They Thought My Husband Was the Alcoholic – AA Speaker – Sybil C.
Sybil C., a founding woman in early AA, shares her 46-year sobriety journey and discovery of Alcoholics Anonymous in Los Angeles in the 1940s.
Sybil C. from Los Angeles became sober in the early days of AA, back when women alcoholics were almost unheard of in the fellowship. In this AA speaker tape, she walks through decades of drinking, her desperate plea that led to the first AA meeting in Southern California, and how she became known as one of the first ladies of AA on the west coast—now with 46 years of continuous sobriety.
Sybil C. shares her journey from years of alcoholism and broken promises to finding Alcoholics Anonymous through a magazine article in 1941, becoming one of the first women in AA’s early days on the west coast. She describes her first meetings when women alcoholics were rare, her role as executive secretary at the LA central office, and how the program worked through family struggles, grief, and life’s challenges over 46 years sober. The talk reflects on early AA’s growth, the importance of community and service work, and how sobriety became possible through fellowship rather than willpower alone.
Episode Summary
This is a remarkable AA speaker tape from one of the founding women in early AA. Sybil C. is a 79-year-old woman with 46 years of sobriety, and her story spans from the depths of alcoholism in pre-war Los Angeles to the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous when women in the fellowship were practically nonexistent.
Sybil’s drinking years read like a catalog of desperation. She describes years of promises she couldn’t keep, hitchhiking out of town while abandoning her infant daughter with an ill mother, passing out in bars and on beaches, hiding bottles in the sand, running from the law, and the constant cycle of shame, prayer, and relapse. She was young, defiant, and convinced she could control it through willpower—a word she calls “dirty” because it never worked. The longest she stayed sober before AA was nine days.
The turning point came accidentally. After waking up in a Turkish bath in Los Angeles (where she’d gone to sober up and hide yet another bender), she grabbed a magazine to read and found the Saturday Evening Post from March 1, 1941—featuring Jack Alexander’s article on Alcoholics Anonymous. Sybil had actually seen an earlier article in Liberty magazine in 1939, but this one felt different. She read about a “small band of men” meeting together, and though the photographs showed only men, she was convinced there was an AA hospital where they “cured” alcoholics.
Desperate, she wrote to the New York office saying she’d come be cured. The response came airmail from Ruth Hawk, Bill Wilson’s secretary, with life-changing news: AA had started in Los Angeles in December 1939—two years earlier. She was given Cliff Walker’s phone number.
That first call to Cliff changed everything. He was honest and direct—no AA ambulance, no hospital, just a meeting downtown on Friday nights. When Sybil showed up shaking, in a red turban with bloodshot eyes, the men thought she was the wife of an alcoholic and asked her to leave. But Cliff intervened, and by the following Friday, she was invited back with this instruction: if she was willing to call herself an alcoholic, she could stay. She did. From that day forward, she remained active in AA.
Sybil held leadership roles for decades, serving as executive secretary of the Los Angeles central office for 12 years. She shares vivid stories from this work—finding a homeless man living under a tree, connecting him with the program, and watching his complete transformation. She recalls answering a call from a woman in a Skid Row hotel surrounded by unconscious addicts, coordinating help through other members, and witnessing both tragic and redemptive outcomes.
The talk also touches on personal struggles that tested her sobriety. Early on, her second husband, Dick Maxwell, grew frustrated with her attending meetings at “the hole in the ground” (the basement meeting where her brother had started a participation group). One night, after she promised repeatedly not to go, he shocked her by suggesting she return to drinking—that anything would be better than her going to meetings. She left him that night, rented a $7-a-week room, got a job at the Los Angeles Times, and kept going to meetings.
When her brother died suddenly of a heart attack in 1952, Sybil was numb—unable to cry, leading meetings defiantly while grieving. She wrote to Bill Wilson about it, and his response, a deeply compassionate letter, broke through her emotional dam. She’s spent decades sharing copies of that letter with others facing tragedy.
Throughout the talk, Sybil emphasizes what the program meant in those early days—when there was no literature, no infrastructure, and women alcoholics were considered nearly impossible. She speaks to how AA adapted and grew, how she watched groups multiply despite early attempts by some to control and limit membership. She stresses the importance of real names and phone numbers in the fellowship, pushing back against the notion that anonymity means complete obscurity—it means anonymity at the level of “press, radio, and film,” not hiding from the people who might save your life.
At 46 years sober, Sybil doesn’t paint recovery as perfect or easy. She’s had illness in her family, losses, and her own character defects. But she testifies that AA worked through everything—the promise was never that sobriety would bring wealth, health, or perfection, but that you wouldn’t have to drink, no matter what happened. For someone who spent years running from bars to San Francisco to Arvin picking grapes to Turkish baths, finding a family that would stick by her through it all changed everything.
Notable Quotes
I’ll never forget her signature—ru—I can see it now. And the letter was not too long but it simply said dear Sybil we were glad to hear from you here at the New York office.
They thought he was a drunk and I don’t know he was dressed up and looked good but he stayed in there and he came out shaking his head sadly and said I don’t know what they’re up to.
I was in a state of shock and I just couldn’t hardly pull out of it. He said anything would be better than this. And I left and I went down to West Adams and I’d driven down that street a million times.
Life is but a long day in school. Some of our lessons are hard. Some of our lessons are easy. It’s really not so much what happens to us here, but it’s what we do with the experiences we have.
Alcoholics Anonymous didn’t work when things got tough, that it wasn’t worth a plugged nickel when the sun was shining. It had to work through everything no matter what.
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Early Sobriety
- Women in Recovery
- Hitting Bottom
- Sponsorship
- Founders & AA History
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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> It's my pleasure.
There's one lady on the west coast that um carries this label and uh the label she carries is is the first lady in AA on the west coast. Her name is Cibil and she's from Los Angeles. And let's welcome her.
Thank you, Daryl. And thanks to the committee. Everyone on the committee has been terribly good to me, including Daryl.
And I I'm always so amazed and so surprised that I should get any attention at all because uh I'm just like you. I mean, I I drank in very poor bars and and rotten bootlegging stuff and got drunk and had to be hauled home. And now I get called the oldest woman west of the Rockies or something like that.
And and you know, and I know that at my age and after my experience in AA and having been sober and hugged and kissed and loved as much as this, that if I got drunk now, it would kill me. Kill me right away. I wouldn't even linger around very long because next month next month I'll be 79 years old.
Last month I celebrated my 46th sober birthday a heartbeat at a time. I wonder how that might must sound for the young members. I'm talking about age.
The the 15, 16, 18, 20, 25 year old uh kids, young people who come in now and they see Grandma Moses up here, you know, and they'll think, well, my gosh, you know, it it it's just not possible to ever um you know, live to be that old and not have a drink in 46 years. Yeah, it's possible. But it doesn't mean that it's always just moonlight and roses and unfold wealth and uh good health and uh make a lot of money and always look good to the people and say the right things and and nothing bad can ever happen to you because you don't drink now.
And then I look around uh and think about my mother and my father. They never did drink and they never had any good times particularly uh you know. So here I am as supposed to be a little unique I suppose because I've hung around so long but I intend to be here for a long time.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh that must be the auction table there.
I think I see the Garcas. And I'll tell you uh about the GarcAs. I was married to a compulsive gambler and uh that's the part of my long name of civil doris Adam Stratton Hart Maxwell Willis Corwin and and when it got to the Willis part uh my daughter Addie who came down especially to be here from Northern California is laughing she's been sober five years five miraculous years.
Addie Williams and she was laughing about uh Jim Jim Willis who started uh the gambling non-gambling program Gamblers Anonymous so successfully as her stepstep stepfather or as a two steps I've kind of forgotten how many steps were packed on that they were terribly fond of each other and he was a great man and these people from Oxnard in his last year he spent in a rest home a block from their home, the Garcia. And do you know the Tony and Tony trudged over there every day of Jim's life and I don't think you knew these people before today, Addie. Uh that they they they lived there in Oxnard.
They knew what a wonderful thing that he had done for so many gamblers that killed themselves and literally cut their throats because there was no way out. and he wrote the book and he did the meeting directory and he traveled around the country and got GA started all over the country and did a great job and the Garcia sitting right here had no idea I thought they'd be invisible out there someplace. So, thank you again for being so much in our lives.
It is so helpful to have people who stick by you when the going is rough because as human beings, you know, uh the human beings all over the world have rough times and they don't have to get drunk at it or take dope for it and all of that kind of thing. But we've had people stand by us and looking back over your lives regardless of your sobriety date. Uh it's a great thing to know that actually that most of us are closer to each other than we are.
our first cousins. Perhaps some of us would say mother-in-laws, others would name distant relatives or the neighbors next door. And yet, you know what makes me tick.
And I know something about what makes you tick. And I found out early on that if Alcoholics Anonymous didn't work when things got tough, that it wasn't worth a plugged nickel when the sun was shining. It had to work through everything no matter what.
And it does. I hope there's I don't know where that guy is sitting that I gave a hug to 25 days sober because of the light so I could identify you and I talked to him and and hugged him uh 10 minutes before the meeting started. And 25 days sober.
Can you imagine that? What must he think of us when we shout and scream and hoop and holler with laughter one moment and then we get deadly serious when we talk about this alcoholism thing and what it did to our lives because it is a serious thing and most of us who come to AA know that there's absolutely no other way out but this permanently except in a few cases uh of religion but not in the majority of cases because a lot of us tried religion first we tried drying out places. We tried a lots of things.
Tried willpower. That dirty word, willpower. I That's all I ever tried was was promises.
Promises. I won't do it again. I won't be missing for 3 days.
I I I really won't ever drink again. I swear I won't. I I I promise you I won't.
I really mean it. I mean it. I mean it.
I I'd rather die than drink again. Well, I meant that. But there I was.
The longest time I ever stayed sober was nine days when I hitchhiked out of town with uh Addie's father, Bill Hart. He was a sailor boy, paid off out of the Navy, didn't have a nickel and we got married and Addie was born and my mother took care of the baby. And when she was 6 months old, we were dead broke and we hitchhiked out of town and left Addie there with my mother who was very ill with a heart problem, heart trouble and died early on.
And we we hitchhik hung over and depressed and poor and didn't want to behave the way we were doing. And we got out as far as uh Arvin, which is 18 mi this side of Bakersfield in California. Got over the ridge route, all right, which was just a muddy trail then.
It wasn't a big thoroughare. And it took us a long time hitching rides on trucks and things to get there. But when we got to where it said Bickersfield 18 miles or 25 miles, whichever it was, there was a little sign pointed to the right said Arvin and we got a cold drink or something there, it was left in a hay stack that night.
I'd forgotten about that. And the next morning, the man at the little grocery store there where we got some crackers or something to eat, he said, "If you want to hitchhike into Arvin, they're picking grapes there, and I think they they can use you." So we walked and hitched rides on a little truck full of grapes and one thing another till we got to Arvin and got a job picking grapes and the sun was hot 120 or something like that and I was sweating. I was very young and I thought this is the life now.
I'm away from those drunks and those places, those saloons and and now then I won't have to drink anymore and mama will take good care of the baby and we'll make a little bundle of money here picking these grapes and when we go back well we'll take the baby and we'll rent the apartment and I'll have my little girl and she'll never see her mother drunk. And I worked hard and I was dirty and sweaty but happy. And then along about sundown, all of those great pickers from many had come from many directions.
And they were college kids mostly that were there from to earn tuition for the fall. A nice cleancut little crowd. And they gathered around, built a bonfire uh because there wasn't anything else to do except getting their sleeping bag or whatever.
And so they built this bonfire and they started harmonizing. And Bill and I joined the little crowd there. And I thought, "Now this is the life.
Oh boy, will I be healthy and tan and I'll be such a good wife and mother when we get back to Los Angeles. And we started harmonizing with them. And then I saw around this this big circle of young people and Bill here and I'm here.
I I saw a bottle start being passed around the circle, a bottle being passed and and I knew what it was. It was a big big quart of whiskey and I knew my mouth began to water. I was salivated and I knew that when that bottle reached me, I watched the next to the next.
I hope God I hope there's enough for me. And it finally reached me and I turned up the bottle and drank the rest of it, the whole thing. And realizing that I had failed once again.
I couldn't bear it. I got up from the campfire and I wandered down the row of grapes, strumbling from one row to the next, just stumbling along with my head down and sobbing and crying. I remember looking up at the moon and praying, "Oh God, why am I doing this?
Why am I doing this? And I never felt such sorrow. My throat just achd from pain.
And I finally began to worry and got terribly frightened because I heard this heavenly music and the answer to my prayer. And it was heavenly. It was eerie.
And I thought, "All right, I've overdone it this time. Now I've got deep. I've got deep on top of everything else.
Listen to that music. It's so beautiful." And I began to stumble and run to get away from the music. And I couldn't get away from it.
got louder and louder and louder. And so pretty soon I stumbled upon this big khaki tent out there in an acre that was free of grape vines. And it was the local uh revival meeting, a church meeting.
And all of the towns people were in there singing hymns, but I didn't know that. And when I reached there, like those double doors there, I parted the flap of the tent and the music stopped. And the preacher, he was disconcerted.
and he looked back in the back to where the exit was at this dirty face, tears running down my cheeks, this this woman standing back there swaying back and forth. And the congregation slowly turned around and gave me the eye. And as he was saying this, if any of you among if there are any among you who want to be saved, please come forward at this time, which was a cue for the regulars to do this thing, you know, but I was the one who wanted to be saved.
And they were really interested in my my behavior. And so I staggered and lurched and they mentally were helping me along, I suppose. And it took me forever and a day to get down there and they began to sing just as I am without one plea.
And I it just nearly killed me in the tears. And I finally got to the altar and the preacher put his hand out and put it on my head to pray for me and I threw up all over it. Now in later years I did many many many many many many many many many bad things especially driving a car and but I never had anything or never heard any story as disgraceful as mine that I threw up on the preacher uh because I couldn't bear the what I had done and boy did I get out of there and hitchhiked back to that uh u you know to get to get on the main road to Los Angeles and a truck came along and stopped and I got on the truck and the truck driver felt sorry for Everybody seemed to feel sorry for me in those days.
Poor little thing. Poor little thing. And so I got on the truck and he took me to my mother's door.
He heard my sad story. And there was mama taking care of daddy the best that she could. And that was just one little tale out of my youthful past.
I I I was so young and no and would vigorously deny it to everybody that well I didn't do anything. I was very defiant. Don't tell me what to do.
And yet I'd go and just suffer, suffer, suffer, and do it again, do it again. And then when I would get in my car and virtual down to the beaches someplace and get terribly drunk and terribly sick and hide my bottle in the sand at a beach party where the others were behaving themselves and and toasting weenies or something, uh, I would have my bottle down, packed down in the sand where I could haul it out and get drunk and they'd wonder, "Where'd she get all that stuff anyway?" They didn't have any to speak of. And and I just misbehaved terribly.
And so then I got in the car in uh in my wet bathing suit and I started back towards Los Angeles and the squad car beamed the lights at me and I had been terribly sick all over my bathing suit on in the front seat of the car and I was just making home kill me and the squad car stopped and I looked so bad that instead of throwing me in jail like they do these days they said we're going to follow you lady get going and drive slowly. and they followed me and I began to straighten up a little bit and straighten up a little bit and then they they got ahead of me and said follow us and they took me to my door because I'd given them my name and address. Now they don't do that these days.
They do not you know that. And so I must have been a pitiful sight that they felt sorry for that poor little thing and they shouldn't have because on the other hand if I was in a different mood and I was in a bar I'd just if I if somebody said something I didn't like I'd clobber them. I'd hit them.
I'd get thrown out in ' 86. Don't come back here anymore. And there were a lot of bars I couldn't go in because I always started to fight and wind up out the side walk just yelling and screaming and being crazy.
One time, one time when I left the bar, I left before 2:00 and I only lived two blocks from this car, uh, this this bar and I was at the stage to where that I would I I could I I knew I'd make it home all right, but I would have to run a little bit and fall down. And I'd get up and I'd run a little bit and I'd fall down. And I'd run a little bit and lay there a little while.
I'd get up and I'd run, make a good little run of it, and then I would fall down. And I kept this up with two blocks. And when I got to our house where Addie was cozily sleeping with the housekeeper now, to take care of her because I couldn't uh we just had had hired her, dear dear Mrs.
Stevens, who was with us then for quite a while. And I would run and I would stumble and I would get up and I'd go and I got to our steps. And as I went up the steps, I looked back and my nylons were off and trailing down the steps and only my foot was in the heel of the nylon.
And I had been cradling those in back of me all the way from the bar. And I didn't feel very happy about all that. And and and yet I I would pray.
I'd pray for help. Oh, God, please don't let me behave like this. What what's wrong?
What's wrong? What's wrong? I can't bear it.
And so one day I got in my car very depressed and I drove up over that ridge route and went to San Francisco and got there daylight and looked around and there barely daylight and there wasn't even any place to get a drink. And I wondered why I am here. I don't know anyone.
I want to go home. I turned around and I got back on the ridge route and not very prosperous days then. And and a fellow who looked like he wasn't such a bad guy raised his hand for a ride as they will do.
And I pulled over because I could drive no longer. I was exhausted. I wanted to get home and see Addie.
And so finally he uh got in the car and I said, "Can you drive?" He said, "Yeah." And I said, "I I have to have some sleep and take me to Los Angeles." And he says, "That's where I'm going." And so I got in the back seat and went to sleep. And uh finally somebody was shaking me. Lady, lady, wake up.
We're in Los Angeles. Here we are at Sixth Hill. I'm going to leave you here because I have to go down to Skidro.
That's where I belong. He says, "You're here at Sixth Hill. Can you can you hear me?" And I said, "Yeah." And so he left.
And I looked to see where I was at Sixman Hill. And my eyes were blurred. And I read the sign there.
It said, "Sultan Turkish bath." And I thought I was pudgy in those days. Real. My face was very full.
My arms were pretty big, my legs were big, my body was not that large, but I was out of proportion. And I thought, I'll take a Turkish bath like I used to when my brothers teased me. And I would take off 5 lbs real quick with a Turkish bath before I put it back on in a week.
And I thought, that's the place where I used to take those baths. I'll go in there and sober up and I'll go home and I'll look good. And then I can tell them that uh that I went up to San Jose to look at a prune ranch that was a goodbye and I was in the real estate business then and that that's why I was out of town and I can cook up this story and the housekeeper will believe it and I can get my foot in the door one more time because Dick had said he wouldn't put up with it.
And so I didn't want to go down there and think think I wanted to turn my head off. And I looked and there was a news stand there. How handy.
I wanted something to read after the Turkish bath, which takes quite a while. And I would stay there all night and the next morning I'd put on my makeup, go home and wouldn't have the shakes and I'd be okay and I wouldn't get in any worse trouble than I was in. So I thought I would read and I just grabbed the magazine.
I had my Turkish bath and then the terrible thoughts began to come back and I was laying there that hot in the little booth and the light was shining down in my face. So I picked up the magazine just to read anything and it was the Saturday Evening Post and it was dated March 1st, 1941. And down at the bottom in letters about an inch high, it said Alcoholics Anonymous by Jack Alexander.
March 1st issue 1941. My god. And so I opened it and with Zeus pimples coming out because I had picked up a Time magazine with an article in it by Soulton two years before that in 1939 when I was at my mother-in-law's home, a saintly lady two years before.
I had picked it up in Liberty magazines now defunct of course but there was a short article in there that said the alcoholics and God and I had read that and he had written this first piece about alcoholics anonymous and it was very short and he simply said there was a small band of men who were meeting regularly and banding together who were alcoholics who did not want to drink and so they met weekly and discussed their experiences and they called themselves alcoholics anonymous and I thought I'll go back there. I'll find them. I will do that.
And I couldn't wait to get out. I just couldn't wait. I looked at the pictures, you see, and I turned it was a full page photo and there were two men and they were sitting by a bed and I thought, "Oh, they're in a hospital.
That man's awfully sick. He's probably as sick as I am." And there were these men there and I thought mentally see I didn't read the article just looked at the pictures because I knew about AA having seen it in Liberty. And so I thought they there and he's awfully sick and they're there in the AA hospital where they cure him just as real as if it would work, you know.
And I turned the page and then there was this guy in the ambulance at first. The first picture showed him in an ambulance and that was very interesting. I mentally thought it had a a hospital on it, you know, that they really lost to that.
And then I turned the I turned the page and there they were talking to him in the bed there and I thought, "Oh, that's where they cure them, you know." And I was going to going to and then I turned to the end of the article to see where to find them. And I thought, I'll take the next plane back there. And so I got the box number.
I don't know what it was then, but it'll say box 1345 or whatever. Grand Central Station, New York. And I wrote a letter to Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I said, "I'm a woman alcoholic and I'm at the point of death from drinking and I can do no better and I have a lovely home and and good family and I have a little girl and I can't make it at all. I cannot make it at all. What can I do?
I must enter your AA hospital and get cured. Please tell me where you are and I will be there as soon as possible." And I gave them my address and phone number and everything. And I went on home and got my foot in the door one more time and I waited for an answer and it came right away.
air mail and it was from Ruth Hawk. God bless her. She was Bill Wilson's secretary then, a little 25-year-old girl who worked for Bill freeze because he had no money.
He Well, he gave her stock in Alcoholics Anonymous is what he did. That's what they did. They laughed about it later, but uh that's really what happened.
And uh so my my answer came and she said uh I'll never forget her handwriting. I'll never forget her signature rather ru I can see it now. And the letter was not too long but it simply said dear sibl we were glad to hear from you here at the New York office.
And uh you need not come back here to find Alcoholics Anonymous because in December 19th 1939 they started Alcoholics Anonymous in Los Angeles your own hometown. And we we will say this, there are very few of them. Uh it started with two men and and one man actually finding another and then they joined together and but we understand now that they're meeting in the Elks Temple in Los Angeles and no longer meeting in homes in Pasadena.
So I will give you the telephone number and address of the man who appears to be uh you know leading the group or he has started the group or helped with it in some way because he's the only one we correspond with at this time. And so she gave me Frank Randle's address at 532 South Coronado and his phone number. And uh so I uh I went ahead and got drunk first.
And because she had unfortunately for me had added a PS at the bottom of the letter. If you need help immediately, call Cliff Walker at Chris View 1 2 3 4 5 whatever it was. Cliff Walker.
And the name uh I I I will get tears if I even talk about him because he really saved my life. I got drunk in this bar and I got thrown out. And then I remembered AA and I got out the phone number of Cliff which was crescend and called him up and his sleepy voice answered and I said send your AA ambulance and pick me up.
I'm ready. And he said we don't that's not it but we don't do that. Uh, what kind of an outfit are you?
Uh, are you anyway? I got drunk and well, you should have called me before you got drunk. I said, well, he said, 'We have a meeting downtown.
I don't go because I'm a milkman and I'm ready to leave the house now and fed up some milk. You should have gone to the meeting at Friday night. The meeting's been over for hours.
Why didn't you go? And I said, I did, but they threw me out. Oh, he said, that's impossible.
That's impossible. They wouldn't have done that. They would have been so happy to have you.
He said, you know, we've never had a woman alcoholic. We've never had a woman alcoholic. We understand that there is one in New York who is uh they don't know how it will work out with her, but her name is Marty Van.
And but we've never had a woman alcoholic. There's never been except that one back there that we don't know what her record is. So, uh actually I couldn't do it anyway, but I'll give you Frank Randle's phone number.
And I said, "But they did throw me out." And he said, "Oh, there's been some mistake. They thought you were a wife. There was no Alanon.
And any wife who came with her husband brought her knitting or something, I guess. And Frank would make this announcement. I'm jumping ahead to tell you what he would say.
He'd say, "This is the regular meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in California. We're abundant bunch of exrugs who gathered together to obtain and maintain our sobriety on an alltime basis with no mental reservations whatsoever." And I would sit there shivering and shaking and say, "What an order. I can't go through with that.
Who could? I mean, all time basis was no mental reservations whatsoever. But that's what happened.
He said, "Go down there and tell him that I'm going to get in touch with him and tell him that there was an unfortunate mistake that they that we now have a woman alcoholic in on the west coast as well as Marty Van on the east coast." And so the following Friday, I did go down and I was really shaking and and nervous and I don't know why I had the nerve to do it. After what I thought had happened to me, but he tried to to make me feel comfortable. And so when I went back, I had this red turban on and bloodshot eyes and my face was I just a mess.
And if the dresses were long, then I wore them short. If they were short, I wore them long. I was always uh behind and everything.
And so I sat there just palpitating and and uh a scared witless and but I was oh he was so eloquent. He was talking about Alcoholics Anonymous and his story about getting drunk in Phoenix, Arizona and everything. And then when it came to this point about and now then before we get into the talking to you alcoholics so that you can talk we we're going to ask the women leave the room.
He said, "Except if there are any here who will call themselves alcoholic, those women may remain." And he looked right at me. So I grinned and I folded my arms and I stayed and the wives got up and left and they had their own special type of little Alanon meeting out there, I guess. And uh I stayed and so I remained and from that day to this.
And as I say, it's been glorious. It's been wonderful. And then I've had my share of problems and illnesses in the family and all of those things that happened to everybody all over the world whether they ever had a drink or not.
Um it it seems to me that one of the greatest experiences that I can remember ever having and I should talk a little bit about it is that let me get a bearing on the clock here so that I won't be charged with talking too long. Um, I was the executive secretary of the central office in Los Angeles for 12 years. And I want to tell you that um I I I finally got an apartment four blocks away from the office.
And uh I had always loved animals. So I had a little dog, a little fox terrier, Tippy, and I would walk him in the mornings before I went down to uh the office. And I I got an apartment a block away from 1805 Wilshire Boulevard where the central office was.
And I would walk into a park which was about four blocks away from the central office every morning. And so one morning I I took him down and I was walking around. There was a tree in the center of the park and under it was a man with a newspaper.
He was sitting down with his feet out. And as the dog and I were walking past him, he would move the newspaper so that we couldn't see him. That was his little home there under the tree.
And he just made himself invisible to the lady that walked the dog every morning. And I never got to see what his face looked like. And then one time when I walked the dog at night through the park and it was safe in those days, he uh he he was lying down with a newspaper over his face and I watched his deterioration and I felt ashamed and I thought here you've become a professional aa answering the telephones of the central office and sending other people out to work with the alcoholics and yet you you've been watching this man now for a week and here he is on the ground.
And I took the dog home and then walked back and and and looked under the tree that the the it must have been a willow tree of some kind. It came down almost to the ground all the way around and and I looked under there and he was stretched out straight and not moving. And I thought, "Oh, I've waited too long.
He's dead. I've waited too long." And so I bent over him and I hollered, "Mister." No answer. Mister.
No answer. And I never could uh arouse him. And I thought I waited.
Oh, I'm a rotten person. So, I went to the corner liquor store and I got a scrap of paper and asked him for a pencil and a a pen or something that I or anything uh scotch tape and I wrote a little note and I said, "I'll be back at 6:00 a.m. in the morning to see you.
Stay where you are at all cost." And I somehow pinned it to his uh shirt and went on home. And so the next morning I left the dog at home and I went back to see the man and I tiptoed under the tree and he was propped up under it and he said, "Oh lady, I woke up and when I came home last night, I found your little note and uh was laying on the ground. I guess you thought you had put it on my body, but it was I saw it was a note of some kind, but I my glasses I usually hang them up on the tree at night when I come home.
I've been staying here a long time, but they're not there now, so I don't I couldn't read it. So I took it to the liquor store and the man said, "You get back under that tree and you stay there till that lady comes back." So he says, "Now you got me, lady. What are you going to do with me?" And I said, "You'll see." So I put him in the car and I took him down to the 12step house and uh they told him to look after him and uh which they did.
And uh so pretty soon one morning he comes into the uh central office where I'm working. Wasn't long after that either. And he looked I didn't recognize the man.
They'd given him clothes. And he said, "Little lady," he says, "you know I'm kind of deaf and that's why I couldn't hear you very well that night when you tried to talk to me under the tree." And he says, "I'm awful hard of hearing." And he said, "One of the members down there at the 12step house, his wife had died and he gave me a hearing aid. I'm here now.
I can hear you if you want to talk to me. And he said, you know, they made me cook down there at that 12step house. And I was that was my my profession.
I was a cook before my drinking got so bad. So he said, I don't plan on drinking anymore. And I go to the meetings around the area here and especially at the 12step house, so I I don't intend to drink.
And he said, I want to give you a buck for you to put in the kitty here for somebody like me that might come along and and need help as bad as I did that night. And so he said, I'll come back and see you pretty often. It's only about four or five blocks from here, which he did, and he never had another drink.
He looked sharp in a $50 uh suit long after that. I I kept track of him forever in a day. And it it made me feel good to see what would be considered a helpless, hopeless person in every aspect turn out just to be a solid citizen.
And then one time I was sitting there at the central office answering the phone and a girl's voice said, "Uh uh, can you help me?" me and I said, "That's what we're here for." And she began to cry and she said, "I don't know what to do. I'm sitting down here in this Skidro hotel room and there's about 11 rhinos lined up against the wall asleep and their drugs are all over the floor and I'm so hung over and sick and I just don't know what to do." And I I said, "Well, we can't help 11 pass out on Skidro." She said, "Well, I know that, but what about me? What about me?
Can you help me?" And I said, 'Well, of course. That's a different story, but I won't send a woman down there alone. I said, 'W will you not drink until I can get someone down there?
It might be several hours. I'll do the bow, get on the phones right away, which I did. And I got Bill Welsh and his wife, who were both AA members, and they went down there on schedule and found the exact situation the way it was.
And I called up Bee at the Friendly House and told her that this gal begged for help that she was a helpless Skidro Wino and would she take her in? Bee said, "Send her over to me, baby. Send her over to me." And then I called Happy Austin who was a go-getter.
And I said, "Can you round up some clothes for a gal who wants to get sober and not want she doesn't want to drink?" Happy said, "You can count on me." And it just turned out fine. Well, the thing was that her husband and son and this woman had all got separated because of her boozing and her husband had been an upstanding citizen and her son was in a home somewhere out in Elmati and she didn't know how to find him. And anyway, be investigated around and and found out where the husband, the ex-husband was.
And so this girl developed pneumonia and it was Christmas time and she developed some kind of pneumonia that drugs get and she died. And it was my job then to notify the son and the husband and they came. But they didn't know.
The son was never told that his mother was in that shape. It was just that she lived there with those beautiful women at friendly house and had been doing fine when she caught pneumonia. And he never knew.
He was just a fine looking boy about 15. And so Happy Austin called every woman alcoholic she could lay hands on to be there to make a funeral out of it. And when we got out there, I want to tell you, there was a crowd of people, men and women, standing around there making out that they were friends of this woman who died so suddenly.
And that made you feel good when you saw that boy later on. And he grew up, he never knew that his mother had this terrible problem. And it didn't it didn't hurt him not to know at that particular time.
If he was told later when he was a man, why I'm sure he took it very well indeed. But this alcoholism I'm saying is such a killer and it is so uh hard to peg and there's not not too many people who really understand what it's all about. Our neighbors down the street certainly don't.
Maybe they think they do now because it's they've been enlightened and they've read a lot, but they never know until they they themselves that they're alcoholic and and want help and need help. And when they recognize that and come here and find the welcome that this man of 25 days will find that he has, what a wonderful big family it is. It's just like one big family.
I'm not afraid of you anymore. I don't feel like I don't belong. I feel like I'm at home.
Uh I would be at home anywhere in any land. Whether they could speak English or not, it wouldn't make any difference. Uh, honest to goodness, Bob went up to Anubic in Northwest Territories to talk.
Um, a few years back because they had nothing up there but but igloos. And uh, they they said when they phoned him and told him to come, they said, "You being you being civil, we we'll make let make her sleep in the igloo." And he said, "No, mama. I'm afraid that'd be a little too cold for my wife, but I can come up there." Which he did.
and they rounded up a few Canadians and they had a had a little uh meeting up there for them. And the reason for that was that Sam had started it and he was blind and he had been uh keeping in touch with the New York office and Sam couldn't see at all but he believed in AA and he got sober and is sober to this day. And I was up in Canada last year and Sam's wife came to greet me and Sam was blind and had the flu and was not well and couldn't come but he's been sober all these years to imagine those sober eskimos up there.
There's just no limit to where this program goes and how it gets people well if they want to get well. I have more faith in Alcoholics Anonymous than I can begin to tell you. There are so many wonderful things that have happened.
And then I found that life can get rough. Um and that you don't have to drink. Uh I had another bad experience where that I came home from the hole in the ground which was the the group that my brother text started.
He came in alcoholic synonymous shortly after I did and instead of going down and listening to the speakers at the mother's group, he said why the drunks ought to have a chance to talk. I'm going to start a participation meeting. And here I am going downtown, you know, and I'm in charge of all the women that got sober.
They're my babies. And Catch is starting this group out there in Huntington Park. And the powers that be downtown are saying, "What's your brother up to?" And I'll say, "Well, he's starting a group out here in Huntington Park." Well, he can't do that.
Well, he has. Well, he can't do that. We've incorporated alcoholics synonymous in California.
That means nobody can start a group unless they have our permission. And so Tex went down there and and they they called him out and they said, "We don't want you here, sir. you came down here a few times and caught on how to do it and now you've started the rival group out there out there in Huntington Park.
And he said, "It's not a rival group." He said, "Just we got so tired of driving so far from Long Beach clear on down to the Friday night meeting. We just thought we'd start one halfway and then on Wednesday nights we meet at Curly O'Neal's house down to Long Beach and that gives us one on Wednesdays, one on Mondays and one on Fridays." See? And they said, "No, we don't." See, now our attorney our attorney has incorporated Alcoholics Anonymous of California, and if you don't fold that group up, we'll sue you.
We'll run you out of town because you are hurting this group and and and it will cause all kinds of problems for us. And so, we have incorporated Alcoholics Anonymous worldwide. Nobody can start a group unless you know the New York office and and we give them the okay.
A text sat down and laughed and he said, "You have tried to incorporate Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't care if if the member here that's an attorney has incorporated it here in California. You can't do that.
You might as well try to incorporate a sunset. I'll let you 8 to five that within a year or two we'll have groups around here and here and here and San Bernardino and and Chino and Oxnard and everywhere else. I'll guarantee that this thing is going to grow like wildfire and that no little peanut group of a mother group like you who refuses to let drunk in can stop it.
It's going to grow. Well, it it he was right. We have grown and we're growing faster all the time and we're getting them younger and prettier and more handsome and and they they gain their knowledge faster and faster because there's more books uh to be read, more knowledge to be gained.
And then this thing that I talked about not too long ago and try to remember to say is that book Dr. Bob and the good old-timers which I had laying around my house for a couple of years before I finally got got around to reading it. It's about the anonymity thing.
Uh I read on page 264 somehow or other. Now we're not going to correct it because we're pretty well settled in our ways now. We won't correct it.
But Dr. Bob, I met him. uh he came out with Bill in uh in the 50s just the one time and I got to shake his hand and he was a very quiet man.
Bill talked an hour at the Thran auditorium and every in California was there and shortly after I had been sober too long and then Dr. Bob got up to talk and he talked 20 minutes and in 20 minutes he said a lot. It was every word was potent, powerful, powerful and so when Dr.
Bob and the good old-timers came out. I finally found page 264 where Dr. Bob and I could hear his voice.
Now, relative to that 11th tradition, which says uh that were anonymous, it explains it. Anybody who can read the English language ought to understand exactly what it says and exactly what it means. It says that we're only anonymous at the level of press, radio, and film.
Now, you know, he says anybody in the second grade or better that can read or write when they read that ought to understand that we're only anonymous at the level of press, radio, and films. because he said to be anonymous and only give our first names and an initial is could kill people. He said," and these are my words now because I can't memorize the whole thing, but he said, "Suppose that I wanted to get a hold of one of you because I needed to for some reason, some good reason." And I would say, "Well, how will I get hold of Jack M?" What does M stand for?
Suppose a gal want to get in touch with civil A B CDE E F D. I didn't know who should sound that way. Hey, how would they do it?
What kind of a telephone directory would carry the names of the people that can save our lives? And you'll find he didn't say it exactly in the words I used just then, but that's the way it came out in my head. And it's good enough because it's the truth.
And we have to be able to to to call each other in need. You know, suppose that uh Tony, the Garcia family over here was to drive me home. Baldi's going to drive me home.
I don't know where Baldi is sitting. I'm going home tomorrow and so Baldi from my home group in Pasadena is going to drive me home. God bless you.
I love you. And honest to goodness, suppose that they I I wasn't able in time of need to call up uh Baldi or the Garcia or the James and the Suzies and the John's and and all of you who were certainly willing to give me your full names and I hope you do because I don't want to lose you. I don't want to forget this marvelous convention.
I don't want to forget the faces and I don't want to forget the names of the people because I mean you're my relatives in a sense. I need you a lot worse than you need me because you you've done a beautiful job here in this uh uh at this convention. You've done a magnificent job.
I can't ever remember ever having been so warmly welcomed and the friendliness that I have felt here. People of all ages clear up to my age and down to to the to the youngest person in the room. And I I enjoyed it so much there going to the hole in the ground when my brother's group before he died in 1952.
Uh he had been a heart patient for many years and there wasn't anything to be done too much then for heart trouble. And it finally got to where he moved down to the hole in the ground which is just the basement. That's why it's called the hole in the ground.
We met upstairs on Sunday which we called it the spiritual group. It was not but that's Sunday night or spiritual group. and we'd have a minister in now and then to uh sort of uh enlighten us and give a give a nice talk and Sunday night we could do that down at the hole in the ground that was called the bucket of blood and all kinds of names and so they landed on the hole of course on Sunday night at the participation meeting Texas say come on up here Baldi and let me hear from you and uh Baldi would get up to talk but he wasn't there of course the world would say there was a Baldi that was that was there and he would point he'd say now like like we said Thursday night down at the hole in the ground meaning the basement and he would go ahead and relate something fee or they'd call on me to get up and I'd say yeah I was down there at the hole in the ground last Thursday night and Pete did say so and so well that just caught on by accident and that's why it was called the hole in the ground and so I would go home from the hole in the ground and I was married to Dick Maxwell then the kindest man he was the one that took me to my first meeting but he uh never understood alcoholism he came from a fine family who lived here in San Diego at 2552 1st Avenue and his aunt worked over in the scientific library there for many years.
Alice Barlo, her father was General Barlo and it was he was a splendid good man who adopted my attie her father and he was a great man and he had taken me to my first meeting when I was shaking so badly and and he stayed in there when they said the women had to leave. They thought he was a drunk and he I don't know he was dressed up and looked good but he stayed in there and he came out shaking his head sadly and said I don't know what they're up to and he put up with it for quite a while and I would come home and he'd be in the rocking chair in the living room and I had this beautiful home and the housekeeper and everything was just fine and honest to goodness he'd be sitting there in the rocking chair with his chin jutted out and he'd say to me again and I'd run over and put my head in his lap just like I used to when I come home from my bar and I say yes I did go to the hole in the ground tonight and I promise you I I promise you I will not go for a week. I promise you I'll be I'll be a good I'll just be a good wife and mother.
I won't I will not go back for a week. And even to me it sounded just like I used to talk when I came home from a bar, you know. And but I couldn't keep away from the hole in the ground.
And I would go back the next week and I'd come home and he'd say the rocking chair. I can just hear it. Just hear it squeak now.
He'd be sitting. He'd say again, "But you promised." And I'd go over and cry and ring my hands and say, "Oh, please. Oh, please.
I I I know that. I don't There's just something about it. I can't I promised Susie that I'd meet her for dinner and she had a problem and I had one and we shared this thing and it was important to us.
We don't want to drink." Well, he says, "I tell you, I don't know how long I can put up with this." So, I came home the following week and he met me at the door and he was all smiles and he said, "Come in, honey." And I said, "Huh?" I came to the meeting and he said, "Come on, I've got good news." And I didn't know what it could be. And so I said, "Good news? Well, then let's go turn the lights on in the living room." It was one of those step down living rooms.
I didn't want to fall down, break my neck like I almost did tonight. And so we went in and turned on the lights. And he sat down in the rocking chair and looked very pleased with himself.
And I said, "What is it? What is it?" And he said, "Well, I got to thinking. Now, you know what I want you to do?
He said, "I want you to go back to drinking like you did in the good old days, and I'll take care of you. I'll take good care of you. You'll never hear a complaint from me about your drinking." He said, "Anything would be better than this." I could not believe I heard correctly.
And I remember I remember it just about well, I I was in a state of shock. I could not believe it. this good man, well-intentioned man, a marvelous good citizen.
He said, "And I'll take care of you like I did in the good old days." He says, "It wasn't that bad after all." He said, "Anything would be better than this." Well, I was in a state of shock and Addie had wasn't there. She was either over in Catalina or or she was married. I can't remember because as I say, I was in a state of shock and I just couldn't hardly pull out of it.
and I went out in the driveway where a new car was parked and I got in it and I drove off with whatever money I had in my pocket. I never cussed him or screamed or hollered or said yay or nay or anything else. And I left and I went down to West Adams and I'd driven down that street a million times and it's where the big mansions had been turned into housekeeping rooms and flats and things of that nature with a gas plate and a bed and a bathroom and like that.
And so I I rented a room for $7 a week and I went down to the Times newspaper the next day and got a job on the Times and I never looked back. And that's the way it was. And I take a street car to work.
I never kept that car either. And I took a street car to work and then I would take the street car out to the hole in the ground at night. And down at the corner, oh 300 yards on Figareroa where the automobile club is on one corner in Los Angeles, uh there is a a church, the healing church.
And every morning in my dim little housekeeping room, I would awaken to the bells ringing. Ding dong ding dong. the church bells ringing and the tears would slip down my cheeks and I just couldn't control it.
I just couldn't bear it really and I'd go on to work and catch a street car out with a hole in the ground. And uh Christmas came and um I didn't have much of a Christmas. I went to the little corner grocery store and I got a little tree about a foot high and put it on my dresser and then I didn't have my heart in it so I didn't even put any decorations on it and I was very sad but I didn't drink and I would go out to the hole in the ground and I'd talk to uh oh whoever was there and I'd talk to anybody and I'd go to the meetings and I hurt and I hurt bad.
It was awful. It didn't ease up really honestly. It was just a sad time in my life, but it was an experience.
It reminds me so much. Um, it didn't last forever, of course. But what happened really was that my brother became quite ill.
And, uh, he died in October of 1952. And at that time, I was married to Jim Willis, the founder of Gamers Anonymous, two blocks from the hole in the ground. We lived in this apartment.
And Tommy Butler came running over to my house and said, "Tex is gone." And I said, "He's dead. and he said in the kitchen. And that's the way it was.
I went there and my brother had suddenly had a heart attack and he was dead there. And what did I do? I bolstered up the members and patted them on the shoulder and I didn't shed a tear and I was cool as a cucumber.
And I never shed a tear. And I went to the So the fellows came down with a hole in the ground and said with a hammer nails and I said, "What are you going to do?" And they said, "We are b we're going to nail up the door for a week out of respect to tech." And I said, "And where would the newcomer go? Where would I go?
Where would you go? Do you think Texas would want you to shut the doors here for a week because of his death? You cannot do that.
If you guys haven't got any guts, I'll lead your meeting tonight," which I did, and it nearly killed me. And I went home very defiantly, and I didn't cry. And I went down there every day and at night and I would lead the meetings and I didn't cry and I began to feel very peculiar and I certainly wasn't taking any stuff of any kind.
Didn't even know about it. Their cells weren't floating at all. Might have been, but I mean there wasn't any thought of pills or anything like that.
It was just there was the thing I had to do. I had to do it. Numb.
I I can't explain it. It was a terrible illness on my part. I know now, but I didn't.
was very real to me, you know, and I finally knew that this was not the way it ought to be. That I ought to go and be hugged and kissed and just bellow and cry. And I didn't feel like crying.
And so I thought, well, who can I tell? I can't tell them. And so I wrote a letter to Bill Wilson, our founder.
Bill had been out here several times to see how his groups were doing. And he had talked to us and uh he had corresponded with Tex. text went back to Bedford Hills and spent Christmas with Bill and Lloyd one year.
And I I thought, why didn't I think of this sooner? I'll tell him about it. And so I r I wrote this beautiful letter to Bill Wilson at Bedford Hill.
And I got an answer immediately. I've got it at home with the plastic paper over it now because it's faded with the years. And he said, "Dear Sib, your letter has moved me more than anything in recent years." She said, 'I too love text very dearly, but he said in God's house there are many mansions and somehow, brother, I see your brother text sitting on the porch of one of those mansions talking to another drunk in the sunlight and that's as it should be and so much for text.
But as for you, my dear, I will tell you this that life is but a long day in school. Some of our lessons are hard. Some of our lessons are easy.
It's really not so much what happens to us here, but it's what we do with the experiences we have. It's the demonstration that counts, love, bill. And I read it and I read it again and I read it again and there was a burst of tears that saved my life.
It saved my life and I would read it again and again. And so finally I began to think about when I'd see one of our members who would have a similar experience, some tragedy, you know, hard to bear. and I would ask them if they'd like to have a copy because he said if you like what I have said my dear and you wish to share it please feel free to do so or words to that effect and that was the conclusion of his letter ever ever devotedly mailed and so I have found people who needed to hear something like that and I have had many many hundreds maybe thousands of those Xerox and and given them or mailed them to people who had had a bad experience it was a bit much and uh it's strange sent a little a seemingly small thing, a beautifully written letter, but with so much love and compassion, and it really and truly saved my life.
And it's one of the reasons that I'm here tonight. So terribly grateful. A 79year-old woman, 46 years sober, but with life's tribulations here and there, and sometimes just joyous and great, and sometimes I'm petty and small, and I've improved in some departments, and maybe not the great improvements that so many of you seem to have made in in a short time.
And I'm not a especially good person. I I never intend to be bad, but I've got a long way to go, but I know how to do that. It's to go with you.
Thank you. I love you. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.
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