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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Multi Speakers – WOMEN IN AA Women in AA – RS 06337.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-multi-speakers-women-in-aa-women-in-aa-rs-06337.mp3 Duration: 01:16:47
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I really am delighted to be here this morning to moderate this particular panel. It was my pleasure in New Orleans to moderate the same panel. I'm your has-been trustee. I'm rotating off the board. And it has been a wonderful, exciting, fabulous experience for me. And really just a few opening comments that I'd like to make before I introduce our very first speaker. Apropos of women in AA, when I was a young woman, my father worked in a fashionable club in New York.
And I remember him saying to me on many occasions when he would come home, I don't understand these ladies that come into the club and get very drunk. They were always falling off of bar stools and losing their shoes, their gloves, their hats, kind of making fools of themselves. And he really didn't understand why they couldn't drink like the guys. And I remember those words very clearly. And I certainly didn't ever want to be one of those ladies.
No way was I going to lose my hat, my gloves, fall off bar stools. And certainly I wasn't going to have any trouble with alcohol. And I really am very grateful, however, that when I did, there were many women who were the pioneers in this program for us. And they were the ones who led me into the steps and traditions and showed me the way. And it's been so much easier for those of us who have followed afterwards.
In New Orleans, it was our pleasure to have Marty Mann as our speaker, who since has died. But it was just wonderful to have someone like that as one of the pioneering members of this program who had to fight that male chauvinism in order to go to the meetings. And so it really is with great pleasure this morning that I would like to introduce our speakers to you, who will share their experience in this wonderful program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Our first speaker is Dolores from Illinois, and she will open the meeting. She said to me before, she said, I really took it easy yesterday. I was just as calm and cool so I could be collected this morning. So she really hasn't had any fun. She's got to really get this out of her system this morning, so now she can get on with the conference and really have a ball. So would you welcome her, please?
Thank you, Jackie. My name is Dolores, and I'm from Chicago, Illinois. And I'm surely a grateful alcoholic. I'd like to say good morning to you. You're right, Jackie. I haven't done very much since I've been here in this wonderful town of Montreal. I said if you don't do anything, maybe when it's time to do something, you might be able to deliver. Really, it's something. When you come to these conferences, you come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and you hear a lot of things, you see a lot of things, and you wonder how do all these things come about.
I had planned everything I could possibly think about to say here at this moment. And everything I planned, I would ball it up and throw it away, and then I had a lot of great words of wisdom from some of my sponsors sitting here in this meeting and some of the people that I have had great pleasure in sharing with them. But nothing, you know, I really, I said to myself, what can I say other than the fact that I'm an alcoholic?
And somebody said, well, the best way to start it, Dolores, is to start from the beginning and make damn sure you stop when you get to the end, you know. So don't go on and on and on and on. So I'm certainly going to try that, but I was trying to get everything all ready for me and all this. But I really feel good this morning. It's a pleasure to stand here. I can remember when I made my first international conference.
You know, these things get to be a part of you. Back in 1965, up in this same country, we came up here to Toronto, and I had the good pleasure of making that international conference. And I wondered at that point, how did these things come about? You know, how do you get to share at an international conference? Well, now all of a sudden, here it is back into me, you know. And they do a wonderful thing they do in the General Service Office.
They send you a letter and ask you, would you be willing to share? And they tell you what they have in mind for you. And then within all the same letters, they said in their anticipation that you will accept, would you sign on the bottom line and answer immediately?
[00:05:01]
I said, well, yeah, I'm dealing with other alcoholics. So I might as well try to get started. We're talking about women in AA. When I came into the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous on the 5th of June in the year of our Lord, 1963, I had no idea that I would be standing here some 20 and 2 years later. I just came into Alcoholics Anonymous like most people that I hear who share their experience, strength, and hope up here, came because I was looking for an easier, softer way.
You know, I was having problems with my job, and I hadn't been to work for quite a while. And I had been to an open Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and at that meeting I had heard one of the speakers share the point that he got back on his job. And here I was in trouble again and again and again. And I said probably, just probably, Alcoholics Anonymous could get me back into my job. And I went to the meeting with that idea in mind to get an affidavit to take back to work so they could see that I'm trying to do something not about my drinking problem but about my job problem because I certainly didn't bring a problem with alcoholism here into the fellowship.
I had a problem trying to maintain a job. But from that first meeting, they told me that Alcoholics Anonymous only shared their experience, strength, and hope with you, and the best thing for you to do is go back to work. That was a hard thing for me because this was in the middle of the week like on a Wednesday. And who would go back to work on a Thursday after being off three weeks? You know, who, just who would go back to work?
The fellows in there said, Dolores, just pick yourself up and go back to work, and we don't give affidavits in here. And I mean, I really kind of resented that because I had planned the whole damn thing. I had said that I'll go to this Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I'll get whatever they give you, I'll take it to my job. Now, this was on a Wednesday, and I'll take it to my job Monday, so it'll allow me a little more time to do some more whatever it was I was doing at that time, mainly drinking.
But somehow or another, the next day I went to work, and everything worked out so wonderful. They told me on my job that I needed some sort of statement, and I just opened up and told them I had no statement. I remembered what they told me in Alcoholics Anonymous, that don't try to define something that you don't know anything about. And so I didn't tell them anything about Alcoholics Anonymous from that day up to now.
I'm glad I didn't, because I have seen some experience with people coming into the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, making some attempt to get back on a job with the excuse of coming into Alcoholics Anonymous, and they have suffered greatly. I haven't had that experience. I just told them that I hadn't had any medical help during the three weeks I was off, and I had signed some statements that I was going to try to work 30 days more without taking time off when I did that.
But I was sitting here thinking, what do you say, you know, and I thought about everything was all out of sort. I felt like my hair needed combing. I felt like I needed something. You know, what do I need, you know, and I thought about you need something to say other than the fact that you're just a woman in Alcoholics Anonymous. And then it came to me, maybe, you know, my dentures are slipping. And I said, well, no, I don't need that, because I remember a situation where that happened.
You know, somebody was telling me this, and I'll share it with you at this point, about sitting at a banquet and the dentures were slipping. And this particular person sitting on the other side came without no teeth. And what happened was the person sitting there next to him, you know, like most things in Alcoholics Anonymous, there's always somebody here that has what you need. And they're willing to share it.
Real willing to share it. And what happened, this guy was sitting there, and he said, I don't have any teeth, you know. And the fellow sitting next to him said, just a moment, just a moment. He goes in his bag and comes out and put some teeth. And he said, I'll try these on. And being an alcoholic, the man stuck the teeth in his mouth. And what happened, he said, oh, these are too small. Thank you.
He said, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. He goes back in his bag, comes up with another set of teeth.
[00:10:03]
And the man couldn't get those in his mouth. So what happened, he said, oh, no, I can't use these because these are too large. And boy, and the man said, my God, you know, he said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. I think I have the exact thing you need. He goes into this bag and he comes back up with another pair of teeth. The man put them in his mouth just fit. Oh, thank you.
So the man finished his meal and everything was all going along swell. So after the meal, the one who had borrowed the teeth turned them back over to the man. He said, oh, it's so nice to come places and you be able to find everything you need, and here I am so fortunate to sit next to a dentist. And the man said, hey, wait a minute, I'm no dentist. He said, well, you aren't. What are you doing with all those false teeth?
He said, I'm an undertaker. So really, you don't ever know what you're coming into when you're in an Alcoholics Anonymous, Patty. Really, you just really don't. I was thinking about, seriously, I was thinking about in our book, in the old timers, there's a page in there where they talk about A.A. women. A.A. women were the most minority people in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous when Alcoholics Anonymous got started.
Somehow or another, those early timers or old timers just didn't believe that women could stay sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. They just didn't believe it because it was a male group. Men only were here and everything, so they just didn't believe it. And even in our writings, you hear of people in the writings where our founder talked about out-of-bound romances. I don't know what the hell they mean by that.
But it is really that there was some out-of-bound romances here in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And even in our 12 and 12, they talk about the fallen woman. Well, I often wonder what Bill had in mind when he said the fallen woman because I felt like I was coming up, really, when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. When I read that, because when I came in, we had quite a few ladies in the Evans Avenue group.
We had ladies in my group. I wasn't just the one solely woman in there, even though I terribly, I resented them all immediately, and especially coming into a meeting where there were women in the meeting and they wanted so much to help me. And what they were saying were things that I had in mind, but I wouldn't dare say not even around men. But they were sharing freely and open. And in that meeting, there were several women who came to my rescue because at the time, they all talked about total absence when I came in, total absence, total absence.
And here in Alcoholics Anonymous, we don't drink. We don't drink now, we don't drink after a while, and we ain't going to never drink up in here. And that's all I could hear in that first meeting and being in that meeting. And it was in June, and I was so warm, and I wanted to get up and say something every time somebody else was saying or even better still, talk while they were talking. And so eventually they finally gave me an opportunity to share what I might have had in mind.
And like most new people in a meeting, everything got extremely quiet. And at that time, we didn't have to identify ourselves. Your name is such and such a thing, and you're an alcoholic. You just start talking, you know. And the person at that particular meeting, his name was Ted, who was chairing the meeting, pointed to me, and I can always remember Ted telling me this because he looked over there at me and he said, Dolores, you're certainly welcome here to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
But here in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's based on total absence. We don't drink in here. Hopefully you try not to drink. It is not necessary for you to say anything at this point. They were doing that to new people because there were some of us coming in then and even now don't know what to say in Alcoholics Anonymous, so we stand up and say a whole lot of nothing, so to speak. And he said that you need not say nothing, but at this point we're calling on you to share.
And I looked around and everyone got quiet because we have very little. And everyone got quiet because we have very long lengthy meetings in the city of Chicago and I had gotten there about 7.30 and the meeting started at 8.30 and here it was 11 o'clock and we were still there and everybody got so quiet and when they got so quiet I couldn't, I said to myself what am I going to say and I looked around and all those wonderful thoughts that I had while everyone else was talking and all the thoughts that I had planned
[00:15:27]
in mind, nothing came forth and I did what you do, I just passed out, I stood, passed out, really, and the strangest thing about that is that I stood up to say what I thought I was going to say and no one in that meeting had stood up. When this happens with new people who come into the program, I look around and I can remember myself, this happening with me, you know, but I stood up and the ladies came to my rescue, there was one of the ladies who was sitting in this meeting this morning, Virginia, and another lady and about four or five of them, I know all of them, you know, Thelma and Ann, they all came to my rescue and I resented them tremendously. I just didn't like them, you know, because here I was in this meeting and passing out and I can plainly remember Virginia who was sitting here this morning saying, well, maybe you need to go to the doctor and I said to myself, well, these ladies don't want me here, you know, but they were very helpful, but it took years for me to let go of that type of resentment, so what I like to say to the ladies here, try not to start, I'm going to have to show you all this because all these people here are old timers, I can look around this room and see all of you have all been sober much longer than I have, I'm the young in heart, but really, try not to get all involved in resenting the ladies in the meetings because this is going to be your most helpful thing, it really is. Here back in Chicago, we have a women's group, we're contemplating on changing the name to the Evans Avenue Ladies' Group because we're referred to as the ladies' group ladies. They don't refer, the men don't refer to us as the women's group any longer, they refer to us as the ladies' group, and we have some deep-seated chairing in that group.
I mean, some wonderful things come out of that group. We have ladies in that group whom I personally have been knowing since they've come into the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous who had problems, when I say problems in AA, I mean drinking problems, because I know there's no other problem you could have here in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I say this to people, they say, oh, yes, there are many problems, but there isn't.
There's another problem you could have in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous other than drinking problems. But we have ladies in this group who have shared things that I had helped on for years, because our group is only six years old, and I'd helped on to these things because I was unwilling or unable or embarrassed to share these things, even though I wasn't doing these things any longer, and hopefully I won't ever. But I just couldn't share them, and I couldn't share my nasty, stinking thoughts that I had about you other ladies in here. But, however, in our women's ladies' group meeting, we're able to share all these wonderful things, and it's a marvelous thing. And we go in there, and whatever the topics are, we don't have a lead speaker. We start off with an open discussion. We rotate the chairperson every month, ladies. We don't have no secretary or no permanent chairman, because those ladies, we ladies understand each other, that it comes easily getting tired of each other. So we don't put one person in charge. You know, it's always a rotating basis. And they come up with such marvelous and wonderful ideas, and the things that I personally have been able to let go that had been with me for years, I know have made me a better person. It is you made me a better person to want to do something better about my appearance. When I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I was weighing 97 pounds. Almost 20 years later, I was weighing twice that. I used to tell the new ladies and the new people that I would sponsor that you don't have to show your sobriety on the outside of you. I just came in here, and within 15 or 20 years later, I had almost doubled my weight, really. It's a wonderful thing for me to stand here and know that now that I have tried to get back, I'm trying to get back down to 97 pounds, but at this late dating age, I don't believe I will. But I certainly have, in the last year or so, have lost over
[00:20:03]
75 pounds. And I still eat ice cream, ladies. So whatever it is, this fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous will not just only work with your alcoholic problem, it will not just only work with your weight problem, it will not just only work with your relationship problem, but anything you want in your life, for you or yourself, you can get it started. If you drink once like I drank, and you're not drinking today, and you practice the principles of whatever it is we have here in whatever way you want to do it, it'll work. And I'm certainly glad that this conference asked me to share what little I can, because I know that standing here as an alcoholic, I'll never, never be able to give back to Alcoholics Anonymous what it has given to me. I thank you.
Thank you very much, Dolores. That was really marvelous. The letter that Dolores refers to that she received from General Service is called A Loving Invitation. And really it's a little bit overwhelming sometimes when you receive those loving invitations. That means they would like you to participate in something. Really what she has to say is so true. I can recall very early on in my early sobriety when, believe it or not, I came into a women's group, and that astonished me. It astonishes me even today. I was not a joiner of that sort of thing. And I can recall so clearly when I was sitting at that table with these women, and I started to cry. And I kept saying, I need help. I need therapy.
And they kept saying, no, you don't, my dear. What you need is the program. And they were so right. And I was absolutely convinced that I was going to wind up in a Looney Tune farm someplace. And they kept saying, no, no, no, no. Just take the program. A day at a time, it'll all get better. And it has, of course. There was a show several years ago, and the name of it was Company. And one of the songs was called The Ladies Who Lunch. And I was certainly one of those. And I still lunch today. I was never 97 pounds. Never. Unfortunately, I'm going to learn what Dolores' secret is about the other problem after this meeting is over.
In my early days, too, I can recall so clearly that there was a meeting in New York that I went to, and I loved it. And they had a beginner's meeting there, and it was chaired by a gal who really did one of the most superb jobs of a beginner's meeting that I've ever heard. And I used to go to that every week and listen to her. And I haven't seen her for many years, and lo and behold, here we are together. And she is now to be our next speaker. And I'm delighted to introduce you, Lee, from New York.
And I am so delighted to be here. It is something to look out and see all the faces and the feeling in the room. It's just superb. It's incredible. I have spoken at a couple of other very large occasions, one being Bill's dinner, she bragged. And I don't know, the excitement here is quite different for me. I think I was so awed and overwhelmed at that thing in New York with Bill that I just sort of spoke out like that, and that was the end.
But this is an extraordinary feeling. I always have to start out with something humorous, because that's my safety island. So I'm going to tell a story that I've often told, but I just know that half the room hasn't heard it. And I also was accepted in the grapevine, and I know half the room hasn't read it, so I'm going to tell it. And it's about two men that commuted out of Grand Central Station. And one of the men was in the pretty far stages of his alcoholism. He would get on the train every day with a certain format, in which he would have a half a bottle of vodka in an attaché case. And he had it set up so that he would have that half bottle finished before he got out of the station up in the Westchester County called Chappaqua. And somewhere between New York, Grand Central, and Chappaqua, he would have that bottle down, and he would go to the middle of the train somewhere, or the tracks, the middle of the cars, and throw it out in a field. Because when he would get off at the station and take the case home, his wife would always open the attaché case
[00:25:03]
and get the New York Times so she could read it. And that was the way it went, except that as he was drinking on and on, she would get home, open the attaché case, and there would be a bottle of vodka empty. And he thought, it's going, it's going, I don't remember. And he would go on, and he continued to do this, and this continued to accelerate every so often, and then he'd be all right. And then somewhere along the road, he came into a hay, and it was in a while, and a man came up to him one day and said, hi, my name's so-and-so. He said, you don't remember me, but he said, I used to watch you and your pain in Grand Central and on the station. And in the car, he said, I used to sit next to you, and I knew what you were doing with that bottle. I knew you were taking that bottle out and hurling it out. And he said, because when you did that, I took my empty bottle of vodka and put it in your attaché case. When Delora said she didn't think she'd be standing in a place like this 22 years later, I never thought I would be standing at a convention talking to women from all over the world, and gentlemen, too, of course. But this is a woman's meeting. And I never thought I'd be standing 30 years from now. I had no way that I thought I was going to be alive. When my mother said to me, who has some lovely china, I'm going to leave you my china, I said, don't bother. And that only had a lot of charm. But I said, I don't want it, because I wasn't going to be alive. My sister-in-law now has a bonanza up there in the hills, because I wasn't going to be alive. She'd take paintings or china or silver. I literally thought I wouldn't make it. And of course, had I kept on, I wouldn't have. It wasn't because I was a depressed or negative person. I just knew I wasn't going to make it. I did not think, however, I was an alcoholic. I just didn't think I was going to make it. I had a mindset that, like a lot of people, I only thought I was crazy after I came in. But up to the moment I walked into AA, I didn't really think I was crazy. I thought I was one of those people that everybody else was. I am all right. Everybody else misunderstands. I understand everything. Everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody.
And that's a hell of a way to live, because finally, you know, you're all by yourself, saying it's all their fault, and there's no one there to point at, because it's you. I don't know if I said it. I always forget. I've done this from the beginning. My name is Lee Adams, and I'm an alcoholic. I give my last name. I talked it over with Eve one day, Eve M. And she said, if you want to give your name in an AA meeting, you can. And when I first came in, we said our whole names. My mother said to me, you don't give your whole name, do you? I said, we're not the only Adams in the book, you know. She said, yes, but you don't spell it like you do. I said, next time I'll spell it. So I went to kill, and I spelled it, because I have a couple of Ds and an O in it somewhere. And I spelled it, because that was the way I was about my mother. And I was at a meeting one time down in the village not long ago, and some girl made a very kind, good reference to her mother, and then someone else who wasn't so kind and good. And by the time the meeting was over, I thought, my God, in AA, we could have a meeting called Mothers Anonymous. We just took off. We just caught fire that night about our mothers. It was incredible. I come from a family of non-drinkers. They should have been drinkers. Nobody drinks in our family.
Even my brother, who was the worst of the lot, should have been the drunkest of the lot, doesn't drink. So it doesn't hold all together as to why they don't, but they don't and they should have, and they didn't think anybody would drink, and certainly not a woman, and never a lady. So I ended up going in such the opposite direction of their kind of thinking and their kind of background and upbringing, that I ended up on a bar stool on 3rd Avenue in the city, in Irish bars up and down the avenue, Glennon's and P.J. Clark's and Breffany's and the rural something-or-other, I've forgotten the Irish name, a whole bunch of them, and I really literally knew more Irish history than I did American in the end. I knew more Irish stories than I did other stories of their background and their history and their politics. I started out terribly dainty, terribly proper, over-brought-up, to the point I appeared backwards when I came out in the big world, and I curtsied far too long, and people said, what's that?
And people said, what's that? And so I said, that's a curtsy. Don't you know a curtsy when you see one?
[00:30:00]
So, I had a tough time adjusting, and because I knew that I was different, I adjusted very quickly not to be different. And my biggest admiration in my… I didn't go to school until the 8th grade. I was taught at home. There was a boy in the class who walked around with an eraser on his head, and I made him my model. I thought he was wonderful. And those are the kind of people I followed in life. People who walked around with erasers on their heads, one way or another.
And I became a head walker around with an eraser on her, myself. And I found out that to be a clown was to get free drinks, was to get notifications and notices, and to get all kinds of things. It got me attention. I never got attention at home. I was little, and I was always sort of in their way, it seemed. So I made attention for myself. Being as how I appeared to be a survivor, I made attention.
And, of course, eventually what happens is, you don't want people to look at you anymore, and it's too late. You've set yourself up. You become a victim of your own mechanics, mechanisms, and all of that. And now, any place I went, it was, you know, here she comes, and there she goes. There's a man in New York, from uptown New York, around 125th Street, tells a story about it. And I would love to paraphrase it, but I won't. I'll tell it as he did it.
He would walk in a place, and he'd say, here he comes. And they'd say, there he goes. Is he coming? Yeah, he's here. He was in AA a year before he didn't find out his name was he. It was kind of the same with me. For a long time, I was just, here she is, and there she is. Is she coming? There she is. So I became inconsequential, even though I made a lot of noise. Because what I suffered was, like all of us suffer, is a story of loss.
A story of deprivation. A story of loss of humor, which is numero uno in my book. That's the Spanish audience here. It was a loss of money, a loss of faith, a loss of spirit, a loss of the heart to want to do, a loss of the dream. That's a terrible thing, to lose your hopes and your dreams. Because, God, I was a dreamer. To lose one of the things I adored most, reading. To lose my ability to read. To lose, to lose, to lose.
Terrible pun coming up, I won't do it, no. To lose, that's all. Right, that's for the French audience. So when I got into AA and began to find that there was hope, and that there was a spirit to be found, I was beginning a story of finding. A story of discovery, a story of finding, a story of looking around and finding out I wasn't alone, or finding out I wasn't the only one who, on both sides, one side that I wasn't the only one who was wonderful, brilliant, terrific, and marvelous, and the other side that I was the only one that wasn't drunk, degraded, negative, scared, and those two mix sometimes when you were drunk out there and there was quite a personality conflict going on with who I was and who I wasn't.
But I found and discovered all kinds of things that, once upon a time, had been me. Had been me in that little curtsy, over-brought-up treat that was in the House of the Addams. And I discovered also a me separate and apart from all of you and all of them. I found me, me with a voice, me with thoughts, me with ideas, me with a wonderment, a sense of it, which is just great to be given back to you, because it's gone.
I was like a child when I came in. I was a tough, Third Avenue, ballroom broad child when I came into AA. And I learned, at that point on up, about, I didn't learn to smile for, I don't think, five years. Laugh? Yeah, I could laugh. I didn't learn to smile for five years, and I didn't say good morning to anybody for ten years. I was a tough case. The last place I worked before I came in was at France.
And the French were very wonderful to me. I don't know what they knew. I don't know what they suspected. But I know I would come into work in the morning looking at the color of a paper plate. And I would come back from lunch, the color of every red blouse in this audience. And they would say, oh, Lee, Lee is feeling good now. That was not the word. Lee was plopsed, day in and day out. I even showed up for one day at work when I didn't have to.
And you're not right.
[00:35:00]
That's the agony of the damned, isn't it? Nobody but an AA-er knows what that's like. Well, the normal person doesn't forget. He forgets. He had a funny night, a bad night. He goes to work. He says, oh, well, it's closed. I just, you know, I started with the burning of the flesh and beating of the chest. And I walked out and had a wonderful freebie of drinking all day. I got a lot of free drinks on that one.
Do you know what happened to her? She went to work today. And bottoms up. There were a lot of bottoms ups. You know, there was dead grandmothers. There were toothaches, tooth taken out. She had a tooth taken out. Buy her a drink. Her grandmother died. Buy her a drink. She had a tooth taken out that week. You know, that kind of thing. We had a lot of freebies. You learn how to work the street. You learn how to be a lady in the street without being a lady in the street in lots of ways.
You learn how to get drinks almost by the same way in lots of ways. Being just a bit of a whore when you're a woman. Sometimes a lot of a whore when you're a woman. But we know and we don't like a lot of things about the way we are and the way we think and the way we do. Because, again, we weren't brought up for that. Not mother's little girl. I found out how to really get drinks through humor mainly.
But I had to do an awful lot of selling of Lee. And I sold me up and down. I used to think I sold me up and down 3rd Avenue. I sold me from Montauk Point, which is a place in New York way down on the island, all the way to a bar called A Street, Mary's on A Street in the village. I had bartenders equally perpased and spaced around town where I could get a free drink. Oh, I haven't seen you in a long time.
If they'd seen me too long, I wouldn't be free. But if I hadn't seen you in a long time, I would be free. When I came in, I had tabs all over town. Some I never bothered to pay and it bothered me. And by the time I was able to possibly not be bothered by it, it was truly too late that the men had gone. Many of the people I drank with have gone. And that's another story of loss. I lost one good old friend who never made it.
And I loved her as a good friend. And she was just out there floating around trying to do it. And she didn't make it. And we had been in the airlines together. And we were sitting in Longchance one morning, drunk. I don't know, it was right after World War II. I was 10. We were watching a couple of maids cleaning the stairs. And they were working, they were talking in Polish and Czechoslovakian. And we said, if we don't stop this.
And we were young, we were young women. We're going to be doing what they're doing in a few years. And I never forgot it. Why didn't I ever forget that? Why didn't I think that was too funny? We laughed. We didn't think it was too funny. But we both had a bad, bad problem very, very early. So I came into AA very early. And I always say, not because I was smart young, but because I was finished early.
I had no place to go. I had no place to go. I was eyeing a bottle gang on the corner of 3rd Avenue. And I was a half a minute away from joining them. Bottle gangs are sitting around the crates. And they were recognizing me. They were giving me recognition. And I was proud of that. I truly was proud of that. I said, that's good that they know me because they got bottles on them. Because I was getting so high.
Not only was I not too acceptable in the bars, but I didn't have the entry fee. Which, once actually you're there and you're a woman drinker, not so much of a problem. That's one advantage over men drinkers. I'm not too sure, but I think it's an advantage. I said, well, you're a drinker. I don't know if I think women and men have too different a problem about drinking. I think there are some. Because drunk is drunk is drunk.
As Miss Stein said. But, but, we have a problem. In those days, the costumes were spiked heels and skirts. And it wasn't as easy to be a drunk. Today you got pants and sneakers. New York is totally into sneakers. And you can fall off a bar stool and still look like you're something. I would look like whatever when I fell off a bar stool. Which wasn't too often. I tried not to. I tried not to be drunk when I was a drunk.
I tried not to look drunk. I tried not to sound drunk. I tried not to slur drunk. As I would like the wrong end of the cigarette in my face. Put the wrong end in here and get the big lip. I was somebody like that when it wasn't the way I talked. Now that I'm not, now that I don't, I don't have to try so hard to be anything. I don't even have to try to stand up anymore. It just comes naturally. So, I, I did want to make a couple of comments on being a woman drinker as opposed to a man.
Now I'm up here, I'm not too sure I can come up with anything terrific about how we are and how we think. I think that we, um, I think I was never, I never had children. I didn't marry. Uh, I was married to the bottle.
[00:40:02]
My, uh, ability to be a woman and a drunk were not too, too far away from me. It's just that I managed to get in lots of trouble with lots of guys. Because I was a single woman out there, floating around, and I might say floating. And, um, and sometimes they would say, but you, you're, you know, it's like I gave mixed messages, let's put it that way. Because I was drunk. And, uh, the one, I would sober up, the mixed messages weren't, weren't mixed anymore.
I would, I know that you women who are ballroom drinkers, it's a terrible feeling when you come in the bar the next day and there's a guy sitting in the bar and says, Well, hello. And now you've gone all shy. You're the shy old curtsy and you're the once upon a time boss and you say hello. And he says, sure, you remember me from last night. And I thought, did I or didn't I? Did I talk to him or go home with him?
Did I insult him or did I shoot his wife? What did I do? And he said, you were pretty funny. And I thought, oh, thank God, I was pretty funny, that's all. And then there would be some other hints and other things and I would just smile. And he'd say, you don't remember, do you? And I'd say, yes, I do, I do remember. And then you get into that and then finally you just say, oh, you know. And go after a couple of drinks, you're back to where you were and you can handle it.
And, uh, so it isn't, there are problems being a woman drinker. I don't think that men don't have problems walking into bars. But there are different problems with women drinkers, I think. And I think when we get sober. I got sober in 1955. There were women in AA. But, um, there weren't a great, great many of them. And they used to always put us in the middle. I feel right at home being in the middle today.
And they introduced us and now, he says, we found out that the gals have a problem, too. I got called a gal for the first ten years of my sobriety. We didn't become women and ladies until later on. Some of them, they stopped that somewhere along the line. But in the beginning, it was always the gal. And if I got squeezed out, I spoke for the first, the first year of my life in AA, I spoke ten minutes.
I never had any more time. The first guy would be thirty minutes. That would give the other guy twenty. If I didn't speak, I only spoke ten. I became a ten-minute speaker. At Bill's dinner, I got the same, I had to speak exactly twelve minutes to speak. And I thought I did. It's wonderful to have all this time. Now I don't know what to say. I love being in AA. It's the greatest, cheapest therapy in the world.
And the most expensive. My God, would we be brave to come in and have it. I am an alcoholism counselor. And I tell the people I'm counseling, listen, there's great free therapy out there. I'm undercutting myself, but there's terrific free therapy. Go get it. Stay with it. It's all there. The whole thing. The whole ball of wax. Because of all the steps, and what they are, and what they do, and how it is.
And, you know, the spirit, the great spirit in the sky, whatever. I like maybe the way the Indians talk a bit better than the way we do. But the great spirit that is all around us, protecting all of us, is protecting us in Montreal. Have you asked for directions in this town lately? The whole idea of a two block walk is a five mile hike in New York. The moment they say it is just a block, I say we'll take a cab.
We have walked in this town. And in New York, we consider ourselves walkers. However, God brought them in this lovely place. They've been good, and they try so hard when they have little English. And they do very well. And I do think that God's protecting them too from us. And it's so great to see us all over town, from New Zealand and Kenya, and Illinois, and New York, and Washington, Florida, etc.
And it's just a great feeling. And on the way up, and this is my last, we were driving, we saw our first AA car. It had a 50th anniversary in the window. And we honked the horn, and honked the horn, and they went like that, and we went like that. And I felt I'd been to my first meeting on the highway. It was just glorious. It was glorious and wonderful. And God bless all of us, and I thank you kindly.
Thank you. Thanks loads, Lee, that was really superb. You know, Lee left out one little story that she used to tell at this beginners meeting
[00:45:03]
that I'd like to share with you because it is obviously stuck in my mind for a long time. And that was something she used to call her matchbook friends. And that was when she would sit at the bar and, you know, you'd get chatting with the guy next to you or the gal next to you and you'd say, oh yes, we must get together again tomorrow, you know, and you'd jot the name down on a soggy, wet napkin or the back of or the inside of the matchbook cover and stick it in your pocket and then the next morning you'd say, what is that, you know, who is that?
I loved it when Lee talked about loss, only because we have not that sense of loss anymore. I was struggling so hard to keep it all together for the years that I drank that I almost lost my life and it really is a bloody miracle that I'm still in the program. And he had a tragedy in his life the other day, his mother-in-law died and by God, he was right there the next morning and he said, I can take care of my personal life too.
And really that's what it is, we're there, we show up, you know, and that's what I had to do this morning was just show up. The next gal that I'd like to introduce you to was telling me before that they call her Pizza Pat and I said, that's a kind of peculiar thing, why do they call you that? Well, it seems that when she celebrates her anniversary, rather than having a cake as most of us do, she has a pizza and so she has become known as Pizza Pat and she is from Quebec and we would like for you, please, to welcome Pat.
Hi everybody, my name is Pat and I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to welcome you to Montreal. I had the pleasure yesterday of working on the registration desk and I met an awful lot of you and you're beautiful, really you are, and I met one fellow yesterday from Newfoundland and everybody has all kinds of problems when they get to that registration desk and he had quite a big problem because his name is Stu Dee and they had put it all together and So, I told him to come to this meeting this morning, so Stu, if you're here, welcome.
They do call me Pizza Pat in Montreal and there is another reason for that, the reason why I take a pizza and I do that for my dad because my dad's an alcoholic and he's dying and he's been dying for a long time and when I was a kid, he was suffering then from alcoholism and one night he was arrested and they took him into the police station and he had the right to make one phone call and he did, he phoned for a pizza address and they thought, they brought the pizza to the police station and the policemen thought it was so funny that they let him have the pizza and there was a newspaper man there and he wrote it up in the paper the next day and my dad got a lot of free drinks out of that pizza and I was the one waiting for the phone call, you know, and I've done that to people too and that was when I didn't know that I was an alcoholic and it's for those people who don't know if they're an alcoholic or not that my heart goes out to them because I was like that and I knew something was terribly wrong with me but I didn't know what it was and I didn't know what to do about it and I thought it was everything else but alcohol because the only thing that seemed to help me was alcohol and I didn't have my first drink until I was 20 and I had that drink because I had a problem. I was brought up in a blind pig, my dad was a bootlegger in the city of Montreal here and I hated alcohol and I didn't want anything to do with it and I certainly didn't want to become an alcoholic. I saw the changes in personalities and all that as a child and when I was young I decided as soon as I can I'm
[00:50:00]
going to get out of here and start my own life and I did. When I was 14 I left and I rented a room and I got a job as a messenger for a stockbroker and I was on my way to this great new life and when I was 20 I got pregnant and I didn't want to get married to the father of this child because he was an alcoholic and I didn't want to have my child brought up by an alcoholic and I was afraid of alcoholism. I had seen so much of it and it was Christmastime at the office and I hadn't told a soul that that I was pregnant and I knew I was going to have to leave my job that I loved and I had never had a drink in my life and I had eight drinks that night and the next morning I didn't have a hangover or anything like that but I had changed already from I'll never drink to when I drink I'll watch it you know so already the progression had started. I did have a little girl and I had a lot of problems around this time because everybody wanted me not to keep her and to give her up for adoption and people were following me to take her away from me because they didn't feel that I was capable of looking after her and I wanted to and I wanted to try. Anyway, when I went in the hospital I went in under an alias. I went in as Mrs. Parent and my daughter was baby girl parent and I wanted to have her baptized under my name so I went and I wrote away for my birth certificate and they wrote back and said you don't exist so I had this problem and I didn't know what to do about it and I met this fella who was a folk singer and he had problems he had nowhere to stay and we made a deal and that's how I got married. The thing he had in his favor was he had an ulcer and he couldn't drink and also he would marry me to give my daughter a name and my part of the deal was that I would pay the rent so that's not how you people usually get married it's how you buy a second-hand car maybe but that's the way I got into my marriage and I was struggling but I wasn't drinking and I was trying to be a good mother and I didn't really know what that was because something had happened to me when I was a child my emotions froze and I couldn't express my emotions I don't know why that happened to me but I was always trying to be like someone else or act like someone I saw that I liked and I could never be myself and I couldn't show my feelings so I played roles all the time and my marriage was getting along okay until my husband and I started to get involved with each other then we started having problems and I started to feel guilty because this wasn't his child and I tried to have another child which would be his and I kept having miscarriages after miscarriages and finally I had a child and I carried full term and we had another beautiful baby girl and at 23 days old this baby died of crib death and I couldn't cope I couldn't cope at all and they put me in the hospital and I was in there for 43 days and when I came out my oldest daughter and needed psychiatric help my husband was off the walls and I was going to be chopped and put everything back together again and how I was going to do this was to have a drink now and then so I wouldn't feel so bad inside and that's how I started on the road to alcoholism and my progression was very rapid within two years I drank every day all the time and everything in my life had totally fallen apart my daughter was my mother and I was her little girl and she was seven and she told me when to get up and when to go to bed and by this time my husband had left everything was just the pits and I had only one person that I could talk to and I
[00:55:05]
didn't want her to know that I drank I was sit in your kitchen and drink drinker and I used to hide my booze in the oven whenever this friend came over and have a cup of coffee and you know I was a mess I didn't get arrested I didn't lose jobs I just went down the tubes and my daughter was afraid people used to look at her she used to sit on the sidewalk and wait for me to come home and she was seven and they'd say this kids been here before she's like she's 85 years old and she was she was had the manners of an old lady and she worried all the time and she didn't bring her friends home she was too embarrassed and you know I wanted to reach out to my daughter and I couldn't because I was ashamed and I was guilty and I was hurting and that's the way my life was and it was the same every day I got up I went to work I drank I came home I drank I did the same thing the next day sometimes I played sad music and felt real sorry for myself you know but that was it and I had got a job with the biggest stockbroker in the world I just bluffed my way in and said I could do it and I didn't know if I could do it or not and they had made me order controller for all these orders and I needed a drink to be able to do my job and I remember I had met this fellow Rick who was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and he worked at this company and I had said to him you know I said I can't take the pressure in this job it makes me drink and he said well quit and I did I just went and quit and then I didn't have a job and I got you know and and I had more pressure and that made me drink and I got another job and it was so quiet at this place it drove me to drink you know and I couldn't stand it and I went to another job and you know at this other job I said I'll never drink with these people I work with and the next thing you know I was in the bar drinking with these people that I was never going to drink with and this fellow Rick had told me a little bit about Alcoholics Anonymous and you know he used to tell me how he got sober and things like that and as I was moving from job to job Rick would call me and he would say hi how are you and I'd say I'm fine and he'd say good I'll call you next week and I say what what's this guy doing and he phoned me every Monday and one Monday he phoned me and he said do you think you could do me a big favor and I said well I'll try he said could you come with me to this Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I'm the speaker and I need some moral support and I said okay I'll go and I went with him and I went to all the people in the meeting and I said I'm not an alcoholic you know I'm helping this guy he looked at me and they said that's nice lady you know and at that meeting I met a man named Jack we call it we called him the Godfather in Montreal and he had taken me to the side and he said you know you're lucky you're not an alcoholic and he said if you ever have a problem with alcoholism at least now you know where to come I said I have so many friends who need this he said take some literature home for your friends and so I did and in that literature was a pamphlet entitled a letter to a woman alcoholic and I identified with the lady in the pamphlet very much and I started to think that maybe my problem could be that I had a problem with alcohol but I thought I'll do what they do at AA I just won't drink and that's what I decided to do the next day What I decided to do the next day.
Well, by that evening, I had forgotten about the whole thing, and I was in the bar. And every Monday, Rick was phoning me and saying, Hi, how are you? And I'm saying, I'm fine.
[01:00:02]
He'd say, good, I'll call you back next week. And I was always one of those quiet drinkers who sat in the corner, didn't make any waves, drank until I was ready to pass out, and then I took a cab home, you know, because I didn't want anybody to see me as an alcoholic or as a drunk. And then I'd go home and drink at home until I passed out. You know, I had my last drink with those people that I was never going to drink with, but this night, I had changed.
I had all these feelings that were coming out, and I didn't know what to do with them. And the alcohol wasn't helping anymore. And I didn't know what was going on inside of me. And I couldn't talk to anybody. So I started telling all these people that I worked with exactly what I thought of them, which wasn't too much. And at the end of the evening, it was two o'clock in the morning, and I was alone with four big shots from the company.
And I was telling them they ran the company all wrong, and I knew who they were sleeping with, and they were going to be sorry they ever drank with me. And, you know, one of them said, come on, I'll take you home, Pat. And he had this beautiful baby blue Continental car, and I threw up in it. And I threw up all the way to Dorval, where I live. And I got out of that car, and I didn't know where I wanted to be.
I didn't want to go back into this car. I didn't want to go back into my house, because I had asked a friend of mine, my daughter, I said I'd be home at eight o'clock. It's now nearly three in the morning. I didn't want to go in there. I didn't want to be anywhere. And it was like I saw what was happening to me. I saw my life just going down the drain, and I saw that alcohol was playing a big part in that.
And I went in the house, and my friend said, your daughter's very sick. She has a temperature of 104. And I went to her bed, and she was burning up. And I remember taking towels in the bathtub and putting them on her body, and the steam was coming off her body. And I started to cry. And I had never been able to cry for seven or eight years. I couldn't express my emotions. And I cried from within myself.
I sobbed. And I fell asleep like that, crying. And I didn't believe in God. But I said, if there's a God up there, you better help me, because I can't do this anymore. And I fell asleep. And the next morning when I woke up, my daughter was already playing around. It was like she had never been sick a day. And I had one thought in my head, and that's to phone this fellow, Rick, and see if he could help me.
And I phoned him, and I said, hi, it's Pat. And he said, hi, have you got a problem? And I said, yes, I do. I think I drink too much. He said, not you. And I said, could I meet you for lunch? And he said, yes. I said, 10.30 in Central Station. He said, 10.30, that's kind of early for lunch. I said, if I don't go at 10.30, I won't go. And he met me at 10.30, and we had lunch. And I asked him to help me.
And he said he would help me if I helped myself. And he promised to take me to a meeting that night. And I met him that night. And we went into this meeting hall. I don't even know where it is. And there was this fellow, Jack, the godfather, standing right at the door. And he opened up his arms, and he said, welcome home, Pat. And he remembered my name. And I thought, this is a miracle. All this is a miracle.
And I was so confused when I went to AA at the beginning. I didn't know what was going on. And I was very paranoid, because without the alcohol, my nerves were terrible. I couldn't sleep. And they'd say these things to you, like nobody ever died of insomnia. And I said, yes, I am dying of it right now. And all these things they'd say to me. And they made me sit in the front row. I always had to sit in the front row.
And they'd say, sit down, shut up, and listen. And I'd do it. I'd sit there. And I'd say, can I move now, you know? And I always hung on to this fellow, Rick, at the beginning, because I was afraid of everyone. And I used to go around the meeting.
[01:05:00]
It was summertime in June. And I'd hold on to his short-sleeved shirt. And I'd hang on. And we'd walk around the meeting like this together. And I used to say, please, if you have to go to the bathroom, go before we go to the meeting. And I just didn't want to be alone. And I didn't know what was going to happen. And I didn't like the big shots that were up at the front. I was afraid of them. And I used to think the GSR was the guy from headquarters who reported you if you drank to New York.
And I didn't like him at all. And I remember saying to Jack one day, I said, when do I see this big book? He said, what do you mean? I thought the big book was a big, giant book that went all over the place and that everybody wrote their story in there. And I would get to read the whole thing. And he said, no, no, no. And he gave me the blue book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he wrote in it. And he said, this is your big book.
Read it. And I started to read it. And I was very frightened. And I didn't know if I was going to make it. But I wanted to try the 90 meetings in 90 days. That's what I said I'd try. And halfway through that, I was five weeks sober. Rick came and he said, I've got to tell you something. I'm being transferred to Oshawa. And I can't be your sponsor anymore. You'll have to go to AA on your own. And he gave me a meeting list.
And he said, if you want your sobriety, you're going to have to work for it. And he had become a superhero to me. And I was so angry with him. And I went home with this meeting list. And I had a bottle of Southern Comfort hidden behind my drape. And I took out the Southern Comfort and I put it on the kitchen table. And I had this meeting list. And he had given me a dime. And he said, if you want a drink, phone your sponsor first.
So I phoned him. And I said, hi, it's me. I'm going to drink. He said, some people are sicker than others. And he hung up. And, you know, that really made me mad. And I looked in that meeting list. And I lived in suburbia. And I had never gone to any of those meetings in suburbia. I had always gone downtown meetings with Rick. And, you know, Rick would say, get in this yellow car that's picking you up and you'll get to a meeting.
And I'd get in this yellow car and I'd get to a meeting. And he'd say, get in the blue car over there. And I'd get in the blue car and I'd get home, you see? And so I looked in this meeting list and I saw that there was a meeting right down the street from me. And I knew there was no alcoholics in suburbia. I just knew. And I thought, I'm the only one. I never saw them out there at all, you know? And I went down the street to this meeting.
And I was angry. And I said, I'll show him. And I went into this meeting hall. And it was a big meeting hall. And there was a coffee pot there. And there was chairs. And it was a big sign. And it said, welcome. Now you're not alone. And I was all alone. There was nobody there. And this little man came out from the back. His name's Arthur. And he came out and he said, are you a newcomer? And I said, yes.
He said, come and cut all these donuts up over here. And I cut up all those donuts. And he said, now put all these ashtrays on the chairs. And I did that. And I said, could I sit with you? Because I'm nervous. And he said, yes, I could. He said, I said, can you be my temporary sponsor? And he said, yeah, OK. And I was really relieved, you know, because I could go around with him now. And I went home, eh, and I phoned Rick.
And I said, you're fired. I have a new sponsor. And that's how I started. And, you know, it's been a long road and a lot of growing up. And I still got a long way to go. And I just do it a day at a time. That's the only way it works for me. And it seems to me that what I do is I say, if I get through this, I'm going to be OK.
[01:10:00]
And I'm going to be OK. And I'm going to be OK. And I'm going to be OK. And I'm going to be OK. If I get through this, I'm going to be OK, you know. And my sponsors, I've had some great sponsors. I have a wonderful sponsor today. And, you know, she says, take it 10 minutes at a time. And that's what I do. And I seem to be able to get through anything, as long as I don't drink and go to meetings. And, you know, I've started going to women's retreats now.
And I love them, you know. And I used to be afraid of women. I used to think they were competition. Now they're my sisters. And I love it. And I've learned more from women than I have from anybody else in my whole life. My life has changed so much since I first came through those doors. I worked for stockbrokers for years. Now I am a stockbroker. And my daughter had her sweet 16th birthday party last week with 150 kids at the curling club.
You should have seen it, you know. But she's not my mother anymore. I'm her mother. And she's the little girl. And she's a lot taller than me. But it seems to me that we're both getting younger all the time, you know. It's beautiful. Today I believe in God. Today I have someone in my life who I love very much. I could never have anyone in my life for any length of time and have any stability. Today I have that.
And all of these things have come really slowly. And you know, they say to me, have patience, have patience. And I feel like I've been having patience forever. But it's working. And I'm very grateful for that. And it's because of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that I'm sober today. And that program is made up of all you people. And you are the ones that have done it for me. And I really want to thank you for that.
I'd just like to close with the first thing that I ever remembered from any meeting I ever went to. And that was the meeting I went to when I was supporting the speaker. And all I remember is the thing that Rick said at the end of his talk. And I think it's the little thing that gave me some hope that maybe AA could help me. He said, I'm not as good as I want to be. I'm not as good as I can be. But I'm better than I was.
Thanks very much, and God bless. Thank you. Thank you very much, Pat. That was really a very moving story. Makes me kind of dewy-eyed. When Pat was talking about when Rick would call her and say everything was fine, it reminded me so much of myself in my early days of sobriety. I would walk into the meeting every day and flash a smile at everybody. And they'd say, how are you? And I'd say, just fine.
And I was just fine for two years. And I really thought I had it all wrapped up. I really knew what this program was all about. And I had memorized the steps. And I really was right in there. And one of the pleasures was, of course, that because there weren't too many women in my group at that time, that the guys used to take me out on the speaking circuit. And I was permitted to speak more than 10 minutes, though.
But at the end of two years, which was my crucial point, I walked in one day to the mustard seed. And some gal said to me, how are you? And I said, shitty. And she said, that's nice, because they never heard me say anything. But I'm fine. And I just totally fell apart. And I was really some mess. And that was what I needed, I guess, for me to really get those steps at an emotional level. And that was not easy, but it was my lifesaver.
This has been an absolutely wonderful meeting. I really have enjoyed every second of it.
[01:15:01]
Being a has-been trustee, what they do with the old-timers, when they send us out to pasture is we cut the donuts and we put the ashtrays out and we set up the chairs and we do whatever else has to be done. And I'm really fortunate and delighted to be able to say, and there are some, I think, some people in the room who have asked me to chair a wonderful new little meeting that I've just, a group that I've just joined.
And so it's back to basics, back to the beginning, and that's what it is a day at a time. It's right back to the basics all the time. Just don't drink and go to meetings. We hear it over and over, and that's the basis for it all. That's the beginning. I would really like it if you would help me in sharing our enthusiasm with our speakers, and then we can close with the Lord's Prayer. Amen. Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Amen.