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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. My name is Mary Parker.

I'm an alcoholic. >> My sobriety date is November 27th, 1981. My home group is the College Park Triangle Group in Orlando, Florida.

and I'm as high as you can get and be from Orlando, Florida. This is really something else. Um, it's just an amazing experience to be here.

I found out a month ago I was coming. I am AA's permanent subspeaker in case you didn't know that. I'm kind of like I look at myself like a really great pinch hitter, you know, and uh it's real exciting to be here.

My husband could not come and so he gave me instructions this morning. I am ignoring them. He's a member of that club called Lawyers.

And uh that's the way it goes. I want to thank Judy and Jim. They made this so easy for me.

I would just have a thought and it would all be taken care of. I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to arrange anything.

I didn't have to pick up anything. I didn't have to drive anything. It was wonderful.

And uh we went to dinner the first night we were here and just met some terrific folks. And last night I earned a new title. I went out to dinner with Joe and Beth and I am the mashed potato queen of Slogars.

I'm real excited about that. That is not because I look so good. It's because I eat so many mashed potatoes.

I sat in the corner with my bowl and growled and people stayed away. I reserve the right not to get over everything all at once. And that's kind of how it is for me.

Um but I'm here to tell you what it was like and what happened and what it's like now. And um it's amazing to me that the life I led gave me the opportunity to do something like this. That's just amazing that this wild, crazy, out of control drunk girl gets to do this.

And I am just incredibly grateful to be here and thank all of you. Um I was born in Ohio and um I have parents. I'm a baby boomer.

I'm the first wave the of the boomers. I'll be 60 in December. And um my parents were my father was a World War II veteran.

My mother was his childhood sweetheart. They got together and got married and I was a much wanted and expected child and was the first girl in many generations on my father's side. That was very exciting for them.

And they just loved me and wanted me. And years later, all these good things I'm telling you, I felt disqualified me for membership and Alcoholics Anonymous because I had a list of things you had to have happen to be here. And I hadn't had them happen.

So, I wasn't supposed to be here. Just kind of like this conference. I wasn't supposed to be here.

But here I am, you know, that's kind of how my alcoholism was. My parents had two more children. I am not sure why.

I was sufficient boys. There you go. And uh I was a scared kid.

I don't know where that came from. Again, I was loved and cared for and terrified. I just live terrified.

And my first memory of that is in the first grade. I am, if I do say so myself, quite a fine little reader. And I had a lot of reading ability.

I was very proud of that. And I'd cry in school, but when I got to read, I wouldn't cry anymore. And this girl moved in to my neighborhood, and her name was Joyce English.

If you're out there, Joyce, I'll make the amends after I'm done. And uh Joyce began to read, and she read with much more expression than I. And I was very, very upset.

I was not only fearful, I was fiercely competitive. And it is a bad combination. And so I hoped and prayed and tried and began to read better than Joyce.

And I felt much better. And that was sort of the story of my strange little life. And um my father got real tired of the cold and we moved to Miami and it was beautiful.

This was in the early 50s and I went to school there and I cried on the way to school. I was afraid I'd be late. And I cried on the way home.

I was afraid I didn't have my homework. I was just afraid. I was just born afraid.

And but I found out I had this little talent. I had a talent for taking tests. I'm a real good test taker.

It's like playing the piano. It doesn't mean you can do anything. just means you can do that.

And uh in high school that began to work out for me and I was part of the generation that we were going to beat the Russians. It was the Sputnik era. Some of you are way too young.

Just don't worry about it. Anyway, so they throw me into all these math classes and science classes and I was taking tests and doing all this sort of thing and um I'd get up to say something in class and I'd say something like this and the teacher would start yelling at me because I wasn't speaking loud enough and I'd stand up and I'd speak and I'd cry. And so that's just sort of what I did.

And I was afraid. I was just always afraid. But I was more afraid of not getting to be something really spectacular.

I had this strange belief that I was destined for greatness. I was destined. All right.

Not not quite for what I had thought. And and my family was sort of hanging on to the edge of middle class. And my they did the best they could, but money was tight at our house.

And I just didn't know how I was going to get to college. My best friend was real smart. When I say she was real smart, today she's a full professor at Penn in the medical school.

So, she was real smart and she was my baseline for what I should be like. And I wasn't getting it, you know. So, I took some more tests and she did better than I did.

She always did. But I got a scholarship to a fine private Southern University Baptist school and um I was on my way. That was good, huh?

I was going to go to school and get my degree and do something fabulous. Long as I've never had to talk to more than two people at a time, it would be fine. So, I went to school and took my tests and sort of hid out in my room.

And when I got there that first day, my roommate was already there and I had not met her and she was from Alexandria, Virginia. She had long dark hair and she was smoking a cigarette and she had on cut offs and a guitar and she went, "Hey." And I went, "My role model has this is who I want to be when I grow up." And I just thought she was the coolest thing. We actually had fire escapes at this school.

And she would sneak out the fire escape and get drunk and do whatever, come back in and hold her gorgeous long hair. She threw up. And I thought, "Why can't I have a life like this?

Why can't I have fun? I'm not having any fun. What's going on here?" But I was a real good student.

And I needed to ride home one semester and I found this boy who had a GTO. You may not know what that four on the floor and I thought I'll never get to ride in a car like that. So I'll just do that once.

That'll be kind of cool. And I did. And he kind of took a liking to me.

That was different. Now you have to realize when I was in high school, I was a good girl. I didn't smoke.

I didn't drink. I didn't wear black eye makeup. I thought smoking would get you pregnant.

I mean, I didn't know about all that other stuff. I was just not I was very very naive. So I I had no frame of reference for what boys were all about.

And he liked me and he was kind of sophisticated. So he took me out a few times and we kind of got to know each other. And he came from a family that had, let's just say it, they were just filthy rich is what it was.

They just had a whole heck of a lot of money. And I had never been around people like this. It was very odd to me.

And after we went together a couple years, um, he said, 'Well, I have an idea. Why don't you go on vacation with us? And I'm thinking, well, that's nice.

We go up to Georgia or something, you know. He said, "No, no, we're going to go on my yacht to the Bahamas." And see, in my house, we didn't use words like yacht in Bahamas. We weren't we weren't there at all.

And so, talking my father into this was a real big deal. And so, we went to my dad and we were getting pretty serious by this time. and he somehow let me go.

And so I got in this yacht and I go to the Bahamas and I'm 19 years old. I've never had a drink, never been around drinking. My grandmother was a member of the WCTU, Women's Christian Temperance Union, and we just weren't doing that kind of stuff at my house, you know, and um we get to the Bahamas on the yacht.

I like to say that. It sounds so cool. Even today, I have been yaching in the Bahamas since I was 19.

long time. It kind of went downhill from there. But uh so we go to this this place, a club kind of looked like a bar to me on Bay Street in Nassau called Dirty Dicks.

That was the name. I had the ashtray for years. I was real proud of that.

And um so we go and we go in this place and his mother said, "What would you like to drink?" I said, "Oh no, I don't drink. I'm not that kind of girl." And she said, "Oh, honey, it's legal here." Well, God forbid that I break a law and not drink if it's legal there, you know. But I didn't know much about this.

I said, "Well, you order for me." So, she ordered me a Tom Collins. Comes with a little umbrella, little piece of orange, you know, a little fruit, and it's got a nice refreshing taste. No air conditioning in that place.

I had one, I felt significantly better. I had two, I felt even better. And that fear began to go away.

I hear people talk about I got taller, I got prettier. Not me. Not me.

I got louder. That voice that had been way down there, it was it was booming. And again, I told you I was a good reader.

Well, apparently I had read some off-color material at some point because I cussed this guy up one side and down the other right in front of his mom and dad. I just found him woefully inadequate to a woman like me at my stature at 19 years old. And um I just cussed him out and then I threw up and then I blacked out and then we went back to the yacht in the Bahamas.

And uh so I got up the next morning feeling like you feel after your first drunk. And I thought, "What do they do now? Do you walk the plank?

What do they do to you when you do something like this?" I was horrified. I was just horrified and scared. We didn't have the money in my family to fly me back home to Miami.

And his mother sat me down. We had a little family conference and said words to me that changed my life. And she said, "Honey, that wasn't you talking.

That was the alcohol." And I went, "Of course." And you know, unfortunately, I took that to the bank for years. It was not me. It was the alcohol.

So, we got engaged and we got married. We had a lovely country club wedding. even though I'd never set foot in a country club before that day.

And off we went to our new and wonderful trudging the road of happy destiny. Not, you know, and um lived in Miami in a lovely home and he had a very social family, very active in the community. And we go to these big parties and so I got into this habit which everybody in here will go, well maybe not the Allenons, but everybody else would go, "Okay." And my husband used to make him crazy.

I would before I would go and get my dress on, I'd look real nice. I'd go to the sink, I'd grab the scotch, I'd pour it in a water glass, drink it down like Alka-Seltzer, you know, and then I was ready to go to the party, calm me down, gave me my voice, was ready to go. If they were short supply, I was already on board, you know.

So, he came out one night and I've got my glass of scotch and I'm I mean, I just downed it. You know, it's not real tasty right off the bat. And he said, "What are you doing?" Said, "I'm having a drink." Why?

We're going to a party. I said, 'Th That's why I'm having a drink because we're going to a party. He said, 'But why are you having a drink?

Because I'm going to a party. You know, and it was like one of those who's on first deals. He just did not understand the importance of the first the pre-drink drink.

Well, all alcoholics understand the importance of the pre-drink drink. So, I had an MMO. What I would do is I go to the party.

I would pick out somebody, somebody's boyfriend or husband, preferably. I would make a pass at him. I would make a fool of myself.

I would throw up and we would go home. And that's what I did. And then I learned about amends very early.

Then the next morning I would cry. I'd pick up the phone and say how sorry I was. And I would do this every time we went out.

And I guess that's not amends because amends you're not supposed to keep doing it after you make amends. But I did. And that marriage wasn't going well.

Wasn't going well. And I realized what the problem was. I I it came to me.

It was him. It was him. So I had to get out of there.

And I got out of there. I was in my noble phase. I took no money, no clothes, no jewelry, no nothing.

Just my crummy little car. And away I went. I'll tell you what, I was young, you know.

And so away I went, but my test taking ability was still there. And they were to kind of recruit women for big companies back in those days. And so I took some tests and I got a job in sales and marketing in this big international corporation based in Cincinnati, Ohio that we will remain nameless.

And um they hired me to do marketing around the country. And how we did that is I'd get a telegram on Friday to tell me where to be on Monday. And I didn't live anywhere.

I lived in Stoer's Hotel. And so I'd do that. And I found out that if you booked at the very last minute and the flights were full, you could fly first class.

Well, the good thing about first class is you can drink. And it wor very well. I was very good at that job.

I was still at the point where I could control Well, I couldn't really control it, but I could back it down once in a while except when I get off in San Diego when I was supposed to be in Los Angeles. Now, that was not a good thing, but I did, you know, I'd do that. But I never got caught.

You know, I was just kind of rolling through life. And on one of my trips to Columbus, my hometown, I met my next victim. I had the trap and keep syndrome where I would find a victim, set the trap.

I found out later what I was doing was called a paradoxical intervention, but I didn't hadn't been to school again yet. I didn't know what I would just tell him, I can't possibly get married. I'm over that.

I can't I'm I'm a free bird and he'd have to have me. So, I found this gorgeous artist and uh he was just a lovely man and we were going to settle down or something. And so he decided he would marry me and um that was nice.

And so I quit that job and I married him. Keep count here because this gets real out of control real fast. I'm sorry to tell you.

You know, I tell this story now and I keep thinking I'm nearly going to have to talk to my grandchildren before they come to one of these meetings. But uh so I marry him and I work for a living for about six months and I am not liking this go to work every day thing. This is boring.

You know, I'm a free bird. I have to fly. So, I still have this great engagement ring.

And I talked to him and I said, "Look, we have to we need a bigger life here. So, we will you're an artist. You need to see the great paintings in Europe and everything.

We will sell everything we own and I will sell my ring and we will go to Europe and we will travel around." Well, what happens when the money runs out? I don't know. That's later, you know.

So, we did. So, um we took off. My families thought we were crazy and away we go.

and we travel around Europe and you know it was raining in Paris so we go to Barcelona. I was so God just I can't even if I had a child like me I'd just lock myself in a closet and never come out you know and that was before email or cell phones or anything. So I'm over there and we went to Africa and I met the hash cookie man and Barcelona and he was down in Casablanca and you know just stupid crazy out of control weird life but the drinking hadn't really gotten to the place where I couldn't still I could hit the I could hit the the handbrake and I could back it down.

Well, I was having a good time carrying a 40 lb pack, walking 10 or 12 miles a day, but my jeans didn't fit anymore after about 5 months. That was a problem. And I was just eating right and I drinking a lot.

But um then I got real homesick and then I started getting sick sick and we went home and I'm four months pregnant. The Alanons knew that already, didn't you? Never occurred to me that was going to happen.

I don't know why. And so um here we are pregnant. So I can't go out to California and be a hippie like I wanted to be.

I had to stay in Ohio and have a baby. So we moved to Mansfield, Ohio. I don't recommend that in case you're thinking about it.

Especially if you're from here and I have this baby and he's going to work and I'm staying home and this is not working for me. This is not working. So I tell him we have to move to Florida.

So we moved to Florida. I mean I just geographic was just my life, you know. So I got down there and um he had a job and I didn't and again I'm in a house.

I'm by myself and I just always had this feeling there was more. I had this hole in my soul and I just had to be more, you know, and I didn't know how to find it and I didn't know what to do. So, I got a job.

My daughter was two and I became the assistant director of the Poke County Bsentennial Committee. This was 1976. And we were putting on this show, nice bicesentennial show, little medicine show.

And Uncle Sam was the MC. He was tall, he was goodlook, and uh he was a lot younger than I was. I was in my late 20s.

He was in his real early 20s. And I looked at my life and I knew what was the matter. Him again.

You know, I just made bad choices in minutes. That's it. My mother agreed with me, by the way.

And uh so I decided it was time to throw my lot in with Uncle Sam and away we go. My husband was not happy with this decision at all and he tried to talk me out of it. And what kind of life would my daughter have?

But I said, "It's going to be fun. It'll be fine." So I worked till the middle of the bicesentennial year and the most exciting thing happened. Our little bicesentennial medicine show got picked up by a promoter and we were going to go to every state fair east of the Mississippi.

And we traveled with Dan Fleiner's hurricane hell drivers. And on the breaks I would get in the car. We would go to places and I get in the car and they taught you how to flip.

It was so great, you know. I just loved it. This is my parents must have been so proud of their kumla graduate of a fine university honing her skills with the hell drivers.

We lived in a in a motor home. No, this is an honest program. We lived in the truck house as my daughter used to call it.

Had kind of like that cab over the truck and it was great. And we we lived one day at a time. You got paid every day.

You got drunk every day. You moved every day. And I went to every state fair.

I really did. I was all up and down the eastern seabboard and over to we got almost to Iowa once and then we turned around came back but the bsentennial year as all good things must ended work again where where' it go where to go so we go to Orlando because I have a brother there who isn't too fond of me but he is there and in the truck house and I whip out my skills and I put on my nice little suit my heels and I go out testing and all that stuff and I end up the executive cutive director of a parenting program at a community college. I was creative.

I had a lot of novel approaches to parenting as my daughter will tell you. And um it was hard. You had to drive.

You had to unplug all the stuff from the truck house and drive it to the inner room kind of around the corner. I had to sneak out, pull up my panty hose and away I went. And you know that was the deal.

So I got this job. We moved into like a normal place and um life is clipping along and I am starting to drink a little bit more. My husband's in college.

He's getting his master's degree now and I'm getting that old feeling. I'm getting that old feeling and I couldn't control it. When that feeling came, it was like being on a roller coaster and I had to do something.

So what I did was that one of our board members came up to me and said, 'You know, I think you could do more than this job. I'm like, absolutely. What did you have in mind?

He said, I have the perfect job for you. He said, I believe you would be wonderful on my team. I said, what is your team?

He said, I am in pharmaceutical sales. You are going to sell drugs. I'm like, yes indeedy, that works.

You got a car, you got an expense account, you got insurance, it paid for your gas. And I I didn't realize I'd probably be a single mother a few more times, so I better get some money going here. But, uh, I took that job and the one barrier to my drinking had just been removed.

We were living pretty poor up to that time. And I was making money like I'd never seen before with this company. Now, I had my scruples.

I don't want you to think I'm a drug user, okay? I didn't do that. I drove drunk a lot.

But I felt breaking the law that way was much more reasonable than than taking drugs. So I only took prescribed ones. I used to go to a I used to go to a psychiatrist and um pay him in cash.

I had a great insurance program, but I felt he might tell somebody. I wanted him to like me, so I never told him the stuff about me. And he prescribed drugs and they they didn't fit well with alcohol, so they had to go.

And that's just kind of how it was for me. And I started drinking a lot more and I was a lot more out of control. And um I got to the place where I just couldn't figure out what was wrong with my life.

I just couldn't figure it out. And um my husband and I were fighting more. He he was seeing me just deteriorating.

But I was very good at my job. And at the beginning, I'd done extremely well. And you can go a long time on on results when you're in sales and people don't do anything to you.

And I get stopped by cops and they'd let me go because I was young and cute and red-headed. And so one day I went out to this the saints and sinners lounge, a lovely place. And I always remember what I'm wearing, which just tells you how shallow I really am.

Mashed potato queen that I've become. And I'm wearing this lovely blue suit with this little flounce on the blouse. And I had a little altercation with a fellow who did not respect me.

And I I think I threw the first drink, but I am not sure. And then he threw one. And then I threw one.

And you know how that goes. I was very upset and I had left my daughter. I had a daycare center that had evening hours and she was in the daycare center and um I'd left her there and so I ran out of the bar crying, my usual hysterical self and I went to get in my car and I turned the wrong way in a city that I had lived in for years and years and I got lost in my own town.

And I was very drunk and I pulled off the side of the road and I don't know what this was about, but I took off my panty hose and took my purse and my panty hose and locked him in the trunk. I don't know what that was. I was drunk and I hid in the bushes from something until a car came and this car had those real dark windows.

You know how you get them real dark? And the guy opened the door, one of those real sports cars things. and had had he had sunglasses on.

Come on in, honey. And I assumed that he would rape and kill me. I just thought that was logical at 3:00 in the morning.

And so when I got in the car, I started screaming hysterically just to prepare myself for the trauma that was going to happen. And he's thinking, I got this crazy broad. We've got to do something here.

So he pushes me out the door in front of the 7-Eleven, which is like a convenience store. And in those days, it was open from 7 to 11:00. And I'm sitting on the bread racks crying until the store opened and I bummed enough money to make a phone call.

My daughter was at the daycare center and I had forgotten. Now I had not forgotten to pick her up. Get this part.

I had forgotten I was a mother. That's what alcohol did for me. The most precious person in my life.

I forgot. I forgot. I forgot.

And I went home and I was devastated. just devastated at what my life had turned into. And I made a list kind of like New Year's resolutions.

And I wrote three things. I want to be a better mother. I want to be a better wife.

And I don't want to drink for 30 days. And I might as well have written 300 years. Cuz I had no idea how people made that happen.

No idea. But I knew I was knowing it was a problem. And I started trying to quit.

I'd make it two, three hours. You know, again, I was up to a bottle of scotch a day and then whatever drinks people bought for me when I was out. I'd drive with my daughter in the car when I was drunk.

I would run off the road and I can still hear her voice screaming as I'm trying to get the car right. I'm in and out of a blackout and she's screaming. I felt she was overreacting.

I had no sense of what was going on with me. My husband was extremely tired of the way I was behaving. My daughter's father, the husband before, we're now on three, was extremely tired of the way I was behaving.

He was threatening to take her away from me. And I knew I had a problem. And it was him.

That's how I worked. That's how my mind worked. So I uh began to look trap and keep.

That's how it works. And uh I went to my husband's office one day and I met Prince Charming. I knew he was out there and I met him.

He said, "Would you like a drink?" Which to me is like, "I love you." And he took me out to his car. He opened the trunk of the car. And in the trunk of the car were call brands and ice and cups.

We were meant for each other. Now, he had a liability that at the time I was unaware of, and I wish I had checked this out. He had an Alanon wife.

And had I known what kind of amends were coming in my life, I tell you what, I would have run like crazy. But I had no sense. She did.

I didn't. And so I decided that I was on to number four. And away I went.

And my daughter was spending a lot of time with her father, which was a real good thing. I wasn't a good mother. I wasn't a good mother, you know, and that just kills me to say that out loud, but it's the truth.

And um I didn't have my child taken away from me. And I believe it's the grace of God and moments between me and the women that have had that experience. I'm no different than you if that's your experience.

So my boyfriend, my undivided to go celebrate my brother's birthday, which was in November of 1981. And we went up to Jacksonville, which is Duval County. And uh we got up there and we decided to go out and drink.

What a shock. So we go to this club and he and I got into one of our let's throw the drinks fights and he stormed out. He didn't come back for a long time.

I cannot have this, you know. I do this, you know, and so I can't have one letting go if I don't have the other one in the other hand. That's just doesn't work for me.

So I got up there and I went outside to see what the trouble was. I'd had a few cocktails by that time. and he was with a an offduty Jacksonville police person who was dragging him handcuffed into the car and I tried to explain to this cop this horrible mistake he was making and he threatened to take me too and um so off I went to the Duval County Jail to try to bail him out.

Well, this is very difficult to do if somebody won't give their name or speak English. And he would not speak English because he felt he'd been captured by the CIA. Now, he's a Chicago boy.

I don't know what the not English was all about, you know, but he was speaking something. And I'm going to every ATM in town trying to get money, but it doesn't matter cuz they can't book him because he won't tell him who he is. And uh I went into the bathroom at the Duval County Jail.

I know if you've ever been in a jail bathroom. I don't wish it on you, but if you have, you know what I'm talking about. And the mirror is kind of cracked and the smells real interesting, real gamey.

And I had on this lovely little expensive number. I always know what I'm wearing when tragedy strikes. got this little outfit on and um I look in the mirror and I'm 33 years old and I look at the mirror and I say to myself, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" And the mayor answered and I heard as if it were spoken, "Mary, you're not a nice girl anymore.

You keep this up, you're going to die." Well, I want to hear that. So finally my boyfriend came too enough to give his real name and the Duval County judge suggested we go back to Orange County and leave them alone. So we went back and we had a conference.

We sat and talked about this very seriously and I said, "We've got a problem." He said, "We do. We have a problem. What are we going to do?" And I said, "I have an idea." I love therapy.

You have to know that. I just love it. You just pay people and they listen to you.

It's the coolest thing. And so I started speed dialing every therapist I'd ever met and I could not get an appointment. And he said, 'Ive got a better idea.

I said, 'What's your idea? He said, I think I'm going to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm like, wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Let's not go overboard here. Yeah, we have a little problem, but it's our issues.

We get those worked out, this alcohol thing will just go away, you know. Well, he was pretty adamant. He thought his father had an alcohol problem and he did too and he was going.

My keen analytical mind kicked in and I said to myself, if he goes to Alcoholics Anonymous, he will meet alcoholic women. And alcoholic women are Now, you may want to know how I knew this. intuitively.

Intuitively, I knew how to handle a situation that might have baffled you all, but I knew. So, I made a plan. I decided to go with him in disguise.

I planned my outfit very carefully. I wore a pair of blue jeans. I wore a man's plaid shirt, big plaid shirt.

I had some buttoning issues in those days. I was a little shaky. And the buttons, you know how they don't quite match up.

And you look a little odd, but I thought, "What the heck? They're alcoholics. They're not going to know." And um I put on a man's a big baseball cap, giant sunglasses, and um away we went.

Away we went. So we get there and I walk in and I think, "Oh my god, we're in the wrong place. The church people are here.

They're all looking like you all. They're clean and washed and happy and smiling." And there were women, bunches of women, and they didn't look real to me, you know. But I could have been wrong.

Appearances can be deceiving as I was a good I was a good example of that. And um so we sat down and this girl comes running up to us. She's got little high heels on even.

Hi, I'm Diane. Are you new? And I'm like, how did she know?

Oh, what a wise woman. So we sit in a circle and I have never been to heard of I might have read about it someplace. We sit in a circle and what I realized today is we had a first step meeting.

And so they were telling their stories how they got into Ahei and I got this really sinking feeling, you know, and they got to me and they said, "You want to say anything?" And I said, "My name's Mary." And I always wondered what a drunk looked like and she looks a lot like me. And I was home and I was scared and I was mad. I was not happy to see you.

I'm sorry to tell you. I was not happy to be here. And but I had read that a was kind of a cult.

And so I came once a week, every Wednesday. I had great Wednesdays. Every other day was horrible, but Wednesdays were great.

And somebody said to me, this girl Jeannie from Tennessee, she really irritated me. And she said, "Maybe if you came more often, you have better days." So she invited me to a Tuesday meeting and we've been going about two months by this time. Life was not better.

Going to meetings once a week, working no program and having no steps. It's just my idea of hell, you know. I was detoxing in the room.

I was a I was a cord a day drinker. I was seeing spiders on the wall. I mean, I was physically in terrible shape.

So we go to this meeting after a couple months of undrunkness. I hate to even call it sobriety. And um the Allenon wife is saying stuff like, "Let go and let God, you know, let's pray about it." I'm like, "Doesn't she get speed speed dial divorce?

What's wrong with this woman? You this is so quick and easy. I know how to do this.

I'll help her." She didn't want my help. And I needed to get married. I just couldn't be hanging around single.

This doesn't work for me. So, um, we go to the meeting and this guy, the chairperson, lets my husband share, my husband, oh my god, my boyfriend share. And um he tells the sad tale of his Alanine wife and the no divorce and the chairperson says as chair people will do keep coming back it'll get better and my boyfriend picked up the chair and threw it at him even in central Florida that is not good AA etiquette even there.

So two big guys from the Navy base escorted him out saying have you had a third step yet buddy? I'm crying my eyes out. Crying my eyes out.

And I'm thinking to myself, "This is just great. I'm about to get thrown out of the lowest of the low. I'm about to get kicked out of the losers club.

This is just fabulous." And so we run out after the meeting. People trying to talk to us. I'm not talking to any of this cuz I know what's coming.

They're going to tell us we can't come back anymore. And I didn't have my checkbook that night. Seconds and inches.

A speaker I've heard. seconds an inch to save our lives. And um so I had to drive home to get the checkbook.

So we get in the car and we're going to go drink. I've had enough of this nonsense. I am not happier.

I am not feeling better. Two months of no drinking is making me crazy. Everything is the same except I can see it all.

It is not good. Early sobriety is not good. You know, I mean, when you don't have anything else going for you.

So, I get home and I'm looking for the checkbook and all of a sudden there is AA police. If anybody tells you otherwise, they are lying. I open the door, there's Jeanie, the Tennessee girl, and her big boyfriend.

The boyfriend takes my boyfriend into one room and she looks at me and she says,"Listen, honey, you are going to have to get down on your knees every day and beg God for your sobriety or you're going to get drunk." And I said, "Excuse me, I don't believe that stuff." And she said, "I don't think I asked you what you believed. I think I just told you what to do." Well, nobody had ever done that to me before. But, you know, that was another moment of grace because I knew she had my number and I knew I was going to die.

I was going to die if I drank again. And so, I did what she said. And she said, "I want you to," she said, "Here are the two things we need to do with you." Number one, you think you're so smart, you need to be desarted, and I'm the one to do it.

Number two, you are no longer confident to talk to God. You can't do that yourself. So, you will call me.

I will call God. I will discuss his your problem. I will call you back and tell you what God said.

I will be your celestial telephone operator. And you know, I bought this stuff. I did it.

I just figured I'm out of ideas. So every day, God help me stay sober. You know, that was how how reverent I was.

She gave me a phone list and said, "Now, if you can't get me, start calling the phone list of the home group." So, but there may come a day when you can't get anybody on the phone. And if that day comes, you're going to have to talk to God yourself, but you're not ready. Like, okay.

And one Saturday night about a month after that, I don't know if you've never had this happen, you might not know what I'm talking about, but there's a roller coaster that my emotions would get on and you could feel it clicking, clicking, clicking, and you knew. You knew it was going to go so far down. And the only antidote for that was a drink.

The only antidote. And I felt it going. And I felt it going.

It's the first time I'd had that really powerful desire to drink. So I called Jeanie. She is not home in my hour of need.

It is Saturday night. Where is she? There's no meeting.

What do alcoholics do on Saturday anyway? She should be home. So I got out the list just like she told me.

I went down the numbers. Nobody in that home group was home. Liars.

All liars. They said they'd be there. They weren't there.

But it was the feeling was getting bigger and stronger and bigger and stronger and I had to do something. So I got on my knees and I said, "God, if you're there, which I doubt, do something." And he did. And I had a moment of the presence of the living God right there.

I was an atheist. And five seconds later, there was no doubt. No doubt there was a God who loved me and cared about me.

Drunk or sober, I could drink again, but I could never not know again. My ignorance was gone. Well, I was blown away, and the desire to drink left me at that moment.

Well, I got on the phone to her the next morning to chastise her for her mouth feasance and also to give her some big news. I said, "Jenie, there's a God." She said, "We knew that, Mary." Now, start right in your forep. No, I can't do that.

I cannot do that because I was a very bad girl. I did bad things. I hurt people.

And I was afraid. I was afraid nobody would want me around. But she insisted and I did it.

and we sat down together and she did the most loving thing and I still do it today when I sponsor women and listen to their fifth step. She said, "Before you start, I'm going to take your hands and we're going to pray and we're going to ask God to enter into this. I'm going to pray holding hands with a woman." E but I really trusted her, you know, and so I did and she invited God in and asked for guidance and wisdom for her and courage for me.

And then she said, "I'm going to tell you something. I'm going tell you the worst thing I have ever done and why and what character defect of mine that illustrates. And she did.

It was good. Real good. And I was I'm very competitive.

And so I felt it was time to enlighten her what a real bad girl was like. And I took my fifth step with her. And she said something very prophetic to me.

She said, 'You know, as we went through those character defects, she said, 'Someday your pride is going to take you down. Be very, very careful. Well, I didn't listen too hard.

And the Alanine wife had gotten sick of all of us by this time and had decided to go on to her own new and wonderful life. And she divorced my boyfriend. And so, I was going to get married.

And Jeannie said, "I do not think you are ready for a relationship." And I thought, "It's God's will. God brought us together. God brought us here.

we're going to get married. Said, "Don't do that." Well, I felt I knew best by this time. I was eight months sober.

I had worked some steps by gosh and I was ready. And we had our little AA wedding with our little AA bridesmaids and our little AA children. We walked down the AA aisle into happy destiny and it was all good.

And if that were the truth, I'd be done right now. But I got news for you. I'm still talking.

And there you go. So, I got married again, again, and um I loved Alcoholics Anonymous. I really embraced it and it embraced me and I got very active.

And I'm one of those people, my husband said as he gave instructions for me on how to do this tonight, he said, "Your story, Mary, is you got it, you lost it, and you luckily got it back." And that's the truth because at the beginning, I was just all over AA. But something began to happen. My husband was not liking AA as much as I did.

and he didn't want to come so much. I came every day. He didn't want to do that.

And that began to bother me. And as time passed, he didn't want to go at all. So, I went to Alanon and asked them to help me get him back into AA.

I felt they could do this for me. I'd heard about them and and I had a plan and I wanted them to help me implement it. My plan was I would go to AA meetings, find all the really good sobriety, male sobriety, and I would bring them to my house one at a time, and he could interview them.

He needed a sponsor. And they suggested I work on myself. And I said, "I am.

I am. That's what I'm doing here." And uh they weren't having it. So, I went ahead and uh I mean, it was just horrible.

And it got worse and it got worse. And I just didn't know what I was going to do if I had to get divorced again. I could see it coming.

You know, the marriage was falling apart. Things were getting ugly. My daughter was getting older.

I was a good mother, pretty a good mother at this point. And when she had left that stepfather that she was so close to, Uncle Sam, she had said to me, "Won't I ever get to see him again, Mom?" And I said, "Sure you will, honey. You'll get to see him again when you graduate from high school." She was nine.

And uh just before she graduated from high school. My daughter is is a genetic Alanon. I don't know if any of you know any of those, but some people were just born Alanon and she was born and she went to Alatine.

And so she came to me and she said, "Mom, I need that phone number." I'm like, "What phone number?" Said, "My stepfather. I want to see him." Well, I wasn't having that either because he was the person who was there when I was at my worst. But I went to my home group and they said, "That's your amends.

What you took away was relationship. What you return is relationship. I'm sorry it doesn't cut it." So I gave her the number.

She called him and within a day he had flown in from Houston where he lived and saw her. And that has been to this day a wonderful, wonderful, supportive relationship. And that was one of my big lessons.

I knew I was going to have to go back to work full-time. I had a daughter going into college. I needed money.

I knew my marriage was falling apart. So, I went out and did my thing. took some more tests, made some more money, found another big pharmaceutical company that was a competitor with my other company.

They flew me up to Philadelphia for training. By this time, I had been an AA lion for about seven years. I was 10 years sober.

I wanted to die every day. I talked about my wonderful relationship with God. I talked about my wonderful marriage.

And I lied and I lied and I lied. I had no sponsor. I had no close women friends.

I couldn't. I couldn't. My house was a dark place and when my daughter left it was darker.

So I went up to this this company's home office. I was on the bus. They have this little limo thing that takes you in.

I sort of leaned my head against the wall and I said, "God, I don't know if I can do this again. I'm almost 45 years old. I'm tired.

I'm tired and I don't even know if I want to live anymore. My daughter's launched and she'll be okay. I just don't know if I can do it.

if you want me to help me. And uh but I'm trained. I'm a good Alcoholics Anonymous member.

I know what I'm supposed to do. And I got there and I called the local AA club and I said, "I really need a meeting. I need somebody to come and get me." They said, "Well, we're real busy.

We'll call you back." They didn't. Well, Pennsylvania people, I don't know. You know, I called them back and I said, "You know, I've been waiting here for an hour and I haven't heard from anybody." And the guy was real testy with me and he said, "Azita, I told you I'd call you back and he hung up on me." We got my name wrong.

That was kind of annoying. So the next day, I put on that navy blue suit and those little pumps and I walked into the meeting room and this is kind of an elite group. There only 10 of us from around the country and we had little bronze name plates and and I looked up just sighing like I I was going to die.

I couldn't do this anymore. And sitting across from me was this tall, gorgeous Iranian girl and her name was Azita from Los Angeles, California. >> Okay.

I got interested. I went up to her at the break and I was cool. I said, "By any chance, are you acquainted with Dr.

Bob or Bill Wilson?" She went, "Oh my god, my sponsor told me you'd be here. She told me. She told me." I'm like, "Who's your sponsor?" She gave me some name I never heard of.

I said, "How do you know? How do I know her?" And she said, "Oh, no. You don't understand.

I'm 6 months sober." And I was afraid I was going to drink. And she told me if I prayed God would send somebody. Well, I'm not sure who got sent to who.

But I'll tell you this, I had a great three weeks and I remembered Alcoholics Anonymous. I remembered what it was like to be sober. And I went home and I ended that relationship.

And uh it was very hard. And um I had a friend named Chad. He was a divorce lawyer.

Everybody like me needs a divorce lawyer. And um when I left that marriage, he declared his intention that I probably ought to marry a divorce lawyer given my history. Speed the process, you know.

And uh he'd been my dear and good friend for many years. And he declared his intention. And I looked at him and thought, you know, you got a point there.

It's first guy didn't trap and keep. You know, that right there was kind of amazing. And so I got my divorce May 13th.

And one of his friends walked it through for me. And he said, you know, being a lawyer and all that, I can go get the certified copy right now. And I've got 30 minutes before my next client.

We can walk right next door to the clerk of the circuit court. We can walk right upstairs and for an extra 25 bucks, we can even get married in the courtroom. I thought this was terribly romantic.

I now look at it as an economic decision. I'm still not sure. So, I had my divorce dress on.

Women like me need divorced dresses. It was brown. It had little brown flowers.

Very sad. And, you know, so I got married in my divorce dress 30 minutes after I was single for 30 minutes. You know, I hate to tell that story to women I sponsor because you know what that just that just blows everything you're going to say out of the water.

So, we got married and um I needed to find something to do with myself. I was back in the programs. He had always been very serious about Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I decided my love is school. I just I love going to school. I'm a I'm a school junkie.

And I decided that I would go and enhance my spiritual life. If you ever hear me say that, lock me up somewhere. And how I was going to do it is I'm going to take a course in Thomas Merin and become a mystic.

Don't I look like a mystic? So, I didn't do that. That clo that that class by the grace of God was closed.

And um so I took the GRE prep class, which is graduate record exam. And I took that test and I went up to that university I had blown my way through all those years ago and convinced them that they should take me into their graduate school without any test scores, just on the strength of who I was 30 years ago. And they did.

And they did. And you'll never guess what I studied. I was going to become a marriage and family therapist, a mental health counselor.

I felt it was time for some mental health. And I was sponsored then. And my sponsor approved this plan, believe it or not.

And she looked at me and she said, "Here's the deal. You go up there, you do your homework, you do your class presentations, you be useful to other people, and don't you tell anybody you're an alcoholic. Don't you go be special, and don't you specialize in alcoholism either." like, "Okay." And I did.

And that scared girl learned how to do a lot of things she didn't know how to do. I did my internship at an AIDS resource center. My clients all died.

They were all very young. Was before the good drugs came out. And I learned how to be with dying.

I who was terrified to speak to more than one person at a time. Learned to sit at the bedside. And I learned that in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I learned to be with people in bad situations from you all. So, I graduated and I was getting ready to go to work for hospice. It was my love and it still is.

That's that's the work I I adore. And my daughter came to me, my little genetic Alanon. She told me she was getting married and I was so thrilled.

Her fiance was a wonderful man. He had been married before, had two children, but she knew how to blend a family because I had a wonderful relationship by now with her father and her stepmother. And she said, "I have something to tell you though." said, "What's that?" She said, "I'm going to invite them all." Said, "All who, the dads, and the girlfriend." I'm like, "Wait, wait.

I have I'll get back to you." I call my sponsor. Now, I you know, two, three, two and three and five were fine, but four was a problem. He was a problem for me.

I didn't want to see him again. and the girlfriend. Good grief, there's enough's enough.

You know, my sponsor said, "Your job is to be a wonderful mother of the bride. Be the kind of mother that every girl wants, and you just don't get to have that. You don't get that choice anymore." Well, I said yes, but there was resentment in my heart.

And the day of the rehearsal dinner, I went to my meeting at noon and I cried bitter tears. And I talked about the injustice of a fine upstanding Alcoholics Anonymous member like me having to go through this. and my sponsor was at the meeting and she wrote me a note in the middle of the meeting which has never happened before, pushes it over and the note said, "You're not the bride, sweetheart." I missed that.

I was so often it was hard to let go of that. So, um, I wasn't the bride. My daughter had a beautiful wedding.

I was a wonderful mother of the bride. I shook hands with the ex. I hugged the girlfriend.

My Alanon friends did the seating. I handed them the place card and said, "Just I can't handle this." They seated me with my back to the you know who and the you know who's what. And um we did just fine.

It was a lovely day. And anytime I get thinking I'm real special, I just pop out that videape and plug it in. And I realize that not all of you may have your amends on tape, but I've got some of mine.

So my daughter got married and life went along beautifully. I had a granddaughter and then something happened and it happened to all of us. Um that was 9/11 and by this time I had a lot of training and disaster and grief and loss and things like this and I had this lovely little private practice.

I still have my little office and but I knew I had to do something. So I called my husband and I said you know I want to go. He said I knew that.

I called my daughter who was pregnant with her second child. I said, "Honey, if you don't want me to go, I won't go, but I I got to go." And she said, "Mom, I knew that before you called me." And I called all my clients and I said, "If anybody tells me no, I won't go." They all said, "You got to go." So, I flew up to Philadelphia on a plane that was empty after I was body searched, my little Red Cross badge on, and I expected to go to New York, and I ended up in Washington DC at the Pentagon. And the girl who was too scared, too scared to talk to people, too scared to be out there and do anything with her life, spent three weeks up there.

And during that time, my stepson was six months sober and he was at uh he was in Washington DC at that time. His little young people's group called me every day. They left messages.

I couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't go to meetings. They left messages every day encouraging me and telling me they were thinking about me and telling me to stay sober.

It was awesome. And I came home and on the ride home, my daughter called me. I was I took a train home and she said, "I just thought you'd like to know that you're going to have your first grandson." So excited.

And um so the time came for that baby. And I'll tell you, we don't talk a lot about a men's in AA. Everybody talks about first three steps, but I'll tell you the immense steps have been powerful with my children.

Powerful in my life. And in that hospital room waiting for the arrival of this little boy was my daughter's father, his wife, my my son-in-law, his mother, his two children from a former marriage, and me. I mean, we had she said, "I just need grandstand seating with my family, you know, waiting for this baby." And um so he came out and he was born and remember I spent years in pharmaceutical sales and my specialty was neonatal medicine.

He was born everybody's celebrating and so excited. I was watching I was watching. I didn't like what I was seeing.

Little chest was retracting and little cry was a little too weak and I I didn't like it. He was on time. He was the right weight but and suddenly the nurses and doctors got a little more focused.

you know, they just focused in and I didn't like it. They took him to the nursery. They did some respiratory therapy.

You know, I had this heaviness in my heart. Just had a heaviness in my heart. And I went home and I went to sleep and I prayed and went back the next day and um we were playing had the baby and we're looking at him.

You know how you open them up and count the fingers and toes and all that and watching the baby and all of a sudden his little feet turn blue. like navy blue. I don't mean I mean blue and that blue just started coming up his body and my heart stopped beating.

My daughter picked him up and whacked him and and and then I can't really tell you the sequence of events because it's like slow motion fast. All of a sudden, we're running down the hall with this tiny baby on a big gurnie and I'm dialing dialing. I'm calling my two best friends in AA just like a long time ago.

I needed an operator to call God for me. I was busy. And they did.

By that night, they called everybody. And uh that night came and they put him in the neonatal unit where he belonged. And my daughter was discharged from the hospital.

She had three little girls at home that were crying, waiting for the little brother that wasn't coming. And my son-in-law had to take her home. And so I was chosen to keep watch that night.

All right. And um I had on my u I always know what I'm wearing. I had on my had on my black pants suit.

I had a diet coke and a bag of M&M's and I was good to go. And I sat in that nursery and I held him. And the nurse says to me, "If you keep holding him, you're going to spoil him." I'm like, "And your point is what?

I'm his grandmother for God's sake." You know, now you need to know something about this night. This was March 28th and it was the night before Easter Sunday. And if you are not of the Christian tradition, I must tell you that Easter Sunday for a priest in a big church is like Super Bowl Sunday for an NFL coach.

It's big, big. And I went to a church with assistants and subass assistants and you know, all that jazz. So, it's a big day.

So about 4:00 in the morning, you can imagine my surprise when the head priest shows up wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and I said something really sensitive like, "What are you doing here?" He said, "I don't know. I just woke up and I thought I was supposed to come here." So here I am. Maybe we should pray for the baby.

Like okay. We pray for the baby. Nothing big.

He left. But I noticed that that first line of light before the light was coming. Dawn was breaking and the baby was breathing okay.

You know, he looked okay. So, my daughter got there and my son-in-law and and um the neonatlogist took a look at him and said, "This baby's fine." Looked at all the tests. He's fine.

In fact, he's so fine he can go home today. Now, I want to tell you what the miracle was. Don't miss this.

The miracle wasn't the baby. He was always going to be okay if God had that in his mind. He was prayed for and cared for.

The miracle was the woman who drove drunk with her daughter in the car. The woman who forgot she had a daughter. The woman who could not stay married, who couldn't be faithful, who couldn't show up for anybody or anything was chosen to keep watch that night.

And I learned that here. Every call I made, every pot of coffee, every chair I set up, every ashtray moved me to that night where I could keep watch and go the distance. And that morning, more than one resurrection happened.

And for the first time, I knew I was a good mother and a good grandmother. And I had been healed by the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the steps and the people. And it was amazing.

It was amazing to me. And I knew it. The neonatlogist came out.

He said, "You can take the baby home as soon as I whack his weenie." Now, for those of you not medically inclined, I want to explain that terminology. That's another word for circumcision. So, they whacked his weenie and he went home and he's four years old now.

He's just a joy. And his parents were out of town a little bit a little while ago and I got to take him to a four-year-old boy birthday party. Not his, another boy.

And you don't have any four-year-old boys in your life. They go around karate chopping the air. Very excited and they yell a lot and they eat weird food and and so we went to this party and at the end of the party um he's just a dear little soul and he had a little they gave you goodie bags with all his stuff in it, you know, like candy and stickers and weird stuff and came up beside me, grabbed my hand said, "Grandma, that was a great party." said, "It was, Mac, wasn't it?" He said, "You know the best part." I said, "What?" He said, "Look at this goodie bag.

I got we lollipops." And I thought, you know, Mac and I have a lot in common. For 24 and a half years, it's been great party. And my goodie bag is full beyond my wildest imagination.

Thank you for my sobriety. Thank you for my life. 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.