Audio
Transcript
Source: Betty M – Sunlight of the Spirit (2023) – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: betty-m-sunlight-of-the-spirit-2023-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:56:37
============================================================
I might as well sit down after that introduction. As most of you know, my husband is Bobby Moore, and he sends you his love, and I know a lot of people love him, they really do. I want to thank Dolly for asking me, and last night I couldn't sleep good because I'm laying in the bed trying to think, oh my God, after hearing such powerful messages from people, what do I have to say? And I talked to my husband, and he said, tell your story, tell your story.
And I want to thank Barb for reaching out to me, you know, and talking to me. My serenity date is April of 1978. And my story is a little different from my husband's, because, you know, somebody was talking about God's grace, and God's grace to me was to not be with that person when he was out there drinking. Of course, I had another when I was wed, and my husband, he always says to me, my first husband was named Robert, and Bobby's name is Robert.
So he said I had a thing for Roberts. One of the things I want to try, and, you know, I didn't expect these many people to be here. I was talking to Teresa. She led the Founders Day meeting, and I got a chance to talk to her. And she is one of those people that if she could forgive her mother for what her mother had did, who am I? Who am I? But she said something to me, and I'm going to share that with you.
She said she was on a program, and they had put her down as the AA speaker. And when the people started coming in, she said, I'm not the AA speaker. I'm going to speak Al-Anon tonight. And she said, and don't none of you AAs get up and leave, okay? But God has prepared me for this, because this year with my adult children, it's been a struggle. But I have a program, and I have people that I can reach out and share.
Sponsorship is the most important thing to me, and have it a sponsor that I can trust. A sponsor, when I'm looking at her, she's not looking at me cross-eyed, and my sponsor has a sponsor. I try to sponsor people, but it can be hard. And I hate when people say I fired my sponsor. And I say to them, did that sponsor fill out an application to become your sponsor? We fill out no applications, okay? But it's a way you can step away from that person if you feel that that person is not fulfilling whatever obligations you think they should fulfill.
Because all we are is Al-Anon members, and I know there's some dual members out here because World Service corrected the term. And we are here to help each other, to be there with each other. Our tradition in three states, the relatives of alcoholics when gathered together for mutual aid may call themselves an Al-Anon family group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend, which means for Al-Anon people, I have to know somebody to be a member of Al-Anon.
That's how I qualify to get in here. And our fifth tradition states each Al-Anon family group has but one purpose, to help families of alcoholics. We do this by practicing the 12 steps of AA ourselves, by encouraging and understanding our alcoholic relatives, and welcoming and giving comfort to the alcoholic, and encouraging them. One of the things I do is go to AA meetings, because in order for me to understand this disease I have to go to AA meetings.
When I came in in 78, the big book was not taken off the Al-Anon literature, but I tell people if you have a resentment and you want to push through with it, go into service.
[00:05:02]
Somebody had a resentment against that book. That book has chapters in there that we need to read. There's the chapters to the family, to the wives, and also a description of what an alcoholic is. I had the privilege years ago of meeting Lois Wilson. She came to one of our OER conferences, which OER stands for Ohio Area Roundup, and it was when it was held at Atwood. And she was a little short lady, and she didn't come to speak or anything, but just being in her presence, that was, you know, just gave me thrills.
I am a member because I have choices. I'm a survivor, and I'm also a breast cancer survivor also. And it states in your big book, we are people who normally wouldn't mix. And this is a family illness. I have members in my family, I'm the mother, the daughter, the sister, the grandmother of somebody whose life has been affected by this disease. And I have some people that are writing their story. When Polly talked about her son, I just found out maybe about three months ago, my daughter that's 52 years old, she's a functioning alcoholic.
And that explains why she would stay away from me. And she had been married for 30 years, and she got a divorce. And her husband had talked to us, you know, about her drinking, but I really didn't believe she had a problem. My grandson called me one night, and he was crying, he's 27 years old, and he said, Grandma, you need to come over here. And I said, LJ, what's wrong? He said, just come over here, Mama's acting strange.
So I go over to the house, she's in her bedroom, on the floor, drunk, whining, crying, talking about she wants to commit suicide. I said, you know what, you're going to the hospital. I took her to the hospital. I mean, you alcoholics, whoo. She's standing there talking to me normal. She's not slurring any words. Why do I have to go to the hospital, Mother? I said, because you have a problem, okay? So I take her to the hospital, and she had told me she had tried to commit suicide.
And let me back up a little. Me and her father were divorced, of course, but anything that's going on with the two children that I have by him, I can call him and let him know something is going on with your adult children. So I take her to the hospital. I told her what, you know, she said, and immediately, I mean, the emergency room was packed. They immediately rushed her back. She's sitting in the bed, just talking normal, like nothing's happening.
And the lady came back with her, what is it, blood level count. She said it was two point something. And I said, now, Al and I kind of flew out the window. I said, did you hear what she just said? And she's looking at me like, yes, I did. So they said to us, and my youngest daughter was here, which is a child for me and Bobby. They said, well, it's going to be probably about three or four hours for the alcohol to get out of her system before we can talk to her.
So my youngest daughter said, oh, Mom, we can go. Let them call us when they get to that point with her. And I said, you know what, you're right. You're right. Now, what I'm going to tell you about my life, I met my first alcoholic when I was 15 years old. We were in high school together. And he was back in the day when tennis shoes were not a fashion statement, and jeans were not a fashion statement.
We wore dress pants. We wore, you know, dress shoes, dress shirts. Back in the day, no pants for women. We wore skirts and dresses. And when I saw him, oh, wow, he looked really good. And he was dating somebody else. And he was popular. I was kind of quiet. And I just, you know, observed him. And I don't know why, but he came over to me. And he asked me, back then, they used to give you the friendship rings with the hearts.
[00:10:01]
I'm quite sure there's someone that remembers that. And I was like, wow. And then the girl that he was dating, I guess he didn't tell her that he was dating me. And she came up to me, one of her friends, and said, well, there's going to be a fight. I said, you know what, I don't fight over young men. I said, you need to talk to him, because I've seen too many fights. When you're teenagers, he's walking down the street with somebody else.
And y'all are over here pulling each other's hair, tearing their clothes off and stuff. For what? When we graduated from high school, the draft was going on, and Vietnam was going on. And he had signed up to go to Vietnam. And I asked him, I said, why would you want to do that? And he said, because I wanted to get away from Cleveland. I'm like, oh my god. And he also had that little talk with me. He said, well, maybe we should just break up for now.
And at the time, I was crushed. But then I thought about it, because he didn't know if he was going to make it back. But two weeks later, he sends me money. You go buy an engagement ring. He writes my mom a letter asking for my hand in marriage. I said, wow. You know, you alcoholics, y'all know how to, you know, maneuver. So he sent basic training. I got the engagement ring. And he calls me, and he says, guess what?
I said, what? He said, I'm going to join the, what is it, paratrooper, so I can jump out of planes. I said, jump out of planes? I was like, wow. But you get $50 a jump. Alcoholic thinking, OK? That should have warned me. And anyway, back then, it was pay phones, not cell phones. And when he came home from basic training, we got married. I wanted to have a big wedding. But because of his basic training, and he had to go back, we went down to the courthouse, and we got married, and spent our honeymoon night in his parents' house, OK?
And then he was off back in the service. And I found out, probably a couple of months later, I was pregnant. And in the back of my mind, I was like, do I really want to have this child? Do I really want to be pregnant? Because there were signs that he had shown me, I didn't think this was going to work out. My mom, bless her heart, she was pregnant with me when she was 15 years old. And she had one of what they call shotgun weddings.
Because back then, when you had a child and you were not married, on that birth certificate, it said father unknown. And my grandmother was not having that. But before they got married, my mother told me my grandmother to mix these concoctions and wake her up in the middle of the night. Here, drink this. Because she was trying to get rid of me, OK? But I'm here. God must have wanted me to be here. So I'm here.
I also got a job when I was in high school working for the phone company. Because back then, they had plenty of jobs in the 60s and the 70s. And he wanted me to come and live on the base with him. And I'm thinking, OK, this is my first child. And I had heard about the doctors at the base. Why would I want to do that, OK? So I told him, I can't do that. He was a little upset, but no, uh-uh. And I remember when he came home before he was shipped out, he was drinking almost every day he was home.
And I remember when I started having labor pains, and I'm like, oh my god, what's happening to me? So I went downstairs to tell him, because he was sitting down there with my stepfather. And I said, I need to go to the hospital. Both of them are drunk. I'm like, oh god, how am I going to get to the hospital? The hospital was maybe like five minutes away. So I had my child. Back then, they kept you for five days in the hospital.
And we were trying to think of names for my daughter. Now me, my thinking, because he had dated a lot of people, I said, I want you to write down all the names of the girls that you dated. Because I'm not naming my child any of those names. So you see how my thinking was. OK.
[00:15:06]
shared a room with somebody and I didn't know I was having a girl and the other person had a boy and she had a name picked out and the name she said Jennifer and I looked on that piece of paper I made him write out there was no Jennifer on that piece of paper so of course my daughter's name was going to be Jennifer you know when you think back about all the things when you love somebody and they have this disease and the lies and the promises it's just devastating and he was one of those people that had outside affairs and every time one time he tried to bring this person home he was drunk and I had you know I'm doing my normal behavior sitting in the dining room waiting for the lights to the car to come on so I can just go out there and cuss him out and so he's coming in with this woman I said who is that oh this is my cousin I said hell no that's not your cousin and she took off I'm sitting him in this chair he's drunk and I'm asking him giving him you know the third degree where have you been who was that who have you been with but what I learned and being a member of Al-Anon and going to open AA meetings and Al-Anon conferences is that infidelity is nothing about me it's about that person's ego they're filling their own ego but when you're young you don't think that it's like maybe I'm not making sex to him the right way those kind of things pop up maybe I'm not a good wife maybe I don't look a certain way or dress a certain way and all those thoughts would come to my mind I remember back in the day we used to have what we call brick parties where you would go to somebody's house and it's not like the parties these kids are having today we had fun we would dance we would laugh and we were when music was music the old days the temptations okay words you could understand okay not like when my granddaughter is playing something and I'm hearing some four-letter words and she's 14 and I'm like what are you listening to you know they got the beat but what are you listening to so after that after my daughter was born and he was the type of person if he had to choose between going to work and going out he was going to go out I mean this man would be missing three days I wouldn't know where he was at but when he left the house he was immaculate alfro in place clothes clean and but when he came home three days later and he would always lose the car and I would say to him well how did you get home because when he got home the afro is punched down P is down his pants he said well someone picked you up I said who would pick you up look at you you're a mess then me and my mom where did you leave the car we would go hunting for the car and I don't know for some reason it was always on the freeway on the side no gas in it but we found it and those kind of things you know just kept happening and kept happening back in the day they used to have a commercial do you have a drinking problem and I didn't think he had a drinking problem I thought maybe because he had been in Vietnam and I don't know what he saw in Vietnam because in Vietnam you have to protect yourself any war you're in and you're young 17 18 years old and they're teaching you how to kill somebody how to protect yourself my brother he was in Vietnam and he worked in the morgue and he would have to go out and put the bodies and body bags and the parts of people in body bags and I was like wow but he also said they kept them high over in Vietnam whatever they wanted drug wise liquor wise sex wise they gave it to him so they were like walking zombies in a way he made it back from Vietnam my daughter was probably nine months old
[00:20:00]
then and he asked me he said give me a month and then I'll find a job for 30 days all he did was party he wanted me to party with him I can't party with you I got to get up and go to work you know when the bars close why are we going to an after-hour joint and the after-hour joints he went to where the joints where people are holding shotguns at you and they're patting you down and I'm like no I can't do this I'm not going to keep doing this so he started going out by himself and he really didn't want me to go out with him because when I would go out with him and someone would ask me the dance why are you dancing with them do you know them and I said you brought me here so what did you think I was going to do just sit there and watch you I'm going to have a good time so I stopped going out with him because of that but then again that was him manipulating the situation so he can do what he wanted to do when he decided to come to AA or do something about his drinking my job at the time had in 78 had just said that we have a program and anybody in your family that needs it it was a 28-day program and they would pay for it so my mother talked him into going and the week before he went he had bought a half a gallon of liquor 20 cans of beer little funny cigarettes you had that too and he had some wine and my mom said are you going to the hospital with us I said he ain't going to no hospital did you just see what all that stuff he had now let me just tell you ladies this I don't know if you're going to remember this back in the day there was a song it's a thin line between love and hate I would play that song for him when he was drinking he would be like he would be real nervous around me and he would say are you trying to tell me something I said why would I want to do that you know as long as I've been an al-anon I have had not to plan a murder you know because I was gonna plan the perfect murder and I was going to be at that funeral and I was going to be the poor wife and everybody was gonna say old Betty we're so sorry you know planning a murder for somebody that I thought I loved you know and al-anon we came out with an intimacy book and this is our second intimacy book and sometimes people in the program do not want to talk about intimacy but in a relationship you have with somebody it's not always about sex it's about the closeness you have and also they broke it down intimacy says into me see I have to learn to love myself before I can love somebody else and I learned that in al-anon I didn't think that I didn't love myself I just thought I had it all together and when we talk about that first step like my life is unmanageable my life wasn't unmanageable his life was unmanageable and if he did what I told him to do we wouldn't be in this predicament okay but when he went to treatment I went with him I was the good wife and the nun back then at st. Vincent Rosary Hall she was asking him these questions he wasn't asking them fast enough so I answered them for him and the nun said miss he has to answer these questions not you you know so I'm like oh okay so he was drunk they took him in and for 28 days he was gone now once a week we were allowed to go and see him they had aftercare and I'm thinking why does he get to go away and I don't okay I need to get away I'm left with the kids with my mother with my brother that's qualifying why does he have that and I remember at those aftercare classes they had a picture of a brain of an alcoholic and they said that the dopamine or whatever in their brain and I'm like okay and their brain is different from a non person's brain I went to the library and I got a book and I'm like looking at the brain I'm like I don't see anything different so when he came home they and they probably said
[00:25:01]
something about Al-Anon at those aftercare meetings but it went over my head so he came home and the day he came home there was two people in my living room because that's what they used to do back then and I said who are those people and he said well they're from AA I said AA he said well I have to go to AA meetings I said why you've been away for 28 days isn't that enough and they explained to me you okay I said okay and I just thought it was just you know something but I would go to the meetings winning because I'm not letting you out of my sight because you disappear so my what I would do at the AA meetings and they were talking about all this back in 78 because back then you were told whatever goes on in this house stays in this house and they were talking about all this stuff and I'm like oh my god and of course you know I'm evaluating it oh he he didn't do that he's not this he does drink a little okay but he's not like that and back then my version of an alcoholic was somebody that slept under a bridge and was drinking out of brown paper bag and I found out when I came into these rooms the disease does not discriminate it doesn't care what color you are where you live how high in society you are it's a disease and they used to say it's a disease and not a disgrace and you know when I went to Al-Anon meetings cuz he finally said cuz back then they used to have in the AA directory a piece of book and it also shows the Al-Anon meetings in there so we would go where there were Al-Anon AA meetings because he got tired of me when somebody would say something after me I would do like that did you hear what they said you did that okay so he said Betty you need to go over there okay so I went over there and I'm looking around the room and of course you know I'm studying the women that are there and they probably are the age I am now and I was in my late 20s I'm like you know what can they tell me where's that piece of paper that'll let me know how to make him stop drinking and and basically it was those people he hung around with you know he had a friend and we grew up together we went to school together this friend used to take them little pills and he painted his car yellow with house paint this was his friend so we purchased a house and I'm like when his friend would come over he'd have red eyes and I was like you know what y'all are not the same anymore you know he's out there doing whatever it is he's doing you have a family you have a house you need to be responsible you don't need to be with those people but what I found out when I went to the AA meetings those people had what he wanted okay so he's gonna be with those people and we had this big basement in this house we had a big house on a hundred and eighth and way part if you're familiar with that area and we had a basement with fireplace a bar was already there and he wouldn't invite his friends over and I knew where the switch box was you know the turn the lights out so three o'clock came I go in the morning I go down there turn the lights out what are you doing my friends are here I said they need to get there you know what out of here okay I was angry I didn't know how to deal with anger because they were the enemies if he stayed away from them we would be okay but like I said it wasn't them he came into AA and he was struggling in AA he was having a hard time in AA we were getting ready to go to the 1980 AA International Conference that was held in New Orleans and this couple Melinda Hayes and Ted Hayes they always had buses that they would charter to different places that we would go and you you know you pay your fee until you paid it off this time 1980 I got called into work I said well I'll go to work because we need the extra money and when I left home he was home but he was struggling and I didn't say anything because what I had learned in Al-Anon was he used to call me names that weren't on my And what I would do when he would say these things,
[00:30:04]
I would imagine this neon sign on his forehead flashing, SICK, SICK, SICK. So he would look at me and he would say, Oh, you're not saying anything. Boy, did I want to say something, but I didn't. And if I tried to curse at him, Betty, you don't even know how to curse. That's what he would tell me. He said, you don't even look right saying four-letter words. I said, oh, thank you. So we're getting ready to go to the conference.
And he was gone when I got home. And I got a call. Now, back in the day before Al-Anon, I would go out looking for him. I would get on the bus and go down to the projects looking for him because he had a friend that lived down there. Now, this friend had gotten beaten up with a baseball bat. So that tells you the people he hung around with. Anyway, about 2 o'clock that morning I get a call. And they said that Robert, who was my husband, well, nickname was June, he was shot.
And I said, oh, okay. I hung the phone up. And he said the serenity prayer. I called his parents. And Mount Sinai was maybe three minutes away from us. And when I went back in, you know, they don't have all the surveillance and stuff they have now. And I saw him. He was laying, you know, on a cot. I could smell the alcohol coming out of his system. And he kept moving his arms. And when the doctor came in, the doctor said he was shot in his neck and he probably was paralyzed.
And he said, but we have to do surgery. So they did surgery. And he became a quadriplegic, which means that he was paralyzed from the chest down. And the things that people normally do, he had to learn how to feed himself, how to clothe himself. He's peeing in a bag that's strapped to his leg. He was in the hospital because he was a veteran, probably for about eight or nine months. And he said something to me.
He said, Betty, are you going to let me come home? And I didn't know what happened. You know, fast forward probably a couple of weeks ago, a friend of his that was there with him, me and my girlfriend that lives out of state, we got together and we were talking. So I was talking to Anthony. And I said, Anthony, I have a question. Can you tell me what happened to Robert? And he said, sure, I can tell you.
He said, Betty, we were over my sister's apartment. And the guy that she was dating, the older guy, he was running around in the apartment with a gun. And he kept telling us to leave. Now me, I wouldn't have been there. But you're drinking, you're going to be there. I was like, so he's running around with a gun. I was like, well, what are you all doing? He said, we're sitting there. We're telling them to put the gun away, blah, blah, blah.
And he shot the gun. And the gun hit my husband at the time in the neck. And Anthony said, Betty, he fell to the floor. Blood was coming out of his neck. He said, I took and wrapped my coat and put it under his head. And we called the police. They came and they arrested the person. But when I asked my husband, he claimed that he heard they were going to take him somewhere and leave him. And Anthony said, Betty, we wouldn't do that.
He said they did arrest him, but because I didn't know anything, and at the time my husband, you know, he was going through rehab and stuff. They had a trach down his throat. He couldn't talk. And I didn't know what happened. But, you know, God has a way of letting you know when you need to know what had happened. You know, we have all these God moments that we talk about, and everybody shared that.
You know, God, like Mildred said, the grace of God will never take you where he won't protect you. And if you look back at your life and some of the situations you've been in, and it wasn't all that power you thought you had, that was God's grace. And sometimes we overlook that. Even in Al-Anon, we overlook that sometimes. Because two years ago, I went to the doctor, and I'm an avid workout person.
I've always worked out for 20 years. So I was at St. Vincent. I had went to the doctor.
[00:35:01]
The doctor said I needed blood work, and her office was across from the hospital. So it was kind of one of those foggy days, probably around COVID. And I was standing at the corner, and I was waiting across the street. And the next thing I knew, I'm in an ambulance. And I asked the technician, why am I in this ambulance? She said, ma'am, you were hit by a car. And I said, I was hit by a car? But you know what?
God again. I didn't feel getting hit. I saw this white cloud. I mean, I saw a white cloud. And I'm like, oh, God. And I went to the hospital. They took me, because St. Vincent is not a trauma unit, so I had to go to Metro. So they took me to Metro. And I'm laying on the slab. And the lady said, can you take your blouse off, or we'll have to cut it off. Now, you know how I am about clothes. I said, no, no, don't cut my blouse off.
I can take it off, okay? She probably looked at me like, okay, ma'am. And my husband, Bobby, he came to the hospital. And from 1.30 in the afternoon to about 8.30 the next morning, we were in the hospital. And they weren't sure what they were going to do with me, whether I was going to stay there. When one of the nurses came in, and she said, well, there's been people down here on the emergency unit for two or three days, because it was during COVID.
And when the doctor came in, he said, well, we're going to send you home, because you seem to be doing okay. And then this, for a person your age. He said, but since you worked out, that's what probably saved you. The only thing that was wrong, I had a torn meniscus in my knee. My eye looked like somebody had stitches on my eye, looked like somebody had beat me up. But they sent me home with oxycodone.
I'm like, oh, my God. I took that stuff, and when I woke up, I felt like I couldn't move. And I'm saying to myself, how can people get high on this? You're like a zombie. So I took it maybe two days. They gave me seven days' worth, and I said, no, no, no. I'm not taking any more of that. I don't like the way it makes me feel. You know, I've had people joke in AA, they talk about that's what they're looking for, that feeling.
I said, I'm not looking for that feeling. Okay, I don't need that feeling. And the 12 Steps, that's our program. Kent Coleman, I love hearing him talk. I really do, and he's also a friend. And the OAR last, maybe two years ago or three years ago, we started inviting AA speakers to come to the meeting, just like you guys are inviting Al-Anon speakers to come. And Kent came, and you know how Kent is.
Oh, my God. But, you know, he said that those steps are the design for living. If you work those steps in order, it will change your life. A lot of people don't want to work any steps, and especially in Al-Anon because they're like, oh, no, it's the alcoholic, it's not me. I came here to help him. And I'm like, when you're on the airplane, what do they tell you to do with the oxygen mask? You put it on yourself first.
I said, you are here to try and help yourself and work on yourself. Now, we had a new person in our meeting. She's been coming for a while. And we were talking about the Fifth Step. And we're not one of those groups where you can't say anything. We've got signs on the table. We're monitoring how long you talk. And I said, well, we said, okay, what's your question? She said, this step is not for us.
It's for them, isn't it? I said, no, it's for us. I said, when you get to that step, you will understand. I have to take an inventory on my behavior. I have to work those steps. My sponsor, and she's one of those tonex, Lisa. I asked her to sponsor me because I liked her program. You know, I always tell people, what is your motive and your reason for the people that you ask to come into your life? A lot of us, I say, if you're that miserable, why are you there?
I said, this isn't Al-Anon, this is Betty. Every week you come in here, you're complaining about something. Why are you there with that person?
[00:40:02]
And the killer is the sex that good. Okay? Sorry, I have to go there. You're not using a rational mind because sex is not everything in a relationship. A relationship is a two-way street. Now, kids today call it friends with benefits, so maybe you better look at that. And sometimes, one person I was sponsoring, she said, Betty, you're just so honest. I said, I have to be. I said, because I want you to get this program, and I want you to value yourself.
I have a shirt that says, do you value yourself? You know, when we're in this relationship with these people, we don't value ourselves. We don't realize the gifts that have been given to us. This is a gift. This program is a gift. Now, you may want to take it back and return it. You know, you may not be ready for it, but are you going to make it back? My mom, and this is kind of hard for me, my mom was one of those people.
She was an enabler. My two brothers, who are addicts and alcoholics, my mom was in her 70s, even my son, okay, they would call her 2 and 3 in the morning to come and get them. And, of course, when she would tell me these things, I would say, Mom, why would you do that? I said, you, your age, you don't even know where you're going. And she would get mad at me. Well, they're my sons. I said, yes, but you need to take care of yourself.
I tried to take her to Al-Anon. Oh, no, she didn't want to go to Al-Anon because Al-Anon was telling her, you don't do the things you were doing, okay? My mom got sick, and it was during a time when I was having radiation. And the strangest thing, well, it was strange to me, she said, Betty, are you going to have radiation? I said, Mom, whatever they tell me to do to save my life, I'm going to do it.
And I thought that was a strange question coming from her because she's a nurse. She had this lump on her throat, and I would say, Mom, what is that on your throat? She'd say, it's not bothering me. I'm not going to bother it. But what I learned from my mom, running behind, trying to take care of people that are not taking care of themselves. My brother that was the alcoholic addict, he knew how sick my mom was.
He never told me and my brother. When my mom got sick, my mom would call the responsible brother to come and get her and take her to the hospital. He took her to the hospital. The doctor is examining her. And the doctor said, what are you doing about your stomach cancer? My brother looked at her, looked at the doctor, and he walked out the room. The next day he called me, and he said, Betty, did you know anything about that?
I said, Ronald, if I knew, I would have told you. So I asked my brother James, because he would go to the doctor with her. And you know what he said? Oh, she's too old for treatment. And I said to him, you're not a doctor. But he's an addict, he's an alcoholic. When my mom died, and we're running around, you know, trying to make preparations to bury her, he comes to my house, knocks on my door, and he's asking these questions.
Where are you all going to get the money to bury mom? Mom had an insurance policy, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, James, we're trying to bury your mother, which is our mother. And he said to me, he was getting $5,000 a month, and it was going in his arm. He said to me, I don't have money to put in the ground. And I said to him, get out of my house. If it wasn't for Al-Anon, I don't know what I would have did to that young boy, okay?
We buried my mom. He came to the funeral, of course acting up, trying to ask the funeral director how we paid for the funeral. I mean, I was like, and we had already told the funeral director, he's probably going to come. My daughter's husband at the time, he loved my mother, and my mother liked a red suit. And he went and bought my mother a red suit to bury her in. I mean, it was a nice suit, and I was like, oh, my God, it's going in the ground?
Okay. My God, It's Going in the Ground, but you know, that's that thinking, you know, we have our moments when it's not of clarity, okay, and we're not perfect, but we love you guys.
[00:45:07]
There's somebody in your life that cares about you, or cared about you, or prayed about you. Some of us all have them grandmothers, them praying grandmothers, that would pray about you, because they're concerned about you, and it's not, you know, the alcoholic always would say, I'm not hurting anybody, you are hurting somebody, somebody cares about you. My daughter, when her dad had got hurt, that was traumatic for her, she was only like eight years old, and she started going to Alateen, thank God for Alateen, and he came back home, he started drinking, and he's in a wheelchair.
He got him a van with all the equipment on it, some people know, because they know him, and the drinking started again. Three days, he's gone, and to have someone like that in your life that proves to you that this is a disease, and it's out of control, and I said, and I was able to go to sleep, and when I would get up to go to work, he had a lift on his van, now, this lift, he's caught between the lift, the wheelchair is hanging off the lift, I don't know how long he's been out there, okay, because I'm not looking for him anymore, okay, so I go out there, I help him down, I let him, help him in the house, and I go to work.
Al-Anon has taught me to go to work, now, we talk about detachment with love, that's love, because if I'm not taking care of myself, and I don't want to be like my mom, because she's gone and dead, and you know, without this program, it would have been no way I would have understood why she did what she did. She was tired, she was tired, and I think about what she had given up when she got pregnant with me, married this person, and I referred to this person as a sperm donor, he was not a father, I didn't, I mean, he was a name on my birth certificate, and before he died, he asked me to come and talk to him, he was in a bed, he was probably dying of alcoholism, and I can't tell you what he said, I was not in the program then, and see, that was God's grace, that I came and sat there and listened to him, because this person, he changed his name four times when he was in the service, so he couldn't give us anything, because back then, my mother was able to have him put in the service, because he was not paying any child support to us, and when I saw him again, I was probably 24 or something, and he came over to my house, and he's looking around the house, and I didn't know this person, my brother, he told my brother that he was going to help him go to college, he lied, and my brother cussed him out, my brother said, you are not my father, and don't you darken my door again, and that's where the conversation ended.
What I want to share with you guys, and I've shared a lot, I have to make a commitment to my recovery, because I'm important. When I make those amends, my name goes on that list, because I have to make amends to myself for the things that I did to myself and said to myself, and I have to do that, and people that I sponsor, when I'm talking to them, and it's not always about the steps, my sponsor, whatever's going on in my life, we can talk.
Now there's some people that will say, well, they're not talking about the steps, I don't want to be bothered with them, and I say, why would you say that? This person is telling you these secrets, and you're saying you don't want to be bothered with them? Have a conversation with that person that you're sponsoring. Now sometimes they be a little crazy, okay, but they're in this room for a reason. My co-sponsor, she tells me all the time, she said, Betty, don't let these people mess with your serenity, and she's right, because being an Al-Anon, you know, you want to take care of everybody, but I tell people, I said, when you take a number for somebody, is it just a number, or are you calling that person and making that contact?
You know, I have a person right now, she's been in the rooms probably 25 years, but she's
[00:50:01]
been around the program, not in the program, and there's a difference. You have to work this program, and I tell her all the time, I care about you, but you need to work this program. You need to open up, you know, we can talk, and sometimes some of the conversations she's talking about, I'm like, oh my God, why is she telling me these things? But I'm not looking at her cross-eyed, and I'm listening to her, and if it's something that she's telling me, and I haven't dealt with it, I say, let me see if I can find somebody that can talk to you about that.
When I came in 45 years ago, they were not talking about going to therapy, okay? You need to go to therapy for some of those issues that you're dealing with, because those issues are deep to you, and there's a person in my home group, and she always tells us, she said, I talk to my therapist almost every day, she said, and it's not about the disease, it's about some stuff that's going on in me that I need to talk to somebody about.
You know, we're as sick as our secrets, and those secrets can kill us, and there's always those opportunities where you're in a conversation with somebody, and they say something, and it's like, oh, I can share this now, I can say this now, you know? Now, there's people in Al-Anon that don't like dual members, okay? And I tell them, I say, why not? They qualify for this program. I say, you're not the Al-Anon police, okay?
And I tell them, they say, well, if they're on drugs and stuff, they don't need to be here. I said, but when we have a meeting, we're not talking about drugs, we're talking about the issues in this program, we're talking about the steps, we're telling you how to deal with this, okay? And then I have to say this, you are not going to be here forever. One day you're going to be gone, and sometimes young people say, I'll be glad when they are gone, okay?
But don't run anybody away, you know, listen to them. There's a song I like by an author called Jelly Roll. And I like this, what he says, we only talk to God when we need a favor, and we only pray when we ain't got a prayer. And that is so true. We only call on him when we need a favor. So why does he take the time to listen to us? And I'm going to close with something that a friend of mine has passed on to me, that's why I have this over here.
And these are pertaining to the tools that Al-Anon uses, which is our books. The first one, if we can utilize these tools, we can transform our losses by opening our hearts. And opening our hearts, we can work on intimate relationships with the alcoholic. And how Al-Anon works gives us the courage to change, which is this book. One day at a time, by teaching us how to, discovering our choices, survival to recovery, Oh, and a little tidbit about this book.
Probably about before COVID, there was an old edition of this book. And one of the pages in this book read like, promises to us Al-Anons, okay? So people were saying, oh, these are Al-Anon promises. Me being the service person I am, I say, let me call World Service. I call World Service, and they say, Al-Anon doesn't have any promises. We can't promise you guys anything. And I say, but you're promising the alcoholic something.
They say, we have to do this so they'll keep coming back. Now, what they did when they revised this book, they took it off of that page, which
[00:55:01]
was 269. So I told the person, I said, it's on the internet. You Google it. It comes up, Al-Anon promises. I said, what are you going to do about that? They didn't say anything. Okay. With the blueprint for progress so we can help make ourselves and others family members of alcoholics along the way, paths to recovery, hope for today, and, of course, our new book, which is not in print, Finding a Little Time for Yourself.
I had a friend that went to the Al-Anon conference, and she took a suitcase with her and bought back a suitcase full of these, but you can't find them at World Service, and to end it with, in all our affairs, you know, taking these issues in all our affairs. And I want to thank you for listening to me, and a friend of mine used to say, God loves you, and so do I.