me because I was just crazy. Anyway, that lasted for a few months until I found out I was pregnant the second time. Now, I hadn't planned that one, and you know how that goes. Even if you're Al-Anon, you know how that goes. So I got to the point that it's very dangerous for us alcoholics. I got to the point, because I always drank with two attitudes. One was, what's the use? The other was, I'll show him. And here it was, what's the use? I have done everything so perfectly, and nothing goes my way. Something screws up all the time.
Something always does. How come? So, you know, with that kind of, and with the resentment I had against my husband, and things not going my way, I went back to drinking. Much to the relief of my family and friends, I might add, because they could understand me drinking, but they didn't understand this nut that was running around, you know. And it seemed to me that within a very short time I was drinking all out of control and, you know, becoming a neighborhood mess. And I'd like to say that I didn't plan these things. I didn't want to be what I had started to become. I fought against it as hard as anybody here did, and I'm sure we all
[00:35:02]
fought against that. And I, by now, had found, with my drinking buddy across the street, a haven. That was the neighborhood bar. I was a bar drinker. I loved those bars, you know. I could walk into a bar with a dollar and stay for three days. And you fellas that are laughing are the ones that picked up my tab. See, I liked that unreal world, that dark, cool bar with the piano and the tinkling ice, and more than that, those fellows appreciated my intelligence. And it didn't occur to me until much later that, you know, I never met a common laborer in a bar. I used to meet nuclear scientists and FBI men and presidential advisors and people that had seats on the stock market. Never a common laborer. I could travel with high-class company. But that was my haven. I got up there every chance I had. My husband took a dim view of this, and this is after my second son was born. He took a dim view of it, and he left me, and then he came back. We always, always with a promise that he wouldn't gamble so much, and I always said, well, I'm not going to drink so much. And not knowing anything about this insidious thing that we have in us that makes us keep drinking. And for you people who don't really understand the obsession, I want to ask you a question. Did you ever eat one peanut or one potato chip and quit? You know that feeling you get like you want another? Well, that's what happens to us. Multiply it a thousand percent. That's what happens, I think. That's as close as I can come to telling you poor Al Munson and other non-alcoholics like he thinks he is. You're listening, aren't you? That's the closest I can come to this phenomenon of craving that the alcoholic gets. My husband took a dim view of my activities, and he left me and came back and left me and came back. It was always for the sake of the children, and certainly we understand that. But nothing really helped because I was not able to keep my own promises to myself. I really didn't want to be where I was heading. I didn't want to do that. And so as the result of one of these joyous reunions, I got pregnant the third time. And now I was outraged womanhood because it was all his fault. He wanted to keep me pregnant and barefoot and out in the country, and I couldn't stand that. He was depriving, it was all his fault that he was depriving this world of a great talent that could have risen to great heights if it wasn't for him moving me out in the country with all those country people. They were getting me into trouble all the time. And I just couldn't stand him. I really couldn't stand him. And when I got pregnant, my rage was such that it just poured more fuel onto my alcoholic fire. Now I had legitimate reason to really drink.
And I stumbled around that neighborhood pregnant and drunk, and I'm not really, I'm not proud of that. I didn't want to do that. But these are the things that it took to get me to Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't have to be ashamed of it either anymore because I don't have to live like a Lady Lush anymore. I don't have to live that kind of a life and be that which I became. And that's why I love being sober. That's why I love being sober. I, um, I gave birth to my third child, and as I say, I was stumbling around that neighborhood drunk and neighborhood disgrace. And after my third child was born, my husband left me for what proved to be the last time. And so now I was free to do what I wanted to do and live my life the way I felt like living it. And I knew that if he got out of my life and off of my back, I wouldn't have to drink so much. And yet I caught myself saying to
[00:40:05]
myself, after making my daily run up to the local Thrifty Mart, getting my, my fifth or quart or whatever I could scrape the pennies together to get, how come now that he's out of your life that you're making a daily run? And I couldn't, I shut my head off. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to know. I, all I knew was that which I had in that sack was more important to me than my children, than my family, than truth, than anything that I ever knew. That was the most important thing in my life because it was my answer to life's problems. That's what I knew. So I didn't want to know why I kept going up there and going to the bar and catching drinks in the neighborhood.
But now that he was out of my life, I wasn't one of those that neglected my children. I was one of those who abandoned them. And it wasn't, you know, I really feel that if it weren't for my neighbors taking care of my children, they would have been taken, taken away from me. But my neighbors, as much as I hated them for giving me that look all the time, they were the ones that looked after my kids. I was totally incapable of staying with my children. It wasn't that I didn't love them.
I loved them with all my heart. But I knew that I was a failure as a mother. And in order for me to stand that kind of a pain, I had to drink to blot it out. I had to drink to blot it out. Because I wanted to be a good mother, but I was not able to be. And now all the things started happening in rapid succession that took me to the, on the downward spiral that led me into a, only some of the things I talk about at the, on the podium. I remember coming to in an alley, one cold gray dawn, sick and shaking and scared, and wondering what had become of all those dreams that I had. And I remember being ordered out of that bar that I had inhabited, where I was once welcomed, ordered out at 10 o'clock in the morning, and the bartender saying, Out, Mary. And I was, felt so humiliated. But I still had my cloak of arrogance as I walked out with my nose in the air. And yet I, inside I was so humiliated and embarrassed.
And I think one of the most painful moments of my whole life, and I hope I never forget it, was one Sunday morning, lurching down Ventura Boulevard, coming out of a bar early in the morning, and coming up to St. Charles Church, just as Mass was letting out, and this family with two little boys coming down the stairs. And there I was, reeling and falling against the building. My knees wouldn't hold me up. And seeing the look on those kids' faces, the look of horror to see this drunken woman staggering and reeling. And I choked on my own disgust, and bit back my tears, and cursed myself, and wished to God I would die on the spot.
But I wasn't through yet. See, I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be in that condition. But I didn't have a choice in those days. And thank God I don't have to do those things anymore. I don't have to be there anymore. And so these things were the things that forced me into drinking behind closed doors and drawn shades. And now with this homicidal anger that I had, I had already attempted suicide twice. By the way, along the way I started taking pills, because I was at the point where I was neither drunk nor sober, and couldn't go either way. And I took pills, and they were just making me more crazy. With this inner rage that I had just made me totally insane.
And I knew that I was going to kill my husband. I was sitting there plotting and planning it, and only by the grace of God I did not. But I was so totally insane. And it seems to me that when my mother and father stopped coming over and cleaning my house, and taking care of my children, and you know, they were on my back all the time. My mother was screaming at me, and I got to the point where…
[00:45:03]
And I think the greatest favor they ever did for me was when they turned their backs on me and walked away and said they would not come over again. And my husband had left and my neighbors, all but one, turned their backs on me. And now came the moment of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization that brought me to my knees. And the next thing I knew, I knew that I desperately needed help and I knew I was crazy. And I didn't know until two years after I got through this program why I picked up the phone and called Alcoholics Anonymous.
But I did. I called Alcoholics Anonymous and a young man answered the phone, North Hollywood Clubhouse, and he sensed my terrible insanity, my terrible desperation, and he said he'd be right out. In our neighborhood, men work with men and women work with women. He broke all the rules to come out and see me. God in his infinite wisdom sent exactly the right person to call on me. I don't know whether I'd have been ready for a couple of spiritual, well-dressed women coming out to give me the message, because I hated women with a passion.
And he came out. It was two years after I got sober that I realized that I had been in a drunken brawl across the street from me and there was a red-haired woman there who was drinking a Coke and I immediately suspected her. I didn't like her anyway. And it seems to me that I asked her why the hell she wasn't drinking and she said something to me, I don't remember what she said, except that she said something about she didn't have to live that way anymore, found a better way to live or something, and said something about AA.
And here it was two years later that the seed that she planted was sprouting, which reminds me that my responsibility is to scatter the seed and not demand that it sprout on the spot, because here it was two years later. And I'm sure that woman doesn't even know today that I ever got sober and I've been sober ever since. I've been trying to find her, too, but I haven't been able to do that either. But this guy came out. Now, if he had any romantic inclinations, I can tell you that what he met at the door was 180 pounds of gray-screaming insanity, homicidal, suicidal, drinking defiantly insanity, especially if it was downwind of me.
Because I don't remember having taken a bath for months before I got here. See, I woke up one time when I was taking a bath and my nose was about an inch from the water and I knew damn well it was too dangerous to pursue. I might have drowned, for God's sake. So I had to give that up, too. But he came in with this big smile, AA smile, and I immediately hated him. And he had these sparkling eyes and everything. I don't remember to this day what that man said to me. All I do remember is the feeling I got of communication for the first time in my life.
Now, it's against the rules also to say you're an alcoholic, right? He told me I was. And that sounded rather scientific compared to what I'd been called. And so I was still drinking and I said, I was drinking defiantly and he was talking and I said, aren't you going to stop me from drinking? And he said, no, go ahead. Well, that got my attention. Because no one had ever told me to keep drinking. And I say to you new people, when all else fails, keep drinking. That'll make a believer out of you if you make it.
But he somehow convinced me to go to an AA meeting that night. And so I threw on my raincoat. It wasn't raining. But I had a very sparse wardrobe when I came to AA. I had two pairs of capris, both with holes in the knees, to give you a clue. And he took me way out in the hills of Chatsworth, which is miles and miles and miles. And on the way out I was thinking, this guy's going to take me out there in the hills and kill me.
And, you know, I was hoping he would. I really, that's the state of mind I was in. I was hoping he would. Because I'd been a failure at suicide myself. And we got out of this little tiny church. And we got up to the porch and I looked in the window and I saw people like you in there and I thought, oh God, another PTA meeting. I'd gone that route. And I turned to him and I said, I ain't going in there. They got those people.
[00:50:21]
And he said, well, just come in and listen. Of course, I was so deeply ashamed and I didn't want to go in there in the condition I was in. I was just a raving maniac. And he did, and I'd like to tell you people that I went into that room hopping and skipping and jumping and saying, oh, isn't this fantastic. What happened really was that he edged me over to the door, took his hand and shoved me in. That's what really happened.
And he introduced me to the woman who was to become my first sponsor at that meeting. And she was someone that I never would have chosen for myself. But I didn't know how to pick a sponsor. I just assumed that she was my sponsor. She was everything that I hated in a woman. She was soft-spoken, spiritual, well-groomed, cunning, baffling, powerful. And she spoon-fed my soul. She spoon-fed my soul. Now, I don't remember what was said at that first meeting, but I do remember what I felt. It was unmistakable. I was afraid to believe what I was feeling and I was afraid not to believe it. And I will say to you people who are new with us, you may deny everything you hear, but you sure as hell can't deny what you see here. And it's waiting for you. The banquet table is set, folks. If you walk away hungry, whose fault is it? It's all here for you.
Anyway, my sponsor, my woman sponsor, took me home that night and drove in the driveway and she laid something on me that almost scared me to death. She didn't say, would you like to go to a meeting tomorrow night? She said, I will pick you up tomorrow night at 8 o'clock and I'm going to take you to a woman's stag. God, I almost threw up. I thought, God, I can't tell her how I hate women. And she said, and by the way, and she drove away, by the way, it would be a very good idea if you take a bath and comb your hair before I pick you up. And I thought, my God, what do they want from me, these people? I was, you know, I was wounded.
It took me all day the next day to get ready. I was so shaking and scared and sweating and sick. And she picked me up and I, I knew I wasn't going to like that woman's meeting. I hated women. There's no way, you know, that I was going to like a bunch of toast burners. I've never been off the block before, for God's sake. And I went up that meeting and I saw this beautiful woman. She had long blonde hair and a page boy and she had one of these expensive black dresses with the pearls at the neck. And God, she just looked so beautiful. And I thought, oh, God.
And I looked around and I thought, you know, if they ever find out about me, they're going to throw me out anyway. Yeah, I don't belong here. So she started telling her story and she got my interest. But, you know, I really think when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Because the next gal that got up started talking in my native tongue, profanity. And God, I felt at home. I thought, at least there's one more like me. She really lays it on the line. And that just gave me permission to stay there. I want to tell you, those women saved my sanity. And I heartily endorse for you new women to hang in with the women.
You might get mixed up with some of these guys, and we don't really advocate that. Because I think this great love we're looking for, you know, like me, I was always madly in love. You've got to kiss a lot of toads before you find your prince. You're going to find that out. But we really don't advocate that in AA. It happens, but we just say, you know.
[00:55:02]
It's one of those useless admonitions we give, you know. But I really think the reason for that is that at least I had such a need to be validated by somebody that, hell, I didn't know the difference between being in love and in heat. Nothing wrong with that. I had a laugh and a fright this afternoon when he said he thought he'd never have another sexual experience. My sponsor told me I wasn't. That scared me. But I fooled her. I just figured I may be over the hill, but I ain't dead.
I went to ten meetings a week. Ten meetings a week. Because, as I said, I could not read the book. I went there like a sponge to absorb. And when I look back, you know, I was fortunate in having this home group up in the hills of Chatsworth because in that home group there was a nucleus of five old-timers, hard noses, you know, bleeding deacons. And I have a profound love and respect for those old-timers because they would not buy any of my BS and they forced sobriety on me. They used to sit up in the coffee shop until two or three o'clock in the morning and I was so self-involved that I didn't realize those people had to go to work the next morning.
But they took the time to really, you know, straighten out my thinking and really pound on me. They were mean to me. I used to go home and cry and call them all kinds of names and say I'll never go back to that goddamn meeting again. And I was back the next day because I knew that regardless of how mean they were talking to me, it came through that they cared about what happened to me. That caring came through because they cared more about my survival than they did my approval. And they forced everything on me that I hold dear today. And I just love the old-timer. I just love them.
They, you know, some of them are kind of crackpots and they're kind of rigid and they're kind of all these things. But by God, you know, that's where I got mine. And that's the way I got to give it, too. You know, I'm known as a hard-ass out there. When I work with women, you can ask Betty here. She's from Muskogee. I found her on a gurney up in Northridge Hospital with her wrist slashed and having taken an overdose of pills. And she's lying there saying she ain't an alcoholic. Look at her. Took a major operation to get my foot out of her ass.
She's over ten years by God, huh? She didn't like me very much either. See, there are other people, Franklin, that can cure, too. And so, as I said, I was going to ten meetings a week and loving every minute. I just couldn't wait to get to a meeting. And when I was not at a meeting, I was on the phone. I was crazy, you know, overdoing again. But I needed it. I really needed it. My sponsor was very spiritual, as I say, and very rigid. And I was scared to death of her, but that was all right because I needed that, too. I needed somebody to really keep me in line. I needed a woman because, you know, over the years, I had acquired enough guile and all those feminine wiles that we can manipulate men with to really require a woman.
To really require a strong woman sponsor. And so I advocate that because, you know, I could wrap a guy around my finger like that. I always say, don't B.S. me, because I'm the one that brought it to town.
[01:00:02]
So, anyway, my husband found out that I was an AA, and he started calling me. He was in a rage. I don't know why he didn't want me to be an AA, but he started calling me and threatening to take the children and threatening to kill me in his own insanity. And he was calling me four, five, six, seven times a day, and it was driving me right up the wall, and I was just, it would just churn up all that homicidal hatred I had for him, and I was just going out of my mind, and I called my sponsor, and I was screaming at her, and I said, he's calling me, and he's threatening these things, and he's driving me crazy, and I said, what'll I do? And she said, hang up.
And, you know, it never occurred to me. Hell, I come from a world where you get even. You don't hang up and back off. So, I thought, God, I can't do that. But, anyway, he called again, and I knew it was him, and I said to myself, you know, my way has never worked. I better just try this. So, with my guts churning, I picked up the phone, and it was him, and I said, I'm sorry, but you're upsetting my serenity, and I hung up real fast.
And, God, you know, I wasn't sincere, but I was practicing to be. And that's why, you know, when I hear people say I was such a phony, I don't believe that. I think we did the best we could with what we had at the time. I really believe that, because that's the best I had at the time, just to pretend. Somebody else this morning said, take the action and the motive changes. That's what they told me. Take the action and the motive changes.
Every time he called up, I'd do that. And they were very quick to point out to me that the big book tells us that we had to stop fighting anything or anybody. Now, how are you going to say, lay that on somebody like me that did nothing but fight everything and everybody all my life? And I had, that's another area where it changed my whole life. And so I had to stop doing those things. And I was not comfortable when I didn't do those things, because I had this terrible need for revenge. You know, getting even for losing games. I found that out. I never got even with anybody in my whole life, I never did.
I always paid the price. But I don't have to do that anymore, either. I kept going to the woman's tag, and pretty soon, because I wasn't fighting him, and he wasn't calling anymore, and everything started to smooth out, and finally he was calling, and he was able to talk to me, you know, gently and nicely, and I was able to respond in the same manner. And I was loving every minute of this program. And one day he, I guess he had a bad day at the races or whatever, but he called in this terrible rage again, and I just went ape.
And thank God it was the night of the woman's tag, and I went running to the woman's tag that night, and I was in this homicidal rage again, and I was screaming at the top of my voice, and I was saying, please tell me what I'm going to do, what am I going to do with this guy? And I'll never forget the words of advice that I got that night, which I use to this day. One of the women said, pray for the son of a bitch. Now that's the last thing I wanted to do. But everything's the last thing I wanted to do.
And so that night I started praying for him. Right after the close of the meeting, I started praying for him, and I didn't mean a damn word of it. I didn't mean a word of it. But I prayed for him anyway. And I did those things that I was ordered to do, and things started to smooth out. And pretty soon we were able finally to get together and talk about the future of the children. This is not to say that we were going to go back together again because we realized that we, you know, we really had made a bad marriage, and it was not fair to the children to raise them in this kind of a hostile atmosphere. And so we became friends for the first time. And then one of my, one of those old hard-nosed old-timers came to me one day and said, don't you think it's about time you made amends to this man? And I said, if you say so. And I guess that's one of the greatest gifts I got in my early sobriety, because I was privileged to make my amends to this man just two weeks before he died of a heart attack.
And I don't know what would have happened to me if he had died when I hated him so much. I don't know whether I could have lived with that kind of guilt or what would have happened to me, but instead I was given, I was forced, this gift was forced on me.
[01:05:07]
And the morning that I was advised of his death, I guess I got a feeling of calm acceptance that I had never experienced in my life. It was as though a warm blanket had been put around my shoulders, and I felt a feeling of genuine sadness rather than a manufactured sorrow. I felt a genuine sadness. And this, I guess, was the time when my never-ending love affair with the people of AA started. Because although I was only sober four months, it seemed to me that literally hundreds of people came to me by phone, by car, by every means, by card, by telegram, asking what they could do for me.
I was overwhelmed that people would come to me and ask what they could do for me and ask nothing in return. And I was overwhelmed and sustained. And so now I was faced with a bleak future. I had three little children and absolutely no money. In fact, very deeply in debt because of this gambling and I guess my drinking too. And it was necessary for me to do what I had to do. At that time I was running a restaurant and we were very deeply in debt, but the AA people kept coming in drinking coffee.
At the end of that year, the AA people took it over, turned it into a clubhouse. Still in existence. But I didn't have anything to do with that. It just evolved that way. Still in existence. I eventually had to take a very menial job. I got a job in a hospital kitchen. I was washing pots and pans, doing some small cooking, cleaning employees' toilets. And, you know, this was a very bitter pill for me to swallow. You know, having drunk with high people in high places and falling that far down was very humiliating to me. But they told me that we are self-supporting through our own contributions.
They were hard with me. It was necessary for me. I wouldn't trade any experience I've had since coming to AA. It was necessary for me to break down my ego, to break down my values. You see, all my life it was money, property, and prestige that I was after. And I got money, property, and prestige and it turned to ashes in my mouth. But these menial jobs, these menial tasks that I was doing changed my values drastically. Because today, even though at one time I had all the things that money could buy, today I have the things that money can't buy.
And they're all in here where nobody can take them away from me. I've got the things that money can't buy. When I say that these are some of the things that changed my values and my attitudes, I want to tell you about my kids. I get kind of choked up when I talk about my kids. But I remember going out to Birmingham High School on a Friday when my oldest son made first string varsity and walking into that stadium.
Now there are times even today when I get overwhelmed with so much gratitude that it just chokes me up. And I found myself being overwhelmed with gratitude for being allowed to be sober at his first big game. And I walked in there just thinking and just drinking it all up. The miracle of the fact that I was walking into that football field with my head up and not drunk. Because I knew that it could have been the other way around and I could have been a disgrace and an embarrassment to that kid.
[01:10:10]
And so with this feeling I wanted to feel it all. So I went clear down to the end zone and I watched these kids warming up on the field and this feeling kept growing and I was thinking to myself, if it weren't for the AA people who cared about me when I couldn't care about myself, where would that kid be today? Where would he be? You know, I almost missed it. I could have missed the whole thing. And when they called that kid's name over the loud speaker as a starting player, I broke down and cried out of gratitude. God, the gratitude I had for the privilege of being there.
And my second son followed in his footsteps and I was out there on that field every Friday with the same feeling. So terribly grateful to be able to sit there and not miss it all. I had a marvelous experience. Some of you know Keith C. who was a professional football player who was a member of our organization here. And his son was playing on the opposing team that my son was playing on. So we attended the game together and as it turned out, his son was in the end zone and my son was guarding him. And the ball was passed and his son was supposed to receive it and my kid intercepted and ran that ball back 65 yards.
I tell you, I went eighth and I was beating him on the head and I was going crazy and it actually was the first time I wet my pants since I sobered up. God, it was just too much. And if I had been drunk, I would have missed it all. I wouldn't have missed the wetting the pants because I always did that. It was just such a joy to be able to feel those things instead of that dead feeling I used to have. Such a joy to be able to feel those things.
And I was at that kid's formal wedding. I'm going to another one next month. My oldest son is getting married. That's the intruder I'm talking about now. I went to his formal wedding and I remember standing in the back of the double doors where my oldest son was supposed to come down the aisle and get the old lady and take her up the aisle. And I remember standing there thinking how it could have been the other way where I would not even have been able to attend that wedding. But instead, I was privileged to stand there with this green satin gown on, having had a bath, and had underwear on and standing there walking down the aisle with my head up and my kid squeezed my arm.
And he gave me the message that he was proud of his mother. And you know, I got choked up again. And I get down toward the front and on the right hand side, I see the startled eyes of those neighbors that saw me fall in the gutters and borrowing a cup of bourbon and doing those things, you know. And they looked at me like, you know, they had seen some apparition, which indeed I guess they did. And I started, I really got choked up then because when I sat down, the woman that lived next door to me that saw me at my worst, tapped me on the shoulder and as I turned, she kissed me on the cheek. And that was the message and I broke down and cried again.
God, you know, I could have missed it. I could have missed it all. But I am one of those who really believes that AA works best when things go bad. That's when it really works. Because you see, my daughter at the age of 11 picked up her first drink and she was an immediate alcoholic. And for the ensuing years, I knew the heartbreak, the sleepless nights, the frustration. The sleepless nights, the frustrations, the going to jails, juvenile halls, going to San Diego, going to Oakland to pick her up, not knowing where she was for days at a time,
[01:15:04]
if she was. God, only you parents that have kids out there that are running know what that is. God, it was the worst heartbreak of my life. And I would cry and I had a lot to deal with my own ego because here I was the queen of AA in the valley and this rotten kid wasn't listening to me. God, if she would only listen to me. I have been able to help so many people and she won't listen to me. And I was angry at her. I was angry. And I couldn't do anything. Thank God I had that job at the hospital to keep my mind occupied at least part of the time. And the police would come down to the hospital and embarrass me. And God, it was just such a nightmare. And then one day she came to me and I guess she kind of wiped herself out. And it was about the time when things fell into place where it was possible for me to move. I had been offered a job to run a woman's 12-step house in Honolulu. And I thought, here's the answer. Now, she wants help and I'm tired of this kind of work I'm doing. And I want to work with women alcoholics. And the gates are open. And so we went over there. Now, I know now that it was a geographic. But deep in my heart I was hoping that it wasn't. And of course it was. We got over there and she got mixed up with the same kind of people. And things kept getting worse for her. And I kept doing all those things that I knew I shouldn't do. I kept giving her another chance and letting her come home under certain conditions. And she'd stay home for a couple of days and then out again. By now she was involved in drugs. And I tell you, the worst part of it was watching her turning into the same kind of animal that I had become. And there was nothing I could do. There was absolutely nothing I could do. The only thing I could do, which I did, I joined Al-Anon. And thank God for those Al-Anon women over in Honolulu.
They were the ones who gave me the strength, the direction, and everything I needed to ultimately do what I finally had to do. And it was the last thing I wanted to do. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my sobriety. I waited for the time when she came to me finally and asked for one more chance. And I gave her that chance because I took her down to the airport in Honolulu. And as she came unglued, came apart, screaming for another chance, I shoved her under the airplane and told her to get the hell out of my life. And I had to walk away as fast as I could because I knew, I knew that I would take her back if I didn't walk away. Some months later, my boss let me have a mini-vacation and I came up to California. And on a Sunday night I went up to one of my home groups. And you know, it tore me up to hear my daughter read Chapter 5 from the podium. She's had five years of sobriety now. And I have to tell you, Al-Aman, some other good news. She's had a joy in Al-Aman.
She married a drunk. Still practicing. Will it never end? This has been the most exciting
[01:20:20]
part of my whole life, my life in AA, because it is living. Everything I have, everything I hold dear, I have been given by the people of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was just thinking, and it came to pass. I never read in the Bible where it says, and it came to stay. And that helps me when I'm in one of those places. And it helps me to remember ye of little faith if I'll just get out of the way. I still attend meetings regularly. I am privileged to work with alcoholics every day because I love drunks. I especially love crying drunks.
I have a joy of living that came through the pain. Most of all, most of all, I love to be able to walk with my head up and look anyone in the eye. I don't have to live looking over my shoulder anymore. I don't have to wonder where I was last night. We have a black gal out in our area that I just love. And I really identify with her because she says, I used to wake up in the morning and say, Where are we and who is you? I don't have to live like that anymore, either. I have so many gifts in here that you all know. You all know. You gave it to me. And with all my heart, I thank God for my sobriety and for the people who cared about me when I couldn't care about myself. I owe everything I have. I have never done anything for AA. I have tried to put a little bit back. I've never put anything in the AA basket. I've tried to put a little bit back. That's all.
But most of all, what I treasure most of all is the fact that you people have taught me to walk in the dignity of sobriety. And for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.