The 46th Tri-State Convention in Mt. Vernon, IL

Thank you. I'm Patty. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Patty. I'm grateful to be sober.

I'm grateful to be in this meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And unlike Christie, it has been necessary for me to drink. It's been an emergency. It's been so necessary for me to drink. It's been overwhelmingly, incredibly necessary for me to drink.

But because the 12 steps work and because men and women of Alcoholics Anonymous have been willing to share your experience, strength, and hope with me. I haven't had a drink or used another drug since I met you on October 4, 1975. And and my home group is a very, very sick woman's meeting. We meet on Thursdays. We meet on Thursdays at 6 o'clock at the Canyon Club in Laguna Beach.

I attend that meeting because I look very healthy there. And it is, it is a real privilege for me to be here, with you. It's a little early. It's 8:30 in California. I stay on California time, because I'm I like to live in the here and now.

And, it gives me something to complain about when I'm on this side of the country is, how early it is and how abusive it is. I wanna thank my friend Bob for speaking at 7 o'clock this morning and, and getting me out of bed. On awakening this morning, I thought of the 24 hours ahead. I thought, oh, they're going to be very long. But it is, it is a real privilege to to be here.

My sponsor always tells me when I do this, I should tell you my name and tell you the truth. I've told you my name. I'm not so sure I'm gonna tell you the truth. And the reason for that is clear to me. I mean, I don't know about anybody else in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I never knew that what it used to be like was gonna be important.

If I would have known when I was out there that I was going to be here this morning reporting to you what it used to be like, I would have paid a lot more attention to my life. If I would have known when I was if I would have known about steps 45, I can guarantee you I would not have done some of the things that I did. But I didn't know it was gonna be important, so I didn't pay a lot of attention to my life. Coupled with that, I'm a blackout drinker. I love blackouts.

I love blackouts. There's if we could have blackouts sober, I would be the happiest woman in the room. I love blackouts. There's nothing more exciting to me than leaving work on September 12th, going back to work on September 20th, and discovering you've been there the entire time. It just, it just makes the time between paychecks so much shorter.

But, if you're a blackout drinker, it makes what it used to be like a little fuzzy. A lot of what I know about what it used to be like has been reported to me by other people. And I'm just sort of assuming they were telling me the truth. A lot of what it used to be like I have a job today. I had to get a fingerprint clearance for my job, and I fingerprint really, really well.

I'm really, really good at finger printing. I know how to roll with them. I don't resist it. I don't try and move too quickly. I just roll really nicely with it.

And I was being fingerprinted for this job, and and I didn't wanna raise any red flags. So I very casually said to the woman doing my prints, I said, well, how far back are you gonna check? And she looked me in the eye and said, from the day you were born. And I thought, oh, man. It's like a 5th step.

Only it's gonna be in wrong order because they're gonna know about it before I do. And, and the book Alcoholics Anonymous says more will be revealed. It doesn't say how. And, so when my report came back, you know how normal people, when they're gonna give us what they think is bad news, they get kind of this hesitancy in their voice. And she had a real hesitancy in her voice when she called me, and she told me that my report had come back.

And I said, uh-huh. And she said, you know, normally, these reports are 2 or 3 pages long. I said, uh-huh. She said yours was 56 pages. And she asked me if I wanted to read it.

Well, of course, I did, and I went down and read that. I'm gonna tell you I know a lot more about what it used to be like having read that report than I knew before then. So a lot of this story I mean, I don't even know if it's true, but I like the story, so I just keep telling it. I just I didn't have my first drink of alcohol until I was 13 years old. I'm really, really sorry I waited that long.

But, I had no idea of what alcohol would do to me or for me. As far as I know, I had never really thought about alcohol one way or the other. I never really thought I can't wait until I can drink. I never thought I would never drink. I mean, I just don't think I thought about alcohol at all.

And yet when I was 13 years old, I was on a camping trip. We were camped on the beach in Southern California, and I remember that Friday night getting into the tent. I remember I had a bottle of vodka in my pillowcase, and I was excited about having it. I had no idea what alcohol would do to me or for me, but I was excited about having this bottle. And I asked if anybody wanted any, and they didn't.

And the reason they gave me for not wanting it was all we had to mix with it was grape soda and root beer. And I said, well, so what? And I took off the top and I drank half the bottle and I looked around the tent. Nothing had gotten different. Nothing had changed.

So I drank the second half of the bottle, and that was to be the end of my social drinking. Never again after that day did I ever offer anybody a drink out of my bottle. And I don't know about anybody else in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I never had resentments until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And one of my early resentments in Alcoholics Anonymous is I heard you talk about your first drink. And you talked about taking the drink, and you described how it felt in your mouth.

And you described the sensation as it went down your throat, and you talked about it hitting your stomach and exploding. It went to your fingernails and your toenails, and your pimples fell off, and you grew up a couple inches taller, and you became prince Charles, and wonderful things happened to you. And that that simply wasn't the case for me. I had my first drink of alcohol, and absolutely nothing happened to me for about 15 minutes. And and at the end of the 15 minutes, the only thing that happened to me was I had to go to the bathroom.

And it's my belief this morning that if you were to drink a cord of anything, in about 15 minutes, you'd have to go to the bathroom. So I got out of the tent, and I shuffled through the sand to the outhouse. And I went in and went to the bathroom. And when I got done and went to get up, realized I was absolutely totally 100% paralyzed to the toilet seat. I couldn't move.

I couldn't even blink. I didn't feel my heart beating, and I was overcome with a sense of fear. And of course, the fear was that somebody else was gonna have come use that outhouse, and there I was paralyzed to the toilet seat. Later in my drinking, I did discover that 2 people can use the same toilet at the same time if the second person is very careful about what they're doing. It's a visual, isn't it?

But, but I didn't know that at 13. What I did know was I somehow intuitively knew that the body was made up of energy, and I somehow figured if I could gather my energy, I would be alright. So I've always referred to it as my first formal meditation because I sat and I gathered my energy. And when it seemed to be all in one place, when it seemed to be centrally located, I just sort of fell off the toilet, out the door, into the sand, and started crawling back to the tent. Now since coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, I have, of course, discovered my entire problem that night was my attitude.

If my attitude would have been right, I could have had a fantasy as in marines, as being dive bombed, as I was trying to get back to safety. And if my attitude would have been right, it could have been a wonderful experience. Now in my own defense, I have to tell you my pants were still down at my ankles. I had started to get sick. I couldn't quite get through it.

I couldn't get around it. And I think under those circumstances, it's a little difficult to have a good attitude. I did somehow manage to get back to the tent. I fell in, and I passed out. And when I came 2 in the morning, I realized nobody was in the tent with me, and I couldn't figure out where they went until my eyes cleared enough that I realized I'd been sick all night long, like you've never been sick.

I hit I hit the top of the tent, the side, the floor of the tent. I hadn't missed a square inch. And quite frankly, I didn't wanna be in the tent either, so I got out of there. And, and that was my first drink of alcohol, and it was the most amazing, incredible, fabulous, magnificent, spiritual, wonderful experience I'd ever had in my entire life. And it must have been because I put some amount of alcohol into my body from that day until the day I came through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I didn't always get drunk. I didn't always drink the kinds of things that you would classify as a beverage. I drank a lot of vanilla extract. I used to buy it by the 6 pack. I remember the day the guy at the market called me over, and he said, Patty, I can't let you buy vanilla extract anymore.

He says, I can't believe anybody bakes as much as you do. And I I got cut off from that supply. I drank a lot of mouthwash. I drank a lot of perfume. Taboo became my after dinner drink of choice.

I still I still have a fondness for it. If you're wearing it, I may follow you too closely and laugh at your neck. I just, the women in my in my home group are it is very, very sick group of women. 1, a couple of years ago, decided to, you know, trick the old lady, and about 8 or 9 of them wore taboo and came to the meeting. I just spun the entire hour and a half.

I couldn't, like I couldn't focus on anything. And, I'm often tempted when I share to just identify myself and say I'm Patty and I'm a pig because I'm the kind of person that came to your house and ate and drank everything in your bathroom. And and how do we know to do that? How do we know to do that? I don't know how I knew to do that.

I mean, I was a bar drinker. I was an alley drinker, car drinker, an office drinker, living room drinker, a dumpster drinker. I I didn't specialize. I just drank. But I love bars.

I love sleazy, nasty, disgusting bars, which you probably don't have any of in Mount Vernon, but let me explain what they look like. I like those kind of bars that have sawdust on the floor. I like them when the mirrors are cracked so you kinda have to dip around to see yourself in there. The upholstery around the bar is ripped where people have tried to hold on as they're falling off their barstool. It's always a nice touch if there's a broken piece of furniture somewhere in the room, and they used to be full of smoke.

In California, you can't smoke in a bar anymore, which makes absolutely no sense to me. I drank in bars where guys could take a piss against the wall. Apparently, they can still do that, but they can't smoke a cigarette in there. But they used to be full of smoke, and they had that wonderful used booze urine smell that I I salivate still when I think about that. I love that smell.

I mean, there are some days when I'm in a really, really cranky mood, and I'll go buy one of those joints and open the door and take a hit off of that. It just perks me up for the rest of the day. I but, but what fascinates me is the quality of people who drank in those bars. I mean, there were CEOs of really big companies. There were bank presidents, admirals in the air force, neurosurgeons.

I mean, that's what they said they were, and I but we weren't sitting around having conversations like, well, what do you prefer, the red mouthwash or the green? What's your preference, Chantilly or Aquabella? We weren't having those kinds of conversations. So I don't know how I know that I can come and eat and drink. It's just kind of an intuitive knowing that we have.

But, I had an opportunity to go to college. I went to San Diego State. I graduated from there with a 3.8 grade point average. In retrospect, I can tell you I was drinking on a daily basis. I was a chronic hopeless, helpless alcoholic, only I didn't know it.

And I'm a blackout drinker. And I graduated from college with a 3 8 grade point average. I stayed at San Diego and took classes for a master's degree. I'm one of those people, if I'm doing something well, I wanna keep doing it and apparently I do school well. And that almost killed me in Alcoholics Anonymous because when I got here, I told you I was too too smart to be an alcoholic.

Nobody with a 3 8 grade point average could possibly be an alcoholic. I left San Diego because I had taken all the classes San Diego State had to offer. I have a disease that manifests itself in rationalization, justification, and denial. No matter what it is I do, I explain to you why I'm doing it. And as I'm explaining it to you, I'm hearing it.

As I'm hearing it, I'm believing it. And I think I'm leaving San Diego because I've taken all the classes San Diego State has to offer. I don't think I'm leaving because I have one more drunk driving the assault charge pending. And, another resentment I got in alcoholics anonymous, I found out here you can get arrested for a single charge of drunk driving. I never knew that I was getting for drunk driving assault, and it had something to do with how I got out of the car.

And here's here's the thing. I'm driving down the street. The light comes on behind me. I pull over. The officer walks up.

Now the first thing I do is slam my car door open. Now my intent is is to knock him in the private parts. Men are a little fussy about their private parts. So as the door is flying open, he jumps back to protect himself. And when he jumps back, it's really a good thing because now he's far enough away that I can get him in focus.

And I think, one of him, one of me. One of him, one of me. I think I can take him. One of him, one of me, I think I'll try. And I go out the car for him.

And it was a really good fight for a couple of minutes. Now I was a lot younger then, but it was a good fight for a couple of minutes, but I wouldn't remember the back of the car. He had a friend, and the friend had a radio. And the friend would call some more friends, and pretty soon be 3 or 4 of them. One of me, it's not fair anymore.

I say, I'm full, and they take me away. Next time the light comes on behind me, I pull over. The officer walks up. I slam the car door open, try and knock him into private parts. He jumps back to protect himself, he gets far enough away that I can get him in focus, and I think, one of him, one of me.

One of him, one of me, I think I can take him. One of him, one of me, I think I'll try and I would go for him. Really good fight for a minute or 2, but I wouldn't remember the friend, the radio, and the friend's friends. Presumably 4 or 5 of them, one of me, it's not fair anymore. They take me away and, next time the light comes on behind me and I don't do that once or twice.

I did that 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 times. Never remembered the friend, the radio, and the friend's friend. And, and that's the insanity of my disease. The insanity of my disease is I do the same thing over and over, and I think the results are gonna be different. This time, it's a fair fight.

This time, I'm gonna take him. And and, I don't think I'm leaving because I have another one of those. Now I drank during the time I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. It just was. I I drank during the time where the state of California did not get their underwear in such a knot about drunk driving.

I understand they're a little chesty about it now, but they never used to I mean, I had no well, I lost my driver's license, but you really don't need that to drive a car. But other than that, I had no consequences. I mean, I'd call an attorney. I'd pay him $1,000, which was a lot of money, and, he'd write a letter. He'd make a phone call, whatever he'd do, and that kind of be the end of it.

I never really heard much about it. But one time, I had 2 pending at the same time, and my attorney was nervous. Now if your attorney's nervous, I think you ought to worry about it. So I'm in a bar worried about the fact that my my attorney's nervous, and I just struck up a conversation with guy sitting next to me. And as luck would have it, he worked in a mortuary.

And I think alcoholics, we come up with really good plans really quickly. And this was one of my best. We went over the mortuary. We got a death certificate. We put my name on it.

We filled out all the pertinent information. We forged the doctor's signature. We sent it to the court because they can't expect a lot from you if you're dead. And I called my attorney, and I told him he didn't need to worry about it. And he didn't worry.

I didn't worry. Nobody worried for, I don't know, maybe a month, 45 days. And the light came on behind me and I pulled over and the officer walked up. And and this time, the judge wanted to see me, and I couldn't figure out why he wanted to see me. He never wanted to see me before, but I went.

I'm a good sport. I went, and I'll never forget him looking at me and said, miss Ochoa, tell me, how is it a dead person is standing in my court? And I looked at him with all sincerity, shrugged my shoulders, and said, I don't know. Bad luck? And, and that's what I thought it was.

It was bad luck. It was circumstances and cops. It was you and they and them. It was a lot of things that never occurred to me. It had anything to do with alcohol.

It never occurred to me. And I don't think I'm leaving San Diego because I have another drunk driving assault charge pending. I think I'm leaving because I've taken all the classes San Diego State has to offer. I don't think I'm leaving because I have a roommate who's a little annoyed with me. Now I don't know about you, but I I seem to attract people who were just a nuisance, but I'm a bar drinker.

Now even in the worst of my alcoholism, I have a tremendous amount of compassion. Even as the most chronic, hopeless, helpless alcoholic, I had a huge amount of compassion, and and I'm in a bar drinking. And now the man who drank in the bars that I drank in and if this offends you, I guess you deserve it. But the men who drank in the bars that I drank in had very little creativity. They had two basic lines.

My wife doesn't understand, and I have no place to stay tonight. That was typically the end of their conversation. So some guy come on to me with one of those lines, and I have all this compassion. So I would say, look, I'll take you home with me tonight, but I don't wanna talk to you again until the bar closes. So being a lady of my word, when the bar closed, I take this guy home with me.

We get to my house, I'd send him into the bedroom, telling him I had to go to the bathroom. He'd go into the bedroom on the right. I would go into my bedroom on the left, and I had just sent him in with my roommate. Now some nights, I was okay with her. Some nights, she didn't mind at all.

Other nights, within a matter of minutes, there'd be all this banging on my bedroom door, which I, of course, locked. I mean, I had 7 o'clock classes. I need to get some rest. If it would have always been alright or never been alright, I'd have been okay. But she was so inconsistent.

You'd have drank if you lived with her. She was so inconsistent. So I don't think I'm leaving because she's a little annoyed with me. I think I'm leaving because I've taken all the classes San Diego State has to offer. I was offered a job in Chico, California, which is about as far north as you can get.

I loaded everything I owned into my car, took 2 cases of beer, 2 bottles of booze, and I headed north. I got to Santa Ana, which is not the place you wanna shoot for, but I got to Santa Ana. I was out of booze and I was thirsty. I pulled off the freeway. I have the sense.

I can find the sleaziest bar in town without even looking for it. I walked into this place. It was full of smoke. It had that wonderful used booze urine smell. Willie Nelson was singing on the jukebox, and I knew I was home.

That's as far north as I ever got, 88 miles from where I started from. Alcohol had become my mother, my father, my god, my lover, my friend, my companion, my support. And at some point, it had turned, and I've always believed it was in the middle of my first drink. But at some point, it had turned and began to strip me of self esteem, self worth, decency, integrity, honesty, pride, all the things we have going for as human beings. And long before I got to you, it had taken it all.

Long before I got to you, alcohol controlled every area of my life where I would live, where I would work, the people I would run with, and eventually the people I would run from, and I didn't have a clue. I thought I drank because I wanted to drink. I didn't know that at 13 years old, I put alcohol into an alcoholic body, and from that day on, I had no choice. I went immediately into the profession of my choice. I rose very quickly to the top, and that too almost killed me in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Because when I got here, I told you I was too successful to be an alcoholic. Told you about the trophies and the plaques. What I didn't tell you about I was in the newspaper business, and we often gave awards, and and we often won awards. And I didn't tell you about the time that I would come out of a blackout standing behind the podium much like this in a room full of people holding an award, not knowing if I was giving it or receiving it. And so I would say thank you, and I would go sit down, and then I'd get elbowed and told I was presenting it to the Kiwanis Club, and I'd have to get up and start over again.

And and I didn't tell you that. I just told you I was too successful to be an alcoholic. I was, one of my one of my huge problems is I always had bad car karma. I don't know if anybody else has bad car karma, but I always had bad car karma. And, one night and I and I didn't wanna drink every night.

But when you're in the newspaper business, you have to go to the bar every night. I mean, we worked really long hours, really hard, and then you're required to go to the bar because that's where the news is. That's where you get the leads. That's where you get the contacts. Now in my own defense, I have to tell you I did periodically get some good leads in the bars.

The problems were I would write the notes on those little napkins and then those glass would sweat and the ink would run. And then in the morning, I'd look at it and the ink's on, and I couldn't read it. I was like, oh my god. I've gotta go back there again tonight. I hope that guy is there tonight.

And, and I'm sure I didn't really even want to go, but it's part of my job. I was required and one of my, one of my great assets is I'm a I'm a great thinker. I think all the time. I mean, sometimes I hear us tell newcomers don't think. I don't know how you do that.

I think all the time. I'm talking to you. I'm thinking about something else. And they start thinking about what I'm thinking, then they start thinking I shouldn't be thinking what I'm thinking. I'm thinking what I'm thinking.

And I'll tell you when I'm grateful, I'm grateful I have a loud speaker on my head, so that everything I thought came barreling out. I mean, that would be truly humiliating, but I think all the time and I've always thought all the time. And once one particular night, I leave the barn, I'm thinking, and I'm and I'm driving, and I'm thinking, and I turned left onto my street. And just as I turned left, the power steering on my car went out. And I crashed into a car on the left hand side of the street, and I turned the steering wheel just a little to get back to the center, and I crashed into a car on the right.

And then I crashed into 1 on the left, and then I crashed into 1 on the right. And I finally got to my house and pulled into the driveway, and I just sat there for a minute so relieved that I'd gotten home safely. Just sat in a moment of gratitude and, finally, I went into the house and I wasn't in the house but a minute or 2 and the doorbell rang. I looked at my watch, it's 20 after 2 in the morning. Who is looking for me now?

People always want something from you. People will not leave you alone. They're always after you for something. And I opened the door and it's the Orange County sheriff. And I said, what do you do you know what time it is?

What do you want? And he wanted me to come out in the front yard. So I went out there and he points down at all these cars, and I looked at him and I said, and isn't it great that I got home safely? And I start telling him about my car, and, apparently, he's not mechanical. He doesn't care about my steering.

He opens up the back seat door of his car, and he wants me to get in. Now I'm in the newspaper And And I'm explaining this to the officer, and he's insisting I get into his car. And I'm insisting I don't have time, and he's insisting I get in. And I finally get it. This guy is not gonna give up.

He's apparently got nothing to do this evening. He needs to take somebody on the ride along. I better just go and get it over with. So I hop into the back seat of the car. Now I have a reputation as a violent drunk, only I don't know it.

If you're a violent drunk, you don't know you're a violent drunk. I don't know that the way I get out of car when I get pulled over has me labeled in Orange County as a violent drunk. So I hop into the car and he shackles my ankles, and he cuffs my hands behind my back. And in California, our police cars have a fence between the front seat and the back seat. I can never figure out what that's for, but there's a fence.

And he starts driving me, and now pretty soon we're on the freeway, and I'm explaining to him on the ride along, you do not go on the freeway. On the ride along, you stay on the surface streets, get off the freeway, and he's ignoring me. He's not speaking to me. He's just driving. And I don't know about you, but sometimes the devil flies into me.

And that morning, the devil flew into me, and I'm annoyed because he won't speak to me. And I'm annoyed because he's not following the rules. And so I just honked up a big one, and I just spit right on the back of his head. And, I know. Yeah.

I was pretty proud of it. It went right through that fence and in its head. And he didn't he wasn't amused. He didn't even respond to that. He just started driving faster.

And pretty soon, I'm watching the speedometer to hit a 100 miles an hour. And when he hit a 100 miles an hour, he slammed on the brake. And I'm shackled and I'm cuffed, and I can't break the fall. And I went face forward into that metal grate, and my glasses broke, and there was blood everywhere. It was a mess.

I'll never forget that night when they're taking my mugshot. They kept referring to me as waffle face because I had the great and I don't know. It's alcohol. I think it's you and they and them. It's the cops.

The cops are always looking for me. The cops always know what I'm driving. They know what I'm driving if I have my car. They know if I'm driving if I have your car. They know what I'm driving if I have a stolen car.

They're always looking for me. It's you and they and them and circumstances and conditions. It's a cops. It's a lot of things. Never occurs to me it has anything to do with alcohol.

Never occurs to me. I got pulled to the state of California, started to get a little annoyed with people barreling down the freeway at 80 miles an hour, blowing something in the breathalyzer above their grade point average. And I got pulled over one more time, for drunk driving, and I was taking the field sobriety test. I'm really, really good at field sobriety test. By this time, I know, you know, how to walk.

I know touch your finger to your nose means this. It doesn't mean that. Today, I could still stand on one foot for 45 minutes. I'm really, really good at field sobriety test. And I even mentioned to the officer on what I pray God was my last one that I thought I was doing a plus work.

And at the end of the test, he asked me to say the ABCs backwards. Well, the time before I had responded with, well, I can't even do that sober, and then I had just confessed, and they took me away. So on the last one, when he asked me to say the ABCs backwards, I said, okay. And I turned around, and I said, so you think it's funny? He wasn't even amused.

I was turned around. He cuffed me. He took me to Orange County Jail, and they put me in a cell with criminals. I mean, there were real criminals in there. There were prostitutes in there.

There. There were women, burglars in there, women who've been arrested for beating their husband, which I don't think should be a crime. But in California, they locked you up for it. And and I knew I didn't belong there, so I tried to organize a prison break. And I I explained the plan very carefully and very slowly to the criminals.

And it was an easy plan. I'm gonna get my coffee cup. We're gonna bang them on the bars. We make a lot of noise. The marshal's gonna come to see what's going on.

I'm throwing my arm around her neck. We're getting her keys, and we're getting out of here. I explained it very carefully, and I heard something I was to hear in Alcoholics Anonymous. One of those criminals looked at me and she said, why don't you sit down and shut up? And I said, fine, then y'all stay, but I'm getting out of here.

Now I was going like a mad woman on those bars. Now there's couple problems with Styrofoam cups. The first one is it'll make a lot of noise. The second one is the bars have a tendency to eat them up. And when the bars ate them up and it got to my knuckles and it got painful, I sat down and I shut up.

I went to court on that charge. I was 26 years old. I was drunk that morning in court until we went to court. The laundromat didn't work at grocery stores until we went to court. The laundromat didn't work at grocery stores until we did anything.

I stood there drunk that morning in court. And because the state of California was starting to get upset about drunk drivers and as a result of my past record, I was being sentenced to 10 years in prison. I have a son as a direct result of my alcoholism. I never wanted to be a mother. I found out that is not adequate birth control.

And I didn't like this kid. He was 8 months old. He did nothing. He wet and he cried. He wouldn't get a job.

He did nothing. He interfered with my life a lot and I didn't like him, but I was willing to use him that morning. And I told the judge he couldn't put me in jail because I was a single parent and self supporting through my own contributions. And he told me put my son in a foster home because I was an unfit mother. Now I would have admitted to be in a lot of things, but I did not believe I was an unfit mother.

I had that kid with me every day of the week. He sat in one of those plastic things that you put kids in when you don't wanna touch them. And he was to spend the first 11 months of his life on a pool table in a smoke filled bar. But I thought having him with me made me a fit mother. Rationalization, justification, and denial.

No matter what it is I do, I explain it to you. And when I'm explaining it to you, I'm hearing it. When I'm hearing it, I'm believing it. I was going to prison. My son was going to a foster home, and in the middle of sentencing me, the expression on the judge's face changed and the tone of his voice got different.

And I know he was as surprised at what he was saying as I was at what I was hearing, because he looked at me and he said, I know this won't work for you, but I'm gonna offer you an alternative. And part of that alternative was meetings of alcoholics anonymous. And I wish I could tell you that I took took the alternative. I left the court. I came here, looked at the 12 steps.

I knew there's solution to problems in my life and worked them all in the 1st week. And if Bob wasn't here, I would tell you that story, but, but that's not my story. I stood in the courtroom and thought about it. Jail alternative. Jail alternative.

Been to jail. There's more alcohol and other drugs inside the institution than there are some days on the street. If you know what to do, who to do it to, and you're willing to go to any lengths and always was. Jail alternative. And I'm trying to figure it out.

I didn't know then what it was, but I know this morning, trying to figure it out. I had a moment of clarity. As clear as I knew anything, I knew if I went to jail one more time, I would either die in the institution or I become institutionalized for life. And I didn't know why I knew it that morning, but I took the I didn't drink a greater quantity. Physically, it'd been impossible to drink a greater quantity of alcohol, but I drank with a sense of urgency and a desperation that I had never known.

And on October 4, 1975, the day before us go back to court to tell the judge what it was I was doing with the alternative he gave me. On that day, I came to my first meeting of alcoholics anonymous, and I didn't know what ANA was. I thought it was something like the PTA or parents without partners, and, in a lot of days it is. But as far as I know, I had never heard the words Alcoholics Anonymous. I had no idea what you people were gonna do to me or for me.

And and that first meeting was a speaker meeting, and I can't tell you who talked that night, but I heard two things. I heard the answers are in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and, and I heard we don't drink between meetings. So after the meeting, I stole the book. I mean, god knows I need to have the answers, and I can't tell you how irritated I was when I went home and read the book. Not only could I not find the answers in there, I couldn't even find the questions.

And I thought, oh, dear god. I've stolen the wrong book, and I'm gonna have to go back and get the right one. And I'm a thief. It's humiliating for a thief to have stolen the wrong book. But, and the other thing I heard was we don't drink between meetings.

And I don't know how that impacts other newcomers, but it made me really nervous. I couldn't figure out why the judge sent me to a place where people didn't drink. I would have understood if he sent me to Sears School of Safe Driving. I did not understand why he sent me to a place where people didn't drink, and I was gonna go to court to tell him he had made this hideous mistake. But I figured before I go, I better find the answers.

So Wednesday, with 4 days of sobriety, I came to my second meeting of alcoholics anonymous to get the answer book. That's the only reason I came back. I don't think it matters why you come back. I don't think it matters what your motives are, what your intentions are. I think it matters is what your actions are.

Wednesday with 4 days of sobriety, I came to my 2nd meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous to get the answer book. And that was a small discussion meeting, and in that meeting I heard, if you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it. And I looked around the room and I looked around the room and I looked around the room and I could not figure out what it was you had that was so hot that I should be willing to go any length to get it. I mean, look look at the person next to you, unless you're sleeping with him, what is it? I could not figure it out.

And then I saw him, and I truly believe there's a him for each of us. This guy was a skinny little fellow. He was ball headed. He wore baggy pants. Not I haven't seen any baggy pants in Mount Vernon.

I work with adolescents in California. I work with kids that wear pants that that have absolutely no relationship to their body sizes. His weren't that baggy, but they were baggy. He had tennis shoes on with no shoelaces, but the holes were there where they should have been, and he nodded out during the meeting. And I quickly assessed the situation.

I figured he's shooting heroin. Folks who shoot heroin, not out, And I can probably do this thing and not drink if I can shoot a little heroin. So I snuck down to his office and I said, Dick, I have to do this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous to stay out of jail, and I don't know how to do it. He told me if I would go to meetings and read the book and talk to other alcoholics and not drink. So I guarantee you won't get drunk, and if you don't get drunk, your life will get different.

And I'm grateful he told it to me that way. He didn't tell me my life would get better. He didn't tell me my finances would get better, my job life would get better, my relationships would get better, my family life would get better, My sex life would get better. He didn't tell me any of it would get better, and I'm grateful because none of it has. It's a little hope for the newcomer.

But it's all gotten different. And as I stand here this morning, I can tell you from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, I have never had it so good. See, left to my own devices, I'll sure change myself. I'm going through something I think is bad for me, it generally turns out to be good for me. And I'm going through something I think is good for me, and it generally turns out to be bad for me.

And I don't know good from bad for me. I've gone through times in the last 31 years that have been incredibly, incredibly painful. Torture torture painful. Disappointment, sadness, torture. And I'm so I'm so dramatic.

I always refer to it as the dark night the soul. Unless, of course, you're going through it, then I just tell you to get over yourself. But, but in those times, if I don't drink and don't die and don't drink and don't die, I've gotten beyond it to see that every time I thought my life was falling apart, what was really happening is it was falling together. And it had to be exactly that way for God to move me to where he'd have me be. See, I get content right here, right now.