The Sacramento gay/lesbian "River City Roundup"

Thank you all for coming in supporting conference. It's, it's been a fun day. A couple of days. I don't know this lady very well, but I, was given her take when I So, and and it was it's been our goal to make this a a live easy fun conference this year. Thanks.

Not right now. Very alcoholic. Glad to be here. I wanna thank Art because that's so funny. It's fucking funny.

I'm gonna take this off. Really hot. I could bring me some ice. I think my babies get me some ice water. Phil says thanks.

Thank you. I wanna thank our and, Keith gave a great talk last night. And, I wanna thank the community for inviting me. It's always a privilege and an honor to, share an Alcoa it's anonymous and I'm always, very grateful that I get to share at this level. And, you know, to tell you the truth when I was really sober and heard Chuck say and all that I really wanted to be a main speaker all the time.

So, I really am grateful that that happened for me. I truly am. And, I say that with humility because I think it's, you know, I'm a very blessed woman to be able to share an alcoholic's enormous and, to be sober one day at a time. And our great sorrow timer here. Glad to see you.

And, well, I had great, dinner, with my friends last night, Cheryl and Duncan and, I met my new friend, Don. And, night before we went to dinner with, Phyllis and, Jody and Jean and Phyllis' sponsor. So it's fun to do those sort of fellowship in when you go to conventions. You know, it's it's really, really wonderful. And, I feel very, you know, I just feel really, loved here.

And, I'm really difficult person to hold. People that know that, got me. They love me anyway. And I'm really grateful for those people in my life. You know, I, I don't I don't know.

To tell you the truth, I, did a talk in, Reno. And, they sent me the tape but, can you hear me in that? Okay. If you can't hear me right here. Okay?

There's a listen to listen to a speaker if you can't hear it. So you tell him to speak up. I'll speak up. I have a big mouth. And, so, I did this renal tape and I only heard it and, Phyllis had in her car.

And so we ran around and said, oh, take my take here. So I said, well, I'll look at so I don't get the same story I gave in Reno. And, unfortunately, I have that story. I love it. I say the the speaker say, hey, you know, if I knew I was gonna be a speaker a lot I would have, did a bigger story.

You know, I've done more things. To do more shit to laugh at about ourselves. And, you know, I I love the dream. I'm an alcoholic. I mean, I'm a real alcoholic.

I'm a pansy when it comes to, those drugs. And even though alcohol is a drug, you know, our primary purpose here is for alcohol synonymous and, you know, I, took me a long time to arm that tradition and to learn about that tradition. So there's a purpose. Took me a very long time to understand that. But I used to send everybody, you know, no matter what their path was.

And, I stopped doing that, you know? So, gotta keep it for those of us who have drank the way we drank so people can have some place to go when we're all gone and die. I hope that, as a member of of a, I long to remember that you know, I can honor that tradition and keep that going. So, you know, I, started drinking when I was, oh, I wanna tell you about where because it's funny. I, I have good friends in New York and the help of the did part of the convention.

I had met Keith before so I felt really at home going there. And, I, they also did the speaker. It just really fucking blew my mind. And, you know, I swear I'm gonna clear up my act with my swearing, but for some reason, I kinda go. And, so I just feel it's God's will.

And, so if I, if that affirms you, I'm sorry and you could tell me, you can take the resent inventory at home tonight. Keep coming back. If if if you knew an alcoholic synonymous, you know, there's hundreds of meetings in any city you you belong to. Even the small town where I grew up was Stuy, Illinois. And, I say that because I was a hic and, that's why I think I wanted to be.

And, you know, I came to this little hickey area and, I, you know, I grew up in this town and I come from a family of 6 and, there was brothers and then the next girl and, the first girl in that family and I have a kid sister and she's, 4 years younger than me. And I was a great aunt yesterday and my namesake had another baby girl and, she's 5 and I was very excited. She's had a hard pregnancy and I'm not even sure she's been pregnant. So I called with him about every hour and, finally I called my sister yesterday at the dinner and she goes, it's a girl. She's fine.

I look at grandma later. So unfortunately, I forgot to have children. I didn't plan on it. I don't think I I don't think I had a plan to be a dyke my whole life. It was like a period I was going through and I ended up doing my whole life, you know.

I'm I'm out before Stonewall so, when I realized that I felt very fucking old. And and I had these tapes and things on Stonewall and, I knew a lot of people that was in this film that was on, HBO once or one one one of the cable channels and I taped it. So every time I drag it out and bite people and we watch it because, there's a lot of a people on this. And one a member on the tape, she's packed away now but she lived to be 4 years old. And, she had one one one hollow story.

And not only her drinking but, her whole life story was so, you know, so wonderful. And she said she died in that woman. I still miss ah. And, yeah. So I started thinking I was, oh, I don't know.

I'll tell you what. My mother used to put alcohol on my on my drums when I was a baby. And she used to give me alcohol so that I would throw down because I was a brat. And, she said, I never stopped crying for 5 years. And, and so what she was saying.

So, you know, so, and then she said, oh my god. Locahoke because I do that. I said, no. I'm a lococal because I'm a pig. And, I literally drink like a pig and I never stopped.

And, I have friends that, we've been fast for 45 years and we had a call for human last July. I went to several of us and we're gonna get together this, January this January 5th again and have some, just the women get together about 5 or 10 of us. And we've known each of us since we were in high school and grade school and, we just lost one of our one of our friends just died 2 weeks ago. And, it really pulled our little group closer together. And, you know, I should say to these kids, you know, we see each other periodically every 2 years.

We call every 5 years. It's not real frequent but we have always kept in touch. And I said, do you know how all of us that I went around? I just don't understand how it's being a lesbian and the alcoholic. Because we don't know about the first stop that we stopped drinking and you didn't.

You all drank like I did, you know. They said, but we stopped. So I said, oh, I thought you had a problem. Once I started I never wanted to stop no matter what where I was or where I was drinking. And, I was a part of I had to drink in bars.

I had time in bars and, I had a lot of friends and, in the in the place I grew up, I was very well liked and, people really liked to drink with me and we had a lot of fun. I really did. And, you know, we used to break into the swimming pool and, you know, that's when we used to wear high heels. And can you imagine that? And and I know when the man across this golf course and how high heels can do all the sucking damage.

And then we we tore up our clothes and jumped the fence and jumped into the pool. Now I wasn't, like, 16. I wasn't, like, 17. I was, like, 27 or 26 years old. So now this shit was going on as if I was 15 years old and we did shit like that all the time.

So, you know, my alcoholism, didn't get me much trouble, because I was in that area. My brothers were all friends of the police. And whenever they pick me up they go, isn't your name real? I'd go yell. And they go, isn't your brother Vince?

And I'd go yell because my brother went to school at mostly Sky. And then they'd say, well, we're gonna drive to, you know, follow you home. And I'd say, okay. You know? Or here, move all around.

I'm gonna drive. Or, you know, what would your father say if we took you home in the squad car? Or, you know, whatever. And they try to scare me and they take me home. When I moved to California the same thing happened because years ago, thank God, well, I don't know but I am grateful I didn't go into jail.

And, because I was jail waiting to happen. And, you know, and I got picked up in Big Bend because the cop even drove me home. Filed me home and, you know, that don't happen anymore. I think that I think that it, you know, it knocks us all of our denial. It just had DUI.

And that is gonna wake you up morning saying a jet like, woah. I think I'm really in trouble. Not, you know. So I have the other solution that, I, I ran away from home when I was 27 years old. I had left earlier but I left earlier when I was 19 but, I went back home because my brother was killed and, my brother's guilt me and they're coming back to tell her to hear my mother that she was having a breakdown and my mother was grieving.

And we were high drama in my family because we've always had alcohol. So my mother didn't drink my father did. My father drank till he was, 89 years old and, and he smoked too and, you know, I don't know how he did that. So, anyway, I'm just gonna jump into how I got to 8. You know, I'm the kind of drunk that it went back there in in this small town, you know, we went around.

The one particular thing that stands out that I took me about 10 years to remember this incident. One particular thing was that I really like to dress up and I always like to dress and look good. No matter I I could have a dime on my pocket. I used to go out with no money and never, you know, drink all night and get drunk. I did that all night.

I run around with guys that were millionaires. They were farmers. They're Irishmen and they're all the 10 15 years older than me. They're a good friend of my father's and they took care of me and I drove them. I was I was a definite driver because they were much more gentle than I was.

And, so I never had to worry getting drinks because I went to a bar in my in my area that sort of mark you know if you're from a small town that's what they do. I mean, they have 6 or 7 drinks in that front of you and you never buy a drink when you wrapped and nobody drink and you just drink and drink and drink and you know to you to cut off the bar stool you started out the door and drove home. And I was driving like this. I was over my I had a mustang. It was really fast.

And, I have to go on the freeway to see if it goes from how fast I go from 0 to 60 just for fun in the country. And of course, when I was dry and I couldn't see the road so I got to open the door. I was also so so many identified this. I'm a car jumper. I know we have other car jumpers here.

You know? I also was pushed people out of cars. And, you know, the sales will tell you first then I'll tell you about my carjunking days. My, it's one particular time I went to the guy. It was just like a hand.

It was really nice, green stretch pants. That's when they were really big in the sixties and had some really expensive shoes on. Put on like a $150 sweater I I got and, and I went, you know, looking good into the bar and to the where we all hung out and the phone was there and we proceeded to drink and, nobody really came in that night. And, so I don't know what she said to me. I what I said to her she threw a drink on me.

So, I threw a drink there. And, she threw it on me. So I said goodbye to her who was Katie. I remember this woman's name. I said, Katie, why don't you just start serving us water?

And, so we kept talking. They kept going straight down. On each other. And, we went finally, we're just discussing this issue with these people on each other. And, we went finally, we're just discussing this issue with these people on each other.

And, we went finally, we're just discussing this issue with these people on each other. And, we went to hell with the hell we were discussing. Something ludicrous. I'm sure I can imagine 2 drunken women sitting there. And, you know, so, finally, I just thought I was gonna go home and, I forgot I didn't have a car.

And, so I sat out the door. I pissed off at her and, I got out and the fire was the smell of it like street smell. And, so I I don't live that far maybe 2 miles so I said, oh, you know, I'm young in my twenties. What the hell? I I said I'll walk.

Screw her. And, you know, so I started walking and, you know, I get by the Amtrak which is Santa Fe that and, and I could hear the train coming way down. So I'm not getting a 9 up to P. I gotta beat this goddamn train. So I still running and of course I didn't beat the train.

I feed my parents. So now I was all wet I was all wet from coming out with dropping everything else. All the snow was starting to stick to me all over. You know? The sweater was really big and it was wool and it got was gotten getting heavier.

So I was walking somewhat like this. I waited for that train to go by. I had to walk maybe at a half a mile down to where I lived and if I'm walking and, you know, I fucked up and, and I go in the back door. My mother I never really left for me but I live with my parents till I was 20 7 years old. It's very embarrassing that I did.

And, so I didn't find for some reason she's at the back door which she had never done. She goes, so what happened to us? Oh, I just got stuck and, you know, I thought She said, you better go to bed. I said, I am. I am.

And, you know, my eyelashes were full of ice. Like all my cheeks, you know, and I was walking like French. I thought it was cool. I thought I wet my pants by then. I have them more than once, you know, continuously, you know, I'm trying to be with really wonderful women who were supposed to be stupid, you know, there was, you know, closeted dice.

And, of course, I was there and they wouldn't tell me. And, I have got mixed up with part of the dikes that wouldn't come out. Does that piss you off? And, you know, you do have a they never come out with 3 years ago and, they're now 20 years old. They go, oh, I knew you were gay because I am.

I said, oh, well, fuck you. And, you know, he'd be a bad manager about myself all those years. You know? Person came to jail was, you know, the cop to pick up this one time. He did take me to jail.

He took me to the captain's offer. They called my one of my brothers. I thought it was all 12, 15, 17 years old me. And my brother came down. That brother came down and get me for 20 years.

I have more time. But when he came down to get me and he said to me at the the station I don't want this ever to happen again. You know when he closed his teeth and tucked to his lips I know he's in trouble. Because with me I was very, very passive so he was always a jolly drunk. He never got no trouble.

He just used to drink out, you know, fall down and, take take care of him. You know, so, you know, that's the kind of stuff that happened to me. Just mediocre but continuously ongoing nonstop alcoholism. And then what I didn't know, and I learned I didn't know until I was 8 years old. I didn't know that blackouts are the are the beginning.

I always thought blackouts was like the end sign of your drinking. Blackout drink is the beginning of sign of drinking. And, you know, that blackout drinking for me started very early on. And, so so if you go blackout drinking, I mean, I'm sorry, but you're one of us. And, we can we can try to get out of this.

You know, the book the book says, you know, go down the cliff side, you know, have a few few drinks and see what's gonna work for you. And then it says, you know, our hats are off to you. And, you know, my group used to say, you know, don't let the door hit you in the ass going out. And, you know, I come from a tough Bradford group in the valley and, there were no nonsense men. And, I, you know, years ago there was a lot more men than women and the women were very very concrete.

The the women are very very, what's the word? Sparse. And, so it's like all the men would be jumping on the podium at the time. I'd be wondering, you know, I don't have to ever go up to straight women's does a discussion women's does where there's men and women in a discussion. How many times do you see a straight woman raise her hand?

How much not? I I watch them just for fun. I'm like taking a survey And, taking my real serve of how straight women acting in, you know, AA. And, the ability to share and raise their hand and share most of them. Most of the time, you know, I don't find that with us guys because, you know, hardly anything scares us.

More, more the story. I'm gonna sleep somewhat somewhat timid. But, that's not a general rule. It's just what I observed. It's just Mary's rule.

If I say anything here, you know, it's my opinion. It's not based on any house but my own, observations. I would like to give it to my experience but it doesn't go this way. It's gonna happen tonight. So, you know, so that that stuff went on when I ran home my way from home when I was 20 7 years old.

And when I did that, I always worked. I always had a college, you know, Chris mama always helped me out. You know, my mother and I was very measured by my total measurement. I was a servant husband and I took care of her. My father was always absent.

And, he was he was act and raised. He was he was emotionally absent but he was there physically. And my sister sent me this picture, this week and we're in, my family likes to dress up and I love them about I love that about them. They all dress up. So it's like Magdalene said I my sister's name is Mary Magdalene and I am Mary Margaret.

Okay. So you know why I'm going with this. So, then I had that on my shoulders as Catholic Catholicism stuff and I mean I was a really good kid in school and I wasn't I wasn't that bright. I was a CRH student always but I was trying really hard. I was good with the nuns and, you know, I protected my sister after school and, you know, the nuns are always on her face, I know why they were because I was after this kid and she was just very, quiet and bashful.

And, for some reason they just gave her really bad time. She missed the last school because she didn't go to school. So, you know, so, I don't know where I'm going unless I train of thought. Oh, well. Doesn't matter.

We all got another 20 minutes to stay here. You'll put up with me no matter what I say. That's all I know about Alkaline. I don't have to, like, you know, be on or be this or be that or, I want a because I can be myself. I love alcohol because my whole life I wanna be myself.

And, you know, that's why, in some instances I'm not asked to speak in a lot of places because I'm I'm what you what you hear and see here is what you get at all times with me. You know, I'm a no bullshit kind of I learned that in AA and I'm sure I had some of that personality when I came but I was never able to do it. I was a I was a sniveling at kiss ass people pleaser drug. Sniveling kiss ass. Dishonest people pleaser.

And I would have done anything to please you and never tell the truth about how I really felt. And, a, it's given me the ability to speak up and say who I am and what I stand for and what's going on with me. And a lot of times I'm wrong and I can be wrong today. You know, I could be wrong and change and grow and, move on. And, I I really believe that I've learned so much about how to live because I I was clueless when it came to living.

I didn't know anything about living or anything about being a person. I didn't know anything about what went on. When 2 of this talk about going on 5. I didn't I was that was so foreign to me and, you know, I didn't understand any of the inner inner work days to talk about or any of that. It's just like, what?

Why? Why? Why? I was so dense, you know. And, I was pretty dense like that when I got to alcohol exam and, what time did I start?

I don't care. I'll go in. So anyway, you know, I was very, I was very damn that stuff but I, I, this is important for, to, for identification of people because I think it's important for me to try to, tell my story so that some of the women that that is like this will identify with this and do it for themselves. I I came from a a background of being very religious. Like I said, I'm marrying Margaret.

My sisters married Margaret and, you know, goes out and divorce from there. And, you know, so, my mother was very into her Catholicism. I I love the Catholic church and I always wanna do the right thing. And, I mean, I didn't rebel till I got to all kinds of nuns. And, once I started to get the phone I couldn't stop doing it here.

And, I don't have to do anything wrong with the fence. It's just just it doesn't take you out of here. You can be as defiant as you want here. You can be as resentful as you want here. Don't drink.

You can be as happy as you want. Don't drink. You can do whatever you want. Don't drink. That's what we do that we don't drink.

Eventually, you'll come to new realizations by working the steps. You find out who you are and some of your behavior will drop away and some of them will never leave you. My angle is now locked. You know? I've My anger is just the lowest service a little bit.

Pissed me off and I'll tell you. You know? And, I just I mean, we were talking at the restaurant and we're talking about we were talking together. I heard Joey and I over over the week. It happened where we were.

Briskly. And I said, briskly. That's what I am in the blank slate. She said, oh, I didn't mean to offend you. And now they get so far I was so cute the way she described it because, I have this tendency to scare people off but I don't mean to.

And, and I have a tendency to, have a very, a very hardcore exterior and not let that many people in. And I don't even know I'm doing that and it's taken me years. I mean, my friend has known me the whole time he's been sober. I knew him when he was new. And I've known Grady about 10 years.

I'm like, really like in 88 or 89. And, you know, when I have history friends that have known me for a long time, I don't have a problem with that. But in the beginning, I don't I don't relate in a gentle loving way to people. That's just I don't. I just don't.

I wish I'd know how to do that but I don't. I mean, I can testify in one fucking minute. And, I was trying to be hard. I was trying to be very gentle. I met, god.

And I said, don't fuck up now. She's 3 years old. We'll give it a give the woman a fucking break. You know, she's worked her whole life. She's not some winky dude kid here.

And I was trying to be real real stuck with her when I was, trying to trust her, you know. And because I could just be awful. I mean, I just be really awful. And, it feels as though I got that. You know, Phil was calling us that for, Phyllis is at a hard time today so we've been friends for 10 years.

I sponsored her off and on and, she's lived with me and, she's all in the room with me and she's run off and come back and she's been in and out of my life and finally, you know, I don't know about I don't know much about Al Anon. I do try to go to Al Anon and work in Al Anon program. I do consider myself a double winner and also like a weak wimpy Al Anon person still. But then I know how to get how to detach from people as well. Hello?

No, I'm not talking to you anymore. You know, I generally would say to Phyllis, to go, Mary, this is Phyllis. How are you? Real sweet. Phyllis is very sweet.

She's got that she's got the sweetness that I wish I had. She's very sweet. She's very polite. She's very, you know, just I mean, I love that about her because I'm not. You know?

And I want I I would I would aspire to that my whole life, but I don't think that's gonna happen now. You know what I mean? It's 26 fucking years. This is it. This is what I get, you know?

And, I also had this vision where I'd be sweet and covery and very nice and all that. I'm not that, you know, I'm just that. And, so anyway, here's the call. She's all, you know, hi. This is Jessica.

Yeah. Are you sober? What what does I have to do? I I do sober for this. Called me like that for 5 or 6 years.

I'm going to find. Now this kid called me like that for 5 or 6 years. I'll go hunt her. Fine. She called and she said, Mary, I said, yes.

She said, I said, are you sober? She said, yeah, I have a year. I said, hell, fucking She said, now will you talk to me? And I said, yeah. Because I couldn't watch her kill herself.

She's a very skilled. I couldn't watch herself distract anymore. It was killing me. And that's where I have to detach. I don't know another way to detach.

I wish I did, you know, but I don't. I have another friend that drank who's, you know, he used it for he was 10 years away and my best friend knew in the last 10 years and he went out and he's been out and, I had to recall. I, you know, I I got the, the a nautches in the car and, you know, we had cell phones and they were calling me on the cell phone and they locked him in the back of the car and I directed to the hospital. We did this whole kidnapping thing and we could hear him screaming. He was screaming on the phone.

Is that fucking on the bed on the side cell phone? He was screaming, jumping because I'm going to jump out, but, you know, today we can't drive back at the seats because they have locked doors. You know, you can't get out of cars anymore. It's a fucker for alcoholics. You know, You know?

You can't push somebody out like I used to. You know? And, you know, my mother kicked me off around the 4 or 5. You know? We're going down to say 17, you're coming from drinking, and I'd say, what?

I'll know. I'd go, And I'd walk. 2 o'clock in the morning, you know? And I get home and I go, well, I wonder where she is. And I do that.

You unless you come in at 7 AM and I'd go, why you took a damn? How about my job? I was crazy. I was a badger drinking. I badger this woman all time and women are badger.

I was I was a really bad batter, you know, and, we're still friends today. She's my oldest friend here in California with 32 years of being friends. And, you know, she had 17 at one time and she drank, with one drink and, she came came back and she called and, she goes, Mary, I need to tell you something and I want I want to tell you something before, you know, it comes to the grapevine. And I said, because I never in a 100 years have thought that she would drink. She said I drink in Palm Springs.

I start crying. I mean, I got so upset. It hurt me so bad that you are. This woman is a terrible alcoholic myself. I'm so afraid and would relapse.

So I always don't get back. Thank God she did. She's she had that one drink of champagne. She jumped in her car and drove home. And, of course, she went down there.

I won't tell her story but she went there chasing women. So, you know, we do insane motherfucking shit solo. I mean, we we are doing it so we believe. Solo is strange. It's not at the top of our list for most of it.

I had a letter in the book, you know. So, anyway, you know, I got I got so with the help of God's voice I met some women in that area and I really chased the son that I was after. And, thank God she was sober. And you know, so I got sober and I went to Radford and, you know, the, Taylor's been in that group. That's there.

And, I mean, this group is, you know, if you think I'm that she should have been there. I mean, they're they're like, well, years ago, you know, we don't have treatment centers and if people fell down, I think this is really great history. People would know this. We didn't have treatment centers. We would like ride off to a treatment center and get you a little volume and withdraw politely.

You know? What we did, you know, like politely withdraw them, give them a little shoddy poo. Let them go to sleep now with their volume. You know? We shook lunch in the evenings, you know.

And that's how I got sober. And, soon I had my hands shaking. The air is coming by. I had a car wrecking in my house and work on me in my bed because I had alcoholic paralysis so that I couldn't I couldn't have a walk. And, you know, so, you know, and people people would fall down at the meeting.

This is the truth. They fall down at the station in the meeting. You'd reach over, get your water and stick it in their mouth and that's what they were breathing. Listen to the meeting and they take they were they were you could they start to rouse themselves. You take the water.

You know, we like pick them up. So once they give them a glass of water, you put them back in the chair and they sit through the rest of me. We did it last time. And if they really go, we might call the ambulance. And, you know, so I I assume alcohol at its worst.

And I think, you know, I think today it's really sad today because how many people go on 12 step calls and see what's really going on out there? It's not pretty folks to be, the ones that I knew are very close to their disease so they know what it was like to drink like that. And, I I don't want to ever forget what it was like to make a drink. Drinking took away everything from me. I mean it took away my, my, my self pride and, the self esteem I had built in.

Wasn't much but it was all I had at the time and that went and, took away my connection with my family only because, I was so, into my disease and my resentments with my brothers and, you know, drove me away from them and I fled, you know, 2,000 miles away to get away from my family and to come something else so that I thought that I wouldn't be drinking in California. That's where I left with my area because the drinking was too much with my friends. Also, I wasn't married. I knew that there was something wrong with me and I didn't quite have a name for it. And on, when I along the figures I went, oh, I think I'm one of those lesbians.

And when I got that on the freeway I I I drove fast to the California and found the first one I ran into. And, that was the one that I just drank. And I was with her 5 years through, terrible terrible insanity. I mean, it's crazy battery stuff that is very painful and still talk about today. When I think about how many times I had to talk about that battery and me throwing her out of the car and, you know, one time I tried to jump out of the car Hollywood play and, you know, she had a hold of my cocktail and my head was, like, this far from the ground and she's doing 70 miles an hour on the freeway now.

I I mean, I don't know how I'm alive. You know what I'm saying? And the, let go of me. I'm out of here. You know?

You know? And, you know, just, we were just potatoical to us. We were just lost. I was and I guess I heard on my other take is that it's really the truth is I was so lost and lonely. I got so very, very lost and I got so far from the power greater myself that whenever the time I got to our clerks and I was the first Marine I came to I didn't remember the the, Lord's prayer.

And I was brought up Catholic and I was a good Catholic and I was I was a very religious sort of person, until, you know, alcohol took a hold of me. And, I stopped practicing my faith when I came here and, I never really had any doubts of god. I always got so angry god for killing my brother. That was killed in a car accident and I was pissed off at my brother's. I just was very pissed off and, I was just very, very angry.

And, so I I just felt really, really awful. And, at that first meeting when I could not remember that the Lord's prayer I said, oh my God. What's happened to me? What's happened to me? What happened?

You know, I'd have a cry. I know I surrendered that night. It hasn't been necessary for me to drink from my first meeting. That's just my story but the desperate alcoholic that I am I know that can be anyone's story. It can be it can be your story if you knew.

If you're new in this room tonight and this is your first meeting or you've relaxed and you're back and this is your first meeting again, you know, the book says that we don't ever have to think again if we don't want to. You know? And I don't want to. It has been necessary. This been necessary for me to drink.

Believe me. It's been very necessary to drink. Very, very necessary. You know? And I I I don't.

I don't drink. I don't drink and the testimonies that you get is that we don't drink here. We don't drink in between meetings. You know, we go meeting every day. We knew and if if you knew you go to 9 means in 90 days, the basic outflow is now.

You're probably wondering how most of us that have a lot of time have stayed here this long and and I'll give you what the example is and what what that is. The big the fucking secret. The big fucking secret is we we go in meetings. We don't drink. We work new comers and we go and send sometimes.

And, we go fucking crazy of all our sponsors. We call some of our best friends. We get ill. Our life changes. We get injured.

We have life crisis. You know, and we just keep, you know, just keep fluffing along. I don't have any other choices. My choice is to stay sober always. Well, that's our choice.

The book talks about that not being a choice. I I believe that. But, I I need to do with all the basic claims that I learned in my 1st year of what has kept me sober for 26 years. Nothing has changed. I read the book.

I go to meetings. I share. I pick people up what I can for meetings. I can close the meetings when I have the strength to now. And I talk to people on the phone.

I call my friend to see how they are. I call my family to see how they are and I try to keep keep out of myself. Because if I don't get out of myself, especially in the kind of condition I am today, and it doesn't take me long and to be laying in that bed and by 1 1 or 2 in the afternoon, I'm going, but maybe I should get up now. You know? And the cake's off where I go maybe I, you know, and I have to get out and I have to go phone and say, you know, to someone in my apron.

I just got up. I'm fucked. I'm totally clapped, you know, and, I'm so depressed. I can't stand it. And, you know, but I wanna get ready and take get my breakfast.

I'll never forget the best information in my 1st year hours to my sponsor. I was really, I was telling these nervous breakthroughs when I was new. And, the first year you tell, you felt tall I felt totally apart. The first three. So I just kept falling apart.

And I kept being really crazy, really crazy. And, because I was crazy. I do suffer mental illness, but, you know, that's another story. So, you know, so I, and I always thought I was different because of my mental illness in a a and I always thought that there was something terribly wrong with me and I was different from everybody in a a too. And that used to really make me crazy.

And, and I finally accept my mental illness. I've done something about it. I'm very grateful that I did that. It took me 23 years to take care of that. I don't like to talk about that but people need to know that if if you got other problems you take care and the book says we go see the doctors, we see psychologists, we go to people that can help.

Let's go do that. Go do that. But first off, work the steps. You know? I worked the steps for 22 years and didn't quote my mental illness.

I went to a psychiatrist. And I've done this before and not done not taking their direction. And, so I'm very, very grateful that God has given me the courage to give up my suffering. God has given me the pick to give up my suffering. And I no longer have to suffer for mental illness.

Now I don't have to feel different from all of you anymore. And I have to feel like I'm not enough. And so what's wrong with me and how come people 5 years sober are growing and they're working and they're very successful. Here I am again. Struggling lost another job.

When you're staying at work, got fired again on and on and on. That's my story. Terry knows my story, you know, on and on and on. And it was relentless and it never changed. It never changed.

So I found out how to address my mental illness and I'm really glad I did that. I'm really glad I did that. And, you know, the stats work but they don't work on mental illness. So, I always thought I was going to. I was tired I was gonna work on mental illness.