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Source: Various S – Let's Talk About Sponsorship – RS 17673 – 1990-07-04.mp3 File: various-s-lets-talk-about-sponsorship-rs-17673-1990-07-04.mp3 Duration: 01:09:39
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I would like to call this marathon meeting to order and welcome you all to the 1990 International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous. My name is Bob and I'm an alcoholic. Alright. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. We'll have a moment of silence to reflect on the reasons we are here, followed by the serenity prayer.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to the distance. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses or opposes any causes.
Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level, which states 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 in published or broadcast reports of our meetings.
Personal anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. In our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personalities. I would like to advise all present that this marathon meeting is being sound taped, not video, but sound taped in its entirety. Heidi will read the Twelve Traditions. Hi, my name is Heidi and I'm an alcoholic. The Twelve Traditions. Our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. For group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority. A loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern.
The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. Each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise. Thus, problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
An AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers. AA as such ought never be organized. We may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues. Hence, the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Thank you.
Good stuff. Good stuff.
[00:05:18]
No. From Finland, excuse me. I'd like to introduce now Anna Lee. Please welcome Anna Lee to the outer lobby. I'm so bad in English that I had to write my spoke here. I have some words here. Now, when you are so many, I am going to talk about loneliness. How it was when I was drinking and how it is now. School time, my parents were working outside home. Can you hear me? And I had to do homework. That means I had to clean house and make supper after school and so on.
So I had some lonely hours, but I did not want to be alone. I turned radio on, playing records, and same time reading books. And some women can do this same time, but that I can't. Maybe that was so early I did not want to think. Always wanted to be somebody else. I read books. Always the books were telling me about people who are not really, not ordinary people. They were great heroes and gangsters and women were beautiful and they had great morality.
So, I married young. This is a mistake, got a son. First I got a husband and then a son. Very kind husband and rich and we had everything okay outside. But I was always waiting something. I was disappointed. Nothing happened. I always thought if this is life, somebody lied to me. I don't want to live. So, I start drinking. First I drank nicely and tried to take care of my son. Soon it was terrible. Daytime I tried to drink so little that I could, that I did not fall down.
But in the evenings I laid my son to bed early. Nowadays when he is 26, he always goes to bed early. No. I wanted to drink so that I can fall down. I can sleep. I can sleep so deep that like died. Like I should be, I don't know how to say it. Because this is not so perfect. So, I was waking up early in the morning, 2, 3 o'clock. You everybody know how it goes.
[00:10:13]
And sat the TV and checked that my son was safely in his bed. And so happened what must happen. I lost my family, start really to drink. Lost my money, my humanity, my hope. I did not care anything. But I was living and I could not die. I tried suicide many times. As you see, nothing happened. So, I knew about AA. So, I was very angry and went to AA. I thought I had to go there. I knew that if I go to AA, I can stop drinking. But I was very, very afraid that what to do when I have not any drinks.
I knew about AA because I was in jail. Once I tried to kill myself by driving a car so drunk. I knew about AA that there I can be without alcohol but I did not know. They will learn me to know myself and to accept myself. So, I can accept you and everybody else. I did not knew that in AA I can get back my humanity. I need not be alone, drinking alone. So, I can be here with you. I have work to do. I am a grandmother, four weeks.
I can be alone but not feel loneliness. I have you and we can together live in AA. So, that's my life's purpose, I think. Now, I must live in AA. Thank you. Applause Our next speaker will be Tom S. from California. Applause Hi, I'm Tom. I'm a grateful alcoholic. I can't express the gratitude it is to be here at the World Convention in 1990 and I just love it. Applause They told me prior to just volunteering to sign up on the list that the topic was going to be sponsorship and I got to let you know I don't know a whole lot about it.
I've been in this program six years now. I've sponsored probably ten or twelve people and they're probably drunk as hell right now. I've got one guy. He called me back up the other day. He said he wanted me to sponsor him again. I said, well, I didn't know I was stopped, you know. He's got about 28 days now and this guy happens to be good for about 45 each time I've ever talked to him. At 46, he just can't get, you know.
I told him if you want what I got, you got to do what I do to get what I got. If you like what you got, keep doing what you're doing and you'll get what you got, you know. And see, it's like it's, God, everything's been said over here in this convention. They've had so many of the great speakers out here, you know. And you got to be in touch with things that one little important thing is this got to be more important than anything else in your life.
And they go, yeah, it is, except for her. Or except for this job I've been trying to get and they get the job and they get the girl and they get a few bucks in their pockets, you know. And all of a sudden, you know, it's like this time it's going to be different now that I got all this knowledge, you know. Now that I got all this knowledge, you know, and I don't know how I can convey to another
[00:15:01]
human being that you gotta do what I do. Now there's some people in this program would probably take that a little bit too serious now and they would sit there and say, don't do what he does. Matter of fact, the people in my home group back in St. Louis, Missouri where I first got sober were very, they wanted me to protect my anonymity at all costs. They said, Tom, this is an anonymous program, now don't tell nobody that you're in it, you know, and don't put the bumper stickers on, don't do nothing. Because, you know, when I came into this program, I'm an alcoholic and I drank a lot and I was a semi-set of depression and, you know, you take these depressions all these, you know, that's what alcohol is, it's a depressant, you know, and you take that for 10, 12 years, you know, and you do that a whole lot every single day. When you come out, you're gonna tend to have a little energy. Mixed with two or three pots of coffee, a couple packs of cigarettes, and a countless amount of candy bars, you're gonna see one wired motherfucker on your hands.
And I'm walking into the meetings and they're going like this, they're going, Tom, what, we're saying halt, that's hungry, angry, lonely, and tired, what the hell did you eat today? And I tell them and they go, why don't you try food? Wow, what a concept. And I've been growing in the program ever since, it's keeping up with my age, you know. It's, but I gotta tell you, you know, sponsorship is a funny thing. I just have to share what I got to these people, you know, and I can't share what you have or how it's supposed to be, you know, and the things that they told me is that I cannot tell them anything when it comes to their living situations, you know. I tell them all the answers are in the book.
I said, they come up to me and they tell me that they're hurting and it's her fault and they're pointing their fingers and I know that. I went through that and my sponsor told me one thing, he says, read the book. You know, that's it. And then I sit there and they come back and this job thing's not working out and they said this other thing and I say, well, work the steps. Take the steps. It's real simple, folks. I cannot tell them to quit that job to get this job or not to get involved in their first year of sobriety.
No way, I would have never made it. If you want to do what I did is what you do is you get involved in your first year and not only do you just get involved in it, I'm telling you to move them in. That way you're going to do one of two things, folks. You're either going to work the program or you're going to get drunk. You don't think you have any character defects to work on them, they'll pull them out of you every morning. Like teeth, you know. I tell you, I was on my knees, I was begging in that meeting, what do I do?
And they finally told me one more thousand time, you know, read the book and work the steps, you know. And, you know, if you get somebody in the program, if you don't want to work the steps or the program, they'll work it for you, you know. And my life all of a sudden got real insane and I kept doing this stuff back and forth. And the last topic was sexuality and it handled like any other problem. I don't know. I was involved for the first year and a half and it came up to two and a half years and I ended up, my home group got sick and tired of me and they threw me out of there practically. They didn't want to hear about my problems no more. So I went to another group and I went down to Newport Beach about a hundred miles away from where I live and I went down and I started sobbing about all this terrible stuff that was going on in my life and the way she's treating me and I was taking her to movies and to dinners and by her son taking him fishing and all this stuff and she threw me out, you know, for the fourth time. And it finally dawned on me, folks, all she was doing was pulling the strings and you're looking at the yo-yo, you know. I had a guy in my home group for two years telling me to work on myself and I didn't hear it until I heard it. It's like I cannot take a drink, the last drink, away from another alcoholic until he's had his last one, you know. I cannot tell another alcoholic until he's ready to hear it, you know. You couldn't tell me nothing. You couldn't show me nothing. I couldn't see it or hear it until I was ready to hear it. And today I just gotta tell you, you know, if you're working with newcomers, I ran around for the last six years trying to get other people sober, you know, and it just doesn't work except for I've stayed sober. And that's how you stay sober. It's through the actions that you stay sober. I can't talk them into it. I have to show them the way and all I have to do is just keep running around in circles and the right students will appear when the teachers are ready and vice versa, you know. When the students are ready, the right teachers will appear. And I haven't been the right teacher for a lot of people. I've been a bad example of a lot of things in this program, but I've learned from it and I've grown from it and I hope all of you can too. Thanks for letting me share.
Gary L. from Federal Way.
[00:20:09]
Wow. My name is Gary. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't have a badge on, but I qualify because I want to stay sober and I don't want to drink again and I'm here. I was talking to my wife. It was either register or send our kids to summer camp this year and I guess our kids are glad that we sent them to summer camp this year. Anyway, we're from Federal Way and we thought we'd show up here and we're glad we did. The meeting's been great. Sponsorship, I'm like Tom. I can probably tell you a lot of things not to do as a sponsor. Sponsors are kind of like quarterbacks, you know. They get too much credit, too much glory when the team succeeds and they get too much blame when it fails. But there's one thing I've learned and it's okay. There's a reason that the twelfth step is the twelfth step too because it's a tough one. A lot of personal growth has to take place in your life before you're willing to turn other people's will and life over to the care of God. As well, you know, turning our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand it, is a tough enough job. That's an everyday thing, one day at a time. But so is turning of other people's wills and other people's lives over to the care of God, as we understand it. And that's a point that I had to reach in my life. I'm like Tom. I moved a man with me. The latest one we moved in with us stayed a week and was gone after they stayed a week.
I guess she didn't like the company that she kept. But we've learned not to cram the program down people's throats. We've learned just to try to live it ourselves. It can be very frustrating if you try to, in your zeal of sobriety, cram it down somebody's throat because they're not going to eat it. They're going to come to you and ask you, how do I get it? But they're not going to be willing to go through the pains that it takes to get it until they're ready to. And that's the thing that we had to come to. I say we because my wife and I have been sober for six years and we're in recovery together. And it's really a miracle. And it's something that doesn't help a lot. But it does happen. It can happen.
As long as we learn to work our own programs and not each other's real early, real early in life. Because we wanted the good things. We were sick and tired of being sick and tired. We've heard that a lot today. And we looked around the world and we saw that the world was a mess. We've been seeing that all our lives. We came to the conclusion that we couldn't change it. The best thing we could do would be to change ourselves as best as we could.
My wife and I, we try. We work together as a team. That's probably unusual. Or maybe it is and isn't unusual. But in any case, we enjoy it. We enjoy the things we do together. And AA is all of our life. We belong to a church. And when the preacher's up there preaching, we're taking his sermons and relating them to AA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He knows programmer. Yeah. It's kind of like everything that I do in my life today, I relate it to the 12 steps.
I relate it to what I've learned in AA. And it's not like I consciously do that. It's like it's a part of my heart. It's become a part of who I am. So there's no effort in it. It's something I do out of joy. And I guess that's the best thing I can do as a sponsor. When I sponsor people, it's just try to be myself and try to live what I know. Not say what they should do, but just live what I know. I've had many people, my wife and I are counselors in our church and we're, you know, we're the resident alcohol and drug experts. So the pastor kind of shovels everybody
[00:25:02]
off to us. But people, you know, like that, that come up out of just, I mean, my opinion alone, this is my opinion, but I think one of the most troublesome dysfunctional areas to come out of is coming out of a self-righteous, religious, dysfunctional situation. And a lot of the churches are in that area. And, you know, it's hard to deal with. So we have people and families come up to us and ask us for the solution and they want it in about 25 words or less.
And so when we tell them to go to AA meetings, boy, they hate hearing that. Tell them to go to family counseling, tell them to try to do everything they can to understand one another, love one another, and to let go of one another and give each other to God. You know, if they're so, they're so religious, why can't they give their loved ones to God and let go of them and detach from them and let God take care of them?
We usually don't see them for a while after that. But, you know, it's amazing. We have in the brief six years of our sobriety, we have seen some successes, but we believe that it's going to be a while down the road before we see a lot, you know, a lot of them. But we know in our hearts, because we believe that promises come true, we know that if we throw enough of the program out there, people are going to eat from it. And maybe they're not going to digest it for a long time, but when they do, it's going to hit them at the right time. And, you know, then the rewards will come, you know, the rewards are there just by doing all we can to, you know, to give, to give a little bit of ourselves back, because we're very appreciative, very appreciative of our sobriety. And I'm thankful to be an alcoholic. For one thing, if I wouldn't have been an alcoholic, I wouldn't have been weak enough, maybe. Maybe I wouldn't have been one of them people that went through life and everything that I touched turned to gold.
What a concept. But I'm very, I'm thankful that that didn't happen, because I don't think that I would have reached a point weak enough to where I would have to trust something or somebody enough to turn my whole life over to them and to see my life change before my eyes, because I did. To appreciate, to have that appreciation inside of me, I would die for. I would never give that up, never. And we're not very anonymous. Our anonymity in our church doesn't exist. But we don't care.
You know, we're accepted. We're accepted everywhere we go today. And if we're not, that doesn't matter either. You know, I accept myself. I accept my wife's love that she gives to me freely, graciously, and thankfully. And I accept the fact that my kids are active in their schools, in the D.A.R.E. program. And they bring so much information home to us. You know, it's look what I learned today. Look what I learned. And it's just, it's a wonderful feeling to see that take place. And it's also comforting to know that in life, as they go forward in life, that they will have an opportunity to choose something they wouldn't have had if their mother and I wouldn't have chose, or if some kind of intervention happened that wouldn't happen in our life.
And we didn't have the opportunity to choose not to drink. We choose today not to drink. And because of that, our kids have a choice. Now they're going to, they might choose to drink, or to use, in their life. But that's not going to destroy my wife and I today. Because we love them enough to allow them to make their own choices. We're going to try to show them the right thing to do. But we love them enough to allow them to make their own choices. And I think that's, you know, being a sponsor is like being a parent. Those who come to you, reach out their hand for help, and you accept that responsibility to reach down and try to help them, the best thing you can do for them is love them enough to allow them to make their own choices.
to allow them to make their own choices. Thank you very much.
[00:30:10]
I'd like to welcome Kip L. from Anacortes. You don't need to wait on me. Alright, thank you. Hi everybody, my name is Kip and I'm a recovering addict. Alcoholic. Alright, okay. Hi everybody. My ego got me to sign the paper to volunteer and I hope my legs will hold me up. I'd like to tell you about my first sponsor. A little over it's been right at five years ago, a little less than five years ago. I was in an institution over on the peninsula doing time for vehicular homicide.
Due to an accident that I had in a blackout a lady died. When I went back, I'd been in a penitentiary before due to my disease. The second time around was my bottom. I walked into an institution that I helped to start Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in ten years prior to that time. When I got there, there was an alcoholic meeting still going. It wasn't the same then, but let me tell you to walk through those doors again was a real humbling experience, but I sure am glad that I had the opportunity to do it. The man who was the free man, the man that came from the outside in the sponsor of that group over at Forks Olympic Clearwater Correction Center Leonard. I got to talking with this man. He was the only man I knew that had any sobriety and I wanted it. I knew that I had to learn from the ground up and I couldn't teach myself. This man graciously took me on as a sponsoree, a little puppy, and boy I was a sick one.
I got to calling. He was one of the few phone numbers that I ever called while I was in that institution. When the pressure got really heavy in there, I could call that man and he would be there to talk with me. He'd accept that collect phone call. And for 15 months and 21 days, for one meeting a week, that man was there whether it was snowing or raining, the mud slides on those old back roads, family members dying, that man was there.
I owe that man a great deal as well as Alcoholics Anonymous. Today I woke up in a nice little trailer down in Federal Way. I'm staying in a friend of mine's sponsor's trailer. Still working, sponsor's still working for me. The people who I've had contact that are sponsors, in sponsorship, are the people who are staying clean and sober. They've taught me how to carry the message by no other thing than to be at a meeting. I've had the fortunate blessings to have been able to go back into institutions and carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Just to be there and to share with that other suffering alcoholic. To give back just a smidgen of what's already been given to me. If I can be half the sponsor that my first sponsor was, I'd be happy. He taught me to give unconditionally. To love unconditionally. To share my experience, strength and hope with that person who has asked to be with me. What a blessing to be able to get to work with other people. Because of that, I get to celebrate five years of sobriety this month.
I'm shaking inside. It's such a privilege to be here. It says in working with others
[00:35:00]
in the very first two paragraphs how marvelous it is to work with others. To watch people walk through those hidden curtains and to see the lights in their eyes open up where prior to that time someone inside that was dead was living there. To see people walk up and get their first year chip. I got to do that this last month. Several people walking up and getting their chip. I cried through this one whole meeting because of it.
I can do that today. I've been giving my feelings back through you people and through my sponsors. I've said about enough. If I start going much further, I'll probably start lying. Thanks for my sobriety. I'd like to welcome Sandra from Marysville. My name is Sandra and I'm an alcoholic. When I saw the list start going around, I did something really, really nasty. I put my husband's name on top and he didn't know it.
So I got called before he did. I should have a little green card, I think. I'm not sure. I was born and raised in Seattle and I want to welcome everybody to my hometown. Where'd she go? What was her name? I want to thank her for speaking because to come from a foreign country, it would be like me going to Germany. If I had to speak German in front of a meeting, I would be just terrified. I think it is so wonderful that she got up here.
She's a new grandma. She was scared. I talked to her before the meeting. I said, if you're really having trouble, you can call on me. I want to thank her for speaking and coming halfway around the world to be with us. I really think that that's wonderful. As far as sponsorship goes, the only thing that I can say is thank God for my sponsors. When I first came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I was about to lose my job.
I had to have my daughter taken away from me and I was suicidal. I thought that I'd be really smart and I was missing all this time. Yeah, higher power. I thought I'd be really smart. Anyway, I thought I'd be really smart and go up to my supervisor at Boeing and tell him I had a drinking problem so I could get out of all this trouble I was getting into. Lo and behold, this doctor from Boeing, their employee assistance program tracked me down through my mom.
She said, he wants you to go to some treatment center. Well, you know, I'll get out of work and stuff. I ended up going over to a place called Sundown M on Indian Reservation. Yeah, Sundown. They drop you off in the middle of this Indian Reservation in the desert and you have nowhere to go. Nowhere. I was stuck there and I came out of treatment. I started going to meetings in the Sumner, Bonney Lake, Enumclaw kind of area.
When I got out of treatment, I was so scared that I tried to go down here to South Center to the mall, who I'm married to now, my husband. He was in treatment. I wanted to send him a birthday card. I was so freaked out I couldn't even go to the store to buy a card at South Center. I went to the Seal Club in Renton and I cried. I was just so petrified. When I first started going to meetings, I would not be able to read. I was, and probably still am, kind of brain damaged. I slurred.
I couldn't speak correctly. I packed around all those fabulous little pamphlets. Those little pamphlets saved my life because when I went back to Boeing and went back to work, I'd go to the bathroom because I was so scared and I'd read my little pamphlets.
[00:40:02]
That was all I had. I didn't have any numbers at that point or any sponsors, but the wonderful thing about sponsorship for me was that as a kid, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I never felt as good as or that I fit in even though I got all these awards and honors and on and on, just your typical overachiever. I got to AA and I could share my pain, my terror. I could relieve the guilt through a good, hearty fourth and fifth step.
I have made it a practice of when my husband went in the service, we had to move a lot. The first thing I always did was get on the horn and find out where the central office was and find out where a meeting was. The wonderful thing about sponsors is that I always felt accepted. There was nothing I could not tell my sponsor. Nothing. I made myself always tell my sponsor the truth. If nobody else, I always told my sponsors the truth because that's how I had to learn to live with me.
When I first sobered up, I would tell the truth for as long as I was speaking and that was real hard for me. When I was given, the sponsors would just enter my lives. They were just wonderful women. The range was from Marine Corps drill sergeant where you had to call every morning at a certain time and you had to make sure and read this and practically it was like English 101 where you had to do a term paper.
It would just drive me nuts. There were other sponsors who just made me solve my own problems. Somewhere in the middle is probably how it should be done. I don't know. The wonderful thing that I found from sponsorship is that wonderful feeling of acceptance that I have a disease and that I am not alone and that I am not unacceptable and I am not unlovable. That is the most important thing for me. The things that I have learned from my sponsors I've been able to apply as a mother and being a mom is real scary because I have three little kids.
They're 10, 7 and 5 and I'll tell you what, raising those little guys in this day and age is tough but the other day we were at a birthday party for my dad and some of my other relatives and my dad still drinks real heavy and he shakes just really shakes and my little son, Austin, he looked at me and he said, mommy, how come grandpa shakes so much? I said, well Austin, because he drinks too much. And Austin said, well that's grandpa's choice and that was so cool because that's the kind of stuff that my sponsors have used on me. I want to thank you all for being here and thank you for being a part of my sobriety.
I'd like to take just a second to say that if there's a gentleman named Cliff, a friend of his would like to see him and I'd also like to announce that there's a lady named Star who is celebrating her first birthday tonight and I'd like to say and have us all say happy birthday to her. Happy birthday, Star. And I'd like to welcome the next speaker who is a lady from Ireland and let us welcome May. Hello, everybody.
My name is May and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm very grateful to be here sober and sane and healthy. It's a very great privilege. It's quite a coincidence. I was over at the Seattle Center. I was up looking at your mountain. I played hooky today. I celebrated 15 years last week. Thank you. I'm also a double winner, as you can see from my badge. My daughter's in AA in Ireland as well, a member of the Limerick group.
[00:45:02]
Anyway, I met Star over at the convention centre, and everybody was debating as to whether we would go down to the Kingdome or not, but Star has a heart condition and a little overweight, and she was telling us how am I going to get around, so I said, well, we're right on top of this metro, or whatever it is, monorail, and I think I know, but I can't remember the name of the goddamn hotel. Anyway, I know the Irish are speaking, Jimmy and Christy are speaking here later on at 12 midnight, I'm just giving you fair warning that the Irish are not taking over.
Anyway, I got sober in Ireland, and I was fortunate enough to have had John Handley as one of my sponsors, and Sackville. Sackville is the man who is in the big book, the little captain. And I was one of the first women in to come in and stay in and stay sober. There had been other women in, but they hadn't made it, and after me came another girl, Eileen, she's made it, and Eileen, and we've got quite a good few, many groups in Ireland.
Meantime, I got sober with 12 men, and four of them are dead, and I go back and they take me out for dinner now, the others are still alive, so they take me out for a meal now and again too. But I am living at the moment in Toronto in Canada, because I have two sisters, one of them has already died of cancer, and the other has lung cancer, and they were both in their fifties. My sister that died was a mother of six and grandmother of six, and when God was handing out the diseases in my family, I'm glad I got alcoholism, because at least there's a cure for it.
How much time do I have? So anyway, we're back in Ireland and my getting sober. So I was told to keep coming to meetings and to ask God to help me, and I didn't think I would make five minutes in this fellowship. So they kind of humoured me and brought me to meetings and showed me where they all were, and this was 1975, and I had not known that AA was in Ireland, and it had been there since 1946, because Conard had come over from Philadelphia on a holiday, and he was looking for an AA meeting, and he was told in 1946 that there were no alcoholics in Ireland, not one.
So he looked around and he went to St. Patrick's, which is a mental hospital in Ireland, and he was told to take this drunk Richard out, and Richard and himself formed the AA group along with Saxville, which is the little captain, and they started it in a country shop in 1946 in Dublin in Stephen's Green, Ireland. And it's now grown into have, you know, so many big things in Handley Centre is a group.
John Handley's wife was called Sadie Handley, and it was opened up in her honour. It was just a small little shed, and the local AAs helped build it into a counselling room, and the 17 publicans gave us £1,000 to keep the drunks off the street. So it works outside of AA. It just helps. And I kept coming to my meetings, and I got my five years in Ireland, and in 1980 my son and myself came out to New Orleans, and I got a taste of what America looked like. So I said I'd come back.
Fortunately, I had a sister living in Miami, Florida, so I came back, and then I went back over to Ireland again. My mother died, and I came back over here again, and I have been, as I say, on and off living in Toronto, Canada. My recovery now is the Canadians have kept me sober. I may have got my sobriety in Ireland, but you just can't. So I'm a member now of the St Clement's group in Toronto, and I am fortunate enough to be able to travel down here.
[00:50:20]
I was down in the States earlier on in the year, and I was able to travel over to see my children in September. My daughter is in AA. She has joined us in Limerick and doing quite well. My son is okay. My other daughter is okay. My third daughter and her husband were living in Canada, but they've returned to Ireland. So I have been separated from my husband for the last 17 years, so I've brought the children up on my own in sobriety, and they've all done pretty well.
And for that, I am extremely grateful. We are all well. We are healthy, and I want to congratulate Star, because it is surely a higher power that helped me walk into her tonight and help her to come over here to celebrate her birthday. She's sitting over there in the doorway. And it was a rough road getting here. I didn't land in AA just because I was drinking lemonade. When my husband ran over the 22-year-old, I just couldn't take it after 17 years of marriage.
And facing bringing up those children on my own was too much for me, so I drowned it all out by drinking myself into seven times in hospital in one year alone. So after that, I began to think, would I have a problem with drink? So that's how I came into AA via a hospital in Dublin, Ireland. I still go to meetings. I go Monday, Tuesday, to non-smoking meetings. I am one of those. I gave up cigarettes in 1984.
It's a marvellous. I was down in Australia and New Zealand last year. My son was chosen and has just built a boat for going around the world race, and he's just completed doing the Whitbread round the world race, sailing on the Irish boat sponsored by the Irish. And they got 11th place, but it was a great achievement to have done that. And I went to AA in Australia, and I went over to New Zealand. I was in AA in New Zealand, and I went over to the meeting there the other day, yesterday morning, and met people who took me to the meetings in Australia and New Zealand.
So this is a wonderful fellowship. People write to you from all over the world. You have friends all over the world. You are no longer alone. I am on my own, but I have 400 Canadians with me. I thank you. I'd like to welcome Colleen P. from Seattle. Hi, folks. I'm glad to be here. I'm Colleen, and I'm an alcoholic, so I qualify to be here. It's really interesting how God works in my life. Before I get on with this, I'd like to say that I am from Seattle, and I love it here. It's a wonderful place. I, too, like to welcome you, and I'm originally from Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
So I'm really enjoying myself. It's really interesting how God works in my life. The last thing I plan is being up here, although I will warn you I've learned in sobriety, as I am honest, that I'm also a ham. I'll blame that on my Irish nationality, but I think the truth is I just love people in all forms. I was told early on if I speak from my heart that what has to be said will be said, and if I listen, I'll hear what I have to hear. So therefore, I never think ahead of time, because then I get scared. My ego gets in the way. But the way I wound up here is there was a great big long line of men, and a young lady over here, a very bashful lady, and I'm being facetious, says, Get up there. Get up there. We need some women. So here I am. You win the marbles.
[00:55:19]
It's really interesting because I was thinking of sponsorship, because that is the topic. See, I'm not as dull as I appear. But what happened is I was thinking of my first experience with sponsorship, and I'm sure I'm not alone. When I came in and they said stick with the women, I didn't want to bother with women. They didn't understand me. Really funny. Really funny when I think of this. But what I did instead is hang around a lot of sober clubs. I have earned my sobriety so far in many locations, both in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, as I said, and here, and points in between up and down I-95 in Wilmington, Delaware, and Burlington, New Jersey.
I used the group for probably the first six months and very reluctantly, excuse me, reluctantly at that. I had a whole lot of problems with trusting anyone. I did not believe anything anybody told me at that time. I trusted no one. And unfortunately, or fortunately, because I got what I needed, I did not like AA. I did not like it. I was peed. I had to be there. I was peed that you know how to stay sober, and I didn't. But thank God, and I mean God, that he worked in my life, and I did hear what I needed to hear.
One time I was sitting around the meeting saying, oh, sobriety is wonderful, repeating what I was hearing every two people away from me, and finally some old man said, young lady, you speak from here, not from here. Boy, was he sorry. I never knew I had sailor blood in me, but I started tromping and cursing and banging on tables, and seriously, look at that now, and I think, was I chasing you away? Who knows? It didn't work. It did for some, and I'm grateful because the ones I didn't chase away loved me in spite of that, and I had never known that, not in that respect.
The men that were nice to me, I tried to seduce, and I was very fortunate, or very ugly, maybe both. I was about 100 pounds heavier, red frizzy hair, and very lonely, very, very lonely, and not letting anybody know it. I was, yeah, very lonely. But I was very, very fortunate. I had men like Jim Kay in Pennsylvania and other places that said, you're just lonely. I said, no, no, you don't know, you don't know.
So I had to learn how to deal with the loneliness. I did not have people take advantage of me, and I'm very grateful for that. I had to learn how to deal with the loneliness. I had to learn to talk at tables. Then I looked around, and somebody started talking to me about sponsorship. It took a while, and I could see these people with lights in their eyes, and I can see them today. I know what that is today. It's spirituality. It's people working the steps in the program. I didn't know what it was then. I just knew I wanted what they had.
I think I started getting real serious about sponsorship when one time somebody said something about living, and I said, but I want to live. I knew what I meant. I wanted to live. It's funny remembering those feelings and feeling like it was so far away, but it wasn't. It wasn't that far away for me. So that made me teachable. That desperation and that pain and the light in these people's eyes make me teachable.
From then on, I had many, many people. I had people. The first sponsor lady that I asked, like I say, for a long time, it was the groups. I followed their directions, and they told me, if you want that, read the big book. Go to step meetings. Read the big book. Go to step meetings. Don't drink today. Read the big books. Go to step meetings. Don't drink today. I heard that over and over again, and I got to tell you, folks, I must be getting old because I don't think I hear it enough anymore to please me, so I guess I have to say it more.
I also got to tell the new people, if you're hurting and you think it's never going to get any better, it will. If you're hurting and you think it's never going to get any better, it will. I heard people in meetings say to me, it will get better, it will get better, and I didn't know that it will, I just knew that it was getting worse where I was before, and I didn't
[01:00:02]
want to lose what little bit of dignity I was gaining day by day. Man in a step meeting one time said to me, AA is a very simple program, all you have to, and I thought, goody, goody, and then he says, all you have to do is change your entire way of living. That's the way it worked for me, folks, but the good news is you have the steps, you do it a day at a time, God puts the right people in my life, and I'm sure that he puts me in the right people's lives.
I don't run around soliciting people to sponsor. I work as God presents the people in my life, both in AA and out of AA. If they come into my life, I work with them. If I need to plant a seed with an active alcoholic at work, I do that. I like being anonymous in those circumstances. I find they listen more, but when it's time to divulge it, I will. Marie in Wilmington, who took me shopping when I didn't know how to talk, yeah, I really didn't know how to talk, surprising as that is, but she took me shopping and shopping and shopping, and she talked, and I listened.
Step meetings, my home group was always the step meeting. People out here, Big Book Harry from Northeast that I've met here with 42-something years, they teach me every day. I don't know, folks, from somebody that was starting to, I'm grateful that even though I didn't believe what I was hearing, that I heard enough to follow directions, because I would have danced on a table if you told me to. I would have been angry with you, but I would have danced on a table if you told me to, and I think it saved my life.
The good news is, as a result of good sponsorship and lots of love, my life's a whole lot different today. I'm a whole lot different today, and it hasn't been easy. At four years sober, I lost a best friend in the program to suicide. I lost my dad, who was my hero, and I suffered a major depression, clinical depression, and from that, I could be powerless again. AA had taught me how to be powerless, and at that point, I turned myself over to some good healthy professionals and have been able to recover from that as well.
AA is wonderful, but it's not easy, and the good news is, I too, it seems like it's birthday month here, the kickoff of this convention on the 5th was my birthday. Thank you folks, but the really neat part is, I know how to live. I know how to be good to myself. I'm not that little girl that felt so bad about herself that her only claim to fame was the best, most popular girl in high school copied her algebra homework.
I was sharing that with my son the other day, thinking, I really felt like nothing. Most of my life, my folks used to say, you're pretty, you're smart. I never felt pretty, never felt smart. My insides are so different, and I have so much to be grateful for, and it's all in you, and it happens one day at a time, but I know how to live, and I'm just beginning. Thank you folks. Our last speaker will be Kip S. from Puyallup.
I'm Kip, I'm an alcoholic. Darn last time I spoke in front of a group this big was called the Harvey Gap Pig Roast in Colorado. That better? Okay. I've been sober nine years. Out of that nine years, I've been in recovery for six of it. The first three years were insanity. My insanity didn't go away right away. Wanting to drink went away right away. I got a sponsor, I didn't listen to him, and so I remained insane for the first three years.
I was also sponsoring about half of the Puyallup Valley at that point. I didn't know what I was doing, but I sounded good, and I looked great. My sponsor pointed out that I couldn't give it away unless I had it, and I pointed out that I thought I had it, and it was none of his damn business anyhow. We had a good relationship. What happened was at the end of three years, my life fell apart. Everything I had in this program, I lost.
I lost my family. I lost my job. I ended up in a wheelchair with arthritis.
[01:05:03]
I did the only thing that was logical. I got involved with someone with less than 30 days in the program and fell in love. She dumped me. Those things don't work out real well. I broke all my own rules, and what saved my ass were the people that I sponsored, the people that I'd said all the things that I'd heard from my sponsor and didn't understand. They came back to me, and they told me what I needed to hear at that point.
They explained to me that it was all right to hurt. They explained to me that it was all right to love. They came back to me and gave me what I hadn't been able to give to them for the first three years. One of the things I found out in this program is it is the sober alcoholic that went to the drunk to stay sober. One of the things that irks me the most is a person that says, ìOh, yeah, I'll be your sponsor.
Just call me once a week.î I'll tell you, people, I couldn't call anyone once a week the first three years I was here. That four years, I couldn't call anyone at all. I had to have people come back and help me through this. It's only through the grace of God that I didn't die, and the grace of God came through the people that I was sponsoring. I found out that no matter what I have to give to those people, they always give it back to me.
I found out that no matter what I have, it means nothing if I don't have someone to share it with, someone to talk to about. Isolation is really a lonesome, hard, sickening thing, and I did that when I was an alcoholic. But to do it at three years sobriety was the total insanity that I got, and the only one that could have brought me out of that were the people that I was sponsoring. Leadership is, I would say, the most important aspect for me in this program, because unless I continue to give it away, I can receive nothing.
And unless I talk to other people, the people I'm sponsoring, I don't grow at all. I've also found out that a real convenient thing is, when I'm trying to sponsor someone these days, I have to do it before I can ask them to do it. So consequently, if they're working on some step, I have to be working on that step before that. It's an amazing thing that I can't give it away unless I've got it, and the only way I can keep it is through you people, through the people I sponsored, and through the rest of the people that save my ass every day.
Thank you. I'd like to thank all the speakers tonight, and I'd like to thank you all for my sobriety, and I would like to thank Merv for giving me the honor of being the chairperson here tonight, and we ask that after the meeting to clear the hall, because there's another meeting in about 15 minutes. So for those who wish, we'll close the meeting with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Keep me on my path. It works.