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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – GROWING UP – RS 06359.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-growing-up-rs-06359.mp3 Duration: 01:17:43
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and the Serenity Prayer, God. There may be someone here who is not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and films. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker or indeed any AA member be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meeting.
The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. And our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personalities. My name is Mary Jane and I'm an alcoholic. I'm from Seattle, Washington. My home group is the counterbalance group that meets on Queen Anne Hill on Wednesday night at 8 o'clock.
I hope you'll join me some Wednesday night. Yeah, let us know the coffee maker gets nervous if she has too many new people. I was going to tell you my name was Peter Pan. And then I was from Never Never Land. But my sponsor said I couldn't do that. As a matter of fact, she said grow up. I'd like to introduce you to our first speaker. A man from New Jersey. And he's going to be the first one to acquaint us today with the policy of growing up, Frank.
Hi, everyone. My name is Frank and I am an alcoholic. Hi. It's really wonderful to be here. And it's really powerful. This is something else. Before I get into my talk, on behalf of my home group, the Fort Lee, New Jersey, Friday night step and discussion meeting, we'd like to send our love and our sobriety to you. And we invite you down from whatever state or country. And please join us on Friday night.
We'll take you out for coffee afterwards. So that's the date, okay? Growing up. This is something I feel very qualified. Growing up. This is something I feel qualified because I had a hard time growing up. And when I came to AA, I was 26 years old. Now, technically, I was supposed to be a man at 26. But emotionally, I was living with my parents. I was not paying rent. I gave them a few dollars. Big deal.
I did not know how to cook. My mother was still washing my clothes. I didn't have a checkbook. In other words, I was an emotional basket case. Because if my parents would have died at that age, I didn't know how to take care of myself. So besides my drinking, I was grossly immature at age 26. Today, I'm 43 years old. I'm 16 and a half years sober. My life is very manageable. I have no real problems.
I've been self-sufficient now for a number of years. I feel very good about myself in just about every area. And that came about by working the 12 steps of AA. And that's something I'd like to talk about. In fact, Bill talks about in his book, as Bill sees it, on the first page, it's called Personality Change. He talks about in AA, he says many times you hear in AA that we are only interested in alcoholism.
He says that is not true. And he goes on to say that in order for any alcohol to stay sober for any period of time, they have to undergo a profound personality change. I believe that change has a lot to do with growing up. I know it did in my case. He also talked about something about change. And I'd like to read this from, as Bill sees it, it's called The Essence of Growth. And he says the essence of all growth is the willingness to change for the better
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and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.
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And I'd like to share my 16 and a half years of shouldering some of that responsibility. I came to AA when I was 26. I loved to drink. I didn't want to stop drinking. But I was told that if I didn't stop drinking, that I would slowly deteriorate, if I was lucky, or die quite a bit. I didn't like responsibility. I got sober at St. Francis of Assisi's church. I was 12-stepped by a priest, a Franciscan priest who was also in the program.
And I remember he told me something about alcoholism. He said, you know, alcoholism is a disease, and one out of 12 people become an alcoholic, so you're not responsible for getting a disease. So I felt good about that because I was used to not taking responsibility. But then he said, but you are responsible for your recovery, and there is a recovery, and that is in AA. And at that time, at 26, I figured if I can't do anything with my life, at least I can take responsibility from preventing myself from killing myself through booze.
And that was the first step that I took in terms of growing up, was I took responsibility to stay sober. I had a lot of confusion about my life besides my drinking, and I was told by the old-timers, and I was very fortunate. I got sober in New York City, and when I got sober, Bill Wilton was still alive, and I saw him, I met him twice. Marty Mann, one of our great ladies, she was very active in AA.
I met her, and I shared a lot of, I was very fortunate to be there with a lot of the old-timers, and to hear it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. I was told the first year just to take responsibility for my alcoholism, not to make any major changes about anything, just to stay sober. And I also learned about this thing called surrender. In my immaturity, I wanted to drink. I thought that I was indestructible.
I think most children feel indestructible, too. When I surrendered to alcoholism, not only was that helpful and helped me save my life, in other words, I didn't kill myself through drinking, but in terms of growing up, in terms of reality testing, it really sort of helped me accept reality on reality's terms. And the reality was, I was an alcoholic, whether I liked it or not, and I couldn't drink. It wasn't a matter of whether I should or I shouldn't.
I couldn't drink. And that, by accepting my alcoholism, by that surrender process, it also helped me to accept other things in life that I didn't want to accept, like breakups in relationships, disappointments in life, and things like that. It helped me quite a bit. So the whole concept of surrender was very important in helping me grow up. The next thing was, I was, as described in the big books, alcoholics are self-willed, run riot.
I was used to doing things my way. And I was told, this is the recommended or the suggested way of doing it. So another thing in growing up was I had to learn to do it your way. And I had to learn that I couldn't be King Baby and have it my way all the time. I had to learn to do it other people's ways. So I had to also learn to keep an open mind and to learn to do suggestions that I didn't think that I didn't like.
So I had to learn to do that. And that was very important in terms of helping me grow up. Another important concept was commitment. I was very wishy-washy. I couldn't make decisions. I used to just go with the flow. And as a result, my life really didn't materialize into much. AA taught me, people in AA told me, if you want to stay sober, it's not a matter of you think you'll stay sober, it's a matter of making a commitment to stay sober.
And in Brooklyn, New York, another place I got sober, there was a saying that you don't drink even if your ass falls off. And if it falls off, you put it in a paper bag and you take it home with you. Now that there is really a commitment. That's no wishy-washy thing. So when I was told that, I said, man, they're not fooling around here. But I made that commitment. And believe me, there were many times my ass fell off, but I took it home with me and I didn't drink.
And by making a commitment to AA, I also made a commitment to life itself, to my life. And I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Sobriety and my life went hand in hand. I have no life without no sobriety. This is what I found out. So that commitment strengthened me. It also helped me to grow up, to shoulder whatever problems I had at the time. After the year of sobriety, I realized that my commitment was pretty well in check.
I wanted to stay sober. When I first came, I didn't like AA. And I said, how often do I have to go to AA meetings? And they said, keep coming to AA meetings until you want to go to AA meetings. And by a year of sobriety, I wanted to go to AA. Nobody had to tell me. I just wanted to go.
[00:10:01]
So I felt pretty good about my alcoholism, that I was willing to stay sober and I wanted to stay sober. And I was doing a lot of work about it. I was going to meetings and getting active in the program. But then I had to look at my other life. I was still living at home with my parents. I was over 27 by now. I had a two-year degree. I drank myself out of college. I was working basically as a glorified clerical job.
I wasn't making that much money. So I had to… You can't hear it? I'll try to talk louder. I don't know if there's anything wrong with this mic. All right. But anyway, I was told by other people, especially my sponsor, that I was responsible for my life and that my parents weren't going to be around forever and the world wasn't around to take care of me. That I had to take care of myself. And this is something that was very frightening to me because I guess I was too busy drinking to concentrate on this.
So I had to accept reality. And reality was I had to do something about my life to grow up. I didn't know what to do. And, of course, AA came in to help me. At that time, in Manhattan, at the 24th Street Clubhouse, there was a group that formed called Creative Evolvement that meant all AA people, they met there to share their experience, strength, and hope in terms of jobs, situations, or problems.
So I got involved with that. And I also got involved with vocational searching. And after a year of going to this vocational searching thing, I realized that I needed more education and I went back to school. I had to go back to school, otherwise I never would have made any money. And I also didn't think I was smart enough. Alcoholism sort of told me I wasn't smart enough, told me I was stupid. It told me a lot of things about myself that I believed.
They were false, but I believed them. Alcoholism is a terrific robber of a lot of good things. So I didn't like myself. I thought I was stupid. And when I was told to go back to school, I didn't think I could do it. But AA said, All you have to do is go to school one day at a time. And as far as writing reports, you have to write one sentence at a time. Well, in the process of doing that, I did go back to school and I got a bachelor's degree.
In fact, I even went on and got a master's degree also. So I have a graduate degree, which is something I never thought would be possible. As a result of that, I got better jobs. So financially, I'm in pretty good shape. I have no real financial problems. I've been able to manage my finances good. And I feel good about that. I grew up in terms of taking care of myself. I know how to take care of myself now.
I know how to survive in the real world. But there are other things in terms of where I had to grow up. And that was I had to grow up in terms of relationships. One of the first relationships that I was confronted with was the relationship to myself. In my immaturity, I thought that I had to be superhuman. I thought I had to be perfect. I went from feeling below you to above you. I never felt together with you.
I never felt equal to you. In sobriety, I've learned that I don't have to be perfect. All I have to do is easy does it, do the best I can today and just have to be average. I don't have to be special. I don't have to be unique. And that was a big load off my back. So I started feeling good about myself. Through my act of alcoholism, I hurt the people that were closest to me, the people that I loved the most, my mother and my father, especially my father.
When I got sober, my mother and my brother were very happy that I was sober. And I made amends to them, and it was no big deal. They were just glad I was sober, and they were happy. But my father, we had a hard time. I felt very bad about that because he's a terrific man. And they get sick. I believe they talk about alcoholism as a family illness. There's no alcoholism in my family. But they got sick because of my alcoholism.
My parents were aging before my eyes. They were just deteriorating because of my drinking. So when I got sober, I wanted to try to help them. They didn't want to go to Al-Anon or AA. They didn't want to come to AA. But anyway, I just kept on trying with the help of my sponsor and you people, kept on trying to do the eighth and ninth step with my father. It took seven years for him to understand what I was trying to say to him.
When I graduated, because many years, he just didn't want to talk to me. He just said, you know, you're sober, great. Just do your own thing. And I felt very bad about that because I felt, I love my father, and I felt distant from him. And after seven years of sobriety, when I graduated graduate school, he came and graduated Fordham University. School. He came, I graduated Fordham University at Lincoln Center and he was there with my mother
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and after graduation he came up to me and he gave me a card, graduation card, I've been checking it and he shook my hand and he kissed me and he said, I'm proud of you. That's all I wanted to hear. That's all I wanted to know and ever since then we've had a nice relationship. I really needed to hear that from my father and in my immaturity I thought my parents were just parents. I didn't know they were people and they had a hard time growing up too and I was always wanting things from them. I didn't realize that I had a gift to them and one of the things I had trouble doing was expressing my feelings to them. In sobriety I could tell them I love them. I could tell my father I love him and look him right in his face and say that and I think that's important for parents to hear that. I know it wasn't for me to hear it from my father. So I've learned to talk freely about, I've learned not to be so afraid of feelings, especially feelings of love.
I was afraid of those feelings at one time. The other growing up I had to do was in relationships to you. My friends, male friends, that wasn't too bad. I got along pretty good with male friends. I learned that they're, you know, guys are sort of, I grew up with a lot of friends in Brooklyn and so that was pretty easy. I learned it was a give and take thing. I've learned that in order to be a friend I had to be a friend too and it turned out pretty good. Problems I had with relationships with women. I had twisted ideas about relationships with women, especially romantic relationships. I thought that once you fall in love you live happily ever after. I didn't know.
You didn't tell me that wasn't true. I found out the hard way and I was very angry and disappointed especially at women. I blamed them. Obviously I wasn't honest with myself. So it wasn't me, it was it was women. I've learned that relationships, that women are people and just like you and I myself have the same meaning. I'm gonna get in trouble with this. I'm gonna get in trouble and I've learned that a relationship is a give and take and also needs a lot of taking care of and a lot of tendering and a lot of responsibility to see that it works and that it grows and it takes a lot of maturity. So I've done a lot of progress, made some, not a lot, I made some progress in that field. Finally one of the biggest relationships that changed, which was the most powerful relationship that changed and the most healing and the most everything, was the relationship to my God. And in my immaturity, the God that I, of my understanding, was a big daddy in the sky with a ledger book and if I was good he threw me a few benefits, if I was bad he zapped me. And I learned to grow up today through the process of getting sober, working the steps, sharing religious, I mean spiritual readings. Today the God of my understanding is an all-loving God, is an all-forgiving God and is a God that's always present in my life to give my life meaning, courage and everything and probably the only thing I could do wrong to my higher power is not just to talk to him and ask for him.
And that's been a big change in my understanding of sobriety. Finally, I, well I guess what I'm trying to say is my recovery was basically a process of working the 12 steps, which I continue to do. The meeting I belong to at Fort Lee Friday is a step meeting, just keep on going through the steps. Every week we go another step and I keep on doing this. I just like to sort of end by reading something from Bill, as Bill sees it again, it's called A New Life. He writes, is sobriety all we are expected of a spiritual awakening? No, sobriety is only a bare beginning. It is only the first gift of the first awakening. If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on. As it does go on, we find that bit by bit, we can discard the old life, the one that did not work for a new life that can and does work under any conditions, whatever. Regardless of worldly success or failure, regardless of pain or joy, regardless of sickness or health or even death itself, a new life of endless possibilities can be lived if we are willing to continue our awakening through the practice of AA's 12 steps. Man, that is some, that is very powerful. Dr. Bob also described the AA program as love and service. I believe
[00:20:09]
that growing up is all about love and service, that maturity is about loving and serving and I have, this has been just an unbelievable experience for me to be in AA. I'm very proud to be in AA and I don't miss drinking at all. I don't miss drinking at all. It's been an incredible experience and the best part is it gets better as we go on. It's time for me to end, so I'd like to just say that I want to thank you for my sobriety and for helping me to grow up and let us always be there to hold each other's hands and to hug each other as we grow up together. Thank you very much. God bless you and I love you.
Thank you, Frank. It was a wonderful talk. I'm celebrating my 13th anniversary here at Montreal. Thanks to you. My home group sent me with a package and they said don't open it until after the first speaker, so I'm opening. T-shirt says, I may grow older but I'll never grow up. The instructions go on to say, and for gosh sakes, buy the tape. We want to know how to help you when you get back. My loving home group.
Our second speaker will speak with us on growing up is Marie, and Marie is from South Carolina. I'm Marie Lucas and I'm an alcoholic. I'm Marie. What's the matter with the mic? My cheering section's in the back row. Phil and Nancy, if you can't hear me, let me know. Did I tell you I'm Marie Lucas? What a beautiful crowd. I have to introduce you to the reason I drank before I start. His name is Hollis Lucas and he's an alcoholic.
One look at him and now we can all go home, all right? Well, when I got the letter from New York, I decided to go like that because I didn't want to grow up. I'm having too much fun this way. Those of you that don't have seats, there's a little more floor space up here if you'd like to lay down on the floor. I was born and raised in New York City and I've enjoyed meeting a lot of the New York and New Jersey people because they talk like I used to.
But if you listen carefully, you can still catch a little twang of it and it's been kind of fun. I didn't grow up in a hurry and I rebelled against the discipline of my parents right from the start, so right after high school on Long Island, I left home. What else? I'm not going to do it their way. And I moved to Washington, D.C. and I grew up through the war years and I learned how to drink and I had a lot of fun.
But I still didn't grow up as we know growing up today. Alcohol did for me what I could not do for myself. I could mix better, I could talk better, I could dance better, I could make better love, I could do anything in the world much better with the use of a drink.
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So for 21 years, I leaned on alcohol and I leaned very heavily with an ego that wouldn't quit. And I was the kind of a wife, and I have to tell you that I have eight living children and no, I'm not Catholic. I'm a prolific Episcopalian. I'm a prolific Episcopalian. So for about 21 to 22 years in my marriage, and oh I gotta differ with you, marriage works, we'll soon celebrate 40 years. But through the first 21 or 22 years in my sobriety, with the use of alcohol, I was the best wife and the best mother that I could be.
And it really wasn't great, as I know great now. My ego got me into much difficulty, to the point of writing checks with my own name on them, nothing would ever happen to me. The big I that we read about in the big book, the self-will run riot. But I thank my God that he worked with me, and I thank my God that he worked with me to make me self-will run riot. But I thank my God that he worked through the court system in Ohio.
And my probation was revoked, and I was sentenced to a year at the Ohio Reformatory for Women for Checks Insufficient funds. This lovely seven and a half month pregnant 39 year old woman, there it went. But you know what, I grew up in a hurry. I was introduced to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I've not found it necessary to take a drink ever since, and that was January 1st of 1963, and for that I am grateful.
And then all of a sudden, a year later, you put me back out on the street with a program, and I didn't know what to do with it. And you directed me, and you carried me on a satin pillow and told me exactly everything, what to do, when to scrub the kitchen floor, when to make drapes, it's time you made some dresses for the girls. They told me everything to do. And the reason I have a pretty white suit on today is they told me when I was going to get up behind the podium to put on my best, and I've got my best on, and here I am. I became acquainted with eight children all of a sudden. Do you ever get married and have eight children dumped in your lap? And I couldn't sneak a beer on the ironing board, and I couldn't sneak a shot of cognac, and I couldn't have a glass of wine. You know, I drank wine for a lot of years because I was anemic. I'm still anemic, and I drank it by the gallons. But I became acquainted with my husband and my children for the first time in my life, and they told me that rejection was possible, and I was rejected by one or two of them, and that's okay. They had to do their thing and find themselves, and she did, and she's a lovely young lady today. I took my place in the community. I voted for the first time. Now, that's a nerve-wracking experience. You know, you're 41 or 42 years old, and you're voting for the first time.
I never had time before that. I was busy drinking. I taught Sunday school. I had a Girl Scout troop. What else with seven daughters and one son? And you know, one of the most important experiences in that first year that I was on parole was taking the Girl Scout troop camping and saying the Lord's Prayer when they were all in their little sleeping bags getting ready to go to sleep. They said the Lord's Prayer.
They said the Lord's Prayer, I kneeled there and I bawled like a baby.
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This was part of growing up. It was a wonderful experience. My second year of sobriety, outside the walls, I was told to get active in service. And boy, I grew up in a hurry. That's when you get the thick skin. And if they're talking about you, it's okay. That means you're busy enough. But I had to work these twelve steps the way they suggested to me. I had worked a few of them my first year of sobriety.
But when I got out and got some of these tough sponsors, and we had tough ones years ago, they didn't mollycoddle me too much. They told me there were twelve months and there were twelve steps. And every year of my life from then until now, I work a step a month. I start with the first step in January because that's my sobriety date. And I go through and go through and go through. And I'll never get finished because I keep finding more and more that I need to be doing.
It's a way of life for me. You have taught me how to live and how to face the daily problems. The son being wounded in Vietnam. The daughter with a drug problem. You know, the everyday occurrences in a family. The husband goes back to drinking. So we go to Al-Anon for a while. So then we file for divorce. And thank God I didn't go through with it because I came to Al-Anon. And God bless the Al-Anons.
It was just after Al-Anon that I realized what I was doing. And I withdrew the divorce proceedings because I had a priest make me go through the marriage vows. And I took them for better or worse. And it was a whole lot worse. Eight kids and a car payment. For richer or poorer, he was gone for three weeks. He didn't send checks home. So it was poorer. And then they said, Marie, you're active in service now.
You recognize alcoholism as a disease? Oh, certainly. Public information was just getting its start. Alcoholism is a disease. What was the other vow you took? I took them in sickness and in health. Thank God I withdrew the divorce proceedings because it was right after that that he sobered up and we've had continuous sobriety ever since. And for that I'm grateful. It's part of growing up is becoming willing to listen to God work through somebody else.
I don't care who they are or where they are. The man on the street, whoever. It makes no difference. God works through all of you people. God worked through the court system to put me behind this podium today. And for that I'm grateful. I was just laughing at lunch with one of the Al-Anons, and I said it took me two years into his sobriety before I could kiss him without inhaling. Laughter I have to stay sober for me.
And then after six months he approached me to quit work. And I thought, oh my God, the 20 tucked back in the wallet, all of my freedom, you know. But faith without works is dead. If I don't have faith in him and his sobriety, our marriage is as good as dead. And you know it's worked. I'm willing to go out on the limb. I'm willing to take a chance. God hasn't let me down yet. And that serenity prayer, I've worn it out.
I don't know if you have. But I've used it under many situations. And God answers prayers right now if you need it. I gave him 15 minutes to help me make a decision one time. And believe it or not, I had the decision and the answer. That's a God's honest truth. It works if we let it. I can louse it up in no time at all. I could have easily loused it up. No problem at all. It's not all been peaches and cream naturally.
And they didn't roll out any carpet or rose petals for me. And I don't know what time I started.
[00:35:07]
But I've had a lot of happiness with my children. I have a good relationship with all seven girls. For some reason there's no relationship with my son. I don't know why and I don't question it. I'm there if he needs me and he knows it. We have gotten to the point, even though he only lives two miles away from me, that we do wave on the road now. There was a period of time when we didn't even wave. So I told you I was from New York and then I married the Air Force and we drank our way around the world with the Air Force and we came into the program in Ohio.
And I was sober and working in the field in Columbus, Ohio and I went along with my husband taking a vacation to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. And he went on a golf vacation down there and he came back and he said, I have a new job. And I said, I didn't know you went looking for one. And he hadn't, but again, God was working in our life. And the move to Hilton Head Island some six months later was very difficult.
They're still fighting the Civil War down there. If I keep my mouth shut, I'm okay. But it's been a little bit difficult. It was in the beginning. It's much easier now. And I've learned to love the South. I've learned to love anywhere because I have a program. Anywhere I hang my hat, I'm happy. The only time I get uncomfortable is like I did this morning and that is filing a police report because they stole the license tag off of my car.
And when I have to call the police and make one, you know, fill out one of those long forms because somebody took my license plate, I get a little edgy. But then I got to thinking, there was no reason to. I had all of the paperwork. It's my car. I just don't have a license plate. I have to tell you about my car. I drove $50 cars for a long time. And you know, my first new car was a great big Chrysler with those nice leather seats.
I deserve it. To me, that's growing up. That's growing up. I'm working a program on a daily basis and right now I'm a little on edge because my sponsor is somewhere in Vermont and I don't have a phone number. And I couldn't get a hug or a phone call from her or to her today, so the next best thing is to go and get a hug from somebody that I sponsor. And that did just as good. Thanks, Marty, for being there.
It's been a wonderful way of life. I've learned to get through death without a drink. The latter years of my drinking was as the result of a son being killed by a drunken driver. I drowned that sorrow for a lot of years. But I've had many deaths since then in sobriety, and I've been able to work through them with your help, with the help of meetings and with a program. I understand about death now.
And you know why I understand about it? Because I'm right with God. And all those years that I wasn't right with God, I was afraid of death. But I'm not afraid of it anymore. It's the graduation from life. I don't really look forward to it in anticipation, but I have a much better understanding of it now. The Lord's Prayer, the Serenity Prayer. You know, when you break the Lord's Prayer down, it's give us this day.
That's all any of us have is 24 hours, just today. And all we have to do is do the very best we can today. And that's what I'm doing. I'm doing the very best I can. I couldn't clean my plate at lunchtime. It made my husband angry, but that's okay. You know, I'm doing, I'm pedaling as fast as I can. But I'll tell you, this 61, 62-year-old woman is a lot more mature than she was some 22 years ago. And I think maturity is the name of the game.
[00:40:00]
As you sow, so shall you reap. And I try to sow a little happiness or touch somebody every day of my life. And that's only with God's help. When my dad was on his last few days, I went up behind him and I hugged him. And he tightened up and he said, what do you want? I said, Daddy, relax. I want to love you. How about turning around right now and shaking hands and making friends with your neighbor right next to you and tell them you love them as your God loves you and I do too.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you. We have now turned into a love-in, right? I'm sorry, I gave them away. I deeply appreciated… I deeply appreciated Marie's message. For me, it had a very, very tangible message. Once a month on Tuesdays, I go to the women's reformatory, Purdy, in Gig Harbor, Washington. And if one person comes out of there sounding like Marie, I'm going to be very, very happy about that.
Our final speaker is a man who has been deeply involved on the West Coast in service and a person that I have seen and been around at lots of different functions. I want to introduce George from Carlswood, California. Hi, my name is George Dell. I'm an alcoholic. Okay, you two on the floor. It's time to knock that off. Hugging and kissing around here. That's the way alcoholics are. A little bit's good and a lot more is better.
God, I about died when I got this topic growing up. Anything I may have to say about growing up is purely theoretical, let me assure you. I was told that the best talks have a good opening and a good closing, preferably close together. Boy, it's a great looking crowd. I've heard that alcoholics are pretty much above average in intelligence. I've never heard that anywhere outside of an AA meeting. It's really great to be here.
This topic of growing up just about killed me. I didn't know how to prepare for it. It's easy to give an hour-long, we do a lot of hour-long talks out on the West Coast. Ten minutes talks. About 20 to 25, I don't know quite how to describe it. It's like being a little bit pregnant or a little bit drunk. And the way I see it, for me, growing up first involved becoming responsible for myself. Second, becoming responsible to those who are very close to me.
And last, responsible to the world about me, on an organizational level and to the whole universe, to my God. And I find that the steps are really what guided me through that. I realized that many times this program day would come and when I finally had to get sober I would have to quit forever. I knew that. And I also knew that I would wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I also knew that I would wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Hospitals, VA hospitals, detoxes, all led to Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know how I didn't knew that.
[00:45:00]
But I also heard the words somewhere along there while I was still out there practicing, the words, functioning alcoholic. And I said, hot dog, that's me. Now that I can identify. That was two years before I got here. About a year and a half later, I wasn't functioning so well. And it left one word all by itself, alcoholic. And I'm really grateful for that education and that line of thought that I went through.
Because when I hit this fellowship, I had already done the first step. I knew I was alcoholic. I knew my life was not functioning, not manageable. Through that education, I'd come to believe that my answer was in this program. And I'd come to believe that I would have to rely on this program, whatever the heck it was. Whatever you people did, I would have to do it. And one night, I went to three or four meetings drunk.
I got caught. The problem with going to meetings when you're still drinking is you're in horrible danger of being helped. And I got caught this one night. And this gentleman said, George's program really works better if you don't drink. And I went to my usual bar that night to think about that. I think a lot. And sometime that night, I put down that last drink. That was April 27, 1975. By then, I'd heard a few things about this program, like keep coming back.
You have to keep coming back drunk. I'd also heard that this was a program of honesty, of rigorous honesty. And a man gave me my first big book about six days after I was on the program. And he said, George, write your name and your date of sobriety in here on this front cover of the book. Now, about a year and a half later, I got my first baby or pigeon on the program. And I was pretty proud of myself.
And I bought a big book, and I gave it to Russ. And I said, Russ, I want you to put your name and your date of sobriety in your big book just like I did. And I opened it up to that page where I'd written my name in there, and I'd spelt my name, G-E-R-G-E. So you see, my big book has everything I need to remember two things, where I came from, and my biggest problem was my own pride. But you know, my pride also probably saved my butt.
The first meeting I went to, I looked around that room, and I've got this enormous pride and ego. And I says, by God, if they can make it, I can make it. And that saved me just long enough. You know, sometimes our character defects, God works in strange ways. I hated the things you people told me sometimes. And one of the things that you kept bothering me about is, do you have a sponsor? I'd already read those 12 steps, and I believed in them, but you know, I was scared to death of that, not so much the fourth step, but the fifth step.
I had some of those deep, dark secrets that I was very afraid of. And when it came to choosing a sponsor, I decided I better do two things. Number one, to satisfy my need for recognition and, you know, that pride, I would have to choose a sponsor that was well-liked and well-respected. So that if you asked me, George, who's your sponsor, I would point over there and say, that's him over there. And you would go, ooh, he's good.
Requirement number one. Now, the point of all this is that in the doctor's opinion, it says that we're childish, immature, and self-centered. And I'm just giving you a few examples of these things. And my second requirement for a sponsor was, remember that fifth step? Well, my second requirement was that it be a very, very old man. And if I were very lucky, I would tell him my fifth step and he would die.
Now, that's self-centered. Now, I did a lot of things right in that first three months, six months on the program. You know, I made the obvious amends that had to be made. I really believe I made an attempt. I made that step three decision in that bar that night. I did some looking at myself.
[00:50:00]
You know, you people forced me into looking at myself. Just by listening to your story, sometimes I would identify and do my fourth step and understand me better. And I went to my 90 meetings in my 90 days. And I tried to help people younger than myself. And I tried to do those things that were obvious that I had to do to get even with the world. I mean, even, not the way I used to get even. I mean, get square with the world.
My second six months weren't so good. And I'm truly grateful for the power of God and for the education and the immersion I got in this program by going to 90 meetings in 90 days plus and doing enough things right. Because my second six months, I got down to about a meeting a week, a meeting every two weeks. I was becoming well very quickly. But you know, that pride, that pride saved me once again.
I came to my home group, which I arrived at once every week or two, if I was lucky. And I told, called the secretary, let her know that I wanted a cake. In the West Coast, we give birthday cakes for, anniversary cakes for years of sobriety. Because by God, I deserved that cake. I did all that work, and I was going to get a cake. I tried to call Charlie, this very, very old man that I'd gotten for a sponsor that you would go ooh at.
And I couldn't get a hold of him at home. His phone was disconnected. So I called him at the Alano Club, and the gentleman there said he wasn't, hadn't seen him in a few days. So I showed up at my home group, and this same fellow, Joe, that had told me, George, the program works better if you don't drink. He was there that night. And the secretary asked me, who's going to give you your cake? And I pointed at him.
I couldn't even remember his name. And he gave me that cake. Couldn't say much about me, because he didn't know much about me. He hadn't seen me around too much. After the meeting, he walked up to me and said, George, do you have a sponsor? I said, yes, I do. Well, how come you didn't have him give you a cake? I said, I couldn't get a hold of him. And he said, well, who is your sponsor? I said, Charlie.
Well, Charlie Teeth. Oh, you mean Charlie Teeth? Yeah, that one. He says, oh, yeah. He used to be my sponsor, too. He's been dead for three months. My God has talked to me in strong ways. And I've been blessed with a powerful God, I guess. And I think that's what it took for me to realize that I was screwing around with this program. And I began to take it a little more serious. In particular, the steps.
I realized the steps were the program. I realized I had been working the fellowship rather than working the program. And I did take that fourth step seriously, and I tried it many ways. I had a lot of frustration, because I tried it many, many different ways. And this keen alcoholic mind of mine would try to avoid, do anything to avoid looking at myself. And I think that's one of the keys to this program.
I was listening to a workshop yesterday, and they were discussing, over in the early days, the first Los Angeles group, there was real battle over whether it should be spiritually oriented meetings, or whether it should be a psychological, self-help, look-at-yourself type of program. And it struck me that really it's both. The fourth step is such a strong looking at myself, finding out about George.
The tenth step is the first part of our way of life, our daily program of living. And it involves looking at me. Where was I selfish, dishonest, fearful, resentful? And that looking at myself, to me, is an absolute necessity to any growing up, to any growth, to any finding my character defects. You know, it says that there are three prerequisites, willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness. And once I get those done, then I have to jump into action.
Chapter five is not entitled into thinking. It's entitled into action. And the fourth step to me, and I love this analogy, I heard it somewhere else, is if, it's called Where's Phoenix? You know, the city of Phoenix in Arizona. And if you were given this information, now there's about 300 people in this room, and you're in charge. You're in charge of these 300 people. And you're given enough water to march these people one whole day across the desert.
You're given a map of Arizona, with Phoenix right in the middle of it. And you're given a compass, so you know which way is north, west, east, and south. And all 300 of us are put into a big jet. We've all got parachutes, and we're flowing right out over the Arizona desert.
[00:55:02]
And they shove us out the door together, and you're in charge. And we're down on the Arizona desert, and you've got a map and a compass. And you know that we're a day's march away from Phoenix. What else do you need? I'm still lacking one piece of information. Does anybody know what that is? You've got to know where you are. Now that, to me, is step four. It's impossible for me to know which direction to go, what to ask for, what to become willing to have God remove my character defects in steps six and seven, unless I know what they are.
To know where I'm at first, in Arizona, is absolutely necessary. In the same way in my daily program, in steps 10, 11, and 12, I've got to take a look at me and the world about me each morning and review each evening so I know where I'm going and where I'm at first. I become responsible to others. I think my first time in becoming responsible to others is in step three. You know, that decision in step three.
And I think a lot of people make a big deal out of step three of where it's really very simple. Step three clearly says it's a decision step. It's not a have-done step. It does not say I became very spiritual. It does not say I had a spiritual awakening. It only said I made a decision to try this program, as I understand it. And it begins with the fourth step, and that fifth step that I feared so much.
But that third step, the other side of that surrender coin in step three to me is commitment that Frank talked about. When I got to this program, and that night in that bar sometime around midnight, I made that commitment somehow that I would never drink again for the rest of my life. That's what I wanted when I got here. When I got here, what I didn't know how to not drink for the rest of my life was how to do it.
I didn't know how to do it. You people taught me it was a day at a time. And in the process of that commitment, perhaps was my first inkling of what responsibility to others would be like. Because in steps six and seven I learned my character defects. And I learned certain things about myself. And in particular, when I got to steps eight and nine and wrote down those particular people I'd hurt, those particular people I owed amends to, how I had misused my relations with other individuals in this world.
And so in step nine, I made direct amends to those people, again with that commitment. And I had to do this without any withhold, without any hold back at all. Now that doesn't mean that I'm not still making amends today, and I still don't owe a heck of a lot. But I become willing to, I've written them down like it says to, and I do them when the time is right. I become responsible to the world about me in steps 11 and 12 as I understand it.
If on a daily basis, I look at myself and my relationship, where have I misperceived the world? I think a large part of growing up is learning to really see reality and not fuzzing it over with what I want it to be. Having found where I am in step 10, I now reach out to God. And I pray, and I ask, and I listen through prayer and meditation. You know, I've had ups, and I've had downs in sobriety. And each of my downs has always been directly related to forgetting about this program that's suggested.
And it was about when I was four and a half years sober that I lost three very important things to me. My first sponsor, you know, you remember he died. And I chose my second sponsor very carefully. He also was an ooh sponsor, but I didn't choose him for that reason. I chose him because I thought he would be good for me. I liked the way he lived. Thank you. He taught me many things and got me involved in service work, very slowly at first. I think
[01:00:08]
that the twelfth step is really where we're supposed to end up. You know, if I was in the beginning, childish, immature, and self-centered, then the path of growth, of growing up, goes from step one to step twelve, where I learned to put others ahead of myself. I love where it says in step four that in dealing with fears, we ask God to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be. You know, that to me starts a thread in those steps. It was a very positive thread. And it says that I'm to look for how I can be of service. Now, I know that when Bill was asked about the difference between step six and step seven, you know, character defects versus shortcomings, that he said he just didn't want to use the same word twice. But for me, I like to make a distinction between step six and seven. Step six, to me, deals with defects of character, bad things in me that I really need to get rid of. Step seven, shortcomings, is areas where I come short or fall short. Now, if you look at my first grade report card, my third grade report card, my sixth grade report card, you will see three different teachers say one thing, George has a lot of potential, but. Now, that's what I mean by shortcomings. Those areas where I have God-given abilities, things that were given to me free, a gift, a blessing, and if I don't use them, then I'm falling short of God's will. We ask God to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be. To me, that's an enormous part of growing up. That's my step 11 on a daily basis, when I remember to. That inevitably leads me into step 12, which says I have had a spiritual awakening as a result, as a result of these steps. Marie mentioned about the thick skin we get in service, and I'm truly grateful for the service work I have been involved in, because it's taught me a lot of things. When I originally got in service work, it was, I was in my second year of sobriety, really, and it kind of gave me a transition period to understand how to really deal with people on an organizational level. And yet, they were still alcoholics, and at least in theory had the same program I did, so it wasn't quite as scary, and how to relate to the outside world through that. Later on, it just became a, after that fifth, when I was four and a half years sober, I started to say, I had a very bad time, and I lost that second sponsor of mine. He died also. And I had a relationship that ended. And I also lost a very good job, and I was very much down. And at that time was when I really dived into step 11 to find out what it was really all about. You know, the big book and the 12 and 12 both told me that there are many other fine books written in this area. And I went on about a three year search for God. I didn't know then that He was never lost. It was me that was lost.
And I learned how to pray for myself. Up until that point, I was always afraid to pray for anything but knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry it out. Amen. That was about it. I learned to pray. And I learned about meditation. I went to schools about prayer and meditation, metaphysics. I learned about the different kinds of meditation, what purposes they have, how different kinds of meditation have particular uses. Some are good for intellectual growth. Some are good for emotional growth. I learned those things.
And they all lead me to one thing, that if I am to truly become mature, or at least move in that direction, I have to be other-directed. I have to put you ahead of me. I cannot be selfish. And I can no longer be childish. But I must not forget to be childlike. Because to be childlike is why we can come in beautiful rooms like this and have fun. I mean real fun. Not the real fun I used to have. My sponsor always says, you know, Al-Anons have fun.
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Alcoholics have fun. So that's the path for me, to become less childish, less immature, and less self-centered and grab-and-take for myself, but think about you, put you ahead of me. Everything in this world for me becomes easier, in fact, including giving a talk if I put you ahead of me. If I'm standing here at this podium thinking about how are you going to think about me when I'm done, I'm going to have a hard time. If I put you ahead of me and think about can I share something with you, can I give you my love, I'm going to be okay. Thank you and God bless you.
Boy, being chairman is a fun. Lots of it. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and thought I might check it out and see if I belonged here, I thought it was getting rid of alcohol was the big deal. And about the time that I stopped shaking, which was well into my sixth month of sobriety, I began to see these little defects of characters and shortcomings that George and the others have made reference to here today. And I began to feel quite genuinely in my own heart that I was out of school the day they taught life, because I didn't know a damn thing about it. And I thought back over my life until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I thought, oh my gosh, I was one of the youngest graduates in the state of Oregon from a state school. I graduated from college at age 16. And I hurried up and I got married real fast. And I hurried up and I got kids real fast. And you know, I looked at those kids afterwards and I thought how lucky they are. How lucky they are they survived me. I didn't know which end to feed and which end to diaper. So help me Hannah, you know. And so it was just God's way of protecting me, the innocence that they lived through the experience of an inexperienced and immature mom. That first year was a son of a gun. A lot of realizations came to me and a lot of self-revealing things were brought to my attention, you know. And I sat at those meetings. A lot of those people are in this room today who sat at those first meetings with me and I thought, my God, when is it going to get better? When is it going to be the way that guy sitting over there says, boy, now it's so good. I got a new car. I got a new house. I got a new job.
Oh yeah, I got a new wife. And I always kind of kept track of them, you know. What they mentioned usually came out as the importance, on a scale of importance, the way they would mention it. Like, I got a new car, I got a new dog, I got a new house, I got a new wife, you know. She was always like that. I got a job. I was unemployable when I came to this fellowship and I got a job when I was eight months sober. And I moved from Bellevue, Washington, where I found my sobriety, over across Lake Washington to Seattle, Washington.
And I thought, oh my God, don't let me get drunk. AA is going to be different on the other side of the lake, you know, 12 miles away. Miraculously enough, I did stay sober, you know. And those people who hung around with me at the bar meetings after the meetings were hearing me tell them, yeah, I'm sober. Yeah, I got a new job. Yeah, it's okay. But you see, my husband is dying. And I don't like that. And I don't like that a whole lot, you know. And I kept waiting
[01:10:05]
for things to get better. And that third year was awful. Awful. And I heard somebody say, watch that third year. It's a doozy. And I agree. It was a doozy, you know. But in the meantime, the fourth year came along and the fifth year came along. And the fifth year, my husband did die. And I thought, oh my God, you know, what now? I didn't know you guys had given me the emotional muscle and the spiritual muscle to pull me through the hard spots. But you had. Then came the sixth and seventh year and I was frantically doing my service work. I was Washington area secretary and I was Washington area alternate chairperson and I was this and I was that. And I enjoyed every minute of it. And I got to know a lot of people in my state. And I got to know me and a lot of different states, if you know what I mean. And I kept saying, it's getting better, but it's still not good.
And I still hung in there. And this is, I told you, is my 13th year in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that job that I started with eight months sober was taken away from me this last year in February. And, you know, I know I should sound sad about that, but I didn't like that job when I was eight months sober, you know. But I was very, very frightened because I had to take care of me with my higher powers help. And so this morning I got up real early and I went down to hear the panel on freedom from financial fear. And I heard a lady say, I lost my job in February. And I immediately, she was on vacation. She had to cross a bridge.
It was a toll bridge. It cost 35 cents. And she's saying, should I cross the bridge? She was suddenly very poor because she had lost her job. Not me. I came to Montreal, you know. I went back to school in March. That took some doing. Matter of fact, one of my teachers is here at the conference with me. And we're going to go back and play catch up because we missed two days of school on this safari of AA love. I can no longer say when is it going to get better. It is better. It is better right now, you know. I realize that as many times as I've heard that we get what we need, I just didn't believe that, you know, until just recently. And people say, you're so calm. You're not working. You're so calm. I'm calm.
I heard Frank talk about broken relationships. And I've had my share of those too. And I've wondered how I was going to live through certain time spans. And I lived through them, you know. I'm still working very hard on mending my relationships with my children. It's good to hear from our speakers today the length of time and the length they went to mend the relationships with those of them around them while and during their drinking, alcoholically.
One Thursday morning, not too long ago, I was studying for midterms and feeling scared and feeling lonely. and feeling lonely. The day before, my next-door neighbor had pulled out of his carport and crashed into my car and did $500 damage to my car, and I thought, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you know. I went up to get my mail before I went to school that day, and there was a
[01:15:04]
letter from General Service Office, and I said, okay, now they're ripping the stars off my uniform. I'm being drummed out of AA, right? Not so. It was a loving invitation from Vinnie, who had been out in our area not too long ago with a forum and who had shared a lot of General Service information and strengths with us. It was a letter from her asking me to chair this meeting in this place, in this hotel, and I was thrilled.
And I said, it is better. This is when it's going to be better. It is better now, you know. It is better now. And then today, as I was sitting up here looking over the audience, I thought, it can't get too much better than this. I'd like the people from Washington State to stand up, please. These are my friends. Every single one of them has a wonderful, a wonderful place in my sobriety. We have a good AA in Washington State. We are trying to grow up there with the Indians and all the wild things that are out in the Wild West. I'm learning a lot about growing up from you people, and I do hope, I do hope that my home group can do something with me when I return. I want to thank our wonderful speakers. I want to thank Frank from New Jersey for his beautiful talk. I want to thank Marie for her wonderful sharing with us of her life.
If I had a hat, I'd take it off to George. Thank you all for allowing me to chair this meeting, and shall we close with the Lord's Prayer?