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Source: DICOBE-00668 – Mary H – GOPHER STATE RNDP VI – 1979-06-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00668-mary-h-gopher-state-rndp-vi-1979-06-15.mp3 Duration: 00:49:42
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Sixty, a hundred, two hundred. The crowd's coming in. That I give you from Duluth, Minnesota, Old Mary. Applause And Don Nicholson was going to help you with the introduction by letting you know that I had gained some weight. I was Old Mary with a big stomach. Hi everybody, my name is Mary and I am an alcoholic. I'm Mary. And I'm grateful to be here. I can't honestly say that I'm grateful to Lawrence right now.
My head tells me I should be. My gut tells me that I'm scared to death and that he's the one that got me into this thing in the first place. But it really has been a pleasure talking with Lawrence over the phone and feeling so welcomed down here. I'd also like to thank the committee. Whoever you are, I have no idea who the committee members are. You're very anonymous. But I think about, as I come to each Gopher State Roundup, and I've not missed any yet, thank God, because it's been such a highlight in my life, about the hours and the toil and the sweat and the struggles and the real effort that goes into putting something like this together.
And so I'd like to give everybody a hand who has had a part in throwing this party for us. Applause It is a remarkable thing to be speaking in my own home state and to have been reached out to by so many people who say, I'm looking so forward to hearing you and I'll be there in the audience supporting you and loving you and holding you up. And right now that's so important because I am so nervous. I got a call from St. Paul Thursday night when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to bring and what I needed to pack.
And it was from a woman who had spent the last year in Duluth while going to school and had become an important part of our AA community. And she wanted to let me know that you all were here waiting for all of us who are coming from other parts of the state and other parts of the country. And that kind of a warm welcome is so important. It happens verbally when you say it, but most importantly it happens through your eyes, through your smile, and through the message of hope that you carry to each one of us when you come to a meeting like this and carry the solution with you.
So I'm so very grateful for that. I sobered up when I was 28 years old. I had never been married. I still have not been married. I feel like I've been divorced several times. Laughter And I came to this program as a jaded woman. There was just no two ways about it. I was dirty. I was dirty on the outside and I was dirty on the inside. And I had never set out in life to become a dirty woman alcoholic.
But in fact, that's the story of my life at the age of 28. You know, as I look back, I'm sure I wasn't consciously aware of it, but I remember being eager about life. It was as if my eyes were big and bright and I was kind of bushy-tailed, and I was sure that there were going to be all kinds of marvelous things ahead of me on this journey that we call life. And with the kind of alcoholic personality that I have, the kind of things that I can identify that were going on with me emotionally and in my head long before I took the drink, for a person like that, with the beginning series of bitter disillusionments that I began to experience, that bright-eyedness turned into despair and the optimism turned into a cynicism, and I was no longer able to be excited about living, to be excited about anybody or anything.
And that's what you have given me, is the excitement about living again. You've given me clean insides and you've given me clean outsides, and they do match. And I'm so grateful. For the most part, they match. And when they don't match, it's another opportunity for me to grab a hold of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and find out where the problem lies and make another piece of growth along this spiritual journey.
I was raised by a wonderful family in a good part of Chicago, a nice suburb and section. Now, it wasn't always that way. We had lived in the heart of Chicago up until I was a freshman in high school. And, you know, my goal in life always had been to be a part of the force for good in this universe. I never wanted to be evil. I never wanted to do anybody a bad turn. The road to hell is always paved with good intentions, and my intentions always were to be kind and to be loving and to be generous of spirit with others.
[00:05:01]
And somewhere along the line, I got things so followed up, because even though that's what I wanted, what I seemed to so desperately need was so much from you, from other people. I needed to be approved of. I needed to be wanted. And that started back in that wonderful home. And somehow or another, I fastened my dependence on my father. He was the first victim that I became consciously aware of using, really, to meet some pretty unhealthy needs.
And, you know, it's awfully hard to expect a human being to be totally perfect and totally loving on a consistent, constant basis. And that's what I expected him to be. And when he went right on being human, I wouldn't allow him the privilege of being human. And I started to exact a price from him. And when I finally realized with this keen, pre-alcoholic mind that I was never going to get enduring approval from him, I simply picked up my balls and went somewhere else to play the game.
And so that fastened onto my schoolmates. And it was always so important to me to be a part of the group and a part of the crowd, to feel an included, significant other amongst my playmates. And, you know, we're so fickle as kids. We're so fickle as adults oftentimes. And it was bound to happen the day that Susie and Jamie decided they didn't want to play with me. They wanted to go down the street and play.
And once again, another piece of bitter dissolution set in. And I felt rejected. Obviously, I wasn't being rejected, but that was the way I felt. And it seemed as if as long as I can remember, my feeling life was like raw nerve endings. And I've heard people quote Chuck C. saying that we are highly sensitive people. Everything in life hurts us. And that was certainly true for me. That it might have just been a casual occurrence on a play day was a total wipeout, a devastation for me.
And I began to believe my basic assumption was really true, that somehow or some way I was not good enough. I didn't earn or deserve anybody's approval nor their love. And the tragedy of that was that it got permeated into my relationship, whatever I had with the God of my understanding. And it's an old idea that I constantly fight, even today in sobriety, that somehow or another I have to be good enough to earn or deserve your love, and most importantly, the God of my understanding love.
I know in my head I don't need to, but I didn't know that then. And it's still hard in my heart sometimes to trust that. Well, when I discovered that people were pretty fickle and unpredictable, I decided to fasten my dependence for approval on some more predictable, tangible, factual kinds of things. And that's why I set out to be the best student in the world. Because I figured, really, if I could be a good student and get straight A's, I'd have everything.
Not only would I have my teacher's approval, but I would also be able to backtrack and get my father's approval, too. And so I set out to be an achiever. And you know, it's funny, I look back now, thank God for the Fourth Step and Alcoholics Anonymous to be able to help us to identify the old patterns that keep getting played out in our lives over and over again, even though the he, she's, its, and they's change.
Because I began to see that my old pattern was a two-fold one. There was always that positive kind of drive, that positive channel to achieve, to attain, to aspire for the highest. And that was always healthy. And then there was always the other channel, which said, you're not good enough, you'll never make it anyway, you may as well give up, and you've got to kill you before somebody else does it for you.
And so to live with that kind of schizophrenic, dual personality and dual lifestyle became very trying at times. Mostly, my achievement in the positive orientation got played out with my job and with my school. And the destructive and negative kinds of things happened in my relationships. And that was another indication of what my value system was like. But people always came second. They came second to all, to my own needs, to my own hurts, to my own pain, and to my own need to aspire, to the ability to perform.
And, of course, thanks to the seventh and, or the eighth and ninth steps, I've been able not only to repair the damaged relationships from my drinking past, but I've also been able to keep the damaged relationships that occur on a sometimes basis in sobriety fixed. Because people are now the most important thing in the world to me. People in and out of my understanding. And you gave me that value system.
Well, as with all things up until that point, my perception had been quite faulty. And grades didn't always succeed. They sometimes failed me too, because grades are written by teachers who, again, are human beings. And what a wipeout it was for me on the days when I would get a B on an exam or a C on an exam.
[00:10:05]
And with that kind of pressure, it was just terrible. And finally, I think my commitment just became, at that time we were living in Chicago, it was just to become a hoodlum. One of the Chicago hoodlums. And I ran with the gang. And boy, there was that great satisfaction of being able to be a renegade and a rebel. And, of course, earn my father's disapproval. Because if we can't get somebody's approval, what's the next best thing?
We might as well set out to get their disapproval. And so I can remember walking to school for, oh, just days upon days upon days, through hail and sleet and all of the rough winter days in Chicago, so that I could save my bus money to get this fine charcoal gray jacket. And it had turquoise under the collar and turquoise on the sleeves. And all my girlfriends had the same jacket. And then all of the guys that we ran with had similar jackets.
And I felt cool and I felt so included and so a part of. I was really beginning to think that maybe I had found a way to live comfortably and peaceably amongst you. And then, of course, the sky fell through. My dad came home one day with just sheer joy and excitement and announced to the family that he had purchased a beautiful home in one of the northern suburbs of Chicago. And I saw that as a personal attack on me and on my comfort and well-being.
I didn't have any problem with self-centeredness. That is one of our problems, we believe, because I saw that whole movement in terms of how it was going to affect me and how could he be so cruel once again so as not to consider my well-being before making such an important decision in such a major move. Now I look back and I realize that I've been blessed with the finest of parents, two people who have done well, they're perfect parents.
There's just no two ways about it. They gave me the best that they had and they did the best for me that they knew how to do. And, you know, once again you set me free from an old pattern of holding my parents responsible and accountable for my pain when you began to help me to see that I was the inheritor of the best of two possible worlds, my mom's tenderness and her sometimes shyness, but it mostly comes out as gentleness, and my father's stamina and his integrity and his ability to conduct himself according to the courage of his convictions.
You see, my faulty perception didn't see that at all. At the time I saw myself as the inheritor of the worst of two possible worlds, the inheritor of a woman who called herself my mom who was meek and who was afraid and who was shy, and my father, on the other hand, who seemed to me rigid and close-minded. So I didn't have trouble again with the attitude change, the importance and the necessity of having a change in attitude.
And so you set me free. You helped me to see that there were no good or bad people in this world. There were those who knew and those who didn't yet know. And my dad, with all of his wisdom, still had some things that he didn't know, and I began to see that he did the best that he could with what he knew and with what he could do. And so it's been a privilege to grow with them and to learn to love them and to let myself be loved by them in sobriety.
But it wasn't true then. Well, as with all of us, eventually I had to face the fact that I was growing up. And, of course, nothing would do it but that I went on to college because that's the climate in which I was raised. I spent the four years of my high school in an alcoholic stupor much of the time. I wasn't in an alcoholic stupor. I was wound up in an emotional stupor that kept me out of touch with the reality of my situation and kept me very much a reactor rather than a responder to life and life situations.
And the reason I'm convinced that I spent those four years in turmoil that way is because of an important lesson I learned when we did move. I had switched schools in midstream, and, you know, not only was I feeling comfortable in the heart of Chicago and feeling like the new neighborhood was going to be awful and people weren't going to be friendly at all and I was going to have a hard time adjusting, but I also switched into whole new classrooms and I felt like everybody was much smarter than I am.
You know, it never does us any good as alcohol or drug-dependent people to be told how beautiful we are or how smart we are or how outgoing and personable we are unless we believe it ourselves. And I don't need to tell you that I didn't believe any of those things about me. And so I was scared to death about grades and about exams and about failing in the way that I really desperately needed to succeed.
And I learned an important lesson that I didn't put together until afterwards because of hindsight. I never learn anything when I'm going through it. It's always after I'm out of it and I look back and I say, After I'm out of it and I look back and I say, that's what I was supposed to learn.
[00:15:02]
What I learned was that I brought myself to the new neighborhood and I brought the attitude that nobody would like me and that I would be an outcast. And of course it was real hard, you know, in those days everybody was very collegiate looking in the new neighborhood and I, of course, wore my turquoise jacket a lot. And I was the only one wearing a turquoise wool jacket, or a gray charcoal gray jacket with a turquoise.
And I didn't fit in because I made sure I wasn't going to fit in. I made sure that I looked different, that I talked different, and that I acted different from the people around me. And it was part of that rebellion in me, I dare you, I dare you not to like me. And at the same time I was making sure that nobody could. And of course what I was covering up totally was the fear. The fear of once again feeling like a sore thumb and feeling like I'm on the periphery or on the fringes and not quite figuring out how to be able to get into the center.
And I do recall one day when I was in my sophomore year at high school with still very few friends and about to face a geometry exam knowing that I was going to flunk it. I was 15 years old at the time and there were a couple of people who I think began to feel sorry for me and felt that maybe they needed to include me. And so they asked me if I wanted to go down to have a party at the beach before the exam.
And of course I wasn't concerned about having a party. I was just concerned about being asked and being able to be included. And I said, oh yes, you bet. And we did. We went down to a lovely place called Avista where Al Capone used to hang out. And I thought that was so romantic. And somebody broke out a six-pack of beer in an Arbor can to me. And I never thought about consequences. My God, thinking about consequences of my behavior, well that was the most bizarre thing.
When I sobered up and people asked me hadn't I ever thought about the consequences of my behavior, I thought, well, of course not if you do. That was just as foreign to me as anything in the world. And so that outstretched hand with that beer in it meant that that was the key to my fitting in and my being accepted. And I never thought about whether or not I'd like beer or whether I'd like what it would do to me or how I'd be able to handle it or not handle it.
And I'm drinking. And I truly don't recall whether I had one or two beers that afternoon. But I do remember the feelings. I do remember the feelings. In those days I was a stutterer and stammerer. It was very difficult for me to talk. I was always comparing my insides to other people's outsides. And, of course, everybody else always looked so perfect and whole and shiny and clean. Like you had found some sort of answer that I had desperately been looking for and had not been able to find.
And when I reached for that beer and started to drink it, it no longer became important about whether or not I was witty or whether or not I was able to hold my own with you. I just knew I could. It became a solution. There was a real answer to lie in that can and in the effect the booze had once it went down my hatch. So first important lesson, you know, I don't have to be afraid of you anymore. That's neat, you know.
Especially if you've lived a life based on fear and always wondered if somebody was going to throw you a football at any second that you weren't going to be able to feel. Second important lesson, I was somewhat witty. And I'd always wanted to be witty and funny and kind of humorous and kind of casual and blase. My gut never let me do that very well because it was always trimmed up in knots. But see, that booze just un-knotted all those knots.
And it gave me a glibness of tongue that allowed me to hold my own and to be somewhat humorous with you. And the third important lesson I learned that day was that I walked into that geometry exam just as cool as a cucumber. And rather than coming out of the course with a D in it, I came out with a B. So I figured with my keen alcoholic mind that I must have gotten an A in the final exam because I got a B in the course.
So I learned three key lessons with my first experience with booze. And for the rest of my drinking, those were the lessons that I wanted to reproduce. And you see, it was just a thrilling discovery for me because that can of beer didn't talk back to me. And it didn't have the power to withhold the grades, so I thought. And it didn't hold the power to disapprove of me. And how little I knew. I'm grateful today.
I know that when I sobered up, you shared with me that it's so important to live one day at a time. And if we could look into a crystal ball and see what was coming down the path in our sober lives, we may not want to hang around. We may not want to hang around. Because there are trials and there are tribulations. And on the other hand, not only may we not want to hang around, but we may want to be so anxious to get into something exciting coming down the path that we lose the joy of the now moment.
But had I been able to look into the crystal ball in those days, I'm sure that I would have just wanted to end it at the time and just take my life.
[00:20:04]
Because how we persevere, how we endure through all of those dark nights of the soul, I have never yet been able to figure out. But to this day, I can remember that the worst part of my drinking was the three and the four and the five o'clocks in the mornings when I was lying in bed either with or without somebody. It didn't make any difference. I was still alone. And I thought, oh, God, will the day never come?
Because I just had a sense that if at least if I could see sunshine, if I could just see the sun come up, that maybe somehow, some way, something that day would be okay. But, you know, it seemed like those hours just ticked away. They were so long and they were so desperate and they were so very lonely and so very frightening to me. And I know so many of you can relate to that because that's the day, that's the point of reckoning.
It's in hours like that when we begin to say or mutter out loud, however we can do it, the kind of naked truth that Marie talked about last night. I went away to college because I thought that that was the thing to do. And the inside turmoil, which had been a constant part of my life experience, was there raging. And I knew that I was getting close to the end. I knew that I had to find some sort of peace and solitude and comfort.
Somehow, somewhere, some way, soon, I wasn't going to be able to go on. Even booze, although it provided temporary relief, was starting to turn against me at that time. And I recall the day that my dad and I drove to a Catholic girls' school in Indiana. And we were going to check that out. I had never had any Catholic education in my life, which was real important in terms of getting into that school.
As we drove out of the campus, there was a kind of inner tranquility and peace that came about inside of me as a result of those beautiful surroundings, the trees and the greenery, the hush of the day, the birds chirping, and the quietness and serenity with which people went about their business and went about loving one another. And my God, I thought I finally had found it. I was so excited I could not believe it.
I did take admission exams for college, and I had not done as well on those exams as the admissions committee would have liked. But the fact that I hadn't had any Catholic education was just wonderful. They loved that idea. And so they said, you must come here. They were going to get me before it was too late. It was getting to be almost too late. And so I entered that school, again, with that kind of positive-negative combination going on.
On the one hand, I was sure that this was my hope and my salvation. And on the other hand, I was sure I wasn't going to make it because I hadn't done as well on the exams as everybody else had. You know, that inferiority complex. And I don't care if it doesn't make any difference if we've got IQs of 190. I have not ever met anybody with an inferiority complex who is able to succeed. You know, sooner or later we're going to trip ourselves up.
And certainly that was true for me. I spent that year desperately, desperately studying. I studied so hard I couldn't retain anything. You know, everything was being banked on whether or not I was going to succeed that year in school. I was also very taken with the boys who were in the Catholic Boys' School across the road. And I was still drinking. And so I was destined to fail. Towards the end of the school year, it was about a month away from the end of the year, I had been put on academic probation after the first semester.
And the heat was on. You know, I was already anticipating what it was going to be like going back home after my father had helped to foot this college bill with grades that didn't measure up to his standards. Really they were my standards, but I laid it on him. And I was scared. And because my fear had learned to find temporary relief through chemicals, I learned very quickly that the only way I was going to make it through those last couple of weeks was to spend a lot of time getting boots.
And one night we went to a pizza parlor. It was a Friday night. And we had to come back and check in. And I was pretty loaded. And I thought it would be real funny. I was real daring and risky and just full of the devil when I had been drinking. Then I didn't worry about a thing. And so I snuck in and I signed in and then I snuck back out, having told my date that I wanted to talk with him for a few minutes.
Well, he waited outside dutifully. I seemed to have that kind of knack of being able to at least look as if I had some control over other people. And when I got into that car and told him I was free for the night, I thought he was just going to die. And he said, no, no, no, no, you've got to go back in. And I told him I can't go back in. The doors were locked and the only way I could go back in was to expose myself and show that I had signed in and that I was trying to pull something over on the nuns.
[00:25:00]
And so in good, dutiful fashion, he said, okay, okay. If you can't go back, we'll find something to do. And we did. We went and got something to drink and we drove to Chicago. No sex. I was just so proud of myself. No sex at all. We drove back to Chicago and we rapped on my girlfriend's back window and she let us in and we had a merry time in her kitchen and then we went back to the school. And you see, sometime between when I had left and when I got back in the morning, they discovered I was gone and they were there waiting for me.
And then Jay was up. And that was the beginning of what I experienced as total blackness, when my life started to go black. And there was nothing I could do to change it. There was nothing I could do. I didn't learn from that. I didn't begin to anticipate the consequences of my behavior as a result of that. But I do remember the terrible fear of having to go home and face my father, having been kicked out of my first year of college.
I mean, it was just awful. There was just no two ways about it. I really thought my life had ended. But you see, at the same time, I was suffering from this righteous indignation because they had accused me of going into town locally and checking up with this guy and I knew I hadn't done that. Now, I might have done that every other night during the school year, and part of them I did, you know, but it was that one night they accused me of doing something like that and I was just totally indignant.
And what it helped to do was to fan my resentment. It fanned my resentment against institutions. It fanned my resentment against classes of people such as all Catholics and certainly all nuns and priests. But most importantly, that was the beginning of my stomping my foot and saying, okay, God, you failed me for the last time and this is it. And so I pulled down the screen and then from then on I pretended as if I was one of those sophisticated, not agnostics.
I wasn't willing to settle for second best. I became an atheist and I found myself a good atheist boyfriend who was very bright and was involved with the Communist Party. And then I would just listen to him and I'd get all the information and all the arguments about why it was cool to be an atheist and then I'd just go out and tell everybody I was an atheist and use all of his words and his arguments.
And it was great fun in those days because then I could be a sophisticated woman and I could drink like the best of them and then, of course, I was cool. I was always trying to be cool. In that little story is another key thing and that was my chameleon behavior. I became whatever it seemed important to become, to please whoever it was that I was trying to please at the time. If it was football season, I'd look for a football jock to go with.
And if it was exam times, I'd want the brightest person in the school. And on and on, dance time, the best dancer. And it was like I had no insides of my own. I had no values of my own. I said I was in love with the American flag and motherhood and apple pie and I really appreciated being born in the free country of America. And certainly love was important. I didn't know how to love or be loved, but love was important.
And yet, despite what I said, all of my behavior ran contrary because always chemicals, getting the drugs and getting the alcohol came before the people in my life. And always making sure that my needs were met or my wants were fulfilled became far more important than being responsive to the people around me. And so I became a chameleon with no insides. And you know, it's awfully hard to walk through life with no insides.
I didn't realize how tough it was until after I sobered up. I was really fortunate to be able to get through college. I was going to show not only God and my father and everybody else, but I was going to finish as a college graduate if it was the last thing I did. And it was almost the last thing I did. And then I took a geographic cure to Baltimore. And life was bliss for about one year. I had been living in Chicago up until that time, and by then I was a full-fledged alcoholic.
There's no doubt in my mind. I'm sure that I became full-fledged alcoholic by the time I was 16. But because of my situation, because of the peer pressures, and because of parental pressures, there were some social controls, at least for that little while. And so I left, and I left Chicago as a result of, God, you know, I hear all the time about battered women. All of a sudden, here we are talking about battered women.
My God, I was a battered woman for years. And you know, I understand, because as bright as I was, I never knew that I had a choice of getting out of that relationship. I felt hooked in. And, you know, when I hear about my mother, In, and when, you know, when I hear about my, and you know, I understand because as bright as I was, I never knew that I had a choice of getting out of that relationship. I felt hooked in. And when, you know, when I hear about my dependency, when you share your experience, strength and hope about the disease called alcoholism, I'm able to take my dependence on alcohol and other mood-altering drugs and also see how my dependence on other people and on sick
[00:30:24]
behavior patterns was as much a chaining kind of phenomenon in my life as was the addiction to the chemical. And even though I knew I couldn't live with this man, I believed I could not live without him. And so, over and over again, the cycle repeated itself, living from crisis to crisis. What you helped me to see was what my alcoholic want. And so, I, but I got slick. You know, it wasn't like I was just being sweet and nice, then all of a sudden got, got battered. I learned very good about kind of easing up behind somebody and like sticking them a little bit until pretty soon they'd turn around out of self-defense, ready to swing, and then I'd be standing there daring them to swing. And then when this particular fellow did, then I'd feel so upset, like how could anybody do that to myself? And you know, it took so long in sobriety for me to see that I set myself up for everything that came my way. You know, I keep hearing, you know, I keep hearing from, from all of you and from AA members around that, that our being attracts our life. What we put out is what we get back. And, and now I can see that. And so, you've given me the key to the, the kingdom. I don't have to set myself up for that kind of abuse because no longer do I feel like I'm worthy of being beaten. And so, I fled that violent relationship thinking everything was going to be marvelous and went to Baltimore. And for a while it was. And then I got into graduate school there. And it was the beginning of the end because by then I was so sick. I was starting to end up in hospitals. I was starting to end up in psychiatrist offices. And I, you know, the highlight of my, of my drinking career was the day that my psychiatrist terminated me because I was being run out of Baltimore and forced to go back to Chicago. And he said, you know, you have been the most difficult patient I have ever had to work with. And I just smiled. I thought, I thought that was the most wonderful thing in the world. Well, thanks to being the nine steps later on, after sobriety, I was able to write to that man and to thank him for all the help that he had given me. Because despite the fact that he never once addressed my alcoholism, even though I went plastered every session, he began to help me to uncover some things for myself that became really meaningful for me in my sobriety, having to do with my relationships with my mom and my dad and the kinds of things that we learned to deal with in the fourth step of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And my hope is that, that as a result of his work with me, that he would begin to see that Alcoholics Anonymous was the most important thing to be able to refer people like myself to. And I trust that somehow, in his own way, that seed was planted with him and that he's been able to send others like me to a fellowship of recovering men and women who have the answers that we so desperately need. I was shipped back to Chicago, and for the first time in my life, I think, as far as I can recall, my father said, I no longer have control over this situation or over this woman, and I will help her to get the help that she needs.
And I can remember sitting in the living room, and in those days, I thought I was extremely sexy, very much so. I weighed about 100 pounds, and I had gray skin and very skinny hair, which always looked oily. In an attempt to get a new lease on life, I had gone out and bought myself a lot of new clothes. Most of them were peasant-looking outfits with big puffy sleeves and little round scalloped neck and short skirts. I looked like a little girl. I looked like a little 12-year-old girl with gray skin and skinny hair.
And yet, I thought I was the sexiest thing walking around Chicago. You know, I was sure that this was going to be the neatest thing that had hit them for a long while. And I can remember the family conferences. How many of us have had family conferences? You know, how heartbreaking it must have been for my family in those days. They didn't know anything about alcoholism. For them, alcoholism was the same thing that it was for me. It was something that happened to the skid-row bum or the flophouse fanny. It wasn't something that happened to their daughter Mary, who was desperately trying to work on a graduate degree.
[00:35:07]
And yet, here she was, sitting in their living room, daring them to say anything that would hurt my feelings or offend me in any way because I was getting very thirsty. You know, it's hard to go through a family conference without something to drink. And they called in our illustrious family physician, bless his heart, Dr. Swisher. I'll never forget him. And he was from Evanston, Illinois. And he had had a lot of experience working with alcoholics.
And he took one look at me. He didn't even have to hear any of the history. He took one look at me and he said, John and Mabel, you need to prepare yourself for your daughter's death. She's not going to survive for more than six months if she continues on this way. And you know, even then, that didn't faze me. I still felt as if he was talking about somebody else and this thing wasn't going to happen to me.
And then began that series of hospitalizations that we come to know so well. When I got dried out and got a little bit healthy so I could go back out and drink again. And every time I went into the hospital, I had a firm and fresh resolve. This time it would be different. And I believed it. I believed it with every piece and fiber of my inside being. I knew that now I had the family behind me and now I knew that I could somehow, someway beat this game called alcoholism. And you know, always I felt safe and secure in those hospitals even though I was shaky and physically not well.
And the moment I got discharged and walked out that door, that thing came over me. That thing called panic. I didn't know what I was panicked about. I didn't know what I had to fear. I just knew that I was full of fear and full of panic. And my brain began to race and the war started to get set up. Where will I go? What will I do? Who will have me? And pretty soon the only way to relieve that was with one short shot. That's all I needed, just something to calm me down.
And of course within a few hours I'd be off to the races again and I'd end up back in the hospital. And finally at a point in time when my physician knew that I was willing and ready to hear the words, he talked to me about Alcoholics Anonymous. And I started to go to my first meetings there in Evanston. I'd been to one meeting in Baltimore and of course I thought you were marvelous. I thought that you had something that was just phenomenal. I could see it in your eyes and I could read it on your face, but I wasn't that bad yet. Nor was I going to get that bad because I was still deluded into thinking I had control over my destiny and control over the manageability of my life as well as the power over alcohol and what it did to me.
But I began a series of flirtations with Alcoholics Anonymous and that's all that it was. I brought my body there but my mind stayed obsessed with needing to drink. And I couldn't figure out how to stay sober. Everybody else seemed to know how and I just couldn't. It was like I bit my tongue and I just bided my time until I could get through that meeting and get out and get a drink. Because it was just going to be one last drink and I wasn't going to tell anybody. And then I'd keep going to AA and I'd be home free. And of course I'd get plastered all over again. And then pretty soon I started to wonder if even Alcoholics Anonymous could work for me.
Well, it didn't because I wouldn't let it. And I stayed involved very active with 13th Step work. And of course everybody in the AA group were furious with the men because they thought they were taking advantage of such a nice, sweet, innocent young thing. And I had become such a slick manipulator so that everybody always saw me as victimized. And it was important, you know, it was important that you saw me as victimized because I had a big part to fill. We are like actors on a stage. My God, did that fit for me.
I had learned how to play the victim role and I was good at it. And I got others who were good at falling into it. And so I never once owned the responsibility for my own recovery during any of that time. And working with Step Step seemed about as foreign to me as anything could be. Well, to make a long story short, pretty soon Alcoholics Anonymous members in that area started to put their heads together and figured that this woman needed something more than what she was getting at the time. And they bought me some time. They bought me some time in one of those marvelous, quote, healing centers we have here in Minnesota, which is how I ended up in this state. And I'll always be forever grateful for that.
Because I went through that treatment center. I loved it so well I went through twice. And the second time it was a disaster. The second time I was there for six months and I didn't care whether I lived or died. Well, no, I did. I cared very desperately. I wanted to die. I didn't want to live at all.
[00:40:12]
But I learned something about what can happen when we're selfish about ourselves and selfish in terms of not being considerate of other people. I got involved with a man that I met the first time I went through treatment. And as a result, largely as a result of that involvement, far too early in the stage of sobriety, that man is dead today as a result of an overdose. And I ended up trying to take my life and ending up back in treatment for all that time. And so I don't take my charge as a responsible member of Alcoholics Anonymous lightly anymore. I know I didn't cause his death, but I sure didn't help his recovery in whatever way, shape, or form.
So it's important for me to keep my own act clean and work the steps to the best of my ability and to take care of my own needs rather than to look to you to take care of my needs for me lest I do you harm. I don't ever want to have to do that again in sobriety if I can help it. And chances are I don't have to, you know, if I keep coming here and staying one day at a time working the 12 steps to the best of my ability.
After treatment, they asked me to go to Duluth, and the world began to open up then. You know, all of the darkness and all of the blackness that I could look back through my rearview mirror and see behind me seemed so well worthwhile now that it was over and the sunshine began to shine. Because what happened at that point was that I was starting to get well enough to begin to hear the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, to begin to hear the message of recovery, to begin to not only hear but to begin to apply the principles of my life.
One of the most marvelous principles that saved me over and over and over again was give full love and attention to what you're doing, and when you're finished, go on to what comes next next. And for a woman who lived with a war going on inside of herself at all times and with a Grand Central Station head, worried about the future and lamenting the past, the freedom that came about her as a result of practicing that principle in my life is something that you all know.
The ability to live comfortably and peaceably with myself in this moment now as a result of working the steps, largely the first step, being aware of who I am, being aware of the powerlessness of myself over alcohol and the inability to manage my own affairs and the willingness to let a God of my understanding take over has set me free. Not only was I introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous in a new and fresh and vibrant way which I could handle and grab a hold of, but I was introduced to a number of women in the Duluth area who belonged to Alcoholics Anonymous and one of those special AA women friends asked me earlier tonight if I was going to be funny when I talked tonight and I told her no, I'm not funny, I wish I could be and I wish I were, it's almost a disaster when I try to be.
But it's women like that and the marvelous men in the community that have helped me to accept who I am because I hated me when I came here, I hated me, I hated the filth that was my gut, I hated the filth that was my mind, I hated the filth that was my mouth and I wanted so desperately to be able to walk with the kind of integrity I had seen my dad walk with. And you began to help me to see that the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous contained values, self-acceptance, love for others, cleaning house, reliance upon God, going out of my way to be of service and those were principles and values that as a result of working the steps I could live according to.
And so now I have a value system of my very own that works for me, not only do I say it's my value system but you can tell that it is because of the way I walk thanks to the gift that you've given to me. And I'm feeling these days like I don't know anything. It feels like I'm just absolutely being emptied out and I don't know anything. And for the first couple of weeks experiencing that it was so awkward and uncomfortable because I still believe that I ought to know a lot and convince you by the way I talk and what I have to say that I know a lot.
And then all of a sudden I started to understand that I was being cleared out for whatever my next things next are in the way of being of maximum service to a God of my understanding and those about me. And so I accept not knowing a lot right now. So I accept not knowing a lot right now. I just know that I'm here in AA. I'm a sober member and a grateful member, and that's all that's really important.
[00:45:02]
I've learned that a God of my understanding, in fact, has the power to remove obsessions and compulsions and to lift problem areas that I carried into sobriety with me and that, rather than getting better, got worse. The problem areas that I carried around inside of myself, even though I was committed not to have secrets, because I didn't want you to know about it. I didn't want you to know I had the kind of problems I had in sobriety.
I wanted you to think that now that I was sober, life was getting much better in all areas of my life. But I was forced to take some action after the first of the year, and I had a cleansing, a healing, if you will, of, well, it was problems with food. You know, I was either overeating on a constant basis or I was starving myself on a constant basis. It was one extreme or the other. And because we have been so generous with our 12 steps, there are other programs that help, too. And so I found some solutions in another program, another 12-step program.
And for me, that's so important, because I lived for seven desperate years in sobriety, thinking that I would always have to deal with this problem myself. And I've come to find that there are problems other than alcohol, active alcoholism, that I can suffer from and that I can also experience the grace of God and his relief from. And so I've been real grateful. There's been some marvelous things. It's amazing how much my body has started to even out and how much more I'm able to work my 11th step now that I'm able to get much stiller, now that I'm not operating in extremes the way I was even in the first seven years of my sobriety.
And so I'm looking forward to a growing relationship with the inner voice within, largely as a result of the 11th step, but most importantly as a result of working all 12 steps with Alcoholics Anonymous and experiencing an increasing spiritual awakening, just as you have promised me. I've learned how I've stored lots of negative feelings in my body and in sobriety, and I can remember, Bob, how many times you have helped me out with things you have said about how in sobriety we get well so fast and we begin to wall off our feeling life.
And so I began to understand how I have shortchanged Alcoholics Anonymous and shortchanged the 12 steps from addressing fully and completely all problem areas of my life, including my feelings, and that when anger comes, I don't have to deny it because it's not in keeping with being a good AA member. I can look at it and face it and not have to store it in my body so that it takes its toll with one of my organs or with my circulation system or anything else.
I can deal with it with renewed vigor with the 10th step, and I'm so looking forward to a new relationship with the 10th step of Alcoholics Anonymous so I can deal with the toxins in my life much more effectively on a daily basis because of the gift you have given me. I have never felt that I was a fearful person, not as fearful as many other AA members that I've encountered, and I have come to see that I am full of fear.
This is the first year that I've been able to look at fear in the face and say, there you are, and it's okay. Because of Alcoholics Anonymous and the love of God, who I am beginning to trust, with all of my being, I can face your fear and you don't have to propel me or compel me to live out of keeping with who I am, God's kid. So those are just some of the gifts. One more gift is the privilege of being able to be of service, and I was elected the general service representative for our group, and it's no big deal.
I had no idea how to be a GSR, and I didn't know what that entailed, and I didn't know anything about being in service, but I've begun to learn. And it's such a privilege, it is such a privilege to be able to hear about how the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is preserved and kept intact, so that people coming after me can have the same pure message that I was so fortunate to be able to have hand-delivered to me through you.
And so I'm excited about new challenges in terms of service work in my sobriety. Well, I'm sure grateful to be here, I feel like I've talked too long, and I love you for loving me, and I love you for letting me love you, because that's all that I know you and I have ever wanted to do. Thanks so much.