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Source: Patty H – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2025-06-19.m4a File: patty-h-box-of-chocolates-2025-06-19.mp3 Duration: 00:54:12
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for asking me to speak and thank you everyone who shows up here every week. You know what it's a box of chocolates you never know what you're gonna get and so I have no idea what you're gonna get tonight but but it'll be me will say that but really I really appreciate you guys having me here. I sometimes introduce myself differently but the way I'm going to do it tonight because it's being recorded I'm going to use initials and I wrote it down. All right ready? My name is Patti M M B S P S H and I'm a real alcoholic and those are not from a college. School of Hard Knocks that's where I got that from. School of Hard Knocks.
So yes I've been married quite a few times. So I'm supposed so when I first came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous I was told that there were three things that I needed to get. One of them is a sobriety date. My sobriety date is March 23rd 2001 and for that I am truly grateful. I have a sponsor and that would be Sandy H who is here tonight so I have to be honest plus my husband's on here so I'd be really honest and then I was told to get a home group. My home group is the primary purpose group in Millbrook Alabama. We meet three times a week Monday Wednesdays and Fridays at 6 if you're ever in the area look us up and we will be glad to take you to the meeting. So I'm going to tell a little story before I get into my story. You know I used to live in Albuquerque New Mexico which is actually where I met my sponsor but I used to live in Albuquerque New Mexico and you know I was going down the road one day and there was this little Native American woman standing on the side of the road and she was there every time I drove by she's always standing on the side of the road. So on this particular day I pulled over and I asked her I said would you like a ride and she looked in and I guess she thought I was safe and she said yes so she gets in the car and in between us in this car is a brown paper bag and she looks over at me and she says what's in the bag and I said it's a bottle of Jack Daniels I got it from my husband. She waited a couple minutes and then she looked over to me and she said nice trade. Okay not all of you are laughing at that I love that it's just really funny because you know and I tell that story because my entire story is about trading you know when I was drinking I was a big trader and did a lot of trading to get whatever it is that I needed to get to get you know the feeling that I needed to get to leave the skin I you know to get out of my own skin and that was literally anything I would do and so so I'm going to tell you chapter 5 tells me that I'm supposed to tell you in a general way what I was like what happened to me and what I'm like today. So I was raised in Northern Virginia what I thought was a normal childhood and normal ways out there I was a third of four kids I didn't know that I had drinking parents my mom didn't drink at all that I knew of I don't think I've ever seen my mom drink and my dad did and my dad liked to drink a lot and he you know he was one of those drinkers he had his buddies over on Saturday night and they played poker in the basement and and those kids were never allowed to go in the basement because they were down there but my dad wasn't a mean drunk right he was just that when he drank he became more loving and caring and nice actually when he didn't drink is when he was the disciplinarian if we did anything wrong he was the one that would you know mom would send us to dad for for that weapon so I was always scared of dad when he was sober because I never knew if I got in trouble if I was going to get a weapon or not but yeah there was a so when I turned I don't know we were I was a preteen my dad's became the bus driver at the church that we were going to so he quit drinking he didn't go to AA didn't do any of that he just quit drinking and started driving the bus for this church and so we were going to church a lot back then we went to church on Sunday morning Sunday nights Wednesdays Fridays Tuesday whatever we were always going to church because dad was driving the bus and we went where dad went so so we were really involved in the church back then when we were kids now my did my dad didn't stay stopped he still drank when as I got older he was drinking I just don't remember during this period that my dad was actually drinking when he was the church bus driver but he did drink it was about this it was during this time I was 13 it was choir practice at church of course it was at church and one of my
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girlfriends pulled up in the parking lot she was with her older boyfriend and they had a brown bottle of a bottle brown liquid and I drank it you know she shared it with everyone and I drank it and I can tell you what what happened to me after when I did that I just breathed I just almost like I just exhale and I became the prettiest girl in the youth choir that night I was the best singer in the youth choir that night I just knew it just made me feel different and I from that time on I did whatever I could to find a drink now that didn't mean is 13 years old I could go drink every time I wanted to because I couldn't but I did drink whenever I could and you know we were babysitting I was the babysitter of my next-door neighbors he had two little kids and he would ask me to come over and babysit and in his basement he had a bar and he said to me help yourself and I said okay and I did and so I would drink every time I would watch his kids I would drink and I'd have my friends over and and all that and I you know and I think I was still a good sitter but but I was I was drinking a lot then and and then I drank in school whenever I could it was around this time that I found the drinkers and I drank whenever I could in high school and and all of that and and you know by the time I was 18 a lot of stuff has happened by the time I was 18 I'm going to talk a little bit when I turned 18 it was a big turning point in my life as a result of things that had happened when I was drinking one of those things were I had been invited to a bachelor's party no I don't know anything about bachelor's party I didn't know what happened at bachelor you guys they've been here probably did I did not and so I went to this bachelor party and drank and things happened at that bachelor party that I never told anyone it was my biggest kept secret for for a long long long time I just never talked about it and then I had gone to this other party with a bunch of friends around the same time and we were funneling wild turkey I don't know if any of you ever drink wild turkey but this it said here in the United States and so I started drinking we funneled it with this three foot funnel where we laid on the ground and they just poured it down and I'll tell you what happened that night I woke up in the basement I was naked I woke up in the basement of this house and I was totally aware of what was going on around me I knew what was happening to me and I couldn't do anything about it and and it was going on for quite some time and I don't know how I got out of that I don't I don't remember anything after that I don't know how I got home I don't know how I left this party all I knew is I remembered what happened to me at this party and I never told anyone it was it was a secret it was just one of those things that I was going to die with and never talked about it with anyone until I got sober of course and those were just things that happened my parents knew that I was going through this I guess they thought it was a phase because I was barely 18 years old and I was out doing all these things with these people and they they were the first ones to give me a geographical I guess they were this is a geographical cure that was going to make me better make me that was going to change me they sent me to this place this is I was in northern Virginia then and they sent me down to a little place right outside of Richmond right outside of Fredericksburg Virginia and they were a young couple they had three young kids at home and I was going to help them I was going to go be the babysitter for these three kids and they thought this would be a great thing that would get me out of doing whatever it is I was doing away from the people that I was doing it with but I tell you wherever we go we find our people and I found my people in this little town it was a little it's called Lake Arrowhead it was a little town on the lake and I started sneaking out at nighttime and doing those things that I had been doing in northern Virginia and I tell you what after three weeks those people called my parents back and said she's gotta go this girl is a bad influence on my kids she's got to go so they sent me back home to my parents you know so little things like this were happening you know one night I'm out and I'm at Waffle House and messing with people that don't belong to me and a
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girl comes at me with a knife right and she's because I'm messing with her territory and then I decided I was going to take my own geographical cure and I'm gonna draw I'm gonna move to Florida to Hollywood Florida with some friends of mine that I they were my drinking buddies and partying buddies and they had moved down there and they said come on down here and live with us and I wasn't down there very long and one of the girls came at me with a gun and she was pointing a gun at me while I'm running down the street she's telling me you better get out of here and leave because I'm messing with her her stuff right I'm messing with her boyfriend and all of that and so I was run out of Florida at gunpoint back then so this is kind of what my life was was like right so it was also during this time ironically enough that I'm working at a little place called hot shops I don't know if any of you ever heard of hot shops back in the day so I'm working at this little place called hot shops now hot shops if you're not aware of what it is it's like a Denny's and they don't sell booze at hot shops it's just food but of course I'm bringing my own with me I carry a styrofoam cup wherever I go and I'm working in hot shops and one night when I'm working this group of kids my age because I'm 18 and this is a group of kids my age come in and it's probably 10 o'clock at night and they are laughing and having a great time and carrying on and I mean I don't know what they were on but I wanted it because they were just happy and I always might you know I'm always looking for happiness I'm always looking to do something I think that my whole my whole thing in life is I'm trying to find peace really and peace and happiness so I asked them about it and they said that they were going to Alcoholics Anonymous now I didn't know what Alcoholics Anonymous was I didn't even know what an alcoholic looked like I had my preconceived ideas right the guy under the butt or you know under the bridge or you know being in from Alexandria Virginia right outside of Washington DC I saw a lot of people on the streets and that's what I thought alcoholism was I didn't know that alcoholics can look like you guys especially young ones my age so one night I'm working and they came in and one of the guys asked me out well he didn't actually ask me out one of the guys says hey Patty Richard wants to go on a date with you right that's what we do back in those days and I said okay so Richard came and picked me up on a Saturday night and he said where do you want to go and I said I want to go to one of those a and a meetings I want to see what it is you guys are doing I figured it was an anonymous something it had to been a secret society of where you guys were learning how to drink or you're getting the good stuff I didn't know I didn't know what Alcoholics Anonymous was so he took me to this meeting it was a young people's meeting it was huge it was a great big speaker meeting and and I felt at home it was a weird thing I walked in the room I felt at home and I met a late a couple of the women there and one of them said to me you know you don't ever have to do what you're doing anymore because I had a lot of consequences when I was drinking and she said you don't have to do what you're doing anymore and I said okay and I hung around Alcoholics Anonymous for a little while now what I did is I did all those things that young people did I hung around in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous we had a lot of fun these kids that used to come into hot shops that's who I hung with and we would mock the old-timers you know and they'd say hey we're gonna go do such-and-such on Thursday night and and you know and they would just mock the old-timers and say get in the car you know and because that's what I hear a lot of the old-timers say get in the car that's the first step and and so did a lot of that and but I did you know we'd get in the car and we'd go and we go to meetings you know we went to meetings in DC and Maryland and Virginia all over and and we did a lot of fun stuff though right we did you know my mom they called her Al-Anon mom back then and by this time my dad had left my mom for a younger woman and and so me and mom and my little brother were living together and we're having all the AA people come over and we're having AA parties and and and you know even this is the point where the cops are coming and knocking on the door and we're saying hey we're sober you know and and bragging about it and all that but anyway but I hung out with these kids and I got a sponsor because that's what I was supposed to do I know she tried I mean I know that she did and I don't remember if even had a big book y'all I mean I just don't remember I don't really I know I didn't work any steps back then I was just more involved in the fun stuff and after I'd been sober a little more than a year I'm sitting in the basement of a meeting because that's where we met back then
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and he walks in and I knew I was just ready to get in a relationship because I hadn't been in a relationship in over a year, right? And he walks in and I proceeded to try to 13-step him. If you don't know what that is, we'll talk about it after the meeting. And he had none of it right then, but eventually he did and we ended up getting married three weeks later. That's my first initial. You know, and we stayed married and we stayed in the middle of the fellowship. Neither one of us will work in a program. We stayed in the middle of the fellowship and sometimes when he wanted a drink, I didn't. When I wanted a drink, he didn't. And then there came a time where we both wanted to drink and we drove down to D.C. on the Potomac River and that's what we got a bottle of Fifth of Jack Daniels and we drank and off she wrote. He introduced me to a whole new level of alcoholism that I didn't know about. He was a violent alcoholic where he abused me. There was a lot of domestic violence, a lot of sexual violence, and he did things to a wife that a man shouldn't do, right? But that's all I knew, y'all. I mean, I had already, this turning point in my life, I had already gotten to the point where I didn't care and it was just expected. I just thought that's what happened when I drank, that those things were going to happen to me. I didn't know any better. And there came a point in that relationship where my mother came over one day and she by now is married to a man who is in AA, he's been sober for 12 years, and they came over to the house and said pack all, and I also had a baby now at this time, right? He and I had had a daughter and they said, pack all your clothes, you're leaving, you can't live like this anymore. And I said, okay. I mean, I didn't know what else to do. And mom was coming to get me and I said, okay. And I went to live with them for a little while and got back involved in AA. Now, I can't tell you anything about that period of time. I just don't remember it. I just know that I was in AA and I celebrated another anniversary. I do know that because it was recorded. And I had this, I had that tape for years. I have no idea what happened to that tape, but I had that tape for years. And that was sometime around April, 1979.
Anyway, he and I got a divorce. I ended up meeting another fellow and we got really involved in the church. And we decided that we were both going to become ordained ministers. Now, I have no program of recovery at this time, but I'm not drinking either. But I tell you what I am doing. This is one of those churches where it is, they deal a lot with inner city children. They have programs for adults and teens and children all the time. And so I was really involved with that in this church. I tried to be as busy as I could. And I like to say this is where my service began because I really enjoyed being of service to those folks.
And so I got real busy in that church. And my husband and I at the time were having some difficulties, imagine that. And I knew that I needed to go talk to the minister because I was told that if you talk to, if you know, if you're having difficulties in your marriage, you go talk to the minister of the church. And that's what I did. And this minister and I used to have these little Tuesday sessions. We'd meet at Ruby Tuesdays for lunch. And we'd talk about these problems that I was having in my marriage. And he and his wife and two kids, they had two kids about the same age as my daughter and he and his wife and my husband and I, and we'd get together on the weekends and, you know, do pizza, whatever. But one thing led to another and that minister and I began to have an affair. So now I'm sitting in church, having an affair with the minister and I'm listening to him preach. And, and I've got, you know, my relationship with God is starting to change.
You know, I went from no God to a little bit and then back and forth. And anyway, I'm at the point now, we ended up changing. We got transferred from that church to a church in Richmond, Virginia, where we actually became the assistant ministers. And we weren't there very long when I realized that, you know what, I don't belong here, right? I mean, I'm an alcoholic woman in my mind still. I don't belong here. I've had an affair with the minister of this other church. I don't care for my husband anymore. I'm just going to leave. So my sister said, well, I'm down here in South Carolina. You can move down here. Now remember, I'm still not drinking. It's been, it's been quite a number of years. I haven't had a drink. So I told my husband, I said, I'm moving to South Carolina with or without you. I am no longer interested in doing this job. And so he, you know,
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being the good husband that he was, he said, I'll go with you. So we packed up all of our bags and we moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where my sister was living. He didn't like it there. We got in this little trailer and he didn't like it there. And he decided that we were going to move back to Washington DC to the DC area where we met and he was going to get his job back. And he would send me the money and, you know, I just come back home. And, you know, right after he left, I had hooked up with these women, started drinking again, started having an affair with this guy, because that's where drinking always leads me. It's always leading me down those, those streets. And I began to have an affair with another man. And when my husband sent me the money to get the U-Haul, I unpacked all of our things and paid the rent and stayed where I was.
And I'd like to tell you that things went really well for a while, but they didn't, they escalated very quickly. And then one thing led to another, and now I'm walking over people in my house who are drunk and have passed out. And I'm doing the things that I was doing before, trying to make myself feel different. And as a result of all of these things, you know, I had no self-worth, no self-esteem. I had, I just had no, no dignity, nothing. I had nothing, right? I didn't, I had no respect for me, no respect for you. It was just nothing. And, and that's how I lived my life for the next 25 years. I got married again in between there and had another daughter. And by the time she was a teenager, I had given her to her dad. I didn't want anything to do with her. My husband at that time, we had had another little girl and I left him for another man. I couldn't, I wasn't a very good wife for one thing. And I didn't think myself as a very good mother, but I left him for another man because now I'm having another affair because that's where drinking leads me. And this man is actually a retired Air Force chaplain.
I just find that ironic that, you know, I'm had this affair with this chaplain in Air Force. And I really thought that he was going to leave his wife for me. And she found out that we were having this affair. And she said, if you think that you're going to leave me for, for this woman, I'm going to take your child and I'm going to move to Canada where he wouldn't be able to see her, see him. And we were sitting in a bar one night and he's telling me this story. And I said, uh, and I have to tell you too, all the relationships that I've had, I was just not honest. I'm just doing the deal. I'm still doing whatever it is that I have to do to get a drink. It doesn't matter whether I'm in a relationship or not. And even in that one, and I said to him that I am not going to be the reason that you lose a child. I said, so I don't want to see you anymore. Right? So we ended up splitting up. It was a tough break, but we ended up splitting up and, and, um, I hooked up with this professor at the university of South Carolina who had been in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And he was on a sabbatical for AA actually. It was funny. He had gotten mad at a sponsor for something and decided he wasn't going to go back to AA anymore. And he had nine years of sobriety at this time. And, and he was okay with my drinking. Now, if he'd have known everything that I was doing and where the drinking was taking me, he probably wouldn't have been okay with it. But at this time he was okay with my drinking. And we dated for a couple of years.
And, uh, after a couple of years, I think he'd had enough. When I had crawled up on his second story balcony drunk, he looked at me and said, you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'll tell you, he is the only person in my entire drinking career that ever said you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And of course we broke up after that because I didn't need anyone telling me to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. So we ended up breaking up. And, um, you know, when I was, you know, I, I was doing all these things, you know, um, that some of us alcoholic that these, some of us alcoholic women do, uh, but I was maintaining a job, right. I had a really good job.
Um, I had gotten a great job. I actually thought it was a great job and, and I was doing pretty well and they had no idea, but they didn't know about my drinking. I drank mostly, uh, by this time I'm drinking after work, um, all the time I have to work and by, you know, and I'm still showing up for work. It doesn't matter whether I've come home at two or four or six in the morning, I'm still showing up for work every morning. So I had gotten, um, I knew I needed to leave
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South Carolina. I had heard a lot of people, left a lot of people. Um, by this time I had already given away, um, my daughter to her dad, my oldest daughter. I just didn't need her interfering with my drinking. Um, and my, um, youngest daughter, I think at the time, this is when I had moved out here to, I had gotten a job in Montgomery, Alabama, and my youngest daughter may have been five. Um, so here, you know, I moved to Alabama with her. I'm already divorced three times. I've already gotten rid of my daughter and I figured I'm going to do things different here because that's what we think, isn't it? We're going to move and we're going to do things different. So I moved here and I said, okay, what I'm going to do here is I'm going to meet a retired Lieutenant Colonel over here at Maxwell Air Force Base. And, and, uh, we just going to drive, we're going to end up off in the sunset and things are going to be great. And, uh, that's not what happened. I ended up getting hooked up with this realtor here in Prattville. Um, Prattville has better schools, they said, and I was concerned about my daughter being in a good school and ended up meeting this realtor here. And, and he had did a lot of things for me, um, when I was in South Carolina, you know, trying to transition from South Carolina, Alabama, right? He knew that I had a daughter and she needed to go to daycare.
So he helped me find daycare and he got me a post office box and helped me find a place to live. I mean, he was just very, very generous. He had no idea what he was getting into. I moved to Alabama and to thank him, I said, I'm going to take you out to dinner and to thank you. So we go out to dinner and, uh, he didn't order a drink. He didn't, he didn't order an adult beverage. Let me say that he didn't order an alcoholic beverage. And, uh, so I didn't, I don't know what he ordered, but whatever he ordered, I ordered the same thing and I didn't do any drinking, but we did dance around the lingo of Alcoholics Anonymous, right? You know how we use the words higher power and things like that. And we're dancing around lingo at the dinner table. And, um, and eventually he told me that he was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and he hadn't had a drink in almost six years. And I'm like, Oh, okay. Now I had just dumped a guy from South Carolina who had been Alcoholics Anonymous for nine years. And I didn't know if I wanted to do, get back involved with, with that again. And, uh, but we did, we ended up dating and he started taking me to meet to AA meetings locally. And, um, it was around this time that he, and I'm going to tell you what I, he was such a nice man. He really was. And I wasn't used to nice men, but he was such a nice man. And I didn't want him to know what kind of woman he was dating, right? I didn't want him to know. Um, you know, you know, I always know that you're remembered by the tracks that you leave. And I didn't want him to know the tracks that I was leaving behind in South Carolina. So I, I didn't mention a lot about my drinking. I didn't tell him a lot. And I was really trying to do well, y'all. I was trying to control my drinking. I was, and I was pretty good at it for a little while. I know that there was a time we had gone back to South Carolina to visit one of my girlfriends. And, um, that was probably my last, uh, real drunk. Um, and we had gotten into it pretty bad. We had started, uh, arguing and it was funny because he just, you know, I'm, and I'm drunk. Now I'm also trying to behave, but I'm drunk. And he's like, I am, he says, I am not going to participate in this. And I'm like, gosh, how can, how can someone not participate in an argument with me? Right. And he says, I'm not participating in this, which of course made me more angry. And, uh, so what happened was, um, you know, and, and I will say this, I, I was very fortunate that I did not go out and do the things that I had done in South Carolina when he and I were dating. Uh, but one of the things he suggested is that I go to Al-Anon.
Um, I don't know if everyone here knows what Al-Anon is, but it's a program for family and friends of alcoholics and they work the same 12 steps that we do. So I go to Al-Anon and I get an Al-Anon sponsor and I start an Al-Anon group, right. And I'm still drinking. Um, but I'm trying to control my drinking while I'm doing all this. And, and, um, you know, I know one, you know, at this time, my daughter's, uh, dad is in South Carolina and I'm living here in Alabama and we're meeting halfway in Atlanta to do the child swap every other weekend. I was court ordered to meet him, uh, to allow him to have, uh, cust- or his every other weekend visits, which means I had to drive to meet.
Weekend Visits, which means I had to drive to meet him now. He didn't have to meet me in Atlanta. The judge told me I had to bring her to South Carolina every other weekend, but he chose.
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He was nice enough to meet me halfway in Atlanta. So this is on a Sunday afternoon. I'm driving to Atlanta to pick her up. And we had just listened to a speaker Friday night at one of the meetings here in Prattville. This woman from Birmingham had come down and shared her story. It might have been an anniversary. And she had come down to share her story, and I really identified with her. And it's the first time that I looked for the similarities and not the differences.
And I didn't do it on purpose, y'all. It just happened that I could start identifying with this woman. And I called him up and I said, I need you to get me this woman's phone number. And he said, OK, I'll have it for you when you get home. And I don't know where this came from, but I told him, I said, I'd like for you to get it for me now. I may not want it when I get home. So he called me up and he gave me her phone number and I called her up and we had a little chat and I told her that I identified with her when she was telling her story and all of that.
And so we started talking. She put me in the book. And I asked her to be my sponsor and she told me no. She said that she'll talk to me as long as she can until I get a sponsor. She wanted to be able to look me in the eyeballs and tell when I was lying. So she said she wouldn't be able to do that on the phone. So I ended up getting a sponsor here in Montgomery. There was a we had started a Monday night meeting in Prattville, a speaker meeting, and she had spoke on Monday night.
And this Sunday before she had spoke, another woman had had given her story and I really liked both of them. And that Monday night, now I was a crazier than a sprayed roach when I got sober. I'll tell you that. And my boyfriend said to me, this is the realtor, and he said to me on Monday night, you know, I was always trying to pick a fight and he's like, you know what, you need to call one of these women and talk to them and don't call me back until you do.
So I've got these two phone numbers sitting in front of me, one from Sunday night speaker, one from the Monday night speaker, and I didn't know which one to call. So what I did was eenie meenie miney moe. And the one that it landed on is the one who I called and she was my sponsor for nine and a half years. And I've got to tell you, she was probably the best thing that I needed in my life at that time.
She had a story like I did. She drank like I did. She traded like I did. She was just perfect for me, but she was a couple of years sober and she was already involved in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and she was involved in service. And she was very quick at getting me in the book right away. She got me in the book and we started going through the steps. She took me through the steps out of the 12 and 12.
And that's just the way that she did it. Now, I went to a big book weekend one time down in Jacksonville, Florida, and that's when I was introduced to the steps out of the big book. And that's when I changed and I started taking the women that I sponsored out of the big book. But anyway, she started getting me into the work. And this boyfriend was the GSR for our home group and he had called me up one day.
He had gone to district because that's what GSRs do. And he called me up one day and he said, I'm going to lunch with a couple of people. I said, OK, no big deal. Who are you going to lunch with? And he spouted out a couple of names and they were women, y'all. He was going to lunch with women. And I'm like, oh, you are. OK, OK. You know, because I'm telling you, I was crazy. So I did end up calling my sponsor over that because I was a little peeved.
But I tell you what, the next month when he went to district, guess what? Guess who went to district? I did. I wanted to go. I went to district with him because I want to make sure I kept my eye on him. And he introduced me to these two women. And one of the women happened to be a local celebrity on the television. And after the meeting, I said, do you know who that is? And he said, yes, I do. That's an alcoholic just like you.
So he was one of the ones that really started teaching me about the traditions when I didn't even know anything about traditions when I was new in Alcoholics Anonymous. But I tell you what, going to district, not knowing what you're going to do at district will get you involved. And I ended up getting involved in district and ended up getting involved in Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. I got involved in district.
I got involved in, well, first I got involved in my home group. That's one of the first things my sponsor told me I needed to do is get involved in my home group. And I'm one of those that believe you need to have a service position in your home group. And one of the things that she told me to do at that time was to make coffee.
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And I said, OK, I can make coffee. So I go to my home group and I make coffee. And actually, that first night, the coffee was already made. There's a guy going to the home group named Mike, and he was making the coffee and the coffee was made. And the next day, I went a little bit earlier so I can make coffee. And the next day, he went to the meeting a little bit earlier so he can make the coffee. And finally, one day, his sponsor said, Mike, she's new, let her make the coffee.
So that was my first service position in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I had already learned about the ABCs of AA. My very first home group was the Chisholm Group in Montgomery, and I learned about the ABCs there. It was a smoking meeting and, you know, ashtrays, broomsticks and coffee cups, right? And they taught me how to clean the ashtrays and to sweep the floors and wipe the tables. And I did all of that because I didn't want to talk to you.
I had no idea that I was building relationships with the other people that were cleaning the ashtrays and the coffee cups and sweeping the floors and wiping the tables. But it was it was really getting me involved. And so I got involved in AA, I got involved in my home group, I got involved in district, ended up getting married to that guy a couple times. We got divorced a couple times in sobriety.
And I needed to leave Alabama and I took a job in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So I go to Albuquerque and and, you know, I never called it that, but I guess it could have been a geographic cure at that time just to get away from some things that were going on here. And in Alabama, I really needed to get away. I didn't want to get involved in Albuquerque. I didn't want to get involved. But, you know, of course, my sponsor here says, you know, when you go to Albuquerque, go to the women's meeting, get a sponsor in your first 30 days and get a home group in the first 30 days.
So that's what I did. And I got a sponsor in Albuquerque and, you know, her husband was a past delegate. Her sponsor was a past delegate. Her sponsor's husband was a past delegate. So guess what? I got involved in service with her and she was really good for me getting me involved. I had ended up going to Area Assembly. It was Area 46. I ended up going to Area Assembly. It's also, you know, it was also where I met Sandy, my sponsor now.
She wasn't my sponsor then. Her and her husband, Wendell, and Les and I became really good friends. And if I have time, I'll tell you how she became my sponsor. But anyway, I got involved in AA and went to Area Assembly. And it happened to be a election weekend. Imagine that. I had no intention of getting a service position at Area Assembly. I didn't want one. But I walked out of Area Assembly as the Area 46 secretary.
And it's also the same time around this time, well, the same weekend, I had, I was going out to lunch, you know, when we go to Area, I don't know how many of you are involved in service, but you go to Area Assembly. We all go to lunch. We go to district or whatever. We all go to lunch. It's Saturday afternoon. We're all at lunch. There's probably about 15 of us sitting around this table in Ruedoso, New Mexico.
And right directly across from me is this man, right? And it's almost like he's, he probably ain't going to like me saying this, it's almost like he's scared to death to talk to me, right? But on this side of the table is all the girls that I know, right? So, I'm talking to all these women that I know at Area Assembly and, but he and I started talking later in the afternoon. And three months later, we were married.
Now, I tell you that I'm telling on myself. I do not recommend that to any of, now I'm working a strong program. He's working a strong program. And this is one of the things that I probably would have a deep discussion with women that I sponsor if they wanted to do something like that. But it's probably one of the best things that I ever did, because we have the best relationship that I have ever had.
We've been married almost 12 years now. And it's, and it's probably the best relationship I've ever had. It's not perfect. But it's perfect for me. I have to say that it's perfect for me. And we're both really involved in service. He's the Area One Chair and I'm the Area One Secretary. So anyway, he ended up in a motorcycle accident. And it was near fatal. If he hadn't had his helmet on, he probably wouldn't have survived.
He calls me, or he didn't even call me. And I got a text messages that he went down on his motorcycle and that he was on his way to the hospital. And I'm like, oh, okay, you know, he's got a couple scratches, called a couple of the guys that he knew. And by the time I got to the emergency room, you guys were already there waiting on me, right? You already knew he had gone down on his bike. No one knew how serious it was.
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But you guys had beat me to the punch and you were there when I got there and you stayed with me the whole time that he was there. He ended up being in trauma for 30 days. And the whole time that he was in trauma for 30 days, you guys stayed with me. I was doing book studies with the girls that I sponsored and they were meeting me in the hospital cafeteria. I mean, it was just great. And I stayed by his side during those 30 days.
We ended up moving to St. Louis after that. We thought St. Louis would be closer to his family, or at least that's what we told ourselves. We moved to St. Louis at that time. And of course, we go to meetings and we go to district and we go to area. And I don't know, we just weren't feeling it in St. Louis. I know St. Louis has some great AAs and we know some people from St. Louis now and they do have great AAs.
But after a year, we decided that St. Louis wasn't for us. Let me tell you this story about my sponsor before we moved to St. Louis. When I asked her to be my sponsor, we were talking about, you know, it's funny how every time I got a new sponsor, we would go through the steps and we were going through the steps and I was telling her some of the things that I had told you tonight. And she said to me, she says, you know, Patty, she said, there's a word for that.
And I said, what is that? And she said, it's rape. It's rape. And I'm under the impression because it says in the book that I have put myself in positions to be hurt. I don't think that's what that means in the book. Things had happened to me for years that I thought was just part of my drinking. Even when I said no, it was just part of my drinking. And she told me right then that I needed to call the Rape Crisis Center.
Now, I'm telling you, those things hadn't happened for 30 years. And she said she didn't care. Don't call me back until you call them. So I did. I called and I ended up going to counseling for, and it's probably the best thing that I ever did in my recovery was to go to counseling and for my relationships because I really had a hard time loving people, loving myself, loving you guys, which is probably why I was married so many times.
And it really was probably the best thing that I had done. I had actually gone to this counselor and basically a fifth step, I'm giving her this fifth step while we're sitting there and she let me talk. And when she was done, she said, you know, I've never told anybody, especially any of my clients, but she said, I just celebrated 25 years of sobriety. And I have to tell you, that woman did a lot of help for me in that year.
And I really believe that's why Les and I have the relationship that we have today is because that I was able to do that. And I tell that story because there are people out there that probably believe that some of the things that happened to them was their fault and it's not. Not everything that happens when we're drinking is our fault. So anyway, we leave St. Louis and I took a job in Pensacola because that's where I wanted to be.
I wanted to be back in Area 1 because this is where my family was in Area 1. We came back here, Pensacola was Area 1 and we got back involved in AA here. I ended up taking a job in Germany, which was a dream job. I've always wanted to work in Europe and I was offered a job. Now tell you at this point, we're getting ready to move back to Albuquerque. The house was all packed up, ready to go. And I get this job offer to Germany and I didn't know what to do.
And I started crying because I've always wanted to go to Germany and they're coming to pack us up. And they're going to take us to Albuquerque in two days. And I can't remember if this is when I called Sandy and was telling her because I really didn't know what to do unless it's probably freaking out because I'm crying, but it was my dream job. And we ended up moving to Germany and we moved to Germany for two and a half years.
And I decided that when I went to Germany, I did not want to be in service, in general service anymore. I was just going to go over there and I was going to sponsor women. And the women over there really were hungry for American AA. They really wanted what we had here in America. I thought they did and they thought they did. They would ask me to sponsor them and I'd give them a few things to do. One of them, I asked my girls to call me every day for 30 days just for them to get used to calling me.
And then I put them in the book and they're like, what? You want me to do work out of the book? And I'm like, yeah, that's what worked for me. So needless to say, 90% of the girls that asked me to sponsor them over in Germany wasn't interested in what we had. They thought they were, but they weren't. But I was able to take a couple of the girls through the steps and through the traditions because that's what I do.
If I sponsor you, we're going to go through the steps and we're going to go through the If I sponsor you we're going to go through the steps and we're going to go through the traditions and sometimes we'll go through the service manual. I don't make them do that. If they want to we do and I'm fortunate now that I have quite a number of girls who have already gone through the service
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manual with me. So we were able to do all kinds of stuff in Germany. We did a lot of traveling, went to a lot of AA. We went to conventions all over Europe. It was wonderful. You know, you guys heard Les talk a couple of weeks ago and he was telling some of the stories where he was able to speak over there at some of the conventions and and COVID hit and just stopped us in our tracks. Now by this time Sandy's sponsoring me. My sponsor didn't know at the time, she didn't know if she could sponsor me while I was over in Europe. She just thought that was way too far for me to be away from her. I called Sandy, I don't even think maybe maybe a week before we were moving and I'm like, Sandy, I need to be accountable to someone. Can it be you? And she said, of course, and I'll tell you Sandy's been my sponsor ever since and we up until recently we met every week, every week, and that's the way that I do with the girls that I sponsor too. We meet every week.
What my program looks like today, you know, we ended up moving back to Pensacola and then I retired from the job that I had down there and we're now living back in Prattville, Alabama. I was telling you about my relationship with my husband. It's the best relationship I ever had. I always tell him he's my favorite husband, you know, and he says that saying a lot because, you know, there's a lot of them. My two girls, my youngest daughter called me up one day. She was, we have the best relationship. I mean, this is true unconditional love this kid has for me.
She was grown, she grew up in alcoholics in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. She called me up one day. She had gotten married to a guy in the Air Force. They moved to Germany and she called me up one day and she says, mom, I want to break your anonymity. And I'm like, really, what are you doing? She's like, well, I have to write this paper for school and I want to do what my topic is on what AA, Alcoholics Anonymous does for families. And she said, I wanted to be able to share what AA does for families. And that's not me, y'all, that's you guys. Because that first year of sobriety, I put that little girl through hell. I have to tell you that I put her through hell. My oldest daughter went down the same path that I did. She did a lot of trading. She, you know, I did do other things during, you know, when I was drinking. That was her choice was to do the other things and drugs are different these days than they were when I was in the in the 70s. We tried to do everything that we could to help her. My ex-husband and I, we moved her to here to Alabama with she had two kids. And one day she came to me or she called me up and she says, you know, mom, she says, I really want what you have. I really want what you have, but I don't want to do what you did to get it. And so she didn't. And she continued down that path.
She ended up overdosing and ended up in hospice for a little while. She became paralyzed and she ended up in a nursing home. And I've got to tell you, she did everything in that nursing home that she was doing on the street. We are very creative. We know how to get what we want. And she did that. And two years ago tomorrow, I was laying in bed and this kid called me every day, all day long. I had to limit her phone calls. So I'm laying in bed. It's 1130 at night and she's in the nursing home that she is. She can no longer take care of herself. And she's in the nursing home. And I'm like, I'm not answering her at 1130 at night. And it wasn't her. It was the administrator of the nursing home. And she called to tell me that my daughter had passed. And the first thing that I did, I got up that morning and we called, I called Sandy. I didn't know what else to do.
And we packed our bags and we went up to North Carolina. My daughter didn't live that far from her. And we were supposed to stay at my brother. And at the last minute, my brother told me no, and we ended up staying with Sandy. And I got to tell you, that was probably the best thing that we could have done. And I got more love from you guys. I got the text messages and the phone calls and you guys just surrounded me and got me through that. And I have to tell you, you know, our book tells us that we are able to match calamity with serenity. And that's what happened with me. Of course, I went to Al-Anon for a little while when she was going in her cups and that also helped. And anyway, I got through that. And plus Les was there and he carried me through that a little bit too. And you know, today I'm still doing what you guys asked me to do 24 years ago when I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm actually doing more than was asked of me back then. I do sponsor women. I have service sponsees. The women
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that I sponsor know that I sponsor them. And I have service sponsees that people have asked me to take them through the traditions and the service manual. I do hope that I am a, you know, I'm the secretary for my home group. I still believe that everyone should have a position in your home group, even if it's just greeter. Sandy is a big greeter. I don't care where she goes. When I see her, she's greeting people. That's not my story, but that's hers. But I always believe we should have a position in our home group. We should be doing something.
Like I said, I am the area one treasurer and I am the central office manager here in the Montgomery area. And I really hope that I am effective in the work that I'm doing. I hope that I'm an effective sponsor. If I'm not, I'm going to ask you to go find someone who is. You know, Bill Wilson said in 1942, he wrote a letter. And in that letter, it says that our chief responsibility is an adequate presentation to the newcomer. And I really hope that that's the kind of person that I am today. Right. I love the new experiences that I get in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I don't have to make you look bad to make me look good these days, which is really nice. But anyway, I'm really glad to be here. Glad you guys stuck around. Thank you again, Ramona, for asking me to speak. Thank you, Sandy, for being here for all the rest of you. And with that, I'm done. Thank you. And the chat is open. It is open. So don't write too much because you won't scream at her. Thank you so much for joining us tonight where you never know what you're going to get.
You'll just have to keep coming back. And we surely hope to see you here next Thursday, where our special guest is one of the ladies of AA, Marilyn S. from California. And she is truly one of the ladies from Maryland. She's funny, too, y'all. Yeah, she is funny. And she is my great, great, great, great, great sponsor of my life. I love her to death. If you'd like this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson always said, pass it on. You can help from your phone or your computer and tell them about this special meeting and all the good times we have and all the wonderful speakers we have. Everyone is invited to hang out with us afterwards after the meeting on the back porch, because that's what we do in the South. So, Patty, do you have any closing remarks? And would you take us out with a prayer of your choice there?
Sure. I don't have any closing remarks. There is usually a couple of portions in the big book that I read that I didn't get a chance to read tonight, but I'm only going to read one so I don't bore you guys. And this is actually in the medical view on AA. It's in the back of the book in one of our appendices. That's appendices three. And this is what it says. Alcoholics Anonymous are no crusaders, not a temperance society. They know that they must never drink. They help others with similar problems. In this atmosphere, the alcoholic often overcomes his excessive concentration upon himself, learning to depend upon a higher power and absorb himself in his work with other alcoholics. He remains sober day by day. The days add up into weeks, the weeks into months and years. So let's just all close with the responsibility statement, because we are responsible. I am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help.
I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that, I am responsible. Thank you. Thanks, Patty. All right, y'all. Now you can unmute and talk to her. Thank you. Thank you, Patty.