Live & Let Live Roundup, Kansas City, MO

my name is Arlene I am an alcoholic

I brought my own drink and they had one here for me that's measured ten how long I can speak and not have to go to the restroom

you know when I got this call when Jesse first called me I was over in in Laughlin Nevada with one of my daughters gambling which I like to do I can do that today

and I was really shocked when I came back and and have this message as they want me to speak in Kansas city

and partially I'll tell you why you know there's a story in a about as speakers or someone that will travel two thousand miles to speak but they won't go across the street to go to a meeting

and

and I hope I'm not too much of a disappointment because I'm I'm not a speaker I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous I go across the street all the time to maintain

I was told when I got here that I if I drink every day I should go to a meeting every day and I've done that almost fully in the twenty two years I've been sober my my a birthday is may ninth nineteen sixty nine it's clear I can remember

it's also a number I like

give you some idea of what you can expect here

you know I would tell you something about Barbara but

I didn't come here to talk about barber I came here to speak about Arlene and my sobriety my experience strength and hope and hopefully you came here to listen

I just hope you don't get finished before I do

I have enough trouble staying in my own story sometimes now I listen all the speakers and I'm waiting to get a good story to tell and then it dawns on me and again one more time that I have a story in my own town

and I'll try to tell you as much as I can I brought my want to appear in the program since I only have to speak to like thirty

our

I'm not real sure how I'm going to manage to get to

seventeen years of drinking and and twenty two years of sobriety and the fifteen minutes that

if I run a little over that I will know when when you're not a not sometimes I get hypnotized by the sound of my voice no no when it quit anyway

there's also another great story I heard and I was asking very early about tapes of Franklin he tells a story about the greatest messenger carrier in the whole world was

Paul Revere he had one message to Kerry and that's all he Kerry you know I rode around and said the British are coming the British are coming he didn't stop at every farm and Helen had a plant or what their daughters were doing or what religion they should be and to just have that one message and no matter what I tell you tonight the message really is the only message that I have in that I've gotten from Alcoholics Anonymous is that no matter what I don't drink and Alcoholics Anonymous works if I live it it doesn't say how

how it works and it works if I live it I found out now I don't have like I said I don't have a hitch that goes right along like some people do mind comes around to wherever my mine happens to be at the time

so I will tell you I've already told you I drink seventeen years I drank

at St Monica most at seventeen years

because I tried to

whiskey and I got sick and I never drink whiskey again I didn't like the taste of it

and I try again and I sat and drank gin one night in a bar when I was nineteen with the mother in law whose name was do do a rough little woman

and she challenged me to see which of us could go with the bartender and she was somewhere in our fifties and I was about eighteen and I drink in and no one to stand up and down plant my face so I never drink again again because I knew it would interfere my stance line

now you know some messages I got quicker than others

then I found vodka was my drink course we all know it doesn't smell

and not nobody knows you're drinking at if you're bonded drinker and then towards the last of my drinking the last seven years of my drinking I was living down in Texas at the time when you bought your own bottle and carried it around to the bars and just by your set up

and I found this wonderful cherry flavored vodka that was a hundred and eighty proof

and

you know if people didn't look real because they saw that

color and they think it was wind not too many ever asked me to share my alcohol which was fine with me

and those few that did never ask me again for some reason

and I thought I was a controlled drinker I bought my booze by that case which was fairly usual down in Texas if you could afford it and I could at the time

and I always limited myself pretty much to assist the day except one my husband and I sometimes shared a fifth

some days I don't really know exactly why but I know that happened occasionally and

we have this ritual playing where we apply a different card games cribbage or something and and whoever lost would have to run to the store to get the mail for the day because we weren't going to invest in a lot of food you know there were other things more important

the alcohol and I

I would usually lose but not always in one particular night I'd been playing cards with them and I'd lost and there was a little bit of the bottle last I wanted to rush off to get

the milk and get back for a dot to finish his bottle

and I rushed off in the car and I went to the closest grocery store by S. and I happen to be at that time down Texas most the little grocery stores were

my garages with garage doors on the front

this one Japanese felon he's saved his money and he had made this beautiful grocery store with a huge plate glass windows all across the front which is unusual for Texas at that time

and I'm rushing down there and my husband have to be a mechanic and he never worked on anything we

I pulled into the parking lot and no breaks

and I went right through this guy's plate glass window and I'm right there by his

little checkout stand any money in there and

and I rolled down the window I reached over and it's on the passenger side to roll down the window and I couldn't think of anything to say but I've had a few drinks you know all most of this bottle anyway my share of it and I looked at him and I said remember Pearl Harbor

you know I always thought I was a friendly drunk too when I got to the

program idea told everybody has a friendly drunk and

I thought I was friendly I didn't you know it like most people to me a couple years to figure out who I really want and what I did when I was drinking down there in Texas is that I carried a downturn during here over and under magnum

his phone in one pocket and I carried a veranda with despair clipped another

and

and I weighed two hundred and forty pounds when I was drinking too by the way and

you know I

if I heard somebody earlier say something referred to as they can get away from where they were thanks for the night or something close to that anyway and that was me no not too many people said no to me when I first got to the program I thought I was great yes I thought it was the only value on hand and it took me two years of inventories to figure out as an available please ask there is a big difference

I am

something about me too that I had nine children I did not come here gay I came here bisexual I always blamed having nine children on non smoking

that I was sure my somebody to today about when I was pregnant with my night child I was only twenty seven years old and my doctor asked me to have my husband come in with me to talk to and then we got there and

as usual and had a few drinks and

he looked at my husband and he said you have to get six this woman is going to die if she gets pregnant again and I looked right back at him I said what the hell good is that gonna do me

anyway

I have friends of my own even then

I am

I I told her I jump around my story a lot I did have nine children I did get sick and I didn't come home for three weeks

some people changes

it did me

I am

I was in Kansas city Kansas two years ago and I came here

to see a daughter of mine I have my first two children my first husband call my father and offered to sell them to when he had run off with them and I was nineteen years old and drinking pretty heavily and my father had a little money a lot of money and

this man call my father an offer to sell the children to ME didn't want them that he wanted the money he could get it out of my dad

and my dad threatened to have him thrown in jail and he disappeared with my two children my daughter was two and a half years old at the time and might feel like I'm talking to nobody answering

I'll be cross died before I'm done talking anyway

he disappeared with his two children my daughter is two and a half my son was five months old

and I came to see my daughter whom I hadn't seen in thirty years and I've talked to a couple people this weekend who have had problems with relating to their children

different kinds of problems possibly that

I was twenty years old before I saw him this honor

I had my children have taught me a lot of lessons I have six living children I have one son who has eight lives down in Louisiana with his lover and they've been together twelve years

and the

and I'm going to regress back to my childhood a little

partly what had a lot of effect on my drinking and on my

sobriety

is when I was very young child I was sexually molested by my mother

and that my mother was a practicing alcoholic

and she did

the little games with made my time my hands together and hang me on a coat hook naked and leave me hanging like that and then crawl in the room and jumped out in front of me and scream at me

and on

why is hanging there she also did little things like put diaper pins through my body in different places and pull on them so that blood would run down my body

and when it would dry she would drag me into a hot shower what would lead again and my mother died in my bedroom door in a pool of blood when I was five years old

and because of that experience and sobriety I've had the opportunity to go through some therapy and learn about dual personalities multiples are splitting whatever you may or may not identify with

I created and developed a lot of personalities I did a lot of out of body experiences as a child because of the pain and went through

and I had to re live a lot of that team in the variety to learn how to live

and because of that

one of my favorite words today is the word feeling

and in the dictionary and some of you were at the workshop I did this morning so please bear with me don't leave before I get finished with the rest of it but anyway I liked this word and I like explaining why it has so much to do with my sobriety

it comes from records from German and Latin that means prepare to touch him palm of the hand

and if you touch the palm of your hand

you will feel this sensitivity

if you continue touching it it will become painful

if you continue touching it it will become non

and when I got down the hall like synonymous my feelings were numb

and what happened for me is that I have the ability to learn how to to feel through the processing of the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and I got to feel the numbness I got to experience the pain and I got to experience the sensitivity and then I got to have the sense to stop feeling so damn much

because as I said this morning I love to suffer

I had so much practice that suffering you know I was headed to a victim I loved suffering and Alcoholics Anonymous taught me so much on that when I first came in and stuff started coming up I want to live in meetings a week

by the end of the week when I'd shared my poor poor me

I hand the Allen on a salute

not only was everybody in the room the second part of my story that was funny

your brain and you're getting sick and tired of it okay

I can't really normal

it's fairly normal in Alcoholics Anonymous to come in and feel your feelings and walk through them

and I got to

I got to do all the drinking I could do I got to do all my share their people and and gaze at that I not only have my shared folder and I had their shirts children

I have really good relationships with my children today I as a matter of fact I

my youngest daughter no one your cake and then IT interline

and

this daughter

Israel's special gift like all my children are Tunisia

when she's doing drugs and alcohol she used to call me and threatened me you know I like don't go out of your house I'm going to kill you one real sure because having drank myself I knew this possibility is thinking out loud

so then I had done a few things in my drinking that were not real kind to my children and I had the opportunity to live through those experiences and and learn to make in a man's

to myself and to my children Anand's means change for the better

and the

hello well process to get to that change in you know to jump up there today tonight stepped in it's like god has the character defects things I like to save the one for my defects of character I would not have had any character at all when I'm down here in the

so thank god it was a slow process

if I'd known what I was going to have to face some want to like most of it I wouldn't have stayed to walk through it and thank god we don't

I did not know most of the things that I have had to face I had to go into intense group therapy and hypnosis when I was eight years sober to deal with because I have this mental image of my mother lying in a pool of blood for twenty seven years I saw on day and night drunk or sober all the time in

and I was fortunate not to be lead to

Graham that worked for me and that helped me through that where I've I've not seen any damage since going through that but I know I could've walked through it without sobriety

I also did not deal with them said stations their sales and channel I was

almost eleven years sober before I start dealing with the investigation and the dual personality right yeah god never has given me more than I can handle but of course his idea of what I can handle mine have never managed to either

yeah I I like to say well I think in a we get a god that matches our personality and if you haven't recognized it yet I have a sick personality

and I got a dog that matched my personality perfectly so I guess you know I get as much as I grow into two which is kind of scary sometimes to

some years ago I wrote a thing about responsibility is the price that I paid for self respect

and that's lead to another thinking in the program

that

one of the things that I personally have experienced is that I had to go through almost everything I do drunks sober and I had a lot to do with feelings I don't say that that's necessary for anybody else one of the things I like about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous is they found that for alcoholics we broke away from the Oxford group specifically because they were into absolute and with alcoholics there are no absolutes were all exactly what we are which

reminds me and I probably stopped in the middle of telling you something but that's to be

what I want where did that about was just before I came out here I call my mother and she calls me and she helps get my answering machine so I want a reminder that I would not be in town this weekend so don't call and then I can I you know I'm going to Kansas city to a convention and she said yes all yes you're speaking she said did you go shopping and I said no mother I I didn't go shopping I get to go as myself I don't have to shopping where right you know my own clothes and she said well what are you wearing and I mentioned the leather pants and

she said I'm I'm gonna keep this down that doesn't sound appropriate to be canonized a mother to gate conference because well why don't they have a man's

a mother I'm a lesbian I said and I didn't get that way alone

and I knew and all I wanted to know you've got some great looking women here in Kansas city

one of the men aren't too bad either

even though I'm not into that fight what was that about my children I haven't had to go to bed with a man for nineteen years

you know I used to think that I hear and then I drink so I could have sex with men when I first got Alcoholics Anonymous that's what I thought and it took the my first inventory actually was the suicide note

at least is started out as a suicide note and got into an inventory finally and

when I found out is that I've been here and being

no I thought I was drinking I have sex with women because as bisexual and when I found out with two and a half years of sobriety is drinking to have sex with

and it was like if you quit having sex a man you won't have to drink yeah I'm ready that's part of it I don't know about you but it was more than one thing about me here

my third step tells me that it's a symptom of the disease the drinking and the

and I haven't and while I didn't go out with one man one time after

my first daughter you know

are not too much about my drinking you know I drank if you want to know more about my drinking out currently on a one to one I drink I qualified right when I got here I've been through quite a few institutions couple marriages at several children and a couple lovers and you know it's just it's I was respected as I possibly could get at that time and still be alive and when I got here and also tried to kill myself sixteen

and I'd been pronounced dead three of those times and I know today that there's no mistake that I'm still alive I almost hurt you know

Chris out there in that condition

and I had a couple friends that I think accidentally killed herself you know and that that it can't get attention to get help and I wanted and needed help and I didn't know how else to ask

and that was the best I could do before I got here and it's been a slow process learning how to answer that help finance but one night I had this great dream my grandma died I was depressed and suicidal and several years sober and I grant signed and that I had jumped off the Coronado bridge which is kind of the

gathering spot for suicide in our community and I jumped off the Coronado bridge and its disagreement the main voice came out and said Arlene I was going to change it

change in the dictionary means made different

made in the dictionary means not occurring naturally

he hoped after I read that I like doing things that aren't natural

at least that's what I've been told

so anyway I use the dictionary a lot at stake my life and mourn one answer and I love that you know that that they'll use the dictionary and I also found out that doctor Bob read a book called the greatest thing in the world by Henry Drummond

and it's about love

and

their description a lot of

to me is like a description of what Alcoholics Anonymous was like when I came in to giving the concern that reaching out

the dignity that I got when I got here nobody tried to fix me they share their experience strength and hope with me and allow me to make my own mistakes which is a paradox in the current document contrary to expectations the current actors there are no mistakes

there are no negative their only things I haven't learned ****

R. nothing happens that isn't god's will in my life

nothing happens that is in god's will want and

I don't know why this comes in right behind that but I have a son that has aids

I have a son that went to the golf he left on the day the war started

I don't remember talking to somebody who was concerned about the brother who had gone over and I said how could I possibly be concerned

if I can turn my went online for the care god

how could I not turn my sons will apply for the Kerr not

and that's true for both of my sons my my son is there from the golf he didn't get back until the end of July

but he is back safe and my other son has been diagnosed for eight years he's been with his lover for twelve years he lives down in Louisiana

there was no clinics that he was comfortable with so he drove for minor four hours

to go either to Mississippi or

New Orleans

at somewhere in Mississippi I forget where it he said that it was a four hour drive one way to get to the clinic to get some therapy

but again you know

hi I've shared with my son so I will share with you that it's in my well how I'm going to die right what's gonna happen to me when I die actually and this came about because I had tried to arrange my funeral I tried to be responsible because sometime in the suffering so much you know eyes and dying I don't know about anybody else that

every time I'm going to have surgery or fly I think about it you know

and I know most of you don't relate to that but I do and

so it's in my will that I am going to be cremated because I couldn't find a funeral parlor that would do me

erast naked face down with carnation in Iran you know

I'm not going if I can hand sign

so I am going to be cremated in my ashes will be mixed with dish powder and sent to all my ex lovers

for one she wants hers with mouthwash

and those that don't take it it's going to be scattered over our local and street bookstore which is a dirty book store in case you didn't recognize that that you may not have the S. street bookstores near

yeah this is I don't know something you know I don't know anybody is going to get out of here lies and I'm just going to have as much fun as I can about it

before I go

I want to hear mostly about my sobriety and I started to tell you that before because most of you know how to drink

that one I like to share is how my experience strength and hope in surviving Alcoholics Anonymous

a lot of people here that don't have any sense of humor

and

my my sobriety yes I wouldn't hate it if I didn't

I line at your conference theme and the freedom to choose and I choose to have a good time and I choose to extract all the experiences that god's given me as gifts from god

I have to tell you when I was new I I was like when I came in the program and

when I came in the program since I had a lot of sexual issues and a lot of sexual problems I am somebody and all time and the program

where where you

find out about how to handle sexual issues in the big

and they were very informative and they told me page sixty nine if you didn't know that you know hopefully it's the number you can't forget either

many anyway being dyslexic I didn't remember that and I don't know if any of you have ever read page ninety six

do not be discouraged

if your prospect does not respond at one

another alcoholic and again

this is the punchline here's the punch line you are sure to find someone desperate I'm not saying

with eagerness what you offer

for me I don't get anything from this ideal

fit right in with the rest of mine

and I don't know about anybody else but when I did my second women for and I counted everybody I had sex with sober

and

I had what I call a fair last that's one night or last

guarantee on it I mean they were

valid some of them are even good

and

and last November I bother

uniform I sell I I have I still have all the children and grandchildren and I have a tendency to spend all my money on them I still have a little co dependency problem here

that I had counted up what I'd spent on my kids in the last couple years and I and I knew I could afford a computer

I just knew if I didn't go ahead and buy it on credit I wouldn't get it so I went ahead and bought a computer which I did pay off in three months that

it's wonderful and I don't know I didn't know absolutely anything about computers when I bought this I never touched one I never really looked at one before I bought this one that you can smile again anywhere and changes put in line has a dictionary which I use a lot poles down the great

bits of information about what I'm bullshit in about or whatever and so I put all thirty five of my lovers and that's including the woman I'm dating now and in this computer and

the guys that's nothing that's a one night stand somewhere in our

the women I you know I don't intend to shock you I just intend to tell you my truth my story and I know that it relates to date to a lot of my issues because a couple things that have happened to me and sobriety one is that when I was ten years sober I was in a relationship I should not have been in that I'm not gonna listen to god I mean I mean it's not for anyone else and I wasn't gonna have noticed I wasn't gonna let her be happy and leave

thank god he has his way with me if I wanted or not and we were out fishing and I clicked on an embankment about a foot and a half in totally shattered my right ankle broke every bone in the ankle they came out both sides of my foot

I spent like seven hours in surgery before they took me as surgery everybody in the hospital came down to look at the X. rays that knew something was going on here

I spent three months in a wheelchair

during that three months in a wheelchair I got to meet every single day because you know if I was drinking drinking I would have gotten a bar every single day and I remember what they told me if I put half as much into my sobriety is I put into my drinking I just might make it

I managed to get to a meeting every day of the three months I was in in that wheelchair and I managed to decide that if I was going to be in that kind of pain

I would walk normal because they told me I'd be purple and

I

did with the program gave me some skills on communicating with a higher power and I

and the dictionary means degree

sometimes I forget to do that especially in circumstances like this

why I started myself and tell myself how to walk again and I want into his office six months later and he came out of a room as I was coming down the hall and start crying he said you can't walk like that

and I've had four surgeries on my foot they've gone and both sides of my foot and if I showed you that

most of the

R. I don't know why no that's part of the gift I've gotten sobriety

you know when they said Frank benefits I thought it was money propping impressed that that the friends that I also had a vaginal hysterectomy in case you're ready to interact and snap card

four years ago but you know there's I got nasty I needed to slow down I needed to get out of that ring right

the woman we have quite a problem I got coke on conscious of wearing turtlenecks because I didn't want to admit absolutely everybody happy he was six years sober I was ten years older at the time he got out of that relationship yeah

now you may find rather bizarre but there I may not remember to give you the point of all of that that there was a point for me and all of that and when I got out of that relationship I was afraid I'd go back

I always wanted to do something rather long which I had a problem within the program finding a god of my understanding and if you find out about that I guess we'll have to buy the workshop I'm not going back into the

what I did right I decided that within ten years sobriety on new year's eve I decided to create my

I thought that was rather kind of idea and it was before it was popular for women to stay there when I was ten years ago anti gun I was afraid I go back to this woman and I thought you know nobody's going to want me in here and if there are things are being called the worst that can happen is I'll stay home read all those books on procrastinating

and I don't want to Halloween party and a black velvet

with the hood in

and

the herd back at appropriate times

I mean I don't know about you but I'm the kind of person that if I stand and rock and

reactions from people wanting to do it so I said my remarks

but I'm not

one of the neat things

for me as my father had thirty five years it's a Friday night good for the cleaning for her and I was over there happens it already heard of courses you know how nothing goes out of a meeting

something

and he had heard and I can order housing

stocking cap on informing her and came right at my face little bitty woman and she said

what the what

this is annoying

I was sober and for the very first time in my life

I knew that somebody was looking out my outside

I

I knew that he did not know my insight

right

and the god of my understanding helped me understand that and I grew a lot and I continued

mine wasn't that well

and

and I met a woman during that period of time in the mood I'm not there and during that time I couldn't on that relationship is not going to work

well anyway thank

I let my hair grow

I like something hang on to them

you know

yeah

a little bit about what I know about the program and Alcoholics Anonymous before you're really freaking out I know people have got done listening already

there were all headed for the rest

I don't know what

I want him

Connellan four years ago I got a relationship with a woman I was I was very much aware was very

now I'm pulling an emotionally

during the process of this relationship

yeah call the therapist that

I was

verbally abusive to her

is that clear

now

I wear leather because I like rather

I'm not endorsing them I'm sorry you know I wore this letter to

can you run a contract at a particular man in leather Adam

that's good enough because anybody at the dinner

you get the picture I wanna back I hope one of the guys want the guys

Barbara

anyway I went to the Nehru Gandhi and leather aniline dance mine too and and people thinking that I'm in the us and them and I'm not but the word got around this woman was saying that I was going to therapy I agreed not to raise my hands

now down the hallway and though one night when we were in a green and he started beating me I remembered that I wasn't raised my hands

and I got there and to the woman on Concord

this is like four years ago I'm nineteen years old

but it was a gift from god

because all these years and all the therapy I've gone through I could never understand

the only I knew that I didn't because my mother to do the things

yeah

it was perfectly clear that it wasn't my fault

the my mother told me it was

it wasn't until this woman beaten up and then told me it was my home

that would be

that I knew

in my heart America group

there are no less than

god sent the messengers and their messages right wing and I needed that message

because I've suffered a long long time

without the mess

today I am free

what happened for me was two months later

I realized I was blind in my left on

when I went to the doctor

the

I was born in our mileage bleeding the record had

I would order one more time we'll have laser surgery I did get that some of the site my last night and I did not get all of that there but I got a greater

I got freedom

talk about your your

I never would have chosen them

one does not send me anything I do not

because I am free

something I'd wear it for a long long time her lan I. speakers talk about self worth and self respect

and one of the things I wrote several years ago

for myself was that responsibility is the price I paid for that

another relationship where I got a great lesson I hear a lot of conflict the done deal

in a lot of people are in the game bring

as I said this morning I was gonna die one playable crosses because we loved it laughter so much

while I was in a relationship began with somebody now and

he was removed and I left for ten days he could move

and I came back still there

I'm trying to make me feel guilty about her problems

her personal problems

and

I remember standing out in the yard and talking to her and I

you know I'm willing to be responsible for my carton thing today

Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me no matter what to look at my car

and I'm willing to be responsible for my part in things that I am not willing to plead guilty

are not for me R. my writing at that time I was able to write about guilt and when I come to believe for me is that you feel

is my ego

even ride around

it's not allowing myself the time or energy to look at my partner and see if I am in fact guilty of something I need to be responsible for