AA - Alcoholics Anonymous
July 27, 2024
(0:00 – 0:41)
Okay, thank you Dave. Now the speaker. Can’t do anything without my script.
Being an Irish Catholic alcoholic, it’s my great pleasure to introduce tonight’s speaker,
Sister Bee. Good evening everyone, my name is Bee and I’m an alcoholic. And I’m
delighted to see so many, I was almost going to say old faces, but I mean old familiar
faces.
(0:41 – 0:56)
People I haven’t seen in a long time and people who are here and hopefully will keep me
honest this evening. I have a difficulty with that sometimes. I also want to welcome the
newcomers and congratulate all the birthday people.
(0:57 – 1:15)
It’s surely a delight to be here with you. My story is long and some of you know it off by
heart. And so what I’d like to suggest that you would either fan yourselves cool or go to
sleep or and, but don’t talk because Howard and I are in cahoots with this.
(1:17 – 1:39)
Howard, wherever you are, you’re my friend. All I ever think about is myself and getting
the entire attention, so I’m glad to have a Howard in my life tonight. But my story goes
back since I was two, so you take a look and you know that’s a long time.
(1:42 – 2:04)
When I was two, my sister was born and nobody asked my permission. And what I find in
life generally is that people go around the whole world not asking my permission about
anything. Traffic and lines and waiting and inconveniences and nobody considers me in
the way they should, really.
(2:05 – 2:23)
And so when this child was born into our family, she moved into my spot. I was really
interested in what the gentleman mentioned when he said he never felt he fitted
anywhere until he came to Alcoholics Anonymous. That’s exactly the way I have always
felt, that I never fitted in the whole world until I found people like you.
(2:24 – 2:40)
And when this little child was born, it felt to me that my parents spent a lot of time
adoring at her crib. Now, I don’t know that they necessarily did that, but it felt like that.
And it felt that every year there was a new baby came into our family, being Irish and
Catholic.
(2:42 – 3:04)
And we had lots of them and there were five of us in the end and I was the oldest. And
every time a new child was born, it felt that, you know, I was just being pushed to the
periphery of this unit called the family. And when I was eight years old, my father was
killed in an accident and he didn’t come home from work at all that one day.
(3:05 – 3:30)
And I can always remember the day of his funeral. My mother said to me, Bea, I want
you to help me to raise these children. And for those of you who are new here this
evening, you might be wondering, what would this have to do with drinking? I noticed in
the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it talks about, you know, alcohol, liquor is just it’s
just a symptom.
(3:30 – 3:46)
And the causes and conditions are what we need to get down to after we stop drinking.
There’s a lot more to this deal, apparently, than just not drinking. And so some of the
causes and conditions for me, I didn’t connect for years, even in Alcoholics Anonymous.
(3:47 – 4:11)
I didn’t know that I had to do this kind of work to find out what sort of made up this
personality. And so when my mother invited me to join her to raise these children, what
she really was doing was helping me to become boss of the human race, which I’m still
doing, by the way. I’m still sort of trying to get everybody into shape and sometimes to
do it better than others.
(4:11 – 4:41)
But, you know, we’re working on this. And there are a couple of lines, I think, on page 61
of the big book. It says, is he not? I happen to be a she, so I always translate it into, is
she not a victim of the delusion that she can rest satisfaction and happiness out of this
world if only she manages well? And the word rest in the dictionary is defined as pushing
and pulling in a violent fashion.
(4:43 – 4:56)
I’ve spent my whole life resting, you know, pushing and pulling in this violent fashion so
that I could be successful in some way. Now, that’s how I was raised. That’s how I was
socialized, to get things to work.
(4:56 – 5:12)
And if they didn’t, to push hard and fight hard and to make them happen. And I don’t
suppose any of you have a clue what I’m talking about, but that’s OK. And then when I
got into my teenage years, my mom was a very efficient woman in those days.
(5:12 – 5:19)
And she she taught me everything she knew. She taught me how to clean and cook and
babysit. And she even taught me some school teachery sorts of things.
(5:19 – 5:32)
She was a school teacher. And so I became kind of efficient at a young age, you know,
sort of efficient in quotation marks. And so when I went into my teenage years, I started
thinking about what I would want to be doing with the rest of my life.
(5:32 – 5:47)
So what I decided to do was to become a saint. Now, Alcoholics Anonymous has insulted
me terribly because it says in the big book, you know, we’re not saints. And I just didn’t
catch on to that for a long time.
(5:48 – 6:09)
And so what I decided to do in becoming a saint was to become a Catholic nun. Now, I
would have no idea why any of you would be wanting to spend a Wednesday evening on
this hot Laguna Beach evening here with a Catholic nun. I think you’re nuts to be quite
honest with you, because I’m sure that some of you have a resentment against
somebody like me.
(6:09 – 6:21)
Right? I could tell all those heads nodding all over there. And I want you to know that I
didn’t do it to you, just so you know. Well, at least I don’t think I did.
(6:24 – 7:13)
But what I want to do is what I always do when I get the opportunity to speak to a group
of people like you, is that I want to tell you that if anybody in my line of work, like a
Catholic nun or any religious person, as a matter of fact, if anybody has ever offended
you or abused you or hurt you in any way, I want to make a public apology for that this
evening. Because the church to which I belong, the Catholic Church, doesn’t often
publicly acknowledge that it’s wrong. And I like to do that so that you can hear that said
and to just embrace you and love you and let you get rid of that hurt if you happen to
have one.
(7:14 – 7:28)
I’ve been doing Catholic nunny bunny stuff for a long time now. In fact, on the 16th of
July, it was 47 years. So, as I often say to groups like this, it’s a long time to be doing
celibacy.
(7:29 – 8:07)
There are people who tell me that they’re they come up to me and it says this to be, you
know, sometimes I give these little retreats at the weekends and I have people who say,
oh, I’ve been celibate for eight and a half months. I said, oh, my goodness, terrible. But
in starting into this nunny stuff, it was grand, it was really good, you know, I was
attracted to everything about it and I still am and I’m very interested in this kind of a
lifestyle, it’s just fun, it’s lots of good stuff and some of you will be wondering where I got
my booze, and I will get to that in a few minutes, so just hang in there.
(8:08 – 8:15)
It’s not easy. It’s not easy in a convent to find alcohol. Do you know that? Really isn’t.
(8:15 – 8:34)
But, you know, if you’re alcoholic and many of you sound like you are, I said you were,
you will find ways to find alcohol like I did. We will do that if we if we happen to catch on
to this disease. What happened for me was my superior sent me over to England to
finish my education in the University of London.
(8:35 – 8:47)
And when I was all done there, I became very smart. And then they sent me up to the
northeast part of England to teach school. And interesting thing happened in my head.
(8:48 – 9:10)
Very strange voices would go off regularly and they would say something like this. If only
they, whoever they were, didn’t matter really who they were, would shape up, then I
would feel a lot better. I don’t suppose you’ve ever felt or heard a noise like that in your
head when you wanted them to do it, you know, just exactly the way that you had
designed it to do it.
(9:10 – 9:22)
It didn’t matter who they were. And then we got a message from our headquarters,
which is back in Ireland. And they said, would any of you like to volunteer and go to
Southern California? And of course, I knew that I belonged in Hollywood.
(9:22 – 9:33)
There’s a gentleman here from Hollywood tonight, so I hope you’re watching me. And
because I knew that I belong here. And so I signed up and I got picked and they sent me.
(9:34 – 9:51)
And when when I was leaving, my superior said to me, she said, Sister, we’re going to
put you in charge. Now, there’s nothing that a budding alcoholic who hasn’t had alcohol
yet likes to hear better. And she especially likes to hear it when she has had alcohol.
(9:52 – 10:00)
And she even likes it after she stopped drinking. She likes to be in charge. And so they
put me in charge and I was in charge of all the nunnies and I was in charge of the school.
(10:01 – 10:20)
And I was just going to ship them all up. And I was going to tell everybody in Southern
California how to do their lives and how to educate and how to just be perfect, generally.
And I met this man after about five days, you know, enjoying this wonderful stuff, except
that I did notice in California that was very hot.
(10:20 – 10:49)
We used to wear the nunny clothes. Sorry, I had this bad thought. I just have to tell you
this.
Earl sent me a wonderful letter of welcome and he sent me a map and he said that at
these meetings, you usually dress up nicely. And I had this awful urge to dress myself in
my nunny clothes. Wouldn’t this be fun if I came all with this black stuff all down to my
toes and all the white serge and my friend over here, Father John, is a priest.
(10:49 – 11:01)
And he came all dressed up in his priestly clothes and he’d all run skitting down the
street. There wouldn’t be a sign of the one. You wouldn’t be here now, would you? You’d
be so scared to death.
(11:01 – 11:21)
But anyway, it was very hot in California, kind of like now, in August of 1964 when I
arrived there. And this pastor that I met after five days, he thought that he was in
charge. And immediately we started to kind of lock horns and fight and try to fight nice
and fight fair.
(11:21 – 11:40)
And, oh, it was really, really difficult. But the wonderful, magical thing happened to me
when I was invited to have my very first drink. My very first drink was a drink of
margarita that a lady who invited all of the sisters to her swimming pool and she gave us
this great beverage.
(11:40 – 11:57)
It was in a tall jug and it was in big glasses with salt around the top. And I remember I
remember taking a large gulp of this and I could feel it going. I can even remember it as
I stand here.
(11:57 – 12:05)
It went right down to the tips of my toenails. And I believe it was my first spiritual
awakening. I really do think it was wonderful.
(12:05 – 12:29)
And I knew that I had to get this stuff to kind of keep me organized and to keep me able
to to do this man and to, you know, just do life in California and to be successful and to
to run this school and to get everybody to do it the way they were supposed to. And so
when I was leaving, I asked the lady for the recipe and she gave it to me. And I thought I
really did think this.
(12:29 – 12:48)
If you’re new, you’ll identify with this denial system that none of us understands. Even
after we’re sober for a while, we don’t know that we tell ourselves lies a lot. And I really
believed with all my heart that the nicest thing that I would do on a regular basis would
be to whip up this beverage for these nunny bunnies who work so hard because they
work for me.
(12:49 – 13:12)
And I would say things to them like, are you tired? Well, they only had to be within my
radius and they were tired because I’m one of the more active type of alcoholics, you
know, like I tend to stir things up and get things going and move and shake. And on
Fridays, if any of you are in the education business, you’ll appreciate this on Friday
evenings. I would say to them, let’s change all the classrooms.
(13:12 – 13:17)
Let’s put the first graders into the third grade. Let’s put the second graders into the
fourth grade. Let’s put the let’s change everything.
(13:17 – 13:37)
And I had this notion that if you could just turn everything upside down and move it
around and create a certain amount of chaos, that somehow I would feel better. It
always made me feel that I was present in the world and that I was worthwhile and that I
was doing something. So therefore, they were always exhausted.
(13:38 – 13:46)
So I would say to them, are you tired? They’d say yes. And I’d say, well, let’s just all sort
of celebrate this evening. Now, we didn’t have to have that much to celebrate.
(13:46 – 14:02)
It could be that the report cards were all finished or that the parent teacher conferences
were all finished or whatever. But I noticed almost from the beginning that their idea of
celebrating and mine was different. They would say things like.
(14:03 – 14:25)
When I would crack out the booze and whip up this wonderful margarita that I could get,
if I could get them the ingredients, they’d say things like, well, let’s have the little
glasses. To this day, I don’t understand little of anything. You know what I mean? Like
large containers and much and many.
(14:26 – 14:40)
But they would they would say, let’s. And then they would sit with their little finger, their
little last finger here, sort of out like this. And they would sip and then they would leave
it and they would sip and then leave it.
(14:40 – 14:52)
And then they wouldn’t finish. My dear people, I consider that to be the only sin. Mortal
sin.
(14:53 – 15:10)
You know, a mortal sin is when you don’t finish your alcohol, especially if you have a vow
of poverty. You know, what a waste. And so I would come behind them and I would, you
know, take the big container.
(15:10 – 15:15)
I would take all their leftovers. I’d stash it away. And it was a lot of work.
(15:15 – 15:26)
A lot of work to do this. One of my favorite places for drinking was Mexico. You know,
there was this fellow who had a he had a trailer down in the trailer park in Ensenada.
(15:26 – 15:38)
And he used to say to us, why don’t you why don’t you go down there and relax all of
you? Some take and give us the key. And only I can remember the day he gave me the
three little keys. And he said, this is the key of the front door.
(15:38 – 15:46)
This is the key of the cabana. And then he held up a tiny little key. And he looked at me
with such a loving look in his eye.
(15:46 – 15:55)
And he said, Sister, this is the key of the liquor cabinet. Help yourself. And I can
remember saying, praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
(15:57 – 16:12)
It was a wonderful experience, you know, to just go and pile all the nanny bunnies into
this big station wagon, you know, on a Friday and go on down to maybe you were there
with me. I’m glad to meet you. Maybe we met there somewhere.
(16:12 – 16:39)
And we were we were just and they would say things. Do you think they’d say to me, do
you think we should be drinking his alcohol? And I’d say, well, we are eating his cereal,
aren’t we? We wouldn’t want to hurt this good man’s feelings, would we? And so we
would pile in there and we’d go as often. I used to say we have to go down often
because we have to learn Spanish, because pretty soon 50 percent of Southern
California would be Hispanic and we would have to be teaching Spanish.
(16:39 – 16:54)
So let’s get down there and learn how to speak Spanish. And we thought we were doing
that with all the Americans and Canadians who lived in Estero Beach. It’s interesting, you
know, how we can talk ourselves into stuff.
(16:55 – 17:22)
And so what happened for me was that I did what Bill W. did in, you know, page eight of
the big book where he he talks about his death. And the people who are standing up
here at the birthdays, I was terribly, terribly impressed and touched with what you were
saying. Because you were recalling with gratitude the wonderful things that had
happened to you simply because you have died somewhere inside of you, like I did.
(17:23 – 17:35)
We all have that in common. And I looked down at this audience from what I’m seeing. I
see a variety of people, all sorts of people, you know, from different places, different
professions, different backgrounds, different nationalities.
(17:36 – 18:05)
And the one thing that levels all of us is this common death that we have in whatever
form that takes. And Bill W. says that no words could tell of the loneliness that he
experienced or that bitter morass of self-pity when alcohol had become his master. And
he knew that he had been overwhelmed and everywhere he put his foot, he felt he was
sinking in quicksand and he didn’t know what to do.
(18:06 – 18:51)
I don’t know where you were when you died. And sometimes it’s good to think about that
because no matter what’s happening for us today, in relation to that, it’s very little, you
know. Sometimes I think I have huge problems, but in relation to that death that
happened to me in the year of 1978, I will never forget just the awful extremity of the
loneliness and of the depression and of the not knowing where to go and who to tell and
not knowing you and knowing that if I did talk to people like you, that I was certainly very
low.
(18:52 – 19:12)
You know, I just didn’t want to be part of anything to do with you. And so I was standing
in our living room, it was called the community room in the convent, and I literally did
not know what to do. And I just happened on a little booklet that was on our bookshelf, a
little pamphlet, and on the very back page there was an ad.
(19:13 – 19:38)
This book was written for sisters and on the back page it said, Sister, are you concerned
about your drinking? If so, call this number collect. So I made a collect call at nine o’clock
at night to Massachusetts, midnight their time. And this lady answered the phone and I
told her, which I know you’ve never done, I told her some lies because I didn’t know how
to tell her that I see.
(19:39 – 20:01)
I was very I used to be very intelligent and very important, so I couldn’t tell her that, you
know, that I was had a problem with alcohol. So I told her that I was concerned about
other people’s problems with alcohol and that I was now going to be promoted into a big
job in the diocese. Where I would be working with people who had this problem and I
didn’t know how to help them.
(20:02 – 20:28)
And could she help me to help them? And she listened really carefully and then she said
to me an extraordinary thing. She said, Sister, could you tell me a little bit about your
own drinking? Now, I think they’re very nosy in Massachusetts to ask a question like that.
And she said, because I can hear pain in your voice.
(20:29 – 20:58)
And the miracle of our program is that we do get to hear the pain in one another’s voices
and we can look at one another’s eyes and sometimes we can see their pain. And
because we can do that in this blessed program that we have, somehow we become
instrumental in the ongoing healing of one another. And this woman said this to me and I
didn’t know whether to hang the phone up or what.
(20:58 – 21:19)
But anyway, what I did do was I burst into tears and I sobbed into the telephone into this
voice that I had never talked to before. And I told her a wee bit about my story and I told
her that I had nowhere to go. And nobody knew how terrible it was to be trundling down
from the top corridor of my convent where I lived.
(21:20 – 21:40)
Looking for alcohol and grappling with myself because I had promised that I was not
going to drink any more tonight or any more this week or any more this month or Lent.
Irish Capitals. And I never could do that.
(21:40 – 22:11)
That phenomenon of craving that Dr. Silkworth talks about was really had me by the
back of the neck, this craving, this dying to drink and dying from the guilt and the
shame, the remorse when I did not know what to do. And then then something that I
know you will not identify with, you know, having given myself to this kind of a life. I’m
wondering why God couldn’t take care of this, you know, why I didn’t use the words
control and enjoy my drinking with God because I didn’t know them until I found the big
book.
(22:12 – 22:33)
But I was basically hoping that that’s what God could do for me because I’d given up
everything else I thought. And why would God not let me have a little drinky poo every
once in a while? What what difference would it make to him anyhow? You know, and so I
got into a lot of anger with God. So I know you don’t know what this is, but what I used to
do was I’d come come down to the little chapel we had in the front part of the house.
(22:33 – 22:54)
And I used to stand there and I used to give God the finger, very angry with God. Some
people get very upset when I say that, so I apologize in advance for any of you that I
might offend. But that’s the God’s truth.
I used to do that. I used to get very upset with God. Now, the eighth graders had taught
me how to give God the finger.
(22:54 – 23:05)
I will not give God the finger, but how to give the finger. Eighth graders are wonderful for
teaching you things. That eighth graders in Alcoholics Anonymous, you teach everything
you’ll ever want to know, honestly.
(23:08 – 23:28)
And so I just did honest to God was dying. And so this lady on the phone said to me, I’ll
send you some literature and I’ll send you some materials and send you some
information about places. And she said, but you know what? It would be a great idea, she
said, if you could go to Alcoholics Anonymous and just listen for the similarities.
(23:28 – 23:41)
I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. And so again, because I was so important and
so intelligent, the next day I changed. At that time, we were wearing kind of nunny
clothes and I changed from my nunny clothes into regular clothes.
(23:42 – 23:54)
And I took myself down to Serenity Hall in Whittier, which is a good little place from
Braille. It’s a good distance and was far enough away from, you know, my general
environment. And I went down there on a Wednesday morning.
(23:54 – 24:08)
I will never, ever forget my experience in Serenity Hall. It was a tiny little room just
probably about this is this is just what I thought. I don’t know if this is true or not even
now, but it seemed like this room about just the size of this area up here.
(24:08 – 24:28)
And lots of little old men just sort of, you know, going around and just looking at me and
talking to each other and spitting out loud and just awful. And there were two women
there, one left and one stayed. And the one who stayed was clapping and laughing all at
the wrong times.
(24:28 – 24:48)
And I can remember thinking, you know, we say in Ireland, she wasn’t the full shilling,
you know, she was just not quite all there. But what was most impressive to me was that
there was a fellow got up, you know, to the podium. There’s a podium somewhat like this
at the top of the room, and the serenity prayer was draped around the front of it.
(24:48 – 25:06)
And this fellow stood up and he started talking about being sober for a while now, and
he’d gotten back his family and all the things. But what was very interesting to me was
that his vocabulary was extraordinarily interesting to me. He was using words that I used
to punish the eighth graders for writing on the bathroom walls.
(25:07 – 25:21)
He used them with great ease. You probably don’t know what they were, but I could tell
you after the meeting if you’re interested. He used the SH word all the time, and then he
graduated into the F word.
(25:25 – 25:47)
I think some of you have heard the F word, have you? Well, this fellow was using the F
word like an honor verb, an adjective, an adverb, a preposition, and a conjunction. All the
time. He was using it with ING on the and and ED on the and.
(25:50 – 26:05)
On one occasion, he used it with the word mother before it. I want to tell you that this
was fascinating to me. We didn’t go around the convent saying the F word all the time.
(26:06 – 26:41)
We’ve learned since, but you know. He… You know when you come into Alcoholics
Anonymous first, if you knew, you’d think, you know, the sit at the table, the secretary,
and they write stuff, you know, and you think they’re writing about you, of course. You’re
taking your vital statistics or something, you know, and I’m thinking, you know, he must
be the boss of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he he’s going to be my spiritual leader for the
rest of my life, and I have a degree on God in my bottom drawer.
(26:42 – 28:14)
For those of you who have this little thing, I know, I just know one person in this room
who has this, but I don’t suppose any of the rest of you have it, but I have this little, little,
just a little hint of Irish arrogance, which says that, you know, if you tell me what to do, I
will always want to do the opposite. Don’t ever give me a direction, and don’t ever
expect me to follow it, because I would just want to try not to, just because you said so,
and because I know better anyhow, and so at these meetings, you know, I had awful
problems, awful problems, and what I love best in Alcoholics Anonymous, I love meeting
the people who balk. I love those, the ones who will not do it, who say out loud, I will
never take a fourth step.
God, I just adore you the best, because you’re my kind of people. Yeah, there are people
who come in and just kind of, oh, you melt into this, you know, you’ve been longing for
this moment for your whole life long, but I was not one of those at all, and I was going to
these meetings, and they’re basically saying five things. They were saying, like, you
know, suggesting don’t drink or use any mind-altering drugs, and I wasn’t into the drugs,
except that the doctor had given me, because I was of a nervous disposition, like the
men in the big book, Elevillastelazine, and he graduated me into Librium and Valium,
and I had these, you know, I had these available.
(28:14 – 29:04)
I could take them and swill them down with whatever I could get my hands on, and I
didn’t care too much for prescription drugs. I didn’t like the way I was totally zombied
out, like the music on Twilight Zone. I didn’t like that feeling, but they were saying
basically, like, don’t drink and go to meetings, and I didn’t think there was anything that
you had in meetings that could add to what I already knew, because I had all this
information, especially information about God, you know, but the one thing I knew about
God was that God and I could never keep me sober on our own.
We never could do that. God and I had lots of talks about that over and over again. God
and I even went together for 30 days and made a 30-day silent retreat, hoping that I
could enjoy and control my drinking after that time, and all I wanted to do was drink
after that.
(29:06 – 29:11)
So God and I couldn’t keep me sober on our own. We had to meet you. We had to meet
people like you.
(29:11 – 29:25)
So they were saying, don’t drink, go to meetings, read the book. Oh goodness, the book.
For those of you who have read the book from cover to cover, you will agree with me
that it’s not the best piece of written literature that there is on this earth.
(29:26 – 30:19)
It needs a few commas here and a few… So one day in December of 1978, I took it down
to the beach, and I corrected it, and I brought it down to Serenity Hall in Whittier, and I
told them so. Like, can you imagine? And they just said, keep coming back, Bea. It’s
okay.
That’s fine. I fixed the sentences, and I put in the parentheses, and I just got it to read
nice, that it flowed. And then they talked about sponsorship, and because I’m so Irish
and so private and so reticent, and I will not be telling you any of my personal life or my
secrets and stuff, so what I did was I interviewed some women, and I hired them on
temporarily, and then I got rid of them when they weren’t saying things the way they’re
supposed to.
(30:19 – 30:37)
So I didn’t do well with sponsors for a long, long time. Thanks be to God, I have a
wonderful sponsor today. But it took me a long time to do the sponsor thing, and then
the steps were almost impossible for me, because you see, in reading the steps, I didn’t
think there was anything in the steps that I hadn’t already covered in this religious
training.
(30:38 – 30:55)
Those of us who come from this sort of a religious training sometimes find it difficult,
because we think we’re supposed to have had it or to know it. And what happened for
me was that I had never, until I met you, I had never had the experience of God. I had
the knowledge, the head knowledge, which doesn’t do anything for you, really.
(30:56 – 31:21)
But I never had the heart knowledge of God until I met you. And I believe that I don’t
think that I would have the heart knowledge today of God if I hadn’t met you, because
people like you accepted me totally and completely with unconditional love. And it was
that love that was so impressive to me, because I was not really nice at all.
(31:21 – 31:40)
I would, you know, the women would say, the women were very nosy. There were, as
they say in Australia, they would say, sticky beaks, you know, that stick their beak into
your business, you know, and ask you things like, where do you live, Bea? And I’d say,
this is an anonymous program. And go late to the meetings and leave early so that
nobody could find out where I was.
(31:40 – 31:51)
I can remember one woman asked me one time in the harbor, she asked me if I was
married. And I said, yes, I was married and I had five kids. And she said, well, what are
they? And I couldn’t, I couldn’t lie fast enough.
(31:51 – 32:03)
And I was, you know, I was mixing, I was getting into the lie bigger and better all the
time as I was telling her this. I just couldn’t, I couldn’t catch on to the program of
Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was, I was not drinking.
(32:04 – 32:48)
And so a miracle happened in Serenity Hall for me when I went in one day crying as I
always was, because they used to call me the crying nun, and crying with anger and
frustration. And this man, this older member of AA who has since passed on, he said to
me, Bea, he said, you know, this program is supposed to help us to be happy, joyous and
free. And so I sat him down and I talked into his ear for at least 35 minutes and told him
all the things that were wrong with AA and with the psychology of it and the philosophy
of it and the theology of it, especially, and how it didn’t, didn’t fit in with anything that I
believed, and he looked at me and he nodded and he was gentle.
(32:48 – 33:06)
And he said, Bea, you know, this one little thing could work for you. And, you know,
wherever I’m asked to speak, I always pass it on because it works, especially when you
get stuck in recovery. You know how sometimes we get stuck in our program and we
don’t want to do the next thing that’s indicated.
(33:06 – 33:20)
We just don’t want to. And this, this little recipe has always worked for me if I will do it.
He said, go home, he said, and kneel down and ask God to give you the willingness to
change your attitude.
(33:21 – 33:46)
Now, with all the information that I had been given about God and retreats that I had, oh,
and all the stuff I’d read and all the courses I’d taken and all the lectures I’d given, never
heard that at all in my whole life. And this one man said to me, kneel down and ask God
to give you the willingness to change. And I remember coming home in a very
embarrassed fashion and saying, well, you know, he doesn’t know any better, so he
doesn’t know how this won’t work for me.
(33:47 – 34:17)
But I was in such emotional pain, which I’m sure some of you might know what that feels
like. It’s such emotional pain that I did that one thing and everything started turning
around for me after I did that one thing. What I’ve noticed in my sobriety today is that
when I get to a block in the road, you know, I get to another point or as I was taught in
one of the meetings, when you get in between surrenders, do you ever get in there, you
know, you’re just in the middle there, you know, you’re, you know, you need to, but you
don’t want to.
(34:17 – 34:51)
And, you know, the best thing would be to jump off this cliff, but it’s too scary. It’s too
fearful. It’s called in between surrenders and it’s always surrounded and cloaked with a
lot of fear.
So when I get there and I pray for the willingness to do some changing or as the book
talks about the entire psychic change, it usually works for me. Something will start
breaking open that will change things around for me. I have become extremely
enthusiastic and impressed with Alcoholics Anonymous, and I don’t have a clue how it
works.
(34:52 – 35:04)
It’s the most upside down thing that I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. You know,
it’s all opposite to anything that I ever was taught or ever experienced. And, you know, I
was at a meeting this morning.
(35:04 – 35:22)
I go to a 6 a.m. meeting in Yorba Linda every day when I’m home. And this fellow, you
know, is talking, talking about all the things that were happening to him. And then you
could literally see the mystery working in the people as the different people were
sharing.
(35:22 – 35:32)
And I can never understand how any of this thing works. I can’t understand why some
fool can keep on talking and say the same things over and over and over again. And
somehow God can work through them.
(35:32 – 35:50)
I just think that that’s very unclassy, but it’s true. Happens all the time. I’ve become
really especially impressed with all the promises, not only the ones that are on page 83
and 84, but in all the promises of step three and step four and step five and all the
promises of step 10 and 11 and 12.
(35:50 – 36:12)
And the wonderful feeling of dignity and self-esteem that this deal gives us. One of my
favorite ones is the thing that, you know, that God will provide everything I need, every
single thing I need. It tells me on page 63, everything I need as long as I stay close and
do God’s work.
(36:12 – 36:22)
I remember saying to a good friend of ours, Deke, one time. I said to Deke, Deke, what’s
God’s work? I thought I was supposed to be doing that already. And he said, Oh, B, God’s
work is very simple.
(36:23 – 36:46)
God’s work is just to stay sober. And that means emotionally sober and to carry the
message. That’s all.
And so God will provide every single thing I need as long as I do God’s work. And that’s
just staying sober and carrying the message. And that brings it right down to simplicity
for me, because everything in my life I thought had to be extremely complicated.
(36:47 – 37:22)
Before I came here to rooms like these and to other rooms all over the place, I just didn’t
know how to do normal coping. I never knew. I still don’t know how to do some things
really well, like to stand in line and wait and not tell them for their own good how they’re
supposed to run the bank.
You know, I don’t know anything about a bank, but, you know, I want to do this kind of
stuff. What Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me, it has taught me at least a good part
of the time. It has taught me how to behave and to act in a loving way.
(37:23 – 37:40)
And I’m constantly impressed with the mystery of it. And the mystery of it keeps
unfolding all the time to me. When I talk about the mystery, I often think of the words of
a Shakespearean play, King Lear, where he and his daughter are just about to be
imprisoned.
(37:40 – 38:42)
And he says something like this, he says, and we shall laugh and play and sing and tell
old tales and look at gilded butterflies and hear of court news, who’s in and who’s out.
And take upon us the mystery of things as if we were God’s spies. I think in Alcoholics
Anonymous, you and I have the opportunity to become God’s wonderful spies because
we get to watch God showing off, demonstrating what he or she can do in all of us.
And I was particularly impressed when God showed off beautifully tonight in all the
birthday people. I’m really grateful to you for inviting me. I wish you all a wonderful end
of the summer, a day at a time, and I love you very much.
(38:42 – 38:42)
Thank you.
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