Spring Break 2000 in Scottsdale, AZ

my name is Virginia and I'm an alcoholic

good morning everybody

god if I was Steve Christine this different

did you say you had ten days last month you have eleven days today

honest to god if I was Steve I'll be wondering what the hell is this

eleven days without a drink coming to a place like this hearing people talking about all kinds of things like god and sex and traditions and reading steps and eating and having Kate and selling women and all the

is this what the Romans did or something like that

let me cake and those three on furnace

I'm a teacher I corrected the guy already where are you

I'm I'm really nervous of all the topics that I feel the least

put together about and sobriety it's spirituality and I have a feeling it's going to be like that most of my sobriety

because when I know what I'm talking about I'm in my deepest trouble

because I don't need anybody and I don't need god that's for sure

and so when I talk about this topic I know that I really am in need you know guidance

I came with my sponsor this morning so I bought my own god is with me

and

I'm just going to share with you what it was like for me what happened what it's like today in terms of my spiritual journey

as much as I know

most of it I was drinking through

so you know what that's like

but I did want to reflect last night about a couple things seeing Marty and live up here with sixty years of sobriety between both of them book ending Steve with ten days just right it just gave me chills just thought that was marvelous

that's the strength of those two sober people can be on either side of the newly recovering alcoholic is just incredible thing for beaches has seen last night

yeah I don't think that I heard me say nothing lists and even though you do your

see what when I'm nervous I get into my my street talk from New Orleans

I grew up in the Irish channel of New Orleans I'm the daughter of a merchant marine dad broke both of his fist in the office fine

I have five brothers I was raised with five brothers two older brothers and two younger brothers

and so when I get anxious I I revert back into all my old stuff so if I offend anybody with my profanity threatens step tonight on your resentments

anyway said he said last night

isn't it great to be gay

isn't it great to be an alcoholic isn't it great to be here

and I thought you out of your mind

my greatest sufferings came from being a lesbian and being an alcoholic

and today I'm going to tell you that my greatest game has been for me was being a being a calling

when I have my fortieth birthday party all of the people who were invited to the birthday party were members of Alcoholics Anonymous or gay friends and I remember I was I was sitting on the floor opening my gifts and stuff I looked up and I looked at everyone and I thought just in a flash all of these people come from the two areas of my life that I've had the greatest difficulty with accepting

and I'm gonna tell you today that it's it's been a wonderful journey

to get into acceptance of these two areas

everything in me which I will be sharing shortly everything and we didn't want to be either of those things

everything you need

except a couple of parts

my heart in my head

the other thing that I thought was kind of chilly here is that I'm going to be the spiritual speaker you have no idea

what kind of terror that strike team to me

to be a spiritual speaker

I don't know what could have been more spiritual last night in your you Iowa going on and on and on and on

and because he's Irish he knows exactly what she's talking about

and being Irish and knowing what she's talking about is a direct result

of being taught by nuns

and if you remember last night right I was going to make a slam about nuns

no I've heard of gay bashing and I'm gonna tell you it is also known bash

for those of you don't know I was a Catholic nun for twenty two years and that that's where I get all my drinking

well from my last night

came this close

two nine dash G.

I don't know if you remember what she said but I wrote it down

well I better not read it I have my resentment again

let go let god

at any rate if you remember

when she was does this close and I'm bashing

what happened she lost to turn the phone

now in the Bible

people are stuck down when they thing god

so now god has a resentment

so anyway

so my dad was a merchant marine

and

I grew up with five brothers

Raymond warm on my older brothers and then I was born

and when I was about to my brother Jim was born

and then John came along and can came along

no in in the Catholic Church we have a thing called novenas

you pray for nine days if you did it right and well he supposed to get what you want well I thought that was cool

so I would pray for my mom to have a girl and she would have a boy and then I would pay nothing of you know when the next kid was coming and she would have another boy

so I remember at a young age feeling that god didn't quite know hello readers worked because

I just kept getting these brothers

I was a really shy kids when I was growing up very very shy very withdrawn I like to read I was drew into the book of ideas and fantasies I I love church grew up in a large Celtic perish

there was Jr big German church on one side of the street and right across the street from that with an Irish church then down the road from that was a friends chapel

and the charges in those days have a lot of statuary and so on and so forth

and I loved all of that the candles of the instance I liked all the stuff that the priest war you know it never occurred to them that they were in drag most of the time but

we didn't say too much of that in those days

so on the outside it looks like I was just kind of a good Catholic girl no doing this thing going to Catholic school I joined the choir

I was in all of the little organizations like half the girls get into to help other people who are less fortunate than you are

but there is also other things going on for instance I was in the choir he's got a beeper going on here

your use

I hope it's not an emergency

so I would join the choir and then you know every every morning we were supposed to go to mass and so all the kids in the choir was supposed to be up in the church first upstairs but I never quite got there for the beginning in math and so I would hang out and wait because I was always made so when all the girls came down to go to communion I just kind of get right in line go to communion and go upstairs and be in the choir and the choir director would be directing and should look into look again like when did you get here and that's sort of how I did my child's life I suppose just kind of sneaking around trying to be invisible and just popping up in places where I I should have been before but wasn't

I never really drink when I was a kid I grew up in an alcoholic family but I never drank I had wondering when I was nine another one when I was fourteen

I was told when I was seventeen years old and I thought I left home because I wanted to serve god you know that's a tell the girls in in those days you were aloof introverted and dysfunctional and so on they left home and it became known

I write my own

and I don't know

so when I left home at the age of seventeen years old I realize that the movies that I like to all war movies I really like World War two movies like John Wayne I like Kerry Cooper because they always won the wars and I had a decision to make when I was in high school whether to join the service

the military service and I wanted to do that because basically I want to learn how to use machine guns and kill hi this is really true I want to learn how to use machine guns so that if there was a war with communism I would be able to kill a commie for Christ some of you who are raised in the fifties knew that that was the slogan killer coming for crime

and that's what I wanted to do

I got re directed

and I'm living the Commons

we don't kill people incumbents

contrary to what some people think

but I wound up in a convent and when I brought with me with all my packed anger

then I would live out by watching gory gruesome brutal bombing movies all my packed anger my sense of confusion about myself who I was what I was

I had a little bit of an idea that I was a bit different than some of my other friends I wasn't quite sure that was you know this is in the sixties late fifties I didn't know much about being a lesbian in those days and I didn't have very much interest in anything sexual

so I went to the train up to Saint Louis Missouri and joined to a Kathy Gordon

because that's where my drinking started because then the cover that I joined was a German orders and we had beer and wine on the table like for holidays and holy days

and so I would check the calendar for wins the holidays and holy days I make sure that I would volunteer to clean up after the meals

and so we're in the dining room would be empty and all the nuns and go back to to night bro I would help to clean up the dining room table and make sure that all the wine was drunk because it was a gift from god and so on and so forth you don't want to waste god

so my drinking began like that

never had a clue what was going on

that was the first split

drinking and alcoholism

that's started working like your stories have worked now we all have the same story about our progression of my own this we started it got worse and then it got even worse and blackouts

all of that stuff the dog all that didn't happen to me from

what else with

well as I was in a conference all women

so I'm looking around thinking wow this is interesting I was seventeen years old

and so I had another split go on

my adolescent sexual energy

just going nuts and common place filled with women not knowing what to do with all of that

so then I had this going on here I'm just going on here but I was all dressed up in black and white so like I am today I you know

it didn't occur to me that the table cloths and the kids are black and white I think there's a message here and then I wore black and white because they were all that long so long garb I even have a scar a year if you wanna see they'd also you and I have the address that you swear and I was very proud of that gar

you know naked read

if you put that thing on in a certain way whenever you return your head like this I just did right into your

is on blood would go up because it was the fabric so blood would go up on if you would say sister your head is bleeding I say I know

I'm just like Jesus

I was very much into drama not not plays and stuff like that but into melodrama

when I took my first ball

this was two years after I had entered and so by this time only about building nineteen years old

when I do my first vows there was a big ceremony of course in the cathedral of St Louis

and we all had you prostrate on the floor now that is high drama for an alcoholic no when I had to do the steps and when people talk about surrendering I would have that that image again of me throwing myself on the floor arms outstretched telling god you know you just have any body soul spirit mind everything everything is yours my money I had none but anyway

and then the bishop man he's got to the mission instead of giving us a ring and I can see we don't wear rings we weren't much into the bride of Christ in which I was glad

they give the mission put on our head a crown of thorns

that was great I love that

I still have it as a matter of fact my mother sent it to me

I don't know what message that was but

thank

I'm not sure why she kept it and anyway they gave us a Krauss aren't so that we can be like Jesus and and I love that kind of stuff

all on the outside all in the house and grounds on my head I didn't let if yours myself seven I've heard

all the clothes everything one live here drinking one live here going to my normal adolescent sexual experiences in another life here maybe a Catholic nun telling other people how to served on

how to live in crystal good Christian life and just like many of you those lives did not intersect

and I had to drink more and more and more and more and more to keep them from getting into each other

only alcoholics can live like that

because you have to drink in order to insure that kind of tension at least I did

the dis honesty system merry fraudulent no that's what I used to call myself after I left

that degree of the Nile what's really going on

the death on the inside you know there was no spiritual growth notice I have not talked at all about my in the spiritual development it just wasn't there it was not part of my equation I was into I was into the draft the crown of thorns the blood on the head telling people what to do did you ever try to tell one of your ninety just what to do you know they just don't do that no the not tell you what to do you don't tell them what to do and when you do your wrong that's basically it

we were not allowed to have friends in those days which certainly fine I do not want friends it was a perfect place for me to be

because the company gave me an opportunity to live out my alcoholism

I liked being isolated

I like not having to make contact with people I like to be in charge I like knowing that I was right I like the people stepping aside so I could be first in line after I left my step by step aside to let me be first in line anymore

I like all that stuff and I never ever thought there was anything wrong with it

inside well I was filled with with anger rage confusion

and booze

because my drinking escalated and escalated and escalated I am back up like you do

I tried to stop drinking like you did I would start over like you did people say well you get the booze same place you did I bought it I still wish I can I do for you know if any of you

all the boys here

you know I love you guys when you grew up I mean if you were adults

because when I was in that when I finally went on missions

I was finding the altar boys the men you know the kids you grew up now they're adults and I would work with those guys because they love to tell me about being an altar boy

and I knew if I could listen long enough to their stories about me you know the boy that they would buy me a drink if we were someplace where they were selling

so I would enjoy the stories

just waiting for them to get to the point

which of a system would you like to have a beer and I do have a glass of wine sure mmhm

when I would go on your planes and in those days I was still dressed in all this stuff and I would go on your planes and the flight attendant was a a system would you like to T.

let's see what else do you serving

coffee pop as of I have to say do you have any scratch

and I loved that

it was like a high for me like a rush

and if I was lucky there was this big fat guy sitting next to me you have been an altar boy

and it looks

you like got sisters they are yeah

and before the flight was over here by me to more and he had told me all about his Catholic upbringing and so on and so forth and I was just working and drinking

yeah this to say eventually although that catches up with us

and if it and I think we're all the lucky ones here because something happens what it was like what happened

what it's like now what happened to me was I just kept drinking too much yeah my drinking got progressively worse and worse I was teaching drunk

I I had those attitudes of hate and disdain for people that I was working with and perishes I got into the you know I want to be a priest thing I don't know why because I do not like pres but it's just the thing to do if you're not if you were a Catholic nun you wanted to be a priest so like the next

stripe on your shoulder

so I went through all of that stuff and none of that really got me anywhere I was doing nothing absolutely nothing for the inside of myself

on Saturday nights eventually I was asked to be the though one of two young on to work with the new recruits I was an office director

so young women who came into the community and it had to be trained to be good nuns and so I was one of the two people were supposed to train them

bad mistake real men

so on Saturday nights I would go with these young people and instead of being in the chapel at holy our

I would sign other car you were going to Dallas Texas because we lived in Irving which was a dry county

I would take him to Dallas to be go to Shakey's pizza parlor listening to the cowboys sing about Abilene and we would have pizza and beer and we would go home and I would be absolutely drunk totally drunk

my superior eventually caught on and she sent my **** out here to the desert

I was fired from that job and that was the beginning of my experience and that kind of ego blasting that happens when you start getting honest with yourself

I came out here to the desert and my superior at the time this is an seventy six

she's give me a little piece of paper that said I want you to read this the quote from the Bible might be helpful food as I don't give me anything from the Bible and really mad I just don't want to have anything to do with this guy stuff anymore in the Bible quotes that I will lead you to the desert and I will speak to your heart

strange that up is anybody speaking to my heart to my head to know

I came out here with an attitude and a hang over big time

and I stayed out here and got progressively more and more ill physically I got you and I found a Kathleen Dr

and he had been an altar boy

and I got a prescription for a delivery from him that I thought well this is going to be great I can drink at home and get pills from him during the day and some of my attitude nothing happening on the inside absolutely nothing I'm not talking about praying or meditating or anything because it just wasn't happening wasn't happening

I just got so sick

that when I woke up one morning

June the eighth nineteen eighty four eighty five

I was so sick you know the rest of the story that moment of clarity come

and I heard two questions

what has happened to you what has become of you

well those questions come from because that was so hung over my brain was like it was in from outside all night what is happens you what has become of you and it wasn't that kind of accusatory but what have you been doing kind of thing from a bad attitude Perrin's or pissed off not it wasn't that it was a very comforting concerned compassionate loving question what has happened to you what is becoming you

I haven't had a drink since

June eighth nineteen eighty five

may

like many of you you know I had tried to stop drinking I had switched to other kinds of drinks I would tell myself I'm only gonna drink this much over the weekend I give myself a couple of weeks and if I could not drink during that time I kept trying to prove myself to myself and they did not have a problem now when you don't have a problem you don't have to prove to yourself that you don't have a problem

I never had to arrange my drinks of chocolate milk I've never had to

you know think about was the last time how many chocolate nuts and I had today or you know where am I going to get my next chocolate milk

never been a problem there's always a problem with

so those two questions were print to meet new people in the program said those questions came from god

thank you

those questions came from god I can say the words but it's not yet down in here

but I know for a fact that those questions did not come from me so they came from something outside of me

a situation situations and turned out along up enough all these numbers and I heard people talking about the big book and the twelve and twelve somebody here was taught calling it the twelve by twelve my dad used to make lumber and stuff and when I heard twelve by twelve I think just big piece of lumber you know

I thought what the hell did they do with a twelve by twelve piece of lumber

for the twelve and twelve I'm a teacher I need to correct these

and so I look to the big book and I started going to meetings and people said go to a lot of meetings and I got a meeting book and I got three magic mark highlighters to think when a yellow in a blue one

and I went to a lot of meetings at the meeting was really good I highlighted it blew it was full so meeting I highlighted in yellow if I was never going there again because they're **** they L. highlighted team

so my name but was all highlighted

because I was an English teacher you know I want to start reading the big book I thought bill W. needed of a few more

courses in English grammar

so I started editing the big book

and making corrections and doing anything to not really read it

doing anything to not really get into it somebody early on since to me version if you have trouble with the first part read the stories in the back

so though I can't read the stories I didn't know they were stored in the back and I've gotten that far with mine my aunt read ten yes

so I started reading the stories and the stories I happened to pick up we're all men stories and I said see you know another reason I should have read this book because it's all about men I are my sons and I have this thing about the chapter two wives no do you why would I want to read a chapter to a wife no I don't have a wife I'm not into that kind of thing either

so somebody said

then if you don't wanna be the first part you know want to read the stories about men read the stories about women so I started doing that

and that start making sense I could identify more more more more more

so I started reading from the back from the back of the big book forward and then I got to a chapter for

we enough six minutes on this one one apply either just like the chapter to wipe the chapter to employers chapter four one apply to me either because after all for god sake I was counting on for twenty two years

we had nothing to do not apply but maybe I can get appointed to or I could read it and explain it to other people

so I started reading it

and there were three yes hi yes three yes

the very first part of the chapter

though W. says yes

when you honestly once you've to quit drinking you find you cannot quit entirely for you when drinking you have little control over the amount you Tate you're probably an alcoholic

and if that be the case you may be suffering I like his way of getting into that you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer

and I thought I do not want to have anything to do with the spiritual experience stuff anymore

I've had my run with that and I felt very self righteous you know twenty two years of it I sounded like an element after all I've done for god you know

god does this to me above the

but I thought I was desperate by this time I mean I didn't I have any other rage term had no other way to turn I had left my community in nineteen eighty four in March of eighty four and I left with a a woman that I had met in my community and we have been together for these twenty five years

and so you know I left my community and eighty four I had my last drink in June of eighty five and that was not a coincidence I think I was already moving in my life getting me to save myself as I really want and getting rid of all that you know island that's that's the dishonesty allies the for

so I thought well I know a little bit about spiritual things here so maybe I can get another point or two from this chapter

so you said something about a spiritual experience will conquer it nothing no wonder what he means by special experience

so so my point here

I go to the back of the big book and it says on page five sixty nine a spiritual experience is a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism no everything about my personality needed to change everything my attitude my outlook everything

and so gradually I started reading that chapter I put away my editing ten

and I just brought my mind in my attention to that chapter

chapter four and step eleven for me or the two most important parts of Alcoholics Anonymous for me

chapter four because it talks about being an agnostic no I didn't think I was in a gnostic

Z. A. C. is don't believe that there is a god as far as I know they deny god's existence

and then gnostic don't doesn't give a damn about whether there is one because they don't use god in their everyday life there might be one there might not be I don't really Kerr I'm in charge that's the enough to get I understood that's what I could identify with in my day to day life it didn't matter if it was a god or not

I was in charge I had to get myself together I used to be self sufficient I had to stop drinking so much now

so this chapter kind of puts me

though then you told me that codes of morals do you need a good moral life wouldn't help a person like me because I've already read chapter three also by that time I have been moving back and back and back into the big book philosophies would not help new age stuff would not help goddess stuff would not help getting into deep discussions about theological things would not help

they will not help because none of those had power

lack of power that was my dilemma I had to find a power by which I could live in it had to be a power greater than myself that's straight from the book

you know I highlighted that and I studied that and I meditated on that and I thought about that and I was hooked by that whole chapter

bill that you talk about the reality that some people might find it difficult

to be willing to admit that there is a god and he he named four characteristics and I fit all four

president

and part having presidential press prejudicial feelings about the existence of gone

sensitiveness

being touchy about it no I was although I was those three I can't remember the fourth one that doesn't really matter but being obstinate one one I can forget I mean you can remember

you being all students

no I was Austin and about it I didn't want to do all this got stuff I didn't want to hold people's hands in praise the our father no I just don't know that they didn't like that I didn't want it I don't want people to tell me about the second and third sets I knew about that already there is a god yes right give myself a god I did that to myself on the floor I work from the phones they have blood on my head of of of of for twenty two years you know the story I work my **** yeah right right right you know serving people and you know

being the first in line and yeah that was kind of nice

but we are handicapped by that office and gets in the way our prejudice handicaps

are touching it nobody nobody to talk to you about god when other people would say you know I prayed to god and god told me that they well that's kind of a Palestinian no your intrusion no let me tell you about how god works he doesn't or she or you know whatever I know no well I didn't know when

it says on page fifty to the needs of

why do I have to have gone but I have to have this purchasing a C. every now and then I think about sees no Steven Levin the sober I don't know if you had been in the program before

so you know about this stuff but see when people would talk about this a a meetings in the first because they are I could not did I could hardly stand might Cher if you would talk about this

Susan page fifty two

we were having trouble with personal relationships

we could not control our emotions

we were prey to misery and depression nothing is more miserable than an Irish alcoholic

sorry

we couldn't make a living you know I thought that you know when I pray for god's will that doesn't show me where to go next you know I my next mission oddly enough every two years god was changing his mind about where I should go when I got into this program I learned about geographic's new god wasn't doing anything I was one making up my mind about where to go and I would go to my superior and say you know if the depression reflection sister you know I feel like god is calling me to ten Bucks to well it wasn't deep for reflection you know I was on the alcoholics hang over have you do you present was about the pastor knowing that they were going to find out any day now that I was drinking too much and I needed to head out of Dodge before they found out that was what was really going on there

we had a feeling of uselessness we were full of fear we run happy we couldn't seem to be a real help to other people

all of these things were going on in my life and I had no power to change any of that none I didn't know how and I did not have the energy the skills the power nothing I had absolutely nothing inside and outside

in chapter four being gnostics

bill W. mentions god by fifteen different names

I counted on Monday I think I didn't have anything else to do so well let me see what he does about god because I went through the thing about things that he got and all that stuff some of that number

but I pace is the six

I finally found it I think if it's fifty six

about the great reality

in the divine presence

yes that's what I need I need to know presents

press

P. R. E. S. P. N. C.

because I had never experienced presence

I was either back their mission and moaning about what had happened in the past

or I was up there terrified of what would be coming in the future

but I had never experienced sober being present

just here

never

never did experience being sober present

because when I would talk to people my mind was racing I was your agitated to get out of that conversation these kinds of experiences terrified me

I would go late to meetings and leave early because I didn't want to be present there I didn't want to have to see people like talk to people I didn't know how I just felt a lot of fear about that doesn't prompt is fear people an economic success and security will leave us well I had terrifying feelings about being with people

and gradually gradually gradually

through working the steps

through meditating on the big box

I've I am learning day to day what it means for my spiritual path

to practice surgeons spiritual things

one of my spiritual practices that I've learned from the big book is to be present

in the here now

and to be satisfied and that's all there is

well for me

just be satisfied with what is was never a part of the equation

I always wanted more I had to fears about my booze glass

one that it would be empty

in the other one how am I going to keep it full

not helpful like a little nuns and take just a little teeny bit this is doing just give me a little teeny bit

why why

why would I do that

being empty my grass being empty

in my grasping for became for me kind of a metaphor for my life those are my two biggest fears my two biggest difficulty

forum is because of my crazy an alcoholic praised the fullness of everything I want the fullness of leading a sober life I want the phone was of a relationship with other people I want the forms of a understanding of the big book I want a full full full full don't give me half full don't give me empty and even says half measures availed us nothing so there

craving everything I crave sobriety like I craved booze it makes me crazy I can't relax

when I'm not like it was yesterday

I went to the traditions reading in the morning

mmhm times it splits into now

I went to the meeting yesterday morning and it

did he have all of the buttons on my raw nerves

about what's going on and you know colleagues and

every single nerve every nerve Kate plus we just transformed Jones every single nerve I had another Justin's

so I left here

and I'm driving back home either in Glendale across town I'm on Indian school and under construction

something you how many of these construction workers can I knock off

having just come from another and

the craving for sobriety mmhm

what do I have to do to be sober okay read the big book I'm going to meetings and brings up the call my sponsor and do this and you said you don't know what happened I got what have I forgotten I've got to do this I'm going to do that is to remind meditation book no I read the black one yes but it doesn't mean I didn't read one I'd rather do that I'm gonna go home this afternoon tends to because I know I have read something about somebody this morning what the hell did she do anyway yeah now I remember that but do a big step I mean of course don't know million bits and stuff yeah I'll do it comes up tonight I need a paper with the paper about drug store and get a tablet and I need a pen what kind of control you know on and on and on and on