Transcript

[00:00.3 – 00:03.3] This recovery program of AA. [00:03.3 – 00:11.0] I came into the Washington, DC group of Alcoholics Anonymous almost eight years ago. [00:11.0 – 00:16.6] I was a very, very sick person, but I didn't know it. [00:16.6 – 00:22.5] You see, I came in not as an alcoholic, but as an interested observer. [00:22.5 – 00:27.5] I wanted to see what such a group was doing. [00:27.5 – 00:36.2] I had a strange introduction to the group called Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'll tell you about that in just a second. [00:36.2 – 00:39.0] First, I'll go back just a little bit. [00:39.0 – 00:48.4] Not all through a long and active career of alcoholism, reaching back into the past over eighteen years. [00:48.4 – 00:53.8] I'm not gonna take you drink by drink through that because I'd be worn out, and you would, too. [00:53.8 – 00:56.3] But I'll tell you this much. [00:56.3 – 01:03.2] I guess everything has a cause, and probably the cause of anything is everything. [01:03.2 – 01:07.2] I think that was the cause of my alcoholism, everything. [01:07.2 – 01:12.3] And I'm sure that it began a long time ago with me. [01:12.3 – 01:17.3] I was definitely the spoiled brat kind of a drinker. [01:17.3 – 01:25.1] I'm an only child, and I had a fairly amazing family, at least they seemed so to me. [01:25.1 – 01:31.7] My father was a United States senator and had a reputation for oratory. [01:31.7 – 01:36.5] He came out of the Middle West, and when he came to Washington, he met my mother. [01:36.5 – 01:39.9] And she had been a Shakespearean actress. [01:39.9 – 01:45.7] And I always blame her for the ham that comes out in me on almost all occasions. [01:45.7 – 01:52.9] Anyway, I was their little bundle from heaven, the only one. [01:52.9 – 01:57.9] I was remarkable in every respect, and I thought so, too. [01:57.9 – 02:05.6] My father used to say that undoubtedly I was going to be the first woman president of the United States, and I agreed with him. [02:05.6 – 02:09.6] I had tremendous ambitions. [02:09.6 – 02:17.7] I set my goals so high, and the goals were so numerous that I never got anywhere. [02:17.7 – 02:20.6] I couldn't accomplish all these things. [02:20.6 – 02:22.0] It was simply impossible. [02:22.0 – 02:27.9] I consider that I was a very poorly adjusted adolescent. [02:27.9 – 02:34.6] When I was four, they used to call me Baby Ruth, and it was cute. [02:34.6 – 02:42.4] But as I approached forty, they were still calling me Baby Ruth, and it wasn't so darn cute. [02:42.4 – 02:45.2] But that's exactly what I was. [02:45.2 – 02:46.5] I just never grew up. [02:46.5 – 02:50.1] I had no sense of responsibility. [02:50.1 – 02:51.7] I couldn't face reality. [02:51.7 – 02:53.7] I couldn't stand monotony. [02:53.7 – 02:57.9] I wanted to be everything to everybody and all of it overnight. [02:57.9 – 03:00.5] Of course, it wasn't much I wanted. [03:00.5 – 03:04.0] I only wanted to be a sort of a Sarah Bernhardt. [03:04.0 – 03:06.8] I wanted to write the Great American Novel. [03:06.8 – 03:12.3] I wanted to be Florence Nightingale and Helen of Troy all rolled into one. [03:12.3 – 03:19.2] Now, as you can see, there wasn't much chance with such impossible goals. [03:19.2 – 03:23.9] But I found a way to get pretty close to some of these goals. [03:23.9 – 03:25.6] And how you suppose I found it? [03:25.6 – 03:27.5] I found alcohol. [03:27.5 – 03:30.7] I began to drink when I was very young. [03:30.7 – 03:34.1] Prohibition days, it was the smart thing to do. [03:34.1 – 03:41.3] Your sophistication, your popularity was kind of judged by the number of speakeasy cards you carried in your pocket. [03:41.3 – 03:44.6] I had quite a flock of them. [03:44.6 – 03:52.4] I was very enthusiastic in those days, and I plunged into everything I did with abandon, and that's the way I drank. [03:52.4 – 03:58.4] Almost from the very first, I drank pathologically. [03:58.4 – 04:00.5] I never was a social drinker. [04:00.5 – 04:03.8] I don't know what it would be like to drink socially. [04:03.8 – 04:07.1] I was antisocial right from the start. [04:07.1 – 04:12.6] Pretty soon, I was getting drunk, not just one night, but on and on and on. [04:12.6 – 04:17.6] And my behavior when I was drinking was quite beyond the pale. [04:17.6 – 04:20.2] And I'd come to the next morning. [04:20.2 – 04:22.8] I didn't have enough blackouts. [04:22.8 – 04:24.5] I remembered too much. [04:24.5 – 04:31.3] And I'd look back on the things I had done and I had said, and I would be horrified. [04:31.3 – 04:33.0] I couldn't understand it. [04:33.0 – 04:39.5] I lost my self-respect, and then I had to drink to forget that I'd been drinking. [04:39.5 – 04:42.6] I got into the old vicious circle. [04:42.6 – 04:47.5] Nobody else seemed to know exactly what was wrong with me either. [04:47.5 – 04:50.7] They offered me all kinds of good advice. [04:50.7 – 04:54.3] They said, "Why don't you take a couple of drinks like Aunt Susie? [04:54.3 – 04:58.5] Why don't you drink like a lady?" Whatever that is. [04:58.5 – 05:03.1] Only time in my life I was ever called a lady was when I was drinking. [05:03.1 – 05:13.5] Was one night, I came looping home on the street, and I passed a woman with a, a little tiny boy, and the little boy pointed at me and he said, "Oh, [05:13.5 – 05:19.2] Mama, look at the drunk lady." That was the only time. [05:19.2 – 05:24.9] Well, I wanted to drink like Aunt Susie, or I thought I did. [05:24.9 – 05:28.9] I wanted to drink like a lady, or I thought I did. [05:28.9 – 05:30.5] I tried. [05:30.5 – 05:33.4] I used all kinds of schemes and tricks. [05:33.4 – 05:37.1] Used to drink olive oil before I went out and get plastered. [05:37.1 – 05:46.3] Used to drink just beer, used to drink just after dinner, just wine, all the old familiar things, but none of them worked. [05:46.3 – 05:56.8] And since I was an alcoholic very early, and since alcoholi-alcoholism definitely is a disease and overall [05:56.8 – 06:05.8] is a very progressive disease, and it progresses in only one direction Naturally, I went along with it, and I became worse and worse. [06:05.8 – 06:15.6] My own father died when I was about sixteen, and my mother married one of the outstanding psychiatrists in this country. [06:15.6 – 06:23.2] He was the superintendent, the head of a large federal mental institution in Washington, DC. [06:23.2 – 06:27.2] And the superintendent there has to live on the grounds. [06:27.2 – 06:32.1] And so my stepfather took mama and me out to live at the loony bin. [06:32.1 – 06:42.3] And my husband says that my mother had a very ulterior motive in marrying this psychiatrist and going to live at the insane [06:42.3 – 06:43.4] asylum. [06:43.4 – 06:51.6] Actually, though, it was a wonderful experience in many ways. [06:51.6 – 06:56.6] But the sad part about it was that I became a psychiatrist. [06:56.6 – 07:06.8] At seventeen, I was turned loose in a large psychiatric library, and I read everything I could lay my hands [07:06.8 – 07:09.8] on, and I even could pronounce some of the words. [07:09.8 – 07:13.7] And I would run around telling everybody what was the matter with them. [07:13.7 – 07:20.3] And the tragic part about it was I didn't recognize any of the things that were the matter with me. [07:20.3 – 07:23.7] My stepfather was a great humanitarian. [07:23.7 – 07:26.2] He really was, or he never could have put up with me. [07:26.2 – 07:30.7] And he tried to help me, but I couldn't listen to him. [07:30.7 – 07:39.6] I was one of those egocentric little brats that lived entirely within myself and could listen to no one. [07:39.6 – 07:47.5] And I was always finding reasons from without to blame all my difficulties on. [07:47.5 – 07:49.7] I never looked within. [07:49.7 – 07:57.9] I remember one day my stepfather told me that I was very narcissistic, and that was a new one on me. [07:57.9 – 07:59.1] I had to look that up. [07:59.1 – 08:09.4] And I found out that Narcissus was a Greek youth who went into the forest, and he looked in a clear pool of water and fell in love with his own image. [08:09.4 – 08:16.0] Well, that should have been a little pointed, but I didn't take that very much to heart. [08:16.0 – 08:22.5] My stepfather, as I say, tried to help me, but he failed because I wouldn't let him. [08:22.5 – 08:32.1] But he was always telling me that someday I was going to come across it, that I needed psychiatric treatment. [08:32.1 – 08:35.2] Of course, I thought this was ridiculous. [08:35.2 – 08:45.2] After his death, my mother depended on me more than ever, and whenever anybody depended on me, that [08:45.2 – 08:47.3] was just the time I always failed. [08:47.3 – 08:54.9] I became rapidly worse, and my life got in such a mess that even I recognized something had to be done about it. [08:54.9 – 09:04.0] And finally, and I thought this was pretty smart of me, I committed myself to a sanitarium outside Washington. [09:04.0 – 09:14.7] This sanitarium was enti-entirely staffed with psychiatrists, and you had to agree to stay there in those days for at least three months, [09:14.7 – 09:17.3] and you had to agree to take psychiatric treatment. [09:17.3 – 09:19.4] All of this I agreed to. [09:19.4 – 09:28.7] I thought I was pretty smart to commit myself, but actually, I was just one jump of having the family put me away, so to speak. [09:28.7 – 09:38.8] However, I did go to a psychiatrist, and I had a rather hard time finding one who would treat me because in those days, and [09:38.8 – 09:44.2] this was over ten years ago, psychiatrists didn't want alcoholic patients. [09:44.2 – 09:49.5] At least the ones at this institution were very loath to take on alcoholic patients. [09:49.5 – 09:55.9] They had had absolutely no success with us, and nobody likes failure. [09:55.9 – 10:06.2] However, this one little man, I don't know just exactly what the reason was, but he had some kind of an empathy for the alcoholic, [10:06.2 – 10:13.1] and he took on six alcoholic patients at the same time, and his life rapidly became unmanageable. [10:13.1 – 10:21.5] He developed a heart condition, as a matter of fact, which nearly put him out of business. [10:21.5 – 10:25.4] However, he treated me for a year and a half. [10:25.4 – 10:29.0] Now, I had seen psychiatry help people. [10:29.0 – 10:32.7] I had definitely seen people helped by that kind of therapy. [10:32.7 – 10:42.7] And although I still maintained the attitude there was nothing wrong with me, it was all these stupid people who wouldn't do what I wanted them to do, yet [10:42.7 – 10:44.8] in a sense, I was helped. [10:44.8 – 10:55.3] I began to take a sort of a moral inventory, if you want to call it that, with this psychiatrist, and he maintained an objective [10:55.3 – 10:57.5] attitude without criticism. [10:57.5 – 11:05.4] And so I was able to talk to him and get a good many things off my chest, which I had never been able to take any– to tell to anyone else. [11:05.4 – 11:13.7] So I did get some help in that respect, but not enough help because my drinking continued as before. [11:13.7 – 11:16.6] And with me, one drink led to a drunk. [11:16.6 – 11:19.2] It was the same old story all over again. [11:19.2 – 11:29.5] Now, I was more bewildered than ever because my psychiatrist had the idea, or I thought he did, that [11:29.5 – 11:36.4] I, as an alcoholic, was a maladjusted person who drank compulsively. [11:36.4 – 11:47.9] And theoretically, if I should be able to do anything about this personality maladjustment, if I should become better adjusted to life, then [11:47.9 – 11:50.8] theoretically, I should be able to drink and handle it. [11:50.8 – 11:56.6] And that's a doggone good theory, and there's only one thing wrong with it. [11:56.6 – 11:57.5] It just doesn't work. [11:57.5 – 12:07.5] However, he and I thoroughly agreed that this was to be the outcome of this treatment, and I went [12:07.5 – 12:08.7] along on that basis. [12:08.7 – 12:17.8] And occasionally I felt very well-adjusted, so I went out and did a little social drinking just to prove how well-adjusted I had become. [12:17.8 – 12:27.8] And then I'd land back in the loony bin, and, uh, when I came to, I would think, "Well, there must be still a couple [12:27.8 – 12:29.0] of little things wrong with me. [12:29.0 – 12:39.4] We'll get those straightened out, and then all will be lovely." This went on for a year and a half, and finally, at the end of that time, the psychiatrist himself really terminated [12:39.4 – 12:39.9] the treatment. [12:39.9 – 12:45.9] He told me he'd done all that he could possibly do for me, and now he had something else to suggest. [12:45.9 – 12:56.5] He said, "I have come across a group of people who call themselves Alcoholics Anonymous," and he said, "They meet here in Washington, and I've been to two of their meetings, [12:56.5 – 12:58.3] and I think you better go down and see them. [12:58.3 – 13:06.2] They're a group of people who get together and talk about their drinking experience." Well, I thought, "That sounds pretty good. [13:06.2 – 13:10.1] Sort of like this psychiatric treatment in a group. [13:10.1 – 13:22.4] Sort of we'll all sit around and, and, uh, discuss ourselves and have a few drinks, and," "and, uh, that ought to be all right." I [13:22.4 – 13:27.0] didn't go immediately because, uh, I w- at the time was sober. [13:27.0 – 13:28.7] I had sober intervals. [13:28.7 – 13:30.8] I wasn't always drunk. [13:30.8 – 13:34.1] I was what you call a spree drinker, I guess. [13:34.1 – 13:44.5] That is, sometimes under great pressure from the family or otherwise or, uh, something like that, I would remain sober for, uh, [13:44.5 – 13:45.8] some period of time. [13:45.8 – 13:47.6] Got shorter and shorter. [13:47.6 – 13:52.3] And I might add that this sobriety was, there was nothing happy about it. [13:52.3 – 13:55.3] I was very tense, and I was very miserable. [13:55.3 – 14:01.9] And sobriety to me was just a miserable and unhappy interlude between drunks. [14:01.9 – 14:09.4] So that actually, I had never considered the state of sobriety as anything I wanted to maintain. [14:09.4 – 14:15.2] Well, you can imagine the night I walked into my first AA meeting, what I felt. [14:15.2 – 14:19.9] I heard people get up and say some of the things I'm saying now. [14:19.9 – 14:24.4] They said, "Once an alcoholic, you're always an alcoholic. [14:24.4 – 14:30.8] There is no return to controlled or social drinking or whatever you wanna call it. [14:30.8 – 14:38.2] And it was the first drink that got you, not the twentieth." Well, I thought, "Those poor things. [14:38.2 – 14:43.3] Isn't it pathetic?" It's just too bad. [14:43.3 – 14:44.2] I mean, I, I, I… [14:44.2 – 14:46.4] It wasn't at all what I expected. [14:46.4 – 14:51.4] I didn't see much fun about that kind of an idea. [14:51.4 – 15:01.7] And I thought, "Well, I'll stick around with them because, uh, they fascinated me." On [15:01.7 – 15:06.3] top of all this foolishness, they even had the audacity to talk about God. [15:06.3 – 15:08.0] That really got me. [15:08.0 – 15:11.0] I thought only the peons did that. [15:11.0 – 15:14.5] I had become very supercilious. [15:14.5 – 15:23.6] All of my, uh, uh, my values, my sense of values were completely haywire. [15:23.6 – 15:25.3] I really didn't have it. [15:25.3 – 15:30.1] Uh, and what I had were, uh, very childish. [15:30.1 – 15:40.3] I had been running away from everything all my life, and I had been particularly running away from the orthodox way of life. [15:40.3 – 15:43.2] And naturally, I ran away from orthodox religion. [15:43.2 – 15:47.9] And then I considered myself an intellectual, heaven help me. [15:47.9 – 15:56.5] I was an intellectual, and one of the things that I thought intellectuals didn't do was to ever mention God, seriously. [15:56.5 – 16:02.4] So that you can understand how I felt after my first meeting. [16:02.4 – 16:06.0] But I went back and back and back, and why? [16:06.0 – 16:08.3] Well, I know why now. [16:08.3 – 16:16.3] I know what happened to me that first night in that AA club, although I didn't agree with a thing that anyone said. [16:16.3 – 16:21.4] I was lonely, terribly lonely. [16:21.4 – 16:22.7] I didn't have any friends. [16:22.7 – 16:28.3] I was trying to stay sober, and therefore I stayed away from my drinking friends. [16:28.3 – 16:32.7] And drinking people were the only people I ever really liked. [16:32.7 – 16:35.5] I always liked drunks. [16:35.5 – 16:40.4] My mother said that I had an uncanny way of picking them right out of the air. [16:40.4 – 16:43.4] They were the only people I could talk to. [16:43.4 – 16:46.3] I was afraid of other people. [16:46.3 – 16:49.1] I had no small talk for other people. [16:49.1 – 16:55.2] My life had been too chaotic, and there was nothing I had to say to them. [16:55.2 – 17:06.2] As a matter of fact, I had been very busy doing what all alcoholics do, and that is building up this shell around myself, this wall [17:06.2 – 17:08.5] to keep other people from getting in at me. [17:08.5 – 17:14.5] But the trouble is that a shell like that becomes a prison, and you can't get out. [17:14.5 – 17:24.5] And after all, how could I sit down at a dinner table next to some non-alcoholic, perhaps, and [17:24.5 – 17:34.6] they were chatting away about the things they've been doing the day before, and all I had to say was, "Well, I just got out of the clink yesterday," or, "I just got out of the loony bin." Well, you know, you just [17:34.6 – 17:36.0] don't do that kind of thing. [17:36.0 – 17:38.9] You don't establish social contacts that way. [17:38.9 – 17:42.5] So I shut up. [17:42.5 – 17:43.9] I couldn't talk. [17:43.9 – 17:53.9] But when I got in this group of people, whether I agr- agreed with [17:53.9 – 18:03.0] the things they said about alcohol and about drinking and about alcoholism or not, still I recognized they were talking my language. [18:03.0 – 18:08.6] Nobody turned a hair at any of the things I had to tell about myself. [18:08.6 – 18:11.4] As a matter of fact, they just crushed them all. [18:11.4 – 18:17.2] And at once, without my recognizing it, I felt at home. [18:17.2 – 18:25.2] So I went back, and I kept on going back, and then I grabbed the banner. [18:25.2 – 18:30.6] I was gonna save all the drunks in Washington. [18:30.6 – 18:32.2] I knew an awful lot of them. [18:32.2 – 18:33.2] Awful lot of them. [18:33.2 – 18:39.2] And in those days, believe me, 12-step work was 12-step work. [18:39.2 – 18:48.4] We used to go out, listen for the phone to ring, everybody'd knock each other down trying to get the call, and we'd go out really armed for battle. [18:48.4 – 18:51.5] We always carried a pint of whiskey and a- [18:51.7 – 18:53.7] Formaldehyde and a whole bunch of pills. [18:53.7 – 19:03.7] And we'd all rush out the door to see this poor brother or sister, whoever it might be, and if the poor guy or gal were in fairly good shape when we got there, we saw [19:03.7 – 19:14.2] to it that they got worse rapidly because we were so anxious to impress them with the fact that we were not the temperance league [19:14.2 – 19:19.5] or that we were not there with any critical attitude, that we practically poured the whiskey down their necks. [19:19.5 – 19:25.5] Then we gave them formaldehyde on top of it and passed them out, and nobody sat up with a drunk in those days. [19:25.5 – 19:27.4] We left them unconscious. [19:27.4 – 19:32.7] So I was busily doing this kind of 12-step work. [19:32.7 – 19:42.7] Occasionally, I would try to tell them that they must come to the club and, uh, must stay sober, and that's about [19:42.7 – 19:47.5] all I had to offer them because I had absolutely nothing myself. [19:47.5 – 19:48.8] None of the program. [19:48.8 – 19:50.5] I had never read the book. [19:50.5 – 19:56.9] I brought three copies, but I didn't need it, so I gave it to some of these poor devils who needed it. [19:56.9 – 20:04.2] Felt very magnanimous that I had nine or $10 to buy AA books and give them to some poor soul who needed it. [20:04.2 – 20:08.0] I had nothing to give them at all. [20:08.0 – 20:13.2] I had nothing myself, and I couldn't sober anybody up. [20:13.2 – 20:17.0] So as long as I couldn't sober them up, I joined them finally. [20:17.0 – 20:18.9] I got drunk. [20:18.9 – 20:27.7] You know, in those early days, there weren't any women in the AA group in Washington. [20:27.7 – 20:34.7] I think the ratio of women alcoholics to men is about one to five. [20:34.7 – 20:38.6] That's an awful lot of women alcoholics. [20:38.6 – 20:43.5] The social stigma is greater for the woman drinker. [20:43.5 – 20:45.3] There's no doubt about it. [20:45.3 – 20:50.6] I see it everywhere I go, especially in the smaller communities. [20:50.6 – 21:01.0] Women who are very, very sick people hesitate to break down that barrier and come into the AA group because of the terrific [21:01.0 – 21:04.6] pressure of the social stigma for the woman drinkers. [21:04.6 – 21:14.6] And the hidden alcoholic, of whom there are thousands, probably a million or more in this country, that [21:14.6 – 21:24.3] I– that is, I mean hidden in the sense that their families and their friends protect them and try to keep it from the neighbors and the friends and the community. [21:24.3 – 21:25.5] Of course, they can. [21:25.5 – 21:29.4] I never heard of such a thing as a really anonymous alcoholic. [21:29.4 – 21:32.9] It's just like an ostrich sticking his head in the sand. [21:32.9 – 21:37.4] My husband always says we're about as anonymous as skunks at a lawn party. [21:37.4 – 21:47.4] And yet there is such a thing as the hidden or the try to be hidden alcoholic, and I think that [21:47.4 – 21:57.4] women number the largest proportion of these because families do try to protect the woman drinker out of the mistaken idea that [21:57.4 – 22:03.0] they're helping her, whereas, as a matter of fact, they are really keeping her away from help. [22:03.0 – 22:12.2] Nevertheless, when I first went in the Washington group, the night I attended my first meeting, I was the only woman alcoholic in that meeting. [22:12.2 – 22:21.9] It's true there were only 40 or 50 people there, and there had been some women in the group, but none of them happened to be sober or present that night. [22:21.9 – 22:27.7] And shortly after I went into AA, women started coming in, quite a number of them. [22:27.7 – 22:36.8] But I was pretty much alone, and I felt the pressure of that social stigma even within the group itself. [22:36.8 – 22:46.8] But something came along which helped me tremendously, and I want to tell you wives of alcoholics here tonight what that was. [22:46.8 – 22:50.5] It was the wives of those alcoholic members. [22:50.5 – 22:53.0] They were perfectly wonderful to me. [22:53.0 – 23:02.1] Had it not been for their help and their understanding and their friendship, I don't know that I could have stuck it out. [23:02.1 – 23:09.2] I don't know that I could have stayed in those early and very trembly days of mine in AA. [23:09.2 – 23:19.4] Anyway, most of the speakers, in fact, I will say all of the speakers, the only speakers I heard for at least [23:19.4 – 23:24.4] my first year and a half or two years in AA were men. [23:24.4 – 23:31.7] I had a hard time identifying with most of these men, and I'll tell you why. [23:31.7 – 23:42.7] Because it seems they'd all been to jail, not once, but many times, and I considered that that was definitely a requirement for [23:42.7 – 23:43.8] being an alcoholic. [23:43.8 – 23:49.6] Well, I'd never been to jail, so I guessed that I just hadn't gone far enough. [23:49.6 – 23:59.6] Of course, I'd only been hospitalized 10 or 20 times and had DTs two or three times, been in innumerable tragedies and messes, but [23:59.6 – 24:01.1] still I couldn't be an alcoholic. [24:01.1 – 24:04.4] Well, after all, I hadn't gone so far down because I hadn't been in jail. [24:04.4 – 24:11.4] After my first drunk in AA, I came back, and I stayed sober another three months the same way. [24:11.4 – 24:13.9] I don't know just how. [24:13.9 – 24:20.9] Sort of a show them attitude because I didn't study the program, I didn't listen to what anybody said, and I didn't read the book. [24:20.9 – 24:23.0] I stayed sober my way. [24:23.0 – 24:25.3] So I got drunk again. [24:25.3 – 24:32.6] Now, this time I qualified because I landed in the clink. [24:32.6 – 24:42.6] I fell on my face in the street, and the next thing I knew, I was down in what they call the Woman's Bureau [24:42.6 – 24:45.6] in Washington, which let me assure you is no bureau. [24:45.6 – 24:47.4] It's just a nice little cell. [24:47.4 – 24:49.6] And there I was. [24:49.6 – 24:57.9] And it couldn't happen to me because my family had money, I had influential friends, and they couldn't do that to me, but there I was. [24:57.9 – 25:02.4] And in the cell next to me were two very dark brown ladies. [25:02.4 – 25:09.4] And they were drunk, too, and I understand that we sang hymns all night. [25:09.4 – 25:17.9] The next morning, my mother and our colored cook came down and bailed me out, and the colored cook was weeping. [25:17.9 – 25:25.0] She said, "Oh, Miss Ruth, you has disgraced me." And I felt that I had. [25:25.0 – 25:35.1] That's the social stigma which should not be on this illness of alcoholism, and more and more [25:35.1 – 25:44.8] as time goes on, is being removed by just such groups and just such recovery as you have here in this room tonight. [25:44.8 – 25:54.7] Anyway, I went back to AA after that drunk, and for the first time in my life, something had cracked this shell. [25:54.7 – 25:55.9] Fear. [25:55.9 – 25:58.1] I was terribly afraid. [25:58.1 – 26:00.4] I'd been so protected. [26:00.4 – 26:02.7] I'd had so many cushions on me. [26:02.7 – 26:13.7] Everybody ran around and patted me on the back and told me what a lovely girl I was when I didn't drink, tried to help, did everything in their power, bought [26:13.7 – 26:17.9] me new clothes, wiped my face, started me out all over again. [26:17.9 – 26:21.6] This time it was going to be different, and it was. [26:21.6 – 26:22.8] It was usually worse. [26:22.8 – 26:32.9] So I'd been tremendously protected, but I hadn't been very protected when I landed in the clink, and it did something to me. [26:32.9 – 26:36.2] It kept me sober for 11 months. [26:36.2 – 26:37.4] Fear. [26:37.4 – 26:38.5] I was gonna show them. [26:38.5 – 26:48.8] This couldn't happen to me, and these people in the AA group that I'd been looking rather down my nose at because I didn't consider them quite as intellectual or as privileged [26:48.8 – 26:58.8] as I was, and that shows you what a sick individual I was, because these people had something that I didn't have, and I wanted it, [26:58.8 – 27:01.4] but I didn't know how to get it. [27:01.4 – 27:06.3] Still doing it my way, the egotistical way. [27:06.3 – 27:16.6] So finally, at the end of 11 months, something happened, and talking about being restored to sanity, I [27:16.6 – 27:21.1] feel that every day I must ask for restoration to sanity. [27:21.1 – 27:26.1] I was insane when I thought this way, and I was sober. [27:26.1 – 27:35.4] I decided I wasn't an alcoholic, this is after a year and a half in AA, and I was gonna be a social drinker. [27:35.4 – 27:45.5] That is, I was going to drink when the tension got too great or somebody hurt my feelings, and I was a very lovely, sensitive creature, and I couldn't stand [27:45.5 – 27:49.0] some of the hard blows of reality, and I'd have to get drunk. [27:49.0 – 27:53.7] But then I wasn't gonna drink the next day. [27:53.7 – 27:57.1] So that would put me in the realm of the normal drinker. [27:57.1 – 28:07.2] So with a little social drink in mind, I bought four quarts and asked in a couple of friends, and it was all gonna be over at 12:00 [28:07.2 – 28:08.9] midnight, just like Cinderella. [28:08.9 – 28:10.7] That was going to be the end. [28:10.7 – 28:19.2] Well, I forget how many midnights passed before the end came, but it finally did. [28:19.2 – 28:21.8] All alcoholics get sober once in a while. [28:21.8 – 28:23.3] You have to. [28:23.3 – 28:33.1] A hospital or jail or just sheer physical illness or sheer inability to hold a drink, something's going to sober you up sometime. [28:33.1 – 28:36.3] I drank till I couldn't drink anymore. [28:36.3 – 28:40.9] I was so ill that I couldn't see, and then I stopped drinking. [28:40.9 – 28:46.8] I never knew any other way to sober up than to shake it off the hard way. [28:46.8 – 28:49.8] I couldn't drink myself sober. [28:49.8 – 28:52.7] I had to quit, and it was horrible. [28:52.7 – 29:03.0] That last drunk was the most terrible experience of all I remember because all of a sudden, everything I had heard in AA [29:03.0 – 29:05.3] smacked me right in the face. [29:05.3 – 29:15.5] Added to my hangover was all these things that I had been denying and refusing to accept suddenly [29:15.5 – 29:17.2] hit me with a terrible wallop. [29:17.2 – 29:20.2] Of course, my friends in AA were right. [29:20.2 – 29:23.0] I was completely out of control. [29:23.0 – 29:23.7] Powerless? [29:23.7 – 29:24.3] Yes. [29:24.3 – 29:26.3] Life unmanageable? [29:26.3 – 29:28.8] Absolutely. [29:28.8 – 29:31.9] My life was unmanageable not only when I was drunk. [29:31.9 – 29:33.9] Nobody can run their life when they're drunk. [29:33.9 – 29:41.2] My life was unmanageable when I was sober, or else I would not probably have been an alcoholic. [29:41.2 – 29:45.4] Well, what was I gonna do about it? [29:45.4 – 29:46.0] Here was I. [29:46.0 – 29:56.1] I'd had every kind of help that money could produce, that friends could produce, that family affection could produce, [29:56.1 – 30:06.1] that the psychiatrist could give me, that group therapy in AA could give me, and that I could do myself, what little I could do, and none [30:06.1 – 30:16.1] of these things alone, nor all of them together, had been able to help me, and I indeed had a powerful [30:16.1 – 30:18.3] and deadly and progressive illness. [30:18.3 – 30:21.5] And what was I gonna do about it? [30:21.5 – 30:31.3] My AA said, "You've got to depend on a power greater than yourself." I never believed in that. [30:31.3 – 30:32.9] Oh, I didn't disbelieve. [30:32.9 – 30:34.0] I just didn't know. [30:34.0 – 30:44.1] But here I was face to face with something pretty terrific, and there was only one place for me to turn, so I went, and that [30:44.1 – 30:50.8] was to my- I had to look without for that rather than within. [30:50.8 – 31:01.3] And being a compulsive drinker of the worst sort, and going back to our Big Book of AA where Bill says that an alcoholic [31:01.3 – 31:07.7] is practically never mildly drunk, but always insanely drunk, that was I. [31:07.7 – 31:17.7] And he also goes on to say that no amount of self-knowledge, no amount of insight is going [31:17.7 – 31:22.8] to help us when that deadly compulsion to take that drink comes into our minds. [31:22.8 – 31:25.4] Only a power greater than yourself. [31:25.4 – 31:31.8] Well, I use those italicized words for all they were worth. [31:31.8 – 31:35.7] As I understood it, that was all. [31:35.7 – 31:42.3] And whatever I have found, I couldn't possibly take. [31:42.3 – 31:50.0] The main thing is that it works because it has worked for me my way, and that's all that's important. [31:50.0 – 31:51.9] I can't live A.A. [31:51.9 – 31:54.9] for anybody else, and no one can live it for me. [31:54.9 – 31:58.8] This is a highly individualized program. [31:58.8 – 32:05.0] We can only do it in our own way, and that's the way I had to start. [32:05.0 – 32:15.0] I had to pitch out practically every value that I ever had in my life because after [32:15.0 – 32:18.6] all, the foundations were all wet. [32:18.6 – 32:24.8] I brought an awful lot to the bottle before I ever began to drink. [32:24.8 – 32:31.7] I don't think that any happy or well-adjusted people become alcoholics. [32:31.7 – 32:41.9] We are people in some kind of psychological pain, and one of the main functions of alcohol is to dull [32:41.9 – 32:42.9] this pain. [32:42.9 – 32:45.6] It doesn't raise our spirits. [32:45.6 – 32:50.7] It simply takes the brakes off, and that's what I'd been doing. [32:50.7 – 32:55.5] I had been seeking an anesthetic for my pain. [32:55.5 – 32:57.5] And where did my pain come from? [32:57.5 – 33:07.7] From the fact that my life had no foundation and no purpose, and that I couldn't and didn't know what reality was. [33:07.7 – 33:15.8] I was terribly mixed up because after all, there are some confusing things even in our civilization alone. [33:15.8 – 33:26.0] For instance, we're brought up to the idea of success, of personal success, of achieving great things, the rags-to-riches idea. [33:26.0 – 33:36.8] And we're taught, or at least I think we are, I thought I was, that to gain this kind of personal success, you have to be strong, and you have to be powerful, [33:36.8 – 33:39.8] and you have to push other people out of your way. [33:39.8 – 33:50.5] And yet, on the other hand, we're deeply imbued with the Christian ideal that it is selfish to want a great deal for yourself, [33:50.5 – 33:54.3] that you must help the other fellow and turn the other cheek. [33:54.3 – 34:04.5] Now, after all, the person who is going to live well and successfully must practically discard one of those drives [34:04.5 – 34:05.6] in favor of the other. [34:05.6 – 34:09.5] I was trying to take both, and it wouldn't work. [34:09.5 – 34:12.1] And when I came into A.A. [34:12.1 – 34:22.5] at last, because I don't consider that I ever came into this group until that third attempt of mine after a year and a half of unhappy [34:22.5 – 34:25.2] sobriety and certainly not A.A. [34:25.2 – 34:25.8] sobriety. [34:25.8 – 34:33.5] When I finally came in and tried to work this program, I found a solution. [34:33.5 – 34:43.5] I found a path to follow because certainly here in A.A., we discard one of [34:43.5 – 34:46.4] those drives in favor of the other. [34:46.4 – 34:55.2] We find in here, at least I did, for the first time in my life, friendship. [34:55.2 – 34:59.7] I was incapable of being a friend. [34:59.7 – 35:04.3] I was terribly suspicious of other people because I didn't trust myself. [35:04.3 – 35:11.7] And above all, I didn't trust other women because, again, my own motives were not very clear. [35:11.7 – 35:16.8] And I found for the first time in my life friends, women friends. [35:16.8 – 35:19.2] It was a wonderful experience. [35:19.2 – 35:25.3] And I found my first women friends among the wives of alcoholics. [35:25.3 – 35:28.2] And finally, when other A.A. [35:28.2 – 35:38.3] women began to come in the group, I saw them come in as sick, as mixed up, as suspicious, [35:38.3 – 35:43.3] as emotionally immature as I had been. [35:43.3 – 35:53.3] And then I saw this wonderful thing happen to them, God and Group Therapy together, and I [35:53.3 – 35:55.3] saw them begin to get well. [35:55.3 – 36:00.4] And this is an atmosphere in which we can all recover. [36:00.4 – 36:08.9] As a group, we can do things together that no one of us could ever have done alone. [36:08.9 – 36:19.0] The world for the first time is seeing the phenomenon of alcoholics recovering in groups together. [36:19.0 – 36:29.3] In all of our Twelve Steps, the word we is used, and to me, that we [36:29.3 – 36:30.9] is very, very important. [36:30.9 – 36:40.9] I haven't had a drink now for over six and a half years, and yet tonight as I stand here and talk to you, I feel [36:40.9 – 36:51.0] the need of A.A., of people like you here in this room, just as much as I ever felt the need way back [36:51.0 – 36:52.2] there eight years ago. [36:52.2 – 36:54.0] Because why? [36:54.0 – 36:55.8] I have an illness. [36:55.8 – 36:58.3] I have not recovered. [36:58.3 – 37:00.0] I am recovering. [37:00.0 – 37:03.0] It's going to take me the rest of my life. [37:03.0 – 37:07.6] I shall be recovering, and A.A. [37:07.6 – 37:14.6] is a treatment, and I need it, and I need people like you to help me. [37:14.6 – 37:20.9] And I want to tell you how much I appreciate being here tonight. [37:20.9 – 37:24.7] Dick and I have always wanted to come to Nashville. [37:24.7 – 37:32.1] We've never been able to stop before, but we just did it tonight, and thank you all a great deal.