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Source: DICOBE-00421 – Margaret P – BLUESTONE WEST VIRGINIA RNDP – 1980-10-19.mp3 File: dicobe-00421-margaret-p-bluestone-west-virginia-rndp-1980-10-19.mp3 Duration: 01:12:16
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Today I look back to the place where I used to go Today I saw the simple path I used to walk When I asked if it wasn't sad, I'd have to tell them Thank you, lady, I don't want to hear any more Thank you, lady, I am not the man I used to be Thank you, lady, please understand, thank you for all While the tears run down my face, I'd like to tell them Thank you, lady, I don't want to hear any more Thank you, lady, I am not the man I used to be Thank you, lady, please understand, thank you for all While the tears run down my face, I'd like to tell them Thank you, lady, I don't want to hear any more Thank you, lady, I don't want to hear any more Thank you, lady, I don't want to hear any more Thank you, lady, I don't want to hear any more Thank you, lady, I don't want to hear any more Thank you, lady, I don't want to hear any more Why don't you? It's so easy to say, come on and sing Why don't you? Everybody needs cheer and comfort sometimes So why not start today? It's so easy to smile, come on and smile And sing your care away Lady, lady, how sweet the sound that made a man smile to me I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see It was grace that bought my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved How gracious did that grace appear in God my first deed When we've been there ten thousand years, by shining as the sun We know that grace will change our strays than when we first begun Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
[00:05:01]
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah Every day, God, oh, I need you Every day, God, oh, I need you Every day, God, oh, I need you Every day, God, oh, I need you You will help me, Hallelujah You will help me, Hallelujah You will help me, Hallelujah You will help me, Hallelujah Something beautiful, something good All my confusion He understood All I had to offer Him was brokenness But He made something beautiful of my life Something beautiful, something good All my confusion He understood All I had to offer Him was brokenness But He made something beautiful of my life God is so good, God is so good God is so good, He's so good to me God answers prayer, God answers prayer God answers prayer, He's so good to me God cares for you, God cares for me God is so good, He's so good to me God answers prayer, God answers prayer God answers prayer, He's so good to me Where my father died, land of the delivered bride From every mountainside, let freedom ring My father's body, altar of liberty Strong may our land unite, with freedom's holy light
[00:10:10]
Protect us by thy might, great God our King God bless America, my home sweet home God bless America, land that I love Standing by her, and by her, through the night with the light from above From the mountain, to the prairie, through the ocean, wide we fall God bless America, my home sweet home God bless America, my home sweet home Hallelujah, glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah, our God is marching on Christ, the King, the glory of the coming of the Lord He is marching on to victory through the ranks of every sort He has moved the faithful like He knows He will, this Lord His truth is marching on Glory, glory, hallelujah, glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah, our God is marching on Since the beauty of the lily, Christ was born across the sea With the glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me As He died to make men whole, He bled on Him to make them free While God is marching on Glory, glory, hallelujah, glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah, our God is marching on America, America, God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea Beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain For purple mountains majesty, for the free and free America, America, God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea Oh, beautiful for patriot dreams that keep thee on the field High alabaster cities gleam under thy human hue America, America, God shed His grace on thee There Is Grape on Me, I'm Proud Like Her, With Brotherhood, God's Big Blue, Shining Tree,
[00:15:15]
This is my country, Land of my birth, This is my country, Land of my birth, I pledge in my allegiance, The land of the whole, This is my country, To have and to hold, Oh, say can you see, By the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed, At the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, Through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, Were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, The bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night, That our flag was still there, Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art, Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art. Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art, Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art, Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art.
Then through the woods and forest plains I wandered, And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. Then I looked down from lofty mountain ranches low, And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. Then with my sin the Godhead Son of Mary, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. Then on the cross my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin.
[00:20:06]
Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art, Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art. When joy shall come without all exclamation, And lead me home, what joy shall fill my heart. When I go down in humble adoration, And am complained, my God, how great Thou art. Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art, Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art.
Then sing my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, how great Thou art. This weekend has been one of the most faithful experiences of my sobriety. They tell me when I stood up here on Sunday morning that I was going to have a beautiful view. But ain't nobody can describe this. It's really magnificent and I feel truly blessed to be here. Every time I'm asked to speak, I'm reminded of the person that Father Martin referred to that said, Please have patience with me. God still has me in the garage making repairs.
I'm young in my sobriety and my journey is just getting started. And I'm very grateful for the opportunity to share the miracle of my recovery with you. Because I believe that it truly is a miracle. When I came to you a little over three years ago, everyone had absolutely given up on me. And I had given up on myself. Family, friends, doctors, ministers, everyone felt that I was hopeless. And today I do not believe that anybody is hopeless.
There's hope here. I have found it. And I'm so grateful to be able to share it this morning. I began my story when I was ten years old. My father died when I was ten. And that is the first time in my life that I can remember pain, grief, and even anger. And I didn't know what all these feelings were. And in my family we didn't express our feelings. And I was told to act like a lady. And I felt guilty for having those feelings and I bundled them up inside of me.
And I carried them around with me, not even aware that they were there until I came to you. Feeling alone, feeling different, feeling guilty for having these feelings and feeling like I was the only person in the world that had them. And that's the way I marched through life, just full of all of this junk that I didn't even know was there. I was popular in high school, but I still never felt comfortable, never felt a part of.
And yet I was included in everything.
[00:25:01]
I did not drink in high school because in the fifties it just wasn't fashionable for girls in my peer group to drink. I believe today that's the only reason. It never occurred to me to drink. But when I was a senior in high school I started dating a boy at the University of South Carolina, which is in Columbia. And I started dating him a whole lot and he was a very heavy drinker. I started going to all of the college fraternity parties with him.
And I didn't realize that he was drinking any more than anyone else because when you're not drinking it's pretty hard to gauge who's doing what. But I just thought that this fellow had hung the moon. I was seventeen years old and there he was at the university and he was really with it. He was a good dancer, he was popular, he was everything. And his drinking didn't even, it wasn't even anything that I really looked at.
And I ran away and married him when I graduated from high school. My mother and my two aunts, her sisters, had planned for me to go away to college. And this just broke their heart that I ran away and married. But here I did not have to pay the price for my irresponsibility. They set me up in an apartment right up by the university and I started life as a co-ed. Our apartment became the hangout of the whole K-A fraternity.
Everybody was partying there around the clock. And I tried to drink from time to time and be one of the group. But I was pregnant and even cigarette smoke made me sick. So I was not a successful drinker at that time. My husband at that time, after he graduated, his drinking accelerated and when the party was over it was not over for him. And it continued and it got worse and it got awful. And finally, to make a long story short, at the age of 21, I divorced him on the grounds of habitual drunkenness.
I had three babies, one two and three years old. One wasn't even one, he was about six weeks old. And at this time I never, never looked back. It never occurred to me that this was a sick man. It was not until I took my fourth step in Alcoholics Anonymous that I saw my shortcomings in that marriage. I thought I was pretty smart to put up with him as long as I did. I was never a wife to that man, I never understood anything that was going on.
But I left that marriage and I hated men and I hated alcohol in that order. I went back to live with my mother and my two aunts. And every time, I hear a lot of people saying that when they saw something about alcoholism that they skimmed over it and didn't read it. But during this time in my life I started reading everything I could get my hands on about alcoholism. I was very interested in it and at the same time I was totally disgusted with it.
And I thought, Jesus Christ, how would anybody let that happen to themselves? I would never do that. You know, total disgust. Anyway, I went back to live with my mother and my two aunts with my three little babies and I went back to the university to complete my education, which I did. And began teaching school. And during this time, we had lived in Columbia all of our lives and of course we knew everybody in Columbia.
And I got so much credit that I thought I was really different. I was special. People would say, look at that little Margaret. Can you believe it? She left that drunken bum, went back to the university, finished her education, teaching school, raising those babies. Isn't she wonderful? And boy, I thought I was too. But you know, during that time, my mother and my two aunts absolutely raised my children.
I had no responsibilities toward them at all. I didn't bathe them. I didn't feed them. I didn't nurture them. I didn't pay any attention to them. I was like a co-ed again, a teenager, just going to the university. Just one of mama's kids. But I kept patting myself on the back. And gradually I began to date again. And I can honestly say that this is a time when I started seeing a side of social drinking.
Drinking a Side of Social Drinking, and for several years I did see a side of social drinking,
[00:30:01]
and as I began dating, it seemed to me that everything revolved around let's go out and have a drink, and at first I didn't have one, and then it seemed to be that I should be able to do this, and I would have a social Tom Collins, can't even believe that today, sip on it, didn't even want it, uh-uh, that's true, and as time went on I started dating a man that was a very heavy drinker, but of course I was going to change him, and it was not long before I had joined him and was looking forward to the drinking occasions more and more, and I dated him for two and a half years, and during this time my drinking had accelerated, but I'd never looked at that, and when I married him I thought that all of my dreams had come true.
He was a wealthy man, he had his own business, he got me out of that classroom, built us a gorgeous house in the suburbs, adopted my children, we joined country clubs that I had thought that if I belonged to that club I will be okay. I had everything up to the station wagon with the sheepdog hanging out the back, you know, I had it all, suburbia personified, you know, the girl who had everything, and we had two children of our own, that's five children, and my life started to get emptier and emptier and emptier, and I didn't know why, I had everything.
I didn't have any interest, nothing would turn me on that turned on other women. I tried to like bridge, I tried to like tennis, I tried to like garden clubs, I tried to like what other people were liking, and I never did, and gradually as my drinking increased, instead of just not liking something, I became very cynical and very critical of those that found satisfaction doing these things. I would see someone in the neighborhood with a tennis dress on and say, doesn't she think she's cute?
Bitter, this horrible, horrible feeling of knowing that I was different, not knowing why, and hating you because you weren't. Never fulfilled, and the drinking constantly increasing. By this time I was suffering from severe hangovers, and I was comparing myself to other people. I could compare myself with my husband at the time, and I could look at the fact that he drank maybe three drinks to my one.
He drank a whole heck of a lot more than I did, but it was what it did to me. It always did different things to me. I could never laugh about a hangover. I was so ashamed of it that it was more of these feelings I kept bottling up. I couldn't let you know how I was feeling. I was too ashamed. These feelings being bottled up led to deep depression. I started experiencing enormous anxiety, and phobias started creeping in that got worse and worse and worse.
By this time I can honestly say that a night did not go by that we did not have several drinks. By now I was sneaking a couple, making mine stronger than my husband's, all these things in the progression of alcoholism that I had been aware of because I'd read about the progression of alcoholism. And I saw it happening to me, and I still thought I was different. It can't happen to me. As these phobias increased, our whole life now was revolved, for me, around alcohol.
Our social life was all that really mattered, what I was going to wear, how I looked, who was going to be there, and who was going to babysit. That's all that was going through my mind. And the drinking was increasing. I was slipping drinks during the afternoon at this time. I would take to the bed in depression and nip. I could nip during the day and sober up by the time the kids got home from school.
And then when my husband got home, we'd start in again, and he'd go to bed, and I could sometimes drink all night, and nobody knew it. And, you know, this was really unbelievable because people didn't know what was wrong with me.
[00:35:01]
They all thought that I was crazy, but they didn't know it was alcohol. So I was getting by with it all the time, killing myself. And I started going to psychiatrists and psychologists along the way, and they were looking at the phobias and the anxiety and the depression. And we didn't look at the alcoholism. I told them something about my drinking, but I was not capable of being completely honest, even with myself.
And this was not treated. My addiction was not treated. And this one psychologist that I went to for two and a half years, he kept saying we worked under this transactional analysis, I'm okay, you're okay, and I never got okay, you know. He kept saying that if I got okay, that the drinking would not be the problem. The problem was that I was not okay, and I loved him, you know. Go back and forth. Finally, they decided that if I would have female surgery, that that was the problem and that I would be okay.
So I went into the hospital for the female surgery. I had it, and afterwards they thought that I had gone into a premature change of life. It doesn't matter whether I did or whether I didn't, but today I'm absolutely convinced that it was alcohol withdrawal in that hospital. I was sweating and shaking and nervous, all those good things. But this is when I started on tranquilizers and sleeping tablets and hormones.
And I came home with all of these little good pills and a six-week recovery period where I never recovered. Because this was just about the greatest reason to lay up in that bed with nobody questioning you and just, you know, drink around the clock. And I started doing that because I soon learned that those tranquilizers, they just didn't get the job done quick enough to suit me. And the vodka and the orange juice got the job done a lot better for me, and I started nipping around the clock.
And finally, after about five weeks, this is the first time that I had not been able to play with it and cut it off. I couldn't stop drinking. And I called my psychologist, and I said, What am I going to do? I can't stop drinking. And he got my husband to bring me over to his office. And we sat in that office, and I told my husband that I had a problem with alcohol and I couldn't stop drinking. And the man was totally shocked.
This was in 1975, and I had played so many games and hidden it so beautifully that the man had absolutely no idea that I had a problem with alcohol. 1975. And that's when I came out of the closet. But once I came out, I just kept on coming out. I didn't have to hide it anymore, you know. So all the stoppers came out, and this is when I began hospitalizations, detox centers, treatment centers, and on and on it went.
The first time that I went to a treatment center, it was just being established in Columbia, and I went with the worst attitude that anybody could ever go. You know, I was there for eight days, and I was kicked out. I was asked to leave Morris Village in Columbia because of my attitude. And it never once occurred to me while I was there that anybody was trying to help me. That never even occurred to me.
I just couldn't stand any of them. I thought I was better than everyone on there. And I left that place determined to do it on my own. And I like to say at this point that once you cross a line of alcoholism that I crossed, you might take another drink, you might start nipping, but you have a gut-level feeling you know it's going to get you. You know it's just a matter of time. It may take some people longer, but gut-level, it's going to get you.
And it always did with me. It always did. And by this time, I can honestly say that my marriage was dead. My husband could not understand anybody that could not drink alcohol. He had not liked the fact that I was nutsy, but the fact that I couldn't drink alcohol blew his mind because his life revolved around social drinking. And he absolutely looked at me as though I were an animal because I couldn't drink alcohol.
And I had a hard time coming to grips with that, but today I can understand that.
[00:40:03]
He could no more understand someone that couldn't have a couple of drinks than I could understand at the time someone that could. I couldn't understand anybody that would have a drink or two. I wouldn't fool with it if that's all I could have. So I've come to terms with that, but it took a long time. And this man served divorce papers, and I went into a treatment center again to try to save that marriage.
But in this next treatment center that I went in, Palmetto Center in Florence, South Carolina, I did get my first acquaintance with AA. They had AA speakers to come in on Thursday nights there. And my attitude, I used to say my attitude was so much better when I went to Palmetto Center, but I went to Palmetto Center with ten pairs of shoes, and I had taken the soles out of all of them and taped heels in them and put the sole back on the top of them, and that's not a real good attitude to go into treatment with.
And I kind of floated through my treatment down there. But I know the AA speakers that would come in on Thursday nights, I had a terrible resentment toward them. They would come in driving fancy cars. This is what I saw. I was a very sick girl. I didn't see anything positive, only negative. All dressed up and say, Everything is wonderful since I found Alcoholics Anonymous. Couldn't stand them. And I know one of them put out a cigarette on the floor, and I said, You SOB, I had to mop that floor.
That was my attitude toward Alcoholics Anonymous when I left Palmetto Center. But my dear little mother had talked to a lot of people in AA, and she kept begging me to go and begging me to go, and I didn't go because I wanted to go. I went because I didn't have anything else to do and get her off my back. And I was going through the divorce, and it was a very painful time, and I wanted to be with some people.
And I think that I kept thinking then, if I'm a good girl, he might come back to me and take care of me. And I was going to AA to be a good girl, I believe. I don't know. But when I went there, I did feel a love that was mighty, mighty special to me. I was taking pills, sleeping tablets and tranquilizers, the whole time that I went there for several months. I did not drink while going to AA, and I honestly don't remember much about going at all except the feelings there that made me feel good on the inside.
Several months after this, my mother died in November of that year, and I was absolutely devastated. I could not face that. I couldn't believe it. And it just floored me. And my AA friends at the time came around, but I did not go back to AA. I used this for a big pity party, and I stayed drunk that whole Christmas. And, you know, it was poor me, poor me. My mother's gone, my husband's left me, and people kept saying, Margaret, you've got those children to live for.
The people, I was so sick that those children were not an asset at that time. They were a liability. The people, I was so sick that those children were not an asset at that time. They were a liability. And I think one of the painful things to face is during that Christmas, they had a mother that was bombed out in the bed for several weeks, a father who was gone, and their grandmother, their only security, was gone, and they didn't have anybody.
They didn't have anybody, and that never occurred to me then. But after Christmas, I kind of pulled myself out of that pit, and different friends started to get me dates. And it was during this time that I met my present husband, Joe. He worked nights, and he would come over to the house about 11.30, a quarter to 12, and we'd sit there on the front steps and talk. And I said, this is the first person that's ever understood my problems.
And he understood because he had the same problems. But I didn't know that then. And we started talking about getting married and the future and here again I thought, you know, I've got it made. This guy is going to be the answer. Because, you see, I look to people and things for my answers. I didn't know until you taught me that I had to look within, You taught me that I had to look within, that I was the problem.
I didn't know that then. I thought that you could solve all of my problems, and here was the fellow who was going to save me.
[00:45:04]
Well, I bombed out several days after this blooming romance was in full bloom. In the bed, the alcohol got me, and I got up and took a morning drink, and I was gone for several days, and this absolutely scared him to death, because he had always functioned. He had never seen anybody that absolutely ceased to function like I did. And he left, and he said, Margaret, you've got to get professional help. I ain't helping you.
And he left, and he meant business. He moved from his apartment. He had his telephone unlisted, and I could not get through the switchboard of his office. And boy, I used this for the longest drunk that I'd ever gone on. I drank around the clock for about 28 or 30 days. I do not remember much about that whole entire time, but I know that I was taken to the hospital and had my stomach pumped out, and my minister had taken me there.
He says today that I did more to test his faith than anybody since he's been in the ministry. But when I got out, I had seen a psychiatrist there and my regular doctor, and they gave me some stronger tranquilizers and some stronger sleeping tablets and added an antidepressant to this and told me not to drink. Well, I don't know when I was drinking. Probably, you know, that afternoon, certainly. I don't think I wasted much time. I don't even remember getting alcohol during this period.
But one time I woke up and it was 1 o'clock, and I heard the maid in the back of the house, and I said, Annie, why'd you let me sleep so long for? And she said, Margaret, you don't remember this morning? No. She said, when I got here, you were fully dressed in the bathtub with the hot water running full blast, and the rescue squad had to get you back in bed. And I didn't remember that. Another time I must have fallen down the steps because my 17-year-old daughter found me with blood coming out of my ears and my nose, and I had to have my head stitched up.
And she called an ambulance, and I rode all the way across Columbia in an ambulance, and I never, ever recall having ridden in an ambulance at all. Still have a little funny feeling when I see an ambulance, you know? I don't recall ever riding in one. My minister was still there all the time. I can just vaguely remember his being in and out. And he kept trying to prepare me for what was to come, but I couldn't hear what he was saying.
I don't remember much of it except that he walked me out in the living room where two officers of the court were standing with some papers, taking my children away from me because I was an unfit mother. And I couldn't believe that. I can remember that feeling then of looking at the signature of the judge who signed it and still thinking, he can't do this to me. I played bridge with his wife. I've grown up with him.
He can't do this to me. But he did, and I've been able to thank him since coming into the fellowship. He may have saved my children's lives. He may have saved mine. But there was no gratitude in this old sister that day. Boy, I was a hornet. And my cousin flew up from Miami, Florida to see what they were going to do with me. And this is kind of the period when they referred to me as it. You know, what are we going to do with it? I don't know.
You know, and you're there, and they're all talking about you in the third person. Anyway, they came up with taking it to Grace Home up in North Carolina, in Boone, North Carolina. That's the women's division of Hebron Colony, a Christian home for alcoholics. And she took me to a motel, and the next morning I was given a couple of hours to go up and get my personal belongings out of my house. And she and my minister took me over there, and they were just telling me what I was going to need.
This was in March. And they said, you've got to get some winter clothes, and you've got to get some summer clothes, and you'd better get something comfortable to walk in. You'll probably be doing some hiking up there. And they said, you might want to get your boots. And I was sweating and trembling and crawling around on the closet floor. I didn't really give a toot what I took, you know. They said, get your boots, and I pulled out one of my boots, and there in that boot was a bottle of vodka.
I said, thank you, Jesus.
[00:50:00]
That got me up to Grace Home. You know, one of my great phobias at the time was my fear of heights. And Grace Home sits on top of a mountain. And it was just a terrifying experience to go up a little hairpin mountain road and look down. Oh, God, it was awful. You know, we try every way in the world to kill ourselves, and then scared. You know, scared we're going to fall. But I got up there, and there were 12 women, and they'd put us in this Volkswagen bus and take us to church 11 times a week.
That was 22 times up and down that hill, because the church was at the bottom of it. And in the beginning, it was with me just yelling and screaming and sweating and crying and down on the floor in that Volkswagen bus. And I had all those women so upset. But finally, the director up there, who's a minister, took me aside, and he said, Margaret, do you think God got you up here to run you off the side of a mountain?
That was the first time I'd thought about God in a long time. And I started thinking, and I started enjoying the mountains and nature around me. And that's another reason that this weekend means so much to me. And I drove up here in these mountains, and I saw these leaves. And God, it's good to be sober. Anyway, I started to have some of these feelings to come alive in me up there. And I started listening in these church services, and I started thinking about God.
And I started thinking about my children. And I started sharing with those women up there. And I started to get well. But the difference for me, you see, I had been exposed to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I knew I needed AA then. But I asked that minister what he thought about AA, because, you see, I knew what he thought. He was not an advocate of AA. And I wanted him to tell me I didn't need to go back, that I could find my answers in the church.
And please believe me, I've seen people that do find their answers in the church. I know that. But I knew then, just as well as I know now, that I needed the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew it. But I wanted to drink again, and I did. I came back out of there, called Joseph as soon as I got back to town, and started seeing him a little bit. Not very much. I went back to court. I got my children back.
I got my house back. You know what I did? I celebrated. And that was an awful, awful drunk. But Joe helped me through that. He said, Well, Margaret, you've tried it again. You know, that's kind of natural, and you know that you just can't drink. So hold up your head and keep on walking. And I tried to do that. But, you know, I don't know how people like us walk by themselves. I couldn't. I still can't.
I was too ashamed to go out to the mailbox to get my mail. I was too ashamed of myself to go to the grocery store. I thought that I was about the worst thing that had ever happened, and that I was a total sinner. I didn't even know I was a sick person. I just thought I was a bad person. And there ain't no way that I could keep walking like this. And I would fall from time to time. But this is about the time when Joe and I decided that the solution for the whole thing was to get married.
And I was not actually drinking the day that we got married, but Joe was. I don't think I'd have tricked him into it if he hadn't been. But that was going to be the answer. And as he was telling you Friday, it was a complete nightmare. I was thinking to myself this morning, this is like being at camp. And I don't know if when you were at camp you were ever short-seated. But when we came back from getting married, my children short-seated the bed.
And, you know, two drunks, that wasn't funny at all. It was awful. It was just awful because, you see, there was no humor in our life at all. And this whole time was an absolute nightmare, like Joe said, with my children hiding in the closet. And his leaving and our drinking. And this went on for a couple of months there. And my children, my four little girls took me to Folly Beach and nursed me by themselves through DTs so that their daddy wouldn't find out I was drinking again.
And something happened down there and I knew that what I needed to do was to get back to AA. And I called Joe and I talked to him about it. And I came back to Columbia and I went to AA that Sunday morning and Joe went with me.
[00:55:05]
And when we got in there, I was welcomed back with no questions asked. I was not made to feel guilty in any way. Nobody questioned anything. And when we went in and went to the meeting, I picked up a white chip, which is your surrender chip if you have a desire to stop drinking, at the end of that meeting. And I turned around and Joe was picking up a white chip too. And I couldn't believe it. But, you know, you'd think you'd be really grateful, wouldn't you?
I was so sick and so self-centered that I said, oh, he's doing it for me. Well, he started to take to AA like nothing you've ever seen. He had his nose in that big book, morning, noon, and night. He went to meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting all the time. That's all he wanted to talk about was AA. He had every book, every pamphlet. And he drove me crazy. Jesus, I've married a fanatic, you know. And I went the other way.
I stopped going to meetings. You know how it goes. And I drank again. And up until today, that was my last drunk. And it was not as physically bad on me as things had been in the past. But mentally and emotionally, it absolutely tore me apart because before I'd been able to pass out and just bomb out from everything that was going on. And this time I could see it. I could see the pain in those children's eyes.
I saw Joe Petty get down to 140 pounds and collapse. And I could not stop drinking. And, you know, I've heard so many people say, let them drink it out. Let them drink it out. When they're ready, they'll come back. Thank God they didn't let me drink it out. My friends in Alcoholics Anonymous absolutely babysat with me for two days. I couldn't stop drinking. And I couldn't go to a detox center or any treatment center, anything else, because my former husband was drawing up papers to take those children again.
So these loving friends of mine sat with me around the clock. And something happened to me as I was coming off the alcohol that time that I can never adequately share. But I always feel that I really want to cry because as I was laying there trembling and shaking in the middle of the night, I played a different player. And it was not for myself, not get me over this this time. It was, God, if I'm going to always go on hurting people, please just take me.
I don't want to hurt anybody anymore. And something happened to me, and that lump that I'd carried around for 37 years, that knot, that fear, left. And I knew it was going to be okay. When I got back to AA, I was going to be okay. And if I died, it was okay. And I did get back to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I came back to you with a different attitude this time. I got a sponsor. I went to the meetings.
And you had a live one because whatever you told me, I tried my best to do. And there were a lot of people around that had what I wanted. And just, you know, I thought maybe some of it would rub off, and I still got a lot of that in me. I still got my heroes, and I still walk around and follow you around, and I just kind of want to know where it's at. And God keeps putting people in my life every day.
You know, I just never cease to be amazed at how this happens. And in meetings, it always happens. And I don't believe in coincidences today. People just kept coming along in my life. Right when I was hurting so bad, I didn't think I could hurt another minute. And they'd come along and help me out, help me find some answers. But I know that when I came back to AA with this new attitude, I also came back with a terrible compulsion to drink.
That compulsion did not leave me like it leaves so many people. Leave me, like it leaves so many people, and I am very grateful today, because I hurt so badly that I was forced to start taking the steps, and I honestly believe that if I hadn't hurt so bad that I would have taken the easier, softer way, but I had to, I almost drank again three months after coming back to you, with that same insane thinking nobody will know, my Aunt Margaret was dying in the hospital, it was Christmas, and
[01:00:18]
my children were with their father, and Joe's children were not there, and it was depressing, he had to work, and it was poor me, and I almost took a drink, and you know, then it came to me, nobody will know, but me and God, you know, and I said, God help me, and I didn't take that drink, but I did take the second step, and that compulsion left, and it has never returned to me today, and I am very grateful for that.
After taking the second step, and that compulsion leaving, it became crystal clear to me, that if God could remove that compulsion to drink from me, that he could do anything, and I believe that today, I have to remind myself today, but I made that decision in the third step, and I have never reneged on the decision. I hang around you all the time to find out how you are carrying it out, because I don't feel that I carry it out to the best of my ability most of the time, but when I do, it is a good feeling, and the more I hung around, and the more I was able to share, and to hear, the more I became a part of you, and for the first time in my life, I no longer felt different, I didn't feel like I was any better than anybody, or any less different, and that is because I was in love with you.
But I was as good as anybody. God, that's a good feeling, to start feeling comfortable, and that sense of belonging. I had never had that, and that's something nobody can take with you. You bring it up here to West Virginia, you take it everywhere you go in AA, and it's so precious to me. My sponsor at this time, I went through a lot of periods of depression, and he would always just say, hang in there, hang in there, and I know that when I'd get to feeling real sorry for myself, and he'd say, Margaret, where do you see anywhere in the big book that it says you've got to like everything?
You know? So spoiled. I didn't have to like everything to do these things, but things started to happen, and there's a lady here that meant so much. She was a turning point in my sobriety, and she was not even aware of it, and I was grateful for meeting her up here, because she was speaking in Newberry about this time that I was going through such turmoil, and she said, serenity is not, serenity is not the only thing that's important.
It's not the absence of problems, but the ability to cope with them, and up until this point, I had not known what serenity was at all. I thought it was just a pie in the sky, you know, and that thing really hit home with me, and I thought, my God, you know, I'm coping, sometimes not well, and sometimes very poorly, but I'm coping, you know, and it was a real revelation for me, because that's one of our promises, that they just, you know, came true for you. I didn't know that any of them would come true for me, but you will comprehend the word serenity, and you will know peace, and I believe that I started to grow from that point on, because I could trust you more when I saw a promise actually coming true for me.
I went on, and I tried to take a fourth and a fifth step, and I thought that I really had, and I took my fifth step with Joe, because I trusted Joe, and I don't regret doing that, but I was not completely honest, and this has just come home to roost with me in the last few months, and I'd really like to share. God put someone else in a meeting that I really needed to be in that meeting with, and she zeroed in on me like no one ever had.
I was talking about, you know, the fact that I was trying to get over this impatience, and I was working on it, and on and on I was going, and she didn't say too much until after the meeting. And I spent the whole next day with her, and that was a significant day for me because my sobriety date and my chronological birthday date fall on the same day. And I was three years sober and forty years old, and forty's a toughie for us women, I believe. It was for me.
But at three years sober, you know, I felt like I was lost, and she encouraged me to take another fourth step.
[01:05:06]
And she not only encouraged me, she helped me, and she prided me, and she kicked me to do it. And she told me to carry a tablet around in my pocketbook with me, and any thought that came to my mind to write it down. Write it down. It don't have to be in order. Write it down. And I got so caught up in doing it that I'd wake up in the middle of the night and write something down. And finally it came time that I felt like I was ready to take the fifth step.
And I took the fifth step with this woman. And it was then that I realized that the first step, fifth step that I had taken with Joe was really a matter for me of covering my tracks. You see, I'm telling this thing in a general way. But, you know, there are a lot of things that I, you know, wanted him to know so that if somebody else came up and told him, you know, he'd already know. And it was a track covering thing.
But this next fifth step that I've just taken a couple of months back was a beautiful experience for me because she pulled feelings out of me that I had not even known were there. And we looked at the whole thing and she says, now I want you to take the second part of this step by yourself. And I had not known there was a second part to the fifth step. But I went home by myself and I prayed about what had happened.
And I picked up my big book. And I had an experience that's with me today that I'm so grateful to be able to share because I read that sixth step three years sober and I had never seen it before. Became entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. And I'd been trying to do it myself. And I had not been any more successful than I had been trying to stop drinking. So this is kind of where I am today in my sobriety.
And it's such a beautiful journey. And I'm so grateful for everything that's happening along this road. It's not easy, but gosh, it's exciting. I know another experience I want to share very quickly with you. The first time I was asked to speak, I was absolutely terrified. And there were about 150 people that had jammed into our little AA club in Columbia. And it's a smoke you can't even hardly see who's there.
And I got up there and I just started to talking. And I asked God to help me. And I always ask God to help me when I get up to talk. I'm almost getting to the point that when I sit down, I don't start thinking about what I left out and tell God he didn't do a good job. I'm getting a little bit better about that, but not a whole lot. But this night I asked God to help me. And I stood up there and I didn't even know what I was going to say.
And there were a lot of women there. And I started to talk to them about how difficult it was in my sobriety with my children. That I loved them, but I didn't have a speck of patience. And I didn't feel like I had any gratitude for getting those turned back because I was yelling at them every time I turned around. And that I was hoping that I was going to get better in this area because I loved them so much.
And then I talked about my 17-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, who is so beautiful. And who has been with me through this whole thing. And she came in drinking one night. And it just tore me out of the frame. But I know that there's nothing I can say to Elizabeth that she doesn't already know and hasn't already seen. And if I come on too strong, I know I'm going to turn her off. I know those things. And I prayed that God would help me say the right thing to her the next morning.
And I went in the next morning. And she was standing there. She was loaded today and she knew I was coming. And she put her hand on my hip and she says, Mother, you don't have to worry. I'll never drink like you. And I put my hand right on my hip and I said, Do you think when I was 17 years old I stood up and said, I'm going to be an alcoholic when I grow up? And she heard. And things started to get a little better between us.
And anyway, as I was relating this, I sat down. And I looked over on the side of the room. And there was Elizabeth and her sister Molly. They had slipped down there to hear me talk. And they heard me pour out my guts about how I felt. And I was just, my sponsor said I turned white. And I thought, oh, my God, I wouldn't have embarrassed those children for anything in this world if I'd have known they were there.
[01:10:01]
But I didn't know. And that's what was so special because they came up to me after the talk and they had tears streaming down their faces. And they said, Mama, we love you. And it is better with us today. It's better in our home. That's what I have to be grateful for. You know, I've been fortunate enough to go on a lot of 12-step calls in my sobriety. But I have never seen a man or a woman in any worse fix with alcohol than I was in.
And I'm grateful today that I can understand them. Now, I don't have to point a finger at anybody because you've shown me how to point a way. And I'm grateful for that. I've got a little sign that hangs up over my kitchen sink. It says, I cannot change what is past. I can only learn from it. Everything I've done in my life was necessary for me to be who I am today. And today I'm a reasonably happy woman and a truly grateful one.
Today there's a new joy in just being alive, good times and hard times. It's just a joy to be able to feel them. Today there's love in our home. God is in our home. And I don't take any credit for any of this. Because I know, I know from the bottom of my heart that my sobriety is a gift from God. And to me God is love. And love is the whole bottom line of this fellowship as I see it. Because your love lifted me out of the pit of hell and you loved me back to health.
And then you showed me how to love. The world had said you made your bed, now lie in it. But a higher power said take up your bed and walk. Thank you for walking with me. Thank you.