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Source: DICOBE-00232 – Ruth M – CORNHUSKER RNDP VI – 1983-08-18.mp3 File: dicobe-00232-ruth-m-cornhusker-rndp-vi-1983-08-18.mp3 Duration: 01:11:57
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That's fine. Thank you. Hi, y'all. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm short stuff. Ruth Elman, alcoholic from Bellflower, California. I'm also a tablet taker. In fact, I'm kind of a total addict. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing to excess and us, get on with it. And I want to thank Dick and the committee and each one of you for this 12-step call on me. And I'm not going to give you my best pitch tonight. I'm going to tell you that right now.
I did that a few years ago down at Costa Mesa one Friday night, and I swear it's the best pitch I ever did give. I just floated right on out of that meeting, fell on my ass and broke my nose. That's what happens when I float. So if I can remember what my good teachers told me early on, maybe I'll get me out of the way, and I hope we get something out of this deal. They told me just ten inches from a halo to a noose. That has a very sobering effect on me. And newcomers, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Now. I can't get you sober. If I could get you sober, I could get you drunk, and I don't have that power over you.
And if you're sitting out there tonight wondering if you're one, you are. People with high social aspirations just don't come here. And you don't even have to want what we got. If you don't want what you got there, you got a lot going for you right there. And I see we got a lot of young ones, and you're probably looking at me and saying, if I was that old bag, I'd have given up, too. But you know I didn't come here till it's my time. There are no mistakes here. Believe you me, I couldn't have come five minutes sooner than I did. I got here at the right time.
I had my last drink February 13, 1961. And I had done all of the things that it was necessary for me to do to come here, and up until now, it's been enough to keep me here, too. Believe you me. In the beginning, alcohol was not my problem. In the beginning, sobriety was my problem. I sometimes call this thing by another name. That's optical rectitis. That's a crappy outlook on life. I've always had it, and I still get fits of it. I'd rather take your inventory any day than to take mine.
But yours almost kill me. I still catch me staring at my kitchen window just waiting for my neighbor to walk out her door so I can nail her with her inventory.
[00:05:10]
Why does she wear that dress today? Don't she know that upsets me? She don't know a thing about it. That old bag goes on all day just as happy as if she had good sense. And I go out there and hang me on every situation that comes along to prove that I'm right in my attitude toward her. And you know, if I just let her be and I be, we get along just fine. So I know that I can't change them and that out there.
I gotta change my attitude toward them and that out there. That's not easy. Back in my teens, the school teachers used to say, Ruth, it's your attitudes and your behavior that get you in trouble. And I would look at them with the most hostility inside of me, which I know was fear. And I think you don't understand. If you would just get off of my back and leave me alone, everything would be all right.
And in the end, they all got off of my back and left me alone. Everything wasn't all right. It was a mess. Even the dogs had turned and slowly walked away. And a few years ago, when I got my 14th AA birthday, the gal that led the meeting that night made me godmother of her dog. That ought to tell you something. And I can't take the credit for it. From the time that I threw in the towel and admitted that I had lost the battle of life, life has had to become a given thing.
I take no credit for success. I take no credit for failure. I take no credit, period. It all has to go into a ball of wax that's a lot bigger than I am. That's the best deal I ever had, and I almost died trying to find it. I grew up in an alcoholic home. I've seen alcoholism and all of its ramifications. I've seen the heartbreaks and tragedies. I've seen the deaths of the practicing alcoholics, the attempted suicide. All of these things I lived with.
And you know, I used that as an excuse right up to death's door. There's nobody to blame for me having a terminal illness, but I used it. It's a funny thing, though. When there's only one hog left in the hog pen, you can't look at another hog and holler, hog, you it. And when I got there, I didn't care how I got there. I wanted to know how you were going to get out of that. So we come here. We who are sober and alcoholics anonymous tonight, we no longer live in the problem.
We live today in the answer to the problem. I think I was allergic to my mother from the beginning, and that woman was allergic to me. She believed in a thing called discipline. And I want no part of that business. I was a rebel from the word go. If you furred, I'm a ginnet. So early on I made a bid for the drunken father's love. And in his eyes I could do no wrong. Whatever I did, I could put on a show for daddy, I could perform.
And he'd wind up laughing and thinking, it's cute. So I went through life performing for them and that old guy. If they praised me, they could lift me to the heights of heaven. If they criticized, I went to the depths of hell. Well, I know tonight that I was a prisoner to my own emotions. My teens, my father and me used to make homebrew together. Daddy would suck on that little hose and I'd cap the bottles.
We'd get a run of homebrew bottled up and the old man would be loaded.
[00:10:03]
And I could see that he was getting all the fun out of that deal. And I'd tell him, I'd say, let's take turns on the hose. And we'd take turns on the hose and we'd both get loaded. So early on it was two drunks helping one another stay drunk. Today we do a complete turnabout, we drunks helping one another stay sober. I was brought up by my grandmother. I was brought up in religious fanaticism. Grandma was all strung out on sin.
She preached sin from daylight till dark. And if you woke up in the middle of the night, you got another lecture throwed in for good measure. And one day I got to thinking, and that's total disaster, I decided if sin was all that bad, it must be good. I tried it and it was. That's kind of the beginning of the whole mess right there. I never got enough. Every Sunday Grandma would shine me up and take me to church.
She'd put me right up on the front row. She got right behind me, the preacher in front of me. I'm caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They're pouring it on, I'm taking it all personal. And what was the darndest thing about that deal? Every Sunday that preacher had a brand new list of sin. For some darn reason or the other I'd done all that the week before. So I managed to get a week ahead of them on the list right away.
By the time I'm 13 years old I must have had 3 million years to do in hell. So I came to the conclusion early on that God wanted nothing to do with me. I'm already on the outside looking in. And I didn't want anything to do with God either. And I'll guarantee you that it's not hard to hate something you're scared to death of. I knew what he was going to do with me when the body got cold. That's when that big barbecue was going to start.
And I was going to be the main dish. And I love my body. And I don't want them to treat my body like that. I found alcohol and I found a way to go. Tonight I believe there are a few people born on this earth without a way to go and I was one of them. And I had no way to go until my jug surrendered me to Alcoholics Anonymous and my jug surrendered me to you. Today I have a plan to live by. I have a desire for living.
I have a reason for being here and that's more than I had until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. My father was a construction man and sometimes he'd be gone home for months at a time. I'd miss that drunken father. I used to say I felt like an oddball because I was the only kid in town with a part-time father. That's not the truth. You get honest around here. I used him. I learned early on that he'd buy out of his guilt.
And I learned to take advantage of these things. And I learned to take advantage of these things. You see I know this tonight. Because there came a day in my alcoholism when I had to try to buy out of mine too. I was always impressed by the fact when the old man came back from across the hill. He wore Panama hats and white shirts and my God that's class and I love class. He would tell me about the big jobs he worked on outside this claustrophobic little area that we lived in.
He would tell me about the people that he met on the other side of the hill and daddy would sing songs. And I have a most vivid imagination. This was before radio so it puts me back there. I looked daddy over and I listened to him. And I'll guarantee you he wasn't singing Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. And I looked them sunbeam singers over and it didn't take me long to know which way I wanted to go.
I didn't want to be no sunbeam for Jesus. I didn't want to be no sunbeam for Jesus.
[00:15:00]
He'll take you and he'll make a missionary out of you. And he'll send you over there in the jungle with them people eaters. And I didn't want to be instant breakfast for nobody. Daddy was singing things like, it's three o'clock in the morning and we've danced the whole night through. I said, hot dog, come on. God, I know daddy found it. I used to watch him. He'd get drunk on that homemade blackberry wine.
And when he got drunk, he'd get that spiritual grin on his face and he'd wet his pants. I never seemed to bother daddy. I looked them sunbeam singers over and they looked like they half dead from hemorrhoids. Always sitting around worried about where are we going when we leave from here. And I said, well, we didn't live here yet, for God's sake, let's live. I was eager to live and it seemed like life moved too slow.
Always afraid I'm going to miss out. I found alcohol and I lived. In my teens, I'd go out to the country dances. There'd be the White Lightning, the Cane Skimmins, the Homebrew and the Boys. If you're a teenager with an inferior complex two feet thick and you find that White Lightning, you got something coming. And if you're an alcoholic and you're not from Georgia, you don't know what Cane Skimmins are, you don't know what you missed and it's too late to find out.
I'd get a slug of that corn liquor. And it hit midsection, I exploded, fire went two ways, instant Christianity. I came out from behind a wall and for a little while I lost that feeling of being apart from. And I became one with and I just floated through the evening. Now you find something that'll do that for you and you're not going to give it up easy. If animals would have done that for me, I'd have got hooked on animals, it wouldn't make any difference.
And if you had asked me at that point in time what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wouldn't have told you I want to grow up to be a drunk and go to AA. I've got to see the first one come through the doors saying, my goodness, I woke up this morning feeling so good I decided I'd call Alcoholics Anonymous. I would have told you I want to grow up to be a good woman. I want to meet a good man, I want a fine husband, fine children.
I want money, property and prestige, that's what I want. In other words, I want everything instant and perfect. And I knew when I got out of high school, I'm going to get away from that family that now I love and hate by turns. That family that I'm ashamed of, that family that I swore I'd never be like them, and you know the rest of it. I got worse than they were then. I'm going to get out of that one-horse town where everybody's trying to tell them I didn't.
I'm going to get away from Grandma and now shall not. And I'm going to cross the hill. And I'm going to find that something that's going to make everything all right. And I knew marriage would take care of that little situation. So I got that high school diploma in one hand, I got my hatchet in the other, and I went husband hunting. They say there's a lid to fit of a pot. I kind of believe we deserved one another.
He was a hard-working, hard-drinking construction man, and I thought he was a tough guy.
[00:20:06]
And I always want to get my hooks in a tough guy. And I'm going to tame him down, and I'm going to get him to eating out of my hand, and then I'm going to kick him in the rear end. Now that's what you call bad attitudes. One night I heard him drinking with a crew. He said, I hate women. I wouldn't marry one of them. I wouldn't spend a dime on one. There was the challenge. I said, I'll marry that son of a bitch, and I'll straighten him out.
If you haven't tried it, don't. Best thing to do, just leave him alone. First mistake he made, picked his nose. Mistake he made, he moved in the house with his mother. Mother. And I married him to get away from mine, and I had to go live with her. And I took one look at her, and she took one look at me, and we don't like one another. That's two strong voices met head-on. I followed two turns, I'll stand and fight or turntail and run.
I chose to stand and do battle with her. Our book of experience says we cease to fight, anything or anybody. In italics it says we have to. We cannot live with anger. I didn't get angry at that woman. I applauded her death, that's what I did. If she would die and get out of my way, I'd be number one in that outfit. Well that old gal born and raised in Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee, and she's healthy as a horse.
She just went on living a good, useful life. I went on getting drunk puking at her, getting drunk puking at her. And I want to talk to you about puking now. I puke. There's dignity to vomiting. There was no dignity to what I was doing. We came to California in 1936, I'd seen the movies and I knew what life was like. I said I'm going out there, I'm going to leave them and that back there. I'm going to California, I'm going to start over and everything's going to be all right.
Little did I know that I couldn't run away from the problem that I am the problem. And wherever I go, the problem goes. We put everything we had in the car, including my drunken father. I had to take Daddy with me, I needed him. We lived in Pasadena, and in Pasadena I saw my first cocktail bars. Some I had referred to these places as dens of iniquity. God, don't that sound exciting? And I couldn't get out there fast enough.
The crowd took me out and they showed me the cocktail bars and they told me, they said, the gals go in here, they sit on the bar stools and mix it up with the guys. I said, hot dog, come on. My God, I never started out to wind up the way I did. I just wanted to do a little drinking and have a little fun. And tonight I don't know why that factor X in my body that makes me bodily and mentally
[00:25:00]
different from them out there, and neither does anybody else. But I give thanks that I'm one of a few on this earth that knows I can't handle one ounce of booze-booze-handled meat. And it would be early in the morning, we all pack in the car like sardines in a can. We head for home and everybody's got that good Christian feeling. And about then, they get the husbands and the wives all mixed up together.
And about the time I decided that's not a bad idea, that's when I throw up on all of them. There are people that frown on baptisms of that nature, and it's not long till they go to the party and they don't ask me to go, and that's rejection. And that hurts my sensitive alcoholic feelings, and I can't let it come on like that. So I wear my mask, I play my game, and I pretend, and I do my little self-righteous jag.
I said I don't want to go with them anyway. I'm so much better than they are. They are trash, that's what they are. I believe alcoholics are the only people on the face of this earth that can be laying in a gutter and feel superior to everything and everybody around them. By that time, my mother came out to California. They had two girly shows going in Los Angeles at that time, old Burbank and the Follies down on Main Street.
The crowd told me about these shows down there and the dances these gals did. And I said, I don't believe it. They said, yeah, and we're going to take you down there and let you see. And I said, well, good, I don't want to miss nothing. But they made a mistake that night before they took me to the show. They took me out and they bought me a gallon of sulturn wine. That's when you took your empty jug and they filled it right out of the barrel.
It was going about 50 cents a gallon then. I had never tasted sulturn wine before in my life. And I thought that is the best stuff I ever tasted. And I was thirsty. And I drank great gulps of that stuff. They took me in the show and they set me up on the front row with my jug of wine. And they expected me to sit there. I guarantee you that was a mess before it was over. I just wanted to play. I just wanted to be one of them.
And they finally got me out of there and they got me home. And I spent the rest of the night in the bathroom. And now if you're thinking about going back out there again, and a lot of them in your heart, you get you a whole bunch of sulturn wine and popcorn. You don't know what sweet suffering it is till you try that. Then I spent the rest of the night in the bathroom. Next morning I got the dry heaves and the shakes and my head's coming apart in four sections and I'm thirsty.
I got a glass of water and I got drunk all over again. Alcoholics can stay drunk a long time on cheap wine and water. And I got that glass of water, I got the buzz and I got the thinking. And I decided my mama had to see the dance. So I proceeded to go in and get my husband a necktie for a G-string, come on like gangbusters and scared that poor woman nearly to death. My mother was a very modest woman.
[00:30:09]
She blushed, she cried, she tried to get out of the way. No getting out of the way, get your head set one way and that's it. It wasn't long after that that poor woman gave up on me. She went back to Georgia and died back there. And I did these things and I didn't know why I did these things. You see, I knew nothing about a disease called alcoholism. And I judged me. I'm a judgmental person. I got to fix judgment and I got to place blame.
And I judged me by the standards that society had set for me. And you know, they almost convinced me they were right. I judged me by the standards that the religious and the educational people of my life had set for me. And the standards that I put on top of that. And I always came up with the same conclusion. I'm no good, I've never been any good, I'm the scum of the earth. And then I'd have to get right with God.
I got to get on the good side of that God of wrath and punishment. Then you better believe I'd get good. I wouldn't get, I wouldn't use the mop, get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floor. Cook, wash, iron, some of them four-letter words I hate. I'd take a bath, I'd shampoo my hair, and once in a while you'd throw in a douche for good measure. You really get right with God. Get so good I couldn't stand it and I'd have to go get drunk again.
Every time I got so good there'd be that great need to go get bad again. I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous to get good, I want to get this job done. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous to get sober. So I've been allowed to remain among you and to enjoy a beautiful life one day at a time. We went into business for ourselves just before the end of World War II. This was a goal we had set, something we wanted.
We were young, we were eager, we were aggressive, which I know today was greed masquerading itself because there was never enough of anything. By now I have two sons of that marriage. I had their whole lives planned before they got out of diapers, always seeking my fulfillment in somebody else. Never did I want to expose me to life and living in the world out there. They would go to college and be the great successes.
People would look at them and say, they are her sons, and I would bask in the glory of another human being. They got a sore throat, I had their funeral planned before I got the doctor on the telephone. I had a price tag on everything and everybody prior to coming to Alcoholics Anonymous. Where do I fit in, what can I cut out of this deal, what can you do for me? I plugged up my jug when we went into business, this was, at this point I could still plug up the jug.
I did nothing about the disease of alcoholism, and I cannot live with untreated alcoholism. In here now all the old fears and phobias, the hang-ups that go with the disease begins to hit me full force and I'm not wiping out and I can't cope. So I became a compulsive worker, which is a fear-motivated thing. I didn't have time to eat, sleep, anything, you work. So I didn't take care of the physical body, and in there I began to know my first physical crack-ups.
Now instead of the liquor store and the bar, I'd cool my heels in the doctor's office. I'd tell them medics anything they wanted to hear as long as they'd give me their goodies. I'd stay with their goodies a while, put down on them and go back to my first great love,
[00:35:02]
which was my jug. And in the end I got to mixing them together, and in the end I came through them. It didn't happen overnight. Oh my God, no, it was stretched out over a long period of time. It was slow, but it was vicious. And I speak only for myself from this podium, as far as I'm concerned it was the same problem, mirror images. And I believe I stand as proof tonight as do thousands on this earth.
If you can honestly take that third step, it'll take care of any problem, I don't care what it is. I was three years sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, I still find drugs hidden all over that house. I got every one of them on prescription. I got them lying, cheating, and stealing. I was a busy drunk. You get about five of them medics lined up. You try to figure out what'd you tell the last one the last time you were in there.
What can you tell them they gonna buy this time you busy? And in the end if I'd have gone to your house, I'd have gone in your bathroom, I would have checked your medicine cabinet. If you'd have had any goodies, I'd have got me some of yours, too. And by then it wouldn't have made any difference what they were. They could have been anything from X-Lax to birth control pills, and I couldn't have cared less.
And the pitiful part about it is at that point I wouldn't have known the difference. They would have been goodies and I had to have them. And I won't stand tonight and tell you in this over twenty-two and a half years that I haven't needed a drink and I haven't needed a goody because I have. But by the grace of something that's going in my life a lot bigger than I am, I've been able to wait the dark times out.
Never have I had to come through one of them alone. From the day I made that call to you for help, you've been with me in the darkest night and you've been with me in the coldest day. And we've come through it together in the spirit of the fellowship of love and service. I haven't sworn off, I haven't taken any pledges, I haven't promised anybody anything. I haven't been sprayed, sprinkled, dipped or dunked.
I just waited it out. And minute by minute, the baton of one eyelash, one heartbeat at a time, any length of time to leave the first one alone, that's the one that put one of us back out in hell again. Hell I know I've been there. We became very successful in the business world. We got to break. You better believe that old ego began to bloom now. I had more excuses. I'm an alcoholic, I'm a drunk with a conscience.
And I had to rationalize alibi and justify every drink I ever did take and for God's sake it made sense to me, it had to. And I got my little home in the best part of town. I got all of the things that I told me as a kid, if I had that, if I lived over there, if I could run with them. So I got in the best neighborhood, the only thing is I took me over there too. And I entertained a lot in the beginning.
This is a new toy, but there came a day when I couldn't get a party together. This is when I began to shut you out, one by one by one. Don't let you come too close. You would reject me and I would hurt. Little knowing when I locked the world out that I was incarcerating myself, that I would live for many years behind drawn drapes and locked doors, perfectly happy to live like that as long as my family kept my supply.
My oldest son was the first one to upset my plans. When he was 18 years old, just out of high school, he went in the Navy. I didn't write the script like that. Now my world of protection is breaking apart and I can't cope with it. If there's anything that the big book makes clear from cover to cover, it's the fact that you cannot deny one of us the right to suffer. I wore out four long playing records of the ink spots, getting in the mood.
[00:40:07]
Into each life some rain must fall, born to lose, red sails in the sunset, God, can't you get a lot of juice out of them old sands, now I go into the next phase of alcoholism. No longer the big parties, that's gone. I'm hopelessly, helplessly hooked at this point. It's my life's blood and I had to have it. And I like to give thanks to my family that they kept my supply for me until I was ready for you if they had not have had it.
Every day I'm alive and active in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm more grateful for all of the things that didn't happen to me that can still happen if I forget to remember I can't handle one ounce of booze. Now at this point I begin to pull my first little overdosing act. I was always very careful to have my family there to rescue me. You can get mighty dead messing with that crap if you're not careful.
Now my favorite daydream at this point was to attend my own funeral. If I had ever found a way to get dead and keep watching them to see how sorry they are for the way they treated me, I wouldn't be here. But I never found a way to be the corpse and the director at the same time. That was one show I didn't want to miss because my funeral was going to be a big deal. I love class. And all them people I hated was going to be there and there was a bunch of them I'm obsessed to hate now.
And they're going to be looking at the corpse and saying, poor little misunderstood thing. We didn't know she suffered so, but we would have treated her better. In other words, they'd let me have my own way. And all them women I hated was going to be there and boy, there's a bunch of them. I was going to 86-7 one of them from my funeral. And I can still in my mind's eye see that scene. And when they was going out of the mortuary, I was going to throw their flowers right after them.
I wasn't even going to keep their flowers. When my son put in his four years in the Navy, he came home. He was the first one to nail me with the truth. Thank God for that boy tonight. It wasn't their protection and kindness that did it. The three men in my life loved me almost to my death. I believe tonight if they had picked me up and dusted me off one more time, I'd be dead. As long as they nursed me through my sprees, cooked my meals, got me back up on my feet, paid the doctors, the shrinks and the sanitariums, bailed me out of the bucket and gave me their permission to drink, I couldn't come here.
Alcohol, drugs, pain and exposure, that's what put me on my knees. Their dues and fees. We pay them outside the door of Alcoholics Anonymous and they come high. Heartbreak, tragedy, suffering. You'll find it stamped on the hearts of all the people in Alcoholics Anonymous. That's the price of admission to sober living. I couldn't see at that point that I was one. I knew where they were. I'd been down on Skid Row and looked them over.
My God, I'm in the best part of town. I got the best of everything. But I can see where I set me up for what was coming next. My son confronted me with my problem. From the mother he loved and respected to the pathological lush I'd become that he no longer wanted to see. When he got to the door, he turned and looked at me. He said, and I never want to lay eyes on you again as long as you live. I'm an alcoholic.
I laid my son on the line and I drank him up. When I came to you, he was gone out of my life. I never expected to see him again. I'm so very grateful to you. You didn't tell me I'd get back in. You didn't tell me I'd get back anything that I drank up out there, but you did tell me that I could stay sober regardless of anything or anybody out there.
[00:45:03]
My son and me are great friends today. Been a long time coming. Emotionally, I couldn't have handled it any sooner. I can look back and see where the old relationship was sick it had to die, and a new relationship is being born. Today, I can allow him the dignity of being a human being and he allows me the same. I got my hooks out of him and he got his hooks out of me. We don't try to manipulate and use one another.
That's the best communication we've ever had and I can take no credit for it whatsoever. I can see why I set me up for what was coming next. I never finished a drunk. I was always getting ready for the next one. I sold that home. I moved into an apartment in Downey. I went out and I bought the mink, the pearls, the low cuts, the high heel shoes, and the long white gloves. And you know that can't be no alcoholic.
Did you ever vomit in white gloves? I stayed in that drive for some time. I did nothing about the problem. That's me. One day I got to thinking. They don't love me. They don't appreciate me. They're using me. They're abusing me. Poor little me. My book uses two words I don't like but I have to face them. Emotional immaturity. I was 45 years old and I ran away from home. Checked in the old St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.
They took one look at it and locked me in my room and said for my family to come get me. There's something about our disease nobody wants one of us around. No family wants to claim they got one either. But my family certainly had one. They brought me home and I submitted for psychiatric care. God love the shrinks. We can drive them monkeys up the wall. I went to play with them. That's what I went for.
We played for six months. Now you understand I was paying for that. Don't tell them nothing. Let them guess. I've actually heard drunks stand at podiums like this and say they got the shrinks screwed up. He committed suicide. And I can believe it. Don't you let anybody tell you that you're an alcoholic because your mama put you on the potty backward. That's not so. Nobody knows why we are but thank God we know we are.
And they can ask you the stupidest questions and we can give them the most brilliant answers. You know like why is your car? I don't know where my car is. Where did you put it? I don't know where I put it. I lost it. And they look on their faces when we tell them that. Now if you're an alcoholic you understand that. Chances are pretty good you lost yours too. They don't understand that out there. So I learned early on they didn't want to hear the truth or lie sound better.
Being a good people pleaser I got to be a good liar. I got so good I believed my own lie. And nothing makes you madder than to have somebody standing over you in the morning joining at you. Where you been? Especially when you don't even know yourself where you been. They put us through some terrible indignities out there. Well I decided it was the husband's fault. I'm going to get rid of him and I can shape up.
In fact there's a little more to it at that point than that. If you haven't got there keep on drinking you will. I couldn't live with him and I couldn't live without him. Good smart alcoholic thinking tells you kill the son of a bitch. And I really believe that I had to get him off the face of this earth.
[00:50:03]
Only thing wrong with that. If you're an alcoholic and you married to one you both get that kind of thinking going. That gets to be tight living in the end. I haven't lived that tight since I've been sober. Well I got the divorce going and I wanted him back. I wanted to come out of that dry. I needed him. He was my father, my mother, my sparring partner. I needed him. So I consented to call the truce and we went out to dinner one night.
I'm going to take him back on my terms. But we went out to dinner too long until I found out he didn't want back on my terms, his terms, any terms. He'd flat had it. That's rejection. And I can't let it come on like that. He ordered one highball. I took his inventory. I ordered two highballs. I'm still waiting for him to come make his amends to me. That's the two that reactivated the allergy that set up the craving to send me through two years of living, breathing hell all the way.
Hell I know I've been to that. I've been out with the demons. I've done all of the things that chapter 3 talks about. I love chapter 3 in the big book. That's my life the way I lived it out there. And tonight I believe if it's possible for a human being to carry hell around on the inside it's possible to carry hell in there too. I came out of that drive with them two highballs and I went through two years on that street out there among the living dead.
I did the things I had to do for me to come here. I made the old county jail in Los Angeles. If you didn't make it, you didn't miss nothing. It was nasty. And alcoholics are proud people. The first time I went in there, I went in drunker than a skunk, loaded on my pills and meaner than hell. And when the woman shook me down that night, she tried to help me and that's the worst thing in the world she could have ever done.
To me, kindness wreaked a weakness. She said, you've got enough money to bail yourself out. I flew into an alcoholic rage. I reared back in all of my dignity. I said, girly, I don't want to bail me out. I want to see what I've been paying taxes on all these years. And she showed me. If you're an alcoholic and you haven't been there, you ought to go. That delousing ceremony is very impressive. And on my way down the steps at the county jail, I said to my two sons, just look what your father has done to me now.
Less than 30 days, I was in there again. God knows I have no resentment connected with either time. I could have killed myself or somebody else out there, but I don't want to go no more. I just never got comfortable in that. You know, every once in a while, I'll be riding around out there during the day. I'll see that old black-and-white bus with the bars on the windows, and I can get spiritual as hell for about 30 minutes.
That old bus is good for 30 minutes any day. And all of this impressed us. But that's not enough to keep an alcoholic sober. Now people are pointing it out to me, you know. There's always somebody glad to tell you everything you do on one of these escapades. They could point it out and they could tell me. But not until I came to a bunch of drunks like myself that had found some answers could I find an answer to my problem.
I made sanitarium in Culver City. That's just a glorified nuthouse. I paid them through the nose to go there. I had the bars on the windows and the whole bit. I signed myself in late one Sunday afternoon. I had my hair dyed black. I was dressed in black. I had black enamel on my fingernails and toenails. They took one look at me and threw a 24-hour watch on me. And I had vague feelings I was invisible out there.
I went in that joint suicidal. I came out there homicidal.
[00:55:05]
They put me through electroshock treatment and they shocked everything out of my head but the crap that was in it. Thank God they couldn't get that. If they could take that away from you and me today we wouldn't be going concerned. Our liabilities of yesterday have become our assets today. Our book puts it in words similar to this. Cling to the thought that in God's hands, in God's hands, our dark and miserable past becomes our greatest treasure in life.
For with it we can avert sickness and misery and suffering and death. For countless thousands of men and women as hopeless and as helpless as we once were. And it also says that it makes no difference how far down the scale one of us has gone. Our experience is going to benefit some dying human being out there. How blessed can you be? Tonight I believe that Alcoholics Anonymous is a one bright ray of hope that shines in that dark world of alcoholism and drug addiction.
It's a gift and it carries with it responsibility. The irresponsible come here and something happens and we become responsible. No longer liabilities to our community but assets. But we paid a price. And I never want to forget the price I paid to be where I am tonight. I came out of that sanitarium. I said I'll get even with them. It's the last thing I ever did. Darn near wasn't. I never did. Every time I come through there's more of them.
Now I've taken care of my family. I've taken care of everything and everybody. And every night I get gussied up in my mink, my pearls, my low cuts, my high heel shoes and my long white gloves. And I head for the bar to do some social drinking. And I'll guarantee you when I hit the door of that bar room they knew I had arrived. And I go in there loud. Plop me down over them bar stools like I had platinum ovaries and take a look around.
And it didn't take me long to spot what I was looking for. I was an expert spotter. And I'd find some poor gal a little further down than I was at the moment I crucified that woman. And I'd get a load of that. Ain't she a mess. It wouldn't be 30 minutes or an hour later they hauled me out of there. And I wasn't going out in good condition. I didn't get here in robust health. You know that night I was sharing the group.
And a young girl came up after the meeting when I started that door. She said, Ruth, what are platinum ovaries? I said, honey, that means I'm a cut above the rest of them. She said, nah, I know what you mean. I'm convinced tonight that I was born walking toward the doors of Al-Khalis Nama. I believe that I had to come to this way of life. And I believe that everything and everybody that stood between me and these doors had to go.
Because I had to come here. I've only been allowed to keep in this leg of the journey those things that have been necessary for this leg of the journey. The other has been removed. I signed the papers in the attorney's office that was to end a 26-year marriage. I'm an alcoholic. I laid my marriage on the line. I drank it up. I didn't get it back. I didn't deserve to have it back. And I could look back later and thank God I didn't get it back.
What to me at one time seemed like life's greatest tragedy turned to be life's richest blessing. As long as that family shielded me and protected me from life and living, there was no way that I could admit total defeat. And my scorecard had to read one flat zero in every department of living before I could live. I couldn't ask that attorney whether I had a dime coming or whether I didn't. What at one time in life had seemed so important was like ashes in my hands.
was like ashes in my hands, because all of that wouldn't buy me one five minutes of what I had to have to live in that world out there, what I came to you and found for fun and for
[01:00:00]
free, and if there was anything I'd give a newcomer tonight, as I look back over the years, if I could give you anything beyond hope and that's all I have to give, God knows it would be patience. Once a human being loses their will to live, it don't come back easy. It will come. We're the proof of that. And it comes slow. It comes not on my terms, not in my time, but it comes on God's terms and in God's time. And I can see tonight where the old me has to die and a new me is being born. All my life, I can look back and see, I lived in the crucifixion. I've come to Alcoholics Anonymous and I know what the resurrection is. We who have died, we live again and we live in a way that we never dreamed possible.
There's no way on God's earth that I could have written a script on my life. I tell them with sudden baptism, I turn to the flying nun and you can't beat a deal like that. An old sponsor told me early on, she said, honey, you grab hold of your hat and hang on. You don't know what good the big boy's got coming next, but you get ready. I got ready and he's never disappointed me. It's been a good journey. It hasn't been easy.
Nobody has ever told me in Alcoholics Anonymous that it would be easy. When I first got sober and I got that big book in my hand, I went out there and I was going to sober that world up. I was even trying to get people sober that wasn't even alcoholics. I made a lot of enemies for myself. But one more time I wrote the script and I was going to get that ex-husband sober. I knew what I wanted. I'm going to get him sober so he could make his amends to me. I'd run across town with the big book under my arm. I'd grab him off the bar stools, take him home, fill him full of K-roll syrup and orange juice. Thank God he wasn't a diabetic or I'd have killed him. I'd read the big book to him, get him back up on his feet so he could run again and the old sponsor could see what was going on. She said, release that man. You don't own one hair on his head. He's God's kid. To play God is to destroy. I didn't hear her. I knew what I wanted and I'm going to get him back again. Well, that went on for a whole year. I didn't get him sober but I stayed sober trying.
He was one of the best teachers that I ever had because each time he came back there was more desperation than the man. His last one out that year put him in a Hollywood Presbyterian hospital, bleeding to death internally. He was nine hours in surgery. He had ripped his esophagus wide open, dry heaves and the vomits, perforated ulcer, cirrhosis of the liver. That's when I knew I had not the power to get an alcoholic sober. That's the point to where I released him. Thank God he didn't die or the guilt might have killed me. I was too young on the program. He lived on and for these 22 years I've been sober, 21 years, he died a year ago last November. He's paid a 12-step call on me. He made it all the way to show me how fortunate I am and that I could go back out there any time I wanted to but that I could stay here and I could make the journey with you. When he died I was grateful to God that he had been released from hell. I had made what amends that I could make and I had no feeling of pain or sorrow. We don't grieve for one when they are released from hell. And he chose to go all the way and up until and including now I've chosen to remain with you. And it's been worth the journey. There's not one thing out there I would change if I could. If I could change one bit of that, I might have missed this and I wouldn't want to miss this for nothing on earth. I haven't grown a whole lot. I go up one step and back
[01:05:03]
two. My higher power don't let me get too much smart so he knows I can't handle him. And I've got an old stove with the drawers made in it and it came out of the factory like that. If I could accept situations like that and walk away I'd be telling you a different story. I'm not stacked up like that. And I've got this one drawer just full of pots and pans shoved down in there in the old way. And one night I wanted to get the pot out of the stove. I jerked the drawer and when I did the little pot went down behind the stove. I reached down there and I could feel that pot and I couldn't get it. And I grinned that silly little grin. Oh it don't make any difference you know. Well about then that second wave hit and that's pure panic. My God I really can't get the pot. And about then the phone rung and it was one of the guys. And he wanted me to come share in a meeting and I got a big calendar with big numbers. I don't want to miss nothing in this leg of the journey. I didn't miss nothing out there. And I looked at the calendar and I can't even see the numbers on the calendar to tell him when I can come to the meeting.
And I'm thinking why don't you get off of this telephone. Don't you know that I've got to get the pot. He don't know a thing about the pot. But I think he ought to and he ought to go away and let me go get it. I finally got him off the telephone and I made a dive for the stove. Situation hadn't changed a bit. Wrestled with that pot till I was totally exhausted. I went to bed that night and I can't go to sleep. And you just sleep in little fits. My God there's the pot. I got to get the pot. Next morning I didn't have time to pray and meditate. I didn't have time to turn my will and my life over to the care of God.
I got to get the pot. Hit the floor flying. Made dive for the stove. Situation hadn't changed a bit. Wrestled with that pot till I was totally exhausted. Shot my whole day and it hadn't even started yet. And I can go pick and save and get a pot like that for a buck and a quarter. Wouldn't be that pot. Yeah, you know. Things go along pretty good for a day or two. I think about the pot. Think about the pot all hell breaks loose. Usually hit you at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. And I come right straight up out of that bed. My God there's the pot. One morning God spoke to me loud and clear. He said, Ruth, I want you to go and get you a new stove you don't need. So you can get that little pot you don't need.
So I have to cool these direct messages from God. Most of the time it's a 7 year old emotional delinquent terrified of the word no. To me it meant total, final, terminal, complete, forever and ever and ever. I know today I can do anything I want to if I want to pay the consequences. Sometimes the tub's too high and I don't want to pick it up. I've got to step aside and I've got to say, Thy will be done. And you know I don't mean it.
But I just go on saying it like I do mean it until I do mean it. One more lesson becomes a blessing. I have one more experience in living to share with somebody else a little further down the line. God will pick the time and God will pick the place. He'll bring us together at the level of the group. As far as I'm concerned, the group is the heart of God. Our traditions say a loving God as he expresses himself in our group conscience.
Nowhere in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous have I ever found that it speaks of anything but an all kind, all loving, all living, all forgiving creator. Unconditional love. If I buy one part of the book, I have to buy that. So newcomers, we don't care where you're coming from. If you be alcoholic and you know you're alcoholic, Alcoholics Anonymous is your Alcoholics Anonymous. It's for drunks by drunks. And we don't care what you did
[01:10:03]
out there. We didn't do the same thing. It's because we were busy doing what we were doing. So we hope you'll come and take your chair. You paid your dues and fees. If you choose to go back, that's your privilege. Nobody in Alcoholics Anonymous will ever try to hold you here against your will. When God breathed the breath of life in the nostrils of his kids, each and every one of us, the first thing he gave us was free will. He don't infringe on it and neither do we. But if you choose to stay, some drunkards dying out there in alcoholism tonight will have a chance to live because you'll have that something they need. And when you see that sick drunk, you'll reach down into your gut and you'll bring out everything that you was going to die and never tell anybody about. And you'll share it with that drunk. And you'll see life and you'll see hope come back in the eyes of a dying human being. If you don't believe in miracles, stick around and become one. And I hope we can make the journey together and I can walk close to you so I can see God at work in you. Newcomers, you grab hold. You hang on like a tick on a hound dog. And you know man, everything's going to be all right. God love you. Thank you.