The Road to Recovery Convention 2002 in Reykjavik, Iceland September 13th

Mary Murphy, welcome.

My name is Marian. I'm an alcoholic.

It's so great to be here in Reykjavik. Did I say it right? Oh my God. I've been practicing and practicing. I have met so many wonderful people here in the room. And everybody told me their name. And I, I can't remember any name that anybody told me except whatever his name was because he said to me when I signed his book, he said sign your sobriety date. And they looked at me, said, oh, that was before I was born.

Oh, thanks for anyway.

I was thinking before I walked up here about going to any lengths to stay sober. And a week ago tonight, I was in a in a little town in Hawaii called Hale Eva and I took a bus into the town because I wanted to go to an A A meeting.

And it turns out that I had to walk about a mile and a half from the bus stop to get to an A A meeting.

And I thought, well, that this is really going any length except when I flew from Hawaii to Los Angeles to Minneapolis to Iceland. And I was watching on the monitor of the plane going by Goose Bay or wherever. I kept thinking this is really going any lanes to get to an A, A meeting

and I'm really happy to be here.

I'm actually thrilled to be here. I've really been looking forward to it and I brought my park and everything. But of course, it's 65 and I don't need any

any of my warm clothes. But I'm really happy to be here because I absolutely love Alcoholics Anonymous and I love sobriety, and I wouldn't have the life I have today if I weren't sober. And when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous,

I didn't even know. The only thing I knew is that I wanted to stop drinking. And that's the truth. That's the only thing I knew. And the longer I'm sober, the one thing I know for sure. I believe this just so much in my heart

that it is a gift from God that I don't drink. It is an absolute gift from God because I know that there was one day in my life when I was a woman who could not pick up a drink. I mean, I would pick up a drink and I could not stop drinking. And the next day I was a woman who didn't pick up a drink.

And it is a miracle. It is a gift from God, but it is not a gift that you get to keep unless you want it. And that of that I am very clear. It's not a gift that you get to keep unless you go to meetings. And it's not a gift that you get to keep unless you give it away. I am an Irish Catholic and I know I've already seen the city. I know there's only one Catholic Church. And I already know that it's shorter than all, especially all the Lutheran Church.

And Ziggy said it was because of the airport, but I don't believe it. I just think it was on purpose. Anyway, I'm going to take off my coat. So I'm an Irish Catholic and I am the only member, thank you, of my Irish Catholic family that is sober. And my mother is one of 15 children and my father is one of eleven children. And

there are a lot of Alcoholics in my family and we all lived. I don't, I don't know how people live here, but in, in the town I grew up in, which is in the middle of, of Saint, the middle of the country in Saint Louis,

we all lived in the same parish. That's what we call it. So that I live next door to my Aunt Rosemary and around the corner from my Aunt Helen and upstream from my Aunt Lorraine and down the street from my Aunt Loretta. And so we all lived in the, in the very same neighborhood and we always had parties and people always drank. Well, not my mother. My mother and her sisters said, I don't know if you know what rosary beads are, but they prayed the rosary for all the people who drank.

And it seemed to me that my mother and her sisters were praying the rosaries and cooking

and all the people who drank were singing and dancing and it looked like a lot more fun to me. But my mother always told me that if I she said, if you're a woman and you drink, you will destroy your family. Don't ever drink, you will destroy your family. And well, of course I listen to her until I have my first drink.

I'll just tell you one little thing about my family to give you an idea of of what it was like. We used to have these parties every single Sunday at our house

and we, my father was a, he was the singing bartender at the party and my brother and all the singers were over there. But my Uncle Joe, who's still alive, he's 80, I think he's 83 or 84 right now. He was a school crossing guard until about 3 years ago. He's never breathed a sober breath. And there are many, many kids in Saint Louis who almost or nearly or did get hit by a school bus because of Amina. Oh, come on, you know, as soon as you can go across the street. He's so drunk all the time.

Anyway, my Uncle Joe would have this box of letters that he carried around from my from my dead grandmother. And he would every time at a party, get drunk and go out to the car, get the box, bring them in, open them up and read these letters. And everyone would just sob and cry about the dead grandmother and and they'd sing this song, my mother's pearls or her boys and girls. No greater treasure is she in just sob. And my Aunt Loretta

was, she didn't talk. She didn't,

I mean, she never said a word anyway, but she'd sit in the back and she had this little person in the purse. She had a plastic bag. And in the plastic bag she'd open it up and she had taps and she'd put them on her shoes and just get up and wildly dance around the room and then sit down and kind of pass out. And that was, that was her story, You know, so drinking always looked like fun to me. And it seemed like fun to me. And I wanted to be among the singers. The singers were the drinkers and I wanted to be among the singers. And at that point, I didn't drink. And I certainly wasn't a very good singer

as I went along in life and as I got sober and as I looked back at that family, I could see things that I never saw when I was growing up. For instance, my Aunt Loretta daughter, my cousin the the person who is, you know, you always have a like a a brother or a sister or your cousin, whoever's your, your best friend and your family. This is my cousin Rita. And when Rita was

about 18 or 19, she had a three kids by then and, and one of her daughters was staying at her grandmother's and, and the two were at home and Rita was so drunk

that she was smoking and she burned up her apartment and she her babies burned to death. And what I remember is I remember it happened and I remember from my father going out in the middle of the night and I remember going to the funeral. And I remember that we have never, ever, ever spoken about this since that day. And I don't ever remember seeing my cousin Rita since that day because this is the kind of family that I grew up. Whether you're Irish Catholic or you're Lutheran,

German or whatever you are, there are some families where you don't talk about anything. You do not air your dirty laundry. As my mother said, you do not talk about what's going on. You never ever, ever say, which we never did ever say that your father is an alcoholic. You never say that the reason my father was a singing bartender at night was that he was an alcoholic. You never say it, you don't talk about it. So that's, that's what I grew up with. That's what I came in a a with. And really, I have to tell you to this day, my mother, who loves a A,

she turned 89 this week. Anyway, she will not allow me to talk about a A on the telephone because she's afraid somebody's going to be listening, you know?

So, OK, I don't talk about it on the phone,

but she loves A and she sends me a birthday present for every a birthday. Anyway, so I grew up in this family and and I had my first drink when I was in high school, when I was a senior in high school at my prom and I got mad at the nuns because they didn't like my dress. They thought it was too low and they sewed. Do you know what netting is? They sewed this netting on cover my my chest because they said I was immodest or I don't know. I didn't even know the word

anyway, so I got mad at the nuns and I, somebody said, why don't you come out to the back of the gym and have a bourbon and coke? In the Midwest, bourbon and Coke is a big drink. And I had one bourbon and Coke and I had two and I had three. And the next thing I knew I was doing cartwheels in front of those nuns in that, in that dress. And I, I today I sponsor a nun. Do you love it? Oh my God,

you get on your knees and you say these prayers.

Yay.

I mean,

really, my goal in life as an Irish Catholic girl was to defy the nuns. I mean, truly, I spent most of my, I went to all girl Catholic schools, you know, all through, I mean grade school, high school and college. Well, of course you defy the nuns. Anyway, so I had my first drink and then I went off to College in New York and the drinking age was 18. And I got drunk out of my mind my first weekend in college.

And I was campus that's, you know, away for the weekend. The nuns won't let you go out. And everybody knew my name because I was Canvas. I was elected president in my class

and, and that is really kind of how my drinking went. I was the president of my class. I was a cheerleader. It sent, it sent great. Today people who are cheerleaders are, you know, it's not very PC, but then it was pretty cool. So I was a cheerleader as a president of my class. I was a grade student. And so I started drinking and then my grades of course declined as they do.

But I love to drink. I loved

what possessing, but I love to get up on top of tables and dance. It just was like my thing, you know, Maybe it was my Aunt Loretta's blood in me. I don't know. So I spent four years in New York and I got kicked out of the college. And then I got back into college because I wrote them a beautiful letter saying, Oh, no, you can't kick me out. So they they brought me back. Now they're very proud of me. Oh my God, they're so proud of me. I just got a letter from the, my little women's college merged with a big College in New York called Fordham University.

And I just got a letter from the president of Fordham University last week inviting me Nino to come and next time I'm in New York and have lunch with them. And I thought, boy, if this guy ever knew what a wild woman I was. This is how I felt a lot in my, in my sobriety because I, I have kids and I, I've driven a lot of carpools in my sobriety, you know, because in Los Angeles you have to drive all the time. And I think if those mothers ever knew what a wild woman they had driving their kids anyway, So I was a wild woman and I like to drink and I like to,

but I want to say this, the other thing I, I really, that happened to me when I was drinking and, and something I didn't really know about when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous until I came in was that I also had a lot of physical problems when I came in Alcoholics Anonymous. I would hear people say, you know, I went to jail. I went to prison and I, I'd think, or I went to a mental institution. And I think, what am I doing here? Why am I in this room? I, I've never been to jail. I've never been to a mental institution. You know what's wrong with

me or somebody say, you know, I, I fell in love with a sheep or you know, they mean they're really weird. Although I must say, when, when we went to the little house today and I saw that sheep, I thought he is really cute. You know, I, I could understand I'm at the cutest sheep today anyway. So, so I would hear these people talk about, you know, these things. And I said, well, that never happened to me. But what did happen to me

and what I learned, you know, after I was sober

is that I started to be hospitalized for, for medical conditions when I was 24, I had a bleeding ulcer and well, that's because I had diet Doctor Pepper for breakfast and Donuts. That's what I ate. And of course I drank all the time. So I was hospitalized and they gave me tranquilizers and then I started to have a really bad back and I'd go in and out of the hospital all the time and, and I and they gave me pain pills for that.

And, and so when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't really know.

I mean, I didn't understand, you know, when I came in and I went to my first meeting and then somebody took me out for coffee afterward. And she said, you know, an Alcoholics Anonymous, we don't drink or use. And I said, well, I don't know what do What do you mean by use? And she said, we don't take any pills. And I said, well, oh, well, mine are all prescribed by doctors. That's what I said,

and of course they were.

And so that was a saddest news I'd ever heard

because because truly,

I didn't know how when I was new. If you're new, I did not know how I was going to make it through the day

without drinking. I didn't know or taking this medicine. I, I had not had any sober days since I first started when I was in high school.

How I got to Alcoholics Anonymous was that, you know, I was obviously drinking, but what happened to me is it that

instead of drinking and losing everything, but started to happen to me, at least in my career, is that I was drinking

and I was gaining everything. And I, and I got a wonderful job. I got a job, I'm a journalist. I got a job as a, as a reporter at my local newspaper. In fact, it was so funny when I was in Hawaii, I was, I was doing this. I never talked about the stuff, but I, I'm in Iceland. You're not going to tell, right? Anyway,

I was doing a story on the Baywatch reunion movie, and I spent the week with Pamela Anderson. Guys, are you so happy? Yeah. And someone named Carmen Electra and someone named Brandy, I'd never heard of, but my son was going,

mom, you must get her, you must get her autograph. And it turns out she was the Playboy Playmate of the year. And I, I didn't even want to ask my son if he read Playboy, so I, I just got the autograph. But anyway,

so I forgot where I was. Oh, anyway, so I was, you know, in my, I was, I was drinking, but I was just, my career was just taking off. I went from Saint Louis to Los Angeles. I got a job with this great newspaper in Los Angeles and then I got a job with a magazine in New York

and I was just traveling all over the world. And I was traveling all over the world as a completely drunken woman. I was traveling all over the world, lonely and sad and I didn't know what was wrong with me. And I would go, I remember, I just just remember I'd like go to a bar and, and drink and go to my room and cry and all these things that you, you don't even have a clue what is wrong with me. I'm in London,

I'm in the most beautiful hotel in London and I'm sitting here at 2:00 in the morning in the bar by myself crying. Now what? What's the problem here?

I didn't know what the problem. Well, I thought, I thought it was something. I thought it was what wasn't PMS for sure. I was 22, but I don't know what it was. But I mean, I was crying. And so the way I got sober is I my and my back was very bad and I had to work out in this gym and my the first time anybody had ever mentioned Alcoholics Anonymous to me was that a was at a party and it was a party in Hollywood. Now I'll never forget. It was like the most beautiful party. Even even the waiter had on tails, you know, and they had this thing and this woman

said that he said would you like a drink? And this woman said no, no thanks. I'm an alcoholic and I thought she is really sick. This this woman announced to this waiter entails that she was an alcoholic, you know, and about two hours later I jumped into the pool and I still don't know whether I have my clothes on or off. I don't remember. But I thought she was sick. But it was.

I remembered it. And then I started working on it, this gym, and I started talking. The guy who ran the gym. Now remember, you know,

25 years ago, because I'm sober, 25 years, people were not running around saying, you know, I'm sober. I'm, I'm an alcoholic. Synonymous. They were not breaking their anonymity today, 'cause I, you know, I live in Hollywood and I work in Hollywood. These people are sober a week and they're on the cover of People magazine and they are, you know, on the talk shows.

We, we had a woman who came to our group for, of course, very short time, but she's,

she was maybe sober 25 days. She started a website for recovery. I just love this. You know, they never, ever come back to meetings, you know, and if you're new, that is the only way to stay sober, to come to meetings, to work the steps, to read the book, to give back and to continually do it for the rest of your life. But these people come and they announce their sobriety and they get their great job and then they're, you know, then they're not sober anymore.

Just so it was just in the paper yesterday, some guy, you know, he was, you know, some big actor who'd been sober for

ever. He told everybody and of course was just arrested for drunk driving.

But so this guy, but he told everybody, he said, you know, he was sober. And so I started to ask him questions. I said, you know, I, I remember leaving my house a lot of time, but I don't, I don't remember what happens afterward. I can't, I can't remember anything. I, I don't, I don't know what's happening to me. And so I'd say, do you think I might be an alcoholic? And he'd say, you know, you might be

because this is the way it is a program of attraction. It is not a program where you must get sober. Because if anybody said that to me, I just drank more. So then, you know, I started to ask him other questions. Like, I remember once I left my car, my last really big drunk in Los Angeles, I left my car in the middle of, like, a huge intersection. It'd be like leaving it parked at the airport, you know, going off to a party.

But anyway, I just left it there. So I finally said to him. I said, you know, I,

I was really embarrassed. I went to the Academy Awards. I was very, very excited about going to the Academy Awards. And, and I went and I remember what dress I had on. But then I also had this horrible memory of not, of being in Academy Awards, instantly being outside the Academy Awards in the bushes with these two guys. And I, I said to him, you know, do you think I might be an alcoholic?

The guys were gay. Don't worry, Nothing happened. I think I just slipped and got in the middle of them or something, you know?

But anyway, one of them is sober and the other one still defending his right to drink, but

he he said you might be. So finally I, I had my last drink. Not it wasn't even it wasn't even my worst night. You know, it was just one of those nights where you leave your purse one place in your coat another place, and your car another place, and you can't remember who brought you home and you're sitting alone on yourself and you've got that bottle of wine and.

And you're calling people on the telephone, you know, and another time zone and crying to them about your sad life, you know, and, and that's, that's what I remember. And I remember humiliating, embarrassing myself that night. And then I remember the next day I said, I, I just can't do this anymore. So I came to a A and I came to A and then I found out the horrible news that, you know, you can't do anything. You have to be completely sober. And then I began to completely fall apart.

I mean, I, I was talking to all these newcomers before the meeting and I was talking to somebody who's seven months over and somebody who's 13 months over. And I said, you know, when I was your time of sobriety, I was completely crazy. And then and then I said, I said, but you're probably sane. And then I said, do you understand the meaning of the word sane? And they said, well, no, because that's why we're here.

And I thought, yeah, that's true. You know, that's I was so crazy. I just cried at my first meeting. Somebody said, you know, we love you and Alcoholics Anonymous. And I saw.

And it was the first time I'd ever cried anywhere that people didn't say to me, what is wrong with you? Because they knew what was wrong with me. They got it. They knew what was wrong with me. They knew that I was a hopeless, helpless alcoholic with a facade of having a great life. And I was so lonely inside and so frightened and so far away from who I really was as a human being, so far away from who I was brought up to be. My first three years of sobriety were just a nightmare. I mean that

sincerely. I had a sponsor and I called her occasionally and occasionally she called me back. And

here's what happened to me. Really short version of my first couple years. I, I was married, but I, I hadn't been, I was getting a divorce and so I was not living with my husband. And about a month before I got sober, I met somebody else and we bought a house together. We bought a house together about a week before I got sober. And at my second a a meeting, I sat on a chair like we're we're this guy sitting there were keys on the chair and I threw him on the floor and sat down and a guy came and tapped

the shoulder and he said, you know, that's my chair. And I looked up and I thought, you are so cute. And

he became my boyfriend in my first year of sobriety. There was just one little glitch. He was gay,

so I had a very confusing life when I was newly sober

and he was always slipping and I was always saying to him, OK, if you slip one more time, that's it. You know, I'm not your friend anymore. And we are friends today and it's great, you know? But you can see how I would cry at every meeting. I was just, you know, completely loco. I finally got a sponsor I could talk to at nine months

and I work the steps with her. I started to work the steps with her. I did my inventory with her and my inventory was long, but not as long as some I've read. Trust me, I've I've read inventories that as long as a mini series as as far as I'm concerned, one took three nights. Really it was like a three, nine miniseries. I just couldn't take it after two hours every night. I think, no, I can't. I can't do this anymore anyway, so, but it was long and

the number one thing that came out of that inventory, as far as I am concerned,

the change my life in the most profound way is that, um,

I didn't know

that when I left Saint Louis and my family to go off to New York and then to Los Angeles and then travel the world. I didn't know that I missed them. I didn't know that I love them. I didn't know that I yearned to be part of the family. It hurt so bad that I cut them off. I just cut them off with my drinking and I was embarrassed by what I was doing with my drinking and I, I, I just couldn't bear to be, to be with them.

And when I read my inventory, it was very clear to me that the number one thing I had to do in my life is reunite with my family. It was just the number one thing. And I went back to Saint Louis and I was so terrified because my mother is, was she would be the queen of Al Anon. She would be an Al Anon black. But if she ever went, but she's still an Allen on black belt. But anyway, I was so I was so afraid to tell her

that I was what was happening to me that I went to my own hometown instead of going home to, say, my mother's house. I, I checked into a hotel.

So my mother came to the hotel and knocked on the door and said, come on, you're coming home. And I did. And my mother, I made amends to my mother and I talked to my mother and I told her. She asked me one question, a question that I, I wish so much. My mother had never asked me because it to me, an Irish Catholic, was the hardest question and she ever asked me. She said to me, did you ever get drunk and go to a bar and, and like meet a strange man? She asked me that question, couldn't believe her. And I told her, yes, I did. And it was the first time,

time in 15 years I'd ever told my mother the truth about who I was. And from that moment to this moment, I have had a wonderful relationship with her. It's not always been easy. I mean, when an Allen and Black belt is in in your corner, they're really in your corner in all ways. But

I started to build my relationship with my family, you know, first with my mother and then with my brother. That's that one's been very rocky. But with my brother, with all my cousins, suddenly all my cousins sort of pouring into my life. And I remember once they decided to come for a visit to Los Angeles.

No, not one, not 2, not 520 at 2020, my cousins stay in my house. And, and so I started to, and, and what happened is that it started to kind of connect because that's what happens when you're drinking, is that you disconnect from who you are. You're just, you can't find who you are. It's like a computer when you're putting the thing in the sockets you where it fits, you know, it's the right computer or the right

whatever. I'm not very good at technology, but you got what I mean. Anyway, so, and I started to connect to who I was and then, but I wasn't, my sobriety was my sobriety was pretty iffy because I just as I said, I had a sponsor I could talk to, banana sponsor I listened to. And if you're new, I want you to understand the difference.

You if you have a sponsor you can talk to. Talk, talk, talk.

That's good. But if you have a sponsor that you don't listen to, that's not good. And what happened to me is I didn't listen to my sponsor. I didn't. I didn't listen to anything she said because

I was too busy talking, I guess. And

she'd say things to me that were like allegories. That was the problem. I can read allegories, but I can't listen. I didn't know what she was saying. She'd say that's like sailing a small ship into a big storm. And I'd sort of get it. But I, I think, oh, well, you know, maybe the storm will shift to the east and, and I'll get through. I mean, that's. So anyway,

when I was about three years sober, I decided to buy a house and

I had been trying to surrender a lot. I really had, I really have been trying to surrender. If you knew, of course, it is the most essential thing that you ever have to do in Alcoholics Anonymous. You have to surrender, I mean, at the depths of your, your emotional and spiritual being. And I've been trying, I've been trying to do these things like they talked today,

throw the towel in. So I'd run into my bathroom and throw the tall in or it's just as easy as getting rid of a new pair of shoes and I'd

get rid of a new pair. Whatever I was doing, I was trying to do going to meetings, but I was just crazy. And so trying to buy this house and, and I bought the house and I didn't think about it. I didn't ask anybody in AA and I didn't ask my sponsor. I just bought the house and I put down $30,000 about the house and I was living in. I got a phone call from a guy saying when are you going to be paying the

$90,000 wrap around loan due one year after purchase. And I didn't, I didn't even know I had a $90,000 one year loan due one year after purchase. I didn't know what to do. I mean, I and, and if you're new and you're really in trouble, this is what I did. I hung up the phone and I just didn't talk about it to anybody because it was so terrifying. I just couldn't talk about it was so terrifying. They started sending me these letters. If you've ever been in trouble,

they they doubled the print size so it's huge. And I had to hire a lawyer. And then I had to go meet the guy who was foreclosing on my house. And

really, my best solution. At three years of sobriety to my promises, I started dating the guy who was foreclosing on my house.

God, I don't think I even liked him. But, you know,

it wasn't a necessity I felt anyway,

the joking aside, you can see how close I was drinking. I mean, you can see that I was, I was never going to stay sober with this kind of pressure and this kind of behavior and this kind of crazy stuff. So anyway, I went to a meeting one night. There was a guy speaking not, not somebody I even liked. I mean, I, I'd heard about him and but I like him very much. And I thought he was a tyrant and one of these dictators

and a, a. And so I sat in the front

where our sweet pregnant girl is. We have two pregnant girls and their best friends. They drank together and they got sober together and they both pregnant together. I know this whole story. Anyway, so I I started crying. This guy was talking and I was just weeping and he didn't say I almost ruined his talk but he glared at me. So I felt like I felt like he was saying it. But anyway, I went up to shake his hand after the after the meeting and he said why don't you come and have a cup of coffee with me tomorrow?

And I did, and I don't know why I did

and I don't. And this is my moment. This was my moment in sobriety. Everybody has to have their moment. Sobriety. Maybe you're going to have your moment when you're 30 days sober and maybe you're 60 days sober, maybe eight months sober. Maybe you're 12 years sober,

but you have to have your moment in sobriety where you absolutely surrender to Alcoholics Anonymous. You absolutely have to have it. And this was this was what happened. And I went down to have a cup of coffee with this guy who runs a mission on Skid Row. And he, he talked to me and I think he was the first person Alcox and I said ever really talked to me about saying things like, you know, you have a great education,

you know, and you have a good mind and why aren't you using it? And why aren't you doing a, a, the right way? And I, I didn't even know what he meant.

I didn't even know what he meant doing a, a, the right way. And so then he, I told him about my, my boyfriend who was foreclosing on me and his eyes kind of rolled in the back of his head and, and, and he said, I'm going to do something. He said, let's take a walk through Skid Row. And and he wrote me a note and we walked through Skid Row in Los Angeles, passed the bombs in the boxes and

all the people on the street drunk and, you know, all the places,

you know, well, we're not going to go there, right? I'm not I'm not going to go to Skid Row ever, am I? Am I ever going to go to Skid Row? Well, I didn't think so. But anyway, he took me for a walk and he said what I'm going to ask you to do is as difficult as asking these guys to stop drinking wine. And he had asked me in in his office when was I going to see my boyfriend again? And I said I was going to take him to a play called Evita the next night. And so as we were walking through Skid Row, he handed me a note. And the note said, tear up the tickets to Evita and cancel out.

And that node and my acceptance of it and my willingness to call that boyfriend and not just say I can't go to Evita, but I've never seen you again as long as I live. My willingness to change all my meetings, to surrender to Alcoholics Anonymous, to a sponsor, to a voice that was louder than my own,

was the beginning of my incredible change in this program. I always loved AAI, always loved it, but I couldn't surrender to it. I couldn't,

I just thought I knew best and I didn't. And so I had to start a whole new way of us of sobriety. Of course, number one is I couldn't date. That was that was number one and which was a good thing. And I had to go to all these meetings and I couldn't get up. I love to get up during the meetings. Oh my God, when I was new, I just moved around all the time. I couldn't sit still. I could never sit still in a meeting and I just sit still in a meeting And and then the worst, I had to be places on time. I always was late

and I like, by late, I mean like, I want to, I want, I just want to race in my car, just race, race, you know, throw stop lights. I mean, no, I'm going to be on time and I just get there and I'd be, you know, 5 minutes late and, and I, so I finally said I, I just don't know how to be on time. And he said leave early. And I thought, wow, that's a great concept. So I started to do these very basic a a leave early,

you know, be on him, get a commitment. I had a brownie cutting commitment,

meaning of 1300 people. I cut brownies and and I thought at that point, you know, a allows us to be one of we're just, we're just all here together. Nobody's special. You know, you're in this seat tonight and you might be in that seat tomorrow and it's so great. But, you know, I thought I was so special and because I had this job that would take me all these great places, and I just remember I'd get to that brownie

cutting committee. They didn't care who I was or what I was. I just want to know, did you cut that brownies and did you do it the right way? Were they 1/4 of an inch? And if you didn't, you had to go back and cut the damn brown. He's the right way. I just hated it. But I did it and,

and my life started to settle down and it started to settle down in a way that I didn't know. And I always have read the book. Always, always have read the book. Of course I was going to come up. This is what I thought before. Then I'll just breeze through the book right there on the table so that I remember a few little words from it. But of course, all the words I read were like, because it was all in Icelandic. So, I mean, I have no idea, but and they said it isn't even on the same page. But I started to read, you know, page 63 and

in all the things that being, not being the director of your own life and about fear, God, fear is just one of the things that

I tell you the fears and, and when I was really tired flying over here and when I'm really tired, I get, I have a lot of fear sometimes and the fear in my head. And, and I've had to learn, you know, to surrender false evidence appearing real.

You know, I've had to learn these very basic things like halt, don't get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired. These are things that if you're new, I mean, I can just get crazy if I don't sleep and really crazy if I don't eat. So I started to do a much more basic form of which is a form of service.

And everybody's service is different every some people cut the brownies and some people are the secretary. You know, some people speak and and some people clean up.

It doesn't matter what you're. So some people sponsor and some people are the secretary. You know of a convention. It doesn't matter what it is. What matters is you start to give. What matters is that somehow a, A becomes the thing that is primary in your life

and it is primary in my life. And what happened in my life is that it changed in a way that I had no idea what it changed in a way that brought me back to who I really am. First of all, I, I met a man and he had, he had the thing that I had, the doctors had always said to me, you know, you'll never be able to have a baby. So, you know, that's it. And I met this man and he had a 2 year old baby and the mother had just disappeared. And,

and I just,

I'm telling you, I fell in love with that kid so big time. That little kid was just the most adorable little kid you've ever seen. And, and we got married and, and we had this little kid and, and really about literally, you know,

well, I had a little, there was a, there was a little problem. It was kind of a shotgun wedding, but I was kind of old for a shotgun wedding. And then, and then something happened and I lost the baby. And then suddenly right away I got pregnant again. I've never been pregnant my whole life

and and I had a baby and my daughter's name is Megan and Megan is now in college and Nicholas is in law school. And I'll tell you something, you know, if you're new, one of the hardest jobs I ever had in my sobriety was to be a mother. I mean, really working is easy in comparison to being a mother 'cause you have to be there all the time. You know that new phrase 24/7? Now all these producers in Hollywood are all talking about how they're working 24/7. Well, forget it. You know, 24/7 is being a mother.

That's really what it is 24/7. And I and I had this baby Nicholas and it turned out that Nicholas had a lot more problems than I ever ever, ever thought he would have. I didn't really didn't compute that if if a mother abandons a child, that child's going to have a lot of problems. And that's what happened to Nicholas. And I tried so hard at a a would help me. I'm telling you, I would come into these meetings just crazy and and people like there was one guy he was, he was like an ex convict who'd murdered somebody. He was

one of my great consoles about being a mother because you never know. You never. One time Nicholas was so bad I didn't know what you was like beating his head against the wall. So I sat on him. You know, I don't think that was very good. I don't think Doctor Spock would recommend it. But anyway, I was so upset about myself as being a mother. I thought, this is it, this is it, I'm done. And I went to the meeting and, you know, I ran into this convict and he always said, well, don't sit on him anymore, you know, and don't hit him. And I was OK, Well, great, you know, thanks. And I thought, Gee, I went