Mary R. AA Female

Mary R. AA Female

Curious about how others manage their sobriety journey? Mary R., a self-described "party girl" and alcoholic, shares a wild, brutally honest, and very funny account of her life before and after Alcoholics Anonymous. From leaving home at 15 to chase a dancing career in vaudeville, to nightclub stardom in San Francisco and Hollywood parties on Sunset Boulevard, she paints a vivid picture of alcohol-fuelled glamour that gradually turns into chaos and despair.

Mary talks about drinking in war zones with soldiers in China, Burma, and India, blackouts in Germany that nearly led to a court martial, and the hollow feeling that success and attention never quite fixed. Her humour is razor-sharp, even when the stories are grim: bars, blackouts, three pregnancies, a gambling husband, and the shame of “lurking down Ventura Boulevard” dirty, shaking, and full of self-disgust.

The heart of the episode is what happens after she rings a North Hollywood AA clubhouse from her kitchen, vodka in a tea glass, and a young man turns up with a big AA smile and the Serenity Prayer.

Mary talks about early sobriety, being pushed into women’s meetings, clashing with “hard-nosed old-timers”, and gradually learning that people in AA “thought more of my survival than they did my approval.” You’ll hear about rebuilding her life as a single mum, running a restaurant that becomes an AA club, working a tough hospital job, and slowly finding real gratitude watching her sons play varsity football.

She also shares the ongoing pain of her daughter’s addiction, the heartbreak and grace of giving up her grandson for adoption, and the unexpected joy of being known to him as “Aunt Mary”.

Anyone who’s ever felt like a failure, a misfit, or a “rowdy” will recognise themselves in Mary’s story of staying sober “a day at a time, a step at a time, and a prayer at a time.” What part of her journey feels closest to yours right now?