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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. Thank you, Renee.

I um I told Renee that she could be the lady and say it her way and I'd be the husie and tell it to you the way I normally say it. And my old sponsor, who was from Texas and was a lady, would say, "Honey, stick your tits out and be somebody cuz you are. And I uh I invite you to do the same thing tonight cuz you are you're precious children of God, all of you.

And you got a right to be on this God's green earth. And I didn't know that until I got to Alcoholic synonymous. And that's why I stayed.

Um my name is Patty and I'm an alcoholic. That's the most important thing I'll say tonight. I'm an alcoholic.

I'm Patty and today that uh has a whole new meaning. And what I want to tell you tonight um my sponsor uh I'm sober. Oh, this is Texas.

I forgot. Forgive me. Uh February the 8th, 1977.

Um thank you. I'm sober because of the grace of God and because of the actions of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and two loving sponsors, one at a time. One at a time.

I had a sponsor for two years down in Florida where I found Mr. Brady in Lakeland, Florida. uh the old Texas gal who was tougher in nails but never talked down to me and never belittled me and always made me feel precious and loved and uh and then I've had a sponsor for 8 and 1/2 years and uh and through the the love of those two sponsors and a lot of tolerance, a lot of patience, um I'm becoming one day at a time everything that I wanted to be when I drank the drug alcohol.

Gosh, we have to tell what it was like. It was pitiful. Uh I hear this big word now today in called dysfunctional families.

And I thought, God, I would have settled for a dysfunctional family. You know, um my mom and daddy didn't know one another. My mother was an old uh street and she had this disease called alcoholism.

And uh people asked me a lot of years ago to clean that up. You know, they said it's not nice to talk about your mama that way. And I tried saying that she wasn't nice uh a mother.

And when my mother was sober and trying to get her act together, my mother was a good mother. And they I tried saying well she wasn't a nice lady. And there were a lot of men in Washington DC who thought my mother was a very nice lady.

Um and it was kind of like two ships that go bump in the night. Uh my father saw her, she was young and pretty and uh my mother is dead now. Died from the disease of alcoholism.

My mother was a full-blood Chipawa Indian and uh beautiful beautiful woman. I was born and raised in Washington DC. Uh and lived with my mother until I was nine years old and and a halfsister and um my mother had four children and uh we each have different fathers and not one of us look alike.

Three of the four of us suffer from this disease of alcoholism. The three that were taken away from mother and put in good homes are alcoholics. The one that was left to be raised in with my mother in this horrible environment is not an alcoholic.

So that blows the hell out of genetics, you know, and environment. I'm an alcoholic because I put alcohol up to my mouth and swallowed it. That's why I'm an alcoholic.

I had a long, it was a long time for me to try to figure out this big difference between fault and blame. Uh, I was an alcoholic. I'm a born alcoholic, whatever that means.

Today, they have another great big word for that called fetal alcoholic syndrome. Well, in 1939, it was just a baby had convulsions and usually died. Um, I didn't die, but two weeks later, my my sister told me much later that my mother dumped me in a trash barrel.

And the reason my mother dropped me in a trash barrel is my mother is a full-blood Indian and all her people were full-blood Indians. And if you look at me, I look kind of white. And uh and I never belonged in my mother's world.

And then when I was nine, I was yanked away from my mother very suddenly and put in my father's world or a man who called himself my father. And my father was born and raised in Sicily and came to the United States uh in 1908, 18 years old with 14 cents in his pocket. But he had membership in a very elite bunch of thugs.

Now, I don't have to tell you any more than that. You know the story. Uh big family.

And he was the head of a big family and he was very wealthy and very powerful. and I didn't belong in his world either because somehow I wasn't a pure Italian. I was one of those little half breed Indians.

So when I came to you, I had never belonged anywhere to anybody. And God, I wanted to belong somewhere. So my sponsor tells me when I get ready to go out of town and get on the airplane, he said, "Now listen here, darling.

Don't you go down there to Texas and tell those people how to work their programs even though you know perfectly well how to work this program and you probably could tell them how to work it perfectly well. Don't do it. Oh, he just feeds my ego something wonderful.

He said, "Why don't you just tell them about the pain? And if you tell it the way you're supposed to tell it, everyone will identify with you. Alcoholic, Alanon, Alatat, Alatine, Alidog.

Everybody's going to identify with you. And that's what I want to talk about tonight. The pain, the pain that brought me here and the love that keeps me here.

Um couple months ago uh when I announced that uh one of the groups that I uh I chair on Friday nights the big book study meeting uh a fellow came up to me and uh his name is Rick and he said when you go to love I want you to look up a fella and I want you to hug him hug his neck and tell him that this is from Rick and I I want you to thank him for helping me stay alive and to thank him for picking me up when I was hungry, angry, lonely, tired, broke, and hopeless and helpless. And give him a big kiss and and just tell him that he's always in my heart and in my prayers. And I asked someone tonight, I I think it was Renee, about Harold Leech.

And I heard that he passed about two years ago. So, uh, to all the heralds out there, I want to thank you, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for being here.

When I came here, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous January 1959, and I told you that my sober date is February 1977. It only took me 19 and 1/2 years to make my first year of sobriety. I'm a slow learner and a quick forgetter.

And uh but I was too young and too pretty and too rich and and too many other things to be an alcoholic. And I went to from my first meeting in Chicago at the Bismar Hotel on a Sunday night. And every loser, every I I love the way Clancy refers to it.

Every great puke in town was at that meeting that night. and old, old and old and used and abused and gray and nasty looking and uh and I thought, "My god, I'm so glad that there is a a organization like Alcoholics Anonymous cuz these poor suckers really need this, you know, and I was 20 years old and I was pretty and and I thought, well, you know, this this is lovely." But something happened that night. You planted the seed.

something in your eyes. The eyes never lie. Never.

How many nights did I come to you and I'd walk in the door there and they'd say I'd say, "Um, hi." And they'd say, "How are you tonight, Patty?" I'd say, "I'm fine. I'm fine." Plastic smile, big smile. Fine.

My eyes hurt and you knew it. So, I've been trudging this road for 10 and a half years, and it gets better. There's some detours that I've taken that I didn't have to take that created a lot of pain of my own making.

Okay, I don't want to get sidetracked. Um, I want to tell you about my first drink. I've heard I listen to a lot of tapes in the morning when I get up.

I have tried a lot of meditation. I've tried so hard to do what it asked me to do in the 11th step. And I know how to pray.

God, I know how to pray. You know, I'm real good at praying, but this business about meditating. My mind runs about 30 seconds and then all of a sudden I go to the office or what my husband and I are going to do that day or this weekend or this baby didn't call me and I wonder and there there's my meditating.

So I have found it and beside that I'm vain. I am a vain woman. Takes me a long time to get ready in the morning.

The older you get, it just takes you a little bit longer, you know. And I'm coming up on 48 in 13 days. And and the wrinkles, you know, I got to put all that cream on and that foofu dust, you know, and and um so I put a tape on and I listen to an hour's tape every morning and and that to me is meditating because somehow I always hear what I'm supposed to hear.

And uh some speakers will stand up here and tell you that they absolutely can't remember taking the first drink. Well, I can I can tell you the exact time, date, place, the name of the place, what the day was like. It's that vivid because it was a magical and mystical trip that I took.

It was a love affair that I launched on. It was a hot summer afternoon. I had graduated.

I started school when I was 10 years old. When I came to live with my daddy, I was dying of tuberculosis, malnutrition, and ricketetts. And I was 6 months uh in a sanit sanitarium and then 6 months in the bed.

So by the time I started school, I was 10 years old and I finished school a month before my 16th birthday. Now I have a lot of intelligence. I'm one of them real smart asses, you know.

God, they usually die of alcoholism. And I was tested when I was in school and it was way up over 200. And but I have this other disease.

It's called lack of common sense. And I'm just beginning to get a little about it. You know, I can deal with very complex situations.

I can take very complex problems and I can solve them like that. But you give me something real simple like, "Patty, if you don't want to get wet, come in out of the rain, darling." you know, things like that that simple. And I don't I don't handle that too well.

And I think, "Oh, yeah." And when I came to you people and you said to me, "Darling, it's that first drink that's going to get you drunk." I thought, "God, that's profound." I never thought of it that way, Lord. And I just I went home and I was just deeply impressed by that. So, I graduated and I had never had a date.

Never. I was so ugly. God, I was ugly.

You know, Oscar Wild said a lot of years ago that you can't be too rich, too thin, or too sexy. Well, that's not true. You can be too thin.

You can be too thin. And I was about 5' 5 and a half, same height I am now, and I weighed 89 lbs. And not only did I not have any bazoons, but my chest sunk in this way.

See? And I had a chronic terminal case of the zits. You know, I'm very purple kind, you know, and big old purple kinds and and and I had one always on the end of my nose and my eyebrows grew together like that labor le what was his name?

John L. Lewis. Was that remember his name?

Yeah. I had them John El Lewis eyebrows. And remember, I'm I'm from the South.

And uh the worst thing that you can say about a southern woman back in those days was she's loose. Hang it up, honey. your your reputation's ruined for the rest of your life.

If it ever gets around town, you're loose. Well, only loose women pluck their eyebrows. And I used to have hair under my armpits about this long that you could pl.

Well, only loose women shave their armpits. See? And I had so much black.

See? And y'all thought I was a natural red hair. And I had this black hair on my legs that I never did have to wear black hose.

I just wear nude colored hose. You thought I had black hose on? Well, only loose women shave their legs.

See? Well, it's kind of hard to be sexy and pretty when you got a chronic terminal case of the zits. Oh, and I didn't tell you about my kinky hair.

I had kinky, kinky, kinky hair. And if I washed it in the morning by noon, it looked like I had rubbed Crisco in it. See?

Greasy, kinky hair. Well, in those days they them girls had that straight hair with those bubbles and the beehives and the you know and and I had kinky old hair and I don't no matter how hard you combed it, you know, old kinks. Well, today women pay fine money to go get kinkedked up, you know, I'm fashionable now.

And now today I spend a lot of money have it straight. See, I'd say I'm an alcoholic. I'm what the big book calls one of them real alcoholics.

Crazier in hell. alcohol doesn't have a damn thing to do with it. I'm just crazy.

Warped. All my thinking is warped. That's why I come to you to to learn how to live right and think right.

So when you're as ugly as I was and then to compound it there, my father had been married to a lot of years, a lot of years to a very wonderful woman. They had never had any children, but they adopted a girl and her name was Patricia Anne. And my name was Patricia Anne.

That's kind of embarrassing to have two Patricia Anns in the same house. You know, you have to uh explain a lot. So, he just changed her name to Paty and my name to Patty.

He did it without my permission. And I thought how arrogant that son of a was to change my name without my permission. Now, I had had by the time I was 12 years old four or five last names.

Um, my mother was Marilyn Virginia Grey Dove and the government changed her name to Mary Virginia Gay. So my name had been Grey Dove, changed to Gray, changed to Tarantino, changed to Tarant. And then the stalker changed it from Trishan Tarant to Patty Tarant.

Well, now that was the last straw. I didn't care what you call my last name. But by God, get my first name right.

That was my only piece of identity. And this Py, this this stepsister of mine, adopted sister, as ugly as I was, she was pretty. She was blonde, blue-eyed.

She had skin like peaches and cream. She was round where a woman ought to be. Round flat where a woman ought to be flat.

And I hated that And she was dumb. I mean dumb. When she bought home D's, we had a big party in our house.

My lowest grade in school was an A minus. For all those years that I ever went to school was an A minus. My father never let me forget that.

Even if you're ugly, the law of averages says you're going to get a date. You keep trying hard enough and your mother, your father's got enough money, you're going to get a date. Now, I want to tell you fellas in AA and Alanon little story.

Now, now we AA women stand up here and Alanon women sit in these audiences and we hear about the dogs you woke up with. Well, it's payback time, honey. And this old dog asked me for a date and my father approved, which shocked me.

and he was old enough to be my daddy, but he was socially acceptable to this thug. So, I went out with him and it was a hot summer Sunday and we went down the beach from Washington DC and there was a Y in the road and to the right was a socially acceptable beach for uh decent young ladies of that time. And to the left was where all the loose women and huzzies went and men that gambled and ran with loose women.

And this old sucker just turned to the left. And my first thought was, "My god, my father's going to kill me if he finds out in North Beach, Maryland." And then about a second later, I was thinking, my heart was going boom. And I was thinking, "Oh god, now I get to see what them loose women and them huzzies look like and that gambling and that drinking and that hillbelly music, you know, old country and western music." And I went down there and I had my first drink of alcohol.

It was wet, cold, and delicious. And you know, I have stopped talking about beer, Miller High Life beer in such glowing terms because sometimes newcomers just go right out and have them a beer. But I'm going to tell you that the first time I put that in my mouth and it went over my lips and past my teeth and it got hit my tongue, slid down my my esophagus, you know, hit my belly.

There was something just wonderful, indescribably wonder. I just fell in love with it. And by the time I had my fifth beer, I thought, "My god, I have arrived." I, you know, Bill Wilson says that in his story, "My god, I had arrived." You know, I had arrived.

Alcohol did for me, it made me pretty. It made me sexy. It The zits were just going away one by one.

And my bazones were just growing just like that. And I stuttered when I talked and I opened my mouth and I didn't stutter. And I had never danced before.

My god. Before that day was over, I was up there like Ginger Rogers and I was looking for a Fred a stair. Honey, I just had all the right moves.

I was just gliding. You know, southern women glide. You ever notice that?

Southern women don't walk. They they kind of glide. Honey, I was gliding that day.

And then I got to tell you about the sixth beer cuz this is it. Here's where the magic started. And the only way that I can tell you about it and let you feel sort of the way I felt about that first beer at that sixth beer was there's a scene from the Wizard of Oz and it's when Dorothy is just kind of sort of new in Munchkin land and she's real nervous cuz she wants to go back home to Annie M.

And here comes this bubble out of the sky and the bubble pops and here is Billy Burke. And when I saw that movie, I was a little girl and I thought, "Oh, that's the prettiest woman I've ever seen." She was just white all over, white hair, white dress, white skin. You know, Florence Sigfield's last wife.

The only reason she was the last wife cuz she outlived the son of a you know. And here, here, right behind old dog, here comes this bubble. See?

And pop, there's Billy Burke. And I'm drinking my sixth beer. And here, old Billy Burke is w having the magic wand.

And she's waving. And she says, "Darling, I give you a precious gift. You now have the ability to read minds." And she disappeared.

And I looked at old dog. And he was grinning like an old cat getting ready to eat the mouse. And I read his mind.

Want to know what he was thinking? He was sitting there and he was rubbing his hands thinking, "It's only going to take one more beer." And I was sitting there grinning back at him. And I was thinking, you sorry bastard.

If you live to be a thousand years old, you'll never get in my drawers. And he didn't. And I never saw a dog again.

That's the story of my first drink. That's what it did to me. That profound change.

And for the next 22 years, that love affair that I had with alcohol, a love affair that I had never had with anything, anybody, any place for one day at a time. I knew a lot about living one day at a time. And I didn't learn that in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I learned it out there. For one day at a time, I try to recreate that feeling again. One day at a time, I try to find in alcohol what I had found that day.

that I was pretty, that I was sexy, that I didn't have to stutter, that I could talk to people, that I could be acceptable, and that people didn't have to know that I was a little half breed bastard and that I belong somewhere. And I drank for 22 years. And the first 15 years, if I said to you were bad and nasty and bad things happened to me, I'd just be a big old liar.

I had fun. I had fun. There's a guy out in California.

He said, "You know what fun is? There's a difference between fun and fun. I had fun with alcohol." See, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I found out that I was addicted to a lot of other things.

I used to think I was just a pure alcoholic female. And I used to go around bragging about that. I've never had a cigarette in my life.

I don't know what marijuana is. I don't know what cocaine is. I don't know what thorazine is.

I don't know what Valium is. I don't know what li Well, wait a minute. I did have I did have a token lirium pill in 1963.

I went to a doctor in Pittsburgh and I said, "I drink too much. You got to help me." And he says, "I have something for you." Wrote me out a little piece of white paper. I took it to the pharmacy, filled it, was green and black, big, kill a horse to swallow the damn thing, chased it down with the beer, slept for 3 days.

I was a party girl. Party girls can't party much when you're sleeping by yourself for 3 days. So, I threw those things down the toilet.

That's my token experience with drugs other than the drug alcohol. And I came to Alcohol Anonymous thinking I was a pure alcoholic female. And when I sat around the meetings and read the book and listened and really listened, I found out that I'm addicted to a lot of things.

And I was addicted to action. God, I loved action. I don't know if y'all were bar drinkers.

Uh up where I come from, all the women in AA, practically all the women were home drinkers. You know, they drank at home. I used to wonder about all those females I met in bars, but I I don't meet too many of them in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And uh but I would go to the bar and I'd get out of my car and my heart would have be starting and I'd put my hand on that doororknob and it was like electricity, you know, that that just electricity would shoot up my arm. God, my feet would start tapping, you know, and I'd want to move and I'd go in, it was dark, mysterious. Somebody was talking about the mirrors in a certain bar made you look gorgeous, you know.

Yeah. And the lights and that's what I went for. Excitement, action, and there I could be anything I wanted to be.

I'm an actress. I'm an actress. I know a lot about playing roles and masks.

And for 15 years, those first 15 years, I could go in the bars or in the cocktail lounges and I could be anything you wanted me to be. But you had to tell me what you wanted me to be because I didn't know who I was, what I was, or what I was all about. And if you wanted me to be a lady and you were paying for my booze, I could be a Oh, I loved being a lady.

Oh, I loved being a gracious lady. Oh, God. Honey sugar could just drip from my lips.

Just old southern bell that I was just old sweet potato. Guys, you know how cute I are. Yeah.

And then I like being the huzzy, you know, shooting pool and drinking suds, you know, listen that country and western music. God, I love being a husband. Oh, and that music playing.

Lay your head upon my shoulder. Help me make it through the night. God, I could just cry and drink that beer.

And then I could be very prim and very proper, you know, acting like one of them Yankees, you know, look down my nose. My people came over on the Mayflower. How'd yours get over, honey?

You know, Gosh, I and and and I lied. I just lied. And the worst part about lying is is what you come to believe is truth and it's lies that you know the worst part about lying for for me is that over a period of time I couldn't differentiate between the lies and truth and I lived in fantasy world.

I think one of the neatest pictures I ever saw beside Wizard of Oz was the what was it the secret world or wonderful world of Walter Nitty with Danny K. Oh, I boy I identified with that movie. See, and I come to believe these lies that I told and and I Well, I tell you about one of my lies.

I went to Pittsburgh and I taught school. Oh, I was sitting at a bar at the Hopscotch bar on uh Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Forbes in Pittsburgh. And I my my friend at the time, Rosemary, she was a school teacher and oh, she was just going and on and on about her profession.

And and I thought, hell, you know, anybody can be a school teacher. If you want to be poor and live at the poverty level, you know, be a school teacher. And I said, hell, there's nothing big deal about being a school teacher.

She says, well, I bet you couldn't be. Well, you know, that's all you have to say to an alcoholic. I said, put your money where your mouth is.

She said, "I'll bet you $100 that you couldn't teach school." I said, "How long?" She said, "One week." So, I phonied up a master's degree. You know, we don't we don't mess around with bachelor's. I phonied up a master's degree, went and interviewed, got hired, taught for one week, collected the bet, liked it, and stayed on for three years.

And I taught special education. Now, here's the lie to end all lies. I was going to Dane University at night for my doctorate degree.

I was actually going to school for my doctorate. I had never been to college a day in my life and I was doing well. Um, husband number four, don't hold me to that now.

Four was a a conservative Jew. I remember I met him and I decided I wanted to be married to him and I went home and I told Joseph, he was uh eight years old. He had made his first Holy Communion and I said, "Uh, Joe," I said, "I've met this fellow and I like him a lot and I think I'm going to marry him." And I said, "We're not Catholics anymore.

We're Jews." And he said, "What's that?" And I told him and um so when my son was uh 12, almost 13, he was bar mitzvah. And today my son's 29 and sometime on the high holidays he goes to uh to Shul and then sometimes he goes to midnight mass at Christmas time. He doesn't know what the hell he is.

You know, he thinks he has the best of both worlds. I lived seven years with that man. And and not until years later did he realize that I was not a G.

That's it. I was a liar. See, I was a liar.

And I was a good liar. In order to be a good liar, you have to have a good memory. You know, it's kind of hard to be if you don't remember the lie you told yesterday.

Now, in the early part of your drinking before all these burned out brain cells and you still got a 200 IQ, it's all right. But you get that boo slloshing up there and you kill all these thousands of brain cells and after a while you can't remember the lie. So when he starts catching on, you know, and all these inconsistencies, you just move on.

And you don't get divorces. You never get a divorce. You know, in the old days, you had to establish things like residency.

I was never one to stay in a place very long. You know, had the pot, the golden rainbow, the pot at the end of the rainbow was always out there, out there. And that's where I was going to go find it.

Happiness, whatever happiness was, I was always searching for it. It was that next town, that next man, that next bar, that next drink. See, so I I would never get divorces because it took time and money.

two very precious things to a practicing alcoholic. You know, we have to conserve our funds. We got drink.

So, I just got married on a regular basis. You know, every time I'd come in heat, I'd get married. I Well, I had good morals.

I just didn't sleep around. You know, wasn't nice to do that. Those nuns had done a job on me.

You know, it's a moral sin to commit adultery. I wasn't committed. I was married, you know.

So when I got sober, I had to get a one divorce and a bunch of anulments. I had one of those sponsors that said I had to clean up the wreckage of the past. And she meant it quite literally.

By the way, out front y'all got those dolls. Those sponsor dolls. Have you seen them?

You squeeze them. I That's not the kind of sponsor I had. You know that said easy does it.

Live and let live. My sponsor said, "Zip the lip and cross the legs, honey. No sex, no dating, no nothing." I said, "How long?" She said, "We generally start with a year.

In your case, we may make an exception." I wasn't allowed to ride in a car with an AA member, male, if there wasn't a third member present. I lived in Florida. There are no buses.

And I'd be walking down the road going to the meeting that night and some old guy been sober 3 days longer than God for, you know, Jesus, scenile at best. And he'd say, "Patty, you want to ride to the meeting?" And I'd look in the car and there wasn't a female or another male present, I'd say, "No, thank you." Katie said if she caught me in a car riding to or from a meeting with a man without a third person that I was fired. And I believed her.

But you see on February the 8th 1977 I got so tired. People who are not in our beautiful program say what happened that day Patty like you're expecting to tell them that some Pat thing happened. And I said I don't know I just on that day I got tired.

I just tired of fighting. I was tired of remembering the lie I told you yesterday. I was tired of cutting corners and shooting angles, taking shortcuts with life.

Mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, I was tired. I just didn't want to do it anymore. And on that day, I said the prayer that every AA member has said at one time or another.

Dear God, help me. And he did. didn't do it the way I wanted it, but he did it.

And I figured as long as he was keeping his end of the bargain up, that I would hold up my end of the bargain. And I did what I was told to do begrudgingly. When I came to you on February the 8th, 1977, I weighed 375 lbs as best as they can put it together.

I had no hair, no teeth, no fingernails. I was covered with syphilis and wine sores and I was dying. And that day my heart stopped and for about 2 or 3 weeks after that my heart would stop on a regular basis and they were just trying to keep me alive.

Um I was in the hospital part of it for about 5 months. The people of Lakeland, every road, every mile of that road, they walked with me. The only way I could stay in that hospital was that if a a person was with me around the clock and every two hours, a member of AA would come and sit by my bed for 5 months.

And um then they put me in a treatment center in that hospital and I listened and they assigned a sponsor to me down in Florida. They did they did things like that. I don't know whether they still do, but they thought that you were uh not you I I got to remember this is an eye program that I was so sick that I didn't have, you know, I didn't have enough intelligence or smarts or whatever it takes to put two and two together to figure out to ask.

And so they assigned me a temporary sponsor and Katie took me home and fed and clothed and supported me, you know. And I hear people say in AA meetings, carry the message, don't carry the alcoholic. And I'm ever so grateful that Katie didn't listen.

Alcoholics don't generally do what they're told to do. They generally do what they want to do. And she thought I was worth the price.

She was loving but tough as nails. She never talked down to me. I remember one time Katie told me, she said, "Darling, don't you ever let me hear you talk down to an alcoholic." She said, "We've been talked down to enough out there.

We don't need it in Alcoholics Anonymous. Don't you ever call somebody stupid or dummy." And she said, "Don't you ever let me hear you badmouth the Allan program." Apparently, she had been so well, she was sober for a long time. She had found her sobriety in the great state of Texas.

And in those days, there weren't a lot of females. So, the Allenon women helped her grow one day at a time. Katie was um Katie was real strong about this book here.

By the way, I want to thank they gave me this book in 1972. I was serving two life sentences in lower penitentiary. It was the fifth time I'd ever had ever been in prison.

And one was for first-degree murder and the other was for being habitual criminal. And I was guilty of both. And the AAS would come into lower penitentiary and they gave me this book for my my own for this was my book.

They gave it to me. I didn't have to share this book with anybody and I slept on it like a pillow. Um, and I always want to thank institution committees for taking the time and the effort and the love to take the message into prisons and jails.

I want to thank you for coming to LOL. I want to thank you for looking good and smelling good and for giving me coffee and donuts. It's the only reason I went to your damn old meetings with coffee and the donuts and to see what you were wearing and how you were wearing your hair and what you look like.

And you never treated me like scum. You never treated me like scum. And you were rocking copies of the big book.

And Katie was real strong about this book. And uh that part of Florida that I came in, there was the there were many kinds of uh AA. That's not nice to say, is it?

But there were many kinds of AA. You know, we like to stand up here in from the podium and tell you AA is the same all over. That's a croc of poop.

You know, some people I've heard some people say, "I've never been to a bad AA meeting." Well, maybe that's true, but I've just been to some that are better than others. Let's put it that way. you know, and uh in in Florida, the the I you know, I'm a street person still at heart.

I'm a street person and and and I walk around and I smile at you and I'm sizing you up and I'm taking your inventory. You better bet your life I'm taking your inventory. This book invites you to take inventory.

It says, "If you want what we have," Well, how in the hell can I figure out if I want what you have unless I take your inventory? Now, if you're telling me that I'm supposed to zip the lips and cross the legs and you're walking out of the meeting and 13 step every newcomer that comes in, you think I'm going to pay attention to what message you're carrying like hell I am. I'mma tune you out and tune you off.

See, I don't listen to you in here. You know, we're we're real good AA in here. We're real good AA around those tables.

Oh god, those words just slip right out of our mouths. I can quote this book backwards and forwards, but can I live it out there? See, on the job, when one of them damn Chicago Pakistani cab drivers gets in front of me, do I practice the programs or do I shoot him a bird?

You know, when Illinois Bell shuts my telephone off because the woman next door who has one digit off didn't pay her bill, you know, and I call up and say, "Darling, I think you made a mistake." You know, how loving am I? How what am I practicing the program then? You know, so Katie, so these three types of programs, the first one, I would sit back and I looked at you and there was the kiss people.

Oh, those were the huggy huggies kiss hugs, not drugs. You know, kiss kiss. Keep it simple.

And they kept it so simple, they didn't even have a damn program. And then there was the Jesus freaks. And now don't get me wrong, do not get me wrong.

I think Jesus just is very powerful. A Buddha was powerful. Gandhi and all other neat people.

But these Jesus freaks would take you down the creek and baptize your ass. Excuse me, but that's what they do. In the name of aa, I'm going to make you clean and well.

Well, damn. I I started out in life as a primitive Southern Baptist. I don't have to tell you people from Love any more than that.

Hell, I got baptized and rededicated 22 times. In one month, I've been sprinkled, dumped, and then I became that Roman Catholic when I went to live with my father. And I have signed more I signed more pledges than I did bad checks.

And I signed about two three thousand bad checks. >> Those pledges. And every time I signed a pledge, I meant it.

I meant it. So I didn't want to have anything to do with those Jesus freaks that were baptizing people. Oh, Clarence Snider and his bunch.

God rest his soul. You know, I I just didn't I that didn't do it to me. And I'm not knocking religion.

I'm not u I went to the Baptist church cuz I was forced to go. I went to Catholic church cuz I was forced to go. I come to AA cuz I want to come to AA.

This my church. This what I believe in. This where I found God.

Never have found God in church buildings. Never have. I looked hard to God is in people.

in people. And then there were the big bookers and Katie was a big book big booker and they were kind of a rare bunch. They laughed a lot.

They laughed a lot. And you know who they laughed at? They laughed at themselves and that was neat.

They weren't poking fun. I'm real suspicious of people that poke fun at other people in the name of humor. Oh, I was just teasing like hell you were teasing.

You know, gee, you got a nice head of hair, Gogi. Why don't you comb it sometime? You know, that doesn't impress me.

But these big bookers, they just one day at a time, they showed up. They showed up clean and they put the dollar in the bucket. And when they had something to say, they said.

And when they didn't have something to say, they passed. Katie told me, she said, "Darling, the steps were written in the past tense." And that means that if you haven't worked on worked them, don't report on them. She said, "If you report on the steps and haven't worked them, then you're given your opinion.

Opinions are like We all have one and they smell, you know." She said, "You work the step and then you share your experience, strength, and hope around the tables. If you haven't done it, you say, "I pass. My name's Patty and I pass.

That's easy. I didn't get to talk a lot. And I like to talk.

Yeah, I like to talk. So, I'd go to meetings and I had to go to meeting every day. Two on Saturday, three on Sunday.

When I woke up in the morning, I had to roll out of bed on my knees, say the third step prayer, whether I meant it or not. And in order to get used to being honest, I had to tell God if I meant it that morning. And I would say it real quick because see I'm a beer drinker and beer drinkers blow their bladders and I usually in the morning had to go to the bathroom real quick.

Well, I couldn't go to the bathroom till the 73rd step prayer on my knees and I'd say it real fast and then I'd say I didn't mean it but I that's okay. Katie said just so you tell God the truth. Some mornings I started saying I mean it.

That was scary. That was scary. I was always a frightened of the unknown.

I didn't know what God had out there for me. And then I would call Katie up and she'd say, "What are you doing getting ready for work?" That was another thing that sponsor said, "Got to get a job." And one you pay taxes on, honey. One of them legal jobs.

Cuz I know a lot about earning illegal money. I did get cute. go to work.

My first job and I tried God, I tried finding a job and I had to go fill out five job applications every day until I could come to the AA club. I wasn't allowed to come to the club until I filled out five job applications. Hell, I tried every I even tried being a Wikiwatchy mermaid.

and I almost got the job and they found out I wore a wig cuz my hair was growing back and they were afraid my wig would just float right up in the top of the water. So, didn't get the job. So, my first job, my first sober job, big old brain, and I used to be a multi-millionaire.

First job that I had to get down on my knees and thank God for washing dishes at the Waffle House in Lakeland, Florida for a buck 15 an hour. Katie had us told me I had to thank God every day for that job. And I'd get down on my knees at night and say my sevenstep prayer and I'd say, "Well, thank you, God, for another shitty day." Then I got a second part-time job.

I cut cloth two nights a week. Still had to go to 10 meetings a week. Got a third part-time job being a secretary from 9 till 12, 5 days a week.

Got a fourth part-time job being a bookkeeper from 1 till 5. Went to 10 meetings a week. Still wasn't allowed to talk at meetings.

Katie told me to zip the lip and cross the legs. One morning, it was a Sunday morning. I think it was Easter Sunday.

I decided I was going to sleep in. I wasn't going to make it to the 10:00 breakfast meeting. And there was Katie at the 2:00 detox meeting in Barto, Florida.

Always at the front door. Every time I didn't want to see Katie, I'd come in and there she was right at the front door smiling. Hello, darling.

Hello. She'd say, "Well, you missed it." I said, "What'd I miss?" "I don't know." And I've heard Jimmy say the same thing. And I think you people in Texas indoctrinated in people, you know.

And she said to me, I heard what I was supposed to hear at the 10:00 meeting, but we'll never know what you were supposed to hear. You missed it. See, you missed it.

And after that, I didn't miss the 10:00 meeting anymore on Sunday morning. We alcoholics can't stand to miss anything. We got to know everything that's going on, you know, everything.

I didn't want to miss anything. I'd been missing out on life too long. She decided for me that I should go to college.

So, I went and I went to college and I got an associates degree. She also decided that I had to pay back the wreckage of the past, but I couldn't declare a bankruptcy and I owed about a quarter of a million dollars. And she said, "We're going to pay it back one day at a time, $1 at a time, and you will pay it back.

If you don't pay it back, you will drink again. It's been 10 and 1/2 years, and it's about $4,000. One day at a time, I don't have two nickels to rub together and damn bills are paid." I remember going into the People's National Bank in Lakeland and I went every Friday and every Thursday night, Katie and I would work my budget and I'd go home and I'd say, "Where the hell does it say in the big book that you got to work a damn budget on Thursday night with your sponsor?

Where is it? Just where is it?" She says everything's in the big book. She's full of poop.

And she'd say, "It's in there, honey. You just haven't found it yet." And I'd go home by God. She she just wanted me to read the book, that's all.

Everything she told me to do, she says, "It's in the book." And I went into the bank and I get $51 money orders. Now, after weeks and weeks and weeks and months and months, this woman called me over who happened to be the branch manager, and she said, "Excuse me." She said, "Why do you come in every week and buy $51 money?" And I said, "You really want to know?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, sit down. and I'm going to tell you.

And I told her and in those days money orders cost 50. So I was having to spend $75 to pay 50 back. And she told me that from now on I could buy 75 $1 money orders.

No fees. People help you out there. That's not a nasty world out there.

People going to treat you out there the way you treat them generally. That's what I found. That's what AA taught me.

See, I wrote a letter. Dear uncle, I am alive and well. Guess what?

I'm alive and well. What do I owe you? And I addressed it to the IRS, Washington, DC.

And they sent me back a letter, and it was not a form letter. It said, "Isn't it wonderful? You're alive and well." And it took a number of months, but they helped me recreate the past.

And they put all those little pieces of paper, those little W2s together. and for the 15 or 16 or 17 years and they didn't charge me any penalty or interest. The IRS didn't see they can be nice people too and I paid them back.

When I was sober 2 years, I don't what time is it? God, I talk a long time. When I was sober about 2 years, I had a job opportunity in Hammond, Indiana, and I went to Katie and I said, "Katie, what do you think?" And she said, "I think it's about time you go." And I I thought she'd say, "No, you can't go." God, I was scared.

And I thought, "Ah, the state of Florida will never let me go. I'm on life parole." And the state of Indiana doesn't want cons. They want taxpayers.

They want reputable citizens. And what normally took months and months and months for permission took 10 working days. And I'm standing there with my travel papers and my sober car and my little possessions.

And I'm saying goodbye to Katie and the the guys from my home group and I was scared and I came to Hammond Indiana and I got the job at the steel mill and they let me work from 6:00 in the morning until 12:1 in the afternoon and then I went to Purdue University and 82 I graduated. 83 I wanted to write my CPA exam after working in a sweat shop, a CPA sweat shop. At the funny thing, at the steel mill, I was making $26,000 a year as a secretary.

And then now that I'm a big shiny pants graduate, college person, I was making $16,000 a year as a junior accountant in a CPA sweatsh. I thought, "God, this is progress." But I had to intern for a year. And then I wanted to write my CPA exam.

in the state of Indiana had denied me the right to write my CPA exam because of my criminal record, but I had been pardoned by the governor in 1979. I don't have a criminal record. And that's a story in itself how I got um a pardon.

This fine art of persuasion by a recovering alcoholic lawyer. Actually, it was a veiled threat, but and um I went to my sponsor and I said something I I should be able to write my exam. And he said, "Yeah, you pray about it." And I got to praying and I told you about my meditate and how that goes.

And I thought, "Well, wait a minute. If the ACLU can help all those black folks get their rights and all them minorities get their rights, they can help me get my rights." So I called up the ACLU and boy they were hot. They wanted my case.

So this they assigned me this female lawyer and we sued the state of Indiana and I run the right to write my exam and I this was a a little old proper young attorney and she never cussed. She never cussed. She wouldn't have said poop if she'd had a mouthful of it.

You know that type. And I remember her looking at me that day and she said, "You bet you better pass. and I did on the first setting.

These last 10 and 1/2 years have been wonderful. There's been a lot of pain involved. Wouldn't be life if there wasn't pain.

I've learned that you can't have the the uh the mountains without the valleys. I've learned that in order to to be real real life that you have disappointments and you have rejection and you have a lot of times where you just have good old belly laughs and then there are serious times when you just do the next right thing. You just do it, you know.

Um my father, I hadn't seen him in years. He had disowned me. He had let it be known whether I lived or died.

He didn't give a damn. And uh my sponsor Katie was the first one. She said, "You write him.

Don't take his inventory. You just tell him that you're sorry and that you're doing something about your life one day at a time in Alcoholics Anonymous." And I wrote and he didn't respond. He didn't respond to my amends the way I wanted him to.

And then I became a sponsor of this Jesuit priest, this evilhearted, black-hearted Jesuit. I think all Jesuits are evil. That's my personal opinion, but I stick with him because he seems to have the right answers for me.

And he said, "I think that's a good idea. You write to him every 3 months. Don't take his inventory.

Just tell him you're part of it, what you're doing. Make it very newsy." And I would start out, "Dear Daddy," and tell him what was going on and sign it, "Love, Patty, your daughter." And I would send him Halloween cards and Christmas cards and Father's Day cards and sweetest day cards. And that sucker didn't answer one of them.

And six years went by. Six years. And I prayed.

I prayed. I prayed for God to relieve me of the obsession of him. Not to get us back together again, just relieve me of this hurt.

And I got home late one night from a meeting and in the mailbox was a letter. And I knew right away it was my father's handwriting. And I went in the house shaking and crying.

And I called my sponsor right away. You know that's what you do 12:00 at night. And my sponsor says, "What does the letter say?" And I said, "I don't know.

I haven't opened it." And he said, "Darling, why don't you try opening?" And the letter said, very short and sweet, "Um, I need to see you right away." And I called him and he said he was dying of cancer and he wanted to see me. And there was a blizzard in Chicago and a blizzard in Virginia. And I said, "Come on, God.

You know, cut me some slack. Don't don't do this." You know, I didn't mind all the other things, but don't do this. Let me see him.

And I called my sponsor. And my sponsor is um in the Navy. He's not a chaplain, by the way.

He's in naval intelligence. I can't figure that one out. He's an electrical contractor.

I can't figure that one out. He's got five kids. I can't figure that one out either.

Um, well, I made it to Virginia. I had done time in the state of Virginia and the Virginia police escorted me 90 miles to see an old mafia guy die. That's sobbriety.

That's what sobriety is all about. That's what this program is all about. And I saw daddy 10 minutes before he died.

And uh he looked at me and he smiled and he said u he said what I have been waiting to hear all those years 40ome years. And he said I love you baby and I'm so proud of you. And on February the 8th, 1977, um my husband and my son had promised me that if I just stayed off the streets, I was on life parole from prison.

If I just stayed at home, they would give me the booze. And at night, they would come in and I didn't have a bed. I just had a rubber sheet.

And they would pick me up and throw me in the tub and hose me down. By that time, they don't bathe you anymore. They just hose you down.

I was too fat anyway. And they would clean the vomit and the poop off of the rubber sheet. And remember spraying the room with Lysol and put me back there and put the booze down and shut the door one day at a time and hope the hell I would die.

Now on February the 8th, u that husband walked out on me. He said, "You know, Patty, I can't take you anymore." And he left. And and my son was so angry that day.

I remember he was trying to get me cleaned up and and I was giving him a lot of lip and a lot of mouth. And um and he and he got so mad he put the hose right in my face and he said, "God damn it, you Why don't you do everybody a favor and just die?" And he ran out of the house crying. And um and that same kid, Katie, told me, she said, "You keep your mouth off of him.

You let him see by your example that this is aa. You don't you don't tell him about his drug addiction. You just do what you're supposed to do.

Let him see the program. Let him see the big book. You go to work.

You become a woman, a human being. You become his mother. Not his best friend, his mother.

something you've never been. But you keep your mouth off of him. And one day at a time I did that and took a long time.

Doesn't happen overnight. I remember one year I went to Florida. I always went back and saw my son and he by this time was drug-free.

He used to say, "If my mama can do it, I can do it, too." And he had gone to school and gotten his degree and was becoming very successful. And I remember this one year something was different. We were walking down this shopping mall and he knew a lot of people in the shopping mall.

He had a business there. And and he was holding my hand and we would stop at the different shops and he'd say, "This is my mom." And I'd say, "Nice to meet you." And we'd walk on. He was holding my hand and when he put me back on the airplane uh about a week later, I remember he hugged me.

He's a big fella. He picked me up and hugged me and he kissed me and he said, "I love you, mama, and I'm so proud of you." And that's that's what AA is to me. I don't have a lot of material things, but I have something that money can't buy.

I like me today. I approve of me today. I really do think I'm a precious child of God.

And my home group does call me Precious Patty. And I'm beginning to believe that I'm worthwhile. I used to be intimidated by certain of you people.

I got to invited very early in my sobriety to give leads at at meetings and then conferences. And I used to go to these conferences and I I uh didn't talk too much when I we would be invited out to dinner and things like that and people would talk and I would be intimidated not by your material success, not by your beauty but there were a lot of speakers who had a inborn graciousness about them. There were they had learned something from their moms and dads.

They had learned manners. They had learned graciousness. And that's what intimidated me.

And today I'm not intimidated by that anymore. I um I thought for a long time that I may want to be a lady and I thought hell that's just another label. I'm just settling for a human being.

I like what Clancy says. No, how no matter how spiritual you get, you're not going to get out of this world being anything other than a human being. And I just want to be a regulation human being.

Pay taxes, laugh, cry, one of these days, maybe have some grandchildren. And a part of being human is being a part of this world um in a way that I've never known. Before I end tonight, I would like to introduce you uh to a man that's pretty special to me.

And when I met him, I uh met him 5 years ago. And uh and I didn't want to fall in love with him. I told God on a regular basis, one day at a time, that I absolutely didn't want to fall in love with this man, and it wasn't the one I wanted picked.

You know, I had a certain criteria for the one I wanted to marry, and this wasn't it. By God, he did 22 and 1/2 years flat in penitentiary, you know. Hell, I wanted at least a doctor, a lawyer, you know, somebody worthy of Precious Patty, you know, hell, he worked with his hands and he worked hard and he was trying to make something of his life.

And I, you know, come on, Lord, I'm tired of driving Chevys. And God has a hell of a sense of humor and You know, my heart said, "Yeah." So, I would like to introduce you to Richard Lashio. Would you stand up, Richard?

This is my husband. And then before I end, I want to introduce you to somebody else. It was hard for me uh when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous to be uh friends with men and women.

Men I seemed to be able to be friends with. There were so many more alcoholic men than there were alcoholic women. And I my first home group was a stag group.

And I was so sick I didn't know it was a stag group, but it was a bunch of men. So I went there. Cunning, baffling, and powerful.

and uh and they thought, "Well, she's so sick. When she gets a little bit well, we'll tell her we're a stag group and she'll go away." Well, a year later, they made me GSR. And yeah, that's kind of hell going down state to area assembly and saying, "My name is Patty and I'm GSR at the Wednesday stag meeting.

They think you're a queen in drag." Oh, that's the story of my life. And uh I got to know uh some AA women and I sponsored them and there's a lot of beautiful babies in my life today that teach me one day at a time how to be a woman. But I told you that I've learned a lot from Alanon.

And I never had a best buddy. You know, best girlfriend. I never had that growing up.

And at 48 years old, I've got a best buddy. I got a girlfriend. And it's nice.

And I want to introduce you to my Alanon best friend Goi from Monaceel, Indiana. Would you stand up? Goi.

Goi. Um Goi's going through some rough times right now and she walks with dignity like a precious child of God. And that says a lot to me.

See, I can read this book and study it all day long. And all I have to do is to watch people that I love in this program. The mics and the reinies and the gois and the tims and slims and gyms that are walking out there and doing it one day at a time.

And that's why I keep coming back. Pain bought me here and your love has kept me here. Thank you so much.

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.