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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 up here cuz I was scared that I might slip and I don't wear underd drawers, so I had to be a real careful thing. This is the um too much information.

Thank you. That's what my mother always told me and I was like, what? This is the audience participation.

>> Duh. >> Halt >> T. >> Hi y'all.

My name is Dealty. I'm an alcoholic. >> I'm grateful to be sober and grateful to be here by God's grace.

Um, wait one second. I have to write down what time I stopped talking. Okay.

Um, I am grateful to be here by God's grace. I've been reborn an alcoholic synonymous. I'm not the same woman.

Thank you, God, that I was when I got here. And uh my home group is the same home group that Chris and Dolores belong to. It's the Miracle Group in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

My sobriety day is January 1st, 1983. And I have a sponsor named an who has a sponsor. And um I'm just so delighted to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and to be here.

Uh I love Louisiana. Uh Tuesday. Well, Mark and I, some of you know my husband Mark, he's from Boston.

Well, we met now called Sns. he couldn't be here this weekend cuz we sold our house and we live in Navar, Florida. We sold our house and uh last Thursday the movers came and took everything away.

And the only reason we haven't moved yet is because um I wanted to fulfill my commitment and come here to Louisiana. So, um when I go back today, tomorrow will be a holiday. And then Tuesday morning, we're going to jump in the car with our two semiferal cats, our two rescue parrots, and our rescue dog and some plants and and food and clothes and head off.

We're moving to New Mexico. So, uh that'll be quite an adventure. Another we always call them the Mark and Hulky big adventures.

So, it'll be another adventure. And last weekend, we uh were up in northern Louisiana. I'm not going to say where, but it was northern Louisiana.

And the folks were really nice there. But um there's nobody like southern Louisiana people. Nobody.

They don't have any cinjuns there. There was no cinjun Joe there. I And I Mark and I kept talking.

We're going, "Boy, it's so different here. It's not really like Louisiana. It was kind of like Texas or something." And we just missed the um the hospital.

They I shouldn't say the hospitality. They were real hospitable, too. But it was totally different.

Northern Louisiana is totally different. And we just love uh you southern Louisianans. We're going to really really miss you, but we're going to come back and come back and visit.

Uh I want to thank the committee, Mark and I and Chris and Dolores. We've both been on uh the um little uh convention we have over in Fort Walton Beach. We both been on the the convention committee for several years.

And it takes a lot of work, a real lot of work. For those of you who have who have never served on the committee, I suggest you do it. Get off your butts and go to that meeting and help out doing the convention.

It gives you a whole different insight into what's going on. And uh Bob is just great. He uh bought me a he bought all the speakers a present.

He bought me this beautiful beaded pink flamingo and it's going to sit on my fireplace in New Mexico. It was just great. I loved it.

And then Julie and I had a great time talking. Um did we talk at dinner or well sometime yesterday? It might have been dinner.

And I just want you to know that Julie painted this. Isn't this beautiful? You know, this is the kind of stuff it didn't just magically appear that you know the AA magical person made this appear.

People do all this stuff and put it together for us. you know, here we are uh down and out mooch losers and we get to be reborn in Alcoholics Anonymous and be useful and we get together and have a good time. And that part that Susan read this morning, we're not a glum lot.

And you people in South Louisiana know that. I don't know if you have any folks here, but I've run into a lot of folks in AA they'll be like, "Yeah, I'm really grateful to be sober." Damn it. And it's like, well, why don't you tell your face and start acting like you're grateful?

you know, uh it's not about being all uh serious and we've got to do 24 hours. It's about being active in service and being act useful to God and uh being useful to other people, not just acting, you know, all spiritual in the AA room and then go outside and talk ugly to somebody or kick somebody or do all that. It's about living the principles that we've been taught in Alcoholics Anonymous.

You know, it's a it's just a wonderful, wonderful way of life. My mother has a a picture of me. Uh we I don't take pictures of me.

It's a it's against my spiritual nature. Oh, let me tell you a couple other things about myself. I'm Cherokee Indian.

I'm from uh Tennessee. And um if if any of y'all in here are Indian, this is important for you to know. My clan is the Wild Potato Clan.

And if you're not Indian, it doesn't mean anything to you, but if you are, we all tell each other that. So, um, you know, I needed to to tell you that. Uh, so I don't really have many pictures taken, but my mom had a picture of me when I was 2 years old.

And in the picture, I'm kind of smiling a little bit. Not much. My mother said, "I just love that picture.

That's the last time I saw you smile until you got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous." Now, is that testimony to to what happens here? Oh, believe me, I laughed when I was drunk. You know, I could laugh, you know, at ridiculous stuff.

And if you know, if you fell down, ah, look at that loser. And, you know, I could laugh or I could laugh at bodiness. I could be really body.

I know it's hard to believe, Bob, that I could be body, but um, just that real deep gut laughing. when I first came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I came in, my first AA meeting was uh 1981, and I haven't drank since 1981, but um that's not my sobriety date because I continued to do other things.

So, my sobriety was January 1st, 1983. But when I came in, one of the first things that struck me was that y'all were laughing. And first of all, of course, I thought you were laughing at me because you know how we are.

If somebody's laughing, it has to be at my expense. And then I figured out that nobody was even looking at me. So, they weren't laughing at me.

And um then I figured it maybe, you know, the coffee pot had somebody put something in it, you know, maybe it was Irish coffee or something that everybody was laughing. But I like the laughter and that kept me coming back, you know, time after time that I would uh keep coming back to AA because the laughter uh even though I was really down and out and I was just broken, the laughter was already starting to heal me a little bit. Uh the speakers this weekend have been great.

Um, I loved um I loved hearing everybody. Now I've got some serious brain damage. So my memory is about this big.

So I things that the speaker said I was like, "Oh, I want to mention that. It was so good, but I've already forgotten it because I'm just that's just the way I am." But I remember Chris. Chris is a member of my home group and he's a guy that um I'm 59 years old and Chris is 40 and Chris is uh like a son to to Mark and I.

Uh we just love him. He's um watching him come in and and watching the the changes in him and the things he's going through. He's he's just a wonderful member of Alcoholics Anonymous and it's real special to me to have him in his life.

And I love his wife Dolores as well. Dolores had a real struggle. Um she's, you know, still in a fight with God, but she's a wonderful woman and um and I think that we all are.

you know, we come here with our stories and our experiences and all that stuff, but um a friend of mine, um John Paul is a Catholic priest, but he's also a member of AA. That just happens to be his job. And he uh he's been sober quite a long long long time.

And he says that I used to go to this women's retreat and um he would be the retreat master. It wasn't a Catholic retreat. It was just a retreat that the Catholic uh monastery was kind enough to let us have an AA retreat at.

and he would be the the retreat master for the women and he would talk uh with me for hours and hours at night and he said that he really believes to the bottom of his heart that alcoholism is a sacred illness and that only uh uh a spiritual remedy will help with this sacred illness. He further went on to say that he thinks that don't let any of this go to your head folks just remember the last time you peed in your pants. He thinks that um that we are alcoholics, that we are fallen mystics, that we come into this world, into this life.

And I know this is my story. I got here I'm like, who are these beings? Who where am I?

What world is this? I just I didn't know how to relate. I just didn't know how to relate.

So that's what John Patrick says that we're fallen mistress and we have a sacred illness and um and we just push everybody away from us because our illness is so severe and then we have to um if we're fortunate enough if we're blessed enough to accept the spiritual help with Alcoholics Anonymous, we can be reborn. So let me tell you the big book says in a general way we tell what we used to be like, what happened and and what I'm like now. I'm the oldest of uh seven children.

And there were four other children that um didn't didn't my mother was an eight. They both carried full term. I'm the only girl.

I have six younger brothers. I didn't know I was a girl for a long time. Um sometimes I still wonder, you know, I feel kind of weird.

Um but anyways, I didn't know I was a girl for a long time. I have these six young younger brothers. My father, um bless his heart, he's passed, but he was an alcoholic.

He was a functioning alcoholic and he um he was a lifer in the military. He uh Indian boy from Tennessee and um our our men are very um like like other men, our men are very um patriotic conscious and very willing to take their place as warriors and I'd like to salute and thank all of you who are veterans. Thank you so very much for the the sacrifice that you made.

Especially this weekend, we need to remember, you know, what this weekend is really about. It's not just about, you know, having barbecues and being at a nice AA thing. There's people having sacrifices made right today, you know, in the Gulf War and we have so many others that have made so many sacrifices.

We need to remember them. And I do. Uh part of my amends process later on was I worked in a VA hospital for five years.

Uh not the patients but the other people that worked there. But um that was part of my amends process to um to honor the veterans and um and I did that. Well anyways I've got these six younger brothers.

My dad's a lifer in the military. You're a West Virginia boy that came out of the back hills of Tennessee. Dirt poor.

Um I'm talking dirt poor. My dad uh his family grew up in a dirt floor shack with um no windows or anything like that. My uh my grandfather was a a bad drunk and he'd just go off and be drunk and my grandma he'd come home once a year and and um get my grandma pregnant and so she had a bunch of children and and uh my grandmother hunted and and um and grew food to feed her and her children and it was it was poor living.

They were they were poor. So my dad uh left there and he joined the at the time it was the army and then it became the army air force and he went into the military and um he didn't know how to read or anything like that and so uh the children start coming along and um I was this little kid I was a scared little kid we always hung around um uh the military is very segregated um back in the in those days and my father uh was in a unit and hung around with uh other soldiers, either the black soldiers, the Indian soldiers, or the um Mexican soldiers. They we all always hung around with other people of color.

And um my father would drink and he'd be drunk all the time, but he was a functional drunk and he'd go to the Air Force every single day and he would have his boots polished and he'd look sharp and and he'd do his job. He was a firefighter and um I was a scared little kid. I I was a broken child.

I don't really know exactly what happened, but I was a broken little girl. I just didn't relate to other children. I um and it wasn't uh so much because my parents uh my mother drank a lot, but she's not an alcoholic.

She was a heavy drinker and there's a big difference. And I I don't think I don't know if I was broken because my father was an alcoholic because everybody else's dad and mom were too. So, it wasn't that.

But I was a broken child and I I just felt like there was so much injustice in the world. I was a little girl and and um the way that we were treated and the way that our friends were treated and there was so much hatred in the world and and um I just didn't understand and I'm talking four or five years old I saw this and I felt it. I felt the pain of the world and I didn't want to be here.

And I think it goes back to what John Patrick talks about of us being fallen mystics because we we're so sensitive. We're so overly sensitive. And um I taught myself to read real young and I fell into the world of literature and I I escaped through that.

And my dad asked me one day I if I would teach him how to read, but it had to be between us. I couldn't tell anybody. And I taught my dad to read uh very basic reading.

I mean, we certainly didn't go into reading anything heavy, but basic reading. And he learned to be able to sign his name and he learned to be able to read his orders and stuff like that. And um I started feeling shame because I saw that other people's dad's moms could read and that other people their lives were just a little bit different than us.

And um I started feeling the shame and my mother was a heavy drinker and my father would get chips somewhere and my mother would go out drinking and partying at night and I'd feel ashamed about that. So I started having all this shame stuff coming up. So when I was 9 years old um with um some stuff happened uh there that um just stuff that happens to some children that shouldn't happen to them and it happened uh frequently and at 9 years old I just had it and I had my first suicide attempt and it was obviously an unsuccessful attempt.

So I decided that well that didn't work. So, I was going to uh drink some of that stuff that my mom and dad drank and see if uh they seem to drink it and, you know, have a good time at first before the things got ugly. So, I took some tarpen hydrate.

That's GI Jin. We were poor and we'd go to the dispensary and they give you this tarpen hydrate for everything. They give you these uh pills called allpurpose capsules.

I am not making this up, okay? They give you allpurpose capsules. So, I went in the bathroom and I took a few of these all-purpose capsules, which really did nothing.

I brought in some airplane glue. My brothers and I would make model airplanes and stuff. I brought in some of that.

I'd heard kids at school talk about it. I brought in some of my mother's cool cigarettes and I put on one of her bazars. Now, at 9 years old, I was not developed at all.

I see some girls today that are. I was not developed at all. If if I didn't have any clothes on, I had my hands in front of me, you think I was a boy.

I was not developed. So, I put on this bra and I stuffed it with socks and put my clothes on and I'm standing in the mirror in the bathroom and I'd never backslashed my parents up to this point. I'm just a quiet scared kid and I'm in the bathroom and I'm drinking this turp and hydrate and I did some of that glue and I'm smoking these cool cigarettes that like to kill me.

I'm coughing and coughing but after the third or fourth one point I kind of liked them and then um I did that turp and hydrate which is a real real lot of alcoholing and it went down to my stomach. Boom. I'll tell you what, I had a spiritual experience.

I mean it was fabulous. It was just fabulous. I just wasn't this skinny little kid anymore.

or the world. Yeah. All right.

Whatever. The world's a bad place. Um, those babies were mine.

I was a woman. I'm 9 years old. Nobody's going to boss me around anymore.

I'm taking control of my life. And, uh, the change, it was like Dr. Jackel and Mr.

Hyde. That change just came over me. Uh we had uh a lot of people living in base housing in this little apartment and there was one bathroom and I've been in here quite a while now.

So people are knocking on the bathroom that uh and on base housing you couldn't we didn't have outouses so you know there was one bathroom so um knocking on the door. Hey, we've got to come in. What are you doing in there?

And that was the first time I ever said something ugly to my mother. And I don't remember what I said but I had never been a sassy child before. And I said something ugly to my mother cuz I've got alcohol in me now.

And hey, nobody's telling me what to do. And uh so I told my mother smuggly words and told her to leave me alone. And my mother was like, "Girl, when you come out of there and I you're paying." And I came out of the bathroom and um I had a look in my face that my mother didn't do anything.

And she just sent me to my room. Ah, it's fine with me. And then I went out to the living room and I my father was reading the paper and I said, "Uh I'd never called my father." My father didn't know our names.

He knew us, but he never called us by name. It was girl, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy. You boy, you girl.

So, uh, his name was Joe. And I went and I said, "Joe, I want to talk to you. I'm 9 years old now.

I'm wearing a bra stuffed out to here and I got some alcohol in me and I'm wreaking a cigarette smoke and he's not looking up. He's continues to read his paper." And I says, "Did you hear me? I want to talk to you.

I got something to say." He probably never even heard me talk. He didn't even know whose voice it was. And he didn't answer me again.

So, I grabbed that newspaper and I ripped it in half and I said, I said, I wanted to talk to you. And my father looked up at me and I'd never seen this happen before, but fire came out of his nose and out of his eyes. And uh I knew I intuitively knew, uh-oh, something bad's going to happen.

So, we lived in third floor housing and and uh my father got up and I knew that I was in big trouble. So, I ran out to the balcony and I stood up on the railing. I had never behaved this way before.

I was a frightened, scared little girl that obeyed everything and everybody. And now I'm standing up on the balcony. I was reading Wonder Woman in Superman at the time.

Now I'm Wonder Woman. I'm standing up there, you know, all Wonder Woman. And uh my dad says, "Get off that balcony, girl.

I'm going to whip your butt." And I said, "If you come one step closer to me, I'm going to jump. And I know that if I jump, you're going to lose those two stripes that you have." So, I'm learning some manipulation here. So, I made him swear to God that he wasn't going to hit me or do anything to me and that I'd come in.

I'd come in and he looked at me, he goes, "Girl, you're the craziest little I've ever met in my life." And I was in my head. That was the nicest thing anybody said to me. Because it meant that they acknowledged my presence.

I was acknowledged. I was alive. Somebody took note of something I did.

And I made a decision right there and then that being a good girl was for the birds. I was going to be bad and I was going to be the baddest girl in town. So at 9 years old, I learned that if I manipulate people and I act like a total psycho, people will do what I want.

And so my dad didn't hit me and he he let me in. And I heard him and my mother talk and he goes, "We're going to have problems with that girl. We're going to have some real problems with that girl." And they did.

So that was at 9 years old. And um uh I I wasn't able to drink a lot at that time because my mother and father didn't have a bar. They just drank their wine or their uh whiskey or whatever.

And and um you know there wasn't any left. But by 13 I um I found out that I could go to the town wino and um give my lunch money, my school lunch money. Now my mom and dad worked hard.

My dad went to the Air Force every day. My mother was a cocktail waitress. Sound familiar to any of you Allen honors?

She was a cocktail waitress and um I wish my mother had gone and tell her on that. She never did. But um they worked hard for their money and to give us lunch money.

Um once I started in junior high, we I'd get lunch money cuz all the other kids had lunch money and they um you know, they just wanted to do that for me. And I took my lunch money and gave it to the wino and he bought me um Colt 45. So, uh um by 15 I'm a I crossed over the line and I was a full-blown alcoholic.

By 15 I was dancing in the bars at night and um I was the girl in high school that uh you weren't allowed to hang around with. The boys wanted to hang around with me, but I was already seeing men and the girls weren't allowed to hang around with me. I was that girl.

No, you're not hanging out with that girl. That girl's bad news. I was a girl that'd called to the principal's office cuz I'd be half drunk every day in school, half drunk from the night before and half drunk from the pint that I had in my locker with me.

So, they tried some child psychology on me. They they were going to give me a job and make me feel important and that maybe I'd, you know, act act right. So, the principal called me in and told me that he had heard there was girls smoking in the bathroom.

It was me. I was the one smoking in the bathroom and that he wanted me to be the bathroom monitor and, you know, take care of it so the girls wouldn't smoke in the bathroom. So, uh, I said, "Okay." And I went in the bathroom and a couple girls were smoking, so I just beat the hell out of them and told them they couldn't smoke anymore.

And he called me back to the office and he said, "No, that's not what we had in mind. They couldn't smoke in the bathroom. I could.

Soon as I beat him up, I smoked, but they he didn't want me to have them smoking." Um, and so that's just the way my life went. You know, I'm dancing in the bars at night. I don't really remember high school at all.

My father worked a job as a firefighter. He'd work three days at the base as a firefighter and stay live in the barracks and he'd come home for 3 days. And the 3 days that he was gone, um it was just open season for me cuz my mother'd be out working and I could either get in before she got home, she usually got home about 2:00 in the morning, or she'd come home and have a few drinks after work and be half tanked so she wouldn't know that I wasn't there anyway.

So, it it worked out. It was perfect for me. It was just perfect.

And um and that's when I learned uh um just how to be sneaky and how to be a psycho and how to manipulate people. And other people in school were making plans to go in the military or to get married or to go to college. And you know, Chris talked about nobody said they wanted to grow up.

You know, you hear counselors saying this. Nobody ever said they wanted to grow up to be an alcoholic. Well, I'm like Chris.

I'm a total burnout like Chris. It was fine with me, you know. I I didn't have any plans or aspirations other than uh doing what what I was doing.

And what I was doing was um um I started prostituting at, you know, at a at a pretty young age. It seemed like an okay thing to do. And um for any of you gals who have done that or if you haven't yet and you thought that it might be a good way, it's not like the movie Pretty Woman.

Let me tell you that right now. Okay? It's not like the movie show.

It's ugly. It's really ugly. And the the more you do stuff like that, the more I'd have to drink to not know what I had done.

And the more I had to drink, the more I have to do that to get more money to drink. And it was it was pretty ugly. And it wasn't uh you get these really cute guys and stuff.

So, I just want to tell you it's not like that, okay? Just so you know that it it was a real ugly life. But I was willing to pay that price to to uh continue to drink the way that I drank.

I moved to uh New York City when I was 18 because I didn't know what else to do. So, I moved to New York City. Never been there before.

And um and I lived on the street. And what I did was uh on 42nd Street, I could make a little money. I'd help make up the drag queens um for their their stroll up and down 42nd Street.

They stroll one side of the street and we'd stroll the other side of the street. And uh that's that's how I lived. I started being arrested all the time, brought in.

Um it was against the law to be a prostitute and uh it was against the law to be drunk in public and so I was always brought into u jail and then the nutouses started. Uh I'd be brought in fourpoint restraint because when I get drunk I get real angry and when I get real angry I get real angry at Christopher Columbus for coming here and stealing my country. And um I get real mad at white people.

I just hated all white people and I hated Christopher Columbus and I hated men and I hated women and I hated everybody including me. I just hated everybody. So I'd get mad and I just get so ugly and I always carried a knife or I carry a razor blade, have to cut you if I had to.

And it was a it was a real ugly life. So I started be brought into the nut house in Belleview in New York City all the time. And um and Belleview's mentioned in our big book that was a hospital that there were some doctors that started helping alcoholics later, but I'd be brought in there and um I was sick all the time.

I had hepatitis by this time a couple of times. I've been brought in with pancreatitis and um you know, always locked down in the nutouse, brought in four-point restraint. I may be a small woman, but put some alcohol in me and let me get full of rage.

And I'm no picnic, okay? I'll you know, I get I'll get hurt. I'll get beat up, but boy, I'll hurt you bad, too.

You know, I'll take every shot I can. There's no clean fighting. Um, so when I'm 19 years old, uh, on one of these, uh, episodes, I was, um, I overdosed on alcohol and, uh, I was brought into the hospital and I was pronounced clinically dead.

I hadn't eaten for days, weeks probably. I was just a a real of a girl. And, and, um, I brought in on this uh, brought in dead.

the people I was with. I was um somebody waiting for a liver. I was um I was brought in and of course I always had aliases.

I was always Jane Doe or I had street names and stuff like that. And I was brought in and I was pronounced dead. And I had this experience that I didn't share an AA for a long time because uh I just Chris and I were talking about that this morning.

I just didn't feel it was right and I didn't know. And and a few years ago, my sponsor said, "Of course, you can share it." And I started sharing it and and found out that there's other uh people in AA and out of AA that have had this experience. So, I'm laying there, they're pronouncing me dead.

I'm looking down at the table and going, "I'm not dead, but those lips that are mine weren't moving." And I'm getting higher and higher, but my body is down there. And I ended up going through that tunnel of light. And um some of you may have heard about it, some of you may not have.

This is my experience. I went through that tunnel of light and it was sort of like I was being sucked into it and on both sides that were just out of reach of me were all these monsters and demons and stuff and they were grabbing at me and I felt scared. I didn't know what was going on but I kept looking at that light that was at the end of this tunnel and the fear was taken away and I'm like zooming through this tunnel and I get closer and closer and all of a sudden I'm there and there's these beings there and they didn't look like we looked.

They didn't have bodies like we have. I'm not saying they were aliens. They didn't have human bodies.

It was sort of like everybody was behind some kind of white gauze or something like that, but I knew they were beings. They just didn't look like we do as humans. And and I heard people talking to me and they welcomed me and they said, "We so love you." And then I was in the presence of God.

And the presence of God for me um I was always pretty mad at God. You know, I thought that God had to be this old white guy with a long beard that just hated everybody else. And if you did wrong, buddy, he was going to hurt you.

And that was not the experience I had of God. God was not a man and God was not a woman. God was a being.

Just a a being of just pure love. And I was there and I uh my life flashed in front of me all the stuff that I had done. And I was like, "Oh my goodness, this is not good." Being in the presence of God.

And just having that thought, the presence said, "Yes, it is good. We love you. I so love you." And um you know, everything that you did is forgiven if you want it to be forgiven.

I'm like, "Yes, I want to be forgiven." And I I won't tell you too much about what happened because it was really it was my spiritual experience, but it was a it was a beautiful experience. And I was given the option of whether to come back and be a human or not. And I didn't want to come back to this sad world.

And then I was uh I met these two beings that said, "Do you remember us? you agreed a long time ago that we'd come through you and be your children. And I somehow knew what they were talking about.

Anyways, I came back to um I came back to life. I was in a coma for 7 days after that. And and uh then I was locked up in the net house again for a while because um just some stuff.

I was locked up for a while. And when I got out of there, I had a lot of time to think in the nutouse and I thought about all this stuff. Oh my god, I've been in the presence of God.

What do I do now? And I was going to be a better person. And I wasn't going to do that anymore.

And I was going to repent. And I was going to treat people good. And I was going to I was going to I was going to And the day they released me, I ran across the street to the liquor store and I got some uh Thunderbird and um uh I had to panhandle first and then I got some Thunderbird and I drank that and all those I was going to was gone.

You know, I didn't have a program. I didn't have 12 steps. I didn't have a blueprint for living.

I didn't have a fellowship of people I could talk to and say, "Guess what? I've been in the presence of God. What should I do?

Can you help me?" I just came out and went to the liquor store and got drunk. And that's my story. Right up until um you know, I got sober in 1983.

I ended up having two children. That's a a story in itself. I was in um I won't go into the whole story, but I made a decision.

Well, if I just had kids, if I could just be a mother, this will change. I won't be this way. And I wanted to have a baby so bad.

So I was in the hospital with hepatitis for the third or fourth time and it was uh I had two types of hepatitis serum and and uh alcoholic. Um I had been pronounced um one of my times in a nut house. I spent some long times in state hospitals.

One of my times I was diagnosed as a paranoid um uh paranoid schizophrenic with suicidal homicidal tendencies due to chronic alcoholism. And I'm I'm only 20 years old now. 21 years old.

I'm like what are they talking about? This is just this white judge. I'm just Indian girl wanting to have a good time and they're trying to, you know, say this stuff about me.

So, I'm in the hospital with hepatitis and my one of my younger all my brothers are younger, but one of my brothers comes in. He's got this young kid with them. I'm 21 years old.

This kid's 17. I had just been thinking about having a baby. Hey, okay.

I'd never met him before, but I made my proposition to him. And um he said, "Yeah, it sounded like a great idea. He'd be willing to impregnate me." So, um, his parents, I got out of the hospital a few weeks later and his parents were bringing me up in statutory rape charges because he was 17 and I was 21.

So, I took him to South Carolina and married him and, um, and I, you know, um, was pregnant with my my girl child. And when I had my child and I looked in her eyes, oh, they didn't talk about fetal alcohol syndrome back then. And when I went to the doctor, the doctor said, you need a little wine to make your blood rich and to relax this growing baby.

And I was like, all right, far out. a little wine to me is a little bottle of Mad Dog every night. So that's what I did when I was pregnant.

And uh you know, I'd sit there pulling on the Mad Dog going, "Yeah, this is all right." You know, this is okay. I can do this. I'm not really drinking drinking.

And I wasn't doing anything else. And I quit smoking cuz you know, I want my baby to be healthy. So, um I had this child and I looked in her eyes and I saw the face of God.

And those of you who have looked into your newborn child's eyes or or any newborn child or animal or whatever, you see the face of God. And I saw the face of God. And I knew I was going to be a good mother.

I knew my life of crime and sin was over. And I was going to be a good mother. And I was going to learn how to cook and clean and be a wife, which was not a big aspiration for me, but I was going to learn to do that.

And um several months later, it I was drinking just like I was drinking before. It just didn't work. And I wanted to be a good mother with all my heart.

So I left that kid. He was too childish. He was 17 years old for God's sake.

I left that child, told him to, you know, buzz off. I need me a real man. So um he left.

I moved my child and I moved over a bar. It made it pretty easy to, you know, I could just run downstairs and run back upstairs. And I I met the next victim and I figured um only alcoholics think that we have keen alcoholic minds.

You ask any Allen on if they think we have keen alcoholic minds. They don't believe me. So it's my keen alcoholic mind thinking I came up with well you know what I almost had it with that first baby.

I almost got it. I was almost there. So you have me another baby and then I'll really do it.

I will really do it. So I made the proposition to this guy. Hey, listen.

I want to have a child. He's like, all right. This a different guy now.

So, um, I I married both of them. I never knew. I had four relationships that weren't paid relationships in my life.

And I married all four of them because I didn't know what else to do. It seemed like the right thing to do. And if it didn't work out, I could just divorce them.

That's my keen alcoholic thinking. So, we got married and um and life went on. I have these two children that I wanted to be a good mother.

I really did. Now, I never whipped my kids and I never um did uh that kind of stuff to them. My kids always had clothes and my kids always ate.

Now, what they ate was sometimes the same stuff that I ate as a child and it was good enough for me, you know, some welfare cheese and macaroni or some um beans and rice. We ate lots of beans and rice or or oatmeal soup. And so, my kids did eat.

They weren't um they didn't eat the best, but they did eat. And um but other things happened. I abused my children in ways that I didn't know.

I'd go to the bar and I have these two kids with me and I I thought this was very uh motherly of me. I put my coat on the floor so they wouldn't have to sit on the bar floor. They could sit on my coat and I thought that was very motherly.

I never left my children with babysitters because only losers only alcoholic losers leave their kids with babysitters. So mine would come to the bar with me and that's that's child abuse because the kind of bars I went to weren't the tinkling piano bars. The bars I went to were ugly, real ugly.

And uh so this man and I did um decided that we went into the import export business of certain agricultural products. And um and um then my kids started seeing things like that, things that kids shouldn't be a part of. You know, kids couldn't have anybody over to the house cuz either mom was going to be drunk and peeing on the floor or there was going to be a big Colombian party happening in the living room.

Um and uh my kids and I have been held hostage with shotguns and Doberman pinchers waiting for uh to pay for the agricultural products. And um that's that's bad. That's a terrible thing for children to have to live through.

And I I started feeling guilt and I started feeling remorse. So I had to drink more and more and more. And the last eight years of my drinking, my kids would talk about uh my kids started off with, "Oh, mom, you're such a good mother." And then uh we love you.

you make the best peanut butter sandwiches in the world. And then my kids started going to public school and they started looking at you how dogs their head and look at you. My kids started looking at me like, "Huh?" And then uh as they got a little older and they they're going to other kids' houses and stuff, they started looking at me with scorn and disdain and they started knowing that there was something wrong with their mother.

You know, there was something really wrong. And um so the last eight years of my drinking, my kids begged me to stop drinking. And I told them I would I was going to I was going to learn to be a good wife and a good mother.

I was going to learn to cook and clean and to not run away from home. And I used to run away from home. It was so pathetic, you know, and leave my children.

And one day my 5-year-old girl comes in the woods. I'm running away again. And she comes out in the woods and I'm doing this slash on my wrist and she go, "Five years old, this girl is she goes, "Oh, mom, you're killing yourself again." And that, you know, it's funny to us now, but it is not funny.

It is so sad. You know, my daughter is 38 years old today, and that girl is still in therapy because of me. Now, thank God for therapy, but she is still in therapy because of of my behavior.

Thank goodness I only hurt myself, you know, right? So, um, life went on like that. It was just terrible.

They promised him I wouldn't drink. So, I'd only drink a bottle of Listerine in the morning while I'm getting them off to school cuz that's not drinking. And then, of course, I'd go to the liquor store.

And it just kept going like that. It just kept going terrible. And and uh my suicide attempts started coming more and more frequently.

And then the day came in 1980 that um I knew I couldn't I just knew I couldn't do it anymore. And uh I couldn't be with this man anymore. It was all his problem.

If he wasn't there, I wouldn't be drinking like that. Um, so, uh, I made a decision that we were going to, uh, dig up our money and split our money and he could go his way and I'm going my way. What I did with my money is I went to a home building school, house building school, and I bought a a little parcel of land and I bought some lumber.

So, I went to this home building school and I made myself stay sober during the day while I'm learning to use tools and learning to build and stuff. And then at night, I'd get, you know, totally wasted. And um I went to this home building school and I started building this little house for my kids and I and uh um one day uh this guy Michael came uh he was there and I asked him to go to the liquor store and get me something.

He was kind of the useless guy. He he couldn't get up in the roof or do this or do that, but um he could go to the liquor store. So I sent him to the liquor store and uh he didn't come back in time.

Now I'm up on the roof with uh putting the roof on and I have a roofing hammer. Any of y'all know what a roofing hammer looks like? Looks like a hatchet.

Looks like a scalping hatchet. Now, you get a drunken Indian up on a roof with a scalping hatchet and you have this man come back that's been gone for two hours and uh I jumped off the roof and I tried to take his scalp. I did a war scream on the way down and I tried to take his scalp.

I wasn't really probably gone. I don't know. But my brother um my brother kicked me off and that guy left and he said our marriage was over.

Fine, whatever. And uh he left and um shortly after that, it was a few days later, I'm sitting in the back woods there. I'm way out in the woods by now.

I couldn't be around other people cuz I am a psycho. Okay, I can't be around other people. I'd forget to wear clothes half the time, but I'd always have my knife with me and I was like a psycho.

I needed to be in the state hospital, but you know, nobody could find me to put me there. So, um I'm living out in the woods. I I go to the back of the yard.

My kids are at school. I put the shotgun in my mouth. I can't do it anymore.

I'm going to smoke the shotgun. I can't do it anymore. I'm a failure.

I'm a total loser. I've ruined my children's life. I'm just a loser.

So, I've got the shotgun in my mouth and my toes on the trigger and I have this little moment of clarity about my kids getting off the school bus. I've already made their life pure hell. You know, I've already brought down the toilet bowl and they're going to come home and mom's going to be dead and I knew I couldn't do that.

I knew even in my most selfishness that I couldn't do that to my children. So I said those words that so many of us said. I said, "God, help me." That's all I said.

God, help me. But I didn't just say it. I meant it.

I said it from my heart. I said, "God, help me." And it was winter time and I lived up in the northeast then and uh hawks migrate that time of the year. They were gone, but I said that prayer and I looked up and there was a hawk circling over me.

And uh the hawk circled down low. And in our culture, what that means is that your prayer has been answered and that hawk or that eagle is going to take your prayer up to the creator. So I knew my prayer had been answered and I didn't know how, but I knew my prayer had been answered.

So I obviously didn't pull the trigger and I went in the house and uh a few months later I got to tell you that house uh didn't have any windows in it. It had plywood. It didn't have a door.

It had plywood. It didn't have indoor plumbing and um there was no insulation or no furniture. Um we sleep slept on sheetrock.

So, I go back into my castle, you know, and um, hey, my grandma had a dirt floor. We're not having a dirt floor, kids. So, I go in there and um, several months later, I was brought to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous through a whole series of events.

I'd never even heard of it, you know, but I was brought here and that's God working in my life. That was just God working in my life. So, I'm brought to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and and I first got here and I'm I'm looking around.

the guy. I hadn't eaten for a few days and the kids were at their grandparents because there was no food in the house and I had no visible means of support. I had no invisible means of support and um there was no food.

Uh the only heat we had was a wood stove and I had cleared the land of that little uh castle I built with a bow saw. And um I so I had cut I had some trees that had seasoned a little bit but mostly I was cutting down green trees, burning them in the wood stove. So, we had big chimney fires every day and all sorts of alcoholic excitement.

So, my kids, I sent them to their grandmother's house. We had no phone, no toilet, nothing like that. They went to their grandma's house and I'm staying there with no food and hey, my relatives ate outside and ate, you know, roots and barks and berries.

So, I'm outside looking around for stuff to eat and didn't find much. But um I was brought to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I had been in the woods for so long that I was just astounded when um this series of events happened that this person came to my house.

Nobody came to my house. My house, I told you, I built it. And I had no fear.

I was a strong woman. I had no fear. Nothing scares me.

I had a loaded shotgun with me all the time and I had a big knife on me all the time. And I built my bed 8 ft off the floor in the rafters with a ladder that I could pull up. And I built my house with windows and every crucial point that my shotgun could be out of that window in a heartbeat.

So if I missed you with the shotgun and you came in and you didn't know that I was up there, you were dead, you know. So I had it all worked out. Well, the real reason I had my bed up 8 ft off the floor is cuz if your bed's 8 ft off the floor, the end of the bed monster can't get you.

Okay? And I didn't I had three closets and there were no closets on the closet doors because if you don't have closet doors, the closet monster can't get you. I never told anybody the truth about that until I was an alcoholic synonymous.

So I'm brought to the rooms of AA and I'm weirded out of my mind. I haven't been around people for a long time. And uh I come here and all I see at that time there wasn't as many women.

This is 1981. There wasn't that many women. It was all these white guys.

And it was uh I just knew everybody, you know, was Christian and they were just going to try to take away my religion and try to ruin my life. Hello. What life?

You know, I had no life. But I kept coming to meetings and I heard the laughter and that laughter meant so much to me and I was trying to figure out who was in charge here. And I was trying to figure out all this stuff and um one day uh one of the people sat next to me said you know we're not going to ask you to leave.

You can keep coming to meetings but I saw you bite that guy earlier in the meeting and that is not allowed. We are not allowed to bite people in the meetings. And I said you don't understand.

and he grabbed my butt and he said, "Well, we'll talk to him about that, but you're not allowed to bite him." So, I just I would sit by myself at meetings and I wouldn't share anything and and all sorts of uh stuff started happening and um it it was pretty weird. Aa was pretty weird for me, but I knew there was nowhere else to go and I kept coming. early on um I didn't have any job skills.

So someone suggested that I um someone in an AA meeting said why don't you go to the local college which was like 30 miles away and sign up and take some college courses and I said no college is for losers you know I'm not going to college only losers go to college come on I've met those feet snobs and it was um well why it's better than what you're doing so I went to the college and the man that uh wonderful man Mr. Evans in the affirmative action office uh as a minority student. He grabbed me and and brought me into the affirmative action office and he he helped me.

He walked me through my college years. I ended up going for five years and getting several degrees. And now let me tell you for those of you folks who deal with people when you're sponsoring newcomers, they go, "Oh, I can't go to all those meetings.

I'm a busy person." This is what happened for me. I was a single mother with two kids. I was building my house by myself on weekends, cutting my own cordwood.

But I needed five or six core uh wood a year. I was going to two AA meetings every single day. I was going to th um working construction 30 hours a week and taking 12 semester hours of college every uh semester.

So when people go, "Oh, I can't. I got to stay home and watch 24 that night." Well, um you know, come on. What's more important?

Your your soul and your life or uh staying home watching TV or or doing something? So, I I kept doing that and my recovery has been very very slow. Uh I told you that I changed my sobriety date because of uh outside issues, but and I did change that sobriety date.

And when I was very newly sober, I was just broker than broke. I was just so broke. And this guy called me up and my mom had got me a telephone.

This guy called me up and he said, "I needed $600 to pay the taxes on this house." So, this guy called me up and he said, "Um, listen, a bunch of lawyers and doctors are getting together and they need a dancer and I thought of you." And I'm like, "Um, oh boy, how much?" And he goes, "$600." I said, "No touching. No touching." And I said, " $600?" I said, "Okay, maybe I'll do that." I said, "Wow." I get off the phone. I said, "Let me call you back." I get off the phone.

I said, "This is a God thing. I need $600. This guy is calling me.

All I have to do is get naked. Big deal. $600." And then instantly the thought came into my mind.

All I have to do is get naked and disrespect myself once again. I called him back. I said, "No, thank you.

God's in my life." And God told me, "Stand up, woman." You know, don't do that anymore. And that was the I didn't. And uh a few weeks later, somebody that hadn't seen in years and years that owed me money came and paid me money they owed me.

And it was $600. you know, it was just um it was a wild thing. I got involved in uh alcoholics right from the very beginning.

I jumped into AA I jumped into service work. I uh got a sponsor. The first sponsor I had was a man cuz I didn't like women.

Women were come on, I can't even use a 16lb mall. Don't know how to use a gun. Please, you know, what am I going to tell a woman?

And um um we have nothing in common. So, I had a guy for a sponsor and he wanted me to start looking within and making changes and taking the steps. So, I got naked and that was the end of him trying to get me to do the steps, you know.

And thank you, God, that guy did not um go out. He He didn't He was a nice man. He was really a nice man.

And he said no. He didn't want to sponsor me, but I kept insisting. He kept insisting.

Come on, girls. You know how it is. And we reel one of those guys in.

They don't have a They don't have a chance. So, um, he didn't end up going out, but I did. And after that, I learned that men stick with men and women stick with women for that very, very reason.

He didn't want to do that. He was not a 13 stepper. He was a good man, but he didn't have a chance, you know, he just didn't have a chance.

So, I got me a woman's sponsor and and uh we began working the steps. And that woman could only teach me what she had been taught. And in the area where I got sober, they were not strong big book sobriety.

They were oh, meeting makers make it. and they were um put the plug in the jug, you'll be okay. Nah, you don't need to rush into those steps.

I do a step a year, you know, that kind of stuff. And that's all I knew. So, it sounded good to me.

And um and then uh I wasn't getting better. I was I was not doing a lot of the stuff I had done before. And I wasn't drinking and I wasn't in the import export anymore.

And I wasn't uh getting naked anymore except in the bathtub. And um but inside I still wanted to die. things are still really bad.

So, I got a woman sponsor. I started going to I had a woman sponsor. I got another woman sponsor and I started going to some different meetings.

Meetings where they came out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Meetings where they said, "It's about you. You don't like the way you feel, you need to change." Meetings that they talked about action.

And did somebody go take care of that baby? Um about action. Um being of service to others and and uh being a useful woman.

And uh so I started doing that and um I was one of the first women that spoke in the uh uh Connecticut state prison uh maximum security prison. I was asked to go in there. I said, "Well, I've never been in a maximum security prison." And these two old-timer guys said, "Yeah, you probably dated half the guys in there." And um uh they need women to come in that have a strong aa message because you're their mother, their daughter, their girlfriend, their do, you know, their wife, whatever.

They need to hear that. So I loved it. And I went in there and I started doing prison commitment then and I got a two-year commitment at a a local county jail.

And um I couldn't go to the state hospital, put on a meeting for a long time because I'd been locked in so many state hospitals. I just knew that if I walked in, they weren't letting me out. But when um and I thought that soon as I walked in and started around my peers that I'd start acting just like them again.

But when I was about four years sober, I was able to start going to the state hospital and and doing a meeting as well. And uh getting involved in these steps, you know, just transformed my life. Uh my sponsor and I went through the book and where there was a step, we took it.

We read the book from the beginning. Where there was a step, we took it. And where there was a prayer, we took it.

Now, for any of you who haven't done a a four step, I heard Norm say the other night that he was told to read start reading uh chapter 5. And that's what I was told at first AA too. Just start in chapter 5.

And then I found out from other people in AA, well, if you're going to take algebra or science or anything like that, you don't start on chapter 5. You start on chapter page one because how are you going to add, you know, build up on all this? So, I started in the beginning of the book and and uh went through the steps and um found out that there are so many prayers in this book, you know, just so many prayers.

Uh coming to that third step, having made a decision that I was going to go on with the rest of this program, coming to that third step, there's no amen on that third step prayer. I don't know if you've noticed that, but there is no amen. So, what I was taught is that we take that third step prayer when we're ready to go on with the program with our sponsor.

We come to that third step prayer. There's no amen. From there, right until through and including step 11, we are under the blanket or the umbrella of prayer.

And it is not a punishment that I had to do a fourstep and talk about all that stuff. It was a gift that God so loves me, so loves me that he's given me the opportunity to say all the things I've done. And not only that, he gives me the opportunity to come in front of people and tell you, I used to be a loser.

I used to be a fall down woman and I am a standup spiritual warrior today by the grace of God. I am a standup spiritual warrior. I'm an awake member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

An awake member because of the steps in this book and being of use to others and asking God for help in the morning. I met my husband uh Mark in Alcoholics Anonymous. We've been married u for a long time.

I can't remember dates. Long time. And um uh my daughter gave me a plaque.

Let me picture it. Okay. 1992.

We've been married since 1992. And um I was at a point that when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I really hated everybody equally. I didn't know my affectional preference.

I didn't know anything. I was just so confused. I was just so confused.

And uh by the time I reached the point that Mark and I met each other, I was done with men. I'll tell you that. Because I had even met a guy in AA that you know, please.

I was just so done with men. And I turned that over to God. Before that, I'd say, "God, I'm turning everything over to you except my sex life.

I don't want any dweebs, please." You know, I better I better work do that one myself. And and I have a bad picker. A real bad picker.

So, I kept ending up with um people that I picked. So, I turned that over to God and I said, "God, if you're ready for me to have a relationship, fine. If you're not, that's okay, too." I'd reached that point.

I was about four years sober. I was okay with that. And then Mark brought uh uh God brought Mark and I together.

And our relationship is successful because uh we put God first in our life and in our marriage. We put God and AA first. Then I put Mark before me and he puts me before him.

And um we love Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I absolutely love Alcoholics Anonymous. It's given me everything in my life.

I'm just not the same person. I've been reborn. I can freely talk about that because my dark past and God's hands can help other uh people.

I sponsored Dolores for six years. I I don't currently sponsor, but I did sponsor for six years. And the women that come to me and ask me for help usually aren't the uh daiquiri drinkers.

They're usually the women that are like I was. They're the women that just don't feel any hope and they they don't know where to go. I didn't know what to do.

I just knew that I was just going to burn in hell forever. So, whatever. And I don't feel that way today.

I know that uh I have a place and I know what God wants me to do. And when I go to bed at night, I say, "God, did I do okay today? Did I do your work well?

Are you proud of me?" It doesn't matter what you think of me. It doesn't matter what somebody else thinks of me, but it really matters what God thinks of me. And I try to conduct myself in that way.

I uh spend a lot of time praying and a lot of time meditating. And I teach the girls that I sponsor that. and they were all real strong aa too.

I thought that, oh well, if I get real spiritual and turn my life over to God, I'm never gonna have sex again, there'll be never fun again. And um and that's not the that's just not the truth, you know. Um Susan read this morning, God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free.

We are not a a glum lot. And in my culture, Indian culture, uh sex is something we can talk about and joke about and have fun about and um uh mix my culture with aa and and with cinjun and uh you know with other people and we do want to have fun. We do want to have a good time.

But my fun today is not at the expense of somebody else. My fun used to be at the expense of other people whether it was my children. And my fun today is to I find nothing more fun, nothing more fun than seeing the light turn on in somebody's eyes, helping some woman out of hell that she's created and watching the light come on in her eyes.

And buddy, that's a good deal. And you know, if I was to die today and return to spirit, I'm not putting my bid in, God. But if I was, it would be okay because I don't hate anybody and nobody hates me and I am at total peace inside myself.

And that is a gift given to me by Alcoholics Anonymous and by willing to stand up and keep aaa strong and and teach out of this big book and to tell stories from this book and to share my experience with others and it, you know, it's just a it's a great life. It really is. It's a wonderful life.

I'm going to end with a a prayer that I always end with. Oh great spirit whose voice we hear in the wind whose breath gives life to all the world. Hear me.

I am small and weak. I need your strength and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.

Make my hands respect the things you have made. Make my ears sharp to hear your voice and make my voice only speak your words. Lord, make me wise so that I may better understand the things you taught my people.

Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother and sister, but to fight my greatest enemy, myself. Make me ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes, so when life fades as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.

May your way be blessed with the unifying power of the great Holy Spirit. And in our culture, we don't say goodbye. We say until we meet again.

Bless you. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.

Until next time, have a great day.