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Source: Debbie R – DAAR – Reel 0805-811C (1983) – 1983-06-03.mp3 File: debbie-r-daar-reel-0805-811c-1983-1983-06-03.mp3 Duration: 00:52:28
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My speaker for this afternoon is Debbie R., who I've heard a lot of good things about, and I turn the meeting over to her now. Hi everybody, I am Deb and I'm an alcoholic. Thank you. You know, I wish I could find a bigger word than thank you to the committee for asking me, because it means a great deal to me to be here. I attended this convention one time before this, and it was four years ago, and I have so many very, very good memories about that.
And when I walked in yesterday, nothing physically had changed, and therefore those memories came back and they flooded me, and they have ever since I arrived. I've been off and on with tears and sniffling and all that kind of stuff, and I think that's just because this is a very special roundup. I know it is to all of you, and it is to me too. I've had the good opportunity to go to other conventions around the country, meet many, many people, but there's something about the Desert Roundup that was sort of burned into me and just sort of engraved in me that will always remain a very special part.
I just thank the committee so very, very much for allowing me to be a part of this. And Elsie Faye, every time I would talk to her, I'd get tears in my eyes. She just is such a lovely, lovely lady, and she's a perfect matchmaker too. She's given me Gemma for my hostess this weekend, who I thank very, very much. She's delightful. Well, as soon as my throat opens up, I'll probably be able to talk a little bit better.
To try and tell you who I am and what it was like for me and what I'm trying to do today, it takes me back 13 years in 1970, is when my life sort of began, and it was going to be a year for me that would be almost a year of predictions of how my life was going to be and what was going to happen. And, of course, I didn't know it at that time, but a lot of things happened in that year. It started out with my real mother and father separating.
And I had never really known anybody. You know, none of my friends had that happen to them, and I sort of shrugged it off. I didn't really think anything about it, and that happened right after the new of the year. And in April of that year, I had my first drunk, and I remember that night very, very well. It was my to-be-step-sister's birthday party, but you'd have thought it was mine, because I was going to get drunk that night.
It was premeditated. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I didn't know what it would do to me, but it sounded like it would probably do something fun and make me really, you know, acceptable. And that was my initial reason, was to be accepted amongst my peers. The reasons after that were not for that. It was because I loved what it did to me. And I didn't know that that night would establish my drinking pattern for the next six years.
At 12 years old, I had my drunk, and that night I went to this party, and I remember the people, and I remember the place and everything about it. And I knew I was going to get drunk. Not just have a couple drinks. It never occurred to me, and it never did until I came into this program that a few people thought like that. So I went, and I drank everything they had to drink. It didn't make a difference if it was beer, or liquor, or warm, or cold, or on ice, or straight, or bottle, or glass.
And it basically consisted of whiskey, and Everclear, and Coke, and beer, and a little bit of schnapps, and somebody's vodka. And we started, or I started at 6, and if it went by, of course, it stopped here, and then probably went on.
[00:04:59]
And by 9 o'clock, I'd already blacked out, passed out, came to, wanted to go back to the party, because I was having a good time.
[00:05:08]
Now, I don't know what I did, but I knew I must have been having a good time. Now, blackouts were for me right from the beginning. And so, to me, that was what happened to everybody. Everybody drank like that. Well, later on that year, my parents did divorce, and I would just do the little weekend drinking. At 12 years old, you don't get heavily alcoholic. I mean, you don't progress from your first drunk to chronic.
And I would drink beer and stuff on the weekends with my friends. Well, in December of that year, my father remarried, and I acquired a stepmother, and a stepsister, and two stepbrothers. And the best way to describe that relationship is, I can assure you, it was not the Brady Bunch. We did not coincide like they did, and it wasn't hi, Mom, and hi, Dad. And there was a lot of disturbance in that family.
And as I look back, there was a lot of insecurity, a lot of, you know, we don't really know what we're doing in this deal, we're in it. And they had a budding alcoholic on their hands. Now, none of us had ever lived with alcoholics. I didn't even know the term till I came here. I had no conception of it. I'd never seen anybody, so all the things I learned as a drunk just came natural. I didn't have any teachers.
And so my drinking started seemingly casual, though every time I drank, I would get drunk. I didn't think anything was wrong with that. Well, at the time, we were living in a little town in South Dakota. And when I was 15 or 16, we moved up to a little town in North Dakota called Grafton. And drinking was great up there. First of all, we had moved from sort of an out-of-the-country kind of a place in town.
Well, there was only 5,000 or 6,000 people there. But at least we were farther and we were right in town. Not knowing it, the first friends I sought out were people who drank like me and took drugs like me. You see, I didn't think about it. I just knew there was a certain kind of people that I got along with, and those were the kind of people that drank like I did and wanted to have fun and party like I did.
That was the whole idea. Family problems were mounting and they were growing, and it really is a family disease because I know that they just got sicker and sicker and sicker themselves. And we were so entrapped in it, we really didn't know anything different. The problems arose because everybody was trying to control this maddening situation. Several times before, they would always do the thing and the questioning.
My father, especially, would pull me aside as the years went by more often and always ask me on the side, are you okay? Oh, sure, sure, because see, I knew if I said, well, no, I've got a little problem, I'd get the lecture. So I got wise and I said, no, there's nothing wrong, I'm fine. I'm dying inside, but I'm fine, and I'd get the lecture anyway. At least I was immune to it by that time. Well, I think the last year that I drank really sums up my alcoholism.
It talks about in the big book about times. Sometimes it takes people longer, 20 years, they can stay out there. For me, I look at it that God and I got together real quick, and he said, we're going to get right down to business, and we did. And alcoholism grew very rapidly in my life. The disease grew so rapidly. I knew my attitude had changed. I knew I wasn't the way I used to be. I didn't like the way I used to be.
And I didn't like my surroundings, but I knew that I really, the best world I could live in was the one out there that I would create as a result of drinking and drugs. That's the world that I could live in comfortably. Well, that last year when I was a senior, I thought it was going to be the greatest year of my life, and I turned 17. And it wasn't exactly what I had planned. My drinking and drug-taking had become a daily thing.
[00:10:01]
My choices were a bottle of whiskey and a hit or two of acid, and to me that was a good day. That was the way I enjoyed living. And I didn't think anything of it. I was the most terrible drug dealer ever because I ate everything I bought. Never made a dime. I had these grandiose thoughts, but it never quite got around to the distribution. And I really didn't think anything of that. It just seemed really normal to me.
My dad, I would come home, and I know I would be crawling on all fours drunk, and I know he was going through a tremendous amount of pain. I would make promises to him, God, I won't do it again, and I would say that to him the next morning through a hangover when he'd ask me, Why can't you just have a couple of drinks? And finally I answered him in the most honest way I knew. I don't know. I knew towards the end that not that I had a problem with alcohol.
That didn't occur to me. But what did occur is that I knew when I set out at night to go drink that I really didn't know where I'd end up, and I knew that. It didn't really bother me because I knew everybody. I knew I'd be taken care of. I knew they'd either make sure I got home or to their home or something else. But I knew that nothing bad would happen to me. I'd just pass out somewhere or black out, and they'd just wander me around.
But it didn't occur to me to have a couple. It just wasn't part of the thinking process. Don't tease me with a couple of drinks. I mean, don't let's just say have a drink and really just have a drink. I mean, it's a waste of time. Don't tease me like that. Let's have fun was the way I looked at it. Well, that last year I was introduced to many, many things. I was introduced to what they call, I think, the Iron Bar Hiltons or something.
Jails is a more common term. Now, most of the time I would end up there for what I called taking a vacation. The police called it running away. But I would take these vacations just at the spur of the moment, usually 1 or 2 in the morning, and just decide to go. And many times, I don't know why, but I was always heading for Texas, heading for Texas from North Dakota and usually on $10 or $12. And you can't get hardly out of the state on that.
And I would find myself more and more having conversations with the law. Now, I was lucky as a drunk goes, a drinking drunk, because, you see, I worked for three lawyers that last year, one of them being the city judge. And so from like 1 to 5, I'd be on this side of the law. And from 5 on, I'd be on this side of the law. And whenever they'd see me in trouble, you know, one of these, they'd stop me, take all the booze out of my car, and send me on my way.
And for a drinking drunk, that's a pretty good thing. But we all know that they were enabling me and they were being a friend. They were trying to help me out. Well, I had 2 girlfriends who drank just like I did. You know, the big book talks about how we seek lower companionship. I never had to worry about that because we just all went down at the same time. Nobody said to the other, you drink too much, because we were looking at a mirror.
And we really didn't think we had a problem. We really didn't. Now, in February of 1975, my father decided to send me to this fellow. Now, it was about my drinking. Now, I don't remember him saying, I don't remember him saying alcoholic, alcoholism, or anything. But I thought, all right, I'll go if it will get him off my back and leave me alone for a while. And so I saw this man, and his name was Bob.
And the only thing I remember of our conversation is he asked me if I ever had blackouts. Well, I didn't know what a blackout was. And I said, well, sometimes I become very forgetful. I don't quite remember everything. And I gave myself away. Because he said, well, that's a blackout. That's what a blackout is. And I want you to look at this little chart. And it was the valley chart. And what I remember of it was it was a valley.
And there was a fork at the bottom. A valley, and there was a fork at the bottom of this valley, and then there was this thing going up called sobriety, well I'd never heard the term.
[00:15:07]
Well, I looked at, I looked at this chart and I saw drinking in the morning, gulping and hiding and all these sorts of things, and this little fork I saw said one side was insanity and one side was death. And I looked at that and I thought well at least I've got a ways to go. I'm not that bad. And of course the only thing I attained drinking problem with was people who were called drunks and winos.
And God knows I was not one of them. I was not a drunk, I was not a wino, I was young and spirited and I liked to party. That was the way I thought. And I would deny any drinking problems, any drinking trouble or anything. Well, they decided about seven weeks before graduation that they'd had enough and I'd been expelled from school the third time and they didn't really want to see me anymore. And so I said well, you know, you're lost and I'm going to leave then. So I left and I moved to Grand Forks.
Reason? I can drink as much as I want to and nobody's going to be on my back. Primary reason. And it wasn't really a conscious thing but I knew this was freedom at last. That's how I thought about it. It was the old cliche for me. I lived to drink and I drank to live. It just, you know, that fit so well when I heard that. I understood that entirely. I really did. Well, in May of 1975, something very unexpected happened to me. I went home because I was broke. I had no money, there was no gas in my car, the window had been shot out of my car from a drinking buddy, of course.
And I hadn't had anything to drink and I hadn't had any drugs or anything and I decided to go home and hit dead. And I thought, well, I'll meet him on the highway so that I don't have to face my stepmother. Well, nothing was working out. This was a Friday night. Nothing was working out as planned. I liked to try and plan these sort of things. Well, you know, thank God I've gotten smarter over the years that I try not to do that but that was the plan.
Well, all the way home it rained so by the time I did get there I was soaked. I met him on the highway because I'd run out of gas right there and when I saw him my stepmother was with him. And so nothing was going well and I asked him for some money. Now, somebody had gotten to him. I don't know who but divine guidance had found him and I said I need some money. There had never been problems before. I used to might have to make a promise or two and cross my fingers behind my back one of those but I would always get the money right then.
And he said, well, I don't have any on me. Why don't you come over to the house? Well, the plan of attack and the defense mechanism started to rise and I thought I don't want to go over there. But weighing the consequences and the need for money I decided to go. And when I walked in that house it was as if I had walked into a prison. I mean I felt trapped and I could smell it. I mean a drunk can smell those kinds of things and I knew it.
And what was the dead giveaway was my stepmother was being really nice to me. My barometer of what was to come. And I was right because my father came out and he said, I want you to promise me something. Well, no doing. No way was I going to do that. And so he said, well, I want you to voluntarily do something then. And I said, well, what? And he said, I want you to go to treatment. Well, my God, whatever for? I mean, I don't have a drinking problem. You've got me confused.
I mean, I don't know what you've been reading of late, but it's inaccurate. Because this seemed to be all the time when they were talking and magazines were filled with it. And I thought they just got a hold of one too many of those magazines. And I said, you know, I just can't do that. What do you do? Just go there after I get off work or something?
[00:20:01]
Well, no. No, you live there. Well, of course I couldn't do that. I mean, I have a job. He says, well, you really don't anymore. We quit for you. And I mean, I was already borrowed in advance on money there. And I said, well, you know, I just can't up and leave my apartment without telling anybody. He said, well, no, that's already handled too. We're moving you out tomorrow. And this was such a whirlwind thing. I mean, I'm sure they could hear the wheels ticking.
I mean, I knew I was trapped and I was trying to come up with things. And I just didn't know what to do. Well, then he said, well, Deb, either you voluntarily go tonight or you're committed on Monday. Well, that really isn't much of a choice. I don't want to go anyway. And so if I don't have, if these are my two alternatives, give me one more weekend of freedom. I begged for it. I begged for one more weekend of freedom.
Because you see, at 17, and they're putting me somewhere where I'm not supposed to be able to drink. That seems impossible. I'm too young. I mean, you're calling me, you say I have a drinking problem and I'm not even of legal age yet. It just doesn't seem right, you know. Well, the next thing I know, my stepmother says, well, you're going in tonight. And that I just didn't need and I really got upset about that.
And those people ended up getting those footballs that I had acquired, which was so much confusion and just self-disgust and shame and so much hatred. So much hatred. And they got it with both barrels plus. They got something they never deserved. They got a lot of sickness thrown at them physically and verbally. I tried to hurt them as much as I could. The only thing I can call it is uncontrollable anger.
And I hope I don't ever have that happen again. Because it just came out. And it was a feeling of just being a crazy person. And I had no control over it. The next thing I know, there's a knock at the door. It's one of the local policemen. I knew them all by their first name. And I said, will you tell me what is going on? And he said, I don't know. Just come on with me. So I get down there and he said, the officer said, do you want to call a lawyer?
Oh, God, the light went on. You know, these people have helped me so many times before. I'll call them and they'll get me out of this. And I felt very confident that they would. But what happened is the senior member of this firm came down, and he was the last one I expected. And Mr. Burke came in, and he was a man, very distinguished, very dignified, white collar and tile at the time, not a hair out of place.
I didn't know the man could smile. He looked like a stone all the time. But he showed something that I had been unable to see for a very long time, human kindness and compassion. Now, that man had had girls working for him from that school for 20-some years. And here's one. She has a severe drinking problem. She's an alcoholic. And he comes down. I have lied and cheated and abused every privilege given to me there, and yet he comes down there to talk to me.
And he said some things that helped me come back to this program. He said, Deb, I think this is really good, and I think you ought to go because we've seen you the last year, and you have a problem. You know, we've seen you come in and out. But he said, Deb, the best lawyer in the world couldn't get you out of this because you're a minor and the papers are signed. And at that point, I just sort of gave up, and I just sort of threw in the towel temporarily.
The fire was out of me. I was tired of spitting nails. So the next thing I know, I'm in Grand Forks at a hospital. And it was really kind of amazing to me. Now, my alliance is with Alcoholics Anonymous, but I'm grateful for the hospital that I was sent to because it cleared my mind enough to hear some things, and it introduced me to Alcoholics Anonymous, which is my recovery. As they say a lot of times, treatment is discovery, AA is recovery.
[00:25:03]
And I'm a firm, firm believer of that because they were able to capture my attention long enough, but I got there on a Friday night, and I'm really upset. This is my favorite night of the week, and I'm in this stupid hospital. And they're asking me all these questions. I'm sure obvious questions, but rather stupid, like, how much did you drink? Well, who kept track? I mean, it didn't make any difference to me.
I mean, if it was yours, it was fine. I just didn't really think it was necessary to keep statistics down, that kind of stuff. And I really, it never occurred to me to think about that. I knew where I wanted to be, and I took the necessary steps to get there and stay there. That was really the way I drank. Well, there was nobody there except me and the staff. Now, when I walked in there, I had my own conception of what this place was going to look like.
I mean, if people go here because they have drinking problems, I know what kind of a place this is going to be. There's going to be these old men, winos, puking all over the floor. It's going to smell like ew. You know, you can imagine. And I'm a gal. I'm young, and I still have a watch or whatever. I don't belong there. And, of course, it was, now, don't ask me where I got that idea, but that was the kind of feeling this place must be if they go to stop drinking.
And, of course, it was sanitary, and it was clean, and they were friendly, and they seemed to know what they were doing. They seemed to understand. And I said, well, you know, where is everybody? And I was sure I wouldn't be the only one there, and they said, well, they're all at an AA meeting. Well, the only time I'd ever heard two A's in the same word was triple A, and I thought, this is where he found out.
You know, we'd been members for years. And he had quite a deal going there. Well, I found out that it was Alcoholics Anonymous. And it used to always baffle me. There was one fellow who'd always come to the hospital, pick us up on a Friday night, pick us up, take us to a meeting, bring us back. And I thought, that poor guy, he's so lonely and so bored with his life. He's got to do this. And, you know, I know what he's doing today.
I know exactly what he was doing, but I didn't understand it. And I'd go to these meetings, and I'd sit in the back row, because I knew I really didn't belong there, and I'd listen to the rock and roll band I'd hear playing down the street. I'd see these old farts stand up here and tell their stories, and I'd say, oh, my God, you know, I was never like that, you know. I didn't lose jobs. Well, I learned early, you quit first.
I didn't lose families, because the family I had didn't want me and I didn't want them, so it was a mutual agreement. I didn't know how to lie like they did. I was very dumb about lying. I was stupid. I'd tell the same one over and over again, not remembering. I had told it the last time. I was not clever. I was not clever at all. But, you see, those old guys are the people who I love the most, and they were the ones who saved my tail when I came back in here, and I owe them a great debt.
I was introduced to AA, but now there's only one thing I want to share with you, and this kind of culminates the kind of person I was when I was first introduced to not drinking, and that's how I looked at it. That Saturday morning we had a group therapy type of a session, and we were each given a piece of paper, and on one side we had to put I am in ten things and the other side I like in ten things.
And, you know, not really knowing what's going on, I figured it was kind of a test or something, and I didn't read anything, so I didn't know really what to put and didn't give us a chance to swap answers or anything like that. And I hadn't even been off the street 24 hours, so I was honest. Well, little to my knowledge, every one of us had to put ours on the board, on a little chalkboard, and we did, and I was the last one.
Now, I realized everybody prior to me, I was 17, the next age was 35 and up, and so there was a little bit of difference there. So there was a little bit of difference there, and they were all very similar, you know, they drank alone, and they, you know, would drink alone in the mornings, and, you know, of course, I wasn't able to even acknowledge that I did these kinds of things yet, but I put mine up on the board, and he didn't really say too much, because some of the things I put up there were, oh, I liked cats and all this kind of stuff, the majority was drinking, but the ones that really sort of got to him were when I
[00:30:24]
put I was a Hitler fan and a voodoo fanatic, because my stepmother, I was desperate to try anything, and, you know, the, you know, it seemed sane at the time. Well, he just sort of looked at mine and didn't make too many comments, and he just said, my God, what kind of a world do you live in? Is it real, or is it fantasy? And, you know, I realized for the first time that the only one I could live in was fantasy. I didn't, you see, my concept of reality was my stepmother, and, honey, if that's it, you can have it, because you're right, I can't handle it. I can't. I don't know how to.
The only way I know how to go day by day and day after day without wanting to commit homicide, without wanting to figure out how am I going to get rid of her on a permanent basis was drinking. You see, I didn't have those thoughts drinking. I had them sober. That's when I would start to get all the volcanoes going on the inside. And the only way I felt where I could laugh and live comfortably and enjoy life for what it was was through my eyes drinking. That was the only way. And, you see, that was the first sign of a change in my life. I knew the only world I'd known was fantasy.
And so I tried and was encouraged to live in reality, to find out what it was, to find out what it was. Well, I was in this four-week program seven weeks. They just wanted to make sure I was going to be well when I left. They also knew if they even let me out of their sight, not loose on the street, I'd be out drinking, and I knew it too. Sure, I had gone through steps one through five. I have a bad hearing problem, though, and I had eye trouble because I didn't know there was six through twelve. It never occurred to me you do those two. And I did four and five to get out. I mean, primary reason.
Well, they decided that the best thing for me was to go to an all-women's halfway house. That excited me about as much as going boar hunting without any weapons. I did not want to go. I didn't like women. I didn't want to like women. And if they would have at least considered co-ed or all men, I would have thought about it a little serious. But all women just did not do anything for me. So I ended up going to this place.
Well, I walked in. I am absolutely terrified. It's in Minneapolis. It's a huge city, and compared to where I've come from, I don't know anybody. I don't know anything. I don't really know if I want to be here. I got bags and hand walk in the door, and the first thing I see are women hugging and kissing and curlers in their hair and all this. And I thought, my God, they want me to be a lesbian. And I just, I was about to die. I thought, first they want me to quit drinking, then change my sex preference. And I just, I couldn't believe it. I just want to assure everybody that these are my own opinions, and I don't mean to offend anybody.
But, boy, I mean it. Seventeen and looking at that situation is a little terrifying. Well, I came to find out that they weren't all out to get me, that they didn't want me to change my sex preference, and that we were all there trying to learn how to live on that street again. And it terrified me to have to do that, going from a real protected environment to a not-so-protected, and I knew I'd eventually be out there.
Well, for the next seven months, I just stayed dry. That's all I did. I really didn't change my attitude more than a couple of centimeters. That was it. My attitude was pretty much the same. The only reason I didn't drink was I was afraid to. I was afraid to drink, and I was afraid not to. I sat on a fence for a very long time. My AA participation was one meeting a month. Now, I don't recommend that for good sobriety at all.
[00:35:03]
It's pretty tough that way, but you see, the only reason I went to one a month was because I had to get a piece of paper signed. I wasn't real enthused about this deal at all, but what happened is in October of that year, I decided that in February, when I went back to North Dakota for a wedding, I was going to get drunk. But December happened to come first in California, and I took advantage of it. I came out to see my mother in San Jose, and the first week, I got right back with those old cronies I'd met up with four years ago.
The first week, I just couldn't get it off my mind, the drinking and feeling like such a hypocrite. Here I'm telling everybody, I can't drink yet. It's so strong in my mind, and the last week and a half was even worse because I did drink, and I stayed drinking. I did take those drugs, and I continued to. What happened is I had acquired a conscience. That's what happened. I had been exposed to reality for seven months, acquired a conscience, and when I tried to go back and make it like it used to be, it didn't work.
What happened, and the worst possible thing for a drunk, all I kept thinking in what would come to mind were AA thoughts. I mean, like it's the first drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous, and study the big book, and keep coming to meetings, and I'm trying to have fun drinking. I keep thinking these AA thoughts, and I'd get relatively sober, and I'd want to be drunk because I can't stand being around myself.
I'd get drunk, and I'd say, God, please get me back in reality. Oh, God, it was a real mess. On the way home, I enjoyed Western Champagne Flight because the two ladies next to me didn't know I wasn't supposed to drink. I was half-bombed when I got off, and I said, that was 2,000 miles ago. Nobody will ever know. The problem was I knew. I knew, and that conscience started to work. About a week later, I finally just couldn't stand it anymore, and I told them, and I thought, boy, I've really learned my lesson.
And so I went from one meeting a month to one a week. I stepped it up. That was progress. Well, I was a little bit more enthused, and I did listen a little bit more and became a little more active. But then about five weeks later, I got a letter in the mail, and in that letter, there was a lump in the bottom, and that lump happened to be one lousy joint. Now, I know this is a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and to me, my sobriety date is the last date that I took anything that changes me.
And it included this, because you see, this one little joint was going to make a decision that I didn't know. I got it on a Friday, which was February 6, 1976, and I thought, what should I do with it? I mean, I really didn't know what to do, so like any good, sick alcoholic who's halfway into recovery, I'll keep it just in case I need it, you know, just to take the edge off someday. Well, that someday became Saturday, which was the next day, and in February, it was a lovely, warm afternoon, and I decided to take advantage of it, and in my mind, make it like the old days.
But you see, it wasn't like the old days. It was never going to be what I used to think they were. So what happened is, I smoked that one joint, and it did for me what nothing else had been able to do. It got me off the ground enough to where I was no longer 100% in control of reality, but not high enough to kill the thoughts and the pain and the self-disgust and shame and degradation. And I could not live with myself, and I went to a shopping center, and I lost my car out there.
And so for the next hour and a half, God and I had a very serious talk while I was walking up and down these aisles, and the bottom line of that talk was, I have had it. I just can't live like this anymore. I can't. I cannot go through this inner hell and battle all the time. And I knew there was something different. So many times, people see me in a meeting or at something like this, and they look at me and they say,
[00:40:06]
Gosh, I wish so-and-so, somebody they care very much, could be like that or could get the program or something. And I feel that it is my responsibility to plant those seeds. And what God does with them, I don't really have any control because people loved me and gave more than they had to give over and over and over. But it wasn't until God and I finally got together did it click. That's when it became magic.
That's when I started staying sober for me. The first time was for my father, the second time for the halfway house, and the third time was for me. Didn't do it to prove anything to anybody. I didn't even do it to prove it to me. I just didn't want to live like that anymore. So the next day was February 8, 1976, and from that time on, I have not had a drink or anything else. Now, I went to a meeting that night, and I hadn't told anybody about this, and I didn't plan on telling anybody about this either.
This was going to be my secret again. But I had a conscience still. And this friend was very helpful to me, and he pulled me aside and went out for coffee. And of all topics he chose to talk about was changing sobriety dates. And he didn't know about yesterday, but he knew about my California trip. And so he's rattling on and on, and finally he closes his little talk to me or sharing with me about, well, Deb, you know what it's like to change sobriety dates.
And I just couldn't believe this conversation had been given to me, and I said, yeah, I sure do, because I've got a new one, and it's today. And he said, it is. Well, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I don't need a hospital, but I know what I need to do, and I did. And I left the halfway house. Well, about four months later, I was at a convention. At the time, this convention was called the Gopher State, and I know many of you have attended that.
And I went this time to hear the speakers, and not just for socializing. In this particular year, I met somebody who was going to create an absolute whirlwind in my life. And I think we all have people like that who just, even if it's a matter of hours or days or whatever, they just do something to us. They make turning points in our life. Because, see, it was those old-timers that I went to, and I just seemed to have a strong, strong attraction to those old-timers.
But this guy was something else. See, I was sort of questionable about the God deal, and it's not that I didn't believe, and I didn't believe in a punishing. I just didn't quite know. He wasn't in my heart yet. He was still up in the clouds. And I didn't know that he was a part of me, but I saw him very, very glowing that night. It was Saturday night in front of 5,000 people. A guy named Eddie Regan cried.
And that started a love affair in me that still hasn't quit. And it was my good fortune and opportunity to be able to spend more time with him throughout the next few years. And I, of course, did most of the listening, and he did most of the talking, and I'd spend the next week sorting out everything that he had said. But he made a difference in my life, as have many a handful of other people. Well, over the years, he taught me to get in service, and he'd be right involved there with us.
I got involved in young people's and international conventions, and I was very, very active in Alcoholics Anonymous. What was kind of funny was that when I left that halfway house to go to California the first time, not one person had bets that I'd stay sober. Now, I didn't know this, of course, but they were able to see something I didn't. And about the second time, my odds had increased to 50-50, which was, you know, at least a little bit better than none.
Well, this fellow helped me a tremendous amount. As I know, he helped all of you so very, very much. And in April of 1978, April of 1979, two friends of mine had passed on, and one of them was a man named Freddy, and he had gotten me involved right away in service in Minneapolis on a local level, and he had passed away of cancer, and we knew he was dying, and so we were all kind of ready for it.
[00:45:14]
And then two weeks later I get a phone call that Eddie had died. Well, it wasn't supposed to be like that, because a month later I was supposed to see him out here, and that was my first Palm Springs roundup. Well, what happened that night is just one of many little miracles that I've been given and that I've been able to see, because, see, the God of my understanding knows I need miracles. Now, I'd never believe a burning bush. I mean, I'd think someone was careless. I'd never believe it. I'd put it out.
But people who come into my life and things that happen are very, I know, I know who arranged it. So he did this that night, too. I was on my way to a meeting I had never been to before when I received the phone call, so I went on to the meeting, and I just can't believe what I've been told. And I went to this meeting, and I pulled in the driveway. By this time, reality has sort of sunk in, and I'm very upset. Well, I pull into this driveway, and there's five other cars from my home group there at that meeting that had never been there before either.
I knew why they were there. They were there to help me, and they were there because I needed them more than anything. And I went home that night, and I was very upset with God, and I let Him know about it. And I said, I really need to know why and what I am supposed to learn, because I don't like this, and I wasn't finished with them. I wasn't finished with them yet. And I don't know what happened, but what did come through was that learn how to live one day at a time. And I thought I had, but I realized that I hadn't. It seemed, but I really didn't. I didn't take care of business for today. I'd prefer to put it off to tomorrow.
Well, I came out here. Elsa Fay called and asked if I was still coming, and I said, yes, I'd like to. And when I showed up, this convention really saved my life. That's why it means so much to me to be here. Because all His friends loved me so much. They'd never even laid eyes on me before, but they loved me so much. And it was so sincere. And the quality and the genuineness of everyone. I mean, I'd never seen anything like it before, and I haven't seen anything like it since.
And four years ago, they let me be on the program, and I sat right there on Thursday night while Lynn chaired this meeting. And the spirit was very, very heavy. But it was so heavy with love that they missed a very, very special member. What I had to learn was that God's going to take people in and out of my life when He decides to. It is not my timetable, and the sooner I remember that and the quicker I learn that, the better off I'm going to be.
And He has taken, put people in my life in this past year, and He's taken them out. And He's taken some sick ones out. He's given me sick ones, and He's taken them out too. You see, this past year, I felt that men, money, and mansions were going to make me happy. And two weeks after my sixth birthday, I met somebody, and it started this whole sick roller coaster, and I realized that I replaced them with booze.
I mean, booze was what I had used before in a very similar cycle, and that was these fellas. And I would, the denial, he won't do this again, and he would again, and I'm sure he was busy. Well, I continued lying. I had to, in my own way, because I couldn't and did not want to face reality. And I would get out of one sick deal, I walked right into another one with open arms and felt this was going to make me well, make me happy, I was going to get better.
[00:50:17]
I shouldn't be thinking stupid, insane thoughts like this. The definition Babs gave of the insanity when we do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I did that drinking, and I certainly have done that sober. And I did this last year, very, you know, on a continuing basis until October, and I went to a convention, and I heard that these things don't make me happy. I thought, wasn't that amazing? I finally was able to hear that.
And I knew I had unfinished business to take care of. And so I went home, and I took another fourth step, my fourth, fourth step and fifth step that I had done. And a month after that, just before Christmas, I was able to do something I never, I shouldn't say never, but I really didn't know if I'd ever do it. I certainly hadn't planned on it. But I was finally able, without regret, without any second thoughts, and with the most sincerity I ever imagined, make amends to my stepmother. And I never, I really didn't think that was possible.
God gave me and has given me so many people and so many, many teachers. I am so blessed that if I am going to be part of the future old-timers, that I have been given the teachers and the many blessings I have. Because I see what our old-timers have left us, and I hope I do that justice. I hope I can carry on what they've carried on all the time. Thank you so much for giving me this weekend and giving me the love that you already have. Thank you.