Nancy, AA
I'm just getting my phone ready. Hi everybody, my name is Nancy, and I am an alcoholic. I'm so honored to be asked to speak at your wonderful fundraiser, and you guys are just a wonderful group of women, AA and Al-Anon, and I'm so glad that you're on part of your family, and you're part of my family, and I have something very near and dear to Santa Clarita Valley. My brother is a physician, and he just.. he wanted to open a couple of boarding cares, and he chose the beautiful Santa Clarita Valley, and he bought a couple of houses and converted them into, you know, very loving places for, you know mostly people with dementia, and they're in Cedar Creek area Canyon Country area, so you know I've been, we've been coming back and forth. I live in Sherman Oaks, so we've been coming back and forth, and my brother's here all the time from Sherman Oaks up here, and I love the Santa Clarita Valley, so beautiful and serene, and I love it. Anyhow, I'm just going to get into what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now.
I was born in Rhode Island and raised in Miami, and it was in the 50s that we moved to Miami, and air conditioning really wasn't a thing then. It was brutally hot, and like, so humid, it was just like, just awful, you know, and we were in the house with no air conditioning in the school, and in school bus, and, and I came from a very tough home to live in, and there's a lot of abuse, and also, you know, I was, I'm Jewish, and I was, I lived in a community that wasn't, so I got put down a lot and beaten up at school. They say, are you an effing Jewish person? And I didn't want to say yes, didn't want to say no, so they used to beat me up, just in case, you know, so there was all that going on in elementary school, plus in my home there was verbal, emotional, physical abuse, and it also, my brother was kind of, I was kind of his target, you know, when he took his aggressions out on me, and then my mom would come over and just ask, you know, she couldn't stand the screaming, I'd be screaming, you know, because it hurt. Then she'd come, I'd be in the closet hiding, and she'd come and start taking it out on me, you know. Lo and behold, with all that going on, I had my first panic attack when I was 10, and it so horrified me, I was at my first dance, you know, seventh grade, and it so horrified me that I didn't know what happened, I felt like I couldn't breathe, my heart's racing out of my chest, and it, my life, like, took a turn at that point, you know, I, I thought, what, what happened? I came home from the dance. I told my mom that something funny happened there, and she said, 'Just go to bed, you know. That's kind of how they handled, especially mental issues in those days. You know, in the 50s, that you don't want to hear about any of that. So I went to bed, and then my head just started exploding. How to avoid that happening, and I got it down to, if I don't breathe, it's not going to happen. So I spent my life holding my breath, you know. And then, as soon as I found my parents took me, psychiatrist, and they gave me pills, you know, to they didn't know about panic disorder till like 1980s or 90s or something, you know, so they were treating me with the medication, and I never got better, you know. They'd say, 'Well, what's wrong with you? I thought I said, 'I can't breathe, my heart's racing out of my chest, and they just didn't know what it was yet.
4:15 And so the by the time I was 17 years old, I ended up in my first state mental hospital, and by that time I also, I was on those pills, and once I found booze, I was really good at tennis too, and so I was in the tournament, and I was really doing well in the tournament, you know, and they had a party, and I went to it, and I just headed right to the cart. This is my first drink ever of alcohol. I went in, I went to the liquor cart, and I just filled up a huge glass of vodka and orange juice, and my parents came to the party, and I was in the bathtub, passed out. You know, that's my first drink. Me and it helped me, it helped me to be able to have some kind of life outside of my agoraphobic, you know, existence in my room, you know, and 17 years old, first state mental hospital, and it had the doctor's opinion from the big book about cost anonymous that chronic alcoholic, hopeless condition, and I was, I was a kid, you know, young person, and I got out of there, and still I didn't know what was wrong with me, I knew that, but what was causing me to have the panic attacks, and what was that, you know, and I learned in a scream without a mouth, you know that term, and that's what it was like. It's like, oh my god, help me, help me. And, and I tell them what was wrong with me, but they just didn't know what it was.
Anyhow, I left that mental hospital and just started living a life of a chronic alcoholic woman. I went from relationship to relationship, and somehow I made it through college. I did very poorly in grammar school, because I just couldn't concentrate, you know. It's hot, and I had all these other issues, add, and I was just a hot mess, you know, literally hot, I and so they just kept me in the office, you know, and I didn't care, I just kind of sailed through all, you know, my schooling, and I just didn't care, you know, and then finally I got to, you know, I got into college, I wasn't even in school, but I got a scholarship to University of Miami, and I went there, and there was air conditioning there, and I could concentrate, you know, so I did a lot of catching up. I graduated with honors, and I became a special ed teacher, and went into the, got into my classroom again back in the heat, and some guy came into town, a stranger, you know, I was living with my roommate, total stranger comes into town, and he wanted to get married, and he wanted to marry her, not me, and I said, "I'll take you, and it meant, you know, moving. He lived in New York, right? It meant moving to a new place. I said, "Wow, New York sounds great, right? So that teaching career I worked so hard to get, because you couldn't get teaching jobs in those days very easily. I just up and left, and my mom threw a wedding together in like a week, and I was married, and moved up to New York, and of course things didn't get any better, because I was there, and he, he obviously had his own problems, you know. And then, so after that, my brother came out to New York and said, "You know, come back to Florida, went back to Miami. What do I do now? I'll kill myself. So I took my bottle of champagne, I think, to celebrate, and went to the highest hotel in Miami, and I asked for a room at the top, and they said no, you know, I didn't have my suitcase or anything, like no, they wouldn't give it to me, so I plan B, I went to get something to eat downstairs, you know, and I went there, and I waited. Very nice man came over the waiter, and I said, "Would you believe I came here to kill myself? And they wouldn't be in my room. He said, "Oh my god, don't say that. That's horrible, you know.
8:36 We were married a month later, and back to New York, I then I was married to him, and again it didn't work out, because we were strangers, and you know, and so then my brother came into town. He had just moved to California, and he was setting up his medical practice, and everything, and I said, well, how would have I come out there with you? Like, he needed me. I had my gallon, 1.75 gallon of vodka with me, my for 30 years of my life. I carry it in a little plastic bag, you know, like nobody could see it, but it was with me. It was with me all the time. You could carry things on the airlines at the time, you know. I say, just put it under my seat, and now we're talking to, you know, a large thing with a handle of vodka, of course. Driving it would be under my seat, and you know, just always, so that having that afforded me the ability to live that kind of life, you know, just going from place to place aimlessly, you know, so I left that relationship, ended up with another one, and then two more, actually, after that, so I've been, I was married four times to strangers, and so the number. Four, I was living. I happened to land in Connecticut, agoraphobic. He was going to work, and I was on the floor. I was like drinking my vodka, this in a glass this time, not out of the thing, usually was it just out of the bottle, hot. And so drank, drank the city, and he comes home, takes my glass and throws it against the wall. He said, "We're not going to drink or use or anything. I'm like, "Okay, you know, great. So I said, "I can't leave. I'm terrified with fear. But anyhow, I just happened to see the newspaper, and it said, "You know, they started coming out with research studies and everything, and he said, if you suffer from this, this, this, that, the symptoms I've had my entire life, you can't breathe, your heart's racist, exactly what happened when I was 10 years old, give us a call, and it just happened to be Yale University, which is 20 minutes down the street from me, so I called them up, they said, come on in, and they said we know it's wrong with you, and and then I was on TV on the news, and everything, you know, they did a five part study on panic disorder, because finally it's in the DSM, the psychiatry, the manual, you know.
So I was part of that whole research thing, and then, you know, I had no life, I was already in my 30s, you know, and that, that began my journey. I went to them, and they had me, like, on a double blind study, you know, whether I was on a medication that they were trying to get approved in the United States. It was like the precursor to Prozac. So, I was on that study, I didn't know whether or not, you know, I was on anything, but I remember, like, after the third or fourth day of going there, and I remember I was walking my dog, and I got outside, and it's like my whole life had just been gray, I had no feeling of just like gray, you know, that's why, you know, I just trying to kill myself, suicidal depression, and I remember I was walking outside, and all of a sudden it looked like that the sky started to open, I could feel sunshine coming into me, I couldn't believe it, you know, and so I kept doing that, I was able to go back to teach, I was teaching young kids, and you know, I wasn't in AA yet, and things happened. He ended up meeting someone online and knocking her up, and I'm like, well, I can't, I've got to leave, you know. And so I ended up coming out to LA, and I was going to start a whole fresh new life here, and, and I had been away from drinking for, for quite a while, and you know, but I had no friends, I had nobody to turn to. I was like, "Shut off, because I had no social skills, because I never got that part of life, you know.
12:51 We start socializing, so I came out here with my three little dogs, and my, my brother put him with his dogs, and his dogs, like, killed one of my dogs, and I'm like, I had no one to turn to. I'm laying there, and my brother offered me a glass of wine, and once I took that, like the guy in the carpet slippers in the big book, you know, once I took that glass of wine, it turned into bottles from two buckshot, and I used to get like three cases of two buckshots, cling clanging home, you know, and just freaking myself to death. And I said, then I still have your DTS, and I was like, you know, it really, really horrible shape. And someone got me to the hospital, and they said, you know, when you get out of here, call AA. So I called Alcoholics Anonymous Central Office in the valley, and my life began. You know, they sent me to a meeting, and I, you know, I knew I was in the right place, but I could not surrender to, you know, I just.. it couldn't be this, you know, couldn't be this. What is it? You know, and so anyhow, that, that went six years of going to meetings, and finally I ended up as Christmas time, and my one of what my last dog passed away. I'm like, okay, well, I can die now, you know.
So I took a whole bunch of pills and booze, and went to leave the room, and somehow my mother and brother were there, and I just coded right there when I went down. I broke my knee, and but they revived me, got me. I came to in the not house once again, and but I was so grateful because I'd been in AA for six years, and I knew you needed that moment of surrender, and that was my moment. I'm like, I'm smiling. I'm like, God, please help me, you know. And after that, he certainly did. You know, and started going to meetings on my walker. Someone came and spoke. I said, would you be my sponsor? And she said, Wednesday night, Pacific Group, that big meeting. You must have heard of it, you know. Is your home group and I went there, and in they had so many activities, and so, so much laughter, and and I just jumped in like a kid in a candy store, and I signed up to do everything, so I went on a camping trip in Big Bear, or something, or.. and here I am, agoraphobic most of my life, and I'm in my own tent in live bear country, like, oh, yes, it, and here, here I am, and I went to the dances, I went to the plays, and I, you know, I went on stage, and it helped me to jump through all, get through all my fears that it, you know, trapped me, you made me a prisoner my whole life, and my mom, who, who chased after me my whole life, you know, she's my search and rescues team, and she, she was out here too. My brother brought her out here, and so she got to see me, a sober daughter, you know. We never knew what was wrong with me, because I had that panic disorder, and then that, and she, she told me, I'm so proud of you, you know, and my whole life, what am I going to do with you, you know, because I'd be trying to kill myself, and she come into the ICU, and she said, you didn't want to kill yourself, I'm like, oh my god, I'm still here, so that was our whole life through my entire existence, so I used to bring her to all the parties, you know, the parties we have, and everything, and the dances, and she saw me on stage singing and dancing, and she said to me, I'm so proud of you, I'm like, you know, why are you so good to me, and everything just changed, I'll be so grateful for AA for that, for our relationship, and my brother, a doctor.
16:48 I used to work in his office, so I used to study the PDR, you know, the about drugs, and I called pills in for myself under his license, and I couldn't stop doing that, you know, so I showed him I couldn't stop doing it, so I showed him all these bottles, these pill bottles with his name on it, with other people's names on it, you know. I didn't want to use my own name. This is when you could do that stuff, stuff, you know. And I was listening to newscasters and stuff on, I think it was Leslie Miller or something, that some newscasters on TV, I just write their name, you know. So he, he saw these bottles, and he freaked out, so he didn't talk to me for five years, right. And we live under the same roof, and so my sponsor said every day you say hi to him, so every day for five years. Hi, Rich. Hi, Rich. He didn't say a word, you know. And then other things that I heard in AA sent him, give him a card and something. And so I did all that. Then after five years I heard him say something, and I ran to a meeting. I said he said something, he said something. Then the next day it was a little louder, you know, and now I still live there with him, you know, in my mom's past, and we're friends now, you know, we're friends, and my sobriety day, September 27 2007 so I have coming up by 19 years, I and also I want to thank my dear friends back there, Terry and Bee, for coming out and supporting me, and I, like I said, I never had social skills, I never had friends, and when I came in, I just hated everybody and everything, you know, I mean it was serious, you know. I be driving, and they're on the crosswalk, and I'd like.. I just wanted to plow into them, you know. It was just really bad, and I didn't even make sense for my first year of sobriety.
I was talking about three different things at once, and I'm like, great. I finally got sober, and now I have dementia. That's what I thought, but it turns out I just kept doing it, and I got through everything, all the milestones, and when I turned a year sober, I started volunteering at Valley Central Office, where I'm still volunteering now, and I don't know if you guys knew Bob Fisher, he's just a wonderful, wonderful man. He was a manager of Central Office there. And when I first went there, you know, my first day in the job, I hated people and had no idea how to get any place. And my job was to talk to people and tell them how to get to meetings. And I, so they, they said, "Just, you know, do it. And when someone calls, I just put them on hold, and I ran and got one of the people there to handle that part of it, and I've been loved and supported in AA, you know, and because of that, you know, I had no computer skills either, you know, being a teacher from a while ago and. So I got a job with a podiatrist, and he thought I thought I could run his office on a phone, because that's all I know how to do, is my phone, and so, so you know, he hired me, and you know, and I learned how to, you know, run an office, a computer, an office, and everything, and, and I would have left, you know, like I always did for everything. I just, someone says boo, and I didn't like it. I just leave, you know, relationships and jobs, and so that's it. And he said, 'No, I want you to stay, stay, and start building your resume. And that was like a whole foreign concept to me, you know. And they supported me. I said, 'You know what he said to me now, okay? And they listened, and okay, you just stay, you know. So I've stayed here, and I've gone through the good and the bad, and so, so I had another job.
20:52 And then after that, so currently it's like I was just volunteering Central Office, because the job that I had, you know, helping homeless, you know, find housing and resources, they lost their funding, so I said, "What am I going to do now? So I went online and I googled things that I enjoy doing. So now I've gotten three jobs: one is working for the Red Cross, like in their volunteering, you know, at their blood drives. So I love doing that, and then also for the Discovery Shop, the thrift stores, I help out there, and I just recently got one at UCLA, like I'll be working the ophthalmology department, being a greeter, because I have such a great attitude, they tell me it's changed me, you know, it's like I'm friendly, and I know how to, you know, from greeting and doing all the commitments in AA, putting my hand out, hugging, and just like it's changed me, just a whole different person. So I was sitting, I was at UCLA, I just got, you know, accepted that you have to go this huge onboarding process, you know, even to volunteer and take all these courses, and this and that, and so I was there, and they just finally gave me my badge and my little smock, you know, and I walked outside, you know, as a beautiful sunny day, just looked up to the heavens, I said, "Mom, I know you're proud of me, you know, and I'm just so grateful for my life, and thank you so much. Sorry. retired. I retired, and excuse me, ladies, excuse me. We're gonna do final call for raffles, so if anybody is still interested in purchasing a raffle for the convention packet opportunity, please raise your hand, and we will have somebody come to you. Anybody raise your hand?