Barbara's Journey: From Music-Filled Childhood to 35 Years Sober

Now? Here we go. Okay. Hi, everybody. My name is Barbara. Hi. Thank you, Nathan, for calling me

and asking me to be here. I don't go in person anymore. I go to Zoom meetings, basically,

because I'm old, and I have health issues. It's just great. God, it's great. If you don't drink

and you don't die, you get old. And so I said, "Gee, I'm so sorry, I won't be able to do it."

He said, "I only go to Zoom meetings." He said, "That's okay. It's hybrid." So here I am.

Thank you to Alex and Scott, and I forgot to write down your name. 12 traditions, but thank you.

I got this new app on my phone, so it tells me exactly to the day how sober I am. My sobriety

date is January 9th, 1990, and that means I'm 35 years, 4 months, and 15 days. So those are my

stats. So the last time I was at this meeting, you were in another room. It was probably 12 years ago,

and I remember standing up at the podium, and it was a fun group, and it looks like you're all

very close as well. And I heard a lot of nice things about you guys from the people on Zoom.

They love this meeting. And I think, Kevin, did I see you say you were new? Welcome. Welcome to

Alcoholics Anonymous. I'll tell you what they told me when I was new. They said this is a safe place,

and you're going to be okay here. So welcome. Stay close. I'm glad you're here. So let's see.

I loved your story, Alex. I could have listened to it all day. Your red hair reminds me I have

a red-headed son, and at one point, he wanted turquoise hair. And I told him no, and he begged

me. And when I told him we'd have to bleach all the red out of his hair in order to have turquoise

show up, he backed down. And I'm real glad about that. And he's a drinker. When I got here, my kids

were very, very young. But I'll start at the beginning. I grew up in Studio City. That's where

I am right now. And I grew up in the 50s. I was born in the 40s. I grew up in the 50s. And that's

just like a date for most of you. I don't know how many people relate to that. Thank you, Susan.

You're my friend now. Susan and I are pals. And when I went to middle school, it was called

junior high, and it was the 60s. Anyway, my dad was a musician. He was a composer and a trumpet

player. He's from the East Coast, and he met my mom on the East Coast. And she was a band singer.

And they came here to California in the late 40s. They had me and they set up house. And I was young

and there were no freeways at the time. There was the Pasadena freeway. They were busy building

things. But a lot of you are from out of state, so you don't know what I'm talking about. But

the house that I grew up in, which is still next door to me, figure that out, was between two

main thoroughfares over the Santa Monica Mountains. One is called Coldwater Canyon,

and the other is called Laurel Canyon. And the studios where my dad worked were over the hill

in Hollywood. And the musicians would come to our house every single day. They'd have their gigs at

the studio, and then they'd go over the canyons and they would land at the Jones house. And they'd

start coming to the house anywhere between, I don't know, 10 and 11, and they would stay till

the evening, early evening. And they would show up at the door. My mom would greet them.

And she had a cigarette holder, and her dress always matched the hors d'oeuvres. And she was

very Loretta Young. You don't know who Loretta Young is, but she had this show and she was

elegant and just lovely. And she would greet the musicians. They'd come in with their instrument.

They'd come in with a jug. They used to call it a jug. It was a big half gallon deal.

Carton of cigarettes. And they'd come in and they'd hang out. They had glasses for every kind of

drink. Everybody smoked in the '50s. Everybody. I mean, everybody. And the house would start to

fill up with smoke. You'd start to hear the ice and the glasses start cracking or the blender

going. And people would start to talk louder. You know that thing that we do. They just talked a

little bit louder. People are telling jokes. They're talking about politics. Not like today.

And it was wonderful. Someone would sit down at the piano. Somebody would start playing their

instrument. My mom might start singing. And it was a party every single day. I would plant myself

down in front of the dip. And I watched the show. It was like a show. And being in front of the dip

every day is why I go to another program as well. And it was like magic. I can't explain it to you.

It was fun. And I got the message really, really young. If you drink and you smoke,

you'll have friends. You'll have friends. People will come to your house and people will party and

they'll come every single day. Now, the thing that would happen is that pretty soon they'd have

to go home to their families. So they would go home. And then everything changed in my house.

My dad would have had too much to drink. My mother, who was so gracious and what a hostess,

would start bad mouthing these people. Look at the ashes on the floor. What's wrong with these

people? And she was nasty. Just nasty, controlling, angry most of the time. And my dad was very quiet.

He just would kind of have the camel non-filter hanging out of the side of his mouth. And he'd go,

"Uh-huh." Yep, yep. And the next day it would happen all over again. And she'd say, "Come on in,

Joe. It's great to see you. Wonderful. Come on in. What are you going to have to drink today?"

I mean, it was crazy making. And yet I thought everybody's house was kind of like that, you know?

When I grew up, the doors were open. You just roamed around. And at five o'clock, every house,

they drank. Every house. They weren't really alcoholics, but that was the transitional

thing that families did. The father would come home from work. Mother had been home all day.

Dinner was going to be ready at six. And around five o'clock, everyone had a cocktail or whatever

they were having. And neighbors would go from house to house. And not always, but it was nothing

to be standing there with your family and have Sharon and her husband walk in. And they had a

drink with us. Then they went home. It was an amazing time. I learned some other things in my

house. I learned that you can't be afraid. You just can't be afraid because if you're afraid,

you're weak. People who are afraid are weak people. And so I learned very young not to say

anything. And I was afraid a lot. There was a lot of yelling at my house. There was a lot of violence

at my house. My mother had an agenda for me. And that's hard to do when you're little and you don't

know there's an agenda. And I also learned early that you can't say you don't know because if you

say you don't know, that means you're stupid. And I would hear things like, "What do you mean you

don't know? Everybody knows that. What are you stupid? I've got the message." So I learned how

to make stuff up. I learned how to creatively change the subject or just out and out lie.

I became a very good liar by the time I was four or five years old and mostly to stay out of

trouble. And my mother also believed that this is just, I am such a geezer for heaven's sakes. She

also believed that a young woman should be well-rounded. And what that meant in my household

was, well, I was a brownie and a girl scout. I was a dancer. I was a singer. I was in hula. I

was in cotillion. I took fencing lessons. I took tap lessons. I took, what was that other thing

that we did? And the whole point was to be an asset for your husband. Because when you meet your,

get ready, just sit down if you're standing. When you meet your prince charming, you'll be

everything he needs in a wife. So I was in cooking classes and everything, all of it. And none of us

knew any better. That's the way it was. You get good grades, but you're not really going to go

to college because you're a girl. Only the boys went to college. The girls got married and had

babies. And so you have it. And that is why I needed a drink by the time I was 10. I mean,

not kidding. What the hell was going on in that household? So I had my first fix, I guess you

would say, when I was 12 and I picked up those camel cigarettes and I had been watching those

musicians and I knew how to smoke. I stole three cigarettes. We went down, I went down the street

to my friend's house. They were coughing and choking and I was smoking that. I knew how to

do it. So I smoked mine and theirs and I loved it. I loved it. It made me feel like a grownup.

A year later, I started taking those mini whites, their little pills, their speed, folks, speed.

And we all took those in the dance class because the thing was to be very, very thin. And I was

not very thin. And so we all took these speedy little pills. We all danced. I learned about

bulimia and anorexia and eating disorders. And it was great that all this information was available

to me. And I lapped it up literally. And I didn't have my first drink until I was 18 years old,

because I wasn't going to drink because as I got older, the alcoholics in my family and the

alcoholics that were coming to the house every day were sloppy. I watched them. They'd come in

and I loved these people. We didn't have relatives here. They were on the East coast. And these guys

were like my uncles. And on the weekends, I'd see their kids and their wives. But then when they

would drink all afternoon, they just would start slurring and get a little cheeky and I didn't like

it. And so I kind of said to myself, I'm never going to be like that. I'm never going to drink.

Mark my words. I'm never going to do it. And so I found drugs. That was good. That was the 60s.

And I know it's an AA meeting, but I'm sorry to say the 60s, we were loaded with that stuff.

And as I said, I didn't have my first drink until I was 18 years old. I was using drugs,

but I hadn't had a drink because I had made that vow to myself. And the long story short is that I

went to a party and I felt like I always felt Sam Cook was on the turntable. That's a record player

for all the young people in the room. And thanks Tom. And they had switched out some of the lights

in the room. So they were green or red and people were dancing. And we all thought we were surfers.

We were in the San Fernando Valley. There's no water in the San Fernando Valley, but we fancied

ourselves surfers. Boys whose parents had a lot of money would buy, actually buy them a Woody,

which is that looks like a station wagon, but has wood panels on the side. They actually had

surfboards. They had never surfed before. Everybody had a thing of wax in their back pocket. All the

girls looked the same. We all had our hair like this. You couldn't see our faces. We wore love

beads. We wore squad boots and bell bottoms and embroidery. And I was, I walked into this party

and everybody was in their costumes really. And the music was going. And I felt like I always felt

when I was with people, I wanted to disappear. I felt like I lived my life most of the time,

hoping I could be liked by you as good as you. And I felt, I kind of liken it to a catcher's mask.

It's like I lived my whole life looking through to kind of hide and see what it was you guys were

doing and what I should be and what I should say and what I should wear and everything else. And I

was so uncomfortable. Now everybody was nice to me. Hi, Barbie. Oh, it's good to see you. Barbie's

here. Hi, hi, hi. And I was dying, just dying. And I went into the kitchen and the kitchen had

every kind of booze you could possibly imagine. There were just bottles all on the countertops

and glasses and juices. I guess that was for, I don't know, healthy people or in the morning.

I don't know what it was, but I didn't know what to do. As much as I grew up around alcohol,

I wasn't paying attention. I just remembered the fun of it. I wasn't watching what people

were drinking. And so I stood there and I thought, I'm 18. I've got to get it together here and join

the group. So I stood in the kitchen and I looked around and I couldn't decide. So I had one of

everything. And you know what? Something happened. I heard later when, when we hear that expression,

it means God happened. Well, he was showing off that night. I went around the corner from

the kitchen and I felt spectacular. Man, I felt good. I was taller. I was pretty. I was hit. I

knew everybody. I go, Oh, hi, how are you? Almost like my mom at the front door. I danced. I was,

I was just having the best time. I knew in my heart of hearts, I could surf. I knew it. I knew

that you asked me anything and I'm going to be able to do it. I, I was just fantastic.

And then another little shift happened where after maybe 15 minutes, I realized I didn't

even care what you thought of me. I didn't care if you liked me or not because I am in the game.

Well, about another 15 or 20 minutes went by and you know, that feeling when your mouth starts to

water and you just know that things are not going well from your neck down and the long and short

of it is I won't be graphic, but I went into the bathroom and it was a party for my boyfriend at

the time. And we all worked at a place called Kirkwood's, Kirkwood's bowling alley. And, uh,

I was in there honoring the toilet as they say, and, uh, the door opened and he was showing off

his apartment and he showed our boss walked in his wife and the manager. And I turned my head and I

nailed all three of them and everybody giggled and laughed. Oh, it's not a problem. But I'll

tell you what happened for me. It was exactly why I had vowed I would never drink again. I watched

those, you know, or ever drink ever. And after that night, I didn't drink, I didn't drink for

six more years. I escalated my drug use. And, um, now we're in the, the, like the beginning of the

seventies and cocaine is very prevalent. Let's say in the music business and I didn't drink. I just,

it was too humiliating for me. All right. So time is going by and, um, I married the guy that I met

when I was 15 years old and I'll fast forward. Um, he was a musician. Of course he was and, uh,

patterns. I've done inventories, lots of them. And we got married, we bought a house in the

San Fernando Valley. We had a little house, little white fence around it. We had two white

Cadillacs in the driveway. Our little dog was white. Cocaine is white. It was like,

we were in the game traveled. We, he, we had everything. I didn't know we had everything

because in my message was he makes the money and I take care of the children in the house.

It was just, that's it period. My alcoholism escalated, but I didn't know I was an alcoholic.

I have to be honest with you. I had never heard of AA. I had never heard of alcoholism. I drank

and use drugs to function, to be brave, to have courage, to go to the soccer field,

drop her off, then go to the piano lesson and then get, it was so hard for me to do this stuff.

When we first got married, I didn't know how to do anything. I would go to people's houses

and look at their, like in their kitchen and open the drawers to see where do you put the silverware?

I don't know how to do this stuff. And I was so caught up in the bondage of myself and so

full of fear and worry. And I can't look bad. My, the lessons I had when I was growing up was

it doesn't matter if you lose your leg, but you gotta look good. You just have to look good. Stop

it. If you're looking good, you're okay. And so I couldn't ask anybody. I could never say to

anybody, do you ever drink too much in the, and feel bad in the morning? I didn't know. I didn't

know what a blackout was until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. I caught alcoholism in the rooms of AA

easily. My Eskimo was Scotty Redmond and he was just spectacular. And, and his wife became my

first Al-Anon sponsor. But so anyway, so I'm married. Our lives are falling apart, falling

apart. We're both drinking and using too much. We're both chain smoking. Our kids are now

suffering from the disease of alcoholism. My son is a little boy and he's grinding his teeth every

night. My daughter, uh, in sixth grade was 162 pounds. And I didn't even notice I was up in over

200 pounds three times in that marriage. And, um, it wasn't good. It just wasn't good. So I'll cut

to the chase. I, uh, January 9th, 1990. I don't know how this happened. I have no idea, but we

finished dinner and I pushed myself away from the table. By then I was 247 pounds. I'm six foot six.

So you can imagine it didn't look too bad on me. I kidding, kidding, five foot three and shrinking.

Now I'm five feet. It's that's another joy of getting old. I'm shrinking, but, uh, I pushed

myself away from the table and I don't know where I said this, but I said, I'm going to go to a

meeting. And my family didn't think much of it because I, my alcoholism says I have to be the PTA

president, the co-op president, the soccer mom, the bass work in the snack bar. I've got, I'm always

busy, always busy. So I have to sit still and really feel and know what's going on. So they

said, Oh, okay. And, uh, I left and I got in my car. I got on a freeway. I got, I went down an

off ramp. I had never been on before. I went into a church parking lot and, um, I parked my car and

I went into a meeting. It was a meeting. Uh, it was an OA meeting and I could barely fit on one

of the chairs. It was up against the wall and I leaned up there and I, by then I couldn't look

people in the face. I was so full of shame. I remember I'd see my mother's friends at the

market and I'd go the other way. I was dying. I was dying of alcoholism. I had sores around my

waist. I had sores on my shoulders. I couldn't reach my shoes to tie them. I was in, I was 40

years old and I was in menopause already. And, uh, I couldn't breathe very well. I was always

short of breath and, um, still I drank cause that can't be the problem. I need that. It's my

medicine. You don't understand. I have to make lunch boxes every day. I've got to take them to

school. I'm the PTA president. Don't you know? And, um, Oh, I was also a preschool teacher at

the time. So, um, that's fun. Drop your kids off to me. But, um, I sat in this meeting and I was

looking down at the ground and I felt this woman's hand on my back and she said, uh, you're going to

be okay here. And I didn't look at her and she said, we're going to take care of you. You don't

have to worry anymore. And I don't know why I said this. I knew nothing and I hadn't heard it before,

but I said, are you a sponsor? Can you please help me? And she said yes. And she took me through the

first three steps. She hadn't done a, an inventory. So she could do that for me. Uh, that was a food

meeting the following Sunday. I went to my first AA meeting. And in that AA meeting, I met my sponsor.

I had for quite a while and I started to go to cocaine anonymous OA, AA and three weeks and I

started Al-Anon because some old timer said, Oh my God, you're a mess. You need Al-Anon. Oh, okay.

I was like this little person, wherever you want me. Now, what do I do now? What I do? I

never balked at anything. I knew that you had something that I wanted. There was a sense. I

heard these, I got sober at Chandler lodge and I heard these stories of like, how does somebody

survive that? And they're sitting there with the sense of grace and peace and they're making jokes

of it. And the room would laugh. And I thought, where am I? I, I need this. I have to have this.

And I'd go home and I'd be on eggshells and I'd go back the next day and people remembered my name.

They made me feel like I was welcome. And so to fast forward, I, I did exactly everything they

told me to do. Uh, my at five months, I turned to my husband and I said, you know, I think we can

make this thing work. And I had met him in 65 and now it's 1990. And, uh, he said, what makes you

think I want to, I had burned up that marriage. I mean, he was drinking too, but it was too late.

It was too late. And within about four months, he left. He kind of disappeared like a ghost.

I think that's the expression the kids do now. He, he was like, he ghosted, whatever that is,

like nobody could find him. And he left me with two kids. He left me with 80,000 on my,

on credit cards. I didn't use credit cards. And, uh, at one point I had 26, um, creditors

calling every night. The kids and I it's just the way it was the phone and they, and AA people said,

you have to show good faith. You just show good faith. And I wrote checks like $6. I was a

preschool teacher. I had no money. My friend, Kenny, Bob, he's gone now. Everybody, everybody's

gone, but, uh, he worked it out once I owed something like 28,000 in interest alone. And

it's his state of California. So I got to share that bill, whether I did it or not. It was,

my name was on that as well. Um, they stopped calling eventually. I'm sure that they figured

out they weren't going to get my money, you know, or any money. And it was the three of us. My kids

were young. They went to meetings with me. They didn't have headphones and iPads and all that

stuff. Um, they took markers. The guys in the meeting would take my, my son out to the parking

lot and shoot baskets with the women would give my daughter babysitting jobs for 50 cents an hour.

And she'd give me half the money. Uh, we're on food stamps. We had nowhere to go. Our house went

into foreclosure and, uh, cause he refinanced it and I didn't know. So I signed it. He said sign

right here. I went, okay. And, um, the bank took the house and the people in Alcoholics Anonymous

let us stay on their couches and on their floors. And, uh, it never occurred to me to drink. I never

thought I should drink. I've called my sponsor and I'd say, we're in a trouble here. I need money.

I'm in trouble. And he'd say, Oh boy. Okay. That's that's, this is big. Let me think about

this for a minute. All right. I know what you should do. What, what should I do? And he'd say,

you need to be a greeter. I think if you're a greeter, everything is going to work out. Okay.

Can I go a greeter? No, you're not listening to me. I need money. And he'd say, well,

you should be the literature person as well. I was busy. I went to meetings. I went to my job.

One point I had five jobs and, um, $5 an hour jobs, but nonetheless, you know,

somebody was looking at several years ago, I made $8,000 a year for the first four years of my

sobriety. That's like below poverty. And you know, we were okay. We were okay. Sometimes we had,

uh, this woman used to save coupons at the 7 a.m. meeting and she won 26 pounds of rice,

white rice. And we had, she gave it to us because who would want it? And we had rice like you've

never seen before. My son doesn't even look at rice anymore. We had it with ketchup on it. We

had it with soy sauce, uh, margarine. I mean, we had fun. There were times my son would say to me,

mom, I think you need a meeting. And he was eight years old. Um, to fast forward, I started babysitting

and one thing led to another and I had a new sponsor and she had me fill out papers and,

and I ended up with a preschool and it was called the magic yard. And I waited till the last minute,

my Allen on sponsor came over and said, what do you mean you don't have a name? I said, well,

I want to call it God's school. And she said, get out of here. You can't call this God's school.

And she, she said, let me see this place. And she came over and she walked out and the kids were

out there and colors and music and anything from Bach to Basie and you know, the beetle. I mean,

it was a pretty great place. And she said, there's magic here, Barbara, why don't you call it the

magic yard? And I had that school. I had been teaching 10 years before, but, um, and now with

this, I had that school for 25 years. I never advertised. I had six teachers that worked for me.

I had a waiting list and I ran that school with the traditions and the spiritual principles that

we learn here. You guys raised me. Well, I became a good mother here and a good sister and a good

daughter, a good teacher and an employer. Um, I'm a good sponsor today. And I had that place for a

long time. I retired in 2015 when my son and my daughter were both having babies at the same time.

And, um, I've had both my shoulders replaced, both my knees replaced. It's great. My doctor

always says you're breaking down nicely. Thanks very much. And today I have two 10 year old

grandsons and a seven year old grandson and they call me magic Nana because of the magic yard. And

my birthday's on Halloween. I'll be 76 this year. And, um, they think I think I have magic. Sometimes

they say like, especially James, he'll say, okay, Nana, nobody's looking, but could you just like

lift out of your chair right now? And I said to him, you know, I could, but I'm not allowed to

do that on Saturday. And he's, he will go, Oh, okay, Nana. And for me, the magic that I have

is what you guys have given me. You told me to walk through the doors that are open. You told me

to get okay with what is, you told me that this is a giving life, not a getting life. You told me

that AA is inconvenient. Yeah, sure it is. But it fills me up and I have the life today that I never

thought I possibly could have had. I don't have a lot of money, but I have enough. And I, what I

really have a lot of is love. You guys taught me to be able to accept when someone says, you know,

some people would say, Oh, I love you, Barbie. No, you don't look at my hair. You don't love me. You

don't really know me. And today I know that I'm a child of God. I know who I am. I'm a sober woman

and alcoholic synonymous. I know where I belong. I know what my job is. I get filled up by praying

in the morning and praying at night and doing what's the next indicated thing. I sponsored

a lot of gals and oddly enough, they go through the stuff that I've already been through, you know,

hi, I have to do food stamps. I know how to do that. My husband's leaving me. I know how to do that.

My mother just died. I know how to do that. And that's the deal here. I'll end with this.

When I was, I don't know, three or four years sober, this woman said, cause I'd say,

why are these things happening to me? And she'd say, Oh, they're happening for you, honey. They're

just happening for you. Here's the deal, Barbara. Everybody has life. And here in AA stuff happens.

We have tools to get through it. And then we get to turn around and reach our hand out to somebody

else and say, I know how you feel. I can help you with that. So Nathan, thank you for asking me to

be here and letting me remember what it was like and how grateful I am to have what I have today.

So thanks everybody.

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