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Source: Sharon C – From Beverly Hills, California – Date Unknown.mp3 File: sharon-c-from-beverly-hills-california-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:16:02
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Good morning, Bill. Thank you for all your help. Good morning, I'm Sharon Alcoholic. And that wasn't what I asked you to say at all. It was too short. I told him not to cut into my time. So it's good to be here and it's great. Oh my goodness. I know happiness is fleeting. I had some happiness this weekend with all of you. And I know that joy is permanent. So you've given me much joy to take home with me. And it's not Beverly Hills. They're nice there, but I like where I live which is mellower. It's kind of South Bay. People don't honk so much down there. It's all the old retired surfers, not the old retired lawyers. I don't mean that in any harmful way. I worked for you guys for 30 years, believe me. I know a lot about you. So I'm a member of the Pacific Group in Los Angeles, California. And it's been going for 56 years. And we have about 800 to 900 people that get together every Wednesday night in a big synagogue because we don't have a lot of places that will hold us all. So then out of that 900 people, 400 of us have commitments. So if you come you can get a commitment. I'm the cookie maven. You know, you've got to have a lot of time to be a cookie maven. So we give out cookies and we have the best coffee in the world because a gentleman who's got about 56 years makes it. He's the head of the coffee crew, Johnny Harris, if anybody knows him. And he makes a toddy, of course, leave it to an alcoholic to make a toddy of some really strong coffee and then he adds it to the big coffees. So it's really good coffee for that many people. It's amazing. We figure it out, don't we, with the stuff we like. That's for sure. And I know that they taught me a lot about commitment.
And I was just thinking this morning of a lady who was very kind to me when I got sober. I couldn't talk for my first three months because I had my jaw broken in three places and a lot of stuff happened to me at the very end of my drinking. So I couldn't talk for my first three months so I had to learn to listen. And it was really a blessing in disguise. And nobody really wanted to hang with me because I was just, I kind of drooled on myself for a while. And they'd all say, are you new? And it's like, oh, yeah, how could they tell?
But Junann used to, she was new and in and out, in and out. She had this old Chevy station wagon and we would drive it around because I wasn't sleeping. We'd drive it around after the meeting and the coffee and all of that. We would go to the meeting after the meeting and I can't eat. So I'm wired up. My mother finally sent me a blender so I could have some nourishment through a straw where the tooth had been kicked out through the wires on my face. And so I'd go to the coffee shop anyway because, you know, my sponsor insisted and she scared me. So she had big long nails. And so I would sit there with Junann and ladies, the other ladies, and nobody would talk to me. I just kind of tried to drink coffee.
And one time I realized that the whole right side of my face was numb for a long time. And I realized that the coffee was dripping out of the corner of my mouth onto the table. And there was a lady across from me talking to Junann and she was an old timer and she used to be in the CIA. She scared me a lot. But they were talking and Junann was complaining about her sponsor and then her name was Pat. She looked up at me with big eyes and I was ready for her to go, oh my God, can somebody take this pig home? Look at the slab she is.
She's from Iowa for God's sakes. Pigs and corn, pigs and corn, right? She's just, she's a loser. She looked at me like that and I thought she was going to say that out loud. Somebody else take her home tonight. But what Pat did was she took a napkin, she put it in the corner of my face to dab up the drippage, I guess, and then put it in the table where there was a puddle. Went back to her conversation and before she started talking to Junann, she gave me a wink. And the wink said it all. You're going to be okay, kid. We got your back. Yeah, we know you look pretty bad and you probably came from some pretty bad places.
But the wink said it all. And that's kind of what I get. I get winks from God. I've had a lot of winks this weekend with Judith and Angie. And I think Merica had to go home and Lily had to go home. But I got so much food this weekend from you guys and a ton of winks from many of you, many of you here. And I'm going to take all those winks home.
[00:05:02]
So my sobriety date is August 20th, 1975. A little ahead of Jim over there. About two months and a half or something. But I love that we're unity. We're unity on a common solution to a common problem. We have unity. And my big home group, we have maybe five meetings a night in other parts of the city. So we have book studies. We have 12 and 12s. We have women's meetings. We have speaker meetings. You know, we have all those meetings all the rest of the week. But we get together every Wednesday night, the tribe gets together.
And we get there early. We leave on time. And the place is cleaner than when we arrived. You know, we're so stealth sometimes. I love it. And Alcoholics Anonymous became part of my family's life too because you saved me and my mother got to sleep at night because of you. Thank you. Norm Alpe used to say overpaid. I'm overpaid here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was overpaid because my mother started sleeping at night. And I didn't know anything about giving back or steps or any of that for probably three months. I just was out of it. But you guys saw me that I was worth saving. And you helped me out and you gave me floors to sleep on. And you gave me rides to meetings. And you told me it's going to be okay. And I think you were talking about something, Judith. I don't have a place to live. I have the court case. They caught these guys that did it to me. I was a victim of violent crime. There was a lot going on. I couldn't eat. I couldn't speak. And I had no money. And they would say, day at a time, easy does it. I was like, you don't understand.
I had nothing. But they took me and they put me on a floor for a week. And they had a whole set up for me to sleep on floors until I could get the wires off my face and get healed up and start working again and become self-supporting. So I thank you for that. I thank you for the winks and the love and the care. I have something in my mouth because I'm a little dry-mouthed today because I was a little nervous. So I've got to tell you that. It's Sunday morning and I hope our hearts are broken open. Mine is. Mine is very much. But I didn't think you guys understood. But I grew up in Iowa and that was my first resentment. And life started. Life definitely started. And the good thing about being from Iowa was that I love God. God loved me. I knew God was love. And I loved the idyllic childhood. I could run around. We could watch owls wake up at night. We caught snapping turtles. I learned how to fish. We found boats and patched them and went down the river. And we played Amazon Women. And my dad had a big business. It was sand and gravel, stone, dirt excavating. So there was always a lot of excitement around the shop and things going on. I used to like to hang on my grandpa's little Oshkosh, the place where you put the hammer. And I would kind of sneak in and watch my dad and how they all respected him. And at the end of the day, they'd maybe all have a beer. And I would just kind of hang behind my grandpa and then my dad would see me and he'd make the guys stop swearing. And I had a very loving parents and very loving home. I think I was spanked once. I remember it. Because it was with my dad's yardstick with all his advertisements on it. And I got a whack because I was using up all the hot water before everybody else needed it to go to a wedding. And I was just selfish and self-centered and I didn't fit in. I loved my family, but I didn't fit in.
I used to sit in the cornfield until the corn got too high. Then I would go to the soybean field and sit and watch for the mothership because I knew they were coming back. And my father had to kind of try to understand why his daughter is sitting out there. I have three other siblings. As far as I can see, no alcoholism. Maybe one is on their way, but I have a feeling she's just got some other issues going on. And she just lost her husband last week and they were married, gosh, since college. So we're going through that right now as a family because he was a big personality and very generous and a fantastic lawyer.
Nice guy. And so I had, she was Mensa, brilliant, read books all the time. She, you know, was just the one I had to follow through school. My brother is the last. He's got a doctorate. He put us all to shame. My sister wanted to be a nurse and moved to Alaska when she was four and that's what she did. She's still there. She knew her purpose at four. She got a nurse kit for Christmas. And I was lost. And I knew God loved me, but then I saw some horrific pictures in National Geographic in somebody's basement that I probably shouldn't have seen. And I thought, oh my God, does God let that happen to people? And I started
[00:10:01]
to form a different concept with God. There was the fear that crept in. And nobody told me I had to do that. I just knew that. I knew that this, that God is punishing. And, you know, I was a little Catholic girl and I learned to lie in confession. And the last time I darkened the doors before Alcoholics Anonymous of a Catholic church, I had a big fight with a priest in the confessional. And he came out yelling at me and then I was able to tell him what a hypocrite he was. I was really good at that. I was getting people mad and then they would blow their cover and then I would say, look at you, look at you.
So that was the last time I darkened the doors of a Catholic church until sobriety. And that was all on my amends list and my healing list and my forgiveness list and all of that. Because when you sponsor a nun, I know. Truthfully, I sponsor a nun. She just celebrates 60 years in her order. And I got to walk her down the aisle of the Mass. I got to do a reading. I got to take her to communion. It was so beautiful. It was so beautiful. So there's been so much healing in my 44 years. It's been amazing. But yeah, I left, I left, I left the nest, went to college. It was the 60s. It wasn't just say no, it was just say thanks. That's a nice way of saying all the things we took. Along with our alcohol, fake ID, art school, after about a year in there, I had my heart broken by my fiance. I saw him being tutored under a streetlight at her sorority, teaching her, I guess she was teaching him how to kiss. I don't really know. But it broke my heart and my mother said, aren't you going to cry? And I said no. And it was the first time I remember blocking the feelings and going and getting drunk over them. That I remember that much pain and I was able to block those feelings of getting close to, that close with my heart with somebody again. And King Alcohol asks for pieces of your soul as you go down this path. I don't know if it would have been so clear in my life. My dad and I had a big fight and I wish, I guess that, you know, I ended up back in New York City and I went and worked at an ad agency and I had a lot of fun and it was craziness. I had two-hour martini lunches every day. It was fabulous. We could close our door if we were hungover. They gave me a two-week vacation and I never came back because that's how I, that's it. And I went back to art school because I was tired. New York City made me tired. I didn't sleep very much. There was a lot going on and I would look for truth and I'd find it but it'd melt, you know, and then, you know, I had, I could drink until four in the morning and they cleaned the bars. And then I would have a mother's little helper and I would go off to work.
And I did that months and so I was tired and I called my dad, can I go back to art school and he said, okay, you know, one more chance basically is what he said. Now I'm the one, everybody else is following the yellow brick road and I'm the one that they're beginning to get concerned about. I'm the one that when I come home, like I came home and went back to art school, I was the one that was, they sat me with the children out on the porch at Thanksgiving. I had made the big table already and now I'm back with the kids on the porch. And I remember sitting outside, it was just lightly snowing and I was looking inside and I was drinking something and smoking something and strawberry paper and it's funny what you remember. I looked at everybody through my grandma's front window and they were walking around and laughing and having pie and coffee and all of that and I just thought I don't belong to them anymore because King Alcohol asked for the love of my family and I said sure, that's it, I don't need it, I don't need it. So I hardened up to my family, went back to art school, King Alcohol asked for my artistic talent and I gave it. I couldn't paint anymore, something was missing and gone and it was, I got depressed and I ended up, I don't know, they put me on valium therapy and, you know, you go to a psychiatrist and if you don't tell them anything, they can't help you and I thought we're paying you to figure it out. That was my attitude. I'm getting pretty rebellious now. And my dad said okay, you know, we had another emotional yelling fight and now he just sets his jaw and looks away. He won't look at me in the eyes. I can't ride in the car with him anymore. If he's having breakfast, I don't walk down the hallway and brush shoulders with him. There's too much emotional pain between me and dad. And my mother said to me, you can stay here but please stay out of your father's way because you'd break his heart. And I don't want to hear that. I love my dad. I was proud of my dad. I wanted to be like my dad. He was strong, he was funny, he was smart, he was handsome. He gave my mom a kiss after every meal and told her what a hell of a cook she was. Every meal. I used to watch him sneak up behind her when she was doing dishes and give her a hug from behind.
[00:15:03]
There was a lot of love in the house but none of that was going to fix me. If love could fix me I wouldn't be an Alcoholics Anonymous. When I started drinking that was power to me, that was omnipotence to me, the tip of my head to the tip of my toes. As America said last night, I didn't care anymore. I didn't care that I'm in this family that's trying to help everybody have a successful life. I didn't care anymore that God did these things to people. I didn't care anymore about falling in love. I didn't care anymore.
And alcohol let me have the kind of life that I was headed for with King Alcohol, which was selfish, self-centered. I can't, you know, I remember saying to my mom and dad, I'm not hurting anyone but me so leave me alone. Just think about it. Just stand back and watch me die. Selfish, self, self, self. Could not see outside of the blinders of self. And they say if an alcoholic comes in at, the Al-Anons say this, and you can correct me Angie if you want to later, but they say that the minute an alcoholic walks into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and sits down, ten people's lives get better.
Maybe you don't even know who those ten are, but they can not have to lock up the keys to the car when you come home. They can go to a movie and enjoy it because the bail bondsman might not call. You know, maybe he's always disturbing them. Lock up the money and the purse and the credit cards when you're coming over. People like Grandma maybe have been praying for me. I don't know, but they say ten people's lives get better when we walk into Alcoholics Anonymous.
So right there it's not about you. I'm sorry to tell you. It took me a long time to realize that it's not about me. All of this is not about me. It's about being a strong link in the chain of Alcoholics Anonymous to help another hand out to somebody who needs it, who wants it, who's willing. And so I feel like I am just, as Norm used to say, I'm like one of the lucky ones by seconds and inches. Just by seconds and inches we all get here. Turn left instead of right. Make that call instead of go to the bar.
Pass out and just miss the corner of the end table with your temple. You know, I mean, we die in very funny ways and very sad ways, but choke on your vomit. We are the lucky ones. By seconds and inches we get a chance to have a good life and to help another. I think we've been saved to save. I think after 44 years I got an opinion. I think we've been saved to save. And before I forget I want to thank you Bruce for all the fun we had. I just saw you there.
And I thank you for playing the guitar and I thank the people last night for the fun bonfire and the chili and oh my god that banana pudding. I don't want to forget because my mother would always say, did you remember your propers? I think you guys understand that word. And then she would always ask me when I would come back and give her a call, she'd say, were you well received? Oh mom, always the teacher, you know.
And yeah, so I ended up telling my dad I'm going to Colorado, I want to be a cowgirl. Oh man, Willie would be, oh my god. Because I did ride horses when I grew up, but I never got on a horse there. I went there and I got a waitress job with an ex-marine who taught me how to drink in the morning because I was at the Mountain Man bar and hung over and sleeping on the shuffleboard. They'd have to roll me off this big shuffleboard so they could play.
And I always have sawdust all over me. Somewhere along the line near Aspen, Colorado I lost my dignity. It was something that was kind of public and it was with a married man that didn't know he was married. I didn't know he was the superintendent of all the schools. Just drinking. You want to be an astronaut in the bar, you can be an astronaut. You want to be a doctor, there's always a good lawyer in the bar.
And we were always trying to call the president. I remember we were always trying to call the president. One time we got all the way through to the secretary. We had good ideas. I loved the bars. They were fantasy land for me. You get the right stuff on the jukebox. I lived in New Orleans through the French Quarter and I would walk into Molly's Irish Pub and Jim Monaghan, who's dead now, his liver blew up, owned some bars down there.
And he would see me walking down the street and he'd say, Hey, Cher, S-H-A-R-E. I told my dad, I changed my name to Cher, S-H-A-R-E. You like that one, I'm sure. He'd say, Hey Cher, where are you going? I said, My shift is done. I'm going home. The snake is loose. The skunk droppings are everywhere. No, that's a long story. There's a skunk named Crank that my boyfriend, I met with the carnival. I mean, there's a lot in my story.
Had.
[00:20:01]
And he was working tugboats and he got hit. This is our relationship. He got his leg in between the dock and the tugboat and it broke his leg. So he's always following me around to be mad at me about something. He's hopping around and I'm nagging him on. I get a knife. I mean, you know, just crazy. Just violent craziness. And that's the way I could feel something, I guess. I wasn't raised around that.
But I said to Jim, I've got to go. We tried to have a party, red beans and rice. And you lift the lid and things are moving. I throw away the dishes, too. I throw away the dishes. And I throw away that. So I've got to go clean. I don't know where that snake is. He got it just to torture me. And so he said, Sharon, just let me buy you one. So when my first sponsor said, you know, write some times down when you had something that you didn't want to drink because there were very few times I didn't want to drink.
There were very few times I let anybody get between me and a drink. Very few. Very few. But I remember I wanted to go back and clean that place. And he said, let me buy you one. All right. So this is one of my favorite bars. So he's pouring my Jose Cuervo rock glass, tall rock glass, no salt, no lime, pouring my tequila, the gold. And I'm walking up the three steps into the bar. It was kind of a circle bar.
And I'm reaching for my glasses. It just almost hits the lip, you know. Oh, God. There it is. And my piano player in the back who died of gin, drinking too much gin, played my song as I walked in, which was, You Made Me Love You. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it. He would play that song for me. And I thought, I've arrived. I've arrived. That was kind of what I was shooting for at the moment.
And, of course, I didn't get home for two days. And then I went back to my shift as a bartender. I don't know where I was then, maybe Fritzl's or someplace local. Because I got fired from a nice, very nice hotel bar for drinking on the job with the manager down on Bourbon Street. And so I was kind of blackballed from nice places to work. And so I worked the seedy places, which you guys came to anyway, and I loved it.
So we bought each other drinks. We had tabs. So that's a little bit of my story. Let me just tell you, I got thrown out of places where people live on the edge. In Aspen, Colorado, I met Bob Dylan and came to California with him for the first time I came to California. I think it was Bob Dylan. Didn't ask for his driver's license, but I think it was Bob Dylan. There's a story ending I'll add up to if you want to know about it.
Because, yeah, he pointed at me and smiled at a concert once. Then my husband said, it was Bob Dylan. But, yeah, so I ended up in California at a commune where they asked me to leave. They said, we're taking you on a picnic. And they said, bring your things. Right? Should have been smarter. I brought my things. And they brought this dog that was like me. Just wanted to drink and party and have fun.
And all he did was smoke that stuff and drool on himself. And the animals would get high and drool on themselves. And me and this other dog were like, come on. And I drank their bong wine because there was no booze that night. And there was wine in the bong. So I drank it and they were really mad at me. Really mad because I guess it was well seasoned or something. So they took me on a picnic to Mount Baldy and left me there.
Bye. I got a ride back to Colorado. I got a ride back to Iowa. And I stayed out of my mom and dad's way. I was very depressed. And I met a guy that said, let me take care of you. Sure. I'm tired. I have already a gallbladder not functioning. I don't know what's wrong with me. I have pancreatitis. That's very painful. And, you know, I have some other little things that are happening that weren't quite right for a girl who was 20, 21 years old.
And so he said, let me take care of you. And I was tired. I didn't know we were going to an organic farm where there's a lot of work. There's a lot of work. There's 50 head of organic sheep. You know what they leave. There's in northern Wisconsin a non-insulated schoolhouse that we heated with wood. We cooked with wood. We had a buzz saw wood. Then we had a chop wood. Then we had a split wood if you wanted a cup of tea.
It was like, where am I? And I thought we were going to, I thought you were going to take care of me. And it was a whole community of organic people that didn't drink like me. I'd have to get some cheap wine. I painted mailboxes. That was my job in the organic community. I painted mailboxes with the name of your farm or whatever. So I would make a little money. I'd go get some cheap wine and I'd get drunk.
[00:25:00]
And they'd be having a hootenanny or something, you know, at the house. I would just make a big scene and tell them how not fun they were and boring. And I remember somebody sat me down and put me in a corner and said, shh. There was like a guitarist from Minneapolis there that was a big deal. I said, I don't care. He's boring. And they sat me in the corner and said, play the spoons. So I got to play the spoons.
And I couldn't wait to get out of there. But eventually they left me with the sheep and the garden, which had gone to weeds, because we had planted half an acre of Maui Waui seed with a lot of sheep dung on it, because it's a short growing season in Wisconsin. And that was about 10, 12 feet tall. So when they left me, I thought, good. I don't want another winter here. Bye. And I had my friend Clarence, the farmer, who would bring wild turkey.
I could hear him coming around the lane on a tractor, because he had license pulled for too many DUIs. So he was my only friend. And he'd be on the tractor bringing the wild turkey at night. So I could have some hard stuff, because I could only really afford the wine. And then one day I saw him going by down the road with his wife strapped to a chair on the back of the tractor. So when he came over, I said, Clarence, what were you doing with your wife on the tractor?
Taking her to the chiropractor. Think about it. She didn't need it before. She needed it when she got there, that's for sure. And then I think his wife took away the keys to the tractor or something, because he stopped coming. And that's okay. I harvested all of that by horseback. And then, of course, I see low-flying planes and things, and I get paranoid. You know, I did it all the right way. I read how to do it the right way.
And I had hefty bags on my kitchen floor, and I was going to go turn all this stuff into money, because I'm out of here. They were all doing primal therapy. I'm drunk and screaming at the sheep. I don't really care about all that. And so I went to do this big deal in this college town. I drove about an hour, and I went to where I was going to supposedly make some money on this. And I forgot it. It was back at the farm.
And that's how I joined the carnival. It was just there. And I thought, okay, that's my ticket out. I think just because I had a trailer hitch on my station wagon that he hired me, because you have to have a trailer hitch for your joint, and my joint was a shooting gallery. And so I called my mother from somewhere in Arkansas and told her what I was doing. And she said, what? And then she started to cry, and I thought, I can't talk to Dad.
Now I can't talk to you. And I said, come on, Mom, I'm writing a book. That's what I said to her. Like that's going to help. And so I told her, I told her daughter who was with a carnival, supposed to be on this organic farm, engaged to this guy. She thought maybe that would work for me, and it didn't. And she had to go back. I'm not hurting anyone but me, right? She had to go back up there. It was a five-hour trip.
She had to go get the things that she had given me from my grandmother's secretariat, some antiques and some things that were the family's, and the cat had been kicked by the horse. And so she had to take the cat to the vet and, you know, find a place for the horse. All of that. So I'm not hurting anyone but me, but she had to make that trip a couple of times. A couple of times. And I just stopped calling home.
And I ended up not being very nice with the carnival, and I want to tell you about that, because the bottom line is with the carnival, you're kind of a team, although everybody has aliases. They could never find me, or I could never find them, because, you know, slim and people like that. You know, it's just everybody had aliases, and everybody stole from everybody. And they let me just kind of find my way with all that.
But I was good, you know, and they drank. They drank a lot. I always had my joint under where I sat, and you could drink. But a couple of times I'd be a little drunk and not very nice. And the kids would shoot down the three targets. They were like 12-year-old kids or something with a shooting gallery, and they would shoot down the three targets. And I'm not in the mood tonight. I just bought my flash.
You know, I just bought all those teddy bears. I'm not in the mood to give them away tonight. So I would reach back and pop up one of those little targets so that it looked like they only shot down two. And they would start complaining, no, we shot. I said, no, you didn't. No, you didn't. We're going to go tell our dads. So go ahead. Go whine to your dads. And so the dads came. And then I always carried – I hitchhiked a lot too, so I'd always have mace in one boot and sometimes a pint of port in the other boot.
So I'd have to pull out my mace when the fight started because everybody comes over their flat store or whatever it was, and then they would all kind of scuffle. Whatever it was, and then they would all kind of scuffle, and I would have to take my mace out and get in the middle and mace somebody, and we got closed down, and Matt Armstrong wasn't happy with me, and then another stop, a couple, I think it was Opelousas, Louisiana, we got closed down again because of me, and I think he was saying, get rid of that little Wisconsin farm girl, she's troubled, we're getting closed down, we're losing money, I think that's what happened, because Bogalusa, Louisiana,
[00:30:24]
I came in at six in the morning with shotguns, and me and the boyfriend and the skunk and my dog all went to jail, that they found enough for what they said was sales and position, there were a lot of things in the room, and I told them that I was not selling, I was bartering, and you didn't read me my rights, and they would just say shut up, and so I went to Bogalusa, Louisiana jail, and the carnival left town, and they didn't come help me, and I started having, for the first time in my life that I remember DTs, because I had no fresh alcohol, and so I took a piece of a bottle, a Coke bottle or something that I found, and I started making little cuts all over me, because I knew they were coming in, and they were coming in at night, it was a really backwards crazy jail, the roaches were as big as my thumb, I mean, you didn't put your foot in the shoe until you looked, and they would crawl on you at night, and it was just, I was insane, and I was going through DTs, I had no idea until I met somebody making their own, and then it was okay, but they took me in cuffs one day, and threw me in the car, drove me to a building, threw me in this room, and there was a man there, another man there, and another man there, I thought, well, who are these people, why am I here, I'm cuffed, I don't bathe, because they watch, I took one bath there, that was it, one shower, that was it, I hadn't been sane for a while, I had cuts all over me, I'm cuffed behind my back, and I look to my left, and there's my dad, I hope, I have a lot of bodies between me and the door, a lot of bodies of people that I love, I care about, that my commitments, my son, my family, people I sponsor, I have a lot of bodies between me and the door, if I ever try to get out of here, right, but that's a moment I want to always remember, where I think I'm not hurting anyone but myself, because we didn't talk, we didn't look, we looked out of the corners of our eyes to each other, and they took my dad's money, they didn't let me out, like they were supposed to, my dad went back home, he didn't know that, he thought I was out, and they kept me a while longer, and then they let me out, and they sent me to go make some money to pay this huge fine, and I found the French Quarter, and what do I say, seventh heaven, now I had already had my gallbladder removed, and there was a doctor in that organic farm, I was living up there, I was still sick, and we were doing all this organic food, and Adele Davis, and Yule Gibbons, and oh God, we made maple syrup, and we had honeybees, so much work, and yeah, so that doctor, when I had this attack, and they did x-ray, and x-ray, and x-ray, and there was no function in it, and he said, you look, you shouldn't look like this at your age, do you abuse alcohol or drugs, I said to him, I remember what I said to him, I'm organic, and that's what I believed, and he spotted something, but my parent, I don't have an alcoholic in my family that we know, there were teetotalers, and there were, they marched with Carrie Nation on my mother's side, so who knows, maybe they put one of them in the attic, and we never knew about her or something, and my dad's from near Prague, he's seven eighths Czech, and those people partied, and we had a lot of fun, and I love my Czech family, and I still do, there's just a lot of beautiful heritage all around that, but yeah, I shouldn't have looked like that, and I was not part of the family, and I was not part of anything anymore, and I was a convicted felon, because there was enough to make it a felony, and I went to the French quarter, and I danced, I get stuck on the baby grand with my fishnet stockings on the palm tree prop, because I was drinking Cavasier with a trumpet player, and then I would lean against the wall to start my number, I had like a little swimsuit on, I didn't have all that, I didn't show it all, so that's how I justified it, right, so I leaned against the palm tree as I'm trying not to fall off the baby grand on my platform, and then my fishnets would get stuck on the staples that the palm tree was stapled to the wall with, and so I just like, oh my God, this is my number, and the spotlight's on, and I'm slithering around trying to do something, right, and it's like, one day I just ripped them off, and then, you know, fishnets like suck you in, and then your leg goes through the side of the fishnet, and it was the Alabama football team in there that night, it must have been Sugar Bowl or something, and they loved me,
[00:35:30]
I think I fell into one of their laps, and so I thought, I'm asking for a raise, and I got fired, so that's how I became a bartender, but, you know, New Orleans got darker, my blackouts got longer, I woke up in Florida once, swimming with dolphins, I thought they were sharks, it's like you have to assess where you are quickly at coming out of a blackout, and I just, you know, my life was really running out my sleeve, and I didn't care, I started to not care about my life at all, my raven just flew off, so yeah, I'm a convicted felon, I meet my probation officer in the bars, I don't go home, but my mom and dad decided to come try to find me because they hadn't heard from me in a long time, and I opened the door one morning with the guy with the skunk, and the skunk droppings, and my dog, and my little outfits on, whatever they were, my platinum blonde wig, and my black eye covered up by shooting stars because the drag queen showed me how to do that, and there was my mom and my dad at the door, and I know he put the snake in my dad's face, my dad stayed outside, he set his jaw, I saw him set his jaw, my mother came in, I remember her crying into a baked potato, I don't know how we got a baked potato, and when they went home that day, I went to the mousetrap bar, which I lived above, and I don't know how many tequilas I had, it didn't put out the fire, it didn't make me not care, it didn't work that day.
Now, you know, it wasn't going to not work from that day forward, but I remember the love of my family and wanting to be still part of that beautiful family was stronger than the alcohol, but I chose alcohol because I wanted to get in the car with them and just go back and start over, but I knew nothing would change it. I didn't know I was an alcoholic, nobody told me I was an alcoholic, I used to beat my fist on the bar to get a drink, come on, I'm an alcoholic, I need my drink, I don't know anything about alcoholism, nothing, I didn't know that, I just thought I was a loser, and it's over, I want to die by 25, I don't care.
And little did I know until 1999, I got sober in 75, that my little brother and my little sister were on that trip, that's how we got the baked potato, mystery solved. She went out with the boyfriend to get some food, and she said he took me to a girly show, thinking it would upset me, and I just thought he's stupid, and then my brother said I just kept my fist in the pocket, I wanted to hurt that man that was hurting my beautiful older sister.
More amends, keep your ears open, I've gotten to make amends, like to my mother, right up until she was 94 on her 94th birthday, on her 94th birthday I heard my mother say something I got to make more amends for, I'm a blackout drinker, Chucksy used to say, our job is to help God's kids get things done, and it rains on the just and the unjust and I don't get to judge who gets it. I'm just supposed to go out in the world, look for who needs it, and try to be helpful.
So that's what, you know, that's what I try to live by, because there are people in blackouts, I'll never ever know who they are or what happened. My friend Michael was shot and killed on Mardi Gras day outside my door, and I didn't know what happened. And I found out years later, there's three of us that survived the French Quarter, three women, the three musketeers, Rob and Denny and me survived the French Quarter and we're all sober.
Many people, many, many, many talented artists and people are dead, dead from alcoholism, because that's how I hung out, I hung out with the darkness and the dark people and the fun people and the ones who didn't care and the ones who are on a death march. And Denny and Robyn got sober about eight years after me. But Denny was sitting in a meeting in New Orleans, listening to a guy talk about the shooting in his building, years before.
And she went, oh my God, I think that's, because I lived with Denny then, I rented her couch is all I could afford.
[00:40:00]
And she went and talked to him and he told her the whole story. And I wasn't the one who pushed him out the door, I wasn't the one. I had no idea for years and years and years, but Alcoholics Anonymous freed me from that. And it also freed me from a lot of other things. When I was 94, I want to tell you about that, but that's how I got to Alcoholics Anonymous was by my mother. And Denny also went back to law school.
She owned the Blue Saloon in the French Quarter. So she got sober and went back, she went to law school and so she went from the bar to the bar, they did a big article on her. They didn't mention Alcoholics Anonymous, but they mentioned the change in her life. And she got me in on a pardon for first time offenders with the state of Louisiana and sent me that piece of paper for fun and for free. So they used to say you can't complain if you don't vote, so I get to vote and complain.
And that is what we do for each other. We help you heal. You helped me heal. I'm here to help you heal because I want you to be useful. I want you to find that beautiful spiritual bone in your body that just wants to give this thing away like the prospector in the book. And you know, ready to fall apart. He's got that belt and he tightens it up for one more shot at the earth to find the mother load of gold.
And he takes that pick up and he puts it in the dirt in the earth and he hits the mother load with his last ounce of strength. And then he finds out he gets to mine it for the rest of his life and give every piece away. Wow. You know, when I first read it, it was like, he doesn't get to keep the gold. I was like, I get it. I get it. I want to give every piece of me away. Every piece. Because it's not about me.
It's about you. It's about the new person. It's about the person in the street that needs help with their car. It's about the person who lost their dog. It's about my neighbor who is struggling with the groceries. It's about somebody who needs a smile today. It's that intuitive thought that I pick up the phone and call you. It's just saying yes to life in a helpful, beautiful way. And I don't get to judge who gets it and who doesn't.
And my example is for fun and for free. I don't get to decide who gets it. I have never heard anyone, you've talked about it, alcoholics and I was somebody talked about. But yes, I've never heard anyone say here, we don't stay sober through that. You have to leave. There's always someone. This is such an amazing community. There's always someone who you can go sit by that's had that experience and is sober sitting next to you and you can stay sober too.
What a beautiful thing we have. It's a spiritual program. Spiritual all the way. Language of the heart. So I ended up in California on my way to Hawaii running away again. And I never made Hawaii because I went to Palm Springs outside of a bar called Barney's Beardery. There were some motorcycle guys. I thought, yeah, I want to go to Palm Springs. I am now unemployable. I couldn't get a job in Los Angeles to save my life because my memory is gone.
I couldn't, I was 175 pounds of bloat. I wore a red dashiki, a Panama hat. I don't know how I took care of myself. I know I slept in hallways sometimes. I know I slept on a girl's floor for a while. She was moving out. She let me sleep on her floor. I know that from her house to the liquor store was a long ways because they were out there. I drove by it in sobriety and it was two doors down. There was a guy named Cal Worthington that sold cars at like 1.45 in the morning.
And when he came on it was like, liquor store, got to go, got to get it. So I had to fight my way down. All the crazy people, that was nobody, two doors down. It felt like two blocks to get my booze and come back because I was so paranoid. And I was changing. I was changing. I was getting ready for lights out. I know I was. But in that bar I saw the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Her name was Chris and she was, I guess, having her court card signed because people were signing something, passing it down on the bar.
You have to get your court card signed that you went to a meeting. And she got mad because somebody wrote Donald Duck. I don't know Alcoholics Anonymous, but she's got this big book. She's going to a meeting. The bartender takes her out. She's going to a meeting, the bartender takes her keys, calls a taxi, says you're not going drunk to your meeting, and she fell into the taxi and we took our drinks and go for your crash, go to A&A, we all gave her a toast from the bar, she fell into the taxi and went to A&A, and little did I know she was going to be my Eskimo to you, because I went with those guys and they left me somewhere and then I don't know what happened, but I was in a blackout and I came to and they were, I was being, you know, beaten up, I had been
[00:45:21]
in situations before, but I always got myself out of them, and this time at some point I stopped fighting for my life, at some point I gave up, I gave up my life, I said I don't care anymore and I stopped screaming, and I came to on a gurney, didn't remember anything other than I was laying in a ditch and I had my jaw broken through places, my nose, I had been drug around in the cement, I was a mess, a mess, I have good bones or there would have been more broken I'm sure, and I had a concussion too, and I'm out, and I wake up with my head on the sand because I hear the car door slam and I think they're coming back and I'm a survivor, and I pick my head up and I heard a voice, that great fact deep down within said get up, I want to live, interesting, I didn't want to live, and I heard it, and then I don't remember anything until I woke up in the gurney, and there I was signing my name because I had no ID and, you know, in front of my name was the word victim, and I went yes, I mean if I could have smiled I would have smiled, I had an identity, I had an identity, I'm shooting for victim, and boy I gave that up in sobriety, but it took seven years to give up being a victim in life, the self pity, the poor me, the one that gets in the way of happiness, the one that gets in the way of me and my heart and me and my God, I had to give that old, it's like an old itchy wool coat full of lint and things in the pocket, you know, where'd that Kleenex come from, oh my God, how old is that peppermint, you know, I mean, all that stuff, and it took me seven years to hang up that old itchy coat in the back of the closet and give up being a victim, it happened, it happened with step work, it happened with working with others, it happened when it was supposed to happen, every now and then I'll just kind of mentally put that on just to see how it is, and uh-oh, it's heavy, it's like ugh, so, but that's what I was shooting for, and so this guy, I was in the hospital for two weeks, I had a detective, I don't know anything really, I just know that they're giving me morphine, and I'm out of it, and then I kept ringing the bell, and then they wouldn't give me as much morphine as I wanted, so they wrote addictive personality on my chart, I saw, it's like what, all I want is some morphine, I don't feel good, and I had my birthday, I was going to have my birthday in there, and the nurses made a card, they felt sorry for me, and they came in, and I'm wired up, I can't eat, so I mean, this is the beginning of my, that's how I talk, so I didn't talk, you didn't want to listen anyway, so they came in, and they gave me a little glass of rosé or something that I was going to drink with my straw, I took a sip of that rosé, after they left, because I'm savoring it, I'm going, oh my God, there it is, king alcohol, right, and I almost threw it up, I got up out of the bed, and I poured it down the sink, which I never did, I drank it with my own vomit in, I won a chug-a-lug contest one time, and it was full, and it kind of came in there a little, but I hit it down, because I'm competitive, and I won the chug-a-lug contest, so you know, I don't throw away alcohol, and I thought, wow, what was that about, something had shifted inside of me, maybe getting me ready for you, I don't know, and a guy that I had met, dating Chris, the girl in the bar with the AA book, he came, and he said, came all the way out to Palm Springs from West L.A., said, I know you have no place to stay, I know you have to be at court, I know you have nothing, so you can come stay with me until you feel better, he was like a little angel, and he let me live with him above the liquor store, which you would buy me red wine, and I would sip on the red wine every day, and there was no more, I'm going to show you, defiance, there was no more any of that, I was tired, bone tired, and he said, you have to leave, you're depressing me, August 20th, 1975, my day for you, my day to come to you, he said, you have to leave, I called my mother collect, and my mom didn't know how I was for two nights, because they got a panicked phone call from some nurse, that didn't say what hospital I was in, and told her what had happened to their daughter, because I gave them the home number, I wrote it down, and so my sister in New York and my mother in Iowa called hospitals in California for two days until they found me, and my mother didn't sleep at night, thank you Alcoholics Anonymous for giving my mother good night's sleep for many, many, many, many, many, many years, so what she said to me was, Sharon, we can't help you anymore, go to the Salvation Army, mom always said something, always said something, and it was like a kick in the gut,
[00:50:20]
and I called the number that was sitting there, her name was Chris, the woman in the bar, dating the guy that let me stay there, and she said, I know what happened to you, I know what your problem is, but she wasn't sober that day, so she gave me a stranger to call, and I actually called the stranger, but she knew the liquor store I was living above, so she got that out of me, and she sent two of her most beautiful girls over to pick me up, because I think I need a place to stay, that's all I'm asking for, I don't know I'm going to Alcoholics Anonymous, they're going to help me find a place to stay, that's it, I have nowhere to go, and I want to not leave this part of my day, because my mother, when she was 94 at her birthday, she passed away at 95, and I got to be with her, I'm so happy, she passed away in my arms, but at 94, we had this big birthday party for her, we had one every year after 90, you just got to do that, right, and she's living in Madison, Wisconsin, because my father had been killed in an accident on his land, it's 1999, devastated, Alcoholics Anonymous was in my home when I got off the plane, thank you, thank you, my mother was devastated, the town was devastated, it was very shocking, but my mother said to somebody at her 94th birthday, she was living in Madison, Wisconsin now, so now I'm from the state of cheese, cheese, and you know, not pigs, but cheese, so I kind of felt better, but I love Iowa, it's a beautiful state, I know, I segway around, but my mother said to somebody, there was only one time in my life that my husband said I couldn't help one of the children, who could that be, so the next day when I saw my mom, I talked to her about that day, and I said, mom, was it, she said, yeah, it was that day, I said, well, what do you mean, you're the one that said that to me on the phone, and where did you get that Salvation Army thing, she said, I don't know, it just came to me, but she said, I put the phone on my chest, I looked at your dad, who was standing there, and I said, can we help her, and my dad said, no, we've tried, because if my mom would have gotten back on the phone, and said, your father said, I would have gone, defiance, every piece of me would have just gone into that little bit of defiance I had left, and I'll show you, and I would have been out with the kids, and I would have been with my thumb out, and my broken jaw, and my sad, sorry self, hitchhiking to Arizona, because I was thinking, Phoenix has drive-through liquor stores, but she said, no, she didn't say, your dad said, I think she said, we can't help you, but my mom is the one that took the heat, seconds and inches, if she would have sent $20, seconds and inches, if she would have said, your dad, seconds and inches, that I ended up calling a woman named Suzanne, seconds and inches, that I ended up with two beautiful girls that I hated immediately, in the back of a Volkswagen, where I can't get out, on a hot summer day, I'm detoxing, I'm not bathing, and I'm detoxing, and I smell bad, it's not Tiffany perfume, believe me, and I don't smell that so much in AA anymore, that detoxing, great, wonderful smell, I like to get on a crowded elevator on a Monday morning, because somebody in there has been having fun, I just like that smell, I still walk by a CD bar and go, oh yeah, the men's bathroom, yay, you know, something about all that, but you know, they're still out there, and there's a lot of new people, and every once in a while, you get a good whiff, and I love it, I love it, you know, so there I am, at this church, oh, that's what we got to do now, I've been through a lot, I danced with the Krishnas, until they wanted a commitment, I've been with the Holy Rollers in Colorado, forever, and other places that wanted eternity, and I'd always leave, because I live a day at a time, I got a book in my backpack, called Be Here Now, by Baba Ram Dass, Be Here Now meant to me, I get to do what I want, when I want, no matter what, I didn't know Be Here Now meant awareness, compassion, language of the heart, I didn't know that, so I end up at this church, and I thought, okay, and this man at the door, looking nice, said welcome, and I thought he was going to put me in the kitchen, because I look so bad, you know, I really look bad, I thought he'd put me back there, and say, well, when you clean up, you can come out and sit with everybody else, that's what I think he was going to do, but he didn't, he didn't pull me back to the kitchen behind him, he just said welcome, and I sat down, and I don't know what happened, there were tables, and there was a man talking, and I don't know anything, I'm just waiting for whatever to be over, and a place to stay, and he hooked me, I think there's a phrase, or a moment, or
[00:55:20]
a word, or a look, or a kindness in each one of us, talking about the ripples, we don't know, we just make ripples, we don't know where they land, every once in a while, if you keep your eyes and ears open, you get to see it hit the shore, every once in a while, but those ripples go, and go, and go, and go, and go, and I had no idea that the man, he said, he hooked me with what he said, he said he always waited for the spaceship to land, and say, you can come home now, Bill, and I went, I lifted my chin off my chest, I looked at all of you, and I thought, spaceship people, okay, I can do spaceship people, and then somebody came up after the meeting with a book, Oh, Alcoholics Anonymous, to sell it to me, I had no money, I gave him my last quarter, because he was, you know, he was kind of, face was changing in front of me, and I just gave him my last quarter, and he wrote it down, he was really happy, I guess I had made payment terms, and he wrote in pencil, he got my name out of me, he put the sobriety date, and where I was, in pencil, he was a Hollywood writer, he was a great guy, he came to my watch when I turned one, we watch people turn one, we don't let them out of our sight, you know, it's like midnight, they're one, if they go to the bath, go with them, you know, they go to smoke, go smoke, we put them in the inside of the booth, we don't let them out, and we sit there, and we count down, and we light a candle, and they blow it out, yay, so we have watches for people that turn one, so at my watch, Maurice came in, and he said to me, I knew you'd stay sober, you were the only newcomer that year that paid me back for that big book one quarter at a time, and I remember thinking, I'm going to pay you guys back, because you're being nice to me, you're being nice to me, you're dragging me around to these places, and these meetings, and I couldn't even focus, I couldn't read three pages a night, my sponsor said, read three pages a night, I got a sponsor, because they wouldn't stop, they wouldn't stop, sponsor, yeah, get a sponsor, yeah, sure, and I got this commitment at the very first meeting I went to, so the next week, they gave me this commitment to wash the cups, because we had real cups at that meeting, so they stuck me in the kitchen, next to this guy who had a tattooed tear, and a Texas accent, and he made me very nervous, because I barely got through Texas once, on the hair of my chinny, chin, chin, chin, and he would look at me, you get a sponsor, you're going to get drunk, you better get a sponsor, you're going to get drunk, and I thought, ugh, I hate him, I wanted to hit him with a coffee mug, but I couldn't, so I was washing the coffee cups, doing my commitment, he was the dryer, so he had to stand by me, and it wouldn't be quiet, and then the people started coming on and putting those little green, yellow, red tin ashtrays that we used to smoke like crazy, they would just take the ashes out, and the cigarette butts, and just kind of on the side of the waste basket, and then they'd throw it into my soapy coffee cup washings, and I just kind of stood there, I didn't know what to do, and the CIA lady walked behind me, and she said in my ear, wash, oh, wash, okay, so I washed, it didn't matter, ashes, no ashes, coffee cups, and I washed, let the dryer handle it.
And that lady, June Ann, she would take me to that meeting, she was the cookie girl, go get the cookies. She died of alcoholism, I got to see her in Atlanta and thank her for all her help, we got her son sober because we got him kicked out of his place, he said I sat there and I was playing his guitar and I broke a string and then I sobbed for an hour, I was like, God, we used to like to laugh about that.
But I got to see his mother one more time and thank her, but she would go get the cookies, she dropped me off at the meeting that I'm the washer, go get the cookies and then come back. Well, she wasn't coming back and the meeting's about to start, and you know, I mean, yeah, there's the literature, but where's the cookies, you know? So where's June Ann, what happened? So we're kind of wondering and all of a sudden a black and white LAPD pulls up to the curb and he gets out, the policeman gets out and he's got something in his hands, we don't know what, and he comes up and talks to the secretary and we're all kind of gathering around and then the secretary, John, said, well, where's June Ann?
He said, well, she's in the car. They called me because she was shoplifted. They caught her and so I got to take her in. But she showed me the receipt in the car that she had actually paid for the cookies for the meeting. in the car that she had actually paid for the cookies for the meeting. So she convinced me to, she had like, she shoplifted toothpaste and stuff, but she had bought the cookies with the AA money and she had the receipt for it.
[01:00:01]
So she convinced him to stop and he said, she convinced me to stop, here's your cookies. So I was like, that's commitment, that's commitment. My sponsor said, if you have a fever, you can stay home and you better have a thermometer, but other than that, you come to a meeting because I don't want you to listen to your head because it's broken, you have a broken brain. I was like, well, thanks, you know, but we started our step work and I ended up after getting a sponsor, I slept on floors, I went to her couch.
Give a sponsor, your life gets better, that's how it was for me. And that's how it started. My first third step with Janet was hilarious. We did on our knees, it was a door was open, kids were around, bright light, we're on our knees, I'm going, OK, me and God have had like, I just, I left him in that Catholic church, I didn't want God to know where I was and we just had a, like we had an agreement.
And now we're on our knees, on a bright day, he's going to know I'm here. And I just didn't know what to do, but she pulled me down because she's, she intimidates me. And I get down on my knees and we say that third step prayer and I'm still wired up, I can't really say anything, but we did it, she's all excited and she hugs me and she puts her face, she's short, right? She's just like all right in me, you know, she's in me, hugging me, hugging me.
I thought, oh, please stop, I'm going to have to hit you. And then it'll be all over the Saturday night meeting that Sharon had her sponsor. I said, I'm starting to like you, I didn't want to, you know, have a bad name. And so, all of a sudden, I felt warm and loved and safe. I couldn't put words on it then because what I said to my sponsor with my broken jawless, I think I'm gay, I think I love you.
That's how my broken brain processed kindness. And she said, well, let's not make any major decisions in our first year. So, we began and we began and then the wires came off and then I got a $24 a week room and a car, I got a car, somebody gave me a car, it had no pipes. So, I roll up to the meeting and the seat was broken, it was a primary gray Malibu, it was really cool. The seat was broken and I was like low riding up to the meeting and she said, oh, no.
Do you have insurance for that car? What? You got to have insurance because Clancy says we want to be protected from people like you. I'm this Clancy guy, you know, he's the leader of our group, the oldest time or whatever. But she took away the keys, didn't let me drive until I got car insurance because I got a driver's license. She said, you have to have driver's license, insurance, registration all in your same name.
Oh, man, that's a lot of work. You know, I used to just take that tag off, it was easy. Nowadays, it's not, but so I did it. I got a man named Hank Johnson, I don't know if any of you ever heard him speak, fabulous guy. He used to work for AAA and he was funny, funny, funny. I love hearing him. He would say the same story every time and if he left something out, it was like, no, don't leave out that toot when you hear that special sound in that, you know, your jazz record.
He would have his wife here and his wife when she drank was mean and Hank would get all blubbery and his wife would take the record player arm and just go rah, you know, and everybody's sober in that family now. His son said, I came home and thought we were moving again. The Christmas tree was in the yard and, you know, it's just like crazy, crazy fun people. I love those people. Hank said she even stabbed my shoes once when she cut up my clothes.
I was like, I love us. We are just, we're forced for good today. We were just a mess, you know, whirling dervishes or something just not caring about anybody in our path. Out of my way, out of my way. You know, me first, you never. So, yeah, so I, Janet and I started and all of this, all of this started with Fourth Step and Hank sent me my, came to my old $24 a week room and sold me my car insurance.
I still have that same insurance today. They thank me if I have 40 whatever years. And I always think, Hank, I hope you're getting residuals up there at the big meeting in the sky. But I didn't even, I had a coffee pot and a teddy bear. Somebody left because I'm waiting tables again. Somebody left that teddy bear so they never came back. So I had a teddy bear, a coffee pot, a bed, a phone. My first phone call, she said you list your number.
It was a, it was like a, you know, well it was like a, you know, one of those pornographic phone calls. It's like what, it's going to be fun. I don't know what's going on here but that was very, it was my very first phone call
[01:05:01]
in my little $24 a week room which became a, the whole thing became storage units when I drove by one time. That's how little it was. But I'm working. I'm self-supporting. I've got my car insurance. Hank sold it to me. I got my car. I got a painted primer. I got the primer gray painted into Basin Street blue one day. I'm waiting tables and I'm being nice because the Al-Anon showed me how to do this.
Because I was, I was bringing them down. I was telling them, how are you? And I would tell them my sad story. Nobody wants to hear it. And the clubhouse in Culver City was close by. They come by after a meeting on Friday night and go to that little girl. She's nearly sober. Let's go help her out, sit at her station. Well evidently I would bring them down so badly after their meeting that somebody wanted their people called Sally Carpenter who was the Queen Al-Anon in our group and told on me.
And so she came up to me one night. I was dressed to go to a split shift in my orange uniform. And she came up and went, I said, what's that for? She said, when you wait on people, they don't care how you are. They just want hot food. They just want to be, you know, have their own conversation. So when they ask you how you are, you say, I'm fine, thank you. How are you? I said, we're supposed to be honest in all our affairs.
And she said, they don't care. Even the Culver City, ah, she busted them, right? So I went out and I tried it that night. I'm just going to, they're going to know I'm a big phony. And I did this all night long, all night long, all night long. My tips doubled by the time it was halfway through my shift dinner time for me. Doubled. I thought, okay, these people are smart. And I got my car painted Basin Street Blue at Earl Scheib, took it in, it's like $49.99.
I picked out a color on the wall. Oh, I used to live in New Orleans, Basin Street Blue, right? I come to pick it up in between my shift, right? And it is turquoise. Bright turquoise. Nobody had bright turquoise cars at that time. And I went, that's not my car. Yeah, it's your car. I said, I didn't pick that color. Well, what color did you pick? I wouldn't show them. They said, well, that's faded. So I went back to the split shift where I was working, my waitress job, and there's a telephone call in between the bar and the restaurant.
And I thought, screw that. I just got into self-pity and I said, screw that. I'm just going to go have a drink. But the telephone was there and I knew my sponsor's number because we didn't have cell phones then. You got to memorize your sponsor's number. Memorize your sponsor's number. Please dial it. Don't just speed dial it. Know it. You lose your phone, you need your sponsor. Take it to memory. I cannot tell you please not to just to do that.
I think it's just a lifesaver. So I called her and she had me laughing and we toned it down. We waxed it. We buffed it. We toned it down. So I almost got drunk over the color of a car. I look back on that and it's just like, wow, seconds and inches. Then I knew her number. I thought I'm going to call her because she'll really be mad at me. Intimidation works. Worked for me. And so I got a better job and I started waiting tables at the big hotel by the airport, one of the big hotels.
And we would pull in the parking lot. She said, you got to take your mind out of your head and put it in the trunk of your car when you go to work. You just work. You learn how to punch in on time. You learn how to be part of this nice place you're working and you don't tell everybody about yourself and you don't whine on everybody. You come in with a good attitude. So that's what happened. I would lift my trunk.
I'd go like this. Put it in the trunk of the car. I'd shut the trunk. And I'd go to work and I wouldn't think I'd work. And I'd come out. Okay, good. I'd go by that security guard. He was always standing there going, oh, there she goes again. I don't know what she's doing in the trunk of her car, but she's going to go there and lift the trunk up and do something really silly and then go. He never asked.
He just watched me every day coming and going. And I'd lift the trunk and I'd put it back in and I'd get in the car and I'd complain all the way. We'd complain all the way to the meeting. And I started a fourth step and that was really hard. But, man, once I'd lit that fire, once I opened that dike, once it just poured out of me and I'd have to write in the car, oh, yeah, I can't breathe, oh, yeah, I can't breathe.
And I only pushed myself through that because there was a woman with eight days more, eight days less than me. I have eight days more than this woman that came in after me and stole all my thunder from the old timers like I had any, right? But it seemed to me like they all moved to Pat because she wasn't wired up. She was dressed clean, could talk, and sent the second string out to work with me and give me rides.
That's what I thought, you know, but they were still taking care of me. We're going to give that girl a chance because I came in here as an ember of life. That's all that was left. And you fanned it and you fanned it and you fanned it.
[01:10:01]
And I have a brightly lit log, logs on my fire, brightly lit, like that fire last night has been burning a long time. And when I need a log, you guys bring me a log and make it brighter. When you need a log, I'll bring you a log and make your life brighter. That's what we do here. So, yeah, so I did that. I thought Pat's done her fourth step. She's done her fifth step. They're saying, oh, Pat's in amends already.
Thank you so much. Pat, you are so observant. I appreciate that. I would have drank at your bar. You never let me get empty. Okay. So I would have drank at, you know, oh, never mind, never mind. So, yeah, I did that. I did my fifth step with her a week before my birthday because Pat had done hers. Oh, Pat, Pat, Pat. And she would look at me at chapter five and say, oh, I know you haven't done yours yet, you know.
So I did my inventory, did my fifth step. It was a great experience. I found out my sponsor was sicker than me. It was great. And I drove home. It was sunrise. And I looked at the sky and I said angels would live here. And I went, who said that? It was corny and beautiful. And something opened up in me. My dad, I made amends to my dad at one year. He said, I always wanted you to be happy. My second sponsor said it's time for you to make financial amends to your dad.
You have a better job. I became a travel agent. Then I started working for law firms after I got pardoned. And I had a good run with all learning how to be a worker among workers. And now I'm semi-retired, working part-time. And I get to do lots of AA and I love it. I love it. So my dad, I called him up and I said, can I pay you back the money I owe you? He said, yeah, it's this much. He had run a calculator tape.
He had read the big book. He was ready for me. He had come to my first wedding, walked me down the aisle. We were eye to eye at that wedding. So my sponsor said, are you willing to grow through this with your dad? So what I did was I called my dad. And he got payment terms and that was good. I said, he's accepted my payment terms. Good. It's really high. It was a lot. And she said, okay, then don't be late with that.
Grow through this with your dad. Write a note about your life. Put it with your check. So I did that. I didn't want to, but I did it. After almost five years of the note and the check on time, my dad called me after Christmas and said, Merry Christmas. I don't want your money anymore. But don't stop sending me your notes. And I got to heal with my dad. And when he was killed, my sponsor was Clancy at the time.
He was out of town. And I had gone through a really messy divorce and my mom and dad got to come out and help me because they were freed up to do that. My amends were for them. My financial amends were for my dad to be my dad and my mom to be my mom because there was nothing between us anymore. They got to help me out as mother and father. They got to come out to California, bring me a car with deer whistles on it.
And my mother said, we're painting and buying you a new bed. And they got to be mom and dad. And I had this little baby boy and he's 35 now and he's fantastic. He grew up in AA when I was single. You guys loved him. At the International Convention in San Diego, he stood up for 11 years. Yay. And life got really, really good and my dad was killed and Clancy was out of town and I called Clancy and he was in Africa and he said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I'm back in town. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. And I said, well, I'm going to do this accordion number for my dad with this Czech accordion. I'm going to play Amazing Grace but it's buttons and I'm crying now and I don't know and I'm making it about me at my dad's wake. And he said, Sharon, you're going to do a great job. I'm sobbing but he says, you're going to do a great job. I want you to look around that room when you're done because there won't be a dry eye.
You'll have done a beautiful job playing Amazing Grace for your dad. But do me one favor and look closely. There will be a couple of people really sobbing. Those are the musicians. Right back to reality. I love sponsoring. I love sponsorship. I'm running out of time. And I want to let you guys know that I love my husband to the end of his life. I met my soul mate here and we got to travel the last few years.
He had malignant melanoma and he got two years and two months. They gave him seven months. Fighter, good man in AA, good man in AA. Maybe some of you met him. His name was Casey. And it was a peaceful, beautiful, Alcoholics Anonymous, Buddhist, none, everything death that was really beautiful. And you guys honored him. And I want to know, I want you to know that he gave me. I have a broken open heart, I think they heal bigger.
I think broken open hearts heal bigger. And we were sitting there one day, I'm whining and complaining about his sickness and I got to go to work.
[01:15:00]
And he said, yeah, I don't like it very much either. Look outside Sharon, do you see the wind? And the Santa Anas were blowing and things were really blowing around. I said, yeah, look what's happening, I see the wind. And he said quietly, no Sharon, do you see the wind? And he emphasized see. And I thought, okay, Grasshopper Sensei here, moment I must remember. And I got it, I don't see the wind. He said, yeah, you don't see the wind, you see the effects.
And I said, that's right, I see the effects of the wind. And he said, every day, with this one I have and my life has been beautiful and good. I go out into the world, I don't see God in this a lot of times, it's hard. But I go out every day and I look for the effects of God. And you guys have shown me the effects of God in beautiful Kentucky this weekend with your beautiful hearts and all your love.
And I hope that maybe when my time is done, may I be all used up. Thank you.