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Source: Mari G – San Diego Spring Roundup in San Diego, CA – March 26th 2005 – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: mari-g-san-diego-spring-roundup-in-san-diego-ca-march-26th-2005-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:12:53
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My name is Mary Gallagher and I am an alcoholic and I'm so grateful to be here and grateful to be sober. By the grace of God, Alcoholics Anonymous, Loving Fellowship and Good Sponsorship, it hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink since the 10th of August 1984 and for that I am truly grateful. I would like to thank, first of all, Dave MacKay for calling and asking me to come and speak. Thank you very much. It's always an honor and a privilege to do service, Dave. And I'd like to thank Bill and his committee for this. It's just beautiful. I'm sorry I haven't been here since it started. And I'd also like to thank Jason and Allison for picking me up and being so gracious. And it's good to see my friends.
I see some friends here. We were together at a conference in Hawaii and I had some friends. We were just together in El Paso and Cliff and his wife Pat. It's quite funny, you know, Cliff walked past me and he said, glad you could stop by. Well, what happened was I got to the airport last night. Well, I was working yesterday and I got to the airport last night and I got up to the desk and it was empty. There was nobody around. And I was beginning to get a little irate. You know how we can sometimes get self-righteous now that we're sober and get there on time. And I was kind of shouting to see if there was anybody hiding around the back. And then two East Indian cleaners came and they told me that all flights were gone. And I couldn't believe it because I've never missed a flight before. So of course because I am on a spiritual path I start thinking, so what does this mean, God? And I know that God was saying, what it means is, is you screwed up, you missed a flight and we'll get you on tomorrow. But I called the airline and at first they said it might cost me $760 because the ticket was non-transferable, etc. But they got me here and they didn't charge any more money so that was pretty nice. And unfortunately I have to leave tomorrow morning. I leave here at 9.30, I get into Toronto at 7.30 at night and I have to be at work at 9.30 in the morning. So I'm sorry I haven't been here longer. You've probably heard that I'm not a Canadian. I kind of found Canada the way Columbus discovered America. I was looking for something else. But I did find sobriety in Canada and for that I am truly grateful.
You know a lot of things have happened to me in the last year and I'll embroider on them a little bit later on. But in the big book it says, the things that happen when you put yourself in God's hands are better than anything you could have planned. And last September I moved out of Toronto and I moved two hours north to a place that in summer has the largest freshwater beach in the world and in the winter is a ski resort.
And there's a lot of snow there but I have my own little bungalow. I was able to buy a little bungalow there. And it's an amazing thing to me because there was no road anywhere from where I'm coming from. And it's only by this fellowship and the grace of God and being able to take instruction and just, you know sometimes it looks like nothing's happening in our lives but there's always little things going on underneath. And eventually you will see changes come about. And I truly believe in the 5 and the 10 and the 15 and the 20, these multiples of 5 that happen in our life because it is an ever-changing transformation that we are going through. I mean this 12 step means much more to me today because I've been changed and changed and changed until finally I have become a citizen of the world.
I am one of those who have gone so far with my alcoholism that it took me many, many years
[00:05:01]
in Alcoholics Anonymous to be able to leave the rooms and go out there to mix with the so-called normal people. It was not easy. But now I do that and I just feel it's a miracle. I'm so grateful. I was born in Glasgow, Scotland and my parents were Irish. And I used to think that's why I was nuts. It's a terrible dilemma being Irish born in Scotland because half of you wants to drink all the time and the other half doesn't want to pay for it. You know we just had in one of our readings that nobody likes to think he is mentally different from his fellows. Well I always knew I was mentally different. I knew from before I drank.
I knew I was mentally different from before, from just as soon as I could think. And how did I know that? Because people were always saying to me, you are mentally bizarre. From I can remember people were looking at me and saying, there's something seriously wrong with your head. And long before I drank, people used to look at me and say, have you been drinking? And I hadn't even thought about it then. I was back in Scotland last year and I said to my family, when did you notice there was something different about me? And they said, oh we always knew you were odd and bizarre dear. Always. Now I don't know if I can take their judgment because you see I come from a very odd family. They're here but they're not all there if you know what I mean. For example, I have an aunt and she can be sitting having a cup of tea and all of a sudden she freezes in time. And people will say what happened to her? My family will say she's just away, she'll soon be back.
So it was really different. There was never alcohol allowed in my home. But all the men, my uncles and my grandfather, they were what I would call weekend alcoholics. And they would go out and drink and then come home and it would be bizarre. And they'd always promise me, my grandfather was my hero and he promised me he'd never drink. And every Friday and Saturday night that I could remember, he was drunk. And I saw what a change it was in him. And you know every Friday and Saturday night my grandfather would come staggering down the street, walking that walk that the drunk walks from east to west. And the neighbours were all behind their curtain laughing at my hero. And my granny was behind her curtain with a rolling pin and a rosary. And every Friday and Saturday night there would be war in my home. And I said I will never drink. I don't want my family waiting with weapons behind the curtains for me. And I swore I would never drink. I was born with something a lot of alcoholics have, although you will never hear Alan on give us any credit for it. And that is I had a high IQ. And the only thing a high IQ has done for me is I've never completed anything I've ever started. You know when you have a high IQ you're restless, irritable and discontent. And you get bored very quickly. And anyway because of this high IQ I was sent to a convent to be educated by the psychopathic nuns. And I truly believed it was the nuns who screwed me up. But what I was to find out is that the nuns were trying to teach me to have character. I did not know that character is something you do when nobody's looking. I was thrown out of that convent at fifteen years of age and I never drank until I was twenty-five. But you see I truly believe this, that when it says in the big book that some of us are born that way, it is my opinion, please keep an open mind, that
[00:10:05]
I was born with a peculiar mental condition that is called alcoholism after the drink. Because they don't have a name for it before the drink. I wish that someone had gone to my mother many, many, many, many years ago and said, Mrs. Gallaher, you've given birth to an alcoholic. Sad but true. Put a little liquor in her bottle. Feed it to her as she's growing and you will have the only hassle-free life you've ever known. And then she will get to an invisible line. Get her to AA. No one was there to tell my mother that.
So my mother spent all of the time, all of the years that I lived with her, pretending to read a piece of paper, a newspaper, and looking at me from behind it like this. And she used to say to me, I don't know where you came from. It was not easy. And also in Scotland there is a lot of religious bigotry. Let me say now, so I don't forget, I want to thank you, America, for giving all of us alcoholics anonymous. I am so deeply grateful to the United States of America, because if it wasn't for USA, there would have been no freedom to have a God of your own understanding. I truly believe that God picked this place and Bill and Bob because of the openness and the freedom of the religious thought that actually is the mainstay of this program. I am truly grateful.
So with this religious bigotry what happened is if you were Irish Catholic you were a second class citizen. And I was very angry about that. And I used to fight. And I used to get into lots of fights. And I was a very sensitive young person. And if you didn't love me, I would beat you up. And my family used to say, everybody is not going to like you, you know. And I'd say, why? Why? And so what happened is I got into quite a few fights in this convent.
And it's not the milieu for that type of behavior. And just before I was expelled at age 15, the Mother Superior took me up outside her room. And she said, if you read that sign up there, it might do something for your measly little life. And I read the sign and it said, of courtesy it is much less than courage of heart or holiness, but in my walks to me it seems that the grace of God is in courtesy. Now way back then I wanted nothing to do with the grace of God nor courtesy. But many years later it was to come true when I came through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous and you gave me courtesy. It was through the grace of God that you were able to give me courtesy and bring me in here so I could get well.
And I'm so grateful. I eventually went down to London, England. I was very angry with the English as well. I used to say, I was trying to get Home Rule for Scotland and it never worked. And I used to say, if the Americans could get freedom from the Crown, why can't we? And I just generally, I was angry at everybody. I seemed to be looking for something to project this anger onto. And I thought the English had screwed the Irish and the Scots out of our natural rightful heritage. So I went down to London, England and I joined British Airways.
And I had on the British Airways uniform and I was looking good. But in the inside I was beginning to fragment. If you ask me what is the condition of what I believe is the alcoholic prior to the drink, which is a very specific type of personality, I would say to you, it's a feeling of never being a part of the world. It's a feeling of being somehow inferior yet feeling better than. It is a feeling of being on the outside looking in.
of being on the outside looking in. These were all the feelings that I had inside of
[00:15:03]
me. And I also felt as if there was something that was wrong with me, and I couldn't put my finger on it. It was like there was something missing in my makeup, and I didn't know what it was. But I thought that if you looked at me, you would know. If you looked too closely, you'd know that there was something missing in me. So I used all the type of behavior that we used to cover it up. I became an exhibitionist, I became a load, I became a party girl, and I tried to cover it up. But I slowly, I went, when I was 21 years of age I went to two psychiatrists in London, England, and I told them how I was feeling, that I was having panic attacks.
If you read Bill Wilson's biography, you'll know before he drank, he had panic attacks and palpitations, and I was having all of those. And I sat down and I told these English psychiatrists about this and asking for help. And they looked at me and they said, you're Irish for God's sake. I don't know what that meant. Anyway, it became so unbearable and nothing was taking the focus off of me. Everything was about me. So I did the next best thing to drink and I could think of and I got married. And I went to live in Kingston, Jamaica. And I married a nice man. He was a nice man. He was a kind, good, loving man. And he married a figment of my imagination. And it was a good life in Jamaica. Things were good. But there was maids and gardeners. And after my first, after a year or more, my first son was born and I loved that child. But just after he was born, I thought I was going insane.
I thought I was losing my mind. I thought that I was about to implode into a million pieces and I had nothing to hang on to. And somebody said, have a drink. And I drank it. And for the first time in my life, my skin fit. Dr. Silkworth said that men and women drink because they like the sense of ease and comfort that they get. That gave me such a sense of ease and comfort. You could have taken someone who was exhibiting all the nervous conditions and ways of being that I was, and at that pivotal moment, given them a drink and it would have done nothing for them. They would have gone into what I believe would be full-blown psychosis and taken off to the mental institution. I have something that sits deep within me, be it in my soul, that is waiting for a drink to make me feel at one with the universe and to make me feel mentally whole. And that's what alcohol did for me.
Jamaica has 151 proof rum. It is beautiful. I loved it very much. Now when something makes you feel, remember that I had been going along in my life for 25 years trying to suck it up, having a terrible time with crowds of people, or just mixing generally, and envying those who mixed with ease and comfort. You give me two 151 proof rum and I am at ease, I am magnanimous, and I am awfully friendly. So I drank every day. I don't know what it is to have a social drink. I drank every day on a daily basis, and I drank a lot. And I had an amazing tolerance. And after about four or five years, my second son was born. And I loved that little boy too. But you see,
[00:20:00]
I had become a drunken mother, an alcoholic. And people in Jamaica who used to call and say, Mary, I'm having a party, and invite me. Now they would call and say, Mary, I'm having a party, please don't come. Because I would go to these parties amongst all these very nice, well, you know, I have an innate ability for making benign, well-adjusted people behave like morons. It's just a natural ability. So these people now just told me, say, Mary, I'm having a party, please don't come. And I wouldn't go. And then I would go. And then I'd get into trouble. And then I would start fights. And my husband came from a very nice family and they came to me one day and they said, you are embarrassing our family name.
We have an old, hundred years old, hundreds of years old family name in Jamaica. And you are casting aspersions on it. And we want you to do something with yourself. We don't know what's wrong with you. And you won't go to your, they were Catholic, they said, you won't go to church, you don't believe in nothing. Why don't you go and find something spiritual, something to believe in. And I did. And I went, first of all, I went to the Baptist movement in Jamaica. And please keep an open mind, I have lots of respect for religion.
And I was jumping for Jesus. And it didn't work. You know, and I was jumping real high, I'll tell you. I really got into it. Because I had a few of those rums inside me. And I like to think I took the movements to new heights, you know. But unfortunately it wasn't the answer for me. Now I used to live across the road from Bob Marley, on Hope Road in Kingston, Jamaica. Somebody had given Bob an old great house to live in. And it was about three doors down from the Jamaican, the High Commission, the Prime Minister's office. And I used to see these big wafts of ganja going up. And I used to think, I wonder what that's doing to the visiting dignitaries. But anyway, somebody said to me that the Rastafarians were spiritual people. And I could go anywhere in Jamaica because everybody, they knew I was one brick short of a load. And they were very kind to me, the Jamaican people. And so I went up to the hills. And the Rastafarians, what they do is they read from the Old Testament.
They hate alcohol. And the only thing is they smoke a lot of pot. And when I used to go up there, they used to say, Mary, come try a little sense of me, will you, man? Look how the liquor is making your eyes red. And I used to say, I don't want nothing that's going to screw up my brain. I'll stick to liquor, thank you. Anyway, I used to watch them. And way back then I saw something that has given us a lot of trouble in Alcoholics Anonymous today. In Alcoholics Anonymous today, non-alcoholic addicts are being sent to this fellowship. And it is so sad because we are killing them. Bill Wilson wrote in his pamphlet, Problems Other Than Alcohol, that there is no way to make a non-alcoholic addict into an AA member. He says if we do, we'll kill them. And they can't help us because the most important thing is one drunk talking to another. If you don't have a drunk story, how can you help anybody? And I didn't know all these things then. And I'll just tell you this very quickly. There was two beautiful women sent to me a few years ago, and they were basically dying. And they had been in and out of AA for years. And eventually I sat down and spoke to these two women. And they admitted to me that they were not alcoholics.
That they had gone to a treatment centre and the treatment centre had told them, because it's all one disease, to come and change the wording of the first step to suit them, to pretend to be alcoholics. And they were dying because they couldn't identify. And they got
[00:25:00]
into service very heavily, but it didn't help them. And I'm happy to say to you today, they both have a few years in CA and NA, and they're doing very well. And I say thank God for that. But way back then I knew nothing about these things. So I would watch the Rastafarians, and they would roll a big spliff. And it was so big you couldn't even see their face. And they would go, I just want a mellow old man. And I would say, I don't want a mellow old man. Have a little vision. And they would lie down and meditate. That's not me. When I drink I want action. When I drink I want justice. When I drink I want love. I will eventually end up lying down whether I want to or not. But not right now. So they bid me adieu, and couldn't help me. And eventually, because I became very obnoxious, you see I think that is essentially my personality, was very obnoxious and very rebellious. And I decided to divorce my husband, and I took my two sons and I left the island. And my boys were five and nine. And I took them to Scotland, and my family told me about my drinking.
And a man that I knew for many years, he called and gave me the solution that I used to always love. It's the easiest, softer way. He said, let's get married and I'll take you to Canada. I love those types of solutions. And I said, what a good idea. And in my head I said, drink Canada dry. Let's go. Let's go. He took me to Alberta, Canada. When we landed it was minus 40. I knew I had made a serious mistake. By this time I realised I have a serious Valium deficiency. Because I wake up in the morning and I'm shaking so much I can't lift up my drink. And I have to take Valium. So because I am a bright bunny, I get a job as a pharmaceutical rep. The man I married was my second husband, Jerry. He was a nice guy. But he used to torture me. I used to say to him, why don't you get a job? And he'd say God would provide. So I sent him off for God to provide for him elsewhere. You see, way back then, when I didn't know enough about love, when I did not know that I have to honour another human being as God's child and that we are all equal in the sight of God, then what would happen to me is I would fall in love. Because I loved that high. I loved the magic. And him and me would be like Velcro. Joined at the hip. And then after six months, thrill is gone, thrill is gone. And I'm off looking for that ding-a-ling-a-ling some place else. I had no loyalty. None. My poor little boys, they were nine and five. They had no adults in Canada except me. I would come home with people I shouldn't have come home with. I never ever physically abused my children. But these are things that no innocent child should ever see. And I didn't mean to do that. And I took away their innocence. And I'll never be able to give that back to them. And I started, I got fired from the job. I crashed the company car one too many times. And I started crying for help. And when I cry for help, I get a rampant case of alcoholic telephonitis. I don't know if there's anyone in here who has ever suffered from that. Alcoholic telephonitis is a phenomenon that never attacks in the day. It usually approaches around midnight. When you're sitting alone with your jug and you want to call somebody and tell them how you've been screwed.
and you want to call somebody and tell them how you've been screwed by the world.
[00:30:00]
But you don't want to call anybody nearby because they might come. So what you do is you call other countries, you forget there's a time change, they pick up the phone, you pass out. You don't know who's called or who you've called. And my family came and told me I had early menopause and put me in detox. And in detox something wonderful happened to me. It was just me and five native Canadians. And they told me that they were in to dry out for the summer.
And they held my soup to me and my coffee to me when I was shaking too much to hold it by myself. They told me that they drank because their spirit was broken. And I could identify with that at some level. Because many years later, when I was reading the Bill Wilson, Carl Young correspondence, and Bill Wilson had written to Dr. Young in 1961 to thank him for being what he said, one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, because he said that we were beyond human aid, alcoholics were.
And Dr. Young wrote back to Bill. He said it was his opinion that what the alcoholic had at a low level was a thirst for a union with God. He said that the formula for the alcoholic is spiritus contra spiritum, which means spirit against spirit. That makes absolute sense to me. You see, I couldn't stop drinking spirit until I got the infusion of spirit through the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It is truly spirit against spirit. But I got out that detox and I decided to go back to Jamaica. I wanted things to be the way they used to be. I took my two sons, I went to Jamaica. Their father had married again. I was a hopeless alcoholic when I went back to Jamaica. Their father asked if he could have my children for a week. And they were gone for 13 years. And I had my first suicide attempt. I took two bottles of Valium and two bottles of 151 proof rum.
Enough to kill a horse. But we don't die easy, alcoholics. We're hard to dead. And they pumped her up my stomach and took me up to Kingston Hospital in Christmas in Jamaica. And the psychiatrist came and saw me after they'd pumped her up my stomach and told me something that was very observant, intellectually correct, and definitely relevant to my condition. The psychiatrist said to me, you mustn't do that anymore.
I have a lot of remember whens, but to me, and to other people who say, you've got a lot worse remember whens than that. And yes, maybe. But the one that sticks in my heart is that I was living in an old run-down hotel in Kingston and drinking all the time and finding tourists. If there's any tourists here who were in Jamaica in 1980, I'd like to make amends. Your American author, Scott Fitzgerald, who died of alcohol-related problems, he wrote that in the real dark night of the soul, it's always three o'clock in the morning.
It was always three o'clock in the morning for me. You see, what I would do is I wanted an alcoholic to drink with me. I didn't want a normal person because they'd just end up calling me a lush. I wanted someone who drank like me to go through the night with me, not because I wanted sex or passion. I wanted someone to go through the night with me because the loneliness was like a knife cutting through my heart.
And also, when him and I drink together, I begin to look beautiful to him and he begins to look real good to me. And we wander off into the enchanted cottage and things become possible as we drink. We will be able to have maybe just one or two drinks like normal people. We will get our place back in society. We will get our dignity back. We will get our children back.
[00:35:00]
We maybe even get a new husband or a new wife. But by God, tomorrow morning, things are going to be different. And then the sun would come up. The pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization of being with a stranger one more time. And I walked out with one of my escorts and a car passed by with my two sons, my ex-husband and his new wife. And the shame was beyond endurance. And the father came and gave me $3,000 to get lost.
He said I had to leave the island or he would kill me. And I did. I went to Florida to drink myself to death. It is very difficult to drink yourself to death. I got a little apartment. I'd drink and pass out and they'd steal my furniture. They'd steal my clothes. They'd take that which I had to give and that which I did not have to give. I had to drink all the time. I had to drink all the time because if I didn't drink all the time, I would fall apart with shaking.
I had to drink all the time because I wanted no recall. I wanted no consciousness. I ended up living at the bottom of Lincoln Road on Miami Beach, selling my blood for $20 a pint. My nickname on Skid Row was Ugly. And I never ever thought I would get there. And yet again, why shouldn't I get there? Because I could not stop drinking. I'd never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was a hopeless, hopeless drunk.
There was nobody around who cared about me. My family was thousands of miles away. They didn't even know my children had been taken away. My family in Scotland. Eventually I panhandled off an old woman who used to live in Fort Lauderdale, who lived in Jamaica, an old English woman, and she'd moved to Fort Lauderdale. And she contacted my family. And they had contacted Interpol before. And they found me.
And there was a bench warrant out for my arrest in Florida. But they got me out of Florida. And when they tried to get me shoes, I had been wearing, because my feet were so swollen, I had on ten and a half flip-flops, rubber flip-flops, which had become embedded in the soles of my feet with the heat. And they had to be dug out the soles of my feet. And that is where alcohol took me. And that is why to be standing here, I cannot believe it.
I am so grateful to God and to Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob and all the members since that I am here. Because my life on Skid Row, to put it very bluntly, was like going through a sewer in a glass-bottom boat. I went back to Canada and started going into the mental institutions. Because now what happened is when I drank, I became crazy. And I wanted to hurt people. And I had so much rage and anger inside of me.
And a man I had known for a long time, he felt sorry for me. He said, I'll look after you. I'll help you. Another really nice man, John. The first time I tried to kill him, they took me to a psychiatrist. The second time, they put me in the mental institution. And I am a retread in the mental institution. And in the mental institution, they cannot diagnose chronic alcoholism because we never tell them the truth.
We never tell them the truth. And you know all the alcoholics in the psych wards and in the mental institutions. We all have three or four packs of cigarettes clutched in our sweaty little hands. And we're just shuffling along there, so full of medication. We don't know what time of the day it is. I mean, the only excitement people like us ever get in the mental institutions are when we drop our cigarettes on our paper slippers.
And we're too drunk to do anything, you know, except watch it burn. Psychiatrists, I had several diagnoses. I had diagnosis of schizophrenia because sometimes I would be like that. I had diagnosis of a manic depressive. I was treated with all kind of drugs. And I love being institutionalized because I get oblivion compliments of the government 22 hours a day. They just wake me up for my meals. Why would I want to live like that?
Because oblivion is what I seek by this stage.
[00:40:00]
Because there is no road back for me. I want oblivion. I want to be looked after. And I don't want to go out there where people expect me to behave like a normal human being. How can I with my life? I never was able to from I was born. How can I know? And there was an excellent psychiatrist and one day he came to me. I'd been taken to the mental institution by the police. I was in a lot of trouble.
And he kept me in there for a long time. And when I got out I had to go to court. And he had to write a letter to keep me out of prison or to present to the court. And in that letter he said I had three diagnosis. Chronic alcoholic, abnormal personality and depressive. And that just about says it all for me. One night I was sitting drinking myself sober and I picked up the phone and I phoned AA. You know what that's like, drinking yourself sober.
Now I had gone to a lot of AA meetings when I was in the institutions. But I never remembered anything because I was so full of drugs. Anyway, one night I picked up the phone and I phoned AA and a man called Stan came. And this was in Edmonton, Alberta. Stan C. He had 29 years sobriety. And he sat and he told me a story. And I told him a little bit of mine. And this was like 3, 4 o'clock in the morning.
And he said, Mary, I think you're one of us. I said, Stan, I know I'm an alcoholic. But I'm also nuts. I've got a psychiatric report that says I'm nuts. He said, Mary, the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is like 12 adjustable wrenches. Before any nut that comes through the door. Those are words of wisdom. And I love being in AA and I went every day and I went twice a day. And I began to realize that alcoholism wasn't about drinking.
Can you imagine if alcoholism was about drinking? If alcoholism was about drinking alcohol only, then in the first year when I was going to Alcoholics Anonymous three times a day, I would go into the meeting and there'd be a chair person sitting there and he'd say to me, did you drink today, Mary? I'd say, no. He said, see you later. Can you imagine that? And at the end of a year, I'd be dead. And on my tombstone, it would say, she didn't drink.
But her head blew apart. Because the problem of the alcoholic centers in the mind. Anyway, I had one slip. As I said, my dry day is the 10th of August, 1984. On the 9th of August, 1984, some AA people came and they took me to a meeting. I was in very bad shape. They told me I was shaking so much strangers were waving back at me. And that night, a little gal called Linda spent the night with me. She had 12 years sobriety.
And the next day, she said, I'm going to leave you now. Because you're a loser. And I want to stick with Winners and Alcoholics Anonymous. But before I go, I'm going to ask you to kneel down and say the third step prayer. And I said, sure, I don't kneel for nothing. And then something said, think of your children's eyes. And I knelt down and I held her hand and I repeated the third step prayer after her.
And from that moment to this, I have had no desire for a drink. Absolutely none. Some unmerited gift of grace was given to this undeserving person. It must be dreadful to be an AA and still want to drink. I don't know ever how I could have done it. But you know, it is possible. But I couldn't have done it. I think that's why we have Bill and Bob. You know, Bill, he never wanted to drink again. And Bob seemed to be always thinking about drinking for the whole of his 15 years, and yet being an active member and helping so many people.
But whatever happened to me, I haven't wanted to drink since the 10th of August, 1984. Now, does that mean I'm well? I don't think so. You know, I was not well long before I took a drink, and there's a lot wrong with me about which a lot has to be done. And I got very active in AA in Edmonton, Alberta. I had a
[00:45:06]
wonderful sponsor. I believe very strongly in sponsorship. I need my sponsor more today than I've ever needed a sponsor, because I have more to lose today. And because I'm changing all the time, because I do the work. And that can be an explosive combination sometimes if you feel you're having a little bit of success in life as well. So I need a sponsor very deeply. Way back then, I knew intuitively, and I'll say it today, if you said to me, what is the key to sobriety, apart from God, the Twelve Steps, the fellowship, I would say to you, do what I did. I had decided, when I came through the doors, that I knew nothing about anything. That my life had been such a shambles. That I had destroyed everything and everyone of value in my life. That my absolute best thinking had taken me to skid row, mental institutions, and being locked up. I knew nothing. Let me find a good AA person and do exactly what they tell me to do. It was called surrender. And I did. And not one of the couple of few sponsors I've had has ever told me anything that has turned out wrong for me to this date. I couldn't get back to a God of my understanding. I found that very difficult. And Bill Wilson was my higher power for a long time. Because I loved Bill Wilson. I loved everything he wrote. It spoke straight to my soul. He was like a piece of velvet for me, reading Bill Wilson. And then the old-timers came to me and they said, Mary, you have to find a God. So I went about looking for God. One day I was down in the Alano Club in Edmonton, Alberta. And there was this old woman speaking from the Northwest Territories. And she doesn't mind me saying this. She was the most spiritual woman I'd ever heard. Except she was saying things like, as a drunken woman I never went to bed with an ugly man, but I sure woke up with a few. She said, but I don't do it anymore because I am a lady in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went out to her and I said, who is this God you have? I'm looking for God. She says, Mary, my God's called Harold. I said, Harold?
I was expecting something fantastic like Zeus. She says, well, you know that prayer, our father who art in heaven, Harold be thy name. She was pulling my leg. But I found a God of my own understanding. And I believe there only is one God. But I truly believe that God has a place in his heart that has a circle and a triangle on it. And he's right here right now with us. This is a God-given program. I truly believe that.
Just before I was a year sober, my eldest son was going to school in Toronto. And I called Intergroup in Toronto, asked them if they could have some people meet my flight. And they did. Joyce and Eric, great AA members who are helping to arrange the World Conference this year, in fact. They're on the committee there. Joyce and Eric met my plane, took me to an AA meeting and checked me into the YWCA. And I stayed at the YWCA and went to a lot of meetings, got a little job, got an apartment. My son came. I saw him. He went back to Jamaica.
And I was two years sober. Now, the old timers in Edmonton used to say, Mary, we usually say no relationships for a year, but for you it's two. Because you have a propensity for getting married. By that time, I had been married three times, married and divorced. So I was two years sober. And I went to a meeting one morning. And all the yellow had gone out my eyes. And I was feeling and looking quite good. Thank you very much. And I looked down the table and I saw him. And I just knew that God had sent me my reward. And he was looking back at me with those eyes. A couple who are getting married soon in AA were talking to me today. And I said to them, you know, if two AA people get married and they're both
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working their program, it can be beautiful. But look out if they're not. You know, in the 12 in 12, in the 12 step in the 12 in 12, Bill Wilson writes in there about when boy meets girl on AA campus. And he says in there that they should both examine themselves that there is not some deep underlying disorder that will prevent them from having a relationship. I didn't see that. So John and I fell in love in the rooms of AA. And here's what happens when boy meets girl on AA campus. You both still go to a lot of meetings. But now you're going to see him and her. And you have on your peacock feathers. And you strut your stuff in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And someone asks you how to read how it works and your eyes flit across a crowded room. And you can see God shining down on him. You think the light in the eyes of the people is spirituality, but sometimes it's psychosis.
I'm talking about mine too, because like attracts like. See, when I was two years sober, I was not well. I was a great AA. I was an AA soldier. And I went to a lot of meetings, and I did a lot of service, and I did a lot of good stuff. But I was still a banana, man, let me tell you. Way out there still. And of course I'm going to attract somebody like that. I'm not about to be attracting a spiritual giant when I'm like that. We attract our, think about this. There is a school of thought in psychology that says, we attract our insides on the outside. Think about it. So anyway, what happened with John and I? We fell in love, and as I say, I'd go to meetings, and I'd see him, and I'd be reading how it works, and I could imagine him and John and I walking off into the sunset under the circle and the triangle. Just blessed and whole and beautiful. And my sponsor, she said to me, don't get married because you're an emotional retard. And I knew she was jealous. I knew she was jealous. I knew that. So John and me eloped. We got married in Florida. So here's what happens. When you fall in love, and you both haven't had the personality change, and it's not just one time around the steps. Some of us need a lot of personality change. I just happened to be one of those people. And so did John. So we had a little personality change, but not enough. And here's what happens in the close proximity of marriage when you're both still sick. One by one, the peacock feathers start dropping off. And in the end, all you have is the same two old turkeys sitting staring at one another. And John and I, we're both sick. I had to get out of there because we were psychologically killing each other. And I went back to the Y. I was five years sober. I got a little job. I surrendered. I said, God, show me the way. I have a little prayer I say. And I really mean it. And it takes courage to say it. It is, God, give me what I need and take away what I don't. And you have to say that with no reservations. And I got a little apartment, got a good job.
And then I got a call from Jamaica saying that my children were acting up and they were living with their old granny, that they'd been kicked out of the father's house. And I spoke to my sponsor and some other people. They said, you better go back to Jamaica. Make amends to the island. So I did. I went back to Jamaica. And my eldest son, I sent
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him to Broward Community College in Florida. And my youngest son wanted to go to Europe. And I worked with the poor people down there. I had started writing. I had become a freelance journalist. And I spent two years there. And it's at that time that Clancy started sponsoring me. I didn't want to drink again. I was active in AA. There's not a lot of long-term sobriety in Jamaica, but there is a lot of AA meetings. And what happened to me is I was about nine years sober and I was beginning to think there was maybe still something wrong with me upstairs.
And the wonderful woman who was sponsoring me, Rene, she's now got 47 years in Canada. She's 47 years sober. Rene said to me, I have never felt like that in sobriety. I think you should contact Clancy. And I did. And Clancy was wonderful to me. And he'd call me and he'd send me down tapes. And whenever I had something to ask him, I'd phone him from Jamaica and he'd call me back. And he sponsored me when I went back to Canada for a little while as well. And now I have a wonderful sponsor called Norma. But I'll tell you this, if it wasn't for Clancy, I don't know what I would have done because I truly thought I was losing my mind again. And it was just something that he could really identify with and help me. I've never stopped going to AA. I've never stopped doing all the things I have to do. But some of us are sicker than others and it takes longer for us to get well.
When I went back to Toronto, the husband I had married, John, he asked if I would sign a separation agreement. And we signed a separation agreement and I went to live in the same building as him because we were still friends. And one day I was supposed to meet him and I couldn't get him on the phone. And I went upstairs. I still had a key for his apartment. And the door was bolted on the inside. And I had a neighbor and my son knock the door down and found John lying on the ground. He'd had a massive stroke. And he'd been lying there for two nights and three days. And I held him and I said, if he lives, I'll look after him. And that is how God gave me a living amends to do. You see, I have done many, many, many, many, many amends. I've had to do amends to dead parents because my parents were both dead. They didn't know if I'd be dead on the street or if I'd ever find sobriety.
And they died without knowing that I had found sobriety. And I had to find ways to make amends to those parents of mine. And I'd never looked after anybody. My children had been taken away. So what happened is John was in hospital for two years. He had massive brain damage. And people said he'd never get better. And half his brain was gone. He couldn't speak and he couldn't understand the spoken word. And he was brilliant. He was such an intellectual.
And I didn't believe them. So I had him rehabilitated. I put him in a… He used to try and beat people up. He was still a good alcoholic. I took him home. And he did just well. I mean, he could never speak again. And some people say he couldn't understand. But yes, he could. He had his own key. He'd go out and sit in the front. He'd watch people. He could go back in with his key. And he could draw me maps when we wanted to drive up and down to Florida. I have a funny little story about John. To show you, he always remained an alcoholic.
There's only two words that he could say. I won't tell you what they are. But it's telling you to go off somewhere. And one time we were driving through Georgia. And I was speeding because John had a way of letting me know when he wanted to go to the little boy's room. And a policeman stopped us. And he says, do you realize you're doing a hundred and odd and a fifty or whatever it was. I said, I'm so sorry. I said, but it's my husband. My husband, he has a lot of brain damage. And sometimes he's incontinent. And he doesn't speak. And the policeman said to me, oh, he's… And he looked at me and John said those two words. And the policeman said, I thought you told me he couldn't speak. I said, honest to God, phone the hospital. But so I looked after John. You see, I think that we have to be aware and ever vigilant. You see, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what of anybody else. I'll do everything that I'm told by my sponsor to do regarding amends.
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But I don't know when I'm amended out. And what happened was, God gave me John. And that way I made amends for the two sons that I could never bring up because I was a drunk. For the parents that I could never look after because I was too drunk. And for all the other people I'd been irresponsible with. John lived with him and I. We were together for over seven years. And as I say, he never spoke again. But I'd take him to his AA meetings and he'd get his medallions. He died on October the 20th, 2001. And just before he died, I read him How It Works. And then I held him till he grew cold. And I had finally finished something of worth for another human being through the grace of God and Alcoholics Anonymous.
And it was a wonderful thing. And I'm so grateful I was allowed to do that. That God trusted me because he was childlike. John was. And I never ever raised my voice to him in all that time. Because he was a treasure. It's taken a lot of things to do. I have a little story I'll tell you. You know, as we walk in this journey, we come upon our defects of characters. I come upon my defects of characters in subtle ways. And I don't always get them all at once. I truly believe that God gives me these things to deal with when I can handle them. For example, I had been at home with John for years. And I'd been doing a little freelance journalism. But when I bought this little house last October, my bank manager said, OK, now you have a house, you've got to go work to pay for it. And I hadn't worked for years. And you certainly don't get much for writing, freelancing. So I went back to work last December. And I love it. But what I found out when I went back to work that never come, I never came face to face with, is that I still want to be number one. And that I am very competitive. I can't believe it. I'm ashamed of myself. I'll just give you a little example. There was something I had to, let's say I'm entering something.
It's for a particular salesperson. And they've got a number. Now, since I joined, since I started, I've had top sales every month. Yes. Spiritually, yes. But anyway, I happened to be entering these figures. And let's say her number is 204. No, mine is 204 and hers is 201. I said, there's nobody around. I could enter this one, just this one in mine. Now, I was already way ahead. And in one second, I pressed my number instead of hers. You know what happened? The complete system went down. Boom. Boom. You see, the spiritual life becomes as sharp as the edge of a razor. The things that I used to get away with, I can't get away with them anymore. I'll tell you the cantaloupe story. There's another way that I truly believe. Please keep an open mind. This is how the God of my understanding works.
I was nine, ten years sober. I go to the supermarket. I see cantaloupes. I really want a cantaloupe. The cantaloupes are $2.50. I say, I'm not paying $2.50 for a cantaloupe. So I get on my other shopping. I'm checking out and there's a cantaloupe in a paper bag at the end of the counter. And I say to myself, it must be God. I was ten years sober. I take the cantaloupe home. I had $40 in an envelope that somebody had given me for a ticket for something. I cannot find the $40. I say, God, the cantaloupe was only $2.50. Where's my $40? Now I used to be a big time thief. I have two sleepless nights over a cantaloupe.
I phone my sponsor. My sponsor says, you've got to take back the cantaloupe. I said, I ate it. Well, you've got to go back anyway and make amends. Pay for it. So I go back
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to the store. I go to the produce manager. I always lie when I'm trying to be honest. I said, I inadvertently took a cantaloupe. And I'd like to pay for it. He said, well, where's the cantaloupe? I said, I ate it. I said, but I want to give you money. He said, well, I can't take money if you don't have the produce, but we really thank you for your honesty. Thank you very much for your honesty. I went home and guess what? I found my $40.
This seems simplistic. Does that mean God is playing hide and seek with my $40? I don't know. I'm Irish. I've got fairies in here, for God's sake. But all I know is that for everything I do these days, there will be a price. But I want to be a better human being because I want to be a better human being. My two sons came back to me when they were 21 and 24. They came to live in Canada. We lived together for a couple of years. They were driving me nuts because I love them, but they're bananas completely. And now they're both self-supporting through their own contributions. And for that I'm happy. They're both married.
My eldest son got married to a beautiful Greek girl in Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island is lovely. And I flew out there for the wedding and I made my amends to my sons. By the way, it was very difficult because what happened is when my children used to see me, they would wake up the next morning and say, Mommy, I saw you da-da-da-da-da-da. And I'd say, No, you didn't. You were dreaming. I made my children question their reality.
So many years later when they were big men, I had to make amends with everything. And they love me. And I'm so grateful. But anyway, I flew out to the wedding. My son asked me to come out to the wedding and his father was flying up from Jamaica with his wife and two daughters. And his father and me walked my son down the aisle. And when we're walking my son down the aisle, and I'm smiling because you know their father said, My God, you've come back from hell. Everybody in Jamaica said a leopard couldn't change its spots.
This AA must be wonderful. You look great. And I'm saying to myself, an AA, you can think what you like, but you've got to act right, right? And I'm saying, 20 years ago I hired two gunmen to shoot you. But I was too drunk to carry it out. You were almost toast, my friend. And then a few years ago, four or five years ago, my youngest son got married in a pickering in Ontario. And my son, Mark, who got married in a pickering in Ontario, was born in Jamaica. He got married in a kilt in a Ukrainian Orthodox church. My son in BC has given me two little granddaughters. Their names are Nina and Annabella. And the other day Nina called me and said to me, Sean Ma, when are you coming? I can't wait to see you, Sean Ma. Sean Ma is Irish for old mother. That's what they call me, Sean Ma. I can't wait to see you, Sean Ma. Look at your picture. I love you more than fresh vegetables. And last night when I missed a flight, I drove to my son's house, my son Mark, and there was my little Maya, my little granddaughter who is three, and my new grandson, Aiden, who is 12 weeks old. And Maya, for the first year and a half of Maya's life, I looked after her. It was just like being with my little son, Mark, because I was an alcoholic from
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when he was born. And I got that year and a half to bring her up. And she tells me she loves me more than the moon and the stars. Now, these things, if you had told me I ever had a chance of having these things back in my life, of leading a productive life, of having people who love me, of being truly capable of giving love myself and meaning it, I would have said she was impossible because I was dead. The journey in Alcoholics Anonymous, the journey in sobriety, is so difficult sometimes because we are conscious. We are stark staring sober. And reality sometimes, quite frankly, and philosophically, sucks. But we are able to walk through it. I mean, I truly belong in La La Land. And yet I am able now to cope with reality because I do what AA, we don't understand what AA has given us yet. This is such a miracle. I bet you if they documented all of the mental cases, who never had to go back into a mental institution because of what AA has done, that medication could never… I haven't had medication since the 10th of August 1984. I was told I would have to live on it all my life. I mean, that's incredible. And I don't say that to hurt anybody or to criticise. That's not what I'm saying. I had no ulterior motive in making that statement.
It came straight from my heart. That is just my story. And we're all different. Today, as I told you, I give service. I live in my own little home. And I go to work every day. And I love what I do. The 12th step is the best step in that, that way we are becoming citizens of the world. We're beginning to give out what was freely given. And this earth of ours that I love so much too, I mean just to be a part of it and to be walking it and not abusing it. Bill Wilson said that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a success story. Rather it is the chronicle of our colossal human failure, turned to usefulness by the divine alchemy of a loving God. Thank you very much for having me here in San Diego. Thank you.