The International Womens Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Hi, everybody. My name is Angela O'Keefe, and I'm an alcoholic. And having said that, I'll try not to cry for the first 42 seconds. Overwhelming to be privileged enough, privileged enough to be asked to speak anywhere. And to be asked to speak at our first women's conference here in Canada is just something else.

I feel a little bit like Ethel Merman in well, us us our age remembers Ethel Merman. The other young kids can just, you know, fake it for a minute. But her favorite song was, you know, curtains up, light the lights. You know? And, when I heard that we were going to be a part of your conference, that's what I felt.

You know, how exciting for us to be sober and alive and here at this moment, right now. This is the only moment that we have together right now. And I prepared for speaking tonight by going to a meeting this afternoon. I checked into the hotel yesterday. And so this morning I was up early and went out for a walk and and I hit the lobby and I met Kathy from Florida and Suzanne.

Did you find Sears? Wonderful. And I just said hello, ladies, to whoever and they all knew I was an alky. You know, just automatically. But yesterday, I checked into the hotel and I'm from Campbell River.

I was born in Vancouver, but I moved up to Campbell River about 17 years ago, and that's on Vancouver Island. And we have a member in hospital here. She's been in hospital for a couple months. So I went to to visit her yesterday, and I hadn't eaten. And when I got back to the hotel, I thought maybe I should go out and grab something, you know.

And I was trying to figure this out in the lobby and I thought, nah just go to my room. I went up to my room. There was a beautiful bowl of fruit. And guess what? A bottle of wine.

And that's what I did. I just hooted out loud. I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I thought, gee, maybe maybe that's what you get every once in a while. You know?

Anyhow, I, my daughter gave me a book recently for Christmas. It was not an AA book, but it's a spiritual book. And I work on a ship. And I'll tell you a little bit about that later on. But I took the book with me out to the ship a couple of weeks ago.

And I don't know whether it's alcoholism or just whatever, but sometimes I start at the back of the book. Does anybody identify? So I was doing a little bit of this and that. And then on about the 3rd day, I just sort of plopped it open. And it plopped open at a chapter and the verse of at the head of the chapter was a poem.

And I just felt it really was about me, maybe about us. And the poem said, whatever you have to say, speak clearly. Let them see the roots. Let them dangle and the dirt. So that they will know where you came from.

So where I came from was that I was born into a family here in Vancouver and there were 8 children. And TB developed very early on. I think I was about 5. And I spent a year in bed because I had a shadow on my lung and they thought it might develop into TB. Out of the 8 of us, 5 of us died.

5 children died. And now I know that they were not able to deal with the grief, and they were not able to help me heal. But at the time, I didn't know it. And I started to withdraw. That year in bed wasn't much fun.

Not even allowed out for bathroom, bed pan and the whole thing. So at the end of the year, I was quite shy and just very, very withdrawn. My they thought to they my brothers and sisters were put in a hospital here in the interior for TB. And one of them died. At that time, the doctor said that the others were going to die.

And my mother said, well, isn't there anything we could do? And they suggested that she build a house in the mountains. I think they meant Arizona. My people were from the Highlands of Scotland. To them, Grouse Mountain was a mountain.

So they built a house up on top of Grouse Mountain. And some of us, my mother and some of them moved in there, the rail. And my sister and I stayed behind in the main house in Vancouver. And so from the age of about 9 or 10, I guess I didn't have any, nurturing as we know it today. And so all these things contributed to my feeling not a part of what I was growing up in.

And I felt that I was not a good student and I wasn't sports minded and I wasn't cute and I just wasn't anything. When I was about 11 or 12, there was 4 that had died by that time. And, they decided to we would all join up together together again. So we moved we moved into North Vancouver, my younger or my older sister and I. And she got TB and she died.

And I used to go to bed feeling loaded with guilt that I wanted them to quit coughing and hacking and all this sort of stuff, but which I now realize is perfectly normal. But I just wanted to escape. I just wanted to someday be out there where there's some laughter and some love. I'm not saying that I did wasn't given love. I never felt it.

And I think it's very important in AA when we're trying to give. It's not support important the words. I think it's important what we give that they really know that they're receiving love, you know, because that's how we get better, by being loved better. At any case, when I was 16 my lips are getting tight here. When I was 16, I decided that that was it.

And I was gonna go where there was some excitement. And about 5 blocks from here, there's a dance hall. There was a dance hall. Probably not there anymore. So I phoned to find out what you had to do to get there on New Year's Eve, and they told me how to have $2.

And, so I got the $2 and told my parents I was staying with a girlfriend and told the girlfriend I was staying somewhere else. And I got everybody confused, and I went to the dance. And I had never even dated. I was as green as grass. So I paid the $2 and they stamped my little hand so that under the lights it showed that you had paid.

And I marched in with everybody else and I sort of hung around, watched what the other gals were doing in that. And after a little while, somebody asked me to dance, and I danced. And he asked me if I'd like a drink. Well, whatever was gonna go, I was gonna have. So I said, yes, I'd like a drink.

So we went out with, some of his friends and their their girlfriends or whatever, and we got down to the truck and he said, drink down to here. And I did, and that was the end of New Year's. I, I went into an immediate blackout. I missed the whole thing. When I came to the next morning, it was about 5 or 6 in the morning, and I was wandering around the West End of Vancouver here.

And I had vomited up all over myself and I had holes in my stockings and I was shivering and shaking and I thought, oh my god. I'll never do that again. And I didn't do it for a little while. Eventually, I moved to, to the island with my parents, and they introduced me to a, a young gal that was a neighbor and worked at the store, and they thought perhaps it'd be nice for me to have a friend. And they were nice kids, the friends that I met.

But they weren't alcoholic, and I was. I was an alcoholic before I took the drink, apparently. So it didn't take very long before, you know, we would go to a dance on Saturday night. Their thing was that you'd go in and have 2 beer and then go to the dance. This is before clubs, and this is when women drank on one side and the men drank on the other.

But the men could come into the ladies' side. Isn't that always the case? We're gonna change that. But, anyhow, it wasn't very long before I would hear people talking about me. Don't give her a drink because something happens.

She can't handle it. And I thought, why do they say things like that about me? Like I'm really very nice. 1 night, the door flew open in the beer parlor and this woman came in and she didn't have any teeth left. She looked she looked as scary as you can imagine.

Took my breath away and I said, who's that? And they said, don't have anything to do with her. That's Peggy. She's an alcoholic. That's the first time I heard the word alcoholic.

And 2 years later, Peggy was my best and only friend. I had gone through everybody. Gone through them all. And Peggy was a friend. She was a friend in the best sense that an alcoholic woman is a friend to another alcoholic woman even though you're still drinking and looking out for each other.

I remember when Peggy bought me an overcoat because it was winter and I didn't have one. And, and I love her and I wish she was here. I don't know whatever happened to her. I tried to 12 step her when I came in, but she wasn't ready for it. And I don't know whether she ever made it.

There was a couple of gals that that I drank with that I tried to 12 step after I came in, and I made a special trip over to the island to ask them to tell them what I'd found. And they both said individually as I called on them, that's wonderful for you because you're a real lush. But it's not for us. And this was when I was 23 years old. And I called on them in November.

And that New Year's Eve, one of them died in an armchair. She dropped a cigarette in. She was drunk. And by February, they took the other one out of the beer parlor in a straight jacket. And so you think why me?

Why me? How come I was so lucky to get here? Absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing. I drank away everything that I had.

I had a child, and I came close to losing her too. Fortunately, my mother looked after her, but there came a time when my mother heard about AA. Fabulous. Wonderful. She finally found out what was wrong with me.

I didn't know what was wrong with me. I had heard Peggy them say alcoholic about Peggy, but it didn't associate it with me. But my mother was listening to a radio broadcast 1 morning on a Sunday morning, and I had arrived home as usual 5 or 6 in the morning. I was passed out in the bedroom. And when I got up, she said, there is something called AA and it's in Vancouver, and it's for people like you.

And you know, I had wanted to quit drinking for a long time because I felt so full of remorse all the time. I felt full of remorse right from the beginning. I only felt full of let's have fun after about 5 or 6 drinks. But first thing in the morning, that was remorse. You know.

And so when she said that this thing in Vancouver would help people like me, I wanted it. I wanted it. So the next day, I I did what everybody does if they're alcoholic and they have to do something important. First of all, you get fronted up. So you look good on the outside because, you know, like, that's the important thing.

It's not what's in here. So I got myself all cleaned up, and I went downtown, and I bought a pair of stockings. And then I went in to have a couple beers and figure out how you got off the island. What you do is you go buy a ticket and you take a vote. But, of course, I was an alcoholic so I went in and seriously just trying to figure out how I was gonna make this trip.

She didn't have an AA number. She just and that's the fabulous thing, you know. Like it was such a small seed. She just said that it was called AA and it was to help people like me, and that was her whole message. I came to Vancouver after having a few fear apparently.

Don't even remember getting here. Checked into a hotel that is no longer here, the Devonshire. 4 days later, arrived back on the island with the receipt in my pocket so I knew I'd made the trip. And she was gone. She was gone.

Kindest thing she ever did for me in her life. You know, she used to cover the the checks when I wrote checks on her a bank account and she denied my alcoholism to people, but she never ever said no to me. And when I got home, of course, I didn't go home. I right away, the boat docked about 11 o'clock at night, and I went to Chinatown. Then I got home about 5 o'clock in the morning, and there was a letter in the mailbox.

My key wouldn't fit. And there was a letter in the mailbox with along with some other mail. There was a letter for my mother. And she said, why don't you try AA? It's doing wonderful things for other people.

Why don't you try it? You are no longer welcome at our home. The locks have been changed. Your clothes can be picked up at the neighbors', and I have taken your daughter to California. I cashed one of the checks that was in the mailbox, signed her name to it.

And it was probably enough money to get me off the island, but not enough money to live very long. I have no idea. I can't remember the amount. I checked into a hotel on Granville Street and, of course, I didn't pay for the room. I just checked in with my luggage and at the end of the week or so, the manager came up and he wanted some money.

And I said, I don't have any. And he said, well, I'll do you a favor. I'll keep your clothes. And, that's when I got introduced to the street. Now I have no idea how long I was on the street.

I think by the grace of God, he has maybe felt sorry for me, and I've missed out on a lot of the bad memories. But I was out there, and I was there quite some time. I was out there long enough that I kept gaining weight from the beer, getting fatter and fatter and fatter. I had no job. I only had the clothes I wore, which were a lilac colored sweater and a black skirt.

No coat. And as I got bigger and bigger and bigger, the brassiere finally gave up the ghost. And so when it gave up the ghost, probably some nice other a a alcoholic gal gave me a pen. I'm sure I didn't have the money to buy it. But I had a huge big pen, and it kept my brassiere together.

And my job on a daily basis was to hit the bars when they opened. Some of them opened at 8 in the morning, some 9, some 11. My job was to try and get myself to look good enough and then to work on my personality so that the bartender would buy the first drink and I could make that last until some other alcoholic came in with enough money for 2 beer, and he'd buy me one. And so, actually, it didn't work out too bad, except that as time went on, I guess I wasn't that great looking. And so I sometimes have to try and sit up straight and look sexy.

And and when I did, inevitably, that pin burst open and I got stabbed right in the back. God almighty, I try and keep smiling and do up the pan and make it make to the restroom. Oh, so when I finally got here, my back was full of scabs. And it took me a while to realize what it was from. I have a pin in my glasses tonight.

Does anybody need a pin? That's not done on purpose. I broke my glasses, but it is a good reminder for me. And I need lots of good reminders because I would love to tell you that I stayed because it was the greatest thing that I ever had in my life. And I thought I would never leave.

Why would you leave? But I stayed only 12 years. I didn't do the steps. In the beginning, I did. And I was so, a part of you.

There wasn't many women in AA in Vancouver then. I didn't realize it was so new. It was wonderful. Just fabulous. I just loved it.

But I just didn't grasp that it is a program of recovery inside. I just somehow was too brain damaged or whatever, not able to be honest. And so I I did the no problem with this first step and second step. No problem. I always believed in God, so no problem with the third step.

Except that I thought you just believe it in your heart, which I always have, and then you get you keep yourself looking nice. I came from a Protestant family. You know, you wear the white gloves to church and you look wonderful, and you're good. But, you know, it's what's inside. It doesn't matter what's on the outside, but I missed it.

So when they, suggested that I do the 4th step, I just couldn't and just couldn't say to anybody, I don't know how, or I'm afraid. Just impossible. So they said, have you done it yet? I guess I've I've done the 4th step. They said, well, you better make an appointment for doing this, 5th step.

I said, okay. So reverend Smith was the man that he did 5th steps with in those days in Vancouver. So god love him. I made an appointment with reverend Smith and, took all the 3 or 4 streetcars out there to his office, and I think I was in and out in about a minute and a half flat. He said I was wasting his time and that I needed to go back down and do the 4th step.

I came down to the club that was on Granville Street, the Atlanta Club. And I was I was the baby, you know, at that time in in AA here. And so everybody's waiting to to see what happened. You know? How'd she make out?

And, I came in and they said, how'd it go? And I said, terrific. Just terrific. And they said, see, we told you. And it was my loss, not their loss.

They didn't lose a thing. They were just loving me better the best way they could. It was my loss, and it was the beginning of my slipping back into AA. I did all the things that they suggest that you not do in the beginning. One of the thing I don't know whether what they tell you guys, but when they when I came in, they said you weren't emotional get involved emotionally with anybody.

You weren't to date anybody, not for the 1st 2 years. And dating or getting involved or keeping in touch touch with my friends was no problem because I didn't know where they were anyway. I mean, I didn't know them. They were just in the bar. And when I walked in, they said hi.

I didn't know they had a last name or a phone number and address. And, so, anyway, that was the beginning of the end. When I first came into AA, on the day I came in, I made a trip back to the island. I didn't have any money, you see. And I thought I wouldn't be able to make it in a a unless I had a room.

So I made a trip back to the island, gambled on the chance that perhaps my mother might be there, and she was. Smoke was coming under the chimney. It was wintertime. And I went around the back because I knew it wouldn't be welcome. And she came out and she had a big grin on her face, and then she saw me.

And she said, what in the world are you doing here? And I said, this I think is a miracle. I said, I joined AA. I hadn't even been to a meeting yet, but in my heart, I've remembered. You know?

I already knew that tradition. But I said, you know, I can't make it unless I have some money. And she said, I'll give you $50 on condition that you don't see your daughter for a year. And, that was the first thing that I had to do that was difficult. Very difficult.

Diff it's easy to not arrive home and not do your things that you're responsible for if you're drinking. But if you're sober, then it's difficult. But, you know, lots of people have things more difficult than I did. So I took the $50 and then I asked if I could say goodbye to her, and she said no. No.

The deal was that I would give you money and you would not see her for a year. $50 was not very much money then. It isn't today, but it was enough to get me back over to Vancouver and get me registered in the y. So I I money, I thought was the answer. I didn't grasp that the answer was spiritual.

And so I started looking around for what could possibly be enough money for me. I didn't do a Dun and Bradstreet, so I didn't do too well. Anyhow, I was introduced to this fellow outside the program of AA, and I was introduced to him as a member of AA. He was a member and I was a member. But I I wasn't talking to him very long, and I knew he wasn't a member.

I I didn't have very good AA myself, but I knew good AA. You know, I could hear it. And, but he had some money. Now what's important here? You know, it it wasn't enough money.

But I didn't know that. I didn't know anything. All I was was a sober person dry in AA. So my I have my daughter back by this time. I've done my year.

I've got Kathy back. I'm dating him, and I say to this girl who is 5 and a half years old, he wants to marry us. What do you think? And she said, I like horses. He had a ranch, and he had Arabian horses.

And, oh, I can't remember the cattle. I was never a rancher. So, anyway, I thought, well, that's it. I mean, I'm making her happy and I'm making me happy. We both get what we want, and so I married him.

And I moved out of the city up to the ranch. It's funny. You know? I think that good times or bad times, your your the experience is going to to contribute to good in the end. So one of my experiences there was that we had a cook on the ranch.

And after, a very short time, she said she was quitting. I'd only been there 2 or 3 weeks, and I was homesick for the city already. I mean, I 1st week or so was like a dude ranch, and it was fun. But after a while, I started to cry. God Almighty.

I think I was trapped there. I and, you know, I was starting to sink in when you get married. You do, dummy. I didn't know that. You know?

And so miss Cook said that she was leaving and, that she had fallen in love with one of the hired men. And I said, oh, you can't do that. And she said, oh, yes. I can, missus O'Keefe. And I said, no.

No. No. You don't understand. I can't cook. And she said, oh, missus O'Keefe, you don't understand.

You'll learn. And, oh my god, I just, just had a fit. Just had a fit. I had worked at the Vancouver Sun, in my early sobriety and quit when I got married. So I phoned the Vancouver Sun, Edith Adams cooking cottage.

I said it's an emergency. Send me everything you have. Just everything. And they sent me a box this big by this big. And I used to get up about 4 in the morning to figure out how to cook the breakfast for these cowboys and stuff.

You know, it's right in the middle of hazing season. He said that if I didn't like it, that at the end of the year, we would leave. And I believed him, and that's how sick I was. So I started to pray. Now I haven't, you know, done any 4 steps or 5th steps or anything.

I was still in no land, you know, but I did start to pray on a regular basis. I never missed a night. I said, please, God, I have made a terrible mistake. Please get me out of here. Let him die.

Let me die. Let him fall in love with somebody else, but I've got to get out of here. And at the end of 3 years, they built a dam, you know, for water, hydro, and they had to buy our property. And my husband who didn't believe in prayer, who had quit drinking on his own without AA and didn't believe in God, here, he's being removed in spite of himself. And I said, there, that's the power of prayer.

You know? We came down to Vancouver and we lived in Vancouver for some time, and I had been away from meetings for so long that I didn't join a group, and I didn't come to AA on a regular basis. I have no idea when I quit coming to AA. If anybody had told me on the way out, the last meeting I was at, that when I came back, I would have been drunk. And for a long time, I would not have believed them because I loved AA and I didn't wanna leave AA, and yet I wasn't here as we need to be a 100%.

My husband went back to drinking. He had 17 years sober when he went back, and he lasted a couple months and he shot himself. And, by this time, I had more family. And I always thought that if only I could be on my own, it would be okay. It'd be wonderful because, of course, the marriage was not happy.

You know, it wasn't a good marriage. What did I brought to it? Teeny bopper. You know? I was 23 when I came in going on 12 years old.

And what did he brought? Some money. So there wasn't much to base the marriage on. But, you know, when he died, it never occurred to me that now get back into AA. I started drinking 8 months after he died.

I didn't drink because I was mourning a great loss. I drank because I didn't go to AA and work the program. In order to receive, I have to give. And in order to give, I have to keep receiving. And I had quit doing that a long time before.

So anyhow, I I went to a banquet down in Bayshoring with my in laws. And if anybody had told me you're not even gonna leave here with them, I wouldn't have believed that. I didn't wanna go to the banquet. It was a and it was a formal thing, and I was all dressed up and just, you know, I was just I was in depression. You know, I didn't wanna go, but they wanted me to come.

So I went to this banquet. And, after the banquet, you know, they have the round tables, you know, 10 people at a table sort of thing. And my brother-in-law asked me if I'd like to dance. And I said, no, Art. I think I'll just sit here.

I had no idea how close I was to a drink. No idea at all. I said, no. I think I'll just sit here, Art. And he said, okay.

And he got up and left and went to visit some of his cronies, and everybody at our table got up, and there was drinks on the table. And, you know, I listened to that music. They played some of the numbers that I used to sing to, and all of a sudden I felt so sorry for Angie. I thought my god. I was just a kid.

I was only 23, and I never had any fun. And just like, you know, just just like that, I just reached out and thought, to hell of it. And I polished off all the drinks that were on the table. And by the time that they got back from their dancing, I guess I guess it's true. I changed drastically.

My my brother-in-law had never seen me, drinking. I was sober 3 years before I I married his brother. But he looked at me in shock and said, my god, Angela, what have you done? And I said, it's okay, Art. I can handle it.

And then I spied a good looking dude. And he's about 5 years younger than me, and I just thought like there's there's God bringing in something. You know? You know how we experience these things in AA meetings sometimes? We go to AA and we say that there's God's gift.

You know? Poor old God. He hasn't got anything to do with it. He hasn't even met you yet. You know?

So I drank for for the rest of that night and part of the next day. And then I did what I guess people do if they wanna keep drinking. I was sobbing and crying. I realized, my god, I had 12 years and it's all gone. But instead of phoning AA, I phoned somebody that used to work with me at the Vancouver Sun, and she drank.

And I went to see her and I told her my sad tale of woe, and she said, honey, you were never an alcoholic. You were just a kid. Now I wanna tell you, alcoholics don't end up living on the street Have with their brassiere's pinned together. I mean, social drinkers don't, you know. Like, if the alcoholics do that, not social drinkers.

There was no question I was an alcoholic. The thing was that I didn't work the program. That's all. Very simple, you know. I drank for 8 years before I got back.

The only difference was that I was healthy. I'd had 12 years to get real healthy. And I had some clothes. I wasn't down to 1 sweater and 1 skirt. And nothing else had changed.

I tried to control the drinking. I tried not having it in the house. I tried not not drinking before. I tried. I tried.

I tried. And it didn't last very long, this trying, until I was right back up to my eyeballs in it. It got so that I drank on the way to the bathroom, and I drank on the way back to from the bathroom. I don't know if anybody else can identify with that, but nowadays, if I get up at 2 in the morning to go to the bathroom, I just go to the bathroom. But then for some reason or other, I would wake up and say I have to go to the bathroom and my head would say and get a get a drink on the way back.

Wine. I had wine in the fridge. You know, it's cold. You know? Anyhow, it reached the point where I was drinking, beer in the morning to to cool my stomach and vodka with milk and the whole bottle of wax.

And, I don't think that I ever would have come back because I didn't know how I was going to be able to sober up without a drink. And I don't think that I ever would have come back if it hadn't been for prayer. I took, I worked at the, the Ritz Hotel, which is was right across the street here. And my daughter had moved to Campbell River to get away from me. She used to move in and out periodically.

So she had moved up to Campbell River to get away from me, and the boys, my other two sons, wanted to go to visit her. And I knew that she wouldn't allow me to take them to where she was unless I was sober. So I drove up there for for the first time in 8 years or almost 8 years. I didn't have a drink for 2 days. And my, my nerves and my arms were just screaming.

I was just so fried from not having a drink. My son wanted to stay behind the 16 year old, and I was glad he did because I just wanted to to leave there at the end of 2 days with all my excuses of why I had to and check into a hotel in Nanaimo so I could get a drink, so I could drive the car on the ferry because I I couldn't do it. What I didn't realize is that my older son wanted to stay behind so that he could talk to my daughter. And he said, do you think she's ever gonna sober up? And Kathy said, no.

I don't think so. She said, I went to AA and they told me just get off her back. If she's gonna die, she'll die quicker. And if she's going to get back to AA, she'll get back quicker. Because they were trying to monitor my drinking all the time.

And, he said, do you think that we could try prayer? I find that absolutely amazing that a kid that has had an alcoholic drinking mother from 7 and a half to 16 could possibly think of maybe prayer helping. And she said that she was deeply shamed because she had read the big book, and she thought she had turned her life over, and it never occurred to her to pray. But they started praying, and within 2 or 3 weeks, I was I was back here. I was just as flabbergasted to find myself back as when I left.

I, I'm flabbergasted to this day. I I never take my sobriety for granted. I'm aware at the strangest times that here I am in a room and the all these women are alcoholics and they're members of AA. Here I am walking along the street and I'm sober. They expect me to get to work and I arrive.

Never used to arrive. So I came back into AA. On the night I came back into AA, I, I went to 2 meetings. I went to a first meeting. And you know how it is, like, one moment you're drinking and that's what you wanna do.

Next minute you're sober and you want AA. Like, all of a sudden, you know how sick you are. So I went to this first meeting and then I wanted to go to another meeting. And I heard there was one at midnight. And the person that had picked me up to take me to the first meeting said, do you wanna go home?

Oh, I didn't wanna be alone. I was afraid I would drink. I didn't know anything, but I knew that I didn't know how to say no. And that I was only safe in the arms of AA. So I said, no.

I don't wanna go home. So he said, well, he was going to the club. So I went to the club, and I just watched that clock waiting for midnight to come along. And, around 11:30, I asked if if anybody else wanted to come with me and nobody else did. And when I started walking down the stairs of the club, I started talking to myself.

God started to talk to me. Correction. But maybe this is necessary for you. Maybe you need to walk down these stairs all by yourself while everybody sits up there. Like, just remember all this.

You know? And so I went down, took the bus. I got to the other meeting, and I remember thinking, I'm really sicker than I thought, and I better excuse myself. Now I don't know whether I said it out loud or whether I just thought it. But the next thing I heard them calling for an ambulance.

And I opened my eyes to see who they were calling it for, and it was for me. And I was lying on the street of Broadway, and there was somebody standing looking at me. And I knew instinctively he was a member of AA because all the pain and everything was on his face for another alcoholic. And I asked God, please let me live long enough to pay back what I received the first time. And, I've been here 19 years.

I didn't do that for you to clap just to give me time to not cry because I always get emotional. There is you know, the one of the things about coming back into AA after you have been here the first time, there is absolutely nothing new that they can tell you. Absolutely nothing new. The book has not been changed. Thank God.

It is still the same. The traditions are still the same. And so while there was nothing new they could tell me, there was all those things that they'd asked me to do the first time that I hadn't done then. And that was necessary for my growth and my sobriety to start doing them now. They used to have a little, thing at one of those just for today things.

I'm gonna mention this because I had a phone call last Sunday from a lady who I haven't met yet, but she said she heard me speak years years years ago. And I mentioned this story, And she said it helped her son. So Elizabeth, if you're here, I cut I one of my youngest son was 7 and a half years old. So I cut up the, just for today in little strips, and I folded them and I put them in the glass jar. And every morning, I picked 1, and my son Michael picked 1.

And I would read it out and explain what I was supposed to do work wise for me for the day till I got to a meeting, and then I would help him read out his and explain his. And he never remembered his, but he always remembered mine. And when I'd be whining and sniveling and crying and you're up and down like a toilet suit, he he'd say, weren't you supposed to be trying to be happy today? You know? Now Michael has a year sobriety today.

My daughter, Kathy, has 10 years. And all I did was bring the body. You know, bring the body and the mind will follow and and do service for me. I mean, that's what I have to do. Not not service service, but service reaching out with your heart.

Go to the airport. These are fabulous women that are coming into our city. I just just felt so good and so prepared by their love today. I don't get to enough meetings today, and that is, not my choice. But, but by God's design, I guess.

And, I work on a ship. About 8 years ago, 8 years ago, May May 1st this May 1st, I was lying in bed one night talking to God. God's been fabulous to me. I mean, whatever you do, use it. It's like having the keys to port knots and not using it if you if you don't use it.

But God is within us all. And you just ask and he keeps directing you like he may say no sometimes, you know, but you always get the direction. So I've had an eye operation, and, I don't have money. I have money for today, and that's all that's necessary. So I was lying in bed, and I knew I should be looking for a new job because my job had dissolved.

And I said to god, I guess I might as well be honest with you because there's no sense of me being phony because you always know what I'm thinking about. So what I wanna do is live on the waterfront. And and it doesn't have to be palatial. I mean, like, first time in AA, it had to be palatial. It doesn't have it can be just a little shack and all painted up.

I'll fix it up and everything. You know? And 3 days later, I got a call. And this man said that his name was Captain Young, and he was from the motor vessel Uchuck 3. And how would I like to go to work for him?

And, you know, like, I know God works, but I am always so stunned. That I always say, and I had had this eye operation and I said, well, I I'm not allowed to work till May 1st. I've had this eye operation. He said that's exactly the day we want you, 1st May. So that was 8 years ago.

It's a freighter. It services the west coast of Vancouver Island, all the logging camps. And I was on and they said I had to know how to make Nanaimo bars. And I had made all the bars in Nanaimo. And then I had them know how to make clam chowder.

The only time I ever had clam chowder in my life was the morning that poor old man and his dog found me down in West Point, gray down here in Vancouver. But my son's boyfriend knew how to make Nanaimo bars, and he said no problem. He'd teach me. And it was a difficult thing for him really because, you know, what you're dealing with here is somebody that doesn't know how to cook still. And he said to me, missus O'Keefe, you're not getting it because they'd all crumble and fall apart.

And I sponsored somebody that had an excellent recipe for clam chowder. And so I literally, multiplied the cups and cups and cups and cups so it got to what what you'd need for a ship. And the 3rd person that cooked was god. Now I don't mean that to be disrespectful, but I know that he works. And the guys on the ship know it.

If passengers come up and ask me what goes what I put in the soup and they happen to be in there in the mess hall, they sit there just giggling because they know that I've never made the same soup twice. I just say, like, what do I put in it? You know, to God. And sometimes he says, try this. Try that.