Marilyn's Journey: Science, Social Struggles, and AA Recovery

Hello, I am Marilyn and I am an alcoholic.

Hi Marilyn.

Really grateful to Scott for the invitation to be at this good meeting where it's nice and cool.

And also, it was a real privilege to hear you, Greg. That was a powerful and beautiful story.

And it's just one of those things when I hear a story like that.

And it's not unusual to hear a surprising story, but you can't get there from here.

I mean, how can this happen?

Given the clientele of Alcoholics Anonymous, that we come in from the weirdest places

and yet we pass for normal now.

We got in the world, we form halfway decent relationships and get along with other people and keep jobs.

And so if I ever doubted that there was a higher power that had great pity on Alcoholics Anonymous,

I just have to go to an AA meeting and listen to a story like Greg's and be very grateful.

My story is different, but really the same.

I used alcohol just to get through life and then it began to turn on me and make problems.

I wanted to be a scientist. I wanted to be a great scientist.

I wanted to win the Nobel Prize and I had a lot of dreams and hopes.

And I also wanted to fit into the real world. I was always such a misfit.

I just didn't know how to talk to other people.

I went to school with other kids and they all seemed to form little groups of twos and threes and they had friends.

I had a friend. She was in one of those little groups.

And so she said, "Come into the little group that I'm in."

It was called The Talkative Tan and we have such fun.

So I was so happy about that, that maybe somehow I would even have a place among other people.

So Jane brought that up in the little group and they had a vote and they voted no.

I still resent them.

But anyway, that was just sort of the story of the way it always was.

And so I thought if I could just go away and study science and be a great scientist,

then at least I'd fit into a community and we'd speak that magic language and I would learn how to talk with other people.

And maybe they would not ask those strange questions like, "How are you?"

And I'd try to answer questions like that.

I mean, I would talk about depression and anxiety and they would just go away.

And it was just an endless, "My goodness, what is wrong with me? Why don't I fit in?"

I had a saintly mom who saved money so I could go away and study science.

And it was at the University of Chicago from Ohio. I was born in Ohio.

So I went away and had a roommate.

And again, it was just that social unease of just having another person in the room, not knowing how to relate to her.

But we were poor and so I had to get a job.

My mom would get into school and I went to a science institute, the Fermi Institute,

and I had to take a test to see if I could work there.

And I sat down to do the test and it involved a microscope.

And Paul, a very thin, very pale scientist, came out to give me this test.

And he had a white lab coat on and he had a slide rule in his pocket.

And he just, oh, he spelled science and everything.

And some of you are younger than I am in this room.

A slide rule is an old-fashioned calculator.

I actually did multiplication by moving two little words past one another.

And now, I mean, look at telephones.

Well, should I go on?

But anyway, back in the old days, a slide rule was a magic thing because you are a real scientist.

And he was helping me to take this test and I just looked at that slide rule

and, oh my gosh, I wanted to grab and fondle his slide rule.

And they got the job, by the way.

And I just thought, you know, now I can finally become a scientist and here I am in this lab.

But again, people were talking like the people in Ohio.

They would say things like, "How's it going?"

And again, you know, just these bafflers.

I just never, ever quite fit in.

But with the person who gave me that test, the scientist, Bill, tall, pale,

he looked like he had been in a lab all of his life.

Never seen the light of day.

But somehow we could talk to each other and he went off to Washington

and he sent me a postcard and I turned it over and it said,

"Dear Marilyn, I was thinking about what you were saying, but all I can come up with is,"

and he wrote out the elegant partial differential equation.

And, oh my gosh, no man had ever talked to me like that.

And he just was falling in love.

And we got acquainted and one day he said, "Do you want to get married?"

And I just said, "Yes, yes."

And off we went to Ohio where his dad was a Lutheran minister.

Now, Bill and I were atheists because we believed in science

and in those days I thought you could believe in science, which is reasonable,

or you could be out of your mind and believed in something supernatural,

which you couldn't do experiments on, so therefore it does not exist.

So nevertheless, we were in this little religious ceremony

and Bill's dad, the Lutheran minister, actually married us

and I just felt like now I can finally be a happy person.

And just to look into AA literature, there's a book called The Soul of Sponsorship

where Bill Wilson writes a whole bunch of letters back and forth to Father Ed Dowling.

And so much of that book talks about Bill Wilson's unhealthy dependencies

on other people, on situations, on jobs, getting one's worth from some lower power,

unhealthy dependencies, dependence on things that could really never make you happy.

And for whatever reason, I just had a kind of sick, unhealthy dependency

that made me want to attach to any warm mammal,

especially a human being that comes along, just like a tick in the forest,

attach and then suck out your life.

And so when Bill talked about unhealthy dependency, I just thought, "Yes."

At first I thought it was because my father was in a terrible auto accident

when I was a small child and play in a vegetative state for about 12 or 15 years.

And so I was always looking for a father.

But I realized that people and alcoholics anonymous that had wonderful dads

and played with them and were real dads

and developed these unhealthy dependencies on others.

So whatever it is, I don't know the cause.

But I certainly, certainly had that.

Always looking to be satisfied by some kind of lesser power of claim

or appreciated mission in science.

And certainly I attached that to Bill.

You have to make me happy. You married me and I'm unhappy.

So it's your fault.

You don't love me. You don't love me.

That's why I'm so miserable.

And he would say, "Well, why? What did I do?

What did I do that makes you feel this way?"

I would say something like, "You don't take me to Disneyland."

Not that I ever wanted to go to Disneyland,

but it was the first thing that came to mind.

And he would say something like, "Well, we could go to Disneyland."

And then I'd have to say, "No, no, because you didn't think of it."

So that was life.

And we moved to California.

Bill was older than I, eight years.

And he was finishing his education.

I was just getting started.

And we came to California.

And by that time I was in a lab.

I was a scientist.

And I had a graduate student.

Bill was a professor.

We were at the same university.

And I had a research project.

You know, I'm a great believer in sponsorship.

Always had a sponsor.

Sponsored women.

I'm a sponsor now.

I'm a sponsor of women now.

And men, two men.

And it's a great believer.

And it's just by chance in those days back in the lab.

Maybe now an advisor is often called your sponsor in graduate school.

That's because that person got a little bit of money for you, a stipend.

And actually sponsored your education and research project.

And so I was working on a research project with a wonderful director of a lab.

He was my sponsor.

But unlike Alcoholics Anonymous, I never took direction from my sponsor.

And just the same as in Alcoholics Anonymous,

if you have a sponsor and don't take direction,

then that is not pretty usually.

And it was not a pretty picture in the lab either.

He had given me a research project and would come by and say,

"How's it going?"

It's a question like, "What in the world does that mean?

How is it going?"

And I would just say, "Okay, do you need any help?"

"No."

I mean, I didn't know how to ask for help.

I was not making any progress.

But I couldn't put into words what was the problem.

And so life was just getting ever more painful.

It was painful at home, painful in the lab.

And then I was rescued.

And it came into my life when I was about 20,

almost legally able to drink.

But we had entered the '60s, and everybody seemed to be drinking.

I mean, there was alcohol right in our lab, 90% ethanol.

And that's a 180-proof drink, just like vodka, but stronger and very good.

And we just all began to drink that lab alcohol.

And then after a day of hard working, drinking,

we'd go out to bars at night.

In Venice, the Boar House, a great big old bar with boars over the door.

Here it burned down.

It's really sad.

And then the Matador, where people would get up,

L'Manco dancers would dance on the table with castanets.

And I just realized that alcohol has gotten me all of these things

that I so desired.

And that's what I mean, that I was able to use alcohol

to achieve those goals that I so desperately wanted.

I wanted to have success at work.

I wanted to have a happy family.

I wanted to be able to get along with other people.

I wanted to have their respect.

And when I began to drink, I felt happy.

I felt that people in the lab liked me.

I seemed to have no problems talking with them.

I mean, I had no idea what I said, that they could even get words out,

but it just gave me the illusion that we're communicating.

Wherever I felt like a real scientist now,

I just felt like the Nobel Prize is ever so close.

And I just knew that somehow I had gotten to that place in life

where I knew I would be a happy person,

and I kind of recognized that it was alcohol

that was getting me there and keeping me there,

helping me to become a great scientist.

Well, all of this is the illusion.

I think a part of that is covered in step two,

which talks about how insanity came to believe

that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Back in those days, you could call it insanity,

you could call it delusion,

but I felt that I had the respect of other people.

I was drinking a lot, not getting any work done.

I don't think I had the respect.

It just felt like I did.

And I felt like a great scientist now,

but I pretty much stopped working

because we were drinking all the time in the lab

or missing work and hanging out in bars.

And now I was happy at home,

and I just thought finally I have achieved

what I wanted, a happy family.

We're happy now.

I was drunk all the time.

I sat in a hanging chair and listened to folk music and drank

and thought this is happy family.

And that went on for a couple of years

because we were indulged in science in those days.

And then it came to a crashing halt

because the director said,

"It's time to write up what you've been doing,"

and that was the kiss of death.

I began to think, "What have I been doing here?"

And I looked through my lab books,

and there were some doodles,

and I'd write a few things.

I'd start an experiment, and there was no results.

Sometimes there would be a page of results

with a line drawn through it,

and I just thought, "What does all of this mean?"

And it meant nothing, and I had nothing to write up,

and I just left the lab.

And sometime later, I mailed the keys back to the secretary there

and quickly gave birth to what seemed like a lot of little children.

Now, my life was out of control, and that was all I planned.

Bill had always wanted a family,

so he seemed to be really happy about that,

but I was in no shape to take care of little children.

And the years that followed were depraved drinking,

scaring my husband to death.

And he's a scientist.

He didn't drink.

Kind of a man of action.

In his short order, he brought his mother in

because I was a clear danger to the children,

going out to get more to drink with children in the car

before there were seat belts.

I mean, that was back in the late '60s.

And my mother-in-law really scared me.

I got teased only when she got tired and went home.

Then my mother came, and I was so mean to my own mother.

I was just trying to help and say, "Go home, you horrible old thing.

You're poisoning the children against you," to my own mother.

And she said, "No, I think I have to stay here for a while

because you're still weak from giving birth to those children,

and I need to help out."

She was so ashamed of alcohol and stuff

that she just couldn't admit that I was drunk all the time

and just tried to hang on and take care of the children.

She'd get tired, more sad, more something, and go home,

and then my mother-in-law would come back.

My mother-in-law was a little different.

He saw that I was horrible as alcohol,

but give me encouragement.

Unless you get control of your life and stop drinking,

we're going to lock you up,

and you'll never see the children again.

Just some encouragement.

And she knew about AA.

She said, "I had to go to AA."

And it's because of her that I am sober tonight,

even though I loathed the kids at the time

and had to make a lot of romance to her.

She was it.

But that's been the story of much of recovery

as something that's so scary,

often is exactly what I need for sobriety.

And I don't know how that's so,

that I resist those things that are good for me.

But it also is an indication of why life went so terribly for me before

because I only did those things that I thought would be fun and wonderful

to get people to love me

and never giving a thought to another woman being.

So everything was backwards, and alcohol was anonymous.

I wanted Marian, my first sponsor,

to come out and sit on the curb

and listen to me about my depression,

which was my will, my judgment.

That's what I need.

I need a strong sponsor to pity me,

listen to me, and indulge me,

and tell me that she loved me.

Instead, she said, "You're in a depression.

You need to be in the meeting in the front row.

You need to listen to every word the speaker says,

and I'm going to give you a quiz afterwards."

And I just thought, "How could people be so mean?

How can they be so terrible?"

And yet somehow they knew,

somehow they knew that the antidote,

they knew to give what they had been given

so that there would be some hope that we could get sober and stay sober.

I did everything my sponsor said,

which was Unity Recovery Service,

come to meetings early, volunteer for a commitment at every meeting,

go to seven meetings a week, participate in all the activities,

go on panels.

Oh, my gosh, all of this stuff.

I loathed and hated it at first.

I was fearful of everybody because they yelled at me.

And I was in the big Pacific group

where it's kind of the boot camp of sobriety.

I think of it as the bad dog school of sobriety

because, you know, it's the 12 steps.

There's the 12 traditions.

There's the 12 concepts, which I see nicely.

You hang on the wall.

But in addition to that, in the Pacific group,

we have about 795 other schools.

But there's no handbook.

They don't tell you what they are.

No nice banter with all of us.

You learn what they are by breaking one of the rules.

Bad dog, bad dog, bad dog.

But in that process, I learned not to cut into line.

I learned not to do my commitments.

I learned many, many things.

I learned to come early to a meeting

and not save a whole row of seats.

I just learned politeness.

And I learned how to work.

I didn't know how to work.

I had a job, and if I didn't show up for my job,

my Gucci yelled at me, "Bad dog!"

And I began to understand that these 12 steps

are essential for recovery.

The first 11 are self-helpful, really.

They get you up and out into the world

and back into normal living.

If you were ever in normal living,

if you were never in normal living,

as I was never in normal living,

it somehow civilizes you to the point where, for me,

I was able to go back to school and finish that degree

that I started.

I was able to go out and work and have a nice job.

And I made amends to my family,

and we began to have a healthy, happy family

instead of a family where I was the center.

Meet my every whim, please.

And that came just because of alcoholics

and not listening to newcomers.

And yet the funny thing was that I had this emphasis

on the first 11 step,

but I was not deeply involved in the fellowship

in that I was not putting that first

after a while I began to put work really high on the list.

And I began to have these lesser goals.

As Bill Wilson talked about,

dependency again on the approval of others,

dependency on getting a better job,

dependency on money, getting more money in my job.

And if you have these lesser gods, you have a lesser life.

And thank God I recognized that when I was about 18 years sober

and recommitted to Alcoholics Anonymous.

And that's because I looked at the people who were happy

in the fellowship and they were the ones

that were super active, being of service.

And I went back to my first home group, the Pacific group,

and really threw myself into the fellowship.

I continued to work, but now the highest priority in my life

is Alcoholics Anonymous, putting that first for a change.

And I began to see that everything on the outside

was just a little bit easier.

It was so good that between 18 and near 40,

it was just really a smooth, smooth kind of thing

where I just thought I'm going to run out the clock.

By the way, this program has kept me sober for over 50 years.

I did not see my sobriety date, February 1972.

And at the 18th year when I had this,

it was really a real spiritual awakening

that I've been doing it all wrong.

They said I went back to my first meeting back.

Somebody says, "Can you come with me on my panel?

It's only 90 miles out of town.

And then somebody can you stay after the meeting

and help us scrape the chewing gum off the sidewalk?"

And some newcomer, "Can you take me home to North Hollywood?"

Sure. And it just became a full involvement.

And those were, they said, really good years.

When I was 40 years sober, I was just telling my story.

I had three children, which I was able to count

after I got sober and make amends to and grow up with.

And my sponsor, my first sponsor, Miriam, helped with that.

And now I had a new sponsor, and that was Clancy,

the founder of the Pacific Group.

Clancy used to scare me to death the first time around.

And yet when I came back, now I saw him in a different way.

I saw him as an example of total commitment to the fellowship.

And I just wanted to have that kind of example in front of me,

something to try to imitate.

And I could never be that active.

He just gave his whole life to the service of others.

But it inspired me to try to be better every day.

And that just led me into a life

that I was almost embarrassed to talk about

because we were a happy family.

I got acquainted with Bill, not as a scientist with a white lab coat,

but just plain Bill, because I learned how to talk to people

and alcoholics anonymous.

Our children were all doing well, as Greg talked about.

His children went out into the world, and ours did.

Our two daughters went out and got really, really good jobs,

all scientists, and started producing grandchildren.

They are a big joy in my life

because I kind of missed it the first time around.

And our son linked up with this professor

and started an artificial intelligence company.

And it was doing really, really well after 7/11

because they needed all kind of intelligence.

And so I was giving talks, as we do in Alcoholics Anonymous,

and I was almost embarrassed to talk about my life

because it was one of those things that sounded so good

that I just saw newcomers maybe gagging.

I mean, if you're that new, you have not had a good year,

and you do not want to hear about happy.

And yet it was my story, so I told my story

and just realized that it will be this way from here on

and was grateful to God for giving me a long life

because I had a lot of amends to make

to all these people I worked out on

to repay the university and that professor.

So that was tedious, but after that was finished,

as I said, you know, it just sounded very good.

So when I was 40 years sober,

I went to Las Vegas to talk at this big state line convention.

I was talking about step two.

When I got off the podium on Friday night,

there was wild activity on my phone,

and two daughters, our daughter-in-law married to David.

Our son said David didn't come home from work,

and they couldn't find David.

So I called David, just got the answering machine,

and we called one another,

and finally the police were drawn into it,

and they went to his workplace,

which they were doing top-secret work,

and so we couldn't just walk in.

They finally got, the police got into the institute,

and they found David, and he had hanged himself in his arms.

And we have no idea how that happened.

He was an elite athlete.

He seemed to have the kind of life

that everybody would want to have,

beautiful young wife.

They were both scientists. We'll never know.

And my world came to an end that night,

and this happy life that I thought

would just last until I went to the hereafter

was sheddered into a million pieces.

Luckily, I had a strong sponsor, and that was Clancy.

He was at Stateline that year,

and so I called him close to midnight,

and he could be drunk, but he won't.

I was asleep, and so then I told him.

And Clancy, I don't know whether you ever knew Clancy,

but he had this way of just being like Clark Kent,

mild-mannered, mild reporter on the Daily Planet,

and he'd go into a phone booth, take off his jacket,

out of clothing, and there would be this big suit.

And so Clancy just came out of the dole booth,

and he said, "You have 40 years of sobriety,

and you have a strong program,

and now your family is going to need you,

and you're going to be the support for your family.

I want you to go get in your car,

drive home tonight from Las Vegas,

and comfort your husband."

And like a hypnotic suggestion,

because I have been sponsored all these years,

and I believe in sponsorship,

and a sponsor's direction is a hypnotic suggestion for me.

I just do it, and I got in the car,

and I started that five- or six-hour drive across the desert,

and I had a CD in the car to listen to,

and it was the great Sandy Beach who passed away a few years ago.

And I use his last name because he's no longer with us,

and he had lost his two daughters, the yoga boy,

and he told me exactly what to do with the CD.

I listened to it over and over,

and he said that, "You have a little bit of time to react

when something like that happens,

and you go out to your higher power,

and you form that bond as never before,

and you say, 'Don't leave me. I'll never leave you.'"

And when you do begin to react, guess who comes back with you,

and I can tell you that that's true.

So I drove home and went in the house,

and there was Bill just like shriveled up,

destroyed. His beloved son was gone,

and I could see that we're going to have a couple of bad years,

and I'll tell you, those two years were grief and recovery.

But because of Alcoholics Anonymous,

I began to hear story after story

and realized that I am not the only person.

In fact, I think all of us, if we'd lived long enough,

I get to lose people, and we have tragedies.

And those of us who trust the program and trust higher power,

get through them with a kind of resiliency

and a story to tell that helps somebody who's just going through it.

As Sandy Beach helped me, he and I became friends,

and he somehow was able to contact me,

and I saw him down in Tampa Bay a couple of times to be out here,

and he was a great help, as were many others.

In the time that Valar went with Julie St. Jay

in our home group and lost her son 10 years before a terrible auto accident,

and she kept saying, "Accept, accept.

If you can accept, then you will find that there are blessings."

I could tell you now, more than 10 years have passed,

and I have a lot of joy in my life.

There will always be that scar.

But on the other hand, I experience much happiness,

maybe even before, because I've known the depths,

and I'm grateful for the life we have,

grateful for our two daughters, for all of our grandchildren,

grateful for all of my sponsors, the alcoholics and honest friends,

people on the outside.

My job, I was teaching in the Lifelong Learning Institute,

so I was elected president in the two years that Valar,

which was a great distraction.

It's a two-year commitment.

But that really got me out of self-obsession for many a day.

And in the years that have followed, there have been other losses

because I'm very old, and that happens.

But because I'm old, I think I've been given these clues

of the other side.

I know that we are just fine in the year and the year after.

I'm fine here.

And the wonderful thing is that I used alcohol to get those things,

good jobs, successful work, happy families,

friends, being able to talk with other people.

And alcohol let me down.

It took me ever farther from that goal

and shattered any possibility of ever reaching that goal.

And this program has given me all of those things.

But it's a funny thing.

I don't think of it quite in that way,

but it's just that feeling of, boy,

at last I finally got just what I always wanted.

And you would say, well, OK, what exactly is that?

And I would say, I have no idea.

It's just the feeling that I got it, and that's enough for me.

Thank you.