AA Speaker – Mary L. – Great Falls, MT – 2001
Mary L. from Great Falls, MT shares 29 years sober about hitting bottom, working Steps 1-7, character defects, and becoming an adoptive parent while building emotional sobriety in recovery.
Mary L. from Great Falls, Montana has been sober since January 15, 1972. In this AA speaker tape, she walks through her journey from a terrified, approval-seeking child to a woman learning surrender through step work, sponsorship, and raising four adopted children. Her talk centers on how accepting herself unconditionally—the real message of Step 1—changed everything, and how the dark nights of her soul became the breakthroughs that freed her from bulimia, nicotine, and the endless chase for others’ approval.
Mary L. describes 29 years of sobriety marked by step work with her sponsor, multiple surrenders including dark nights of the soul where her bulimia and nicotine addiction were lifted, and the character defects revealed through raising four hard-to-place adopted children. She explains how the first step is actually an invitation to accept yourself unconditionally right now, not when circumstances change, and how her resentment of her father revealed her own character defects through the inventory process. As an AA speaker, Mary emphasizes that God is the change agent and the healer—our job is to be willing, and God’s job is to handle the results, a principle that transformed her marriage to her husband George and her approach to parenting.
Episode Summary
Mary L. opens with characteristic humor and warmth, setting a tone that carries through her entire talk—she’s funny, self-deprecating, and deeply human. She talks about her home groups in Great Falls (the Mustard Seed women’s group and Rise and Shine) and thanks the convention committee, then launches into the story that frames everything: a mistaken identity joke about Ollie and Sven, which she uses to describe her own fundamental confusion about who she actually was.
The core of her talk is about terror. Mary says she’s carried terror since age two, when she made her first self-centered decision: she decided that if her father would just approve of her unconditionally, she’d be okay. She became a “hero child”—the one who took care of her parents, her siblings, everyone—while simultaneously becoming a scapegoat as her drinking developed. She never told her father his job was to approve of her, of course. He didn’t know. And they spent her childhood at war, though years later her mother told her: “Mary, you were the apple of your father’s eye.”
When Mary reached adolescence and her family moved to a wealthy suburb of Chicago, she felt like an outsider. Then came the moment alcohol entered: a party at a ruin on Lake Michigan, a beer in her hand, and suddenly she felt full, smart, confident, and free. She knew intuitively she could control it, and she committed to it like a lover. Within weeks she was blackout drinking, running away, making up stories about her wicked father to justify continuing. She developed a pattern: interrogate people the next day to find out what she’d done, since the blackouts were complete.
Mary was what professionals call a “hero child” and a “scapegoat” simultaneously—running around asking if anyone needed anything, then getting “praised and slapped around.” She’s a chronic relapser, she tells us. One of the early turning points came when a man deeply in love with her told her she had alcoholism and brought her to a meeting. The people there were beautiful, shiny-eyed, full of spirit. She was grateful they’d found the miracle. And she meant it. But by the time she came back, she believed she was too far gone.
It took about 15 or 16 treatment centers and detox stays. Finally, at 98 pounds with gray skin, skinny hair, a “falling down alcoholic,” she ended up at a women’s halfway house in Duluth, Minnesota called the Marty Man House. Her mother asked, “Don’t you think you’ve put in enough?” Her father—on the extension—said: “They haven’t led you astray yet. I think it’s a mighty fine idea.” Mary knew her goose was cooked. She was there for 14 months. Twenty months institutionalized total.
This is where the foundation was laid, she says. She had a sponsor named Marian, and Marian taught her: “One God, many faces. One life common to all.” Mary followed Marian everywhere, wrote everything down. When she was too tired to write, Marian would come in at night, take the pen from her hands, and turn off the light. Mary still does this—falls asleep reading, falls asleep on planes, falls asleep while driving with George.
Here’s where the steps became real for Mary. She learned that Step 1 was not “I’m an alcoholic and I need to quit drinking.” Step 1 was an invitation to accept herself unconditionally, right now, as she is. Not when she learned to drink like a lady. Not when she had a flat stomach and perky breasts. Not when she got the right job or the right man. Now. Unconditionally.
The Fourth and Fifth Steps changed her life. When she wrote down that she resented her father because he was uncooperative, unaccepting, intolerant, and judgmental, and then did the Fifth Step, she discovered something that hurt her feelings terribly: the only way she could recognize those things in him was because they lived in her. She couldn’t see them anywhere else. And a woman speaker she heard in Duluth—a woman with black hair, well-known—said something that gave her permission: “I don’t think I’m ever going to move beyond having my feelings hurt or looking for your approval. And I’m okay with that.” That permission to be human—not a perfect recovery machine, not a saint, just a human being—saved her, she says.
Mary’s last relapse came when she had two reservations about Step 1: she would stay sober provided she got her man back and her job back. A man from Baltimore had told her if she got help, he’d be there for her. She believed him and lied to herself that she couldn’t live without him. When he left after her recovery began, and her job at the juvenile detention home told her not to come back despite promising to hold it open, she died inside. She relapsed. Nine years sober at that point.
It wasn’t until nine years later that she understood: he wasn’t the victim of her alcoholism. He was the screwer and she was the screwy. She’d blamed herself for wrecking his life and their chances. That’s when she understood the second half of Step 1: we have to share our reservations, not keep them secret. When she has drunk dreams, it’s not because she’s insincere—it’s because reservations are coming to the surface to be healed by the spirit.
At nine years sober, something else happened. Mary married George, who was 55 or 56 at the time. He’d been widowed. His first wife, his childhood sweetheart, had died, and they’d raised six kids together. George was in a terrible depression. Mary thought she could fix it. In their wedding photos, she’s leaning in, he’s leaning away. “Anybody looking at that picture would say, ‘Poor guy. She took advantage of him,'” Mary says with a laugh. But what she walked into was six devastated kids with baseball bats ready to beat her up the minute she tried to be their mother, and a man who didn’t know if he wanted to live.
She took it personally. Her easily hurt feelings—one of her most severe character defects—led her to get down to the kids’ level and fight back. She became “punier and punier” in her heart, mind, and spirit.
Then came another surrender. At nine years sober and clean, she went into a terrible depression and dark night of the soul. She became suicidal. Her commitment to Step 1 had to shift: she was willing to go to any lengths for her life in sobriety, because she knew an alcohol or mood-altering drug would no longer be an option. But she wasn’t sure she might not want to kill herself. So her first three steps had to be about commitment to life in sobriety.
What happened during that dark night was extraordinary. She was terrified of sitting down, convinced that if she sat, she’d never get up. She was forced to sit. And during that period, her bulimia was lifted. God will do for me what I cannot do for myself, she says. She’d named it, sought help, done everything—but she couldn’t make it go away because she couldn’t make herself go away. She’s not the change agent. God is.
Mary and George decided to become an adoptive family. They adopted four hard-to-place children—Chicano, Spanish American, and Greek—ages 2, 3, 6, and 7. One daughter had cerebral palsy and couldn’t walk on her own. The social worker said this would be the closest they’d come to having a baby. Mary had to grieve her infertility, which she believes came from her eating disorder, not her alcoholism.
The ego-squeezing that followed, she says, was relentless. One night the kids stole everything from the house. Mary went downstairs and found her beautiful Southwestern-design top missing. She’d had it. She took off every stitch of clothing and jewelry—at 10 p.m., while George and one of the kids were awake—and emptied the garbage outside in her birthday suit. “You can have everything,” she said. “Take it.” It was the most powerful surrender, she says, because she let go absolutely.
The kids have unresolved grief. They’re adopted because their biological families are ill with the disease. People in AA tell them, “You’re so lucky to have Mary and George as your new mom and dad.” Mary responds: “Lucky? How can they be lucky? What would it be like to be raised by my own biological mom and dad? I don’t know because that’s been my life.” The kids treated her as poorly as she’d treated her father. She went into another terrible depression, another dark night of the soul. And during that time, her nicotine addiction was lifted—something she’d been trying to do for herself for years.
Mary’s big message about dark nights of the soul: as you move through them—not overcome them, not get around them, not understand them, but move through them—in sobriety with the 12 steps, sponsorship, and regular meetings, you come back out into the sunlight of the spirit more intensified and glorified than you’ve ever known. The Big Book says we claim spiritual progress, not perfection.
Her doctor told her she had an anxiety disorder and depression. Mary responded: “So I’m alcoholic, drug addicted, bulimic, nicotine addicted, and now you’re telling me I have an anxiety disorder and depression?” He wrote in her chart: “FAC—Flat Ass Crazy.” Then he said: “Mary, that’s what makes you so special.” And she knew he was telling the truth.
The last piece of her talk is about expectations. She thought God was supposed to manifest as George—her husband’s responsibility to meet all her needs. One day she had to tell him: “I don’t know if you won’t or can’t meet my expectations, but I’ve been doing you a disservice. I’m setting you free from my expectations. I will have great expectancy that God will meet my needs each day, and when those needs are being met through you or someone, some place, some thing, some circumstance, I will know it’s right.”
Mary’s talk is a masterclass in the intersection of steps, character defects, sponsorship, and surrender. It’s not abstract. It’s lived, sweaty, messy, funny, and utterly real.
Notable Quotes
The problem with you is I don’t have a life.
Alcoholism is a self-made excuse to bring us to our knees to say yes to a spiritual journey we’ve been trying to avoid.
One God, many faces. One life common to all. As the wave is one with the ocean, so am I one with God.
I must accept myself unconditionally just as I am right now. Without any reservations.
God is the change agent. My job is to be willing to go to any lengths for my sobriety. It’s God’s job to take care of the results.
That which is wrong with me today is that which is holy and sacred and designed to help me see what is holy and sacred about who I am as a child of God.
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Steps 6 & 7 – Character Defects
Sponsorship
Family & Relationships
Raising Kids Sober
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Steps 6 & 7 – Character Defects
- Sponsorship
- Family & Relationships
- Raising Kids Sober
People Also Search For
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Hi everyone. I'm Mary and I'm an alcoholic.
I really want to thank Wall-E and all of those of you on the convention committee and uh all those who came before you on the convention committee to pave the way uh all these years uh one day at a time for this moment and for this weekend. I I think this is a weekend about love affairs. I've been noticing everybody who's in love.
Um somebody just told me that he and his wife are spending their 23rd wedding anniversary. I believe that's what he said. 23rd wedding anniversary here this weekend.
And I thought, my god, what a beautiful way to celebrate the love that has been able to flow through us because of this program. Um, I would like to also thank you for the beautiful gift. Uh, I had a basket with some beautiful goodies in it and that was just wonderful.
Um Dave and and Cheryl have uh have just made themselves so gracious and available to us as all of you have really. I just I can't say enough. Uh thank you.
It's such an honor, Wally. Um this is going to be a weekend I will always remember. Yeah.
I knew it. You all have dirty minds. >> You know, I I mean, I should have known it right off the bat.
Friday night, I was trying to weave my way and then I came across a man who had his arms on both chairs, his hands on both chairs next to him, on either side. And I said, "Can I just get through and I'll I promise I'll give you your chair back. I won't try to take it." And he said he lifted his arm up and I I got through.
I hustled poor George through and um I turned around to him and I said, "Okay, you can put your hand back there." Naturally, somebody heard it. Made a big deal about it. Um, I suppose you'd like to meet old George and poor George.
>> This is poor George. >> Stand up, George. >> I'm 58.
I was born in 43. Um, George is only 46, so you can see that it's been kind of rough being married to me. Ed knows why he fought he caught me trying to do Armando's job for him Friday night.
Hey you guys, this is really swell. I'm originally from uh uh well Chicago and then Duth, Minnesota. So I'm going to tell you an Ollie and a Sven joke.
Oolie and Sven decided they were going to go to the tavern on a Friday night and Hilda wanted to go along. And Sven said, "Oh, Ollie, do you mind?" And he said, "All right, good God." Anyway, they got there and you know what happened? They got very, very intoxicated.
All of a sudden, Sven was looking around and he couldn't find his wife, Hilda. Not only that, or Yeah. Hilda.
>> It's catchy, isn't it? >> No, I had it before I got here. Not only that, but he couldn't find his best friend Oly.
And he just started frantically looking around in the tavern. He went in the washrooms. Nothing.
Nothing. Nothing. Out the front door, nothing.
Out the back door. and he was just about to come back in because there was nothing out there when he heard a funny sound coming from the back of his pickup truck. >> And he went over there and oh my god, there's Hilda and there is Oolie going to it.
He staggered back through the tavern in the back hallway and the bartender looked up, saw him coming and he said, "Sven, you are drunk." Sven said, "You think I'm drunk? You should see Ollie. He thinks he's me.
Now, just as a way to qualify, I will tell you that I'm the Hilda in that story, and I never knew that I was not a Sven. You could have fooled me. Uh, the other thing is that that's kind of my story.
I mean, it's a a story of mistaken identification. I'm a woman who has had terror ever, well, ever since I was 2 years old. That's what I think I put it at.
Now, um, I thought I was terrified until last night in the lobby, I met a young man and I said, "Holy mackerel, you must be scared to death." And he looked at me, he said, "Why?" I said, "Cuz your hair is standing straight up on end." Several What a beauty. What a beauty. My sponsor taught me one God, many faces, one life common to all.
That's why I love to go somewhere where I'm not from because I see I see God. Every time I look around, I see Sherry and I see our birth grandmother. Now, I want to say something about that.
Uh we are an adoptive family uh George and I and parents of four children and they their mother is still a child who had children and their grandmother is still a child a young woman and so um Sher you don't remind me of of a grandmother in terms of age you remind me of the oh that's wonderful of the love um that shows forth through these uh eyes here in this room. Thank you. I'm sober since uh January 15th, 1972.
Uh thanks to the grace of God and the power of the um 12 steps as well as the fellowship of the spirit. I um I have two home groups. One is the mustard seed women's group on Monday evening at 5:30 and the other is the early is the rise and shine group at 6:30 a.m.
And that uh both of those are wonderful meetings. And so if you're when you're in uh Great Falls, Montana or in the area, just look up uh Mary Huntington Leonard or George Leonard Ln in the phone book. You can stay with us and you can go to meetings with us.
That's an open invitation. I wasn't in trouble. Uh I'm Mary and I'm an alcoholic.
I was not in trouble uh as I say until about the second year of my life. Um up until then, I think I just came out of my mom's shoot um eager, brighteyed, bushy tailed, and I just knew that life, this world was my oyster, and everything in it was mine. And about the age of two, I made my first decision based on self and that self-centered fear that this was all fine and good, but it wouldn't last if I didn't prepare.
And what I really needed was somebody's approval. Now, if you're the first child born to a ma, a mom and a dad, and um your mom is already skittish, she already knows she's got a handful having been married to this man and she's never had a baby before. So, I didn't want to bother her.
In fact, I just said, "Hey, ma, don't worry about it. I'll take care of you and me both." As I was coming out. So at the age of two, I said, I know if my dad accepts me, loves me unconditionally, approves of me 100% of the time in 100% way, then I'll be okay.
The selfishness, the gall, I didn't tell him, of course, so he didn't even know that was his job. I didn't know that he was simply a human being trying to do the best he could. And so we were off to a bad start here and I he and I in um in ' 81 when George and I married, I um I said to my sister and my mother in the living room of my youngest sister's home in Youngstown, "Mom, did dad and I always have a war going on?" And she looked at me like I was crazy.
I was 37 at the time and nine years sober and clean. And she said, "Mary, you were the apple of your father's eye." And I knew she was telling me the truth that I had been lying to myself up until then. Changed everything.
Also, the first, fourth, and fifth step I did changed everything. when I wrote down uh the fact that I resented my father because he was um uncooperative, unaccepting, intolerant, judgmental. I found out in the fifth process that the only way I could identify or recognize any of that was because it was within me.
It hurt my feelings, which is another really hard thing for me still. I can remember one of my the first speakers I ever heard in Duth, Minnesota, a woman with black hair, just you probably know her. I can't remember her name, but I know that she was well known and she said, you know, I don't think I'm ever going to move beyond having my feelings hurt or looking for your approval.
And so she gave me permission I think right then along with my sponsor to be a human being before I'm anything else. And that has saved my bacon so many times to tell you the truth. I mean I I understand that the fact of my alcoholism is probably the most powerful important fact of my life today in addition to the fact of a loving God that works and operates in a daily way and gives me 12 steps to follow based on spiritual principles so that I can meet whatever comes today.
And the fact of the matter is I never knew I was a human being. That was the other thing I lied to myself about. I I thought I thought I was the worst of the worst and the best of the best.
And that all started from the age of two on up. So my first uh unhealthy dependence was to approval. My next unhealthy dependence was probably um to excitement because something happened to me when I got excited.
It was like a tension reliever. And so that was the beginning of learning to live from crisis to crisis. And then I suppose the next I'm trying to think the first time I was sexual uh either you know self self-pleasuring or with another person and I think it was probably I'm just telling the truth.
Um I'm I'm trying not to lie. Um I I think it was before I had my first drink. So I learned that that kind of a that that kind of a sexual pleasure was absolutely stress reducing and freedom producing.
And so that was another unhealthy dependence. Not it wasn't unhealthy. It was just the way I saw it that got a little uncver.
So you can see that when I reached for my first drink, it's only 25 after 6. Oh, when I reached for my first drink, um, something absolutely miraculous and magical happened. Um, and I don't know if it was a first if I had one or two beers that day.
We had moved from Chicago up to the northern suburb of Wilmet Met. I was now at New Trier High School in the middle of my freshman year. I think that's what made me alcoholic.
And I' I've heard other people say that is very traumatic for us, you know. Oh, anyway, I um I I I just wanted to be included. I I I couldn't figure out why people were kind of giving me some distance.
I think it was because up there where we moved, all of the girls had beautiful little um um peroxide streaks in their hair and a little flip up or a little flip down. And they all wore dyed to match wool and gora skirt and sweaters in pastels, either pink or lime green or yellow. And the men were jocks and uh and I had black I I had my black sweater buttoned backwards was on my back the buttons and a long skirt and I walked you know and I was a hoodlam.
All of a sudden, one day I'm walking home because there was a uh it was we had uh this week of tests and they had breaks in between each test. So I'm walking home and a carload of people come by and they say, "Hey, we're going to a party. You want to come?" It was the first time I had been included in that new community.
And I said, "You bet. Oh yeah." And so we went down to an Alapone casino that was in ruins on Lake Michigan and somebody broke out a beer and handed it to me. Did I drink too?
I don't know. But I do know this that when I drank that beer, immediately I felt full. Not only that, but I was smart as a whip, clever as can be.
And I didn't stammer or lisp. On a on top of that, I didn't give a rip what you thought of me. In fact, I wasn't sure that I approved of you.
And it was the most freedom producing miracle I had had in my life up until that moment. And I knew intuitively that it was something, another lie, I could control. that whenever life got a little rough, I could just take a little bit of that liquid courage, liquid serenity, liquid thrill and bliss.
And that's what I made my commitment to. That was really my very first real love affair. And all went well for a couple weeks.
And then I started doing silly things, you know, really silly things. I can remember being sexual when I didn't intend to be sexual, running away from home, um making an absolute commotion, developing these terrible tales about my wicked father. I'll tell you, our k kids are getting even from my father.
that wicked tales about my father and uh and and I just created more and more stuff so that I could justify continuing to take a drink and then you wouldn't get on my back cuz you were starting to get on my back. You were starting to not complain or criticize but you were pointing some things out and of course I got good about that. You'd say, "Oh, you were really funny last night until about 10." And I'd say, "Oh, you thought so, huh?
What did you like the best? And they say, "Well, when you got on top of the table and started dancing, that was pretty hilarious." Oh. Uhhuh.
But then when you jumped on Harry's shoulders and broke his back, that that wasn't funny. So I I learned to interrogate you to find out what I had done because I was having blackouts on a regular basis. I I was drinking more and I of course I didn't know that was a red flag for alcoholism.
I just thought I was just too cool to move. I could I could I could drink all of you under the table and uh and little did I know but towards the end of my drinking I would take a little thimble full of vodka and I would be totally drunk on that little cuz I my body wasn't metabolizing anything. I was a daily drinker and I drank a lot and my body was no longer metabolizing.
So I was really pitiful. I um I you know the other thing too is I must tell you I was um uh in in in professional circles it's called a a hero child because I was the first to make my parents a family and I was also a scapegoat because I was developing alcoholism. And so I was always running around asking if you'd like um oh a cup of coffee.
Can I get you anything? Do you do you want me to help you um get into the next room? Uh can I do your homework assignment for you?
What can I do for you? I'm just I'm just here to please. I'm just here to uh to be helpful.
And and I kept getting absolutely crucified everywhere I go, which has also been a pattern that I have experienced up to, including through today. So, I kind of get kind of praised and slapped around. So, it's not alcoholism, it's just an identity crisis I'm going through.
Um I am a chronic relapser. I um I would have a day or a minute or a week or maybe even a month um never any longer than that um before I'd be back drinking again. Um my first experience with Alcoholics Anonymous, a a man who was deeply in love with me, a man who was so in love with me that he told me he thought I had alcoholism.
He was a year ahead of me at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and he said, "I think you need some help and I'm going to make sure you get to a meeting." And he took me to a meeting. It was in a church basement and man, you people were just beautiful. Shiny eyes, great smiles, the enthusiasm, the spirit was just intense.
And I said, and I meant it truly. I was so grateful you had found this miracle. And if I ever got that bad, you know, by the time I got back to Alcoholics Anonymous, I felt I believed truly that I was too far gone, that I was too bad, that I was not capable of this beautiful thing and that I would never ever be able to get it.
You knew differently because you knew that we just live on the basis of hope. We don't know. What do we know?
I know nothing. That's the other thing I've lied to myself all my life about. I thought I've known so much.
I have known so little. Um I ended up in a place um that was an institution. And the first time I was there, this was about my 15th or 16th treatment center and a detox center.
And by the time I ended up there, the second time I was there for six months. They saw fit. It hurt my feelings.
They saw fit to refer me on to a women's halfway house program in Duth, Minnesota called the Marty man halfway house. And I called my mother and I said, "Mom, do you know what? They want me to um to go on up instead of coming back to Chicago like I did the last time because you and dad were having marital difficulties.
they want me to go to um Duth, Minnesota to a halfway house for alcoholic women. And she said, "Oh, Mary, don't you think you've put in enough?" With that, my dad was on the other extension and said, "They haven't led you astray yet. I think it's a mighty fine idea." So, I knew my goose was cooked.
I knew I'd had it. So, at about 98 lbs with skinny hair, gray skin, a falling down alcoholic. I still fall down a lot, by the way.
A falling down alcoholic. I went to a halfway house in Duth, Minnesota, and I was there for another 14 months. So, I was institutionalized for 20 months.
I know it's hard for you to really even imagine that. You believe me, don't you? Shoot.
Anyway, uh so I had a lot of time and I'm going to really focus on that a lot this morning. Why? Because um because that's where the foundation was laid.
I mean, it was just an incredible thing. I mean I it was my first year and and really my first two years that I think have been um absolutely the springboard for the rest of my life and I told myself of course and I told you that the problem with me was alcoholism once I got the message that was a lie I told myself and I almost set my first sponsor straight Marian um she said that alcoholism is a physical compulsion no the treatment center told Alcoholism is a a physical uh compulsion to drink because of a psychological obsession that condemns us to die if we do. Marian said, "Alcoholism is a self-made excuse to bring us to our knees to say yes to a spiritual journey we've been trying to avoid." And I said, "Oh, no, it isn't.
It's a it's a psychological obsession matched by But I was smart. I'm Mensa. I was smart.
I just said it to myself. I did not say it out loud. They had been telling me that I was too smart for my own good for a long while.
And I really didn't think I could use my mind. I I really I was so terrified of using my mind for so many years in sobriety, which was probably good. Um I I I try to use my mind in a healthy way.
I I suffer from a malady u that that that has attacked me and is waiting to continue to attack me. body, mind, and spirit. And so what you've taught me is that I really need to um nurture and to feed and to accommodate my body, my mind, and my spirit.
And so I try to do that. Um so I I do use my mind within certain parameters. Uh the 12 steps, sponsorship, my home group, uh living just one day at a time, you know, imagine that.
I remember Tommy B from Winnipeg said, I loved it. He was such a hero of mine. he still is in spirit.
Um, and he said he went to Florida. My sponsor said, "Never mention anybody's name ever at the podium." And I said, "Why not?" And she said, "Because who whose names you don't mention will be offended." I said, "Oh." So, I hope I do this right. Anyway, Tommy B looked around the room and he saw people with 32 years, 31 years, 27 years, and he said to himself, "Wouldn't you think that by now they could live life two days at a time?" No, even they have to live life one day at a time.
And that's really kind of a saving my fanny right now. I um I must tell you that I was so hungry. I was so hungry.
I didn't even know how hungry I was. And somebody put a pen and a and a and a notebook in my hand and I followed Marian around everywhere. She ended up Oh, this was a pitiful story, I'll tell you.
You already know my father's position on my recovery. Follow directions, he said. And so here I am at this halfway house for alcoholic women.
And uh Dorothy is the director and um she's just loving me and says, "I think I was just here long enough for you to come. Now I got to get out of here." Why? Because her three daughters were still furious with her because of her alcoholism.
And so she came up and she took over a women's halfway house program where everybody in the house all 12 women were absolutely or 11 furious with her because Lorraine the founder of the halfway house had left and nobody could be furious with Lorraine. It's like you can't be furious with your mother directly. So you do it indirectly and so everybody was furious with Dorothy because Lorraine had left.
It's a little bit like our big dog got neutered because Calie got knocked up by Barney who was our Basset Beagle Terrier mix little dog. I mean, it made it's I'll tell you another thing that makes a lot of sense. Well, there was a lot of commotion.
I know what to do about commotion. Get that big dog neutered. Now you know why I say poor George.
I'll tell you another conflicting thing that I cannot even believe to this day. My sponsor Marian said to me early in my sobriety after she took over the directorship of that halfway house program which was not Alcoholics Anonymous but where AA was spoken. She said to me, "Women sponsor women in Alcoholics Anonymous and men sponsor men." And my sponsor is Chuck C.
Well, I I couldn't challenge her because I was only a minute and a half sober and she was quite sober. So, it's it's, you know, and and I had a resentment right from the get-go. You you asked me to make sense out of all this, right from the get-go.
Be tough on yourself and gentle with others. That was another one that I really hated. So, you didn't have a rule book for how to live life.
I mean, I kept looking for the right answer. Okay, when this happens, what do you do? Which is how I went through graduate school, by the way.
I I was drunk and so I would go I would pile make piles and then I'd get ready to study and I'd realize that the piles weren't right so I'd repile and that's how I've been in sobriety too. All right. So anyway, um I wrote everything down that she said.
I followed her. or I just uh she would often times come in the room at night uh and she would take the pen out of my hands, turn off my light because I had fallen asleep while I was writing. I still do that.
I was on the plane the other day going to Chicago. My mother and my father are both uh 88 and um you it's so cool to be there for them and my dad and I just have a great relationship. He said to me the other day, he's untreated.
He said uh He said the other day, um, your brother and I had a very long talk today, and I've decided, even though it's not my responsibility, I'm going to pay for your mother to live in assisted living. And I said, "Have you checked it out with her yet?" She wasn't buying it one bit. Anyway, I it it is such a privilege.
the night before I go anywhere. I think this was true long before we got children, but certainly since we've gotten children, I usually do not go to sleep the night before I go somewhere big, especially if I have to fly because then I have to sort and decide what I'm going to take. If we take a car, I can take everything.
But if I have to fly, I have to kind of dissern. And um so on the way to Chicago two months ago, a month and a half ago, I was a little tired. I got on the first plane and I fell sound asleep.
I got uh uh on the second plane and I fell sound asleep after I ordered my cup of coffee and all of a sudden I felt something very hot and I realized that I had dumped my coffee over while I was sleeping and you know you can't make a big deal on an airplane because you know what they think that you're going to try to cause trouble. So, I was I was very I was very uh good about the whole thing. And I still do that.
I still drop coffee. I still fall asleep while I'm reading at night. That my favorite time is bedtime.
I love it along with morning. Um because I get to read and after if if George wants to fool around, then we've got to do that. But after but after that, I get to read.
And it lasts all of about two minutes, you know. I drive with him. When he drives, he loves to drive.
I fall asleep at the wheel, but I try to help and do my part. And I say, "This time, George, I am going to stay awake the whole time and keep you company." And before we're to Belt, Montana, I'm you know, and he just says, "Oh," he just gives up. Then when we get to Duth, we've driven straight through.
I get out of the car and I say, "Oh my god, I'm so tired." You just don't get good rest in a car and he's falling over. You know, he is really out for the count. He's driven 22 miles straight.
And even though I know the answer, I say to him, "What's your problem?" Get it? I always know what his problem is. A woman said to me the other day, um, well, she was talking and I said to her, "Do you know what your husband's problem is?" and she just lit up.
Her eyes got that big and she said, "What?" She was finally going to get the answer. Even though she had been telling me the answer for months, she was finally going to get the answer from a a source. And so I said, "The problem with him is that you don't have a life." She trusts me unconditionally.
I wouldn't say it to you. I would never say anything like that to you yet. And what I meant was, you know what?
What did I mean? I meant you don't have a program that's working for you right now because you've gotten distracted and confused. You're not living in the now moment.
For some reason, you've lied to yourself and you've told yourself, "This is not a spiritual journey. You are not in God's lap. you are not enveloped with his love.
And so um that's your problem. So I went home to George who is always living on the edge and I said, "Do you know what I realized today again? The problem with you is you don't have a life." I mean, I don't have a life.
the problem with you is I don't have a life." And he said, "With all of the graciousness of 29 years of sobriety, are you asking me for a divorce?" I said, "No, no, no, honey. It isn't about you at all. It's about me." And that's what I keep having to learn that I keep lying to myself and telling me myself, even in sobriety, it's about you.
It's never about you. I remember my sponsor, I was sharing this uh this week and my sponsor said to me, um there are no such thing as personality conflicts. It's all about spiritual lessons that we're needing right now so that our rough edges can get smoothed out.
She also said to me, "The audience," and I shared this last night, the audience will pull forth from you what you need to say, what it is they need to hear. And I try to remember that it still doesn't take away my nervousness whatso totally, but anyway. So, I'm I'm walking around.
I'm I'm I'm writing these things down. And then she said to me somewhere along the line to all of us women, one God, many faces, one life common to all. And as the wave is one with the ocean, so am I one with God.
And I knew she was telling the truth. I knew I had been lying to myself and I still start lying to myself and still tell myself that this is not about unity and this is not about differences until I read in the big book or somebody reads it at the beginning of every meeting. Thank God there is one who has all power.
That one is God. May you find him now. In that um period of time early in my sobriety, we walked through the steps as a group of women.
And so I understood in the beginning that um the first step basically was an invitation for me to accept myself unconditionally. That it it it it was not going to do for me to accept myself when I learned how to drink like a lady. It was it would not do for me to accept myself unconditionally when I had figured out how not to have saggy boobs and a flat fanny.
It would not do for me to accept myself as soon as I was situated in life. Just as soon as I got around that next corner, whatever that next corner was, that I must accept myself unconditionally just as I am right now. Unconditionally without any reservations.
My my last uh my you know my next my next my last relapse. You know why I knock? Um, there were three elderly women living together.
I believe they were sisters. One of them was getting out of bed and her sister was watching her. She was sitting on the edge and she said to herself, "Am I was I getting into bed or going out of bed?" And the first sister thought, "Oh my god, I hope I never get that bad." All of a sudden, she looked up and she saw her other sister coming down the stairwell on the first landing.
and her sister was saying, "Was I going upstairs or downstairs?" She said, "Oh, now I know I they're just over the hill. I hope I never get that bad." And all of a sudden, uh uh I can't remember the punch line, but it's Was that the front door or the d back door? What's the punch line?
Oh, I know. She said, >> "Go back two seconds." She said, "I hope I never get that bad." Was that the front door or the back door? Then the the my last relapse to date, which I know is just one drink away.
When I was getting really smart alaki early in my sobriety, my sponsor turned around and she looked at me and she said, "Do you know you could drink again?" I mean, she was going to straighten me up right now. And I said to her, with a moment of truth, I said, "You know what? I know I could.
I don't believe I will. I believe something is different this time and I know I could. So today I tell you that today I am alive and sober in Alcoholics Anonymous and I don't believe I'll drink today and I know I could.
Okay. Um the last time I got drunk was because of the second half of the first step. I'd come back from that particular institution to Chicago and uh my man flew in from Baltimore.
This is interesting. He you know what did me you know what I mean? I mean he screwed me and then he told this is the guy that told me if you will just get help for your alcoholism I will be there for you and I believed him and I also was lying to myself saying I couldn't live without him.
Huh? So, um, he said, "Okay, so it's over." And then I went to work. My dad took me to work.
I was 28. My dad my dad drove me to work back to work. And the uh people the the juvenile detention home where I worked in Chicago said, "We think it's better you not come back here." Well, they hurt my feelings.
They told me if I would get help for my alcoholism, they would hold my job open for me. And they said, "We think it's better that you not return. Can we have our keys back?" And I died.
I died. I couldn't believe it. I was willing to go to any lengths for my sobriety.
And what I found out later was I had two reservations provided I get my man back and my job back. And it didn't happen. Nine years later, I realized that that man who living who was living in Baltimore screwed me and then took off and that he was the screwer and I was a screwy.
I thought I thought I had wrecked his life with my alcoholism. I thought I had wrecked our chances with my alcoholism. And so I blamed myself.
That was just the way it was. Um, so I got I got in trouble with the second half of the first step. And if you have any reservations, don't worry about it.
That's what we're supposed to have, our reservations. What we're not supposed to do is to keep it to ourself. We're supposed to share it.
That's what we do when we have drunk dreams. We're supposed to share it. That's what I believe.
And I don't think for me anyway, this is my opinion on myself that I I have a drunk dream because I'm not sincere about my sobriety. I think I get drunk in my dreams because I have reservations that are coming to the surface to be touched by the spirit and healed. I'm always in process of being healed.
Which reminds me, this is out of sequence. I just really want to say this because I think it's the most important thing in the world. The sixth and seventh step says God is the change agent.
God is the healer. So no matter how much I identify my old patterns, my character defects, my whatever that get in the way, no matter how much I try to be careful not to repeat old patterns from the past, I can't change me. So what I've learned today, 29 years later, in terms of my wakeup call, is that I must enjoy right now.
And then I turn the results over to God's handiwork. That's another thing that my sponsor said. My job is to be willing to go to any lengths for my sobriety.
It's God's job to take care of the results. What does that mean? It means if I say to myself today, yes, I must have this thing that you have.
If I say to myself today, I I am willing to give up everyone and anything. Do I think that that God is going to ask me to walk away from George? No.
If if if George was in the way of my sobriety, much like I've gotten in the way of his, uh my I would I would walk away. I would do anything to be sober and clean today. I know that unconditionally.
I've known that one day at a time. And when I forget it, you remind me because I'm an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I go to meetings on a regular basis. I' I'm of service on a regular basis.
All the time I'm of service. You know, that's the other thing Marian said to me, of him who has much, much is expected. And so I knew that I had been graced with the most beautiful gift in the whole world.
And I could never ever ever give it away enough. And so I've had to learn to say sometimes, not at this time. That's only because a couple of times I've burned out in sobriety.
I just hit the wall. Um, the first time, by the way, was about 9 years sober. I realized that uh uh that I had really let myself lie to myself about uh how my life was over when that happened to me.
Uh in uh in losing that man and that job and that in indeed in many ways at many levels of truth, my life had just begun. So there's that's where I was at nine years and I was free, a new level of freedom. And then I married George.
I was 37. He was um he says, "You tell everybody how old I am." I said, "Oh, I know. It's just neat." Uh he was between 55 and 56.
You should see our pictures from the wedding. George had just been widowed. Uh he had married his childhood sweetheart and they had birthed and raised six kids.
And George was in a terrible depression. I I didn't I couldn't call it by its proper name. I didn't know what was wrong with him.
All I knew was that I could fix it. So in our wedding pictures, I'm like this and he's like this. You know, anybody looking at that wedding picture would say that poor guy.
She really took advantage of him. And what I walked into in that year, the first year of marriage, obviously was a a huge change and six kids that were devastated that their mom had died. Absolutely devastated.
And uh a man who didn't even know if he wanted to live anymore. And so when those kids were lined up with baseball bats ready to beat me up the minute I walked into his life and their lives and our marriage, I took it personally. I had tiny bad feelings.
Um, and what I've discovered then was that my easily hurt feelings are one of my most severe character defects because I just do weird things with it. I tell myself so many different lies. How could they not love me?
Everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous loves me. This is incredible. and I just got down to their level and fought back and I got punier and punier and punier in terms of my heart and my mind and my spirit.
Um anyway, I want what I want to say to you about that is at 9 years sober and clean, I experienced another surrender. I was surrendered again. I went into a terrible depression and dark night of the soul.
I became suicidal. My first step was I was willing to go to any lengths for my sobriety, for my life in sobriety because I intuitively knew that an al uh that a drink of alcohol or a mood altering drug would no longer be an option. But I wasn't sure that I might not want to kill myself again in sobriety.
So my commitment had to be to life in sobriety with my first three steps. So I was thinking suicidally and what happened was I was just reduced to sit down. I was terrified of sitting down.
I was afraid if I ever sat down I would never get back up again. I I was forced to sit down. And it was during that period that my bulimia was lifted.
God will do for me what I cannot do for myself. I I fulfilled the conditions. I named it.
I sought outside help. Da da da da da da. But I couldn't make it go away.
Why? Because I couldn't make me go away. Why?
Because I'm not the change agent God is. My bulimia was lifted. Powerful dark night of the soul.
Terrible dark. And the most beautiful sunlight of the spirit came from that. Time passed and we decided we would become an adoptive family and we adopted No, of course not one.
Are you silly? We adopted four children. Four hard to place children.
Chipoa, Spanish American and Greek. Hard to place because they were ages 2, three, six, and seven. And Nikki had cerebral palsy and didn't walk on her own.
And the social worker said, "This is probably the closest you're going to come to having a baby. I I'm sure I'm infertile because of my eating disorder, not because of my alcoholism." And so I had to grieve all of that. So here I am saying to George, "Promise me, you're not going to do this just to please me.
Only do it if you want to do it." And he said, "I want to. I want to. I've been a dad all my life.
Iris and I birthed and raised six kids. I really want to do it. Well, I um I I must tell you it's it's been a a a tremendous journey.
I've had this ego squeezed out of me every day in ways that you couldn't even imagine. You remember the Red McInness surrender? I had the Tommy surrender.
T O M I or the That's a girl, one of our daughters. Or the kids surrender. One night they stole everything.
They stole everything. One night I went downstairs and my top was missing. A beautiful top.
Southwestern design. Da da da da da da. And I said, "That's it.
I've had it." And with that, I took off every stitch of clothing, every piece of jewelry. It was 10:00 at night. The other three children were in bed.
Just Tommy and George were up. And this was nothing new to them, this kind of a scene. And I proceeded to empty the garb.
I said, "You can have everything. You can have everything. Take it." And I emptied the garbage outside in my birthday suit and I just I just walked around.
But you know what? And it was the most powerful surrender because I let go. Absolutely.
Again, time passed. The kids have a lot of unresolved grief as you can well imagine. Why are they adopted?
You know why they're adopted? They're adopted because their biological family is ill, racked with this disease. And um and they're angry.
Everybody says in aa to them, "Oh, you are so lucky to have Mary and George as your new mom and dad." I say, "Lucky? How can they be lucky? What would what would it be like not to be raised by my own biological mom and dad?
I don't know because that's been my life, my experience. So, um they've been a challenge to to say the least. Um there's one redeeming feature.
The children would run away. We have an open adoption. So, we have interaction with the birth family and they're related to um a lot of people in Great Falls, Montana and the Rock Boy Reservation and because um uh Native American people are nomadic.
I didn't they're nomadic and so they move. They move. That's just it's just biologically intern and them as part of about the so I mean I could they were treating me as poorly as I had treated my father.
I could not believe it and I went into a terrible depression. I wasn't sure that I wanted to live. I became extremely um compromised.
And during that dark night of the soul, my nicotine addiction was lifted. That which I had been trying to do for myself for years, absolute years, another dark night of the soul led to the sunlight of the spirit. And it was absolutely phenomenal.
So what I want to say today is that if you're in a dark night of the soul, you already know this. If you've been in a dark night of the soul, you definitely know this that as you move through and out, not overcome, not get around, not understand, as we move through the dark night of the soul in sobriety with the 12 steps, the help of sponsorship, regular attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, we will come back out into the sunlight of the spirit more intensified and glorified than we've ever known four. Why?
Because the big book says we claim uh spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. I said to my physician at the time uh that my my smoking addiction was lifted after he told me, "You have an anxiety disorder and depression." Those are called mental illnesses in some circles. I said to him, "You mean you mean to tell me I'm alcoholic and drug addicted?
I'm bully. I've been addicted to nicotine and now you're telling me I have an anxiety disorder and depression." And he looked at me like I was crazy. And actually what he wrote, the diagnosis he wrote in his chart was FAC.
Flat ass crazy. What he said to me was, "Mary, that's what makes you so special." And I knew he was telling me the truth with a capital T. I had been telling myself all these years, one day at a time, that that's what made me sick.
That's what's wrong with me. That's why I'm bad. That's why I'm stupid.
That's why I'm crazy. That's why I'm not good enough. That's why I'm too much.
You know the routine. It goes on and on and on. What you have taught me is that that which is quote wrong with me today is that which is holy and sacred and designed to help me see what is holy and sacred about who I am as a child of God.
You have helped me to see that different is good, that there is a unity that is unspoken at times and always felt when we're open to the spirit. You have taught me that um a God of my understanding will manifest itself one day at a time in exactly the way I need which has really taken George off the hook cuz I thought God was supposed to manifest himself as George. And one day finally, in order to not beat him up anymore, I had to say to him, "I don't know if you won't or can't meet my expectations and hear my needs." But what I realized, I've been doing you a disservice all along.
I have put expectations on you and I want to set you free and I want to never have another expectation to the extent that I can do that as a human being from this day forward. Great expectancy. I will have great expectancy that God will meet my needs each day and that when those needs are being met through George or through you or through someone, some place, some thing, some situation, some circumstance, I will be able to have passion and bliss and know that it is right.
However God manifests in my life today, those are the things that you have thanked me for coming here to share. I thank you. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.
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