Audio
Transcript
Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – THE DISEASE ISN'T CONTAGIOUS – RS 06430.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-the-disease-isnt-contagious-rs-06430.mp3 Duration: 01:21:15
============================================================
Los Angeles. Hi. Are there any other alcoholics here today? You know, of course, Los Angeles is the sobriety capital of the world. I've been asked to sub for a few minutes until the regular chairman comes in. May we have a moment of silence, please, as gratitude for those of us who've recovered for the last 50 years of our program. Thank you. And may we join in the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to assert the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
We have a principle here in Alcoholics Anonymous, anonymity, which reads as follows. Policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and film. Thus, we respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker or, indeed, any A.A. member be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meetings. 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 A.A. principles comes before personalities. Are there any announcements of any kind? If not, we'll go right into our program. The topic is, the disease isn't contagious, but the recovery is. And the first one to share with us is Wally C. I'm sorry, you know, after 31 years, I'm not well yet. Thank you, Wally. Great talk, wasn't it? Thank you. Our next speaker will be Bill B.
Wow. My name is Bill Bluer and I am an alcoholic. Hi. That's going to be a hard act to follow. I'm really thrilled to be the second speaker. Thank you for coming here. I found out that I was going to be speaking in Montreal and I was at a meeting in Vancouver and they asked me. I had shared with a person, like I didn't go around telling a whole bunch of people that I was going to talk until about the last week.
And I shared with one person that I was going to speak here and I had said that I'm going to have a chance to talk in Montreal. And it ended up that she was chairing or leading the meeting that evening and she called me up and she had asked me previously if I was nervous and I'm nervous now. And I said, no, that's not a big deal. Why should I be nervous? It's only a talk. No. So I got up to the podium and I said, my name is Bill Bluer and I am an alcoholic and I'm really pleased to be here and I'm really happy about not being sober.
[00:05:06]
They were going to write a letter to New York and I'd have to start again. I suppose that I can either speak for 10 minutes or longer and 20 minutes or 25 minutes is really hard and if I waste enough time here, I can sit down. I don't recall any part of my childhood being a horror story. I went to school, I was fed, I had the chance for the education, I played a lot of sports, I had some friends. I wasn't really nervous at the high school dance and I wasn't beaten a lot, that I recall.
Early blackouts. The thing is that my father drank a lot, I don't know whether he was an alcoholic or not, it was immaterial to me at that time. And I just carried on through life, carried on through high school and I ended up in the Royal Canadian Navy, which I don't know if they taught me how to drink or not, they certainly helped a lot. I spent a lot of time, if I can remember, by myself and even at work, even today I still spend a great deal of time.
As a, I don't know, a loner syndrome or whatever it was. But the drinking was progressive, it just carried on and I never started to get into any kind of trouble until I was about 30. And then the divorces started and they're smashing the cars up and all that neat stuff. And when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I really thought that I had come for liver problems, like I really didn't identify anything with drinking alcohol.
And if this sounds boring to listen to, you want to try going through it. I started out with the yellow jaundice and the hepatitis, the acute hepatitis, the alcoholic hepatitis and then the cirrhosis. And I had a lot of, some of the highlights of my drinking, I had a lot of really, really exciting times. Like I never, I never really in the last part of my drinking ever set out to get drunk. I just was, most of the time.
And you know, some people would ask me, when did I start drinking? Well, when I woke up, you know, when else? You're waking up and you're vomiting and you're shaking and everything else. And what do you do to get well? You drink. That's all I ever knew. And consequently, the liver diseases. And you know, the exciting things that I did, I'd be, after I could walk, I was living in a waterfront hotel.
And after you, you know, the initial getting on a bed and being able to stop shaking and being able to walk and get on with dying and that type of thing. I would get down into the beer parlor. In Vancouver, we have beer parlors and I would get down in there and I would get the beer down as best I could. You know, and I just sit and talk to some of my friends about solving all the world affairs or whatever we were talking about at that time.
I'd fall out of the chair and swallow my tongue. It's pretty good if you, you know, if it's a dull topic, a dull conversation, you know, you attract a lot of attention that way. I can remember another time that I was lying up in the Vancouver General Hospital, just minding my own business. My heart stopped. I hadn't really planned on that that morning, you know. I didn't go to bed the night before and said, well, I think I'll get up tomorrow morning and die.
It's an attention getter, you know, bells go and the lights are flashing and nurses are running and doctors are going every direction. Rumor has it, you know. I didn't notice that happening, but apparently they said it did. You know, and there was a lot of things like that that happened to me. I mean, I could go through a drunkologue that's, you know, it's just really silly. The ultimate, the bottom line of it all is that I just got sicker and sicker.
You know, and I never ever consciously set out to get drunk at the end. You know, it just seemed to me that it was the thing to do and booze had always made me well. But it had stopped doing that, you know, I was not getting well any longer. It had stopped, the magic was gone, that euphoria was all gone. And I don't know really what happened to this day and I suspect it had something to do with a power greater than myself.
[00:10:05]
When I was sitting in that same hotel upstairs and it's 4 o'clock in the morning. That's the normal time most of us phone, it's for help. This guy had, this guy a couple of months previous had given me his phone number and the only thing I knew about him was he was a long time friend. I'd known him for 20 some odd years and he was about the only person that I trusted. So I phoned him and he said something like, I don't remember a lot of it, but he said something like, where are you?
And I said, where else? You know, we have this place called the Drake Hotel on the waterfront in Vancouver. And it's a place where, I work on Vancouver's waterfront along Shoreman and it's a place where we used to meet between marriages. So, anyway, I phoned this guy and he said, where are you? And I said, where else? And he said, do you mind if I come down? And I said, no, because you know, I, I had some booze.
I had some female companionship of description, I suppose. I don't remember a lot about that. But I had some money. I wasn't physically sick enough to call my doctor yet. That's how I used to judge my drunks was to phone my doctor. He'd throw me an emergency and then they'd stick the intravenous or the blood in the arms, whatever you needed. Throw you upstairs for whatever time it took to dry out. And that's how I judged my drunks.
Only this time, as I recall, I wasn't that sick in my opinion, physically. And he said, do you mind if I come down? I said, come on down. You know, and I thought maybe we'd share a drink or something. And he said, well, I'd like to meet you outside. So, I didn't think anything of that. I went outside and I'm standing waiting for him. He came up and he had his hand out and a smile on his face. You know, just going back a little, I could remember saying to myself, there really must be a better way to live.
I didn't know who I was talking to or even why. And then the events happened as I explained them. And he said, well, what do you want to do about this? And I said, well, I think the hospital would be a good idea. I was used to them. So, he took me to a hospital and they didn't want anything to do with me. It wasn't the one that I went to on a regular basis. It's a hospital where people, they put you in there and they give you a couple of Valium and throw you out back on the street.
And I'm a man of principle. I wouldn't take the Valium. I'd sooner die my own way. And they threw me down into a detox. And from a detox, I went to a treatment center. And I haven't had a drink since. And I don't understand how all that happened. But it did. I'm here today and I'm sober and I'm really happy about that. It's that same guy, the day I got out of the treatment center, he was waiting there.
And it's 30 miles out of Vancouver. And you know, I understand what AA's are like today. He just happened to be passing through town as I was getting out of the treatment center. And I said, what the hell are you doing here? And he says, well, I just came to see you. We're going to a meeting. And I expressed my opinion that I didn't want to go to a meeting. I'd just spent six weeks in the treatment center.
And this nice, kind man with a smile on his face and shake in my hand and all that stuff told me to shut up, get in the car. He wasn't interested in what I had to say. And that's the last time I was entitled to an opinion. You know, if there was somebody in the car that had 15 seconds more sobriety or they were sober or dry, longer than I was, the terminology was shut up. You know, I could never understand that.
I had a lot to say. But you know, it's exactly what I needed. And this God that I understand today, I really don't understand. He's a God or she or whatever, it doesn't matter to me today, that just seems to put people in my life that I can't explain. They just happen to be there when I need them the most. And I ended up, I asked this guy to be my sponsor. I guess I enjoyed pain, I don't know. And he said, no, I'll be your temporary sponsor until you find the right person.
Be Your Temporary Sponsor until you find someone that you really, you know, you'll connect up with somebody.
[00:15:04]
And that did happen. After about six months or so, I met, I heard this guy talking from the podium and, you know, and it was a guy with a couple of pieces of chalk white hair sticking up like this, and he's got a couple of diamonds for eyes, and, you know, and he loves me, and I don't know why. He only gets mean with me when I say things like, I think they're very intelligent, I try and get his attention sometimes by saying things like, I think Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me all there is to know about not drinking, and if you really want to get somebody excited, try that on them.
And the veins stick out of the side of his neck, and his eyes get brighter, and his face gets red, and he starts swearing, and wow. I never said that again. But he's a kind, loving person, and, you know, I'd like to get on here a little bit with the disease isn't contagious, but the recovery is. I work in the employee assistant field for the Longshoremen, and it's a trade union. About a year ago, I suppose it was, five years ago, I wanted this job. I just wanted it.
And I worked in that field as a, you know, as an authorized representative, working in the field with the guys, not getting on a volunteer basis, not getting paid for it, and I did that for a number of years. And in the trade union, if you don't have enough seniority because of the economic times, people are vying for jobs, and you can get rotated quite easily, replaced by someone with more seniority, that type of thing.
And I'd been at this particular dock for three years, and my time for rotation was coming up. Now, I really didn't know what the heck I was going to do. We have the opportunity of working in several different places. It's a job where, you know, you don't go in from eight to five, and it's around the clock, and there's several different kinds of jobs you can do. But because of these economic times, and I had gotten myself into some kind of financial stuff and all that nonsense, and I got worried about this steady employment, I was going to be relieved of that.
I was worried and frustrated, and I was getting – I was loose at ends, you know, getting angry at certain things, and I detested my job, which I had always liked. I was getting resentments there. I didn't – people weren't doing things right. I was just a basket case, really. And then I got in a personality conflict with a boss down there, and he fired me. Now, along the waterfront, it's not a big deal to get fired.
They – you have to probably steal four or five boxcars before they really get rid of you, you know. You get a lot of chances, you know. Something like AA, I guess. And that brought in some hatred and more resentment, and then I really – I just hated authority again. And what I'm trying to say is I was getting – like, I first came in here, I was bitter. I was starting to hate again. I resented everything.
I even carried it on into Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't like the speaker. The chairperson ran the meeting wrong. The meetings were dull and dreary, and I was really having a lot of fun. But one day, the – and this was in early September, I guess, and in October, I was to be rotated. And that started into the fear. That was added to what I was already going through. So somebody said, why don't you turn it over?
And I looked at him kind of funny. I said, what the hell do you know? Turn it over to who? And all of a sudden, you know, good attitude. And I was sitting with my partner one day, and the phone rang and said, Bill, the guy that's running the employee assistance program has just resigned. Would you take the job? And I said, no. Takes my freedom. You know, and then he says, well – and then I asked a stupid question, why?
Why would you ask me to do that? And he says, it's just like the topic here today. He says that – he says, you were a bad drunk. He says, you were one of the worst on the waterfront, and now you're an example. Would you take the job? And I said, well, sure. You know, it's like my friend says from California, Cliff Ard on promotion side, he says, there's nothing I can do to help, you know. Good God, you know.
And all of these problems just vanished. The fear, the resentment, the hate, the everything, you know. And I really hated it. I really hated it. I hated it. I hated it.
[00:20:00]
I hated it. I hated it. I hated it. All of these problems just vanished. The fear, the resentment, the hate, the everything, you know. And I really had nothing to do with that, other than the fact that I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I stopped drinking. And next Wednesday, I'm going to take a seven-year cake, which throws the death out of me in Vancouver. And things just keep getting better and better and better.
And I, you know, I don't understand it. And again, I'm told that, you know, it's none of my damn business what happens to me. It's what happens to me in sobriety. And I really believe that today. And with this sobriety that I supposedly have today, last Sunday, I was out, parked outside the Alamo Club. And I'd gone down there for breakfast, and I went out, and I got a, there's a ticket, a parking ticket on my car.
And it's, you know, like I say, it's early, no, it's Saturday morning. And it's, the ticket says, contrary to the sign on the boulevard. So I thought, well, I took a look at the sign and had arrows going both ways. So that means you can park on either side of that sign. And I'm 25 feet from the, from the stop sign and the fire hydrant, and I'm legal. I got a tape measure out there. I phoned the RCMP and told them that they'd better get down there, because we've got this horrendous thing going on.
You people are wrong. I want something done about this. And they informed me they don't send cruisers for parking tickets. They have other things to do. So I got a friend of mine. I left my car where it was. I got a friend of mine to take me to the police station, and I voiced my opinions. They were interested. So I went one step further. I, it's a $10 parking ticket, by the way. I thought I, I went up to the drugstore, and I got to have a little disc camera, and that cost me six bucks.
I'm taking this thing, and I said, I don't have, I don't have one picture. I have nine. I'm standing out there, and the people are walking by in the club. How you doing, Bill? Can't you recognize your own car? Don't take it wrong. So I'm going to court. I've got to get this $10 ticket. You know, they're wrong, and I'm right, and that's all there is to it. It's going to cost me $10 or $12 to get it developed.
I'm already up to about, and the gas, and the time, and everything. I figure it's going to cost me a hundred bucks, and all the frustration in the world for $10. A friend of mine said, well, why don't, your life must be awfully boring. I said, what are you talking about? I said, if that's the best you've got to do with your time, I mean, come on, you know. So I, that's after just about seven years, a couple more days.
That's, if you're sitting out there wondering when this thing happens, I can't tell you. I really don't know. I do know that events in my life, and the things that have happened, and the friends that I've met. Someone asked me last night, were you nervous again? Last night I wasn't, this morning I was. I just said it was a piece of cake. It's not really a big deal to stand in front of a bunch of alcoholics and say something about yourself.
Until I got out to that Coliseum, or whatever they call it there. Wow, I'd never experienced, I'd been in large crowds before, but I'd never ever experienced anything like that in my entire life. The love and the excitement, the enthusiasm, it reminds me a lot of my home group. We have a group similar to that. There's a lot of energy there. Wow, now I'm nervous. You know, because I, it's, I don't know, I just don't even know how to explain it.
The feelings that I have of what I've experienced since I've been here. It's really a great program, and a great way to live. I'd really like to stand up here and tell you a magic story, a great way to stay sober and everything. But, you know, what I really know about this program, as you could put it in a nutshell, I know that I'm sober by the grace of God, and I don't drink, and I go to meetings, and thank you.
Thank you.
[00:25:00]
Thank you, Bill, very much. Did Wally C. come in yet? Doesn't matter, she said. On May 8, 1954, I walked through the doors of the North Hollywood Clubhouse, now called Radford, and by the grace of God and Alcoholics Anonymous, I haven't had a drink since. One of the first people I met is the lady I'm about to introduce. It wasn't that year, though, I think it was the next year, in 1955 or thereabouts.
One Saturday afternoon, I was standing at the coffee bar in the Radford Clubhouse, and this gorgeous lady swept into the room. She had on a big picture hat, and she'd just been married. And she brought in a whole platter of wedding cake and laid it out on the coffee bar, and we all had cake and coffee, and that's our next speaker. She's been my great friend. She's extremely important in my sobriety in life.
She's my dearest friend on Alcoholics Anonymous. She's meant so much to me. One of my favorite drinks was Southern Comfort. It tasted good. It had an awful impact. It wasn't cheap. Alabama is the nearest thing to Southern Comfort. I'm sober. And in Los Angeles, California, where we hail from, the sobriety capital of the world, Alabama is an institution, and I want you to know, she's not a professional Southern belle.
She's genuine. Alabama seed. Good afternoon, fellow alcoholics and friends. My name is Alabama Carruthers, and I'm a grateful, happy alcoholic. You know, I didn't know I could blush again at this age. I'm so happy to be here, but I'm just happy to be anywhere. I'm happy to be alive. I'm so glad I know where I am today. Glad I know where I am today. And tomorrow, I'm so glad I'm going to know where I've been and who I was with.
Because, you see, before 1952, I didn't. I had the disease of alcoholism, and I've recovered from the disease of alcoholism. The only disease I've got now is me and my emotional immaturity and my ego that I have to smash, and all of those goodies. But anyhow, going back to North Hollywood, that was my second husband. My first husband had died a year before I was to get sober, and that was the worst year of my entire drinking.
I didn't get here from drinking a little chilled wine, folks. And I didn't burn the toast because I learned to cook after I got sober. And I didn't miss putting the wash out on Monday because I didn't do my own washing. I married a man that had all of those things done for me and more. You know, and I like that way of life. I like living in hotels. I like being the hostess for a large mining company.
I lost that job because I got drunk one night when I was entertaining all of the stockholders from New York, the major stockholders, that is. You would recognize their names if I could remember them. And, you know, the wealthiest out of New York in those days, and it was in North Carolina, and, you know, women drank, but they didn't call it that. It was migraine headaches they were suffering from or something, you know.
And the maid would say they were incapacitated and could not receive company. But, see, I went anyhow. But anyhow, I told the chairman of the board a silly little joke about the devaluation of the American dollar. It's something like your dollar right now. Like your dollar right now. In Canada, you know how. Man, he had kind of the, you know how, like we, it's just the value somewhat right now, and uh, he said that he didn't know I had communistic ideas, I want to tell you something, you don't say that to a drunk or a sober rebel,
[00:30:13]
my husband had never heard me swear, and we'd been married at that time over ten years, and I called that man a son of a bitch, and I stood up and pointed at him, so my voice would carry in this beautiful club in North Carolina, and my husband said I called him everything but a sharecropper and a Christian, my husband was one of the finest mining engineers in the country, I have been called a gold digger, and she said southern comfort was expensive, I get embarrassed in myself for things I say, I really do, because I used to tell it the way I wished it was like, and I knew I was going to have to quit speaking or tell the truth when I got to the podium, and I finally made the decision I'd just tell the truth and to hell with it what you thought of it, you know, but in here, after that night, after that night my husband said he was going to resign, I said you're not going to resign, I'm going to leave you, because he was fixed for life in this company, my husband was a number of years my senior, and he didn't resign, but what happened was with that company, they never had anything but stag parties until my husband died, because they couldn't insult him by not including me, you know I came in when it was not fashionable to hate your mother, I'm so sick and tired of people telling me that they hate their mother, you know I don't see what that has to do with the drinking, I didn't hate my mother, just before I got sober my mother wrote me a letter, and she said that she'd made many mistakes in rearing me, but they'd been made in ignorance and with love, and I knew every bit of it was the truth, and she didn't make any mistakes to speak of, you know she just thought she did, I made the mistakes, I knew right from wrong from the time I can remember, I blamed everything I did on alcohol, you know the way I acted, the things I thought, you know like I'd like to kill that woman if I could do it without getting caught, you know, and those kind of thoughts, and then my actions, my reactions, I blamed it all on alcohol, God it was just awful when I had to realize that alcohol can't think, and it can't act, and you know any of those things, and then I had to take responsibility for what I'd become, you know the alcohol was just the vehicle that got me here, I didn't like to accept the responsibility for my actions and reactions, and my thinking, I didn't like me, the reason I still use the name Alabama, I have some Missouri friends here, I got sober in Independence, Missouri, and they started calling me Alabama there, actually that was in Sedalia, they were calling me Alabama when they took me to Independence, Missouri, God I love that name, Independent, you know that's where I was freed from the slavery of drinking, and almost up to now, freedom of self, you know that's just the greatest of all the freedoms, but anyhow, I didn't like Evelyn Carruthers, well I was Brown then, Evelyn Brown, I didn't like her, I didn't like what she'd done, she made me so ashamed, her actions were awful, you know, because Evelyn had been raised as a lady, you know to be a lady, and I had the example set by all of my aunts and my mother, and I had plenty of role models and so forth, and Evelyn when she got drunk didn't act like a lady, but I knew I wouldn't have done those things sober, you know, the hell I wouldn't, I just needed that little bit for the vehicle,
[00:35:01]
but I wanted to be good, I really did, I wanted to be good and enjoy living too, at the same time, but when I tried to take my inventory, Evelyn was just dishonest, that's all you can call it, Evelyn couldn't look at herself and take an honest inventory, it was impossible, but Alabama, the recovering alcoholic, could look at that sick girl that Evelyn had been who was suffering from a three-fold disease, and she had empathy for Evelyn, and she knew that Evelyn did those things because she was a sick woman and not a bad woman, and not the moral leper that Evelyn had thought she was, and God wasn't it a relief to find out you have a three-fold disease, an allergy of the body, an obsession of the mind, and a spiritual illness, it sure sounds better than moral leper, and so Evelyn could look at, Alabama could look at Evelyn, and with the help of people in AA, especially a guano in Independence, Missouri, self-honesty is what I'm talking about, I'm not talking about the acts, just self-honesty, I had been sober long enough to start wearing a halo, you know that spirit you go through, and I don't know if you've ever seen an alcoholic wear a halo or not, most unbecoming, in the first place, they tarnish readily, and I think it's from that residue of toxic poisoning left from too much alcohol, and then they also have a habit of tilting, you know, and blinding you, and I went down to a little clubhouse in Independence, Missouri, say when I was six months sober, or something like that, and I went down there, and there was a group of men that waited at a round table because I was working, that's another story I'll tell you later about it in my recovery part, and the boys said, come on over to the table, and we'll go through the meeting with you, because you see, I had to work that night, the night of the meetings, and the boys would all sit at the round table and tell me what was said, and then they would ask me what I had eaten that day, and I had enough proteins and vegetables, and did I have enough money to go out and eat, if not, who in the group had enough money to pop the Alabama steak, that I needed my protein so I could go to work the next morning, you know, that's the way they treated me when I came in in 1952, this was in 1953 we're talking about, and I said, boys, I can't sit with you right now, I must go upstairs and see the poor sick girl, I went upstairs to see the poor sick girl, and was wearing that halo I told you about, and when I came down those steps, in a very pious voice, so I was told later, I said, oh boys, I am so glad I didn't go to the leech the poor girl upstairs went to before I got here, and Dick was a sixth grade education, pointed his finger at me and said, Alabama, what she done, you ain't done, and I said, Dick, she told every one of us at noon today, that she was a prostitute, had to whisper it, and Dick looked at me with those Al-anon kind of eyes, and he said, Alabama, what she done, you ain't done, and I said, Dick, Dick, I repeated it again, she told all of us that, and again he shook his head with those eyes that, you know, just burned, often my family has looked at me that way in my people, but really loved me, and he said, Alabama, ain't we gonna ever teach you to be honest, and I said, Dick, I don't know what you're talking about, I was frank, you know, so I thought that was honesty, and he said, self-honesty, Alabama, self-honesty, I said, I still don't know what you're talking about, and he said, I believe you, and he said, don't you know the only difference between you and that gal upstairs here, that you didn't know you could sell it, and besides, you didn't need the money, so anytime I think I am a little bit better than, or that I'm not like those girls that are coming in now, I just remember I didn't need the money, it'd be very comfortable to have it today,
[00:40:27]
but I found a way of life, in Alcoholics Anonymous, that I don't really need so much money, I found a way of life that prohibits my committing adultery, you know, I didn't know all of those things were gonna happen, but I have to live in a way that I'm comfortable with me, there's a man in this room that take me in, in Oklahoma, and he was gonna take it back to my sponsor, and I think I'm far enough away from home to tell it, but I left and went to Oklahoma City, we had been in Apache, Oklahoma, only the chosen few were ever invited to a conference there, they only had eight members, but they put a conference on, and we went from all over the United States and Canada, but anyhow, there was a man that thought I was too nice a woman to work, and he, you know, got me an apartment, bought me all of those things, and plenty of spending money, and as I started recovering, I realized I can't live that way sober, you know, and I thought, I didn't even live that way drunk, so I was awfully sick, awfully sick, but I'm sure glad I learned it when I was real new, because at the same, I had the chance just not too many years ago with the same setup, in San Francisco, no less, and I explained to him that it wasn't morals, it was just the fact that I got to be comfortable with me and what I do if I'm to stay sober, and that I'm used to walking tall, and looking everybody straight in the eye, you know, and that I can't walk, dodge people, you know, like his wife, if she hadn't seen me, you know, and his children that were in college, and God, it was a temptation, because he could offer me everything my first husband had given me, everything, except marriage, and I didn't really want to marry him anyhow, but I liked him, I liked him very much, but I liked me even better when I said no, it was possibly one of the hardest no's I've ever said, because he traveled all over the world, and he could take me anywhere but Southern California, and he was so much like my first husband, and I liked the title, I like to go with the high rollers, especially if they have any class along with it, I would like living again in apartment hotels, you know, with the maid service and everything, I live in a one bedroom apartment right now, and we're under rent control, and I hope to God we stay under it or I can't afford it, oh, I shouldn't say I can't afford it, I could if I didn't like to eat, life's good to me, I have plenty to eat, and a place to stay, and besides, I've got enough friends that I could just go visit each other a week, you know, I'll get back to that, getting sober, first I think I mentioned the title, the disease isn't contagious, and thank God I can't give it to you, but the recovery is, and I hope that some things that I may have done and said in these last 32 and a half years, and I'm impressed, I'm impressed what God and Alcoholics Anonymous could do for me that I could not do for myself, I am impressed how the newest person in this program can help me, by allowing me to let me help them, I'm impressed by all those things, when I was given, when New York called and asked me if I'd speak, and was given this title, I thought what can you say about it, I thought, what can you say about it? And then I remembered that we had a fella named Phil Gee that came into North Hollywood Group.
That's my home group, Nan. It's the finest group in the world. And I hope you think yours is.
[00:45:05]
If you don't, don't do what Dave C. said last night doing that, you better find another one. Just stay there and give of yourself to the group. And the more that you give of yourself to the group, the better you'll like your group. I got involved, committed. I had sponsors that wouldn't allow me to do anything else. But I got committed and involved to the point that I thought you had to be of service to your group.
I thought I'd get drunk if I didn't go on every 12-step call I got. Of course, now I know I can say no, but not often. And I know I got to have a good reason to say no. And besides, you see, I don't want to miss a thing. And every time I make a 12-step call, I'm the richer part. And I'm selfish. I'm selfish. I want everything the package offers. Everything it offers. And I'm getting it. I have had it for a long time. And it gets better and better every year.
God has given me a lot of energy. I'm 72 years of age and I don't feel it. The only thing I have to associate with you who are much younger because I can't go at the slow pace that people my age go. And I'm so grateful that I have so many friends among the young people and younger people than I. You saw Sybil last night. Well, she can keep up too. But anyhow, where was I? I've forgotten now. Oh, Phil G. He came into the club and he explained. Phil is from the South. And Alabama, that is.
And Phil explained to his sponsor that he did not want to drink out of those cups those people drank out of. That was them, the North Hollywood group. And I remember his sponsor looking at him and said, Phil, you can't get it. You already got it. And Phil tells his story still about himself, that he already had it and he couldn't get it from us. But you know, by example, I was so sick I could not read when I came in to AA.
My eyes would not focus. I was one of the sickest girls that ever got well in AA, I'm sure. In fact, the prognosis was death by a heart attack because they didn't think my heart could last with the way the adrenaline had been pumping for five days and nights. And if it did, they were afraid that I would have a wet brain. The doctor that attended me was the only doctor in our area of the country that was an alcoholic and knew everything about the treatment of an alcoholic.
And he told my sponsor that the prognosis was insanity and to be incarcerated as a vegetable or a heart attack, that he had never seen a woman live without one of those two things through what I was going through. And my sponsor, Walt, had been through the very same thing. I'm in the back, upstairs over an empty store by this time. I've been in hospitals all over the United States. I've had three nurses, you know, the shifts around the clock.
I've had seven specialists at one time, treating nothing wrong with alcoholism then, but I gave them good diagnosis. You know, I would hear people that were taken by ambulance to the hospital and I would learn all of the symptoms so I could get in the hospital before I got double pneumonia from, you know, when I was recovering from a drug. And I've been in hospitals from New York to California and at one time on the payroll was seven doctors, you know, at one time. I lied to the psychologist and the psychiatrist and, you know, they could have helped me. I'm not blaming anybody for not helping me because I never told them the truth. I never told them the truth.
But anyhow, my family met some Al-Anon. They'd just started Al-Anon and they told them about releasing me with love. My husband had become, we lived in Las Vegas for three years, my husband had become a chronic gambler. He already was one, but we just wasn't here. Legitimate gambling. And he spent nearly our entire lifetime saving and gambling. And when he died, I was not left as well fixed as I thought I was going to be. In fact, the chairman of the board said if I had nothing but stock in our company, that I'd be fixed for life.
[00:50:15]
But what he didn't know was that it was mortgaged at the bank for 75% of value and friends had taken it at 95% because they wanted to buy into the company. And that state wasn't settled until I was about five years old, and I thank God for that. And I drew all the money you could. It cost a lot for three nurses, ambulances, and to be in hospital seven weeks at a time, you know, and all those kind of things.
Well, I ended up, because there was nobody, they wouldn't take me in any of the hospitals around there in Missouri because I had given them too much trouble. And they couldn't find, in Sedalia, they couldn't find anyway. And they knew of this man, Walt, that had been found by Dr. Nathan. These people are dead now, so I may use their last names. By Dr. Nathan in a jail trying to kill himself, to beat his brains out against the iron bars. And they took, with the judge's permission, they took him to the doctor's basement and alcoholic men from there took care of Walt. And I had the same kind of insanity that Walt had. And I'm not talking about DTs, I'm talking about maniacal conditioner insanity.
And they took, they didn't take women in this place when I got there. But my sponsors in Sedalia begged them to take me because they did not know what to do for me. And they took me there and gave me whiskey to go, and I'm hallucinating en route, smelling magnolias in the dead of winter. I always hallucinated with beautiful music of smells of magnolias or gardenias. You know, I've been getting mundane things in life. And they carried me in head first up 12 stairs, steps. And I realized later that it was the 12 steps of recovery, you know.
And the girls came to take care of me, but they soon had to leave because they didn't know how to handle an insane woman. And the doctor told them I could kill a man twice in my life with my bare hands in this maniacal condition. They had gone as far as to ask to put me in a padded cell in the independence jail. The doctor said I was so sick that he could get me in his hospital. He'd ask you because, you know, I was that sick. But I'd have to be put in restraints. And he said I was a fighter and that I'd fight the restraints and that my heart wouldn't last if I fought.
And Walt said, Doctor, if you will come and take care of her, I will stay with her because you remember I was just like her. Doctor said, Walt, I have to tell you she could kill you. And he said, I know what you're telling me. But he said, see, I was just like Alabama. I've been there. I know where she is every minute because I've had the same kind of thinking and been just as sick as she and the doctor agreed he had. And he said, Alabama, can you understand that I love you like a sister? I said, I have four brothers. I understand what you're saying.
He said, I may have to take care of your bodily needs even for you because the girls are afraid to come in the room, and rightfully so. And he explained it to me and told me how sick he had been. And this is where recovery is. Walt had recovered. Walt told me that the doctors couldn't cure him, that he couldn't cure himself, but God could and would if he was sober. And when the doctor got there, he was on his knees praying that God would remove the obsession for him to drink and let him be sober.
So what happened was this. After five days and nights, I wasn't any better. I wasn't any better. And they said that, the doctor just said medical science doesn't know anything else to do, Walt. And Walt said, Alabama, I didn't know all of what I'm telling you then, but Walt gave me something of the prognosis. He said, it's not good, Alabama. The doctor doesn't know anything else to do. He says, I've done everything I know how to do. You know, I've prayed, your family's prayed, their churches, AA groups that don't even know you are praying for your recovery.
And he said, Alabama, could you pretend God is polite and that he doesn't come where he's uninvited by the host. And he said, why don't you try to ask God to remove the obsession for you to drink and to restore you to sanity on a lifetime basis, a day at a time. I said, Walt, you know I can't remember all of that. And he said, no, I know you can't. But he said, Alabama, why don't you say to God, please let me mean what I'm going to repeat word by word from Walt. And I said, God, let me mean it.
[00:55:16]
And I said it word for word after Walt that God would restore me to sanity and remove the obsession for me to drink on a lifetime basis, a day at a time. And in a dirty bathroom where 12 men and I were using the same bathroom, and you can imagine what the walls and everything looked like and so forth and the floor. It was in there that I heard, don't be frightened, if you'd been there you wouldn't have heard a thing. But I heard God say to me that I could be sober and I could be sane on a lifetime basis, a day at a time. And that wasn't even the miracle. The miracle was I not only heard it but I believed it.
I believed it or ran. I was so sick they didn't have time to write down my sobriety date so this guy was trying to keep me alive. I believed it approximately December the 1st, a little before, in 1952. And I have never ceased believing that I could be sober and I could be sane on a lifetime basis, a day at a time. I've never ceased believing that. I went out of the bathroom telling everybody in the hall what had happened to me and they ran in, they got in and said, come quick Walt, she has gone totally insane. And he said, what's she saying?
And they told him and Walt said, on the contrary, this is the sanest she may have ever been in her life. And he said, you don't realize that she's had a spiritual awakening. And that good God walked to me to give me a traumatic spiritual awakening. And I know why he gave me that because I was too sick to have the educational variety. But I will assure you I would not be standing here today if not as a result of having taken the first, those 12 steps that I had, the educational variety.
I wouldn't have stayed sober on that traumatic spiritual awakening but it carried me through until I could take the 12 steps and apply them to my life. And for that I am so grateful to God. I just love him so much because you see, I was the kind of kid that wanted to be a missionary when I was a child but wished I could have lived in Jesus' time and saw him perform all of those miracles. Do you realize that I see more miracles every day of my life. Look in this room how many people. I see more miracles than I have ever read about in the Bible or any other publication.
I see more miracles. Every one of us that are sober for 24 hours are a miracle and don't let's forget it. You're a miracle. I've known since that December 1st, I've known since that day that God evidently had purpose in my life. I really didn't, I was so sick I didn't know what the purpose was. And I said it to my sponsor when I was real, real new and he said, first it's just to stay sober, not to take that drink today and then you will be guided into your purpose in life.
And until I found out for sure what the purpose was, I've just done it one day at a time. I didn't drink today. I carried the message every chance I could individually, collectively or just by walking tall. You know, every day since then. And my mother at 94 and a half said, honey your childhood dream came true. And I thought mama, baby was getting Alzheimer's at 94 and a half. 94 it was her birthday. And I said, what dream mama? And she said, you wanted to be a missionary.
And I said, but mama I didn't make it. And I thought, oh I hate for her to lose her mind. And she looked at me in utter disgust. And she said, honey do you know what a missionary is? And I said, I guess I don't if you think I'm one. And she said, honey a missionary carries a message. There is a message, and she said, you carry a message by the way you live and the way you talk and the way you try to help your fellow alcoholics and your family and so forth, and I thought, Mama knew I'd have a purpose in life before I knew what it actually was, you know, she knew, and I'm so grateful for that, God, I've got so much to be grateful for, does that say 1130, what does that say?
[01:00:16]
1235, 1235, we go to one, yeah, alright, just wanted to be sure, I sure like to recover before I sit down, to show you that recovery is contagious, but I'm going to tell you my, having been this thick, you understand why my eyes wouldn't focus that I mentioned earlier, and I couldn't read the book, but you see, I didn't have to, because I saw what the book said in the actions of the people around me, I had four sponsors, all four of them have died sober, all four of them were in service, all four of them walked like they talked, Dr. Mason, Walt, Earl from Sedalia, and John B. from Kansas City, Kansas, and I like men, I've always liked them drunk or sober, but please remember in a place the size of Sedalia and Independence, 32 and a half years, we didn't have any women sober long enough to handle anybody as sick as me, and I thought that I had, and talked, bragged about how I'd had such good judgment in picking sponsors, and you know it was just a few years ago I realized I didn't pick them, they picked me, they knew what a tough role I had ahead of me, they knew, but I'm so grateful that I could emulate these people, and I started by, when the phone rang in the little club room, they'd go answer it, so the next time it rang, I would go answer it, then they would stand at the door, the doors of their respective clubs, and they would shake hands with people as they came in, I shook hands and said what my sponsor had just said ahead of me there in Independence, you know, if he said we're so glad to see you, I would say we're so glad to see you, but I've been so sick, I had all but forgotten how you acted, Walt told me it was my home, so I knew you greeted people when they came to your home or your club, you know, I knew you greeted people, and so a girl who couldn't stay sober at the time, and I was sober all of a month, this girl told me I thought I owned the place, and I said Walt told me it was my home and my club, and I said I certainly know how to treat people in my home and my club, and I thought maybe I ought to teach her a little etiquette, but I did not let it pass, and she kept getting drunk, she was sober the last I heard of her, but in Kansas City, Kansas, and Missouri was a little different, there were women that were older than I sober, but I wanted to know them well until a little bit later, but I did everything they did, if they went back and dried the dishes or washed the dishes, I did, and I got on the steering committee, and they wanted to vote that let the Al-Anons wash the dishes and clean up after snow, those things, it was all men on the committee except me, and I said that's our problem, we've been parasites all of our lives, we've just been takers and not givers, I said I would, see my sponsor told me a little bit to say, I would resent the hell out of them coming in and taking over our refreshments and everything, let us do our own work, and I knew I could get a committee that would do mine, because I had worked in a lot of civic committees, and I was the kind of worker they would make me chairman, because I didn't know how to do anything, and I went to Burlington for Britain, and I couldn't knit, I couldn't crochet, I couldn't roll bandages, anything, but they made me chairman of the whole thing, and we got out more boxes of supplies than they'd ever done before, I'm a good organizer, let's say, because I don't like to work, and do you know that my sponsors told me when I was six weeks sober that I had to go to work, and it grated on my ears, I had never worked, you know I had worked for my family in their businesses, I'd been company hostess, but that was just, you know I hadn't ever punched a time clock, I'd never gotten paid by the Ivor, you know any of those kind of things, and I asked them please spell it, it might not sound so bad,
[01:05:14]
and you know when I didn't get a job, you know I told you what had happened there, and this man thought that I was soon isolated to work, oh and they told my family not to give me any money for one solid year, and do you know my family did what they said, and they knew that I had gotten all of the money the courts were going to allow me until their state was settled, and it was a lot I had gotten out of it in that year, staying drunk all year and traveling all over the United States and in hospitals everywhere, I went with nurses around the clock, but my sponsor went and got me a job, he didn't ask me if I wanted it, I got one, I asked my brother to call somebody and get me a job, and my brother called some friends that we had in the capital of Missouri, and he asked them about a job for me, and they said certainly I would be an addition to their office, they didn't know what the hell they were talking about, and so my brother got me a job, it wasn't much work to it either, and you know my sponsors told me I couldn't take it, and I said why, and they said because we are tax payers.
I give you my word of honor, I was so sick I didn't know you had to do what your sponsor said, I thought that you had to do what they told you to do, and my sponsor got me a job clicking in Katz Drug Company at 76 cents an hour, I had to join a union, which I disapproved of doing, and I had to check in at the same time every morning as a time clock, I had to go to lunch when they said I could, I had to come back in the afternoons, they wanted me at about the time I was getting in when I was out there amongst them, I had to get up when the sun not up yet, my sponsors told me to ask God to give me the strength to get out of bed, when I got out of bed, to get down on my knees and ask for enough strength to get dressed to go to work, when I got that strength to go stand, got dressed, go stand in front of the mirror and put a smile on my face, and pretend you like working, we call it acting as if now, so help me God, I did exactly what they said, and I'm walking down the street to work, singing, and I can't carry a tune, I give you my word of honor, I don't know when I became happy, I don't know when it happened, I wondered how many mornings I had been singing on the street, I wondered when I liked going to work and didn't know it, and I thought, that was one of the miracles I recognized, I recognized the fact that I was alive was a miracle, I've never forgotten that, but that was one of the miracles I really recognized, I finished the career with that job, they told me I had to wait two years, it wouldn't be any good, my recommendations would be no good, and that my family recommendations and company hostess was no good, and I worked two years for them, but at the end of five months I've been promoted to buyer and manager of my department, and when I quit them at the end of my two-year stay, I'd done my time, they asked me to please go to Kansas City and see the personnel manager for all the stores, and he told me that they were grooming me to be head buyer, as soon as the girl got married, for the photograph records and small instruments and so forth, for 56 cats drugs companies, and I said thank you, but no thank you, I have saved my time, he didn't even know what the hell I was talking about, I had been cited by Mr. Katz himself for the record I had made in the store, but he didn't give me a raise and I wasn't even proud of it, about this time I didn't want citations, I wanted some money, extra money that is, because I made a bonus and so forth,
[01:10:08]
but I was so glad, and then this man he said, I said I can't live on what you're talking about indefinitely, you know even if that, but he told me what they would pay me, and it was the most money they had ever given a woman in the store, and he told me that, and I said but I can't live on that kind of money, and I said something about my car, and he said well you don't have to have a car do you, I said of course I have to have a car, and then I said I pay more than that, he made me a budget to show me how I could live on what they were paying me, and I said you don't understand I don't wear cheap shoes to work, you know, and I had plenty of good old clothes, you know I wore originals before I got here, I have had copies ever since, and you know it doesn't matter because I know who the hell I am, and if you don't you're just missing out, but anyhow, that man I let him go all through his little number, and I said you know we have a great many social friends in common, and he said who, I think he thought I was one of those girls that chewed the chewing gum and wore the carpet slippers, and were all the takers, not a sales woman person, and I named over the people that knew the personnel manager for cats, I just never told them that I had all these friends that were friends of theirs, you know and everything, and he said you never mentioned it before, and I said no, no, I wanted to see if I could make a living, if I could make a living, and you see I've never doubted that I could make a living, now I don't live like some people, if I've got plenty to eat and a place to sleep, I'm never at home so it doesn't really matter too much whether I have anything new for the house or not, I've had all of the material things in my life, what I want now is peace of mind, purpose in life, and serenity, and being with you, and being given the opportunity to work with many, many new people on this program, I managed to know a Hollywood group which is a non-profit corporation that owns the building, it's not a clubhouse, it's like a little central office, we open it up for people to come and sit just like this one was done in Independence Missouri, except we don't have a detoxification center there, but it's like running a small central office, and I'm in charge of it, buying and seeing that it's cleaned and stopping the fights and putting out the people that have no problem that just want to live down there, and walking between people that are about to kill each other, and the boys telling the Alabama don't you ever do that again, I said God it protects me, you know, and I know that, see I've never been hurt down there, and I'll never be hurt down there because I know I am protected, I know the arms of God is around me all the time when I'm trying to do his work, but he sure wasn't protecting my pocketbook last night, I had that lifted for me on the metro, and so did my friend Shirella sitting over there hurt, you know it was very very crowded, not AA people, we think we know, but you know they got off at the next stop, I have friends that were with us, but I have a good friend here, I have many friends that offered me money, I think last night that I could have gotten a thousand easy by taking ten or twenty from everybody that offered me money, and then I followed, and God I don't, I just, you know I don't ever meet an alcoholic that I don't know where the, the language of the heart, you know is spoken here, and I just don't ever meet an alcoholic that I don't know what, I know how you feel because I felt that way, I know how degraded you feel when you come in, and I know how good you feel after you start applying these principles in your life, I told you about this man, and see after this marvelous spiritual experience, I'm flying high, I feel warm all over, and then I realize what I am doing, and I know I can't stay sober and continue to do it, so I break off that relationship, but I have lost that wonderful feeling that God and I had for each other, God wasn't lost, but I was, and I pray that I feel that way.
I was. And I prayed that I'd feel that way again. I asked God to help me. I read everything I could think of. I can't tell my sponsors because it would injure them and others, particularly his wife. And he was the only man that could afford to keep me in the manner I had always lived, you know. And I knew they'd know who I was talking about, so I went to a minister and I skirted around it because the man was a politician.
[01:15:10]
And I thought that the minister might recognize if I said, I just, you know, if you don't tell the whole truth, it doesn't even help. And I finally said, God, I can't stand it any longer and I'm afraid I'm going to get drunk just in the remembrance of what I've done. And I said, please help me. And I'd been asleep, I think. And I had the memory of something that's very precious to me. I even remembered the incident or the telling of the incident.
But I was a little girl. I got away from my mother and father and went down 14 steps out towards our barn lot. And the men are driving the cattle in for the evening. And they're coming on the side of the house, you know, the path there to go to the barn lot. And the men don't see me and mother and daddy can't reach me in time. And they thought where I was. And the lead cow was a Jersey cow. And this Jersey cow was fractured. She had a new calf in there. And she'd been known, they told me later, to tear down the gaps and so forth to get to her calf right away. She'd do anything to get to her calf right away.
And mom and daddy saw that the men didn't see me and they weren't going to be there in time. And they said I stood still as she approached me and said, you better not bother me. I'm Jeff Robinson's daughter. And the cow turned and all the other cows followed her because she was their lead cow. And I just thought, I'm getting goose bumps when I tell you, I just thought that that's the way it is with God. If I would know that he will protect me from here on out, just as, but I got to tell people that God is my protection, that God is my source, just like I told the cow who I was, that I was Jeff Robinson's daughter.
And I thought, well, I guess maybe I got to tell you in AA that I'm God's child. And that he's protecting me just like I knew my mother and daddy could. See, I knew nothing in the world would bother Jeff Robinson's daughter. And there wasn't in my hometown, you know. And we bought it from the Indians and I thought they were highly overpaid with the bees. And I don't feel that way now, but I wanted out there among them. You know, I had fantasized all my life, and I made my fantasies come true. Because I liked to travel and I liked to meet people that I'd read about. At the age of 23, I was entertaining Wendell Welker and Associates.
You know, I liked that kind of life and I knew I was going to have it because I knew who I was, I knew who my family was, and I knew even though I was raised in the Depression in a small country town, that I could have what I wanted in life. And I went and got it. Well, they got me, but I made myself available. You know, made myself available and I married the only man I'd ever wanted to be married to.
So I haven't ever missed words that I can't say sober without the love of God and my feeling close to God. And I try to live it. I make a lot of mistakes. I've never lived these steps to the best of my ability. That is not I have the best of my intellectual ability, but I have to the best of my emotional ability. I've worked these steps. God has just been so good to me. He's just been so good to me by putting so many, you don't know how many of you I recognize in this room and I am so grateful for you and your love and your friendship. And I don't care whether I recognize you or not, I love you in half.
Because you are my brothers and sisters and I came from a loving Robinson family, you know, and you are my family. I've lost two brothers, a brother and a sister of alcoholism, two brothers of more normal things. And I have a sister that's sober through her church and I have my living brother, Dan, who released me with love for the whole family and kept made them do it too. And he told the police to treat me like any common Wano and quit protecting me and taking me home and so forth.
And he loved me enough and when he came to this hospital to tell me what the family was going to do, he was crying, weeping openly. And he told me a year later that he thought that was the last time he might ever see me in his life. And he told me he didn't want his children to see me. And his children are possibly the children that love me the most in this world. They're proud that they're at an Alcoholics Anonymous.
They are proud to know that I, with your help, stopped drinking 32 and a half years ago. And they love me. Not anybody in my family has ever condemned me for anything I did in the past.
[01:20:11]
And this brother that released me with love and told me never to come to his home again and let his children see me drunk, sent me this on my 32nd birthday and sends me a check every month for me to have extra spending money. And I tell you, I'm saving it to travel to AA conferences. There's no way I could say thank you to AA on its 50th anniversary. There's no way I could say thank you for a family that loved me enough to release me with love. There's no way I could thank you personally for being my friends.
So the only thing I really think I can do is just try to carry the message and to emulate the four men that were so important in my life. Thank you.