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(#2529) Midge McF (New York, NY)
7/24/1976 in Cleveland, OH  EVENT: 20th Ohio General Service Conference  TYPE: AA, Female, Story

Sober 21 years since April 1955, Midge was originally the secretary of the Area and Boston Intergroup before joining GSO in New York.

She tells her story rather than describe GSO in detail.

A homely girl and pathologically shy, she was a sitting duck for alcoholism by the age of 16 when the first drink transformed her.

"I had a ghastly secret that during my career of going to doctors I could not share - would not share. My secret was this - I had to drink. I had to drink to live. Now I knew this and I was very ashamed of it. But I was absolutely panic stricken at the thought that somebody would find out and when they found out they would try to remove me from the bottle and then, of course, I couldn't live, or at least that was what I believed."

In the end, April 1955, she needed to talk to somebody - anybody. She called the first number in the phone book and a woman answered, "My name is Peggy and I'm an alcholic." It was the Boston Central Office. Midge had never heard of AA. Two lovely ladies came over and shared their stories. One became Midge's first sponsor.

"Service is nothing but the twelth Step in action. Service is not a separate part of AA. There are no separate parts of AA. It's all one AA Program."

"This business of coming out of your shell is so exciting ... You don't come from the outside in. There's no way. It's broken like a chicken, from the inside out."

The sound quality is excellent especially for the age of the media.

This recording was the property of Retha G, long time editor of the Grapevine and was donated to WeJoy by her surviving son along with several other great recordings of other GSO staff members.


(53 min) (9.2 MB) (id#2529)