The Sacramento Spring Fling in Sacramento, CA

Good morning. My name is Mary Anne White and I'm an alcoholic. Good morning, Mary. Date of my last drink because in Texas, we do give our sobriety date. The date of we say in Texas, if you don't give your sobriety date, it's probably because you don't have one.

The date of my last drink is September 2, 1970 7, and for that I am extremely grateful. My home group sends its very best to you. My home group is the early morning fellowship of men and women. We meet on Mondays Fridays at 6:30 in the morning. We are a big book study.

In the very beginning, we were doing, paragraph at a time, and then we began to get new people in the room, and we decided we would slow it down. And in my home in my home group, we now read the big book one sentence at a time. And it's amazing when you take the book that slowly, how it changes. You're gonna hear a lot about that book from me because that book is my lifeline. That book is my resource.

That book is my answer to all my living problems, not just my alcoholism. I would like to thank everybody that's had anything to do with this conference. I mean, I think don't think we've done it, but let's give everybody a round of applause. I'm blessed. The other round of applause I'd like to give is to Walt and Mary, the tapers.

Thank you so much. You know, it truly is amazing. I have some absolutely wonderful news for you. It is a grand and glorious day. This is a wonderful conference, and the wonderful news is this.

Well, I have good news, bad news. The good news is that Alcoholics Anonymous works. The bad news is it takes a long, long time. It was explained to me that sobering up and staying sober in Alcoholics Anonymous is like being kicked to death by rabbits. I would like to thank my wonderful friend my speaker friends.

You know, I sat here last night and I listened to Wayne. And the reason I listened to Wayne was this, and this is the different about me today. There is a quality that God has given me through you people, and it's called fidelity. I've heard Wayne many, many times, but I am a friend of Wayne's. And I sat here last night because I am a faithful member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have a friend, and I know what it is to be a friend.

It is the same way with Bob. Bob and Wayne and I, end up at a lot of the same conferences and, you know, put a blonde wig on Wayne, he can tell my story. You don't have to put a blonde wig on Bob, but he could tell my story anyway. And you know, you I would like to tell you that we both have we are all 3 of us have a lot of the same amount of sobriety, about 20, 22 years. And and when you have 22 years, you think, oh my God, we are really, really mature people.

We know how to handle things. We have we have grown up emotionally. You know, we're not those immature little kids. If you would have seen us Friday night, probably some of some of you did, sitting over there. You and and your chairman Barbara, your wonderful chairman Barbara, we almost got into a fight.

Glenda, we almost we're almost rolling around on the floor. Mark is involved in this and you know what it's over? Seats. Wayne was going to go home. I was egging Wayne on Mark is kinda new to this and he was just kind of appalled by the whole situation.

Bob is up here at the podium. He doesn't know what's going on so I have to inform him. I'm running up here saying, now Bob, when you talk be sure you look over here at us. I mean, I need a lot more meetings is what I need. I don't know how many of you have ever had the privilege of going to an international conference.

There's one coming up this summer. Save your panties. Go. The very first conference I ever went to was New Orleans, Louisiana. It was 1980, and Anne and I were roommates in this.

And, I mean, we were just it was just wonderful and it was exciting. And there was the mayor and he was giving he was giving up a press conference and there was this real pesky reporter and this pesky reporter had this had this microphone in the mayor's face and he was asking him all kinds of inane questions, you know, like how are we gonna feed all these members of Alcoholics Anonymous? After we sober up, we turn into really good leaders. And how are we gonna feed all these members of Alcoholics Anonymous? And how are we gonna move all these people around?

And then he asked the mayor this one last question. He stuck the microphone in the mayor's face and he said, and, mayor, let me ask you one thing. Do you think Alcoholics Anonymous works? And the mayor reared back and he looked down at this reporter and he said, son, this town is in big trouble if it doesn't. I'm gonna share with you in a not so general way what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like today.

In other parts of the country, that is misquoted. I sit there and they just the hair on the back of my neck stands up because they talk about what it was like, what happened, and what it's like today. Well, that's not what the book says because it is the same as it's always been. It is life, and it is gonna eat my lunch. It's gonna win.

It doesn't make any difference. It's what I was like, and I was the kind of woman you know, we've had some rip roaring drinkers out there. They've been talking. And Robin with her story, you know, I'm I'm the alcoholic housewife. I'm the I'm the little old lady who sat at home and drank by herself and did everything she thought she was supposed to do and just got meaner and drunker and nastier as the time went by.

What I wanted to be, they I was always referred to as she's been drinking. She's been drinking. What I wanted to be, you know, what I willingness. Will it's talked about willingness is the key. Well, willingness without action is fantasy, and I had that early on.

I was willing to do a whole lot of things, but I never could do anything. I wanted I wanted to be able to express myself. I wanted to be able to when my husband and I got into an argument or a fight, I wanted to be able to let him know exactly how I felt. And what happened was this, I'd get drunk and I'd start to talk and I'd start to cry, and it was lose all my effectiveness. What I wanted to be like was a woman about I heard the other day.

She worked at the airlines, you know, on the counter, and it was one of those days at the airlines where they were having back ups for bad weather, and you know how that happens. It's a domino effect. And everybody was queued up at the counter wanting to get on this flight, wanting to get on that flight. At one point, there was a man who jumped the line and he's up there and he probably was an alcoholic. He's pounding on the counter.

He says to her, do you know who I am? And with that, she doesn't miss a beat. She reaches over, she grabs the microphone that goes out through the whole airport and she says I have a little lost man here. He doesn't know who he is. Now that's my kind of woman.

Now this man, and I why I know he was an alcoholic because he would not shut up. He finally got up at the counter and he looked at her and he said, screw you, lady. And she said, you'll have to get in line for that also. Now that's what I wanted to do, and I never could do it. I am part of what you're seeing a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous, a second generation member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

My father sobered up in Alcoholics Anonymous. My father died a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I made that connection with him from the very beginning. If a little bit is good, a lot's better. Always, I can use a 4 month supply in 3 days. I don't care what it is.

It's gone. I, promised my mother I would never drink. Promised my mother I would never drink. My mother was the untreated alanone. And, I knew nothing about the disease of alcoholism, but I was soon to learn.

You're gonna hear also in this book, you're also gonna hear from me about the directions. You know, we in Alcoholics Anonymous are so prone to stand up here and talk to you in such vague general ways. I'm gonna tell you some specific, exact, precise things I do as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous today. One of the things I do is I in Texas, they say 5 things. Now I sobered up in Pennsylvania and we say 12 things, the 12 steps, but in Texas, they say you do 5 basic things.

You get down on your knees in the morning and you ask God for a sober day. You ask God to keep you sober. Then you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, if you can. You read some Alcoholics Anonymous literature. You make a sober contact and if you have done that and you have not taken a drink when you get down on your when the day is over at night, you get down on your knees and you say thank you.

Now I believe there is a lot more to do. And so consequently, what I do is I do those things, but I also when I get out in the morning, I say the 3rd step prayer. It's crucial that I say that every morning. And the other thing in the book, it talks about on awakening. It doesn't say on the way to work.

It doesn't say on the way to school. It doesn't say when I'm having my 3rd cup of coffee. It says on awakening. And so I try to do that and then I read in the grapevine. I also also say the 7 step prayer, and I say it exactly as it's outlined in the big book.

And then I read in the grape vine where a gentleman felt that he had to name the character defect that he and God were working on at that time. And so I I say it exactly as it's in the book, and then I say it with self pity and self loathing, and then I say it with jealousy and coveting. Jealousy is the first emotion that I remember feeling, and I was 4 years old when I felt the feeling of jealousy. The big book Alcoholics Anonymous talks about jealousy, that most terrible of all human emotions. So I say jealousy and coveting, and then I kinda lump it all together.

I say greed, and gluttony, and sloth, and pride. And this one I added at the insistence of my sponsor, vanity. I, I had my big book open and we were looking at it earlier and me and my group we do the we do the the stories. And in the stories, those golden years, there's a line in there and it says the, the the necessity to hold up a facade had been irksome. Now when I get to read the sentence my my comment is no shit.

I spend a lot of time working on how I look. That is just a terrible character defect. And my sponsor said, as a result of that, we're gonna do a little program stuff to try to work on this vanity. And she said, I want you to incorporate that in your prayers. And I said, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Alright. So I did. Now I'm gonna tell you, be very, very careful what you pray for.

One morning after I had been out walking one morning and saying my prayers, I came back and I took a shower and it was one of those days. And the only way I can explain it, it was a good hair day. And everything went into and everything went into place exactly the way it was supposed to. And my makeup went on beautifully and it was just, you know, and I I got this dress and I got to wear this dress that I'd waited for that it was gonna go on sale and I finally got this dress and for you men, you you know, it's a shotgun or a hunting dog or a fishing boat or anything that you wanted badly. Well, I got this dress and it was gorgeous and was silk and it had an a line skirt.

That's the only way I can explain it. Gorgeous silk dress. And I've said my prayer about about vanity and I get myself all dressed up and I'm looking in the mirror and I thought, you know, not too shabby. Not too shabby. And I said to myself, God, Mary Anne, you have just prayed a prayer about vanity and you're just now thinking these things.

And what happened was I dismissed that thought. That was this person who sits who Steve was so graphic and so wonderful. This is a person who sits right here on my left hand shoulder, and it's called my alcoholism. And he tells me all kinds of things, he or she, whatever you wanna call it. They tell me I don't have to go to meetings.

They tell me I don't have to read the book. They tell me I don't have to pray, all the things. This person is telling me all this stuff, and Ed and Anne and I sobered up with this woman by the name of Liz. And Liz, the only fascinated with Liz. I remember I'd sit next to Liz and I'd look down at her hands and I think oh my God where she's had those hands.

And I thought I wonder if she'll teach me what she does with those hands. I just was fascinated by Liz and Liz was the one who always talked about her alcoholism being here on her left shoulder. And she said I had to give my alcoholism a name and I said, oh. I said, what is your alcoholism's name? And she said, it's that motherfucker Leroy.

So Leroy was talking to me that morning and he was telling me that I didn't have to worry about vanity. The prayers really didn't count and I went on about my day. Now you know I'm headed for trouble right now. So I'm going to my meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and it's a grand and glorious meeting and I just love it. It's I there are no such thing as a bad meeting.

There are some are better than others, but it was a noon meeting and I went to the meeting and I came out and I went to the bathroom and visited with my friends and then about I went about my day. And I went about Corpus Christi, Texas and I went in and out of 2 shopping malls and I'm going to the post office and I'm going to the cleaners and I had lunch and I'm just busy, busy, busy. You know what kind of woman I am I'm just running around town. And what happened was this, I began to have a sense about me that I was getting a lot of attention much more than I had ever gotten before. And the attention went along this line, there were men digging in the street and they stopped digging and they're leaning on their shovels and they're poking one another and they're pointing at me.

And I stand up a little straighter and I think, you know what, I think I'll walk a little further tomorrow. This walking is really paying off. And then there are 2 young men, 2 young boys riding a bicycle and they almost have a wreck. I mean, they almost run into each other and they get off and they're whispering in each other's ear and pointing at me and I thought you know those young men have good taste. They will probably marry women who preserve themselves well.

And I'm going to a mall and there's a young man almost as good looking as Mark, and he's walking and he's turning around and he almost runs into a post that he's staring at me. And I thought, oh, I hope his wife takes good care of herself. And this is just going on feeding this ego and this ego. And I go into a little shop and I meet a friend of mine. And she said to me, what is wrong with your skirt?

And I said, what do you mean what's wrong with my skirt? And what had happened is some 4 hours earlier when I had gone to the bathroom, I had tucked the bottom of my skirt into the top of my panty hose, and I had been mooning half of Corpus Christi for 4 hours. Now, I watch your face when I tell that story and I was at this tiny little conference and there was this woman and she was just appalled that I told this story. I mean, appalled. And she came up to me later and she goes, I am so glad you had on underpants.

And I said, I didn't have on any underpants. You know what? 23 years ago, I would have died if that would have happened to me and that is my rule 62 story. I couldn't wait to come to Alcoholics Anonymous and tell the story. That's the difference.

That's the work that you all have done with me. It is unbelievable. I'm going to one of the things in in one of our literature that I was reading this morning or yesterday, it talked about that there was 4 years before a woman ever got, and I love the fact that they used this line, permanent sobriety. And what happened, I believe, was this, that there are a lot of, there are a lot of stories. There are a lot of movies.

There are a lot of pictures. There are a lot of pictures made about drunken men. There are not a lot made about drunken women. You don't see many pictures of mothers sitting down, drunken mothers sitting down with little children gathered around their ankles. In January of 1997, my husband said, I am not, going to have a lush for a wife.

That's not a very pretty word, is it? Lush, drunk. I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I said, oh, I would get high, I would get tipsy, I would have too much to drink. And they said, no, Marianne. You got drunk.

You got drunk. I had my first drink, when I was about 19 years old and it turned out to be tequila. It looks like this is a tequila run tonight. And it was one of those things where young people got together, and it's important that that we remember. Most alcoholics can remember their first drink.

Nonalcoholics can't. We got together and we pooled our money, and it was exciting. And I took this I took the the salt and I took the lemon, and I took the drink. And what happened to me was everything smoothed out, that I had been that restless, irritable child. I had been so untreated Al Anon, and she talked about that she had had many abortions before she had me and so that led into that feeling of that Steve talked about so beautifully of not being worthy of something being horribly wrong with me.

And that that desire, it was a desire and a need and a necessity for me to keep secrets. It was a necessity for me not to let you know what was going on inside of me. I swear to God as my witness, I believe it's genetic. I believe I was born that way. And so once I got that drink in me, what I happened to me was I let the tiger loose.

The tiger came out of the cage. And I began a career, and I'm not gonna spend much time talking about the drinking. I began a career that got me to Alcoholics Anonymous. It started with that simple drink of tequila, and then it progressed to where my husband and I would have one drink before dinner. It was just so simple and just so innocent.

One of the things that really, really affected me when I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous is I heard stories like Wayne, and I heard stories like Bob. And, you know, where that they lost everything, and they end up in jail, and they wrecked cars, and they lose families, and, you know, like Kleenex. It's just like they're gone. They're awesome. But that didn't happen to me.

You know, I did not lose a fam. I did not lose a husband. I did not wreck a car. I did not lose a job. And the reason be because why I didn't have that is because women like society, well intentioned people, they'll slide in a pillow.

Society, well intentioned people, they'll slide in a pillow just before we hit the bottom. And what happened to me as my drinking progressed? I have the disease of alcoholism, and now I be ended up drinking. My career spanned it from 19 till 19 years later. I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was drinking around the clock.

Now I don't look like a woman who has been drinking around the clock, and that's also for you new people. It is hard to that's why we tell you these war stories. That's why we tell you what we were like. That's why how much we drank so that you will see the transformation. And I love the words.

You know, the words in Alcoholics Anonymous, we use and abuse them so much. We use words like miracle. We use words like trans transformation. We use words like reborn, like they're nothing, Like they're nothing. How many times have you been in a meeting in your ear or been in at a meeting where somebody standing up at the podium and they say, I drank and I drank and I drank and I drank.

And then, here's the phrase that you listen for: and then, and then. What is that and then, but a miracle? It takes all kinds of shapes and forms and faces, but it is a miracle. It is a power greater than our self. And I'm gonna talk about God.

And if that offends you and you still sit in the chair while I finish my talk, Good for you. You're getting better. You are getting better. You know, members of Alcoholics Anonymous before we get in here, if we don't like it, we're out of here. We're out of the door.

We don't we don't stick around for this kind of thing. When our a 15 minute speaker was talking about her daughter, that was the thing that just started it. I have 2 children, and I have a grown daughter and I have a grown son. And I swore when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous I had not hurt them. And God is very kind and very merciful because he doesn't allow us to see the damage that we've done until he readies us to see the reality of it.

When my son was 13 years old and my daughter was 15, we were living in Bethesda, Maryland. And my husband and I were having one of those fights. You know how those fights go? And it had to do with my drinking. And I was losing the fight, and you know how we have to turn the tide of battle?

Well, I had to do something to somehow or another turn this tide of battle, and I was losing it. And we lived in a contemporary home that had 3 or 4 flights up probably 7 steps. And I'm standing there thinking, okay. What I'm gonna do is throw myself down this small flight of stairs and not hurt myself too badly and that will that will stop the argument. I mean, my husband will be very concerned and he'll come running down and help me.

And so I figured out how I was gonna do this and I threw myself down those 7 steps. And at that point, my 13 those 7 steps. And at that point, my 13 year old son came out of the bedroom, and my 15 year old daughter came out of the bedroom. And the 13 year old boy at that most vulnerable of all times in his growth, Sociologists, society, therapists will tell you that is the crucial time in a young child's life. At 13 years old, tears are streaming down his cheeks, and he looks at me and he says, stop it.

Stop it. He doesn't know what he's just seen. He doesn't know if he's seen his father push his mother down the steps. He doesn't know if his drunken mother has fallen down the stairs one more time. You know what I did that night?

I stole. I stole from him. I stole his innocence. I stole his trust. I don't care if I'm sober 500 years.

I don't care if I go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous for all those 500 years. I don't care if I make amends on a daily basis to him. I don't care. I will never be able in my heart of hearts to make up to that young man what I did to him. So I'm drinking around the clock.

You know, I did all kinds of things. When I came into AA, I heard insanity, and I thought, well, what that means is bizarre behavior. And so I would go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ran and Edward and I'd talk about all the crazy things I did when I was drunk, and I was sure that that's what they meant about the insanity. What happened to me is my husband began to figure out probably that there was some kind of problem, And he was a drinker, so if he drank, then he was my cover. So it never dawned on me that I should wait till he got home.

By this time, I'm drinking around the clock and carrying it in my purse and swilling it out of bottles. You know, all just a lovely sight. It was just not very pretty. And so he's what he would do, he would come home and administer a seemingly a very passionate kiss, but it turned out to be a sniff kiss. And I remember thinking somehow he would kiss me and try to see if he could figure out if I had been drinking.

And I thought I have to somehow or another foil this. Well, it never dawned on me to wait till he came home to drink. And so what I would do, one day I was standing at the kitchen sink and I was eating peanut butter. And I remember thinking, you know, peanut butter has this real pungent aroma. It kinda wafts through through the room.

So what I did was that night when he came home, I saw his car pull in the driveway. I took peanut butter and stuffed it up both my nostrils because I didn't wanna eat it. And consequently when he kissed me all he smelled was peanut butter. Now the rest of the story is I darn near died choked because I couldn't take a breath. I would come to AA and I would tell that story and the old timers would kinda roll their heads and they would tell me to keep coming back.

The insanity of the disease is that I kept drinking alcohol, getting into terrible trouble, and not realizing making the connection between the drinking and the trouble. In 1977, I am drinking around the clock. My kids are going to school school and my husband's on a long business trip, and I am feeling sorry for myself like you wouldn't believe. Oh, it's horrible. Oh, it was horrible.

So sorry for myself. We've moved all around the country that I blamed my husband. I'd been 15 when I was married, 15 when I was pregnant, had these 2 kids, this 15 when I was pregnant, had these 2 kids, this husband who didn't love me, this husband who didn't understand me, moved all didn't get to didn't on and on and on. All the things, all the litany. Whatever your litany was, I had one too.

I drank on it. And I love to listen to the record, and that'll date me right now. Peggy Lee because it's is that all there is? Oh, I love to do that, to drink and listen to that kind of music. And what happened is I, I went into the bathroom and I got that moment of clarity that I pray each one sitting in this room had gotten because I looked in the mirror and I saw myself as I really was for the first time in my whole life.

And I uttered what I believe is the true prayer of Alcoholics Anonymous. I said, God help me. God help me. We are. I was arrogant enough to say that was the truest prayer I have ever uttered in my whole life.

That that was probably what got me to Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't have a clue. Most likely it was the prayers of my family members. No. Most likely it was the prayer of clergy.

Most likely it was when we sit at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and we say, we'll have a moment of silence for the alcoholics who are still sick and suffering and their families. One of the things that I've learned to do in Alcoholics Anonymous is I put my money where my mouth is. If I tell you I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. And, oh, after I began to talk about that, somebody I said, you know, I'm gonna start praying for for people who have loved ones that are still drinking, and I'm gonna name them. And so what I've done is I have a list, and my list goes like this.

It's Chris and Steve and it's Dave, and it's Margaret, and it's Ben, and it's Corey, and it's Thelma, and it's Lark. On and on and on every day. So I see myself as I am and I asked God to help me. And what happened is that God at that moment, I believe, swooped down and said she's had enough. Now what happened is not anything that I thought I liked in life.

What happened is I've been going in and out of blackouts and my daughter comes up to me one day and she said to me, mom, what's wrong with you? And I said, I am an alcoholic. And she gets me to a doctor and she the doctor thank God there was a good doctor who did not believe in medication. He said, I can't help your mom, but I know somebody who can, and he got me to a counselor. And this is all happening in one day, and I go into this woman drunk.

And I remember going in and looking at my shoes, and I said she said to me, what's the matter? And I said, I'm an alcoholic. And then I looked at my shoes because I was ready for the lecture. And you know what the lecture always consisted of? Get a job, change a job, get more exercise, read this book, on and on and on.

And it always ended like this for me, and why don't you drink like a lady? And she said the 3 most beautiful words that I have ever heard in my whole life. She said to me, so am I. So am I. And my eyes came off of my shoes and I began to check her out in a and I don't mean what I did was I looked at her from the bottom up, and you know what got me?

Were her eyes. She looked at me. Her eyes were bright and they were shiny and they were clear, and what she did, she began to do exactly as the books said she matched me story for story, inconsistency for inconsistency. And she talked to me about Alcoholics Anonymous, and she said, can you not drink anymore? And we'll go to a meeting tonight.

And I said, well, sure. I cannot drink anymore, not knowing anything about the phenomenon of craving. And that night, when it was time to go to the meeting, I said to my daughter, no. I can do this by myself. And the next morning I had to go an ambulance to Saint Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Darkest day of my life, but it was really the brightest. It was the 9th floor of Saint Francis Hospital, and it's it's where they mix the crazy people and the alcohol. And I what I remember is I knew who was an alcoholic and I knew who was nuts. It was just real simple and it's very much like a friend of mine who takes a meeting like that into a takes an AA meeting into a facility like that in Texas. And he goes up to the nurse and he says to the nurse, I'm a member of AA, we're gonna have an AA meeting here.

Sort out the alcoholics. Sort out the crazy people. And you know what she does? She never looks at any chart. She never does anything.

She moves this man. She moves this woman. It's just amazing. Well, he was fascinated by this. And he finally said, how do you know who's an alcoholic and how do you know who's crazy?

And she said, it's very simple. She said, the the crazy people sit there very quietly. The alcoholics are always up at the desk telling us how to run this place. And I knew that very night that I had come home to Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't have a clue what was gonna have to happen.

I went to my first meeting of AA and there was a man telling his story like I'm telling mine and he had stabbed his wife and I thought, oh my god, I'm in with drug addicts and murderers. I mean, and I fainted at my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous when hope was born. What happened to me was this, I am I am part of a group of women and men, primarily women that come into Alcoholics Anonymous and we don't look too bad when we come into AA And we've not lost everything. And what happened to me, I got 12 step by a neighbor, and she had been told that there was a woman who needed Alcoholics Anonymous. And there again, she came to my house.

I did not call her. She came to my house, and she said, would you like to go to a meeting of AA after I'd been detoxed and signed out AMA? I said, sure. So I went to the Fox Chapel Group, fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous, just fell in love with it. They said home group, or they said sponsor.

It's exactly what I did. I got a home group, and I got a sponsor. And I just tiptoed through the raindrops. Went to conferences and conferences and just bought cookies and made coffee and did all this and saw the steps on those window shades and thought not for me. I have a slight case of alcoholism.

It's like being pre pregnant. You know, I had had a vaccine. My dad was a member of AA, so I probably don't have as serious a case as you do. And so I'm not gonna work those steps. I and I also remember thinking I'll stay around AA for about a year till I get the heat off.

I'll learn how not to drink, and then I'm out of here. I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna stay around with you people. I've got too much to do. And what happened was this.

At 17 months sober, my husband called me into the kitchen and he said to me, Mary Anne, it's not that I don't love you. It's that I can't live with you any longer. And here it was. Here it was. Whatever it was for you, whatever it is going to be for you, I pray that you can see it as the greatest blessing that has ever happened in your whole life.

I thought, oh my God, he wants a divorce. I have been married to this man since I have been 15 years old. It's Tuesday night and it's the Fox chapel meeting and that's my home group and I come from the brand of sobriety that if it's your home group night you better be there. And I got all dressed up and I went to my home group and I walked in and they said to me, Mary Anne how are you? And I said, I'm fine.

And later on in the kitchen I collapsed in their arms and I told them the truth. And I said, I can't do this anymore by myself, Will you please help me? Will you please help me? You know, Clancy talks so much about the alcoholic being locked on the inside. And Alcoholics Anonymous can stand outside and we can beat on the door, and we can kick, and we can say, come on out.

It's wonderful out here. Come on out. Come on out. But the door must be opened from the inside. And that night, I opened up the door about of my soul.

And I said, I don't know what the hell's gonna happen. I don't know what the hell I'm gonna have to do but I can't live like this anymore. And I'll tell you what I what was going through my mind at that time, other than the horrible fear of what was gonna have to happen, is that you I had connected with you people. I had made that connection with somebody. My husband still says today on the weird shuttle meter, I'm a 10, but I had made the connection with some other people who were just as weird and strange as I was.

And the other thing that had happened is that I looked like the kind of person who had a connection with the power greater than themselves and I didn't. And you all had gently and lovingly guided me to a kind and loving God. And I was terrified I was gonna lose that. And I began to work the program of recovery as it's outlined in the book, which is the working of the 12 steps. Let me tell you one thing, And I talk about this a lot because it's very crucial, and you'll hear later on in my story.

You can go to 90 meetings 90 days, and you can get relief. You can call your sponsor, and you can get relief. You can read AA literature, and you can get relief. You can even work with a new person and you can get relief. But if you want freedom, and there is a difference, you have to work the steps.

So I, my husband my husband and I are in the throes of this nasty divorce and I've got this teeny tiny little job selling children's clothes and making minimum wage. And just my life on paper looked horrible. I mean, just looked horrible. And you know what AA told me? Don't look.

They and they said, Mary Anne, that's a principle called well, yes, yes, yes, but see, I was full of yes buts. Well, yes yes yes yes but see, I was full of yes buts, was told me yes but is the mating call of assholes. During those 2 years that Bob and I were separated, I began to work the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous exactly as they're outlined. I did a 3rd step on my knees with my sponsor. I did a 4th and 5th step.

I did my 5th step with a priest. I did the 5th step outlined in the book, and then I had to go to the 12 and 12 because that was the key for me. The key was to unlock, and I started my 4th step, when and how did my selfish pursuit of sex injure myself or others. I did my 5th step with a father, Ben, and I remember going up there. It was a cold February morning in Pittsburgh.

For those of you know what that weather is like, and the snow was crunching underneath my feet. And I remember thinking, oh my god. I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid. And I thought, no.

I'm not. I'm not afraid. I'm anxious, but I'm not afraid. And for once in my life, my timing was right. I was in the right place at the right time.

And I went in and I told him everything. And what happened was this, what I had been terrified was gonna happen, happened. I started to cry. I thought, my God, I am going to cry forever. Because what I learned when I did my 4th step, I learned some things about myself.

One of the greatest defects that I uncovered was that I used love as a weapon. But one of the things that I would do is I would with withhold love, that I would withhold that pat on the back, the word of encouragement. And the character defect that motivated that was jealousy, always jealousy. I did 6 and 7, just blew by 6 and 7, obviously, as you heard in my story. And I went ahead with 8 and 9, made the silly little list that you all talked about, wrote some letters because I couldn't see people.

And one of the things that I did my mother and father were both dead when I came in Dialcall Exonomous. And father Ben had said to me, Mary Anne, one morning, when you're running along, say to say to your folks, wherever they are, mom and dad, please forgive me. And he said, then this is crucial to complete the circle that you say, and I forgive you too. 2 years Bob and I were separated, and one day I'm going to work. I'm teeny tiny little job and, I get hit by a woman.

And I hit a man on a bicycle and end up with this man on the hood of my car and thought I had killed him, and got the car stopped, and I had not killed him. And there was in the bad part of town, and the people in the town had ringed the car, and they were gonna pull me out of the car and kill me. And a an angel stuck her head in and she said, is there anybody you want me to call? And I took the Pittsburgh meeting list and my lipstick because I did not have a pen. And I wrote my husband's work number on it.

I didn't know if he was in the country, out of the country. And, he picked me up at the police station And, we went home like 2 people who had a history. And, I remember sitting there talking to him thinking, my my how he's changed. He hadn't changed at all. He had not changed one bit, but Alcoholics Anonymous had had begun to do its work in me.

As a result of that accident, Bob and I got back together and, you know, what I would like to tell you is that it's been hunky dory wonderful ever since that. And that stand back because the lightning would come if I would say that. In the book, it talks about people that have long term relationships. It said it has to be on a different footing because the former one didn't work. And you can take that line and you can put it in everything in your life.