A continuación se muestra una transcripción en bruto en inglés de la grabación de audio de
Shelly S. en 2024.(Haga clic para regresar)
Hi guys, I'm Shelly. Thank you for sitting through the literacy part of a program. I say that because down in Newport I'm part of the library and getting involved and helping foreign students become a little more fluent in English and literacy. And that leads me to tell you that this little accent is not from Brownsville, Texas. It's from Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York.
And to give you a little bit of my profit, I was began in Brooklyn in the green stock. Parents who came from the old country. And can you hear me? Because this is like reverberating. I don't really need a mic.
I'm from New York, we don't talk about it. And they brought with them suspicion and superstition, fear of oppression and repression and fear of government and not trusting anything or anybody. And they passed that on to us because they didn't read Dr. Spock. They passed it to me in the chicken soup with Montyples.
Thank you. And so, how do I come to the program? Married alcoholic one. I was a sophisticated woman in the world sucking my thumb at 19. Actually, August 27.
And spent 15 years in active alcoholism from New York. And then we did a little geographic. We came to California with a dog and a brand new car. And we couldn't even afford. The air condition was maybe $300.
This was like what? 1964. It was like $300 for air conditioning. That's ridiculous. So we got some both arms, I went in the car with the windows open and the door hanging out the car.
And we get to California and now life is going to be wonderful because he's not going to get away from those friends in the pool room. Well, you know the story. You make a geographic and you take yourself with. And some we set up shop in California and I'm in here. I was a immigrant stock.
I am living. They gave us first and last month's rent. Did you ever hear that? It was a very old story because they couldn't sell apartments then. So I got an apartment with an elevator and a swimming pool.
I have arrived active alcoholism and have a couple of kids and life is not comfortable with goals means it goes from comfortable to hell. And you don't even know what's happening. You just don't know. And so then we move out another geographic. We move out to Aurora.
And a couple of kids and life is going to be wonderful. Again, you take yourself with. So here we are and I'm going to now go back to school because I'm going to get a divorce. Now that's very difficult because my parents, nobody got into what's Elizabeth Taylor. She mentioned names, which is already gone.
Movie stars got the boys, not Pauline's daughter. And I kept this from my parents. I would never tell them that life was. How are you doing? Wonderful.
I got a new sink and something. I'd go to the attorney and I had borrowed money to go to the attorney. I didn't have any credit cards in my name. You remember those days? Now I wish the hell I had no credit cards.
But that was then. My parents were watching their kids. I'm going to destroy my parents. I'm just going to destroy them. I said, Ma, I filed for divorce and she goes, it's a bad time.
We think we hide things. I thought, you know, you put on a lot of makeup. You look good when you walk out of the door. I'm dressed to the knives. I had a wall street background.
I had a book at that door looking good. Inside hell. But outside, very, very nice. And so what happened was, here's the high drama story. You know, I don't have a linear discourse.
It's whatever comes into my head you're going to get. And I like to exonerate myself because before I get up to speak, I say, God, put it to my mouth what you want them to hear. Now, you know what that means? I'm not responsible because I don't have to do that. I like to say, it's not my fault.
We are good at this. Right hand left hand, you point at them because they're the ones the devil made me do it. So what happens is the high drama, you know, raining in California. You know, we have two seasons of California, raining in fire. And I make that call.
Let me go back five years before. See, I'm in Allen on 48 years. I've been doing this dude, which means I should have a little better handle on face. Doesn't get better. You just get more comfortable with who you are.
Thank you, God. So I make that call and it's pouring rain and we had a big fight. I said, I'm not going to live like this anymore. And what do you want me to do? I had a big house.
I forget who live in that side. You know, like the movie star. We went that side and he'll take the dog maybe and I make that call to Steven, a guy. I said, we had a big fight and it's pouring rain and he ran out the house and he's going to drink. And he said, he takes a drink because he takes a glass that is lips.
I thought they went and helped each other, these boys. But then I can't trust men and girls. They do the best they can. I happen to trust someone who puts a noose around his neck in the morning and goes to work and puts a jacket over it so he looks good. That's for my women's live days.
You get a little of that. But I had actually come to Allen on in the early 70s when they said he goes to that room and you go to this room. And I get into this Allen on my meeting and here's this woman. I hope I can do this right. I'm so grateful.
I married an alcoholic. I'm so grateful. Now, you know, gratitude is one thing. But reality is a totally different thing. You know what I'm talking about.
And then they came into that meeting and here was, remember, I have to spank my hair. Some people have to curl it. In hair rules, they came to a public meeting in sweat. I left that house looking good. I hit all the pantyhose and makeup sometimes.
You know, what kind of pigs come out to a public meeting like that? Well, they were comfortable pigs. I was not a comfortable pig. And, um, well, I could think of this good for them. They need each other.
Five years. That gave me time to go to marriage counselors, therapies, psychologists, ingestion of all kinds of medical men's because I have my grand headaches, and backaches, and chest pains. And I can't even swallow glass of water. You want the formula for self-destruction? I can give it to him.
And I had no idea. And so when I make that call to Stephen, and he says to me, now guys, with no apologies, but it is the way it is. I have to give you my truth. He says, Shelley, I want to take your lipstick. And on the bathroom, you are where you don't clean.
He knew my asking these habits. Trust God. Now, guys, again, I ask, I'm for forgiveness. I ask for mercy. Ask an idiot man for help, and you're going to get an idiot response.
I am going to ruin a little of the city. It was before dollar storage. You paid several bucks for lipstick. And so I thanked him very much, and he says, you need to call such a septan. She lived maybe 10 miles from me and talked to her about going to an Amazon meeting.
I said, I've been there, got the teacher, and the water bottle, and I call her. And this woman who lived 10 miles away from me, who I never met, did not know who she was, is telling me how I feel in my cuts. You know, they hear the desperation of an Amazonic. And I said, why? And I am looking up at my ceiling.
We had a house with high ceilings. And you know, this was the age of Sean Conroy in Lebanon. I thought he bogged the house. He bogged the house. How does anybody who I don't know know, what's in my insides?
Because I didn't know what was in my insides. And I met this gal, a talent bassist's turn up, and this is very important. I'll get back to it later. Please, Lord, let me not forget. Because sometimes I have things that will change your life, and I forget it.
And I read her, she picked me up in a yellow Mercedes. And I'm thinking this is a rich, rich program. And we go to the meeting. And I'm looking around and they're telling these stories that I'm like, what the hell am I doing in this room? These people are together.
Why would they live the way they live in? This woman says, I'm so grateful. I'm married in alcoholic. Now this is round two. I'm stuck with this one thing, but gratitude is a whole different stretch.
And what happened at that meeting was, when it came to my turn to share, I looked at the blue dress. I start to cry, because you know, I don't know. I'm blessed with bad plumbing. We leave a lot. And I'm glad I don't do that.
And then I figured I'll say, why don't you skip out to even get yourself together. But they let me cry. I didn't like that. I am never crying in public. It was probably my first honest bitch, because I didn't let myself.
It just happened that I was vulnerable. And then the idiots came over and gave me a hug. And keep coming back. I said never. Never.
I told Steve I'd been there. There's a second round. What is it to keep making the same mistake over and over, expecting different results? I got the results I wanted. I don't need it anymore.
And they gave me literature, all that juicy little books. And I came home and put it right in the trash. They are not going to be blessed with my present again. And so, something happened that night, I believe that there was a little intervention guy that kind of walked in here and did a little lobotomy. And I went to the trash and picked up those little booklets and found out there was an Allen on meeting real close to me.
The first meeting was in the sem, is in Reseda March 11, 1976. I don't count five years before. I don't need the ego. I have the ego. I don't need any more.
And I went to the second meeting and I believe, for me, the sem on it, that that was my first step. I didn't say it out loud, but there was an admission that I was, power was over the way I was living. And my life was not only unmanageable, I had gone to shit in the handbag. And that started my journey. Today, I have to tell you, I am grateful, as married to the alcoholic, actually two.
First one died in 44. Second guy that had 30 really good years with a sober member of, he had 35 years of sobriety, when he passed. He had Parkinson's. Couldn't help sign up for that. And then two sponsors have died.
So I think word has gotten around, and if you can hang out with Shelley, put your fears in order. And anyway, so I'm an Allen on a little while. I am doing nothing, except show up and be glad, but we go out for an English mother in a coffee. And, you know, the program works you even if you don't work it. You just bring the body, you carry it in the chair, something happens to appear.
It's an interesting biological process that none of us is yet to understand. But they asked me to speak. Oh geez. Now I have had speech classes at school. We sat there teaching check-up.
You're hung in tongue out on a trunk. You're going to go up. Degrade, degrade, degrade. And I'm going to school now. I'm going back to school because I'm a single mom.
I've got to get some brain power. I don't have time to work on your steps. I've got enough to do at school. These are women that they need to go back to school. What if they do that?
I have schoolwork to do at a time to read and respect. And they asked me to speak on the steps. I'm going to protect you. I know they are now going to find out I'm a fraud. But I'm here, not honestly.
And so if there's anything I know how to do it's right and I'm right in outline, it should have been a Nobel laureate. And by this time I have a sponsor, the most wonderful woman in my life. An A lady, Alma A. A. And she said, you ready to speak on Saturday?
It was in the studio. I said, Pat, I'm scared out of my mind. But I wrote an outline. This is like 1977. We don't have computers.
We don't have copy machines. Just let me see the outline. I give it to her and this bitch, who I had trusted, rips it up. I put a lot of hours into that. It was worth at least an AA minus.
I'm a high-end human. I like them. What? And she said, Shelley, this is not about you. We just got using you to talk to someone in a room.
You don't know what to do. And they don't know what you're going to do. And I know these four or five million people in the room look like. How many is amazed around here? And I don't know what I said.
But they gave me the tape. Remember tape? That's a little dinosaur material. And I listened to myself. I said that.
You know how they say when you give a pitch, you give three. The one you prepare for mentally, the one you actually give, and the one you review in your head that you should have given. I got in great camp. It's over. And people come over and give me a hug.
Oh, I wish my husband and my son would have heard you. I said, love it on me. And I brought your tape. That's when I found out they taped it. I took a chip.
And now what happens, this little scared turd. My statue is now elevated. I am a pika. With feathers, I am walking the walk. I got it together.
I have now assigned myself the hour on poster child. And then they called me to speak at another meeting. I am now an Eagle Maniac. I have decided I'm probably the next circuit speaker. And probably I'm going to get a call for World Service asking me to come to Australia.
And I'm going to share the podium with some long time sober kind of room. But maybe an Allatine Koala bear. I don't know. That's where I'm at in my head. You know what happens to us or to me?
No matter what you do in these rooms, how much or how little, I have not changed. What's happened is I am aware today. When I am diseased, not added ease, means your serenity is in the toilet. You become aware of self. And I know that I need a wiggly humility.
I need a wadi humility because I mean, I could feel myself just walk in the water. And I said, God, humble me. And so that Thursday, I leave, I know it was Thursday, I said, change, say, do it to truth. There was an A meeting in one section, an Alma meeting in the other, and an Allatine meeting in other. I walk in late.
That was my pattern because I'm a student, has precedence. How many times you got to hear the 12 steps, the 12 transitions? And the separate tabbies were brought. So I can re-enter it at my convenience. And I sit myself down to honor them with my presence.
And those around the room. Now I have just spoken. Just look at me, I exude brilliance. And those around the room, I said, I'm Shelley. Yay, it's me!
Nobody applauding until we gave it to him. And there's a big table with alms, and everybody's talking, speaking a little stuff. And I'm kind of editing because I'm going to say, and the way I see it, like they're all catered. The gown next to me says her two cents worth. And the lead is this, we're at a time.
So what did I say in that meeting? I'm Shelley. Period. Exclamation point, bold. That's all I am.
There are no icons in these rooms. I don't care if you've got 20 minutes or 50 years. We're all in recovery, not recovered. In fact, when I came to California, I had to get a new license plate. That's another story.
And the last three letters were NRC, which I thought was National Rifle Commission. My sponsor said it was not really cured. I never let them take that license plate. The way I had it for four covers. Got the California.
They took the license plate. California D or VIA, I got a story about that. Anyway, I'm just one little cog in this wheel of people that are willing to get honest with themselves. And to drop the magnifying glass, I've picked up the mirror. You know how you speak CZ works hard.
So let me know once, another little dog in that vignette I like. And I carry in Jane, who are my friends in the program and out of the program. You know, I'm so grateful to the committee who has worked for months trying to put this together so that it looks so easy. It takes tremendous effort. And to Harry and Jane, who have shared their home and their part with me and with the hospitality and generosity so I can hang out in Carmel.
Thank you. So I'm at my sponsor's house and I don't know, we're seated at the top of 102 in California. She had no air commission. I adore this woman even though she tore up my paperwork. You learn to forgive.
And I'll drink to that. Comes to the door, not on the screen, because it's not even an air conditioning or fan. The, you know, the process of ties is the evangelist and he says, she goes to the screen door, they know this girl. And she says, man, and they're wearing a tie. Again, you know what I think about stuff like that.
We'd like to give you this literature. And she said, young man, thank you. But pass it on to someone who will better use it. And he said, man, you want to go to heaven, don't you? You don't want to go to hell.
Made sense to me. And she said, young man, this is a polite conversation. I would have told you, SOB, get the hell off my block. She said, man, I've been to hell. I'm in heaven right now.
I haven't left the book. And what did she teach me? Because, you know, I came with a culture that has a lot of guilt and half-tos and the better. And this day, it is, you don't eat this. Another day you eat this.
And I'm never saying anything about organic food. They just said, you don't eat this. And she taught me that heaven and hell weren't places of geography. You can't access it with your GPS, the places of consciousness. You know, if you wake up in the morning and you have a semblance of peace and all is okay in the world, you're in heaven.
And if you're an angst and you've got a migraine and you're scared to death that somebody's going to find out what the hell's happening in your house. And all this veneer that you've tried to present, your really corrupt city, that's hell. And so that was the distinguishing characteristic. So I want to move along to some of the little things. I told you I don't have a linear discourse.
It's just what comes into my head. We just got a lot of marshmallows in there. Let me go on to, I ended up on a sealer position because I was in the courtyard. This place don't matter. Couldn't get a job.
You know, I spent 15 years doing rings around the collar. You remember that, girls? Me and a mother PTA. That had no job experience. So they got me a sealer position.
That's where the feds pay the employer some money so you can get some on the job training. And I'm on welfare. So I didn't give a damn what job they gave me as long as I didn't have to take my kids to the dock with food stamps. I was shameful and embarrassing because not up my caliber. And it's only a six month position, some animal happens.
I hear I'm going to school, work for a college. I'm going to have my two year degree. Well, I don't give you a seal position with a two year degree. And the job opens up, which I am absolutely not qualified for. A.
A. people who help you out. And I said, show it, do it anyway. Make the application. We did practice for you.
I told you, don't trust these guys. And I make out a little resume. And I put down, I don't write allotene sponsors. This is the 70s allotene facilitated in capital letters. No one's going to know it, but it looks good.
Looking good is very important people. And I had my pants dry clean so they'd have a crease in it. So they didn't look like they just came out of the dryer. That was a buck and a half of that. And there's a panel, some pretty high people with CEO or this, and commissioner of that.
And I'm sitting in, trying to look cool like this. That's how you keep cool, you shake. And I got my legs crossed. I got my nails closed. And they asked me a few questions.
And I answered, what are you doing in a little administrative details? This woman, I have yet to forgive. And she says, what's her now at teen facilitator? You're not allowed to take that loaded weapon into an interview. I said, I work with kids.
If I cry now, it's just for me to forgive. We're one of both parents who are alcoholics. And with that, that was the buck and she told me. I start to sob. I am not talking triple.
I'm like, stumps running down my face, you think. At least in an hour, I mean, give you a tissue. Nothing. They all have little yellow, illegal pants in front of them. And I'm wiping my face and my nose.
And I said, let me get out of here with the only shred of dignity that I have left. And I start up. And I said, I make no apologies. If I had not been in an alcoholic marriage, would not have the empathy or compassion for people that I have today. Thank you for your time.
And I left. And I walk out into the office and the off-beat office boy systemy man. How did it go? I said, blew it big time. No way, Harry, any book on how do you interview for a position?
Does it say you break out like a slobbing two-year-old? But I did it. And he says to me, she was like 330, ready. She says, I want you to go home and come back in the morning. And I drive home.
And if there's anything I know how to do, you blast yourself with a wet noodle. Anybody remember that? Thank you, there's a few people that are my vintage. And I drive home a new piece of, without a cleaning up, feces. How do you expect the support to children?
You can't even sit through a damn interview. You are worthless and useless and you're everything he said you are. And I drive home. And I get into my apartment. See, my house is already gone at the foreclosure and I'm not living there anymore.
And I says to myself, now I see what people commit suicide. There is no hope. You just see life as it's not worth your time to get up in the morning. And I'm sitting there like that piece of crap reviewing my crappy life. The phone rings and it's this commissioner lady.
She said you'll pay us a dime. Brooklyn would say, yeah. You don't say yes ma'am. Like a cassette, yes ma'am. And she says, we were so impressed with your honesty that we're offering you the position.
And we will train you. I'm like, I'll open the phone. I said thank you. And I get on the phone immediately with my sponsor, you're not going to believe this. And this is the most important thing I'm going to tell you.
How much time do I got? It's like a one for years. She says, that which is yours to have. You cannot mess up. And if it's not yours to have, you can manipulate.
And try to change and alter a fix. It's not going to happen. And so this little turd who's got two kids and a welfare and that first husband died. I told him he was 44. He had been married a few times.
I was with that agency for 15 years. He came with a director and was solicited for position in front of college. But my three kids and private colleges. I have two fine children today. It's by the end.
And I have five grandchildren who are the best in the entire universe. The dynamics of being a parent is one thing, but the grandkids is a whole different dimension. And so I did okay with my kids. And I wanted to say this because when you have children, finally you get that red children and that's how God gets even. My son, I say this because we have kids and we should have a t-shirt.
I raised teenagers and I'm survived. And my son opens this trap. Now I'm sure he doesn't apply to you. A teenage boy with his mouth. The character, sure, the teenage boy is going to have a mouth with teeth and a hand that acts to it.
He's always yapping about something and feed me, feed me. And the hand is grease my palm with a 20. That's the only organ that is significant. The rest is superfluous. And I said, you know, John, I love you.
There's nothing you'll ever do that'll make me love you less. You don't have to love me. See, but this time I know I'm about 15 years. I don't take crap from anybody. I said, I'm going to love you forever.
In this house you don't have to love me. In this house you will respect me. And if you can't work that out, you can be with your stepmothers. What about, I'll support you. You're not going to be here with that attitude.
Happy seeing you. And I told him that story because he's got three girls that have a big trek. I think I'm getting a hug here. So what I'm going to tell you is, this is the finale of this. I told you that he told me, trust God, and I didn't believe him because he's a guy from AA.
And I since have come to understand that on the penny, U. S. currency girls were still you there. It says in God we trust him. I submit to you that this is the least expensive, smallest pocket position of any piece of literature we have in any of the modes of purpose.
It doesn't say we even pray to trust God. And that's why I've come to understand these ones. And so, enough of my eloquence, so I want to give you a final quote of who I think is probably one of the eloquent speakers of all time. That's all folks.