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I'm Anne. I'm an alcoholic. And it's good to be in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I really would like to thank the committee for inviting me here. And I'd like to welcome all those who are here for the first conference down here in the canyon. This is my second. I'm so amazed. I can't believe it. I got to come here twice. I am. I'd like to thank Dave for inviting me. And him and Benoit called me in June of last year. I was going through a lot of stuff. I've gone through a lot of things.

And I was bald and I was hoping I'd be above ground this year. And I told him, I said, I'll tell him if I'm above ground. If I'm not above ground, I won't be here. I think I was diagnosed the same time Jim was. And God saw fit that Jim would have to go on because he probably is much more spiritual than I am. So I'm not too spiritual. I have I have a lot of work to do here. I've got a few resentments here this morning.

I've had a wonderful weekend. I'd like to thank the girls that came and picked me up at the airport. They were just wonderful. I'm not going to name you all because I'm not good with names. My mind goes blank. And I want to thank the girls for taking me yesterday. We had a great time. I have shopping. We just had a good time laughing and giggling. But I want to tell you a few things about that guy to talk last night. Kind of upset me.

He really did. I'm going to have my sobriety date is June 16th, 1968. And I'm going to celebrate 30 years and another couple of weeks. And he said he talked about not getting involved with people with less women who are more sobriety than you. I'm going to be an old maid. So I talked to Benoit after the meeting. I said, I'm going to choke Dick Martin's neck. So she said, well, she was 29 years sober or 29 years.

And now and then I thought, hmm, being from California, we could kind of jump the fence. And she's a good Allen. And if you don't know what that is, you know, we come from the land of fruits and nuts and there's a lot of fruit. So I guess we're going to be fruit. My only hope. Oh, my God, what more could I ask for? She's got 29 years. She'd be a great person to take care of me. I am so, so grateful to be invited back here. I really am. I am just I've known Benoit and Jim for many, many years.

And I feel Jim is present here today and has been present here all weekend. I am. I love Benoit Shaw more than anything. And I do wish you hadn't played Amazing Grace before we started, because it just stirs up a lot of stuff inside of me. I just love that song. Everybody's crying. I'm trying not to because, God, I want to look good up here. I hate to have that mascara running down my face. So I shed my tears within today.

I am. My life is absolutely superb. I really believe in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't know whether I'm a good member or a bad member of what I am. But I do know that I love the alcoholic. I do know that if anyone calls me and wants some help, I'm willing to do that. And that's what it tells me. The hand of A.A. has to be out there to help another human being. I don't love everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous. I cannot stand up here and tell you I love all of you.

There's some of you I tolerate and some of you, you know, but the people that have come in that I need to grow from, I love them very, very, very much. And I love the fellowship itself. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1967. I was 23 years of age and I'm looking out here and, you know, there's not an old guy in this meeting at all. I mean, I scanned this meeting this weekend to see if I could find me an Oklahoma man.

And you're all little babies. You know, some of you were born after I got sober, for crying out loud.

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And I, I thought, you know, I was young once. I didn't always have gray hair.

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In fact, I grew back gray. I was hoping to grow back red, but it didn't. I, I know the pain and it's good to see you here. I know the pain that you've had to go through in order to get here. And if you'd be alcoholic like I am, you'd be grateful you got that chair this morning. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was 23 years of age and I looked around Alcoholics Anonymous and everybody was old.

I mean, they were old. They were 35 and older. They looked like they had one foot in the grave and the other in a banana peel and ready to slide in any second. And I didn't know anything about projection, but I immediately projected into being 40 years of age and sitting on those hard chairs. And I thought, I can't do this. I can't sit in these hard chairs. What are all my friends going to do? You know, they're going to miss me at those local bars. And I graduated from Alcoholics Anonymous.

I failed to hear that you don't drink in between meetings. And I didn't hear that. And I kept going to, I didn't know that you had to go to more than one meeting a week. And I did hear that you do something for somebody else. And I did. I put my husband in the hospital at that time. He had a bad back and, and I went out and got drunk. And he came home and he said, you're drunk again. And I said, I've been going down there every Tuesday night.

And they're all laughing and giggling and carrying on and just hugging and kissing each other. And I said, I know they're doing something. And I said, they're not willing to share with me. So I went out and got my own. And he said, Annie, the Alcoholics Anonymous, they don't drink. And he said, that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is. So I left. I am truly, truly grateful to the people in Alcoholics Anonymous to take the time to call people like me, because the gal that made the 12-step calling me kept calling me in that eight months.

And she'd call me every couple of weeks and she'd say things like, how are you doing? And I'd say, I only had a couple of drinks today. And she'd say, Annie, I'm not interested in your drinking. I want to be your friend. And God, I long for a friend. But I didn't want to be her friend because it meant I'd have to go to these AA meetings. And I wasn't an alcoholic. So I decided I got one of those brainstorms.

It talks about the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It said the brainstorms are not for us. But I got one of those and I decided that I would recruit somebody and get you off my case. So I called this old friend of mine in Long Beach. She was a bad alcoholic. And I said, Eileen, you're an alcoholic. You ought to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And she said, OK. And so I called this gal back up and I said, I found somebody for you.

And she said, good. I'll come and get both of you. And that was not the plan. The plan was, how do you tell somebody with a whole year and a half sobriety that you just want to take your friend? You know, that she needs it more than you do. And she came and got both of us. And she took us to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And after the meeting, there was another gal there. And she came up to me after the meeting.

She said, Annie, when are you coming back? And I said, I'm not an alcoholic. She is. Look at her. And I left that meeting. You know, God has always worked in strange ways in me. And I look back on that time. Every time I picked up a drink, I would hear that woman say, when are you coming back? And when I got ready to come back to you on June 16th, it took a little while. I absolutely, totally was absolutely beaten with alcohol.

I had lost everything. And I'm not talking about material things because I didn't have those. I'm talking about everything inside of me. Alcohol beat me. It beat me to that. And on that Sunday morning on June 16th, and I don't ever want to forget it. And I never, ever want to forget where I came from, because you sit here in Alcoholics Anonymous long enough. And you're going to see some of your best, best friends go out and they don't make it back.

And some of them die and some of them don't die because this is definitely a progressive disease. It's a disease that progresses even when you're sober. You get a daily reprieve contingent on your spiritual maintenance, nothing more, nothing less. And I have had to learn that. I didn't drink, but I've had to watch some of my friends. I've got a friend out there that I dearly, dearly love. And she carried a message of Alcoholics Anonymous to many, many places and sat in many, many coffee shops with many, many newcomers.

And she didn't continue on her spiritual path. And I have to believe that. I have to believe that when I shut off the sunlight of my spirit, I am doomed to get drunk. And she is out there and she has not made it back to this fellowship and it's been over eight years. And I've seen people that had to die. I don't ever want to forget that I had this disease. It's so great to come here and to have the fellowship and have all of the great love and all of the stuff that we get.

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But don't forget that you're an alcoholic. Don't ever forget that you can pick up that drink as easily as you can put it down. I am. And that on June 16th on that year of 1968, I sat in my living room. And I had been out the night before I was on a four day run. And I my little girl who is 31 years of age now was 27 months old at that time. And she stood at the end of that couch with her legs all black and blue.

And that man that I was married to sat at the other end of that couch with his hands and his head hanging down. And I said, I want to call that girl that wants to be my friend. And he said, you go right ahead. He said, you've never completed anything in your life. He said, you won't stay there either. I didn't know what Alcoholics Anonymous had to offer me. I had no idea what you had to offer me. And I said, I'm going to go because I got it.

I can't stand living inside of me. And I wanted all I wanted on that Sunday morning on June 16th, 1968. And I would have really, really been underpaid. All I wanted that morning was please stop my head from racing and take this knot out of the pit of my gut and make these shakes go away. And I went to that meeting. She came and got me. And she took me to that meeting. And I sat very close to the door sitting on my hands because I had been deathly sick the night before.

And I don't know to this day who the man was that stood up here. But that man told me what I suffered from. And if you don't know what you suffer from, I want to tell you what you suffer from. And it stayed with me all these years. He told me I had an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. And I was spiritually sick. He didn't know how spiritually sick I was. I really believe for me that I have suffered a soul sickness beyond anything I ever dreamed of.

And I really believe for me that if I don't take care of my soul today and I come to Alcoholics Anonymous because you take care of my soul, I will get sick again and I can shut off that sunlight or that spirit and I can find myself drunk like some of my friends who I've had to go out. You know, people think that because you've got X number of years that this program is really easy. I have to work at it harder today than I did when I walked through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And the reason why I have to work harder today is because most of those of whom are new were carried by our sponsors and were carried by the other people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And then after you start working the steps and doing the stuff, people just figured that you've got it together and you get these numbers, you know. And it's only numbers. Years are just years. I've got 10,947 days today and that is an absolute total miracle, an absolute miracle.

And each and every one of you are a miracle sitting out there this morning. I left that meeting that morning and I wanted to drink. I wanted to drink more than anything in my life I wanted to drink because you hadn't done what I wanted you to do. You hadn't stopped my head from racing. You hadn't taken that out of the pit of my gut and you didn't make those shakes go away. And I knew if I had a drink that all of that stuff would happen to me for a very brief time and I would start that cycle over again.

But I heard what the man says, if you don't take the first drink you won't get drunk. And I went to another meeting. I went to a lot of meetings. And I wouldn't give you a nickel for my first five years in Alcoholics Anonymous. It was absolutely totally terror. I got involved in a group in Huntington Beach and I'm truly, truly grateful for that group. I see a lot of those people still today and are still active members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I got involved in this particular group and I told them that God sent me to teach them patience and tolerance. And believe me, they thought he did. I walked around my first year of sobriety. I gave everybody the finger. I cussed you up one side and down the other. I could not put the sentence together without using four letter words. And they would just come up to me and say, keep coming back, Annie.

And I was so disappointed when I found out they were telling everybody in the bloody group to keep coming back. I thought they'd single me out of the whole group. But that's the group that gave me my foundation. Those are the people that talked about the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. They talked about our 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and how important those traditions are. And they talked about getting active in the fellowship of AA.

And they talked about cleaning house. And I want you to know I had the cleanest house in Westminster anybody could ever have. And they found out and they said, that's not the kind of house cleaning we have in mind for you, Annie. It's an inside job. They talked about these steps and I didn't know where they were. And I thought, oh, my God, there's 12 stone steps somewhere. And that was part of the punishment.

I was going to have to run up and down those bloody things every day. I mean, that's how spun I was. And I remember I see Jerry Froelich a lot. And his wife, Gloria, played a great part in my early sobriety. I spent a lot of time at their house. And Jerry has had several strokes and he's blind today. He's had several strokes and he's blind today, and I get to go to his house and cut his hair,

[00:15:02]

and I get to see that man come shuffling into meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous with an attitude of gratitude, a truly attitude of gratitude. And I didn't know what gratitude was. I hated that word when I got here. I used to want to go puke. And there was a guy in our group, and his name was Otis, and he had one leg, and they'd say to me, Annie, look at Otis. He's only got one leg. You should be grateful.

And I'd say, well, that's Otis' problem. I mean, that's how sick I was. I was so sick. I was unbelievable. Jerry didn't talk to me too much because he didn't like the way I cussed, and he was kind of a prudish man. He said he never heard women talk like that. And I ran up to Jerry one night on a Friday night at a meeting, and I said, Jerry, where are those steps, and how often do I have to run up and down them?

I was all of four months sober, and he said, Annie, you go to a lot of meetings. And he said, those steps are read at every meeting you go to. And he said, the HOW stands for Honesty, Open Mindness, and Willingness. And willingness is truly the key here. You have to be willing to go to any lunch. You went to any lunch to get that drink. You'll go to any lunch to get sobriety. And he said, if you work those steps to the best of your ability, he said, I guarantee you, your life will change.

And if you're new here today, I guarantee you, your life will change if you work the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. It may not change the way you want it to change, but it will change because you will find here in Alcoholics Anonymous, nothing ever comes to stay. It always comes to pass. I tried to work those steps to the best of my ability. The steps have changed for me throughout the years. The same steps I worked six months ago are not going to be good enough for me now because I have changed.

I have changed tremendously in Alcoholics Anonymous. I can't tell you how much I owe you. You know, until I got sick three years ago, almost three years ago, I contacted another disease, and Ruth is a sister of mine in that other disease. And I'm really so grateful because she gave me so much hope this weekend. And she gave me so much hope for the simple fact that she's had 13 years of doing well. You know, she is a wonderful, wonderful lady.

And I want you to know she paid Dick Martin a lot of money to talk, make say nice things about her last night. He's become our hero. I worked the steps to the best of my ability. The third step, it took me a long time. I said I had a God because you said you had a God. And I used a group as my God for a long, long time. And I found a God within me that is absolutely, he's not a small God, he's powerful.

He is so powerful. In my life, it's unbelievable. I wasn't going to do the fourth and fifth step. That's for those of you who drank 15 or 20 years. You know, I mean, you were much sicker than those of us when we drank 10 or 11 years. And there was a guy in my home group and his wife was my sponsor, Lois, and Lois became everything to me. And he came up to me and he's one of those AAs, you know those AAs, there's been several of them mentioned here this weekend, that come up and get right in your face with their finger and kind of do this.

And he said, hey kid, you're going to have a year of sobriety. He said, have you done the fourth and fifth step? And I said, no, John, and I'm not going to. And he said, if you don't do the fourth and fifth step, he said, I'm going to announce it all over Huntington Beach not to listen to you. You're not working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I took absolute, total fear in my life. I left that meeting that night and I thought, my God, I've never been suicidal.

I'm more, I will kill you first before I kill myself. Anytime I ever think about committing suicide is I want to jump off the curb and hurt myself just very little. I'm not too big on it. But this is the kind of mindset I had at that time. I went home and I thought, I can't do that fourth and fifth step. I can't do it. I want to commit suicide. And so I was going to get in the bathtub and fill it up with water and I was going to slide down in the tub and I go in the bathtub and I just drowned myself. That's how I was going to do it.

But I had listened very carefully to chapter five when they read it. I love chapter five. It just does something to me when I hear chapter five. And it says, and there are those who have grave emotional and mental disorders. So I kind of slid back up and that kind of went right over my head. And I thought, oh, my God, they'll be down there in that meeting saying, well, you know, Annie committed suicide because she has grave emotional and mental disorders.

And I thought, I'm going to stay sober in spite of them. And so I got all this paper and pencil and I went over to my sponsor. And you'll find that sponsors are really close minds, even though they've been out there doing a lot of stuff. I tell you, I've met more close minded people than alcoholics and nonsense anywhere I've went. And I sat down at her kitchen table. I didn't drive for the first four and a half years of my sobriety,

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but I sat down at her kitchen table and I handed her all this stuff. And she said, what's this for, honey? And I said, well, I'm going to tell you all about it. You start writing. She kind of looked at me real strange and she said, I start writing? This is your fourth step. And I said, yeah, but I'm going to tell you, that's what you're supposed to do. And we kind of argued. I argued. She didn't argue.

I argued. And so I got really upset. She said, no, this is something you get to do. And I said, you're supposed to do this for me. And I threw a tantrum. The only emotion I knew when I came here, I had a lot of rage, a lot of anger. And anger goes into a lot of fear for me. I was terrified most of my life. And so I left her house and got home. And the next couple of weeks I would call her on the phone and all she'd say was, this was way before machines.

It was right, right, right. And I'd hang up. And I was a great pacer. I loved the pace. I used to put the big book under my arm and pace back and forth. I thought all this knowledge was going to go up into my arm and into my head. And I couldn't tell Lois. And this has got absolutely nothing to do with my disease. It's got to do with the setting I came from and where I came from. And because there was no value put on education.

And because my people were not educated. And they didn't know. And I couldn't read and I couldn't write when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I am truly, truly grateful that alcoholism or alcohol does not choose its victims. It doesn't care whether you can read or you can write. It doesn't care whether you have an education or you don't have an education. If you have the disease of alcoholism, you have the disease of alcoholism.

It's just that simple. And so I was able to tell Lois. And she said, honey, you do whatever you have to do. You make marks on that paper, but you do it. And I did that. And I today, it says in step six in the 12 and 12, that wishful thinking is a character defect. And to this day, I wish I kept that inventory. Because there's no comparison to the girl that took that inventory to the woman that stands before you tonight.

I do know how to read and I do know how to write today. And that was taught to me here in Alcoholics Anonymous. There was a gal named Mary Jane who was in special education. And wouldn't it be really strange that the woman that made the 12-step call on me was a schoolteacher. And her and this Mary Jane got together and they took me to these psychiatrists out there in Orange County in the educational field.

And they tested me. And they said that I wasn't wired right. Well, Jesus, I knew I wasn't wired right all my life. They said I had a thing called dyslexia. And I did things, everything backwards. And I did everything backwards. I sometimes tell my story backwards. And I ended up, it took me until I was 15 years sober and I got a high school diploma. And I want you to know that when I decided not to go to college, everybody in AA said, what an order, God.

We can't go through with it. Thank you. Don't let her go to college. She drove us crazy with this high school thing. And I got my high school diploma. And I also got, I went back and I went to school and I got, I cut hair today. I'm a hairdresser. And I wasn't stupid. I always thought I was stupid. I was, and I don't think there's any stupid people here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I think we're too smart for our own good.

And I did that inventory and I'd like to share with you some of the things I found out in that inventory. I'd like to share with you where I came from because that's what the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous tells me. And I share what it used to be like, what happened and what it is today. And what it was like when I came here and what it is today. Oh my God, beyond my wildest dreams, I never thought my life would be what it is today.

And I'm not talking about big things. I'm talking about inside. I'm talking about that peace. I never had peace. I think Steve talked about that peace when he talked. And that's all I ever wanted was to have that peace of God within my own soul. I'm not going to give you my fifth step in detail. I did that once and I thought my sponsor was going to kill me. I gave them descriptions and they kind of went to get a big stick and pulled me off the podium.

They said, you have to share. And so I said to you, they said, let your hair down. They just didn't know how long my hair was. I said, oh my God, take her over here and tell her what she can share and what she can't share. So don't get excited. I'm going to share some of my inventory with you and what I found. And I go back to being very, very young. I'm Irish and I'm Catholic. That gave me two strikes against me right off the bat.

I'm not one of those Irish that have never seen the skies of Ireland. I lived there for 17 and a half years of my life. I'm the 8th child out of 10. And all my people are back there and it's a good place for them.

[00:25:15]

I have to take the bottle up to my mouth. I used to be good at this. And the reason why I go back to being when I was six years of age, because that's my memory. And that's where I remember how I was born with tremendous fears. I never was without fear. Fear owned me. This family that I was raised into, my father, I know that I'm not supposed to label people alcoholics. But I've listened to enough men and alcoholics synonymous to know that my father had a problem with alcohol.

And my father was an alcoholic. And my father would go out on a Friday night and a Saturday night and he'd get drunk and he'd come home. And there was a known thing in Ireland that you keep the woman in place and you beat on her. And my father would beat on my mother. And as a young child, I'd be upstairs in that bed and I would be praying to that God. And I was so terrified. But I'd pray to him anyway and I'd say, please let him kill her or maybe she'll kill him or maybe I would die.

And I'd get up the next morning, I had all these things going on inside of me. And what they were was guilt, remorse. And I was a very, very, very bad child for thinking these bad things of my parents. And I never could label those things until I came to you. I went to Catholic school not because we were rich, simply because that's all there was in the part of Ireland I came from. And people used to say to me, how come you didn't get an education?

And I used to say, oh, I had frustrated Irish nuns. And I remember when I was going to psychiatrists and telling the psychiatrists and I was out there trying to find whatever it was I was trying to find. I was actually trying to find alcoholics synonymous. I didn't know that you were here. I didn't know that alcoholism was my problem. It was my biggest problem in my life and the way I thought. And I would tell them these sad stories about what happened to me in Ireland and all these nuns and what happened to my parents.

And I'd have them crying. And I remember sitting with Mary Reagan one day and I was telling Mary all these sad stories. And Mary looked at me and she said, honey, she said, you know, you really had it bad. She said, I had German nuns and they were trained by Hitler. So the moral of that story is there's always somebody that's going to have it just a little bit worse than you. Just a little bit worse than you.

We lost Mary a couple of months ago, and she's going to be missed very greatly. You know, we've lost a lot of our great, great people. When someone was speaking this weekend, I started thinking about some of the great people that have been part of my sobriety that made me who I am today. I'm a little piece of everybody here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I had my first brainstorm in second grade. I decided every morning we had catechism.

Every morning I got hit with that ruler, with that round pointer across my knuckles. So I could never memorize the catechism because there was so much going on in that house. And I would go to school or I went into school that morning. I thought I wanted to get her before she gets me today. And so she asked me the question I couldn't answer, and she grabbed a hold of me and pulled me out of the seat.

And I often slapped her as hard as any little second grader can hit in and across the face. It's a classification in this particular classroom. A mother superior just happened to be teaching that particular day. She turned her head and she saw me, and she came running into the classroom, and she grabbed a hold of me. She shook me and picked me up by the collar and shook me like a little puppy dog. And I stood there with my eyes lowered and I said, I didn't do it.

Now, 30 kids, a mother superior saw me do it, but I didn't do it. Now, I don't know if you relate to this, but until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I always said I didn't do it. I got caught doing some things, and I would look at you and say, it wasn't me. I don't know who was doing all those things. But I couldn't take responsibility for my actions. I couldn't take responsibility for anything. They took me out of there to move me to another grade, and I was kneeling in front of these statues.

We went for big statues in Ireland. And I was kneeling, and I was supposed to be praying, and I got tired of kneeling on these hardwood floors because she wants me to apologize to the class, and I don't want to apologize to the class. I did nothing wrong. And so I went back up to the classroom after three weeks. I always say three weeks. It probably was a week. It felt like three weeks in your second grade.

And I went back up to the classroom, and I stood in front of all those kids with my eyes lowered, with Sister with that round corner sticking to my back, wanting me to say, I'm sorry. And I said, I'm sorry. And something else happened inside of me. And what happened inside of me was you against me, and it was always you against me from that time on. I left school when I was 13 years of age. I didn't start school until I was 7.

And I didn't know anything anymore than I did when I walked in. And I didn't know anything anymore than I did when I walked in. I don't think I even knew my ABCs. And I went to work in a factory, and I had all those hopes and dreams every other girl had.

[00:30:04]

And I tell you this time in my life simply because I really believed that I was getting ready for alcohol way before I ever picked up a drink. I really believed that alcohol saved my sanity. If I had not found alcohol, I would have gone absolute stark raving mad. Alcohol saved me until it stopped working, and I found a fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went to work in this factory, and like I said, I had all these hopes and dreams every other girl had.

I was going to find me a nice Irish fella and get married and have kids, and I am truly grateful. God does not answer stupid prayers. Because I know the asylum I'd be still in if I was still in Ireland, you know. God has always had his hand on my shoulder, and I just didn't know it. I had my first drink when I was 13 years of age, and I was at a dance. And this guy gave me this half a bottle of cognac, and the deal was I was to drink it down and it wasn't to stop.

And I drank that half a bottle of cognac down, and I didn't stop. And I went into the bathroom, and I got very, very, very sick, and I threw up. And I came back out, and I said, give me my money. He was giving me $3, which is a pound note, which is equivalent to $3 in your money at that time. And I went up to the bar, and I ordered another drink. And if you know anything about our culture, you can name your drink, they will serve it to you.

And I went up to the bar, and I ordered me another drink, and I continued to drink. And I can tell you, and you'll hear it many, many times at the podiums of Alcoholics Anonymous, what the first drink does for an alcoholic. And what it did for me, it just took away the terrible, terrible mouth that was in my gut. It didn't matter whether my father beat up my mother. It didn't matter whether there was no food in that house.

It didn't matter whether I had no education. I found the secret to living. But I didn't know that I sold my soul that night, too. I sold my soul for $3. And I didn't drink every day from that time on, but I drank at every opportunity from that time on. By the time I was 17 years of age, my father made the decision for me. He decided I should come to California because the streets were paid for gold.

I'll be here 38 years in November, and I'm still looking for those bloody streets paid for gold. But I didn't know at that time when he made that decision for me that my thinking was alcoholic thinking. My thoughts were, it's going to be different. It was going to be different. I would get away from this family, and I'd never tell a soul I was Irish. I was never going to tell anybody I was Irish. I didn't understand when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous why any one of you would want to be Irish.

And when I came to the States, I like being Irish today. I've dealt with all of that stuff. I like being Irish. I really believed if it wasn't for Irish, you could hold your A&E meetings in a phone boot. You don't have to be Irish in order to be a member. It just helps. My sponsor told me years ago that God created whiskey because he was afraid the Irish were going to take over the world. So I'd slow them down just a little bit.

My aunt took me out to Dublin and filled out all these papers and got me ready to come to this country. And I remember it was very much easier. That was in 1961. It was easier to come in here then than it is now. And I remember getting on that plane. I remember drinking champagne. And I remember the feeling. The feeling was freedom. I wanted to be free. I wanted to be free more than anything in my life.

I wanted to be free. And I was never to feel that feeling again until I came to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and through the staff and through many, many people. And my freedom did not come in my first 90 days. My freedom has come very, very slow. I can stand here before you today and tell you I'm a free spirit in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have done that third step. I have abandoned myself to that God that knows me better than I know him and understands me better than I understand him.

And I have that freedom within me. And I got that here. I didn't get that at church. I got it here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I came and I stayed with family up in Palos Verdes for the next couple of years. And I drove these people absolutely, totally insane. I did go back and I did make amends to these people. And I'm very, very grateful that I found a fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous. This woman wanted me to go to school.

And she took me down Redondo Beach High. And when I drank, I was really highly allergic to alcohol. And I don't know if any of you relate to that, but I used to break out when I got drunk. I'd break out in wells all over. I wasn't just allergic in my mind, but I was also physically allergic. And I shook a lot. And they tell me we are as sick as our secrets. And I couldn't tell this woman that I couldn't write and I couldn't get her phone calls and I couldn't do numbers and I couldn't do any of that.

I couldn't tell her I couldn't be with my peers. I was terrified of my peers. And she took me down to the school and I couldn't tell her I couldn't go into that office and fill out those papers. I just couldn't do that. And I stood by the door. And I can tell you what I was experiencing back then. I was going into a catatonic state of mind with absolute sheer fear that somebody was going to find out something about me.

That's one of the greatest gifts I got here in Alcoholics Anonymous is that my life truly is an open book.

[00:35:00]

I don't have to run down alleys anymore. I don't have to pretend I'm something I'm not. Because here I can tell you who I am. And here you can accept me and love me for what I am and what I'm trying to be today. And that is a gift. And that woman looked at me and she said, you don't have to do this. And I didn't have to do it. And I started running around down the beach pier and around a lot of people who use a lot of hard drugs.

And I never got involved in drugs. And I've got nothing against those of you who did. I think you've got a harder road to go. But I didn't get involved in drugs simply because I was terrified that if I was caught I would be deported out of this country. And my father would meet me at Dublin Airport and he would kill me first and ask questions later. My father had caught me smoking when I was 10 years of age.

I have a terrible time with smoking. Terrible time with smoking. I do. I stop and I quit. I mean, I've been doing this for years. And I'm smoking again this week. And the last time I smoked, I didn't steal anything. Honestly, I usually stop smoking and pick up stealing. And I'm not a thief at heart. I mean, I never stole anything. So I can't talk about alcoholics now. And I'm not a big I'm not a big on that.

I'll just say a little story. When I was about 17 years sober, I quit smoking at this point in my life. And I and I thought I'd remove the obsession. And I wasn't stealing anything. And I was so proud of myself. And so I went to the market one day and I was going to make some tuna salad. And I decided I needed a little stalk of celery. And I didn't want to buy the whole thing of celery. And I just wanted one stalk.

So I stole a stalk of celery. You know, I rationalized it in my mind. You know, you become a great rationalizer here in Alcoholics Knows. I rationalized that it's a bigger, being Catholic, a bigger sin to waste than it is to steal, you know. So I told my sponsor, I called her up immediately and told her what I did. And she said, I have to go and you have to go back and tell the produce man you're stealing the celery.

And I thought, I'm not telling the produce man I'm stealing the celery. I said, you've got to be kidding. I said, no, I'm not going to do that. I said, I admitted to God and to another human being the exact nature of my wrong. And I'm not doing it. And it was a real bad obsession. And so what I did with that was I I shopped early in the morning. I'd go to the manager and tell him I had this problem with stealing.

And I was trying to get overcome it. And he kind of looked at me and said, well, what do you like to steal? And I said, everything. And he walked around the store with me. So I did my grocery shopping. Then after I ended up, I got over the obsession and I said, I don't want to steal anymore. I lost the obsession. But it seems every time I stop. But I stopped for the last three years. And I started it last Monday, last Tuesday.

And I didn't steal. I'm not a big thief. Somebody told me I could go to jail just for long for stealing crochet hooks as I could for something big. So that's what I'm at. What can I tell you? We all have to have our little things. But I shared that story in Oklahoma one time. And this little lady came up to me and she looked at me and she said, I'm so grateful that you share that story. She said, I like to steal lettuce.

It wasn't lettuce. It was radishes. She said, I like to steal radishes. And I said, oh, after the meeting, let's get together and steal a whole salad. That's where I was. My dad had caught me smoking when I was 10 years of age. And he's ramming that cigarette down my throat. And I'm saying I'm not smoking. And he took a dog's leash to me and he whipped me and kicked me. And my mother ran into that living room.

She said, Jack, you're going to kill her. He said, yes, I'm going to kill her. She's no good and never will be any good. And that was just one of many beatings. And that's all they knew. And I have nothing against my parents. That's all they knew. They could not give us anything they didn't have. They could not transmit anything they didn't have. That was passed down from generation to generation. It wasn't just in my house that that was going on.

That was going on all over Ireland. Today, women's lib has hit Ireland. And now the women have beaten the hell out of men. So what can I tell you? So I was drinking down on the pier. And Mrs. Cole, the woman I came out here to, went down there and told them that if they didn't stop serving me, that she'd have the place disclosed up. And then I left that house and I started taking small geographicals.

I didn't like living on top of that hill. I wanted to be down there with the bright lights where everybody else was. And I remember walking along Catalina Avenue, and this is another wonderful thing that I feel for me in Alcoholics Anonymous, is that it took me years to wear jeans.

[00:40:04]

I couldn't wear jeans for a long time in AA. And I used to wear old jeans way before they were fashionable and rubber go-aheads that people used to take showers in when they're out camping. And an old T-shirt. And I walked along Catalina Avenue and I gave all the cars a finger and I hated everybody. And I didn't want anything to do with you Americans because all you ever talked about was education.

And I didn't have any. Now, I don't know whether you did or you didn't, but that's what I heard. And I didn't want anything to do with the Irish because all they did was change addresses to behave the same way here as they did over there. And I didn't want to be Irish. And I drank everything and anything anybody ever gave me. But when I bought, I drank Ripple. I don't know if you've got any Ripple drinkers down here.

But if you never got drunk on Ripple, I'm going to tell you, you've really missed the trip. It was $0.37 a bottle. It came in a long neck bottle. And you got two drunks for the price of one. And you drink water and the next day you got drunk all over again. And I used to carry that Ripple bottle in a paper sack and walk along Catalina Avenue. And I don't consider myself a wino. I guess I would be a winet.

I got involved with a group of Mexicans over there in Torres Lamita because they're very much like the Irish. And Angie and I sat down many, many years ago. And we kind of dissected the two nationalities and what we came up with was the only difference between the Irish and the Mexicans is they ate potatoes and they ate beans and we ate potatoes, you know. And they drink hard, love hard and beat the hell out of you.

And Saturday night, what do you need or not? And I wasn't drinking in the morning at this time. And I wasn't drinking in the morning at this time. And he introduced me to the morning drink. He was much stranger than I am. And I didn't have a big resume for a job. I didn't seem to be able to hold a job. I was always going home to Ireland to bury a grandmother. I didn't have two nickels to rub together, but I was always going to Ireland every other week.

And so I'd lose jobs. And I ran out of grandmothers. I really did. I forgot where I was at. And so this guy introduced me to the morning drink and I started drinking in the morning. And it was a very, very exciting time in my life. I was getting beat up and jumping out of cars. And the only time you ever see a Mexican go fast is when the cops are after them and they really go fast. And I'm sorry. If there's any Mexicans here, I make amends.

I'm not making fun of you. It's just the truth of the matter. Norm Alfie, God rest his soul, is my favorite, favorite speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous who I dearly, dearly love. Norm always said, when you drink, don't think. I got to thinking one day. It was a big mistake. It was always a mistake when I think, even in sobriety. My sponsor told me that that thinking sign was not for me. That was for everybody else in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I would say to her, but it says think, think, think. And she says, not for you. Do not think. You cannot think. You do not think right. I will think for you. And she was right. I did not. I came up with some of the wildest things in my early sobriety. I could not afford to think. I don't particularly care for that sign because today I understand it. I didn't then. I got to thinking and I got to thinking that I've been romancing this guy long enough, if you want to call it that.

And I thought, you know, he ought to marry me. I don't think it was even leap year. And so I got a half a bottle of Mountain Red and drank it and got the courage. I used to have to get a lot of courage to do a lot of things. And Booth gave me a lot of courage. I could do anything behind Booth. I go out on the highway and hitchhike the ride over to Torrance, LaMida and I found him. And you could smell me long before you could see me.

And I proposed to him. And he looked at me and he laughed. And he said he wouldn't marry me if I was handed to him on a silver platter. Now, I don't know how you handle rejection. I don't handle it real well. My next thought was, I'm going to kill you, son of a bitch. There's one less Mexican in this world. I told you, I never owned a driver's license the last four years sober in a fellowship of alcoholics and alcoholics because I couldn't take that stupid test.

And I ended up getting him in the car. I got pictures of this car and I got him on the freeway. And I'm driving the car and I got a wine bottle between my legs. And I turned the wheel of the car and I took 25 inches of guardrail and went down 30 feet in the bank. And I thought I killed me a Mexican. Now, what I learned out of that experience, folks, is you're going to kill one Mexican. You've got to kill the whole family.

For some strange reason, they don't take too kindly to you messing with their people, even if they do call you Andy the Irish Mexican. I also learned that when you run with Mexican people, you don't ever yell cop. I yelled cop one time, butterfly, peace. I yelled cop. I was downtown in Long Beach. Cop, I was downtown in Long Beach, and they used to have telephone booths in California one time, they don't anymore, and I'm in the telephone booth, and he kicked me, he kicked the door, and he kicked me, and I yelled, Uncle, now, I have no illusions, there's not something wrong with me here, I don't know what normal is, you know, I really, truly do not know what normal is, but I have to assume there is such thing as normal people out there, and that they would run away from this kind of stuff, and they would go on with their lives, I don't know what normal is, I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous,

[00:45:22]

Please turn your tape, and I'll rewind, turn your tape and continue on side two, Please turn your tape, and I'll rewind, turn your tape and continue on side two, Please turn your tape, and I'll rewind, turn your tape and continue on side two, Please turn your tape, and I'll rewind, turn your tape and continue on side two, Please turn your tape, and I'll rewind, turn your tape and continue on side two, Please turn your tape, and I'll rewind, turn your tape and continue on side two, Please turn your tape, and I'll rewind, turn your tape and continue on side two, For almost 30 years of sobriety, nobody has found it necessary to hit me here in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, there has been those that would like to hit me, they just haven't found it necessary to hit me, I ended up, at that time I ended up in Arizona with this man, and I ended up being very drunk, very belligerent, said things that nobody should say, don't remember much of this, was in a blackout, left this place, I said something to this other Mexican man's wife, and left the bar, went out to the backseat of a car to pass out, and four of those guys came out after me, and I almost got my wish, and they pulled me out of that backseat of the car, I didn't know what was happening, I didn't know what I did, and they beat me up, and they beat me up good, and one of the guys said, we'll go get the truck, and they were talking in Spanish, and get the truck, and they're going to run over me, and the truck came, and these three guys jumped off of me, and the headlights were coming, and to this day, you know I'm really grateful I'm not a newcomer, I used to have terrible nightmares when I was doing alcoholic sounds, I couldn't sleep, and then when I did sleep, I had terrible nightmares, I didn't know which was worse, and I don't have those nightmares today, and I don't know where I got the sense to roll off that dirt road, but I rolled off that dirt road, and I got off of that dirt road, and my head is full of gravel, and my face looks like that nag truck that's run over me, and my dress is all torn, and I walk along the dirt road, and I need a drink, God I need a drink, and I'm a type of alcoholic, I live by four mailboxes of Ralph's Market or some sign, that's how I get home when I get home, and a guy comes along, and he picks me up, and we go to a liquor store, and we go to a dirty motel, and that's how I learned to solve my problems, I have no idea how to solve my problems, until I come to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous,

[00:50:04]

when I came to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, you talked a great deal about dying, I know what it's like to die, I know what it's like to die when you're sitting out there, and you're new in Alcoholics Anonymous, at least for me, when they get to that part of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and say you have to let go of all your old ideas, my stomach would just come up to here, and I'd just kind of gag, and I'd think I can't, they don't understand, I could let go of the old idea that I could drink, but I couldn't let go of all my old ideas, I knew what was going to happen to me with my old ideas, I most certainly did not know what was going to happen to me with your new ideas here in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I am so grateful to that sponsor, and to those people that knew how far down that scale I'd gone, and knew that they would have to spoon-feed me Alcoholics Anonymous a little at a time, because I would have missed a whole lot of things here if I hadn't started trusting, and started a little at a time to take on some of your new ideas here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I ended up in this little room in Gardena, and I couldn't even pay the money, I used to have to hide up the back stairs, and I had to go down the hall to take a shower, and I had a hot plate and I had a sink, and I died a thousand times in that little room, and I could never always overshoot the mark, I could never get down the hall to take a shower, because the only time I was free of what was going on inside of me was when I was under the influence of alcohol, and I'd start drinking, and to get the courage to go down the hall to take a shower, and I always overshoot the mark, I never got down there.

I remember in that little room, I remember lying in the bed screaming like a banshee, screaming, I want somebody to understand me, I couldn't keep boyfriends, I couldn't keep girlfriends, I couldn't keep anybody in my life, because I chased you away with my mouth, or with my abuse, or hitting, or fighting, and I scream in on the top of my lungs, I want someone to understand me. I was calling Ireland and telling them what a rotten deal they'd given me, they should never have sent me to this country, I wasn't equipped for this country, I couldn't do it, I couldn't do life, is what I couldn't do, and I wanted somebody so desperate to understand me, and there was nobody in this world that could understand me, and I knew that too.

And I remember getting on those old jeans, and those old rubber go-aheads, and heading out on Western Avenue, and I always found somebody, and it always lasted for a very brief time, and I was always left to my own self, and thrown out of cars one more time, and left to my own self. There was people along the way that tried to help me, but I didn't know, I didn't want their help. I want you to know if you're new here today, that I have been understood beyond understanding in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have been loved beyond anything that I ever could imagine in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. They used to say when I was new, they'd say, let us love you until you love yourself, and I used to back away from them and say, don't touch me, please don't touch me. I couldn't let you come near me, but you loved me in spite of. You loved me in spite of my behavior, in spite of what I said, and I'm so grateful for that.

God gave you so much patience. Sassy thinks she's got no patience. She's got more patience than she realizes. I ended up, I left. I thought if I could get away from this group of people, and I moved, and I moved to Long Beach, and I ended up in Anaheim Street, and Anaheim Street is not a really good street to end up on. It's a skid row, and I was down there for eight months, and that's all I could do was eight months.

A little gal had taught me how to write my name. Her name was Carol Poole, and she sat for hours teaching me to write my name. I'd walk across UCLA campus one day, and I automatically got a four-year college degree. God, it was so easy. And all these people would give me all these fancy jobs, and that's all I could do was write my name. I ended up down in Anaheim Street, and I was down there, and this skinny, peony little guy, he came to this conference with me, and I tried to save him, and a lot of people tried to save him.

God, I tried to save him. I'm really not a wimp. And he asked me if I would go out with him, and I asked him if he had a job. And he said, no, he didn't, and I said, don't date guys who don't have a job. And he came to me, and we got together, and we went together all six weeks, and they gave me two of the blackest eyes I've ever owned. I mean, they were black all the way down here. And I knew that we were in love, and we would get married.

He wanted to marry me. It was the only guy that ever wanted to marry me.

[00:55:01]

And we got married, and we moved back to Minnesota, and I thought I was going to drink in the manor I always wanted to become accustomed to. And this little guy was taking bottles out of my purse and pouring it down the sink and telling me when I could drink and when I couldn't. It was horrible. It was absolutely horrible. His mother didn't drink. She didn't smoke. She went to church on Sunday, and she didn't screw around, and I had nothing in common with these people.

I thought, my God, I should have checked these people out much better before I ever married this guy. So five months into the marriage, I decided I made a terrible, terrible mistake, and I'd have to get back to California and find that Mexican that really loved me. And he decided, someone told me, I don't know who this bright person was. I really truly do not know who this bright person was. I can't remember.

But I do remember them telling me that if you get pregnant, you automatically grow up. What a lie. You know, what a lie. So I got pregnant, and the doctor put me on beer and wine. I used to have one glass of wine a day and one beer a day, and I was having a six-pack a day and a half a gallon. I spent nine months by the toilet bowl with that one. I went in, and I had that baby. And I don't like this part of my story, but I went in, and I had that baby.

And there was five other girls in our apartment building that had babies, and they were all real happy, and they came home. And I have to assume that they knew what they were doing, and they had to be normal. And I had my baby, and I wanted to hear it many times at podiums and how women felt when they had their kids. When I had my baby, I wanted to feel those feelings. I wanted to feel. I watched my daughter give birth to her son, and I watched her how she's, what a parent she is.

I don't know where she got this. She had to get it from me because it was the women in AA that gave it to me. I didn't come here with it. But that baby in my arms, and I wanted to feel those good feelings that you talked about, and you talk about here, and you talk about out there. And the only feeling I could feel was, what are we going to do now? How am I going to take care of this child? And I took that baby home, and I wanted to be a good mommy, and I didn't know how to be a good mommy.

And I still don't know how to be a good mommy, but I tell you, I have a great relationship with my kids. My kids call and tell me everything, and they just think I'm the neatest mom in the world. And that makes me feel good because I became a great mom here in Alcoholics Anonymous. It was the women in AA that mothered me, and so I could mother my children. This didn't come easy for me. I very quickly started to abuse this little girl, and many, many times that man had to take me off that little girl, and many times I would take off and I couldn't.

This man cleaned me up and tried to give me some semblance of home and a life, and I didn't know how to react to it. I had to get out there. He'd say, if you'd just drink at home, it would be okay, and I'd start drinking at home. There's nobody there to tell you how wonderful you are and how great you are, and the walls would close in, and I'd have to go out there in the streets. I'd have to run to Long Beach.

I had to make that run, and I made that run many times, and many times he took me off of her, and many times I just didn't know what to do. Like I said, on that June 16th, when I came, he told me, he threatened me the first time that he was going to take her away from me and he was going to leave and go back to Minnesota. He was a good man. It just didn't work. I was married to him for 26 years, and I wanted it to work.

The reason I wanted it to work was because I was a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was not going to be one of the ones that got divorced. I came here with a husband, and I was going to work, and I tried everything. He didn't drink until I was 11 years old, and that's when he started drinking. His drinking changed then. A six-pack would stay in our refrigerator for six months, and he wouldn't touch it.

At 11 years sober, it started to change, and I ran around AA, and I said, was it like this for you when you were 11? They said, Annie, go to Al-Anon, and I went to Al-Anon. I gave them a year to put me together, and they said it was going to take much longer, so I didn't have the time. But that man was a good man. I just wanted to know that he's still drinking. He's still doing whatever he's doing, and it's okay.

I have no animosity to him. I didn't get a lot out of that divorce. To him, I didn't get a lot out of that divorce. I got exactly what I was supposed to get out of that divorce, and I'm truly grateful for that. I had that little girl, and when I came back to you, like I said, on June 16th,

[01:00:02]

and I saw her standing there. When I came back, and like I told you earlier, I grew into a group of people that were absolutely tremendous. My sobriety has come very slow, my serenity. I was two and a half years sober when I flipped out in Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a son when I was nine months sober. I gave birth to a baby boy, and I wanted to be a good mom. Because I was sober now, and that illusion had to be smashed.

It had to be smashed for me. And I took that baby home, and I tried very hard. I'm abusing my husband, I'm abusing the little girl, and I'm abusing… It didn't change. It didn't change because I got sober. And I was two and a half years sober. I was pregnant again, and I know what causes it. And I really was… After Dick Martin talked last night, I guess I'm going to have to give it up. I beat my son, and I tell you this because I need to tell you this.

I tell you this because if you're two and a half years sober, and you're struggling in Alcoholics Anonymous, and your emotions are coming alive, and your head is still racing, and you feel you're not making any progress, and you're doing everything you can, and you're making coffee, and you're secretary of a group, and you're working in H&I, and you're doing a lot of 12-step work, and you're willing to do everything there is, and it's still not getting any better.

It wasn't getting any better. I had to… I will never stand at a podium today and tell you I wasn't working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. My sponsor was… God, my sponsor. God, I love her so much. I ended up beating my son, and I beat a little boy until his eyes were back in his eyes, his head. He's 29 years of age today, and I have a great relationship with him. He's a really neat kid. He's been involved with a woman, a girl, since high school, and they kind of broke up, but they've been together 13 and a half years, and I wish to hell they'd get married.

And she doesn't want to get married. I don't know why she doesn't want to marry him. I guess he's got some more stuff to work out. But a man came to the door, and I don't know if you've had these things happen, but those coincidences that people stop by, or the phone rings, or you're at the market and you run into somebody. Those things still happen for me. And this man came to my door, and he took that baby away from me, and he said, Annie, did you call somebody?

And I called Mary Lee, and Mary Lee came and got me, and she took me down to a meeting, and I went into the meeting, and I said, please, help me. You promised me. There's promises in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and you promised me. You promised me that I would intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle me. You promised me that if I was painstaking and do these things, that these were some of the things that were going to happen for me, that I would know peace, and I had no peace.

And I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to beat my kids. I didn't want to be this kind of a person. I didn't want to be people moving people away from me, and Alcoholics Anonymous saying, don't listen to Annie. She's really sick. I didn't want to be that. And I said, please, help me make the 180-degree turn. I didn't want to drink. They would take me to Schizophrenics Anonymous. Those Alzheimer's would take me over there because they didn't know what to do with me, and I didn't know what to do with me.

I ran out of the meeting. Somebody said something that I didn't like, and I threw a chair down. I ran out of the meeting, and a lady came out after me, and she grabbed a hold of me. Her name was Edna, and Edna was nine years sober. I couldn't cry, and that's why I hate, I don't like, I'm a wimp today. I couldn't cry when I came to AA. Crying was not something I wanted to do. I was hollow inside, and I was cold inside.

I was a guy in my home group, Walt Stiles, and Walt loved me very, very much, him and Millie. And Walt learned to love unconditionally, really learned to love it. And Walt was a great big man. He's gone today, and he'd stand up for a podium, and he was so full of gratitude and so full of the spirit, and he'd cry because he was so grateful. And I would sit out there, and the hair would stand on my neck, and I'd say, why do these people cry?

Crying to me was a sign of weakness. You were weak if you cried. One of my last drunks, a guy held me while another one punched me in the face and he wanted me to cry, and I said, you go ahead and kill me, you son of a bitch, because I ain't going to cry. I'll never cry again. And I went outside, and Edna grabbed ahold of me, and I started crying, and I knew that there would be no personality. I'd just be a big blob of jelly here on the sidewalk.

And she took me to Orange County Psycho. That woman, it goes on in those promises, and it says, and some of us have felt that we were reborn. I was reborn that night in her arms, and she took me to Orange County Psycho.

[01:05:02]

Three months after, Edna gave me life. She gave me life. Edna chose to commit suicide, and to this day I don't know why Edna chose to commit suicide, but I imagine Edna every podium I go to, at least I try, because she was the messenger for me. I ended up with a doctor, and I'm not here to give you a plug for a psychiatrist. I'm here to tell you that my big book says that those professional people are there to help us.

And I didn't take any pills, and I didn't take any antidepressants, and I'm not on Prozac. I'm not on anything. And I got to see this man, and what I'd done, I can tell you what I did then. I had done a fortuitous step, and I took it back, and I took it back, and I pushed it down, and I pushed it down, and I played God in my life, and I couldn't forgive you. And all of the new stuff coming in in Alcoholics Anonymous, the lid had to blow, and it blew.

And that man told me I wanted someone to love me. And even in Alcoholics Anonymous, I knew that nobody loved me. They tolerated me, because the only requirement for membership if you'd be an alcoholic. And he said, Annie, there's got to be somebody. And I said, there isn't anybody. He said, there's got to be somebody. I said, no, there isn't anybody. And the little Island lawn gal was taking me out there twice a week to see this doctor.

I never paid this man any money. I paid him a dollar when he got done with me. Do you think that was from God? I think so. I think I wouldn't be standing here tonight. You'd have a different speaker if it wasn't for Alcoholics Anonymous and that doctor and that God. And I found something within me. I touched that thing that you talk about here in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is in each and every one of us.

And you all bring it here. And it's all here. And I touched that power within me. And I'd like to give you the illusion that I've walked hand in hand with God all these years, and I'd be lying. I'd be lying through my teeth, because I like to take various paths, and I kind of go off on the side every once in a while. But I know where to come back to. I know where my source of power comes from. And it not comes from me, it comes from within me, because God is within me.

I went home that day, and I called that woman, Lois. And Lois had told me over and over and over, Annie, I love you, and you're a child of God, and God loves you. And I called her up, and I whispered in the phone, and I said, Lois, do you love me? And we believe that we hear when we're ready to hear, and we see when we're ready to see, not another minute sooner. And I came to believe that maybe somebody could love me.

And I went to a lot of meetings, and I was five years sober, and nobody ever asked me to be their sponsor. You know, like I said earlier, those old timers used to move those newcomers away and say, don't talk to Annie, and she'd fly off the handle. You know? And I… When I first came into the program of Alcoholics in the Arms, my name was Diane Gillian, and a little girl named Cindy. And Diane was very angry and very hostile, and I didn't want to sponsor her because she reminded me so much of me.

I was just… I thought I was coming out of that pit. I was climbing up that pit of not so much rage and anger. It didn't leave for a long time, and I was able to touch my children. I was able to reach my children. But I didn't feel that love. I didn't feel it. I didn't have it. I accepted that. I accepted that you could love me, but I didn't own that emotion, and everything has to come to me in a feeling because I'm a feeling person.

And then Cindy came into the program, and she was six weeks clean and sober, and she was a lot of LSD, and she had long blonde hair way down her back. She had piercing blue eyes, and she had piercing blue… I'll never forget her eyes. They were like what I would envision my higher power's eyes to be, really piercing. And she used to sit in meetings with her legs up… I can't say the word, so I don't say it…

up around her neck, and we let her sit that way in meetings. Nobody ever said anything to her because she was really spacey. And someone came over to me, and he said, you sponsor Cindy? And I said, yes, I do. And he said, she's over there, and she's hallucinating. And he said, you better go over there. I was so scared. I was a long walk from here to that pole, and I walked over there because I didn't want to do anything that was not right.

[01:10:01]

And I went into the bathroom, and there was no seat that sat there, and I sat on the floor with her. And I held her. And I rocked her like a baby. She looked up at me, and she said, Annie, you love me so much. And I felt it. I felt love for the first time in my life. I didn't get it from my babies. I had two children after I got sober. I got it here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I started to cry. It was like electricity going through my body.

Electricity. I am truly one of those that believe that when I sponsor people, it's not so much what I can give you, it's what God wants me to learn through you. And what I learned through you is so many, many, many things. So many, many things. God has been very gentle and very kind to me. In 1981, I had gone home when I was 11 years sober. I've got to tell you this little story. I'm getting ready to shut up because I know you're tired and want to get out of here.

At three years sober, I was home, and my dad told us he hated every one of us. And at 11 years sober, I went home, and I wanted to see, and he told me at that time, all of us, it was about eight of us home at that time, he said, I hate every one of you. Every one of you should have been drowned at birth. Every one of you are no good. And I didn't want to hear that. I truly did not want to hear that.

I remember what you told me. You said, God does not make junk. And that I was a child of God, and I was a very, very sick man. He never felt the joys and the happiness and the stuff that I felt here in Alcoholics Anonymous. He never got to know the peace. He never got to have what I've had. He did the best he knew how or what he had. I went home four years ago and made my closure with my mom. I did lots of stuff in between there.

In 83, my sister died. And three months later, my brother died. My sister died a horrible death, and I got the same. I don't have it anymore. Somebody came to visit me. See, she did, and that was my memory, and I was terrified. But I don't have to be terrified because somebody's got their hand on me. And I know it. I know it in my heart. I know it. I went home four years ago, and I made closure. My mother said she wanted my other sister home.

She didn't want me home. I wasn't a favorite of the family for some reason. But I went home telling myself I wasn't going home. I was going home to see her and make whatever amends I felt was necessary to make and to bond with her She died on October 18th, three years ago. And I was diagnosed with cancer. So I didn't get to go back. This is not going to sound real good, but I'm truly grateful that that this other disease has come to me.

I wasn't at first. I didn't ask why. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I asked why. I ran around AA and said, Why me? Why not somebody else? Why do I have alcoholism? And you know, those old-timers were so mean. They looked at me and they said, Why not you, Annie? Something about your face that pisses God off. I did. So I stopped asking why in Alcoholics Anonymous. So when this other thing came to visit me, I didn't ask why and I have not asked why.

I have accepted it and I've had so much strength. So much strength. I see the hand. I see his hand. I truly do. When I got reoccurrence, I didn't ask why either. I got strength. I went and saw a doctor at UCLA. I went and saw a doctor at UCLA for second opinion, and he looked at me, and he looked at all of the stuff, and he told me I was going to die. And I looked at him with everything I had in me, and I said, you may tell me that, what

[01:15:06]

you don't have, you're not the one that is going to do that, because God only knows, and I know I'm going to live, I know it, because a couple of days prior to that, I had a profound, profound, and I've had many profound spiritual awakenings here, I had a profound spiritual thing, I've never been big on getting on my knees, my sponsor tried to get me on my knees, I say I'm Catholic, I'm Irish, I've been on my knees all my life, I'm not getting on my knees, I don't care, I won't get on my knees, I get on my knees today, not because I'm better, but I want to talk to God, because He is what He is, He's all, and that morning, about two days before I'd seen this doctor, I was on my knees doing my prayers, I did a third step, a seventh step, I did St. Francis of Assisi, and I asked for the courage to walk through whatever I have to walk through, and the strength, and that I would, whoever comes into my life, that I touch them, in some small way, that I give back to Alcoholics Anonymous, and a whole thing came over me, and I don't hear voices today, but there was a knowing that went on inside of me, and it says, you have to go through this, but you're going to be okay, because you need this experience with somebody else down the road, and I need the experience. I walked every day, I pray every day, and I eat healthy, to the best of my ability. I did radiation, and they thought I was going to end up being burned really bad, and when I saw my oncologist, she said, are you tired? And I said, no, I'm not. And she said, well, did you sleep on the, I had to take a shuttle up to Hollywood. I said, no, I didn't. I said, I made two afghans, a baby dress, and six dish rags, and made $147 on the bus. She looked at me, and she said, you are amazing. You're absolutely amazing. She said, you really are amazing. You really are different. She doesn't know how different I am. I did not want to explain to her. I did not want to tell someone of science where my power came from. I didn't want to tell her that if she knew that all across the United States that I was on every prayer list, that I have had the greatest physician in the world because you prayed for me, and lifted me up, and carried me. The girls I sponsor, I can't even, some of the women in AA, especially the women I sponsor, and a lot of the men, there's only two kinds of alcoholics, male and female, and I need the male in my life as much as I need the female in my life, were there for me and walked me. They carried me through this whole thing with my higher power. I will ever be so grateful. I feel so strong today in my spirit. I feel that God has truly, truly bestowed a blessing upon me, and I know none of this, none of it, none of it would ever have happened if I had not been willing to come to Alcoholics Now and do some of the simple stuff that you've asked me to do. I read a lot today, and I will close with this, I always close with this. It helped me a lot, and it might help those of you who have got little kids, and they frustrate you and make you angry, and you don't know what to do with them because we're just little kids ourselves. And it's Inger Braun, the prophet, and he says, and I don't quote it exactly, he says, our children come through us, they're not of us. My children came through me, but they're not of me. And I came through the people I came through, but I'm not of those people I came through. I'm of the people of Alcoholics Anonymous, because you are the people. You're the ones that walked the extra mile with me when nobody else would walk with me. You're the ones that sat and held my hand when nobody else would sit and hold my hand. You're the ones that have seen a nanny, and you pull her out, and she walks tall with dignity today, because she is a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. God bless each and every one of you, and thanks for the 12-step call to repentance.

Thank you.