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[00:00:00.580 – 00:00:01.460] Hello, Maryland.

[00:00:01.460 – 00:00:02.060] I’m home.

[00:00:02.060 – 00:00:03.940] My name is Sandy, and I’m an alcoholic.

[00:00:03.940 – 00:00:05.570] Hi, Sandy.

[00:00:05.570 – 00:00:08.880] And hello, Pennsylvania and West Virginia and D.C.

[00:00:08.880 – 00:00:14.380] and all the other areas that some of us come to for, for conferences.

[00:00:14.380 – 00:00:16.480] And thank you, Amanda.

[00:00:16.480 – 00:00:21.180] You know, before we meet each other, when you’re just email buddies, you have a vision.

[00:00:21.180 – 00:00:31.180] But anybody who uses exclamation points in their emails as often as I do, which she did, and calls herself the Chili Queen, I knew I n– would love her the minute I met

[00:00:31.180 – 00:00:31.440] her.

[00:00:31.440 – 00:00:37.400] It was a short trip up the road, uh, for tonight.

[00:00:37.400 – 00:00:41.420] I guess hometown day is Thursday at the Maryland State Convention.

[00:00:41.420 – 00:00:47.520] Um, but Maryland means a great deal to me in this regard in terms of sharing with you tonight.

[00:00:47.520 – 00:00:52.500] A couple of years ago, I, um, I spoke at the Massachusetts State Convention.

[00:00:52.500 – 00:01:00.240] And except for three years of my life that I spent in Pennsylvania, I have lived my entire long life in Massachusetts and Maryland.

[00:01:00.240 – 00:01:09.520] So I, um, I told them up in Massachusetts about my getting ready years of alcoholism, because I did leave that state when I was twenty-five.

[00:01:09.520 – 00:01:12.060] But Maryland got the worst of me.

[00:01:12.060 – 00:01:16.540] And gave the best of me back to me.

[00:01:16.540 – 00:01:24.160] So I’m a very grateful member of Alcoholics Anonymous who got sober in the state of Maryland and hopes to die sober in the state of Maryland.

[00:01:24.160 – 00:01:27.140] I have no intentions, uh, of leaving this area.

[00:01:27.140 – 00:01:29.520] It means a great deal to me.

[00:01:29.520 – 00:01:35.480] I’ve been sober a few twenty-four hours, but it is always important to me to remember where I am in the here and now.

[00:01:35.480 – 00:01:45.160] So I was thinking as I drove up the road this afternoon, and I do have to split out tonight and go back to work tomorrow for a few hours, and I’ll be back tomorrow night.

[00:01:45.160 – 00:01:52.580] But I was thinking about this is kind of a busy ten-day period for lots of different reasons, but just in my own personal calendar.

[00:01:52.580 – 00:01:57.920] Last Thursday night, a week ago tonight, was AA’s birthday, June the tenth.

[00:01:57.920 – 00:01:59.860] I hope you all celebrated.

[00:01:59.860 – 00:02:09.880] I have no difficulty in knowing that last Thursday, Alcoholics Anonymous was sixty-four years old because I just have to know how old I am to make a connection.

[00:02:09.880 – 00:02:14.540] On June the tenth, nineteen thirty-five, when Dr.

[00:02:14.540 – 00:02:24.840] Bob had his last bottle of beer on the way to the surgery, I was already in an embryonic environment getting ready to hit the world.

[00:02:24.840 – 00:02:32.340] I was supposed to be born at the end of February of nineteen thirty-six.

[00:02:32.340 – 00:02:36.260] Typical of me from birth on, I arrived a month early.

[00:02:36.260 – 00:02:41.740] But I figure, looking at the calendar, that February is when I was due.

[00:02:41.740 – 00:02:43.980] March, April, May.

[00:02:43.980 – 00:02:49.540] Somewhere at the end of May, uh, I must have, uh, come into reality.

[00:02:49.540 – 00:02:54.460] And by June the tenth, nineteen thirty-five, I’m sure my parents didn’t even know it yet.

[00:02:54.460 – 00:03:04.540] Uh, but perhaps Alcoholics Anonymous was being formed that day, uh, to get ready, to get ready for me because I was coming.

[00:03:04.540 – 00:03:12.840] It certainly is a grateful thing to me in a moment of, uh, when I reflect on the gratitude of having Alcoholics Anonymous here.

[00:03:12.840 – 00:03:17.740] So June the tenth was, uh, was AA’s birthday and is every year on June the tenth.

[00:03:17.740 – 00:03:25.400] This is the twenty-ninth conference of Area Twenty-Nine in Alcoholics Anonymous, the state of Maryland.

[00:03:25.400 – 00:03:35.400] I do live in Maryland also, but two of our counties seceded, uh, from the union and joined the District of Columbia, where we are known as Area

[00:03:35.400 – 00:03:35.860] Eleven.

[00:03:35.860 – 00:03:44.020] In AA’s geographical gerrymandering that went on in the seventies, I guess, we were whisked into another area.

[00:03:44.020 – 00:03:53.140] But I think about the fact that, um, when the first conference was here, it would’ve been June, if it was June, of nineteen seventy.

[00:03:53.140 – 00:04:03.160] And I should’ve been, could’ve been, would like to have been here because I was around Alcoholics Anonymous, but I wasn’t sober.

[00:04:03.160 – 00:04:10.440] So when I think of June and, and the twenty-ninth year ago, I’ve got some memories around June of nineteen seventy.

[00:04:10.440 – 00:04:13.120] It was not a pretty month.

[00:04:13.120 – 00:04:18.840] Last Tuesday, the fifteenth of June, was my son’s birthday.

[00:04:18.840 – 00:04:27.840] He has reached thirty-nine for the first time, um, which means I’ve gotta stop celebrating anniversaries of my thirty-ninth, I guess.

[00:04:27.840 – 00:04:37.360] But I have a story to share with you about his ninth birthday, which was June the fifteenth, nineteen sixty-nine.

[00:04:37.360 – 00:04:42.300] And this coming Sunday, uh, coming up, will be Father’s Day.

[00:04:42.300 – 00:04:50.000] And, um, although he only had one for sixteen years, um, it always brings back some memories to me.

[00:04:50.000 – 00:05:00.240] Because while I said I was very grateful to have been born as AA was being born, um, my father died

[00:05:00.240 – 00:05:03.500] without getting here and needed to be.

[00:05:03.500 – 00:05:08.320] So I think about that, um, in terms of, of Father’s Day.

[00:05:08.320 – 00:05:10.700] So it’s a, it’s a sentimental kind of month for me.

[00:05:10.700 – 00:05:14.720] I can do this really with any month of the year if I just stay in tune into what’s happening.

[00:05:14.720 – 00:05:18.800] But that’s what I was thinking about in, in June coming up.

[00:05:18.800 – 00:05:28.860] I was at a wonderful AA retreat last weekend down in the woods of West Virginia, and I was– had never been in a rustic cabin in the woods since

[00:05:28.860 – 00:05:33.360] I was a little kid in camp in New Hampshire, and I had lots of memories flood back then.

[00:05:33.360 – 00:05:42.720] One of the wonderful things about recovery in this program, as it promised us after the Ninth Step, we will learn not to regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

[00:05:42.720 – 00:05:49.220] That’s not how I felt when I first came through the doors of AA, and my first meeting is coming up in November.

[00:05:49.220 – 00:05:55.220] It’ll be thirty years since the first meeting, November the third, nineteen sixty-nine.

[00:05:55.220 – 00:05:57.260] But I’m getting a little ahead of my story.

[00:05:57.260 – 00:06:05.620] Massachusetts got the beginning of me, and Maryland, uh, will have the rest, but I was born and raised in a small town outside of Boston.

[00:06:05.620 – 00:06:15.816] Uh, historical community called Lexington, Massachusetts, where you grow up overdosing on colonial New England, because you had to walk around with these little three-corner hats

[00:06:15.816 – 00:06:21.276] the entire month of April every year- -um, whether you wanted to or not.

[00:06:21.276 – 00:06:31.396] Um, Lexington was a small town in my growing up years, and I have to identify now with some of you who come out of, uh,

[00:06:31.396 – 00:06:32.816] the forties and fifties.

[00:06:32.816 – 00:06:42.836] You know, I know there’s a lot of young people here today, so we have to do a little time warp for you and tell you that in the forties and fifties, uh, if you ever saw the movie Happy Days, we

[00:06:42.836 – 00:06:44.195] lived there.

[00:06:44.195 – 00:06:48.796] Um, and it really was like that.

[00:06:48.796 – 00:06:59.076] Um, I came through the fifties in terms of high school and college years, and it was a– except for the Korean War, which was at the beginning of that period,

[00:06:59.076 – 00:07:00.676] it was a very quiet time for me.

[00:07:00.676 – 00:07:07.096] I grew up in a small town, uh, attached with a script of how I was gonna lead my life.

[00:07:07.096 – 00:07:17.276] Now, I don’t know if you had scripts written for you by family members or community or society in general, or perhaps that I was such a sensitive person

[00:07:17.276 – 00:07:19.796] that I needed to know some kind of path.

[00:07:19.796 – 00:07:29.976] But I felt that I had a script written for me, and it was be a nice girl, go through high school, in which you don’t drink, smoke, or get pregnant, um,

[00:07:29.976 – 00:07:40.016] go to college, meet a nice young man who has potential, marry him, keep a career in your back pocket in case you ever have to work, and

[00:07:40.016 – 00:07:42.296] live happily ever after.

[00:07:42.296 – 00:07:48.436] Uh, so that was the script, and I tried to follow it.

[00:07:48.436 – 00:07:56.156] So until I was seventeen years old and graduated high school, I had never smoked or drank or become pregnant.

[00:07:56.156 – 00:08:00.076] I took care of a couple of those that very next summer.

[00:08:00.076 – 00:08:03.096] Two out of three.

[00:08:03.096 – 00:08:06.576] I, uh, learned to smoke and drink.

[00:08:06.576 – 00:08:10.416] Um, and it, and it was a deliberate act.

[00:08:10.416 – 00:08:13.876] I was getting ready to go to the big city of Boston to live for four years.

[00:08:13.876 – 00:08:15.745] I was seventeen years old.

[00:08:15.745 – 00:08:23.396] And remember, in the fifties, all the movies with Paul Henreid putting two cigarettes in his mouth at once and handing one over.

[00:08:23.396 – 00:08:31.216] I was watching some, uh, celebration of a hundred years of movies this week, and they were– all they did was smoke and drink in those movies.

[00:08:31.216 – 00:08:32.146] It was all very glamorous.

[00:08:32.146 – 00:08:39.196] So I remember the summer of 1953 down at the beach in Rockport, Massachusetts, learning to smoke and drink.

[00:08:39.196 – 00:08:41.896] Now, that was before filter tips, friends.

[00:08:41.896 – 00:08:48.936] Um, and so you had to learn to smoke with a dry mouth and a toothpick so that your lips wouldn’t stick to the paper.

[00:08:48.936 – 00:08:53.776] And then you had to learn to tap them on your thumb and all this stuff and not choke.

[00:08:53.776 – 00:08:56.136] And drinking seemed to come a little easier.

[00:08:56.136 – 00:09:01.136] Um- And even from the very beginning, I was drinking badly.

[00:09:01.136 – 00:09:01.636] All right?

[00:09:01.636 – 00:09:07.936] We look at these measuring highlight signs on the way back, not on the way toward our destination.

[00:09:07.936 – 00:09:16.536] But in– We were working in these restaurants, waiting on tables and, uh, working hard days, long days, hot days, but we were young.

[00:09:16.536 – 00:09:21.776] And every night it was grab a few six-packs or whatever and go to the beach and kind of just hang out.

[00:09:21.776 – 00:09:23.836] Young people have done that forever.

[00:09:23.836 – 00:09:27.236] But in that very first summer, two things happened to me.

[00:09:27.236 – 00:09:31.736] First of all, I experienced blackouts, not knowing that everyone didn’t.

[00:09:31.736 – 00:09:41.076] Um, my, uh, my sister and I were living in this rooming house with the other waitresses, and, um, our mom was also down there for the summer, uh, in another house with a friend of hers.

[00:09:41.076 – 00:09:44.176] And I was driving her car, which was– I was seventeen.

[00:09:44.176 – 00:09:45.476] I had a license for the first time.

[00:09:45.476 – 00:09:48.996] 1949 stick shift Chevrolet coupe.

[00:09:48.996 – 00:09:57.306] And, um, there was a large rotary, uh, and I am told that I decided to see how many times I could go around it.

[00:09:57.306 – 00:10:03.696] The way that I was drinking was there was beer, and someone had a bottle of gin.

[00:10:03.696 – 00:10:11.756] So my pattern would be to drink the beer and then pour the gin in the empty beer can, and everybody thought you were still drinking beer.

[00:10:11.756 – 00:10:16.836] Now, a seventeen-year-old who comes to drink that way is not headed for a happy time.

[00:10:16.836 – 00:10:19.656] Um, but I did that.

[00:10:19.656 – 00:10:22.795] Um, so it started off rather badly.

[00:10:22.795 – 00:10:28.035] My sister, who was younger, covered up for me and promised not to tell if I would let her drink, too.

[00:10:28.035 – 00:10:29.036] Oh.

[00:10:29.036 – 00:10:34.396] Younger siblings have a way of, um, holding you up when you’re trying new things.

[00:10:34.396 – 00:10:35.826] So there I was.

[00:10:35.826 – 00:10:36.796] I know how to drink.

[00:10:36.796 – 00:10:37.896] I know how to smoke.

[00:10:37.896 – 00:10:47.896] I’m ready for the big grown-up world, and, uh, and I went to college in Boston for four years, where there was a no drinking, uh, campus that

[00:10:47.896 – 00:10:54.436] I went to, a girls school, and there was a twenty-one age drinking limit back in those days, before they jumped it back to eighteen and then back to twenty-one.

[00:10:54.436 – 00:10:56.036] So we did like you do today.

[00:10:56.036 – 00:10:57.556] We all had fake IDs.

[00:10:57.556 – 00:11:07.576] Or because Boston is a very college town and there’s two hundred and fifty thousand college kids one way or another around that city, we just hung out on weekends and,

[00:11:07.576 – 00:11:11.856] uh, and drank at, at boathouse parties and dorm parties and fraternity parties.

[00:11:11.856 – 00:11:21.876] And to this day, I still have– Now, I’m sober over twenty-eight years, and, and there are places in my throat that still speak to me when you mention certain

[00:11:21.876 – 00:11:22.896] kinds of alcohol.

[00:11:22.896 – 00:11:32.016] And there’s a place down here that speaks when I remember the gin and orange juice punches that they used to have there at those college parties.

[00:11:32.016 – 00:11:32.416] Fierce.

[00:11:32.416 – 00:11:42.456] Um, there are other drinks that when you say the word Manhattan, there’s a little place over here that still tickles, um,

[00:11:42.456 – 00:11:44.936] because I thought that was a very glamorous drink.

[00:11:44.936 – 00:11:48.976] Not the way I drank them at the end, but, uh, when I was into gallons of Gallo.

[00:11:48.976 – 00:11:53.336] But, um- -learning to drink in the big city.

[00:11:53.336 – 00:11:56.476] There was a little saloon in Copley Square, Boston.

[00:11:56.476 – 00:12:00.516] Now, you– this is the fifties, so you have to do the inflation rate when I talk money here.

[00:12:00.516 – 00:12:05.006] The average wage for a part-time job was thirty-five cents an hour or something.

[00:12:05.006 – 00:12:09.396] Um, but it got you into the movies, I mean, an hour’s wage.

[00:12:09.396 – 00:12:15.768] There was a little saloon there, kind of an– A nice little club was sort of a singles bar.

[00:12:15.768 – 00:12:16.948] It was called the Elliott Lounge.

[00:12:16.948 – 00:12:22.168] And they served 44 cent drinks and all the cheese popcorn you could eat.

[00:12:22.168 – 00:12:25.678] And we went there after school, after college on Friday nights.

[00:12:25.678 – 00:12:29.228] My senior year, we were getting ready to celebrate everybody’s 21st birthday.

[00:12:29.228 – 00:12:30.028] A lot of them had had it.

[00:12:30.028 – 00:12:35.808] When you were celebrating somebody’s legally able to drink, everybody else who’s younger goes drinking with them.

[00:12:35.808 – 00:12:39.448] And it was this one night in January of 56.

[00:12:39.448 – 00:12:41.588] I was dating a guy that I later married.

[00:12:41.588 – 00:12:43.408] So he saw all this crazy evening.

[00:12:43.408 – 00:12:45.528] And we were in this Elliott Lounge.

[00:12:45.528 – 00:12:49.068] And I hadn’t eaten and it was final exam time and I wasn’t sleeping much.

[00:12:49.068 – 00:12:52.168] And I’m down there and we’re celebrating somebody’s birthday.

[00:12:52.168 – 00:12:58.148] And I remember, and there’s a place that I don’t know where in the body that these drinks will bring a memory back to.

[00:12:58.148 – 00:13:04.748] But we sat there that afternoon and decided that as young ladies, we should learn to drink some pretty drinks.

[00:13:04.748 – 00:13:12.588] So we spent the afternoon with empty stomachs this early evening drinking alternate pink ladies and grasshoppers.

[00:13:12.588 – 00:13:16.308] They are pretty.

[00:13:16.308 – 00:13:22.988] And all the cheese popcorn you could put down in between.

[00:13:22.988 – 00:13:32.828] Now, my friends stopped after a few because they said stupid things like, I’m beginning to feel mine.

[00:13:32.828 – 00:13:36.268] Never understood those people.

[00:13:36.268 – 00:13:38.568] I’m going out tonight.

[00:13:38.568 – 00:13:40.508] I better not have any more.

[00:13:40.508 – 00:13:43.788] It was like 6 o’clock, 5 o’clock on a Friday afternoon.

[00:13:43.788 – 00:13:45.108] I had a date that night.

[00:13:45.108 – 00:13:47.948] So some of them left.

[00:13:47.948 – 00:13:53.968] And I, being a thrifty person, I’m 50% of Scottish descent and I don’t like to waste.

[00:13:53.968 – 00:14:01.407] So I saw nothing wrong with gobbling down half-filled drinks that were there.

[00:14:01.407 – 00:14:06.598] Now, I used to be sort of germophobic, but alcohol kills germs, doesn’t it?

[00:14:06.598 – 00:14:09.008] So I’m going to go on and get down.

[00:14:09.008 – 00:14:10.348] Never leave a drop.

[00:14:10.348 – 00:14:14.988] Those who were still left said, let’s go again.

[00:14:14.988 – 00:14:15.528] Okay.

[00:14:15.528 – 00:14:23.608] And around the corner was the Sherry Biltmore Hotel with a coffee shop that had mirrors all the way around the dining room.

[00:14:23.608 – 00:14:28.168] And they tell me that I ordered waffles and maple syrup.

[00:14:28.168 – 00:14:31.028] Now, do you have a picture of the intestines at this point?

[00:14:31.028 – 00:14:36.888] Pink ladies, grasshoppers, cheese popcorn, and now we’re going to throw down maple syrup.

[00:14:36.888 – 00:14:39.108] Well, guess what?

[00:14:39.108 – 00:14:49.308] In the mirrors in front of God and everyone, with my little Harris tweed coat and my MIT scarf around my neck, I went into a

[00:14:49.308 – 00:14:55.308] complete decorative display all over the table and my friends.

[00:14:55.308 – 00:15:02.368] Anybody who survived to get to AA had enablers because left to our own devices, we’d have been gone long ago.

[00:15:02.368 – 00:15:07.068] And these friends of mine hauled me in the bathroom, told people I was under stress.

[00:15:07.068 – 00:15:14.328] I was final exam, cleaned me up, and called my boyfriend, who had a date with me in a couple of hours, and didn’t have a car.

[00:15:14.328 – 00:15:15.888] He had to borrow one, come down.

[00:15:15.888 – 00:15:18.728] They threw me in the back of the car, took me back to the dorm.

[00:15:18.728 – 00:15:25.148] The reason this was especially inappropriate drinking was that particular week, and they took me in the side door.

[00:15:25.148 – 00:15:27.208] I didn’t want to go in the side door.

[00:15:27.208 – 00:15:31.828] I wanted to go in the front door, but it was only 7.30 on a Friday night.

[00:15:31.828 – 00:15:35.628] And that weekend, I was the resident house mother.

[00:15:35.628 – 00:15:43.268] So from the beginning of my drinking, my friends covered up for me.

[00:15:43.268 – 00:15:45.588] This didn’t happen every Friday night.

[00:15:45.588 – 00:15:55.708] And so those of us who are destined to walk down this path very often try to put some green stamps ahead in the bank

[00:15:55.708 – 00:15:58.308] to draw on should we need them with our friends.

[00:15:58.308 – 00:16:08.448] So I was known as a very generous person, very thoughtful, very hardworking, volunteer for anything, so that when these things would happen, they would, oh, well, most of the time,

[00:16:08.448 – 00:16:09.497] you know, she’s pretty good.

[00:16:09.497 – 00:16:11.628] So college went through.

[00:16:11.628 – 00:16:18.168] I did manage to graduate barely between the boys and the beer and the politics.

[00:16:18.168 – 00:16:21.728] I loved politics, student government, all that stuff.

[00:16:21.728 – 00:16:25.508] There was a little dichotomy about my personality, however.

[00:16:25.508 – 00:16:34.048] For instance, I was voted senior year the Rankin Award, which was for the friendliest, helpful person on the campus.

[00:16:34.048 – 00:16:38.168] And I had one of the 10 single rooms that I fought for.

[00:16:38.168 – 00:16:40.048] Now, what does that tell you?

[00:16:40.048 – 00:16:41.428] I didn’t want a roommate.

[00:16:41.428 – 00:16:44.528] But I needed people.

[00:16:44.528 – 00:16:51.328] I had that mixture that I’ve found a lot of people in AA have, where we’re very public because we have no real insight.

[00:16:51.328 – 00:16:56.708] So we’re always measuring ourselves by other people’s appreciation and approval, and it’s never enough.

[00:16:56.708 – 00:16:59.608] So we never get all we think we need.

[00:16:59.608 – 00:17:03.508] On the other hand, there’s a private place that doesn’t want to share with anybody.

[00:17:03.508 – 00:17:10.948] And there are private moments when this smiling, cheerful person would slam the door to her room and cuss out everybody.

[00:17:10.948 – 00:17:15.188] So the personality was already in place.

[00:17:15.188 – 00:17:18.768] The genetics was already in place biochemically.

[00:17:18.768 – 00:17:23.768] I found out later on alcoholism has not just walked through my family.

[00:17:23.768 – 00:17:25.628] As somebody said, it has galloped.

[00:17:25.628 – 00:17:28.428] And there are many, many, many of them.

[00:17:28.428 – 00:17:31.718] So I had that predisposition biochemically.

[00:17:31.718 – 00:17:35.108] I was certainly throwing the alcohol down and loved it.

[00:17:35.108 – 00:17:40.688] Those social drinkers do not often like the effects of intoxication.

[00:17:40.688 – 00:17:48.648] I thought it was really fun to lay on the bed on Saturday night and put my foot on the floor to stop it from going around.

[00:17:48.648 – 00:17:50.328] Remember that?

[00:17:50.328 – 00:17:51.168] That’s kind of fun.

[00:17:51.168 – 00:18:01.328] Like your own little carousel right there in the dorm room where you’re sleeping on paper packages because that’s the way the sheets

[00:18:01.328 – 00:18:05.168] came and you hadn’t made your room up since Tuesday when they delivered those sheets.

[00:18:05.168 – 00:18:15.268] The fact that I graduated vice president of student government with a 2.2 grade point average will tell

[00:18:15.268 – 00:18:17.928] you something about my priorities at that time.

[00:18:17.928 – 00:18:26.028] I was on scholarship and I almost lost it one semester when I went to 1.69 grade point average.

[00:18:26.028 – 00:18:27.768] I cried to the dean.

[00:18:27.768 – 00:18:31.608] That didn’t seem to help, but I pulled it up.

[00:18:31.608 – 00:18:33.788] It takes a long time to pull it up when you got it way down there.

[00:18:33.788 – 00:18:36.058] And so 2.2, that was to haunt me later.

[00:18:36.058 – 00:18:37.988] I will let you know.

[00:18:37.988 – 00:18:39.578] So I graduated from college.

[00:18:39.578 – 00:18:43.327] I had met the young man with the promise and the potential.

[00:18:43.327 – 00:18:50.098] I had become engaged in May of senior year because you had to become engaged under peer pressure at my college.

[00:18:50.098 – 00:18:53.268] They had a luncheon for the senior women.

[00:18:53.268 – 00:19:02.848] And when you went into this luncheon, talk about peer influence, you got a red rose if you had a diamond ring and you got a white rose if you didn’t.

[00:19:02.848 – 00:19:08.508] You can bet your booties I was after this fella for weeks.

[00:19:08.508 – 00:19:09.148] Get the ring.

[00:19:09.148 – 00:19:09.868] Get the ring.

[00:19:09.868 – 00:19:12.608] He had to buy it on time.

[00:19:12.608 – 00:19:15.288] I mean, he was a student on scholarship too.

[00:19:15.288 – 00:19:22.188] And it was a very small little stone that is currently sitting in the sidewalk of Old Georgetown Road.

[00:19:22.188 – 00:19:27.408] That’s another story maybe I’ll get to in Rockville.

[00:19:27.408 – 00:19:33.908] But I graduated with all these really excellent plans.

[00:19:33.908 – 00:19:35.368] You know, I had the engagement ring.

[00:19:35.368 – 00:19:36.688] I had the college degree.

[00:19:36.688 – 00:19:40.928] And I had my life now to lead.

[00:19:40.928 – 00:19:51.248] And so the next few years with this sort of planning, I took a small job with the federal government at that time for 15 months and then took a 33-year

[00:19:51.248 – 00:19:53.388] leave of absence from the federal government.

[00:19:53.388 – 00:19:55.148] I’m there again now.

[00:19:55.148 – 00:19:56.568] Come back to haunt them.

[00:19:56.568 – 00:20:02.068] But we went off to start our life together knowing nothing.

[00:20:02.068 – 00:20:06.488] The young man that I married, whom I call today my wasband.

[00:20:11.167 – 00:20:13.787] I really think it’s a somewhat affectionate term, you know?

[00:20:13.787 – 00:20:23.827] A-and that we need a word to describe that because, um, we have children, and, I mean, you’re in relationship with the

[00:20:23.827 – 00:20:27.837] f-fellow parents of your children forever, whether you’re married or not married.

[00:20:27.837 – 00:20:36.287] And, uh, so my husband, who was a social drinker, uh, observed occasional funny patterns.

[00:20:36.287 – 00:20:46.827] You remember the 20 question test when it said, “Did you have any of these things happen to you?” When I finally got around to thinking about alcoholism, I remember conning myself into 17 nos,

[00:20:46.827 – 00:20:49.747] and then I read the back, and you only had to have three yeses to get in.

[00:20:49.747 – 00:20:51.987] But I really had 20 yeses.

[00:20:51.987 – 00:21:02.567] As I became honest with myself, uh, or as you helped me get honest with myself when I came to AA, there was the question that said, “Did you let drinking determine

[00:21:02.567 – 00:21:07.987] your, uh, uh, your friends?” And I was sure that applied to bar drinkers.

[00:21:07.987 – 00:21:12.767] I was mainly just a hopeless, helpless little housewife.

[00:21:12.767 – 00:21:20.487] You know, I describe myself as the drunken den mother of Darntown, Maryland, the s-besotted soccer mom.

[00:21:20.487 – 00:21:28.267] I mean, I didn’t cut a very big swath out there in the bars, so how could I have let drinking determine who I was with?

[00:21:28.267 – 00:21:32.087] Well, let me jumpstart a little couple of occasions where it’s real easy to see.

[00:21:32.087 – 00:21:41.587] Even back there at 22, 23, um, and, and at that point, my husband was in the Air Force doing his duty, and, um, we’d invited…

[00:21:41.587 – 00:21:51.667] He came home and said, “I wanna invite this guy and his wife who work in my office over Saturday night.” I said, “That’d be nice.” He said, “Only thing is they don’t drink,

[00:21:51.667 – 00:21:59.527] and they don’t play cards.” I said, “Don’t ask them.” I could have handled one or the other.

[00:21:59.527 – 00:22:09.847] But what would you do with another couple all evening without drinking or engaging in any kind of cards or games

[00:22:09.847 – 00:22:10.447] or something?

[00:22:10.447 – 00:22:12.027] You talk?

[00:22:12.027 – 00:22:14.107] You know, what would you do?

[00:22:14.107 – 00:22:24.127] And I began to add up in my mind after I got sober all the probably wonderful people who walked right by the sides of my life because they

[00:22:24.127 – 00:22:27.447] didn’t drink or they didn’t drink like I did.

[00:22:27.447 – 00:22:31.047] Most of us say, “Well, that didn’t seem bad to me.

[00:22:31.047 – 00:22:34.147] Everybody around me drank the same way I did.” Of course.

[00:22:34.147 – 00:22:36.387] We picked them out.

[00:22:36.387 – 00:22:43.907] So I did the socializing, invited people over for the, for the dinners and all that.

[00:22:43.907 – 00:22:49.067] And we hopeless, helpless, housewife alcoholics have our moments of humiliation, you know?

[00:22:49.067 – 00:22:52.067] You may have picked a fight at the bar and been hauled off in the paddy wagon.

[00:22:52.067 – 00:22:57.427] But did you ever invite a group to dinner and then forget it?

[00:22:57.427 – 00:23:02.867] And they came to your door.

[00:23:02.867 – 00:23:08.707] And your husband said, “There are some people here.” And you’re half in the bag.

[00:23:08.707 – 00:23:13.227] You had no recollection that you’d invited four or five people for dinner.

[00:23:13.227 – 00:23:18.927] And your husband was about to open a can of tuna fish or something himself.

[00:23:18.927 – 00:23:23.487] Um, and you lived 20 miles out in the country at the end of a dirt road.

[00:23:23.487 – 00:23:28.447] Um, yeah, uh, those kinds of things happened to me.

[00:23:28.447 – 00:23:38.867] When you’ve been a drunken den mother, you can have the humiliation of, um, number one, having to drink the worst drink in the world, I think was mine, Wednesday

[00:23:38.867 – 00:23:40.907] afternoons when the Cubs were there.

[00:23:40.907 – 00:23:46.307] Not to be noticed, den mother had her glass on top of the fridge.

[00:23:46.307 – 00:23:48.807] I also had a smaller child at the time.

[00:23:48.807 – 00:23:52.207] Because that’s when I was drinking vodka and Kool-Aid.

[00:23:52.207 – 00:23:54.527] But that is not a good drink.

[00:23:54.527 – 00:23:55.407] Um…

[00:23:55.407 – 00:24:04.107] But when you become a maintenance drinker, which I had, uh, you gotta have something in there most of the time just to tolerate it.

[00:24:04.107 – 00:24:14.127] But when you sat with these young boys, and you thought, “Aren’t I wonderful, giving these boys such intense adult attention and helping them through these life

[00:24:14.127 – 00:24:19.407] struggles of learning to tie knots.” Did you ever try to do knots when you’re half hungover?

[00:24:19.407 – 00:24:20.197] You know.

[00:24:20.197 – 00:24:21.927] Or promise them trips.

[00:24:21.927 – 00:24:32.047] And there was one October that I kept saying, “If you boys do whatever you’re supposed to do here, I’m gonna take you in my station wagon across White’s Ferry to Leesburg, Virginia, and we’re gonna

[00:24:32.047 – 00:24:35.727] pick apples.” Just a little ferry that runs down there, holds like six cars.

[00:24:35.727 – 00:24:38.407] And this was gonna be a little outing and a field trip.

[00:24:38.407 – 00:24:48.907] So imagine my dismay one Wednesday when I said, “Now, you boys, we are getting ready, if you do well, to take that trip.” And they looked at me with surprise in their eyes

[00:24:48.907 – 00:24:59.067] and said, “But we went last week.” I had stuffed perhaps your child

[00:24:59.067 – 00:25:04.347] and mine and somebody else’s, seven or eight of them, in the back of a station wagon.

[00:25:04.347 – 00:25:06.527] We didn’t use seat belts in those days, friends.

[00:25:06.527 – 00:25:11.547] We just threw them in the back of the station wagon, packed them in, as many as you could get back there.

[00:25:11.547 – 00:25:15.587] And had driven across a ferry and come back.

[00:25:15.587 – 00:25:24.947] Luckily, I learned when I studied the etiology of alcoholism later on that you can be in a blackout when you’re not particularly intoxicated.

[00:25:24.947 – 00:25:29.167] I mean, my physical abilities were perhaps fine that day.

[00:25:29.167 – 00:25:37.047] That memory short cut, short that we have, that, that short circuit can happen with very little drinking.

[00:25:37.047 – 00:25:40.567] It’s also an absolute pointy sign of alcoholism.

[00:25:40.567 – 00:25:42.887] Social drinkers don’t have blackouts.

[00:25:42.887 – 00:25:48.407] They pass out if you give them enough booze, but they don’t have these little trigger moments.

[00:25:48.407 – 00:25:50.367] They weren’t all blackouts either.

[00:25:50.367 – 00:25:51.826] I wish more of them were.

[00:25:51.826 – 00:25:52.387] Um…

[00:25:52.387 – 00:25:55.467] Some of them are just barely gray.

[00:25:55.467 – 00:25:59.067] And for years, I dreamed of them.

[00:25:59.067 – 00:26:03.247] But then I was never able to determine reality from illusion.

[00:26:03.247 – 00:26:06.967] It was very hard to separate them, and this was before drinking.

[00:26:06.967 – 00:26:17.015] And I was just reminded, and it’s been years since I thought of this, as I was talking about it on retreat last weekend, about how we lie to ourselves, and we’re the kind of person that spins tales.

[00:26:17.015 – 00:26:22.335] When we’re young children, our families call it an imagination.

[00:26:22.335 – 00:26:29.515] When we’re a little older, they kind of raise their eyebrow and wonder if it really happened that way.

[00:26:29.515 – 00:26:32.835] And then when we’re a little older, we’re just downright liars.

[00:26:32.835 – 00:26:43.455] But I was the kind of person with such a fertile imagination that I wrote lies in my teenage diary

[00:26:43.455 – 00:26:48.595] of things that never happened, that I wanted to have happen.

[00:26:48.595 – 00:26:55.475] Wonderful romances and dates and things that I wasn’t having.

[00:26:55.475 – 00:27:00.215] And, uh, I have some of these diaries, and I’m afraid to look at them.

[00:27:00.215 – 00:27:03.904] With middle age anyway, how do I know if that really happened or it didn’t happen?

[00:27:03.904 – 00:27:09.415] We’ll have to burn them in case anybody ever wants to do my memoirs, right, to look at those.

[00:27:09.415 – 00:27:13.755] I changed the way the world was for me always.

[00:27:13.755 – 00:27:18.495] I liked to write, and my mother was kind of a stage mother, and I used to write little poems.

[00:27:18.495 – 00:27:22.195] And when I was 10 or 11 years old, they, they would– they printed one.

[00:27:22.195 – 00:27:27.035] They have a theme for the week, and you’d write a little poem, and, and then you might get a dollar.

[00:27:27.035 – 00:27:29.075] I remember that would go quite a long way.

[00:27:29.075 – 00:27:30.195] That was three movies.

[00:27:30.195 – 00:27:35.715] So I submitted this little poem, and it– and it was called My Sister.

[00:27:35.715 – 00:27:37.575] The poem was supposed to be My Sister.

[00:27:37.575 – 00:27:46.275] And I wrote this little poem, and I ended it something like, uh, Jane, my little friend, and all the wonderful times I had with my sister Jane.

[00:27:46.275 – 00:27:51.115] And it ended up with this, um, “I love my sister Jane.

[00:27:51.115 – 00:27:56.015] She is my dearest friend, but I don’t have a real sister.

[00:27:56.015 – 00:28:01.075] Jane is just pretend.” And it got the dollar.

[00:28:01.075 – 00:28:06.715] And it got a lot of looks at my house, especially from my sister, Brenda.

[00:28:06.715 – 00:28:16.835] Um, for a long time, I put that girl through hell, right through the end

[00:28:16.835 – 00:28:17.755] of my drinking.

[00:28:17.755 – 00:28:22.524] She still lives– she lives here in Maryland with me ’cause I went and rescued her one time.

[00:28:22.524 – 00:28:24.195] She’s been here since 1967.

[00:28:24.195 – 00:28:26.655] That’s another story of Maryland that she has to tell.

[00:28:26.655 – 00:28:33.275] So drinking, you add that kind of personality, and add the booze to it, and that insatiable need.

[00:28:33.275 – 00:28:37.955] It was, for me, not the problem.

[00:28:37.955 – 00:28:40.375] I didn’t have a problem.

[00:28:40.375 – 00:28:41.415] It was the answer.

[00:28:41.415 – 00:28:46.655] And I could never imagine my life without it once I started using it.

[00:28:46.655 – 00:28:55.475] I think the female alcoholic comes into recovery, um, with an extra little load.

[00:28:55.475 – 00:29:01.775] This is my own bias, but a little extra load of one of life’s uglier emotions, and that is shame.

[00:29:01.775 – 00:29:04.575] There’s a lot of difference between guilt and shame.

[00:29:04.575 – 00:29:05.595] I’ve known them both.

[00:29:05.595 – 00:29:12.575] But guilt is getting caught by– with behavior.

[00:29:12.575 – 00:29:21.655] Shame is just a feeling about who you are, and it may or may not have anything to do with behavior.

[00:29:21.655 – 00:29:27.835] Towards the end of my drinking, I felt guilt, but I felt just total shame about even being again.

[00:29:27.835 – 00:29:33.455] This drinking would temporarily depress some of those ugly feelings.

[00:29:33.455 – 00:29:36.875] We thought it lifted our mood, but it is not a stimulant.

[00:29:36.875 – 00:29:37.955] It is a depressant.

[00:29:37.955 – 00:29:43.335] So what it did was depress the fears and the anxieties, and it did that for a number of years.

[00:29:43.335 – 00:29:49.175] And so I was able to pass as a social drinker for many years.

[00:29:49.175 – 00:29:51.075] But I’ve told you the early stuff.

[00:29:51.075 – 00:29:59.975] We knew there’s an alcoholic in there somewhere, and she was gonna come busting out, um, in ways that, um, I never would have believed.

[00:29:59.975 – 00:30:03.275] Because if it had just been some of those simple little things…

[00:30:03.275 – 00:30:13.695] I drove down the highway here from 270 to, uh, 70, and there was a little sign that said, “Welcome, Miss Maryland contestants.” And it reminded

[00:30:13.695 – 00:30:16.695] me of a drinking experience in DC in the early ’60s.

[00:30:16.695 – 00:30:22.675] Um, I had a dress that had chiffon panels, okay?

[00:30:22.675 – 00:30:24.995] So you walk, and they float out the back.

[00:30:24.995 – 00:30:26.635] Oh, it was glamorous.

[00:30:26.635 – 00:30:29.115] There was a– Well, I was married.

[00:30:29.115 – 00:30:31.315] We were going downtown, eating and drinking.

[00:30:31.315 – 00:30:33.555] We– The rest of them were going to eat.

[00:30:33.555 – 00:30:37.095] Um, once I started drinking, who cared about food, right?

[00:30:37.095 – 00:30:39.305] I mean, you’d go to these fancy places, but…

[00:30:39.305 – 00:30:40.675] There was a restaurant downtown DC.

[00:30:40.675 – 00:30:41.935] I don’t know if it’s still there.

[00:30:41.935 – 00:30:42.615] It probably is.

[00:30:42.615 – 00:30:49.255] It’s called the Market Inn, down by the waterfront, and they had a drink down there called a Bird Bath.

[00:30:49.255 – 00:30:52.155] Our kind of drink.

[00:30:52.155 – 00:31:00.275] It was a triple martini in this giant glass.

[00:31:00.275 – 00:31:04.645] Well, I dipped this little beak into a bunch of Bird Baths.

[00:31:04.645 – 00:31:10.575] Sent back the steak three times, right?

[00:31:10.575 – 00:31:12.115] This isn’t the way I want it.

[00:31:12.115 – 00:31:13.535] You can’t taste a damn thing.

[00:31:13.535 – 00:31:15.835] You have frozen everything but your ever had.

[00:31:15.835 – 00:31:20.815] And our traveling companions had a convertible.

[00:31:20.815 – 00:31:24.735] They’d driven their car down from Gaithersburg.

[00:31:24.735 – 00:31:30.195] Here are just two hokey suburban couples down in the district, and it was a summer night.

[00:31:30.195 – 00:31:31.655] It was probably June.

[00:31:31.655 – 00:31:41.795] And it was the ’60s, and they were redoing the southwest, you know, when they suddenly displaced about 100,000 people and put up pretty

[00:31:41.795 – 00:31:42.335] condos.

[00:31:42.335 – 00:31:46.035] I don’t know where any of those poor people went to live, but there were people there before that.

[00:31:46.035 – 00:31:48.655] But they were redoing the whole waterfront in DC.

[00:31:48.655 – 00:31:56.655] And I said, “I want to ride on the back.” Again, this is before seat belts, remember?

[00:31:56.655 – 00:31:58.295] I’m drunk as a skunk.

[00:31:58.295 – 00:32:01.395] I told my husband to sit on my legs.

[00:32:01.395 – 00:32:03.725] I’m on the back of this convertible, right?

[00:32:03.725 – 00:32:06.195] Up on the cloth part there, you know.

[00:32:06.195 – 00:32:12.815] He’s to sit on the seat and squeeze up against my knees so I don’t go out the back in case the driver stops in a hurry.

[00:32:12.815 – 00:32:16.987] And I want the chiffon panels.

[00:32:16.987 – 00:32:27.097] And we drove through the ghettos of DC, where all these people were sweating to death, sitting out on their stoops

[00:32:27.097 – 00:32:31.627] trying to get a breath of air, and I waved to them.

[00:32:31.627 – 00:32:41.947] “Welcome, Miss Maryland Contest.”

[00:32:48.787 – 00:32:52.267] If that’s as bad as drinking ever got, I’d have been still doing it, I suppose.

[00:32:52.267 – 00:32:56.747] But that’s what I thought I was, Miss America.

[00:32:56.747 – 00:32:59.676] Found out…

[00:32:59.676 – 00:33:03.787] And that’s where drinking took me, and if it hadn’t taken me other places…

[00:33:03.787 – 00:33:07.487] You know, how do we get to Alcoholics Anonymous?

[00:33:07.487 – 00:33:11.547] There was a thing in the Grapevine many years ago, “The directions are simple.

[00:33:11.547 – 00:33:20.667] You go to hell and make a U-turn.” So it didn’t stay there with Miss Maryland floating out the back of a convertible.

[00:33:20.667 – 00:33:26.287] The emotions were getting– This depressant was getting me depressed.

[00:33:26.287 – 00:33:31.287] This normally cheerful person was crying a lot.

[00:33:31.287 – 00:33:34.867] My son was born in 1960.

[00:33:34.867 – 00:33:44.507] Uh, we added a daughter in 1966, adopted a baby because I wasn’t having a second one, and I wanted one right now.

[00:33:44.507 – 00:33:48.777] So I said, “Let’s go get one.” You know.

[00:33:48.777 – 00:33:59.087] This was before Roe versus Wade, and there were there was still an ample supply of, um, healthy American babies

[00:33:59.087 – 00:34:05.907] that were available for adoption because there were some other 17-year-old girls who didn’t mind all the three rules.

[00:34:05.907 – 00:34:12.737] And, um, and that’s where, uh, I was able to add a daughter to our family.

[00:34:12.737 – 00:34:16.427] I thought that a new baby would help me straighten my life out.

[00:34:16.427 – 00:34:26.047] My son was six or something, going to school, and I thought, “What am I gonna do now?” And I could go to graduate school, two point two, drunken person.

[00:34:26.047 – 00:34:28.807] Um, I could get a job.

[00:34:28.807 – 00:34:31.667] I was basically almost unemployable.

[00:34:31.667 – 00:34:33.267] Although, I was the volunteer of the world.

[00:34:33.267 – 00:34:37.707] We’d lived here in Maryland since 1963, and I raised my hand for everything.

[00:34:37.707 – 00:34:40.647] Alcoholics were always at home in bed, right?

[00:34:40.647 – 00:34:41.847] So if you’re out there…

[00:34:41.847 – 00:34:44.547] So, I was out there doing stuff all the time.

[00:34:44.547 – 00:34:48.307] 1966 was the church, very active with the church.

[00:34:48.307 – 00:34:50.387] I thought I was the church.

[00:34:50.387 – 00:34:52.927] I mean, I– When I took my ninth step, I left that church.

[00:34:52.927 – 00:34:55.607] Now, I’m in every church basement in Washington.

[00:34:55.607 – 00:35:01.087] But, um, when you told me that I was not God, I was grateful, but then I didn’t know what else to do.

[00:35:01.087 – 00:35:04.307] I had to leave the church ’cause that’s how I’d been behaving in there.

[00:35:04.307 – 00:35:07.947] Um, I was the social ministry chairman.

[00:35:07.947 – 00:35:09.627] My degree was in social work.

[00:35:09.627 – 00:35:11.667] Help the poor and unfortunate.

[00:35:11.667 – 00:35:12.667] I was one.

[00:35:12.667 – 00:35:18.887] But I would help you because I had a house, and a husband paid the mortgage, and so I’m not as unfortunate as you.

[00:35:18.887 – 00:35:23.707] Um, so I was running this hotline with emergency services.

[00:35:23.707 – 00:35:30.067] Everybody could come get everything they needed, and whether they wanted them or not, we would send all these church people out with food and stuff.

[00:35:30.067 – 00:35:40.387] There’s a famous story during the DC riots of 1968 when I was at the command post out at my home with a glass in my hand, sending all this assistance

[00:35:40.387 – 00:35:40.987] downtown.

[00:35:40.987 – 00:35:48.067] I sent my husband and a whole bunch of other guys with food and all this, and we didn’t have cell phones in those days.

[00:35:48.067 – 00:35:52.267] And, um, he came home and said, “You know, don’t send any food down there.

[00:35:52.267 – 00:35:55.457] They’ve broken the windows of every store down there.

[00:35:55.457 – 00:35:56.556] There’s no need for that stuff.

[00:35:56.556 – 00:35:57.767] There’s ice cream running in the streets.

[00:35:57.767 – 00:36:03.087] We do not need to go down there and, um, and bring food.” But I was helping.

[00:36:03.087 – 00:36:06.526] Um, there was a couple on my steering committee…

[00:36:06.526 – 00:36:09.207] And in 1968, all that hard work, remember?

[00:36:09.207 – 00:36:12.327] You work real hard, they’ll vote you most popular or student government.

[00:36:12.327 – 00:36:22.327] I worked real hard, and Gaithersburg, the thriving metropolis of about three thousand souls at the time, had elected me Citizen of the Year.

[00:36:22.327 – 00:36:32.686] I had this plaque, and I’d get drunk at home at night, and I’d say, “I should take this back.” “If they really

[00:36:32.686 – 00:36:39.907] knew what I was really like.” And then I’d go out the next day and work my butt off with a hangover.

[00:36:39.907 – 00:36:41.757] Talk about willpower with alcoholism.

[00:36:41.757 – 00:36:44.387] Do you realize how much willpower we have?

[00:36:44.387 – 00:36:47.687] You know, my mother would say, “Willpower.

[00:36:47.687 – 00:36:52.667] Pick yourself up by your bootstraps.” Couldn’t even find our feet, you know.

[00:36:52.667 – 00:36:54.967] Willpower.

[00:36:54.967 – 00:37:05.167] What does it take to get up in the morning under the effects of a general anesthesia and pretend that you’re normal?

[00:37:05.167 – 00:37:10.827] And the first person who says hi, and your hair hurts.

[00:37:10.827 – 00:37:17.947] But you beam and, “Fine, thank you.” They haven’t even asked how you are.

[00:37:17.947 – 00:37:20.127] That takes a lot of work.

[00:37:20.127 – 00:37:21.287] That is work.

[00:37:21.287 – 00:37:22.387] It was tiring.

[00:37:22.387 – 00:37:30.427] We talk about another– I talk about another kind of halt that happened in my life about this point, ’68, ’69.

[00:37:30.427 – 00:37:32.147] I wasn’t hungry.

[00:37:32.147 – 00:37:33.347] I didn’t have an appetite.

[00:37:33.347 – 00:37:35.307] You know, alcohol, there’s a lot of calories in it.

[00:37:35.307 – 00:37:39.927] I was no longer drinking from the family supply because my husband was watching it.

[00:37:39.927 – 00:37:45.527] So, I was not drinking Manhattans or Pink Ladies or Grandpapas.

[00:37:45.527 – 00:37:54.507] I had rotgut vodka stuffed around the house in various places where nobody would think it, like the white vinegar bottle.

[00:37:54.507 – 00:37:59.457] Um, that’s not as crazy as some I’ve heard.

[00:37:59.457 – 00:38:01.047] I’ve been around AA a long time.

[00:38:01.047 – 00:38:05.627] My favorite was of where women hid their booze was the steam iron.

[00:38:05.627 – 00:38:06.267] What a waste.

[00:38:06.267 – 00:38:07.327] What a waste.

[00:38:07.327 – 00:38:09.326] How much can you get in there?

[00:38:09.326 – 00:38:13.767] Steam iron.

[00:38:13.767 – 00:38:18.167] And another girl who put blue food coloring and stuck it in a Kleenex box.

[00:38:18.167 – 00:38:21.927] Great stuff.

[00:38:21.927 – 00:38:29.217] We don’t have to make these up.

[00:38:29.217 – 00:38:31.957] You know, we know they happen to some mothers.

[00:38:31.957 – 00:38:39.737] So I would just, um, I don’t know, meditate myself, self, self-medication.

[00:38:39.737 – 00:38:48.257] I pulled a terrible stunt in nineteen sixty-eight at a friend’s house in Avalon, New Jersey, and, and I, um, I got drunk.

[00:38:48.257 – 00:38:49.357] I, I was on the beach.

[00:38:49.357 – 00:38:50.247] I was laying down.

[00:38:50.247 – 00:38:52.637] I thought everybody else was laying down, and I was standing up.

[00:38:52.637 – 00:38:53.917] I ran into the sea.

[00:38:53.917 – 00:38:55.177] They dragged me back.

[00:38:55.177 – 00:39:04.697] My husband stuffed me back on the ferry from Lewes to Rehoboth and said, “You’re going to a psychiatrist.” And then I tried to step off on the Bay Bridge.

[00:39:04.697 – 00:39:07.477] I said, “Give me twenty dollars and you’ll never see me again.” I don’t know.

[00:39:07.477 – 00:39:07.967] I was hyped.

[00:39:07.967 – 00:39:13.777] I don’t like a third story window, and I’m gonna open a door on the Bay Bridge.

[00:39:13.777 – 00:39:21.617] And he said later on he was just about tempted to hand it to me, a twenty dollar bill, `cause he was getting…

[00:39:21.617 – 00:39:24.077] Our family was getting pretty exasperated.

[00:39:24.077 – 00:39:31.217] And there were the little kids back there saying, “Mommy, don’t do that.” Shame and guilt and depression.

[00:39:31.217 – 00:39:34.677] Let’s say another kind of halt was coming into my life.

[00:39:34.677 – 00:39:41.697] I wasn’t hungry, but I was hurting and angry and lonely and tired.

[00:39:41.697 – 00:39:48.817] And I was the citizen of the year, and I was thirty-three years old, and it was over.

[00:39:48.817 – 00:39:52.117] And so I went to the shrink.

[00:39:52.117 – 00:39:54.297] I said I wouldn’t go, but then I went.

[00:39:54.297 – 00:39:59.277] Every Friday night I’d get drunk and I’d tell him, “I’m not going.” And he’d call the guy up, baseball karate stuff.

[00:39:59.277 – 00:40:03.957] “She’s not coming.” And I’d sober up the next morning and I’d go `cause I’m compliant.

[00:40:03.957 – 00:40:07.297] And I a- he picked this guy out of Yellow Pages, literally.

[00:40:07.297 – 00:40:09.837] This is nineteen sixty-eight, sixty-nine.

[00:40:09.837 – 00:40:11.107] Sixty-eight, I think.

[00:40:11.107 – 00:40:14.297] And I said, “Do you think I could possibly be in the words-

[00:40:14.554 – 00:40:22.634] Out of my mouth for the very first time: “Do you think I could be alcoholic?” “No, no, no, no, no.

[00:40:22.634 – 00:40:25.834] No, my dear.” Two reasons.

[00:40:25.834 – 00:40:27.774] Um, I had a good Blue Cross card.

[00:40:27.774 – 00:40:36.714] And he didn’t understand alcoholism, and he told me I was too educated to be an alcoholic.

[00:40:36.714 – 00:40:42.414] Met lots of people too smart to get sober, haven’t we?

[00:40:42.414 – 00:40:45.514] Nobody too dumb to get sober.

[00:40:45.514 – 00:40:47.274] He said, “You’re high-strung.

[00:40:47.274 – 00:40:52.534] You’re manic-depressive.” I think I’m just fucking manic now.

[00:40:52.534 – 00:40:55.754] I, I haven’t had a decent depression in 28 years.

[00:40:55.754 – 00:41:05.954] “Here, take these little pills.” So as many women in that period of time, I got handed a prescription for tranquilizers, which doesn’t

[00:41:05.954 – 00:41:07.374] solve the problem.

[00:41:07.374 – 00:41:09.474] Luckily, I didn’t take them a lot.

[00:41:09.474 – 00:41:10.664] They were five-milligram Librium.

[00:41:10.664 – 00:41:12.234] They wouldn’t have done anything anyway.

[00:41:12.234 – 00:41:13.494] But I had 27 left.

[00:41:13.494 – 00:41:19.674] I’d taken three, because November the third, 1969, after another horrible weekend…

[00:41:19.674 – 00:41:21.354] And that’s, that’s an October story.

[00:41:21.354 – 00:41:25.254] You ask me to do a meeting on October, I’ll tell you my witch-on-television story.

[00:41:25.254 – 00:41:35.334] But after the witch-on-television thing, I came home and got drunk for the weekend and said to everybody as they said, “I’m checking out, I’m checking out.” I had thought about

[00:41:35.334 – 00:41:35.994] suicide.

[00:41:35.994 – 00:41:38.834] I didn’t want to kill myself, but I wanted to be dead.

[00:41:38.834 – 00:41:40.414] You know, I, ever been there?

[00:41:40.414 – 00:41:50.634] Because I’m melodramatic and write this silly slop, I had written letters to my children to be opened up after my death so I could guide them from the other side.

[00:41:50.634 – 00:41:59.174] Um, they’ve never reminded me of that.

[00:41:59.174 – 00:42:01.634] They kind of like having me around.

[00:42:01.634 – 00:42:07.734] So I said, “I’m gonna check out, I’m gonna check out.” Now, I made on that night what I call a suicide gesture.

[00:42:07.734 – 00:42:10.334] There’s a difference between a gesture and an attempt.

[00:42:10.334 – 00:42:20.334] A gesture is to take 27 Librium with a glass of vodka and then go downstairs at seven o’clock on a Sunday night, and

[00:42:20.334 – 00:42:23.974] everybody’s home watching Disney, and you tell them what you did.

[00:42:23.974 – 00:42:29.694] And then you tell your husband to go get the syrup of ipecac.

[00:42:29.694 – 00:42:30.834] And he says, “What?

[00:42:30.834 – 00:42:35.794] The syrup of what?” I was a good mommy, remember?

[00:42:35.794 – 00:42:42.314] All good mommies kept syrup of ipecac in the medicine chest in case your child ate rat poison.

[00:42:42.314 – 00:42:45.814] My kids never ate rat poison.

[00:42:45.814 – 00:42:53.354] So there it was in some crusty old bottle up there, and he poured it down my throat, and it had its desired effect.

[00:42:53.354 – 00:42:57.114] Again, decorating the belle of the bathroom floor.

[00:42:57.114 – 00:42:58.334] I’m really sad I was…

[00:42:58.334 – 00:43:08.354] But that was one of my moments of truth, because someone in my life and someone in your life, whether it was with these words or with these gestures, we are more alike than

[00:43:08.354 – 00:43:08.814] different.

[00:43:08.814 – 00:43:16.574] He stood over me as I came to from that thing, and it was so noisy that the kids had even left the television and are looking in the doorway.

[00:43:16.574 – 00:43:19.034] We affect a lot of people with our drinking.

[00:43:19.034 – 00:43:21.414] They were three and nine.

[00:43:21.414 – 00:43:24.654] And, um, he said to me, “What’s next?

[00:43:24.654 – 00:43:28.563] What’s next?” He’d had it.

[00:43:28.563 – 00:43:39.074] Just that June before, that ninth birthday of that young man, I had been drunk at the Ri- at the, uh, Senators Baseball game in DC, kicking

[00:43:39.074 – 00:43:49.154] over beer cans, and my son had turned around on his ninth birthday and said, “I wish we’d left you home.” And

[00:43:49.154 – 00:43:51.474] here it was, six months later, standing in the doorway.

[00:43:51.474 – 00:43:55.254] Mama’s on the floor, uh, and he’s nine years old.

[00:43:55.254 – 00:44:02.054] Um, was a real joy the other day to have a conversation with him on his 39th.

[00:44:02.054 – 00:44:03.794] We both have AOL Messenger.

[00:44:03.794 – 00:44:09.154] He lives in Pittsburgh, so he intrudes on my life just like that sometimes on the screen at work.

[00:44:09.154 – 00:44:13.894] But he has no memory today of a lot of those events I hope I never forget.

[00:44:13.894 – 00:44:23.034] So he sat there, and my husband said, “What’s next?” And I thought, “I think the string has just become a little shorter.” And what was I gonna do?

[00:44:23.034 – 00:44:24.714] I was unemployable.

[00:44:24.714 – 00:44:28.034] I couldn’t even do the job I did do, I was supposed to have.

[00:44:28.034 – 00:44:31.094] And, uh, I hadn’t been arrested, but no reason for that.

[00:44:31.094 – 00:44:33.014] Drove your kids in blackouts all the time.

[00:44:33.014 – 00:44:40.774] And I said, “I’m gonna call Bill.” He said, “Who the hell is Bill?” As far as he’s concerned, I don’t know anybody.

[00:44:40.774 – 00:44:48.014] Bill was a member of my board at the, um, ecumenical helping organization.

[00:44:48.014 – 00:44:55.454] He and his wife, Kay, were active members of Alcoholics Anonymous and had shared that at the community level in the hopes that their experience might help others.

[00:44:55.454 – 00:44:59.134] I pretended I wasn’t the bit- interested in their experiences.

[00:44:59.134 – 00:45:00.914] But I called them that night.

[00:45:00.914 – 00:45:03.674] They were down in 10 minutes, and I was at my first meeting the next night.

[00:45:03.674 – 00:45:08.944] The second night they came by and they said, “Your husband’s going to Al-Anon.” “Oh, no, no, no, no.

[00:45:08.944 – 00:45:11.894] We have small children.” They said, “We have eight kids of all ages.

[00:45:11.894 – 00:45:21.914] They brought a sitter.” I had an absolute, um, warm welcome into

[00:45:21.914 – 00:45:24.364] AA, but I had not come to get sober.

[00:45:24.364 – 00:45:29.694] There were two ways to come to AA, I’ve heard, and you came one of two ways.

[00:45:29.694 – 00:45:34.324] Some of you saw the light, and the rest of us felt the heat.

[00:45:34.324 – 00:45:37.794] I was in that second group.

[00:45:37.794 – 00:45:41.074] I had not seen any light, but I was aware of the pressure.

[00:45:41.074 – 00:45:48.114] So I came around from November of 1969, and far too young to be an alcoholic and all that.

[00:45:48.114 – 00:45:50.254] 33, coming in now 13, right?

[00:45:50.254 – 00:45:56.214] But, um, how could I be, you know, a nice church lady and den mother and college graduate?

[00:45:56.214 – 00:46:06.334] Um, alcoholism meant to me moral weakness, uh, insufficiency, total deficiency as a person,

[00:46:06.334 – 00:46:08.254] and I didn’t want to be one.

[00:46:08.254 – 00:46:09.934] Nobody else wanted to have me be one.

[00:46:09.934 – 00:46:11.734] I would have rather have been crazy.

[00:46:11.734 – 00:46:13.554] I wanted to go to a nut ward maybe.

[00:46:13.554 – 00:46:16.644] I could have a nervous breakdown if somebody…

[00:46:16.644 – 00:46:17.954] I don’t know how you break that nerve.

[00:46:17.954 – 00:46:19.014] What, what do you do there?

[00:46:19.014 – 00:46:21.822] But people would send you sympathy cards.

[00:46:21.822 – 00:46:23.682] Did you ever get a sympathy card in detox?

[00:46:23.682 – 00:46:30.602] So I came to AA in nineteen sixty-nine.

[00:46:30.602 – 00:46:32.022] I didn’t know anything about detox.

[00:46:32.022 – 00:46:34.242] I learned about it and went to treatment in seventy.

[00:46:34.242 – 00:46:37.062] Gave myself up for Lent of nineteen seventy.

[00:46:37.062 – 00:46:41.182] Went into detox on Ash Wednesday and came out of treatment on Good Friday.

[00:46:41.182 – 00:46:51.202] Forty days of fun and games, uh, while my poor husband was home with my two kids and my sister and her five kids,

[00:46:51.202 – 00:46:53.882] ’cause she’d had a fire, and he put her up.

[00:46:53.882 – 00:47:03.081] And I thought, “It’s a good time for me to go to treatment.” So I left him with seven children under eleven and a few dollars and my sister and, um, and went to treatment.

[00:47:03.081 – 00:47:04.622] Uh, we’re selfish.

[00:47:04.622 – 00:47:05.922] We’re real selfish.

[00:47:05.922 – 00:47:09.692] I stayed– And he didn’t have any money for treatment.

[00:47:09.692 – 00:47:12.042] Insurance didn’t cover it then, so he took out a car loan.

[00:47:12.042 – 00:47:20.782] And I was driving a sixty-eight Chevy wagon that smelled of beer every time it rained from all those kids carried between your knees as you go down the street.

[00:47:20.782 – 00:47:27.142] And, uh, he said, “You drive this car till it falls apart, ’cause I’m taking out a car loan to pay for this treatment.” And I drank again.

[00:47:27.142 – 00:47:28.702] I drank seven times the next year.

[00:47:28.702 – 00:47:32.702] And he’d be at it once a month, writing out a check, and he’d be looking at me.

[00:47:32.702 – 00:47:38.862] Um, and I drove that car, uh, that sixty-eight wagon, till seventy-six or seventy-eight, still smelling of beer.

[00:47:38.862 – 00:47:41.282] Uh, but I eventually got sober.

[00:47:41.282 – 00:47:46.302] Was it a massive event that I did– did I suddenly turn in my drinking problem?

[00:47:46.302 – 00:47:46.542] No.

[00:47:46.542 – 00:47:49.562] I came to AA and let you love me well.

[00:47:49.562 – 00:47:53.062] I didn’t do anything except stop fighting.

[00:47:53.062 – 00:47:56.382] I don’t think we grab this program.

[00:47:56.382 – 00:47:59.122] I think if we stop fighting it, it’ll just grab us.

[00:47:59.122 – 00:48:02.302] It happened slowly and over a period of time.

[00:48:02.302 – 00:48:04.242] I didn’t trust.

[00:48:04.242 – 00:48:05.222] I didn’t believe in anything.

[00:48:05.222 – 00:48:10.982] Had a lot of opinions, but I didn’t believe in anything, and nothing really mattered.

[00:48:10.982 – 00:48:14.222] And so I’m gonna be sober.

[00:48:14.222 – 00:48:15.082] All right.

[00:48:15.082 – 00:48:21.622] Just turn in my laughing card and my fun card, and I’ll just sit here for another fifty years.

[00:48:21.622 – 00:48:23.622] And gritting the teeth.

[00:48:23.622 – 00:48:26.222] I come out of New England, and they’re very stoical up there.

[00:48:26.222 – 00:48:27.262] “You made your bed.

[00:48:27.262 – 00:48:31.162] Lie in it.” I never knew quite what that meant.

[00:48:31.162 – 00:48:32.302] I messed my bed.

[00:48:32.302 – 00:48:40.122] Um, we were camping last weekend, and I remembered the camping trip with the family when I wet the sleeping bag.

[00:48:40.122 – 00:48:44.762] You know, if your kid did it, you could yell at them and air it out, but when you did it…

[00:48:44.762 – 00:48:50.212] Those are just little things that you remember that trigger memories of, um…

[00:48:50.212 – 00:48:51.902] Is every mommy doing that?

[00:48:51.902 – 00:49:01.182] Um, so I came to AA with guilt and shame and fear, hurting, angry, lonely, tired.

[00:49:01.182 – 00:49:05.282] And, um, and you began to work your magic.

[00:49:05.282 – 00:49:08.762] And the God of my understanding came to you through other people.

[00:49:08.762 – 00:49:13.342] Um, and I didn’t make it easy for you.

[00:49:13.342 – 00:49:17.102] I was not a model newcomer.

[00:49:17.102 – 00:49:20.682] I came to meetings drinking.

[00:49:20.682 – 00:49:21.842] Don’t recommend it.

[00:49:21.842 – 00:49:22.302] I don’t.

[00:49:22.302 – 00:49:26.922] I would call the AA desk down in DC, and I’d change my name.

[00:49:26.922 – 00:49:31.402] And I’d ask for help, but I only had one phone number.

[00:49:31.402 – 00:49:33.842] They’re sober, you know.

[00:49:33.842 – 00:49:34.861] They write it down.

[00:49:34.861 – 00:49:37.301] It’s her again.

[00:49:37.301 – 00:49:45.082] Then I’d pass out, and my husband answered the phone.

[00:49:45.082 – 00:49:51.162] “Somebody’s calling for Jane Doe.” Um, I didn’t want you to know my name.

[00:49:51.162 – 00:49:54.032] I didn’t want you to know my last name, because it’s very famous.

[00:49:54.032 – 00:49:58.422] It’s on a plaque as a Citizen of the Year of Gateway Upstate.

[00:49:58.422 – 00:50:03.482] So I’d just say, “Sandeman” understanding, eventually.

[00:50:03.482 – 00:50:13.502] And people would ask as if they cared, and I thought, “What is your angle?” There was a beautiful man in the old Potomac group, who’s dead

[00:50:13.502 – 00:50:17.252] now, by the name of Tom Kane, and he was a toucher.

[00:50:17.252 – 00:50:20.002] Do you remember when you first met your first toucher in AA?

[00:50:20.002 – 00:50:26.742] Scary moment, because we have– you know, the guard all shield is on.

[00:50:26.742 – 00:50:29.162] And he would touch your arm.

[00:50:29.162 – 00:50:33.082] And I’d think, “You dirty old man.

[00:50:33.082 – 00:50:38.162] What do you want?” And he would just arm around, whatever.

[00:50:38.162 – 00:50:42.042] Uh, we weren’t holding hands in those days at the end of a meeting.

[00:50:42.042 – 00:50:43.402] That was a funny period of time.

[00:50:43.402 – 00:50:45.762] Some of you who were around remember, “Shall I chant?

[00:50:45.762 – 00:50:46.162] I will.

[00:50:46.162 – 00:50:50.602] He won’t,” you know, as that custom came east.

[00:50:50.602 – 00:50:56.272] But at that time, we weren’t, so you– And thank God, ’cause my– shivered, my– shook, and I sweated a lot, you know?

[00:50:56.272 – 00:51:01.182] But he would touch me, and I would cry and talk about wanting to die and all this stuff.

[00:51:01.182 – 00:51:02.292] And I disappeared for two weeks.

[00:51:02.292 – 00:51:04.702] So I’d come back to the meeting, and he’d be up again.

[00:51:04.702 – 00:51:10.242] “How are you, Sandy?” “Ugh.” And they ask my phone number, and I mumble a wrong digit.

[00:51:10.242 – 00:51:16.142] “Give your phone number out,” and I’d give out another number, so nobody could call me.

[00:51:16.142 – 00:51:18.362] This is not a way to win.

[00:51:18.362 – 00:51:24.702] I was gone from that meeting a couple of weeks, and I came back, and this man had tears in his eyes.

[00:51:24.702 – 00:51:27.042] He looked like– He was thrilled to see me.

[00:51:27.042 – 00:51:29.682] I thought, “What is this?” The wall was still up.

[00:51:29.682 – 00:51:39.742] And he said, “I looked in the paper this week, and there was a young woman named Sandy, and she stepped out in front of a truck on River Road,” and I thought it was you, ’cause I didn’t

[00:51:39.742 – 00:51:42.502] know how to find out, ’cause I didn’t know your last name.

[00:51:42.502 – 00:51:46.322] And something just fell apart that day, just fell away.

[00:51:46.322 – 00:51:51.182] This man didn’t even know who I was, and he truly loved me.

[00:51:51.182 – 00:51:53.222] He truly cared about me as a human being.

[00:51:53.222 – 00:52:03.672] We come into this fellowship at our worst, at our personal worst, worst foot forward, unlovable, and

[00:52:03.672 – 00:52:04.362] we’re loved.

[00:52:04.362 – 00:52:09.102] And it seems kind of funny, especially if we’re the people that were looking for all that approval.

[00:52:09.102 – 00:52:19.182] And suddenly, these people are giving us unconditional love and approval that we’re not quite sure how to handle, because it’s

[00:52:19.182 – 00:52:25.642] really you who are fighting it, because I know me.

[00:52:25.642 – 00:52:30.114] But what you said was, “We know you.

[00:52:30.114 – 00:52:39.354] We know you better than you know you because we are you.” And I thought, “Oh, wow.

[00:52:39.354 – 00:52:49.314] This is a menagerie of mystics here.” “I’ve gotta get out of here,” because I was afraid of getting found out.

[00:52:49.314 – 00:52:55.814] Syd Beach has a line that he used to talk about why he avoided eye contact.

[00:52:55.814 – 00:53:03.474] When we’re drinking, we rarely use a lotta eye contact, and I remember getting that feeling in AA meetings.

[00:53:03.474 – 00:53:06.694] People were looking right at me, and I thought, “I’ll talk to your ear.

[00:53:06.694 – 00:53:08.674] I’ll talk to your nose.” My head was always down.

[00:53:08.674 – 00:53:18.774] And Syd Beach had a line once that said, “I was afraid to have anybody look me in the eye, because if they did, they would say, ‘There’s nobody home.'” And

[00:53:18.774 – 00:53:19.514] that’s how I felt.

[00:53:19.514 – 00:53:24.914] But people con- consistently continued to reach out to me.

[00:53:24.914 – 00:53:32.694] “Thank you, Smelly.” I went to a beginner’s meeting in Rockville one time where they had a panel on here, and it was for the shy newcomer possibly.

[00:53:32.694 – 00:53:34.394] They would have paper and pencil.

[00:53:34.394 – 00:53:39.234] You could leave a question in writing if you had one and you were too shy to speak.

[00:53:39.234 – 00:53:40.534] I was angry at AA.

[00:53:40.534 – 00:53:42.474] I was gonna skunk the panel.

[00:53:42.474 – 00:53:48.054] So, I went to the meeting, and I got the paper and pencil.

[00:53:48.054 – 00:53:50.274] And I wrote out a question, and I sent it up.

[00:53:50.274 – 00:53:57.654] And they read it, and a very wise woman named Nancy, who became one of my sponsors, said, “Thank you for that question.

[00:53:57.654 – 00:54:00.394] Um, I’ll get back to you next week.

[00:54:00.394 – 00:54:04.114] Will you come next week?” The question was this.

[00:54:04.114 – 00:54:06.634] I’d been reading the literature, you know?

[00:54:06.634 – 00:54:09.104] Trying to look for a loophole, as they say.

[00:54:09.104 – 00:54:09.474] W.C.

[00:54:09.474 – 00:54:10.514] Fields said.

[00:54:10.514 – 00:54:20.784] Uh, hypothetically, if a person said that they were dishonest with themselves, how would a person like that know when they were getting honest?

[00:54:20.784 – 00:54:23.954] Huh, seem like a good question?

[00:54:23.954 – 00:54:26.854] Nancy came back to me the next week.

[00:54:26.854 – 00:54:37.734] She said, “I’ve got the answer to your question, Sandy.” I said, “What is it?” She said, “When you begin to get honest with yourself, you will feel

[00:54:37.734 – 00:54:44.434] it.” I thought, “What a crazy answer is that?” Feel it?

[00:54:44.434 – 00:54:51.164] For all of my life to that moment in time, honesty was a head trip that I didn’t take too often.

[00:54:51.164 – 00:54:53.594] Uh, but it certainly was not a gut trip.

[00:54:53.594 – 00:55:03.873] One of the greatest gifts in AA is to connect these two systems so that when I lie to myself today,

[00:55:03.874 – 00:55:13.874] and I must say that I do, not as often as I did, but when I lie to myself today, my stomach keeps score, and that’s how I know if I

[00:55:13.874 – 00:55:15.503] need a meeting or I need to do something else.

[00:55:15.503 – 00:55:25.574] Uh, when sponsees would say, “How many meetings do I need to go to?” “As many as you feel you need to go to.” So, you loved me that way, and

[00:55:25.574 – 00:55:30.914] eventually, I took my last drink on the, uh, seventh of March, 1971.

[00:55:30.914 – 00:55:32.234] I didn’t think it was my last drink.

[00:55:32.234 – 00:55:42.444] Um, I didn’t know what at the time was a single shot glass of warm vodka, and came into AA, bombed out of treatment, bombed

[00:55:42.444 – 00:55:48.814] back in again, and I suddenly, as a social worker, heard that they were opening a treatment center in my neighborhood.

[00:55:48.814 – 00:55:52.234] Now, here I was on that day.

[00:55:52.234 – 00:55:53.154] Drank on Sunday, right?

[00:55:53.154 – 00:55:59.174] I go to a women’s meeting on Monday, the eighth, and, and I hear this lady talking about going to volunteer at a treatment center.

[00:55:59.174 – 00:55:59.843] Right out, it was…

[00:55:59.843 – 00:56:03.194] I could see it from my house, this old hotel on the river.

[00:56:03.194 – 00:56:10.854] And I go, “I think I’ll just go on over there and volunteer.” I’m a trained social worker.

[00:56:10.854 – 00:56:12.134] So, I went over there that afternoon.

[00:56:12.134 – 00:56:18.814] I’d only had 24 hours yet, maybe 23 and a half hours without a drink, and I walk in there, and the guy who was running it said, “I know you, Sandy.

[00:56:18.814 – 00:56:29.734] You have a lousy track record.” “I wouldn’t let you answer the phone in here unless you take AA meetings in my presence for one year.” A

[00:56:29.734 – 00:56:31.234] novel treatment plan.

[00:56:31.234 – 00:56:33.054] I did it.

[00:56:33.054 – 00:56:33.734] I did it.

[00:56:33.734 – 00:56:37.994] So, I got dry that way, and they let me answer the phone.

[00:56:37.994 – 00:56:40.934] They wouldn’t let me be a counselor right away, though, you know what I mean?

[00:56:40.934 – 00:56:51.314] So they said, “What other skills do you have?” I said, “I’ve, uh, I’ve been a den mother.” So they let me make felt moccasins- …

[00:56:51.314 – 00:56:52.094] with the patients.

[00:56:52.094 – 00:57:02.114] And I went into 21 years of outpatient treatment, uh, which is how long that treatment center was there, uh, and ended up, um, being allowed to

[00:57:02.114 – 00:57:02.334] work.

[00:57:02.334 – 00:57:05.234] My marriage ended in the sixth year of my sobriety.

[00:57:05.234 – 00:57:06.534] It was doomed to fail.

[00:57:06.534 – 00:57:11.214] Um, my husband had gone to some Al-Anon, but he was one of the few men in the group at the time.

[00:57:11.214 – 00:57:17.854] And, uh, we, we are, we are still friends today, but the marriage was long gone before it got to fail.

[00:57:17.854 – 00:57:28.034] And, uh, so I had the experience in the sixth year of my sobriety of having the kids not with me for Christmas ’cause they’re going to the other grandmother’s house

[00:57:28.034 – 00:57:36.054] now, of being by myself and wondering, “What am I gonna do?” And, uh, finding ways to reach out and find a family of choice.

[00:57:36.054 – 00:57:39.934] I state, and I believe with all my heart, that I have two families.

[00:57:39.934 – 00:57:48.934] I’ve got a family of chance to whom I’m biologically related, and I have a family of choice, and that’s my family in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:57:48.934 – 00:57:59.354] My sister will say today, “We get along so much better now.” And it’s not that we do, it’s that I’ve stopped adding garbage to our relationship,

[00:57:59.354 – 00:58:05.494] and I don’t demand of her these unreasonable things that I did when I was drinking because she wasn’t perfect at it.

[00:58:05.494 – 00:58:15.234] And all the things that the perfect sister was gonna be, no one person in AA has in me either, but pieces of that.

[00:58:15.234 – 00:58:18.054] So, I have mothers and sisters and dads.

[00:58:18.054 – 00:58:22.224] Say, my father died before finding Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:58:22.224 – 00:58:26.314] He died dry because he was sick in a hospital for a year.

[00:58:26.314 – 00:58:27.294] He was a periodic.

[00:58:27.294 – 00:58:31.734] There was a lot of bad drinking in his life, and I think he would’ve loved it.

[00:58:31.734 – 00:58:38.173] But at the time, when my mother said she told him to go to AA in the 1940s, it was like saying, “Go to hell.

[00:58:38.173 – 00:58:43.514] You oughta go to AA.” Um, we went to hell.

[00:58:43.514 – 00:58:44.734] We don’t have to worry about that.

[00:58:44.734 – 00:58:45.854] We’ve been there, done that.

[00:58:45.854 – 00:58:50.644] And, uh, Alcoholics Anonymous, um, is home.

[00:58:50.644 – 00:58:52.154] It is my family.

[00:58:52.154 – 00:58:53.094] It is my home.

[00:58:53.094 – 00:58:55.454] It is my heart’s home and my life’s home.

[00:58:55.454 – 00:58:59.334] I wouldn’t have the opportunity to get old and cranky if it weren’t for Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:58:59.334 – 00:59:05.714] Um, and I look forward to 50 years, and you have to roll me in here on a chair.

[00:59:05.714 – 00:59:07.354] You know, you have to drag me in.

[00:59:07.354 – 00:59:09.844] Julius is my, uh, model now.

[00:59:09.844 – 00:59:12.004] Olivia, I believe, is, what, 94 years old?

[00:59:12.004 – 00:59:22.034] Um, because regardless, I remember in a women’s meeting when I was new, there was a woman who lived in a senior community, and newcomers were assigned to go pick her

[00:59:22.034 – 00:59:22.254] up.

[00:59:22.254 – 00:59:23.594] Smart.

[00:59:23.594 – 00:59:24.974] And they’d say to me, “You have a car.

[00:59:24.974 – 00:59:25.874] You have a driver’s license.

[00:59:25.874 – 00:59:34.544] You get Helen on Thursday.” And different women would show up at this house several times a week to pick up this woman who didn’t walk well, had a stroke, and didn’t speak well.

[00:59:34.544 – 00:59:41.734] But she was a longtime member of AA, and all of her neighbors would say, “Who are all your friends?” And I’d never met her.

[00:59:41.734 – 00:59:42.464] We’d never met her.

[00:59:42.464 – 00:59:49.204] How can I tell you what AA has given me except that you know if you’ve, if you’ve joined us?

[00:59:49.204 – 00:59:52.774] I know that it gets better and better ’cause I keep coming back.

[00:59:52.774 – 00:59:57.094] The spiritual experience is a joy.

[00:59:57.094 – 01:00:07.094] I have come to believe that we are not human beings on a spiritual journey, but that we are becoming spiritual beings

[01:00:07.094 – 01:00:08.214] on a human journey.

[01:00:08.214 – 01:00:16.094] And I look forward to the rest of the ride, ’cause the first 28 years has been wonderful.

[01:00:16.094 – 01:00:17.654] Thanks, and God bless you.

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