Audio
Transcript
Source: Hazel – Finding Freedom Through AA – Date Unknown.mp3 File: hazel-finding-freedom-through-aa-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:11:12
============================================================
Oh, thank you. I'm Hazel, and I'm an alcoholic, but for the grace of God and the wonderful AA program, I am here tonight with you all. But, uh, Danny didn't tell the story, as he usually tells us, up at the club. You know how he got into AA? [unclear] He takes me there. He didn't need it, but he took me there, because I was the recent one that got out of Mendota. But, for the grace of God, I would have been headed for just what you fellows are in, yourselves.
I was behind bars, definitely. I had landed in jail a couple of times. I swear, every time I walked out of the back door of the Cardinal Hotel, I know the cops were standing there waiting for me. I know they must have seen me sitting on the stool, and they were just waiting for me to fall off or walk out or something, because, bingo, they grabbed me. Anyway, um, I landed in Mendota, but the constant drinking and the crazy things that I was doing under the influence, that was a blessing, because I probably would have gone much farther and would have gotten into much more trouble and would have been probably sick or in my grave or something by now or in a mental institution.
Anyway, it wasn't so easy out of Mendota as it is nowadays. They just go out there for a few days and have a treatment to get on their feet, and they seem to have a little more freedom. I did not have that freedom. I was definitely behind bars [unclear], for the six weeks that I was there. I say six weeks. I was in for 30 days. If I'd have known we were going to have to pay the bill, I wouldn't have asked to stay in two more weeks.
But I just didn't feel as if my feet were going to be fairly flat on the ground getting out in 30 days. My mind, my cobwebs in my mind hadn't cleared out by that time, and so I know how long it takes. And after all, I had been drinking quite a while, but I mean, toward the end there, it was just tragic. It was trying to gulp a little food down. I couldn't stand it. I tried to get a little milk down, maybe a little buttermilk.
For weeks there, I just did not have any actual nourishment, and you can imagine what the booze was doing to my system. Physically, I wasn't too bad, but it went to my mind, my head, and I would just completely be fogged, and it just did take a long time to get the fog out, those cobwebs. And when I was supposed to be released, I said I just didn't feel as though I would be able to go out and be on the streets and face people at that time without going right back into the same pattern that I had gone into Mendota like.
So I asked for a few more. They didn't turn me down by my asking for a few more days, a week or two, and it did turn out to be two more weeks, which probably meant another hundred or two or something like that. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. I think it was definitely worth it if it just kept me out of further trouble. Also in AA, I had learned how to accept my way of life. That was my biggest fault as far as my drinking was concerned. I was very dissatisfied with me.
I have gotten to know myself and know that I have to accept myself as I am. I can change some things, but I'm still me. I'm not you. I'm not you. I am myself as I was born. So I have to accept those things, but we have been able to learn to change the things that we can and the courage to know the difference, the wisdom to know the difference. And there have been many things that I have been able to change, change in a better way, in our favor.
And I've also learned how to pray. Believe me, I was a good Catholic when I was born and raised, went to a Catholic school. But it was all by word of mouth. I mean, it was over my head completely. What I would pray for would be something material. It wasn't for God's blessing and God's will, believe me. It was for my will, always, or for the will of someone to help me, to do something or give me something.
[00:05:08]
It was more or less for the material things on this earth, nothing for the guidance to keep me on the right path. That is what God has taught me now, that I can pray and thank him. I never thought of thanking him for the blessings, for the beautiful day, the sunrise, the birds. I never saw anything like that for years. All the color I ever saw on this earth were the neon signs. That is actually the fact.
Then he gets up here and says, you can't talk unless you have walked that path. And I have walked it. And I have been behind those bars and I've heard the clank of that door and the lock and the key turned and the key put in someone's pocket. And I've had to sit around. You boys don't have to sit around with somebody that is giggling and they don't know what they're giggling about. There were very few of them on the ward where I was on that had their right mind. They had gone off the beam entirely.
And I thought, how in the world? I'm sitting around there. There were very few that you could converse with. At least you fellows can converse with each other. You have the same problem. They didn't have the same problem or else if they had, it had gone much too far and their mind had given on them. And that was the type of people I was sitting in with for six good whole weeks there. And I had my fill of it.
So when I get to AA and I find that there is a different way of life, I didn't have to drink. I can drink. I have the freedom that I can go in and ask for that drink if I want to. But I don't want to. I've been taught that I have the freedom. It's up to me. But I just don't want it anymore. I just don't want that way of life. I've become clear in the head and got my feet on the ground. I can look a person in the eye.
I used to not be able to meet people on the street. I would stagger. I was always staggering with a six-pack in my arms. It's a wonder I wasn't killed before I got where I was at. Oh, brother. I can remember getting on a bus. It was beyond my way home from work. I was working until a few weeks up until the time I was put into Mendota. There was a bar. I had this compulsion. I had to get out of work at 3.30 to 4 o'clock. 4 o'clock, I could not work beyond no matter how much work there was to do.
I had this compulsion. I must get out of here and get that drink. I just had to. By that time, it was a habit pattern, but it was a compulsion along with it. Anyway, there were many times I realized I was drinking too much and thought, well, maybe tonight I can get home sober and get my husband's dinner on the table. I would ride a block, two blocks, beyond this favorite bar where I used to stop. You know, I used to get off that bus and walk back because I could not get home without that drink.
Now, that is the honest-to-God fact. That's the drink getting a hold of you instead of God's will that you should get home and do as you should do in this way of life. Anyway, there were many times I'd get down there and I'd have so many drinks. Maybe by that time I'd think, well, it's time I got home, but I had to have my six-pack to carry with me. I'd get out, stinking, get on a bus. I can smell them now, just like they smelled me.
And these people, I can still see it to this day, regardless of how shadowy it was. I can still see older people, high school kids, you never see them now get up off their seat and give you a seat. But they could tell that I wasn't able to stand on my feet. They'd get off their seat and give me a seat so I wouldn't fall flat on my face. I don't know how I happened to get off the right bus stop, but I usually made it home. Didn't happen to have to crawl on my hands and knees.
My husband grinned at that one because he did it one time. Oh dear, that was funny. It was on a Christmas Eve and some friend of his called him up. This was a great time. He said, come down and have a few drinks. Norskies, you know, they had to drink alcohol and hot water. Poor Danny comes crawling in on his knees. I blew my top. His dad says, what's the use of that? He's sick. He's just sick. Sure he's sick. I realize it now, but I didn't realize it then. I said he was drunk, period.
[00:10:05]
Anyway, there were some amusing times, but actually most of our times were pretty tragic. And I am so glad that we have found a way of life where we are compatible this way. We don't fight. I can still blow my stack, but he's got sense enough he can walk out the door now, you see. I mean, we don't. There's no blows thrown at each other. So anyway, it is a good way of life, and if you fellows just please look up your AA program after you get out of here and learn.
Learn the good way of life along with the rest of us. They're open arms, open hands. Everybody's got a hand for you. Everybody's happy to see somebody try to make their way of life a good life. And may God bless you. Thank you.