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

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

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

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 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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

170
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 200 pounds three times in that marriage. And, um, it wasn't good. It just wasn't good. So I'll cut

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 So thanks everybody.

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 [inaudible]