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Source: Nancy F – The Independent Blonde – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: nancy-f-the-independent-blonde-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:23:56
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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Nancy, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm very glad to be here on an eighth anniversary, and I'm glad to be here as the friend of Milton, who is in the hospital tonight, and he sent word over by his wife and me to say that he wished us all well. I don't know how many of you have heard my story. I told it so many times that it got a little boring, but I'd like to tell you why I'm here, and it's only because AA works.
And in order to tell you how it works for me, I have to go back a little way to tell you how I was before I came into AA, and I will skip over that as much as I can because your drinking and mine was very much alike. We just did it in different places, and we reached different points of despair at different dates. I was a kid in trouble long before I ever took a drink, and it took me many years to get into trouble drinking.
But I can remember way back as a child that I made up my mind that I would get away from my home the first chance I got, and I would get out on my own. And I was brought up by my father, who had been married the third time when I was 14, and that was my cue to go. I was making no more adjustments to any more mothers, and I said, this is it. And very practically, I went out and I got my sister's working papers, her birth certificate, and I went off.
I went out with a motto that I had been brought up by, which was, give no quarter and seek no quarter. And that was the way I lived. I did not know any other way, and I thought it was showing how strong I was. I didn't realize until many years later that the reason I was so arrogant, the reason I behaved so tough, was because I was so scared myself, that that was the only way I could get by, was by impressing myself, that I wasn't afraid.
I lived a rather, didn't seem lonely to me. I was always around people. I learned that if I had a few drinks, I felt much better. And most of my life was an aimless one of working in the daytime, getting ready to have a cocktail at night, and spending the night either having drinks or going to movies. It was a very uneventful thing. I had no idea what else you could do, because I'd never done anything else.
Well, I suppose you can get away with that in your teenage, and I suppose you can get away with it in your twenties, but you certainly can't get away with it much longer. And also if you do that much drinking, somehow you keep drinking more, and more, and more, and more. And you find yourself that you are not even enjoying your drinking anymore. It's by this point an obsession. Well, I finally got married in my late twenties, and I married a man who was a very heavy drinker.
And as a matter of fact, by this time I was only going with people who drank heavily. I didn't like anybody who didn't. I thought they were sneaks, and I thought they were dishonest, and I thought they were snobs, and I thought everything. In marriage, I did very badly. Naturally, I had never lived with anyone or trained myself to get along with people, and my marriage was a failure. I went through all of the things of trying to get support, and my husband was in the Navy, and I was going to the Red Cross, and I was trying to lean and be dependent in a defiant, arrogant way.
And I was married to a man who was pretty tough, and he just looked me in the eye one day, and he said, you know, he said, I would rather go to jail than ever give you a penny. Well, I thought, I'll put him in jail. That's just what I'll do. And I tried to make all the trouble I could, and if you ever want to see something pathetic, just watch one lone woman trying to fight the Navy. Just watch it.
Not always sober, not always rational, not always intelligible. I finally got a hold of a chaplain one day on the phone, and I said to him, just tell me, what would you do? He told me what my husband had told him. He said, well, if I were you, Mrs. So-and-so, he mentioned my name, he said, I would get a divorce.
[00:05:01]
And I said, well, that's it. I was trying to get even. I was trying to get back. I was trying to blame everything on someone else, and I had no one else now but my husband. Well, I said, when I get rid of him, let me tell you, I'll show you a thing or two. I'll get out in that world, and I'll make good. I'd never made good before I met him. I don't know what made me think I was going to make out so well after I got rid of him, or he got rid of me.
So I went out into the world, and I not only didn't do as well as before, I did worse. And I started moving around. I moved to Virginia, and I worked on an army post, and I thought, if I get out of Greenwich Village where I lived… I forgot to tell you that while I was married to my husband, one night I was out drinking in the village. I had worked until about 7 o'clock, and I went into Goody's Bar and Grill, where I had been used to going previous.
And I came out some hour, I don't know what time, and I fell down the streets, and I was taken to Bellevue. And there, a psychiatrist questioned me, and he asked me if I loved my husband. And I didn't know enough to question it, but I thought to myself, isn't it funny that he would talk to me about love when I was in there for drinking? I didn't get the connection at all. And I said, I didn't know whether I loved my husband or not.
And I didn't know anything, really. And no one had ever asked me such a thing. But I drank eight cheers after that. Bellevue never frightened me. I tried to stop drinking, but I never knew how. And finally, I started to move around, and I went to Virginia. And I thought, well, everybody knows me in the village, and they asked me to drink, and I can't say no. So if I got away from that terrible environment, I'd do much better somewhere else.
So I went to Virginia, and I worked on an army post, and it's like a little bit of a town. And then I think two days, I met somebody from Greenwich Village, and he asked me what I was doing there, and I told him I was working. He said, wonderful, you can come out to the club with me on Saturday night. And I said, gee, that would be fine, only I said I don't drink. Oh, he says, well, you can go out and have a few beers.
Oh, well, I said, that I could do. You know, that wouldn't be hard. So I went out, and on 12 o'clock that night, my first evening out in my brand-new environment, they announced over the loudspeaker that if anybody was missing a companion, she was in the ladies' room, passed out. I tried all of the ways. I moved in to another army post. I never got fired because I never had the courage to stay until you told me you didn't want me, because I didn't want myself long before you didn't want me.
I went to another army post, and I got drunk there. As I tell an amusing story, it's not amusing to the English, but I got drunk with a lot of English officers, and I told them what my father had told me about the English. And I called up the man I worked for the next day or two days later, and I told him I was leaving the post and I had to be operated on, and he agreed with me. This was pretty much the way I lived.
It wasn't funny at the time. I don't know whether the men feel the same way, but a woman who was on the prowl and running from place to place and trying to keep away from herself and keep away from everyone else, it gets very lonely and it's very sad. I finally got back to New York. By this time, I had had my divorce, and I said, Now I'll really show them. Now I'll show them. I was always going to show him.
And he had gotten married again and has a lovely family, and I always had to admit when I was honest that here was a man who could do well with somebody else in a position where I had failed, and somehow I never could get around that one, even though I could kid myself a lot. When I got back to New York, and I started the same thing all over again, and I had heard about AA at a friend's house. There was a man there talking about it, and he was a very wordy person, and he was talking about who he helped and who he didn't help.
Well, I thought, By God, I'd never go into that kind of a thing where they talked about all they did. And they'll never help me, that's for sure. And I always remember when I decided to come into AA, which was a year after I had heard about it, and this day I had been drunk for about nine days at home, locked behind the door. And where I worked, they sent someone over and they climbed in the window to see if I had committed suicide.
I didn't know this. But you see, somebody had always cared enough about me, but I had never cared enough about them, which I had never realized. However, this one man asked me, Did I love my husband or had I ever loved anyone?
[00:10:02]
Which made no connection at all to me. Well, I went to AA this day, and I called up, and it was a very difficult thing. I never shall forget. I don't know why it's so difficult to give up. I never can understand it. When I see somebody trying to give up and somebody will say to them, All you have to have is the desire. I don't think it's quite that simple. It wasn't for me. I had the desire a long time before I was ever able to give up.
And I never can understand why you give up one day and not the day before. This is one of the mysteries that I don't think we shall ever understand. Well, this day I called up and I asked them, and the person who answered the telephone, I said that I was a victim of drinking and asked them what I should do about it. She said to me, she asked me could I walk. And I thought, oh my God, isn't that understanding.
And I had never heard anybody that, you know, really knew how I felt. And I said, well, I didn't know because I really hadn't tried. Because I had been in bed and I had the phone by the bed and I had the beer by the bed. I had everything by the bed. And she said, well, the reason she asked me was because if I couldn't come over, that they would send somebody for me. And even in the state that I was in, I reared up inside of me and I said, they'll never come for me, I'll go to them.
But I was smart enough not to tell her that. And I said no, that I would get over. Well, I think maybe this was 12 o'clock in the day and it took me till 4 o'clock to get dressed. Well, that sounds like a very simple thing to say, but it's not so simple. At 4 o'clock I arrived on a Friday at 1945. People say, how can you remember it? Well, I don't know. I'll never forget it. And I was, by this time, I had no more arrogance.
I was so glad that there was a building. I was so glad there was a place. I was so glad there was somebody that knew what was wrong with me. I got in and I met a girl and she asked me my name. And somehow, I don't know why, I didn't want to give it to her. And I said, well, I'd rather not give you my name. She said, oh, that's all right with me. She said, the only thing you have to have here is an alcoholic problem.
So I said, I was then put in my place. I said, my name is Nancy F.. So she took me upstairs and they gave me coffee. And I was just hanging on to myself. I was just, I just could hardly hold myself together. I was very surprised that all they had to give me was coffee, I must say. I always thought that was a very, very small thing to give anyone in the condition I was in. But I wasn't about to ask.
And she sent me upstairs and she introduced me to a girl up there. And it was Hilda. And Hilda's here tonight, I'm glad to say. And so Hilda offered me a cup of coffee. And about 7.30, somebody came over and said to Hilda, would you like to go to a meeting in Brooklyn? And I got terrified. I thought, my God, if this girl ever leaves me, I know the first thing I'll do is run out and get a drink. I've been there since 4 o'clock.
And I think it was the first time I had ever had any intelligence about my dependency. And I just looked at her, and it didn't take her a second to look at me and say, would you like to go to Brooklyn? Well, you know, I don't like to go to Brooklyn when I'm cold sober. But rather, in that state, and I said, yes, I would. Yes, I would. And we went to Brooklyn. And the first person that I heard speak, people had been speaking, but I didn't hear them, was a man said that he had been in Bellevue 35 times.
Oh, I said, my God, in here I'm going to look like St. Cecilia. And I was so excited because I hadn't told a soul yet that I had been in Bellevue. My husband, I hoped he had never told anyone. And I hit a man alongside of me on the knee, and I said, mister, did you know that I was in Bellevue only once? And he looked at me and said, okay, girl, you'll get the program. Because he figured another psychopath.
And I came home that night, and a little friend of mine had come to see that I was taken care of I had told him I was going into Alcoholics Anonymous, and he thought I was going to get him with a bunch of bums. And so he came to watch me. Well, I was as arrogant and nasty, and I remember meeting a man with the same name as my husband had. And I just looked at him across the table, and I said to him, are you any relation to so-and-so?
He said, no, he wasn't. He couldn't care less, you know, me, with all this inside of me. So I went home that night. So I went home that night and I didn't sleep.
[00:15:01]
You don't sleep, you know, when you're coming off a drunk. You just sweat it off. But I did hear that if I never took another drink, that I'd never have any more trouble. Well, I thought that much I can understand. I won't take another drink. The next day I was back in the clubhouse. The next day I was back in the clubhouse. And each day I heard something new. The first day I heard that if I would help someone, that that would do me some good.
Well, I thought, I don't know, what do you do to help somebody? I never helped anybody in my life. So I said, well, I have a girlfriend who has a new baby, and I know she and her husband would love to go out and get drunk, so I'll go watch the babies so they can get drunk as long as I can. The nicest thing I could think of doing. So I called them up and I said to them that I would be over when the clubhouse closed down.
I really didn't want to be by myself. And I said I'd come and watch the baby while they went out and got drunk and went out drinking. And they said, what happened to you? Well, I said, I'll tell you when I get over there. I joined the club. And I said, I'll be over, I'll tell you all about it. And I went over. And I also heard that if you called on a higher power, that you would get help. Well, I would say that I had a training in my early life that had to do with getting clumped over the head every time they thought you didn't believe in something.
But it had very little to do with any sort of understanding or any sort of explanation. So I couldn't say that I had any religion to call on. But that made enough sense to me. I was in trouble. I was going to call on anybody. But I did get the idea that I thought I can't imagine anybody being interested, but I'll take a chance. And when they left the door, they said, there's a bottle of gin over there.
And in case you decide to have a few drinks, there it is. So I said, my God, please don't let me take that drink. Whatever I do, if there's a higher power, if there's anything, just don't let me take the drink. It wasn't too difficult. I never took it. Well, the next day I heard you had to make amends. And I said, well, who am I going to make amends to? Who cares? And I called up my person I was working for and I told them the truth.
And I went back there to work. I guess it was the first time I'd ever handled anything that was unpleasant. I guess this is the way I got AA. Every day I heard something else. They told me something else about life that I didn't know about. And I presume I was beaten down to where I had to be that I could hear. I've learned a lot since then. When I started, I started to hospitalize everybody. I put everybody that I could find in the hospital.
I was so sorry for everybody. Which was a good thing for me because I never had had compassion before. And I remember I learned that I got a lot of faith through all these people. Because I put my landlady into the hospital once. And honest to God, she was the saddest looking thing. She was running all over the neighborhood with a little thin dress on. And she hadn't washed herself or combed her hair.
And she looked tubercular, you know. And I put her in the hospital. And I was so scared she was going to die. And that her husband would get a hold of me and put me out and all that. And I went up to the hospital two days later. And there she's sitting with a little blue bow in her hair. And she had a boyfriend in Duffy's Tavern. So I learned through helping other people that everybody's got a spark of something in them that you don't always see.
Unless you have developed your own spark. Unless you've developed your own faith through having accomplished things yourself. I used to look at the world and just think we were all in such tough shape. And now I look at it entirely different. I think we're all doing so well and everybody's so happy. And it's only because I feel this way. And I suppose that's where the payoff comes. That you can't read about it.
You can't think about it. You've got to do it. I remember being in a little trouble with myself. And I went to see Dr. Silkworth. And he said to me, Nancy, he said, you know the whole trouble with you is, he said, you're not telling yourself the truth. He said, you don't know the meaning of the truth. And I went home and I thought of that. And I said, gee, I always thought telling the truth was not telling you a lie.
And I find out it had nothing to do with you at all. It had to do with myself. Well, I went on speaking binges, 12-step work. And each thing I did taught me something more. My little landlady taught me about faith and that everybody has something inside of them that I didn't know about. And then I was asked to go and hospitalize a girl I'd never seen before.
[00:20:00]
And I always thought of myself as shy. I'd never go to a party unless I was half in the bag. And the next day they told me to ring a doorbell on 8th Street and go see her. And funny, I never thought about whether I was shy or not because I had a purpose that I was going to go and do something. And then I learned that once you could forget yourself, it wasn't too hard. And I walked into her house and the living room was the most beautiful room I'd ever seen in my life.
And here was her mother and her brother and she was waiting with her little suitcase to go away with me to be hospitalized. And I suddenly got a flash and I thought, now isn't that funny? I was always under the impression that if I had had my family, if I had had more money, and if I had had a beautiful home, I never would have been a drunk. So I had to get over that idea. So I suppose AA just took me in like a raw kid and just taught me all there was to know about life that I didn't know about.
I think we get to know people more intimately, we know their personal lives, and I think we share on a deeper level than we do in the outside world. I think this is one of the many privileges that I got in AA. I also got a fellowship of people that, if I just didn't drink and I didn't learn anything, I'm sure nothing would have happened to me. Because what I needed to do was not only stop drinking, I needed to learn about life.
With all of the equipment that we had, I was fortunate enough to meet the right kind of people who steered me the right way. And I, for the last time, had ever said, I know. I always said, I'll try. And I never did say again, I don't know if I can or not, or I can't. I just said, all I know is I'll try. Well, I didn't accomplish all of the things that I started, but I accomplished quite a few of them.
I suppose the big root of my problem was inferiority. That word is spread around a lot now, an inferiority complex. I had a very large dose of it. And I once asked a very wise person, what do you do for it? She said to me, there's only one thing you can do, Nancy, and that is accomplish something. The bigger your inferiority, the more things you have to accomplish. Well, I said, how do you go about that?
She said, you start from wherever you are, with as little as you have, and from there you go on. That is about what I have to say. I think I've only begun my life, really, insofar as being successful. I think you can only count success by the way you feel in your heart. And I think that what has been given to me through AA, I can say to you that I am successful. What I have done in the world for myself in any other way means nothing.
But what I have done to make me a better person and feel what I feel toward you has meant a lot. As far as the spiritual part, I don't think I'm ever qualified to speak. I don't think I've worked on that very much. But I heard recently someone say, he has met many a man who believed in God that was not a good man, but he never met a man who believed in man that was not a good man. And this is what I think AA told me, that I was to first believe in myself and then believe in you, and then from there I could go where I chose.
Thank you very much.