Chapter 4: Listening To The Wind
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It took an "angel" to introduce this Native American woman to A.A. and
recovery.
I STARTED DRINKING when I was around eleven years old. I stayed with my
brother and his wife just outside of Gallup, New Mexico. We were poor. The
smell of beans and fresh tortillas symbolized home to me. I slept in a bed
with three other children, where we huddled close to keep warm in the
freezing winter. The snow was deep around us.
I had a hard time reading and understanding school work, so I skipped school
every chance I got. My dad and grandma had told me the old stories about the
longhouse and the travels of our people across the deserts and mountains of
this country. I met a boy and together we ditched school and stole a truck.
We drank tequila and explored the red mesas together. Sometimes we sat in
the shade of the trading post directly across the street from the tracks.
When the train rumbled through the dusty small town near the reservation, it
promised glamorous places far away.
When I was fifteen years old, I arrived alone in San Francisco with a
guitar, a small suitcase, and \$30. I went to several taverns and
coffeehouses in search of a job singing. I believed I could pursue a career
as a performer. Three days later I found myself sleeping in a doorway to
stay out of the rain that had fallen all day. I was broke and cold, and had
nowhere else to go. The only thing I had left was my pride, which prevented
me from trying to reach my brother by phone or finding my way back to the
only people who ever really knew me.
Sometime in the middle of the long, restless night, a kindly middle-aged
white man laid his hand on my shoulder. "Come on, young lady," he said.
"Let's get you to someplace warm and get you something to eat." The price he
asked in return seemed little, considering the cold rainy night behind me. I
left his hotel with \$50 in my hand. Thus began a long and somewhat
profitable career in prostitution. After working all night, I would drink to
forget what I had to do to pay the rent until the sunrise brought sleep. The
weeks passed.
I started stealing and robbed a gas station and a liquor store. I made very
few friends. I had learned to trust no one. One night, around eight o'clock,
a car pulled up to the curb just as I had settled myself, half drunk,
against the wall of a building. I figured I had met my companion for the
evening. We made the appropriate conversation to confirm the deal, and I got
into the car. Suddenly I felt a deafening blow to my temple. I was knocked
senseless. In a desolate area across town, I was pulled from the car, pistol
whipped, and left to die in the mud with rain falling softly upon me. I came
to in a hospital room with bars on the windows. I spent seven weeks there,
having repeated surgeries and barely recognizing my surroundings each time I
woke up. Finally, when I was able to walk around a little, a policewoman
came and I was taken to county jail. It was my third arrest in two months.
Nearly two years on the streets had taken its toll.
The judge said I could not be rehabilitated, and I was charged with eighteen
counts of felony. I would not see the streets again for nearly twenty-six
months. I was seventeen years old. The first few months I would have done
just about anything for a drink. I knew I was powerless over the drugs, but
I really couldn't see what harm there was in alcohol. In the summer I was
released. I wasn't sure where I was going, but a nice cold beer sure sounded
like a refreshing celebration of freedom. I bought a six-pack and a bus
ticket.
When I got off the bus, I got a waitressing job in a bar. By the end of my
first shift, however, I had enough money to get a bottle and a sleazy motel
room nearby.
A few weeks later I saw him, the only Indian I had met in a very long time.
He was leaning over a pool table when I came to work. I put on my apron,
grabbed a tray, and headed straight for him to see if he needed a refill.
"Who let you off the reservation?" he asked. I was furious, humiliated, and
embarrassed.
That man became the father of my first-born child. My relationship with him
lasted only a few months and was the first of many mutually abusive
relationships that would continue over the next few years. I found myself
alone, drunk, homeless, and pregnant in a matter of weeks. Afraid that I
would wind up back in jail, I went to live with my brother and
sister-in-law.
My brother had gotten a very good job and moved to Hawaii. My son was born
there, and on the day of his birth, I found my purpose in life: I was born
to be a mom. He was beautiful. Straight black hair and dark eyes. I had
never felt like this in my life. I could put my past behind me once again
and move forward into a new life with my child.
After a year or so I became bored with my life in the islands and the guy I
had been dating. I said goodbye to my waitress job and my family, and moved
to California with my one-year-old son.
I needed transportation, but cars cost too much money. Where could I get
lots of money? It did not seem appropriate to go back to prostitution in the
same town where I was raising my son. I could take the bus to the next town,
work all night, and come home in the morning if I could get someone to watch
my little boy. The night job paid well. As long as I didn't work close to
home where my child would attend school, everything would be fine. Also, I
could drink on the job. I kept the welfare, though, because it provided
health insurance.
I did quite well financially. After one year I found a beautiful large
apartment that had a view of the ocean, bought a new car and a purebred
Collie dog. The social workers started getting very nosy. I could not figure
out what their problem was. I led a double life. By day I was super-mom, and
by night I was a drunken hooker.
I met a wonderful man at the beach, and we fell in love. Everything was like
heaven on earth until he asked where I worked! Of course, I lied. I told him
I worked for the government and held a top security clearance, which
required complete secrecy. That's why I had to work nights, undercover, out
of town, on weekends. Now, maybe he would stop asking so many questions. But
instead he proposed.
We moved in together and my working arrangements became nearly impossible to
live with. So did my conscience. One night on my way to work, I sat in
rush-hour traffic on the freeway. I broke down in tears and felt all the
lies of my life burst open inside of me. I hated myself and I wanted to die.
I couldn't tell him the truth, but I couldn't continue to lie to him either.
Suddenly a great light came on. It was the best idea I had ever had. I got
off the freeway at the next ramp, drove home, and told him I got fired! He
took it well, and we celebrated with a huge bottle of wine.
It took a lot of booze to cover the nightmares of my past, but I was sure I
could get around this small problem before long. I never did. The
relationship broke up over my drinking, and I packed my little car and moved
myself, my son, our dog, and three cats to the mountains.
This mountain town was a place I had visited as a child with Dad and
Grandma. Memories of the stories of my childhood and our Indian people
flooded in. I got a job cleaning cabins for a local resort lodge and got
back on welfare. Shortly after our move, my son started school. By this time
I was consuming nearly a fifth of tequila each day, and blackouts were
occurring on a regular basis.
One day I got up as usual. The last thing I remember was feeling so shaky I
could hardly stand up. I ate a tablespoon of honey, hoping it would give me
the necessary sugar rush. The next conscious memory was the emergency room.
They said I was suffering from malnutrition. I was nearly thirty pounds
underweight. They had the audacity to ask me how much I drank! What could
that possibly have to do with anything? I promised I would never do it
again.
For the first time in my life, I tried very hard to quit drinking. After a
few days of shakes and nausea, I decided that a shot of tequila wouldn't
hurt. I had managed to put on a little weight, but six months later I
collapsed and was diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer. I was in the hospital for
four days that time. They told me that if I didn't stop drinking, I would
probably die.
My son called his grandparents, and they traveled to the mountains to visit
us. I had not seen them for years. We got along much better than I expected.
The relationship they formed with my son was incredible. My dad took his
grandson hiking in the wilderness, and mom helped out with looking after him
while I worked. My health continued to fail. My parents wound up moving to
our town in an attempt to help their grandson and me.
My dad and I decided to go to a Native American gathering. I hadn't been to
one of these pow wows since I was a child. When we heard the drums and
watched the dancers, I felt some great passion well up inside me. I felt
like an outsider. I wanted a drink. I wore my hair down to my waist and wore
a lot of turquoise jewelry I had collected over the years. I looked like the
people, but I certainly didn't feel like one of them. I felt as if they all
knew something I didn't.
In an effort to prove I was getting better, I started hitting the streets
again in order to make more money. I told my parents that I was going down
the mountain to visit friends. I received my third arrest for drunk driving
on one of the trips back, after working all weekend. The night in jail
seemed a long time to go without a drink.
Weeks and months passed, and the blackouts continued getting worse. Then I
met a man in a local bar. I didn't like him very well, but he had quite a
lot of money, and he sure liked me. He took me to nice restaurants and
brought me expensive gifts. As long as I had a buzz on, with a few drinks, I
could tolerate him.
One thing led to another, and we wound up married. The most powerful motive
I had was getting out of the streets and being provided for. I had begun to
think I did not have much longer to live. The faces of my doctors were
looking more and more grim every time I went into the hospital to dry out.
The marriage was a farce, and it didn't take long for this man to figure
that out. Someone had told him about my past, and he demanded to know the
truth. I was tired, nauseated, and drunk. I just didn't care anymore, so I
admitted everything. We fought every day after that, and my visits to the
hospital became more frequent. One afternoon I decided I no longer wanted to
live and got the gun from over the fireplace. I owe my life to the man I had
married. He heard my child scream from out back and came running into the
house. He grabbed the gun and wrestled it away from me. I was numb and
couldn't figure out what had happened. My son was taken away from me by the
authorities, and I was placed in a locked ward for the criminally insane. I
spent three days there on legal hold.
After I was released, most of the next few weeks was a blur. One night I
caught my husband with another woman. We fought and I followed him in my car
and tried to run him down, right in the middle of the main street in town.
The incident caused a six-car pileup, and when the law caught up with me
later, I was sent to the locked ward again. I do not remember arriving
there, and when I woke up, I didn't know where I was. I was tied to a table
with restraints around my wrists, both ankles, and my neck. They shot heavy
drugs into my veins and kept me like that for a long time. I was released
five days later. When I left, there was no one there to drive me home, so I
hitchhiked. The house was dark and locked, and no one was anywhere around to
let me in. I got a bottle and sat in the snow on the back porch and drank.
One day I decided I'd better go to the laundromat and wash some clothes.
There was a woman there with a couple of kids. She moved around quickly,
folding clothes and stacking them neatly in a couple of huge baskets. Where
did she get her energy? Suddenly I realized I had to put my clothes into the
dryers. I couldn't remember which washers I had put them in. I looked into
probably twenty different washers. I made up my mind how to handle the
situation. I would stay here until everyone else had left. I would keep
whatever clothes were left behind, as well as my own. As the other woman
finished her tasks, she was writing something down on a small piece of
paper. She loaded her baskets and kids into her car, and came back into the
laundromat. She came right up to me and handed me the small blue paper. I
couldn't make out what it said. I smiled politely and slurred a friendly
"Thank you." Later I made out the telephone number and the handwritten
message below: "If you ever want to stop drinking, call Alcoholics
Anonymous, 24 hours a day."
Why had she given me this, and what made her think I was drinking? Couldn't
she see that my bottle was soda? Of all the nerve! I was mortified! I folded
the paper neatly and put it in the back pocket of my jeans. As the next few
weeks passed, I became sicker by the day. One morning I woke up alone as
usual. I hadn't seen my husband in a long time. I needed a drink, and the
bottle on the bedside table was dry. I rose on my shaky legs, but they
refused to hold my weight. I fell to the floor and began crawling around the
house looking for a bottle. Nothing! This meant I had to leave the house and
get to a store.
I found my empty purse on the floor, but I knew I could never make it to the
car. I became terrified. Who could I call? I never saw any friends anymore,
and there was no way I could call family. I remembered the number in the
pocket of my jeans. I hadn't even gotten dressed for several days. Where
were the jeans?
I searched the house until I found them on the floor of the bedroom. The
number was in the pocket. After three tries I managed to dial the number. A
woman's voice answered.
"I ... uh ... got this number from you ... uh ... Is this A.A.?" I asked.
"Yes. Do you want to stop drinking?"
"Please, yes. I need help. Oh, God." I felt the fiery tears run down my
face.
Five minutes later she pulled into my driveway. She must have been some kind
of an angel. How had she appeared from nowhere that day in the laundromat?
How had she known? How had I kept her number all that time without losing
it?
The A.A. woman made sure I had no more alcohol in the house. She was very
tough on me for a long time. I went to meetings every day and started taking
the steps. The First Step showed me that I was powerless over alcohol and
anything else that threatened my sobriety or muddled my thinking. Alcohol
was only a symptom of much deeper problems of dishonesty and denial. Now it
was a matter of coming to grips with a Power greater than myself. That was
very hard for me. How could all these white people even begin to think they
could understand me? So they brought a sober Indian woman up to work with me
for a day. That was a very powerful day. That Indian woman cut me no slack
at all. I will never forget her. She convinced me I was not unique. She said
these white folks were the best thing that ever happened to me.
"Where would you be without them?" she asked. "What are the alternatives?
You got any better ideas for yourself? How many Indians do you know who are
going to help you sober up?" At the time, I couldn't think of any. I
surrendered behind the tears of no answers and decided to do it their way. I
found the Power greater than myself to be the magic above the heads of the
people in the meetings. I chose to call that magic Great Spirit.
The Twelve Steps worked like a crowbar, prying into my dishonesty and fear.
I didn't like the things I learned about myself, but I didn't want to go
back where I had come from. I found out that there was no substance on the
planet that could help me get honest. I would do just about anything to
avoid working on myself.
The thing that kept me sober until I got a grip on honesty was the love in
the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I made some friends for the first time in
my life. Real friends that cared, even when I was broke and feeling
desperate. At twenty-two months of sobriety, I was finally able to complete
an honest inventory. The Fifth Step enabled me to see my part in my
resentments and fears. In the chapter "How It Works," in the Big Book, I was
shown some questions. The answers to these questions provided me with
knowledge about my reactions to the conditions in my life. Every response to
every resentment, real or imagined, had been sick and self-destructive. I
was allowing others to control my sense of well-being and behavior. I came
to understand that the behavior, opinions, and thoughts of others were none
of my business. The only business I was to be concerned with was my own! I
asked my Higher Power to remove from me everything that stood in the way of
my usefulness to Him and others, and to help me build a new life.
I met my current husband in an A.A. meeting. Together we carry the message
to Indian people on reservations all over the country. I started at the
fifth-grade level in school when I had been sober nearly two years. After
college I started my own business. Today I publish the books I write. Our
daughter was born during my early sobriety, and she is in high school now.
She has never seen her mother take a drink. Our family has returned to the
spirituality of our ancestors. We attend sweat lodges and other ancient
ceremonies with our people on sovereign native land. We take panels of sober
Natives into Indian boarding schools and institutions, and share about
recovery.
My life is filled with honesty today. Every action, word, prayer, and
Twelfth Step call is an investment in my spiritual freedom and fulfillment.
I am in love and proud to be a Native American. At an A.A. meeting on an
Indian reservation, I heard the words "Sobriety is traditional." I stand at
the top of the sacred mountain, and I listen to the wind. I have a conscious
daily contact with my Creator today, and He loves me. Everything is sacred
as a result of the Twelve Steps and the love and recovery in Alcoholics
Anonymous.