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Source: Elsa C – 41st Cook Forest Conference, PA.. 1971 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: elsa-c-41st-cook-forest-conference-pa-1971-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:49:19
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My name is Elsa, and I am a very grateful member of Al-Anon. Hi. I don't think I could ever start to speak anywhere without that hi, Elsa, back. Because I think you people are very much like the Southerners and the people on the West Coast in Southern California. The huggin' and the kissin' and the rubbin' up against. There's something about the enthusiasm and the warmth and the spirit that we find in these beautiful get-togethers that makes whatever we have had to go through in the years gone by terribly, terribly worthwhile. And it's the very thing that makes me say today that if it were necessary for Chuck and me to go through the hell that we went through in order to find what we've had for almost 26 years, then I'm glad it happened.
Even though at the time it seemed as though it was an impossible situation, and came very, very close to breakin' up. I asked one of the girls if I had told any of my background, and she said no when she had heard me. Can you all hear me? Sometimes it helps for an Al-Anon or a non-alcoholic to identify a little bit, I think if you give a slight picture of what you used to be like. I happened to be an only child, which is not too nice a situation to begin with. I was a little different from the other kids in our neighborhood. I'm very like the lovely gal that has been our hostess here, Dot. We were both tomboys when we were young.
We both liked to play with boys because they played the kind of games that we enjoyed, and we were not too interested in playing with dolls and all that sort of thing. For my part, I was a big, strong, healthy, young woman who enjoyed swimming, playing baseball, basketball, anything that was athletic. And yet on the other hand, the only talents that I had were in the artistic field. And when you put those two things together, it makes for a rather strange person. I was never really comfortable in society until after I had had some experience in the acting profession, and I'd learned how to put up a front. And I can't say that I even then was comfortable because I wasn't really comfortable.
The thing that is so tremendous about it is that at least this ability to put up a front helped me get through many years that I would not have been able to get through because I never, never let anybody know how I felt inside. And most of the time I was scared to death. I remember so well the first time that I was asked to speak at an AA meeting, strangely enough, and this was many, many years ago, and they said we'd like to have Elsa talk for ten minutes. And up to this time I had been used to memorizing and perfecting everything that I did, and so I sat down and tried to write a speech. And for two solid weeks I tried to write a speech, but I never could come up with anything that sounded good enough. Because you see, I had that old bugaboo, that terrific need for approval, and that awful fear of disapproval.
And it was mostly centered upon my beloved husband. It was very important to me that I get up there and say something that would knock you all over so that he'd be proud of me, you know? I don't believe that there is anything that is quite so heartbreaking that causes so much resentment and so much bitterness and is the cause of great vindictiveness on the part of the non-alcoholic as to fall in love, as I did, desperately in love,
[00:05:10]
with a handsome young man who had everything that I desired in a husband. He was tall, he was good-looking, he was a tremendous guy, he was smart, he was an idealist, he was a perfectionist, he had everything that anyone could desire. But I didn't count on the fact that I was marrying a guy that was going to have trouble with alcohol later on. And I remember so well our first date. Chuck said to me, you and I can have a lot of fun together, but he said, if I call you for a date and you've got another date, don't lie to me.
Because if I ever catch you in a lie, that's all, brother. And it went right over my head. I think my father knew, because he tried every way he could to keep us from getting married. But of course, as you know, the more he tried to keep us from being married, the more determined I was to marry him. And I can't say that the first years of our marriage were unhappy, because they weren't. There were times when it was unhappy, because he occasionally got drunk.
And having been raised in the kind of family and with the kind of people who looked down their noses at a drunk, I was not very patient with him. And I gave him pretty bad time, but these were only occasional times then. But I don't have to tell any of you about the progression of this disease, because it gets worse as it goes along. Along the way, we had two sons, six years apart. And as the alcoholism progressed, I began to regress.
And I think this is probably the problem that all of us who are married to alcoholics have. We try everything under the sun to get these guys to quit drinking, at least to quit getting drunk. And nothing but nothing happens. The last ten years of Chuck's drinking were periodic drinking. And I don't know whether it's worse to live with a daily drinker or worse to live with a periodic, but I kind of have a hunch that living with a periodic is one of the roughest things in the world, because you never, never know what's going to happen. Strangely enough, I can always tell a couple of weeks in advance.
And I would say to Chuck, honey, you're getting irritable. You're trying to pick a fight. I know what's coming. Can't you do something about it now? And he would say to me, let me alone, baby. I know exactly what I'm doing. And he thought he did. He thought he did. But as those ten years progressed, the drunks got longer and longer and the sober periods got shorter and shorter. This is all familiar to most of you.
And as they, during these sober periods, when he would swear on a stack of Bibles a mile high, I'll never take another drink again as long as I live. And you know, for a long, long time I believed him. These guys can sell you a bill of goods without even trying. I've never seen people more adept. I've often said they can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge without even trying. And they can. And you know, the thing that I have learned is that he meant it at the time.
He meant it sincerely at the time. But he couldn't keep it. He just couldn't keep it. But I did not know this at that time. Because you see, this was during the days when there was very, very little AA and there was no Al-Anon. And I would hasten to say, before I forget it, that those of you who are members of Al-Anon in this group today don't know, you can't possibly realize, how very fortunate you are.
[00:10:02]
Because when I needed you so desperately, there was no Al-Anon. So I did all of the wrong things. And I often say today that I think that if I had known what I know today, I would have performed very differently. My attitudes would have been entirely different. And it's highly possible, even though my husband says he doesn't think so, that he might have come to the program much sooner than he did. Because he was one who had to go completely to the bottom before he could give up.
Something happens to those of us who live with alcoholism during the drinking years that are not very nice. And yet I will hasten to say this also, that I have found out that every defect of character that I have found in myself, since sobriety and since Al-Anon, was there long before I ever met my husband. But they become so terribly exaggerated during the drinking years. And I was not a very nice person, and I became a complete and utter doormat, and a complete and utter nothing to myself.
Even at the end, when I knew that there was no possibility, after having been on the fence for many, many years, trying to decide whether it was better to raise children with a drunken father or no father at all, I was finally forced into making a decision. I had to actually, by force of main strength and upwardness, make myself seek out a lawyer and apply for a divorce. And I started to business school. Those of you who have had this same experience will appreciate what I'm going to tell you, I'm sure.
I was practice typing at home. And Chuck often says now that that practice typing was the thing, I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Drove him right up the wall. But I don't need to tell you much more about this. The bottom of his particular experience came almost at the same time. And I did not have to go through with that divorce, and I did not have to finish business school, for which I am eternally thankful.
Chuck has often said that he knew even in his drunken stupor that I'd never make a stenographer. I thought, you know, because I played the piano very well, that my hands were trained and that possibly I could learn to type very quickly. How stupid can you be? Chuck came to A.A. in 1946, and for six years I went to A.A. meetings with him. And when Al-Anon came into being, I started a group in my home in Beverly Hills, and I had been around the program much longer than the people who were starting to come.
So I was the grandma of that group for a long time, and I was very adept at telling the other fellow how to live, what to do with this program. In the beginning, of course, Al-Anon didn't know very much about how to practice these twelve steps. We've grown like topsy, by guess and by gosh, and out of experience and its lessons. It's a funny thing how easily you can see the other fellow's problem and see its answer, and how very, very difficult it is to see your own.
And it took a period of extreme misery and terrible uncomfortableness to make me see that I was telling other people how to get well and was not getting well myself. I heard a man say, in fact it was Willard P., who I'm sure most of you know, not very long ago he said, so many people come into A.A. and Al-Anon and get well. I mean, what do I mean? Do you ever have your… Do you ever have your mind go blank?
[00:15:02]
Get good before you get well. And it hit me right between the eyes. Because this is a story of my life. I got good before I got well. Or I should say weller. Because I haven't gotten well yet. We finally, after the group had been in our home for several years, sold our house in Beverly Hills and moved to Laguna Beach. And we moved into a completely new neighborhood with no friends. I wasn't intending to tell this story today, but I've been asked by a couple of people to tell it.
Because they think it means as much to them as it does to me. After you have lived in the same home for 28 years and you've raised your children and all of your friends are there, it's a little rough to move into a completely new neighborhood at my age. No friends and alone. And my husband's business was in Los Angeles and whenever he talks, which he does a great deal of, he went from his office, he did not come down to Laguna, which is 57 miles below Los Angeles, to pick me up and take me with him.
And so here I sit, three and four and sometimes five nights a week, all alone. And I don't think there's an Al-Anon in this area that doesn't understand what happened to me. Because you see, I didn't really have this program. I had it up here, but I didn't have it in here, which makes a great deal of difference. And I reverted almost immediately to my previous line of thinking, poor me, what have I done to deserve this?
I'm not getting my just due, I'm not getting my proper respect. My husband's been talking for 15 years, isn't it time he slowed down and gave me a little more attention? And I put some pressure on him to slow down. In fact, I put quite a bit of pressure on him to slow down. And he tried, he tried very desperately to slow down. But in about three months, he got very uncomfortable. And he laid down the law, very nicely, of course, but very firmly.
He said, I can't do it this way. How am I going to pick and choose who I will talk for? Am I going to say yes to one and no to another? I cannot do this. When AA asks me to do something, I have to go. And you will have to adjust yourself to it. Well, I didn't like it very well, but I knew him pretty well by that time. And I knew that he was not going to change his mind. And suddenly something popped into my head that had happened in the very, very early years of Chuck's sobriety.
I don't think he'd been sober more than a year, possibly two, when he was asked to talk on Christmas. And I hit the ceiling and I said, how dare you make a date on Christmas? This is a family day. The children are coming and you have no right to go away on Christmas. But when he makes a date, he keeps it. And so I planned an early dinner and the children were there. But you know, a funny thing happened.
It wasn't more than maybe 45 minutes to an hour after we finished dinner that my kids all took off. We were alone anyway. They had places they wanted to go and things they wanted to do on Christmas. So I got dressed and went down to the meeting with Chuck. At that meeting, there were two very, very drunk winos that had just been pulled out from under the Santa Monica Pier. The following Christmas, he was asked to talk again.
And I went a little more willingly this time. But lo and behold, one of them was leading the meeting and the other one read the steps. And I could see without the shadow of a doubt that we are in a life and death business, you and I, both in AA and Al-Anon. We are in the business of saving lives. And whatever my husband has to do in order to continue his work in AA,
[00:20:02]
I have to leave him free to do. Now you see, I had been talking for many years about this release with love thing that Al-Anon talks so much about. And I had never realized I was not applying it myself. And at that time, I had to completely take my hands off my husband's life and get busy and do something about me. And my youngest son gave me the answer. He could see that I was very miserable. And he said, Mom, why don't you start another Al-Anon group?
And this is what I did. And it was through this beautiful group, which met in my home for a long, long time, that I finally began to learn how to apply these 12 beautiful steps of yours to me. And it was then that I began to discover that this need for approval was so strong in me and the fear of disapproval was so even stronger and that I had been a people pleaser all my life, a yes woman, and that I had never developed a feeling of being a person and an individual in my own right.
So the learning process began and all the beautiful members of my group helped me. And I finally got myself to the place where I could say, just like old Papa, I guess, I am what I am and that's all I am and if it isn't good enough, it's just too bad, that's all there is there. And it was then that I began talking a little more and beginning to feel a little more freedom to share how I felt inside.
This is one of the most difficult things in the world for a shy person to do, to be able to share how you feel inside. But it's in this sharing in our groups and with newcomers that makes it possible for us to see ourselves when you're willing, when you're willing. I had also been talking for a long time about something that my beloved husband had taught me. This thing of changing your motives from have to to want to in anything that you do.
To do it just for free and for fun with no strings on it. And to love for free and for fun with no strings on it. That love should be a free gift with no expectancy of return. And it suddenly after several years more hit me right between the eyes again that the answer to this need for approval was so simple I couldn't see it. It was simply this that I was not loving for free. There were strings on my love.
This was why I needed this approval so terribly. It's so simple that it's ridiculous. But this program is simple and we all try to complicate it. But when you can pull yourself down to the one day at a time simplicity of the 12 steps and the beautiful serenity prayer life becomes very simple indeed. But if you're like me you keep going back. You know the reason that Al-Anon doesn't give birthday cakes like they do in AA?
It's because we have so many slips. And believe me I've had quite a few. And I found out that life is not always a bowl of roses. That there are things that come along that are very heartbreaking and I've had a few. I've had some difficulty with my children as most of you probably have had in this day and age. Some rather heartbreaking experiences. But you know it's a funny thing when I've gotten far enough away from a thing like that that has practically torn me apart and I have eventually found an answer to it.
I can see that that experience was a necessary thing in my own growth and in the growth of the people that I had the experience with.
[00:25:02]
And I have learned a lesson out of it that I could not possibly have learned any other way. But mostly life is good in Al-Anon and AA and I've come up with a new thing recently that has given me quite a bit of thought. I don't exactly know what I'm talking about yet but I'm going to have to talk about it until I know what I'm talking about. And that's this thing of competition. Competition. I didn't realize until just a few short months ago that competition came out or comes out in some very, very subtle ways that we don't recognize.
And it suddenly occurred to me because I've been disturbed about competition in family life for a long time and wondering why so many families are breaking up after sobriety. And competition seemed to have a great part in this thing. But it just occurred to me a short time ago and this is how slow I am and always have been that competition is the basis of this need for approval also. That's a dilly.
Think about it a while. It'll drive you crazy. Competitiveness. I've got to be like or as good as… And the way I found this out happened not too awfully long ago when Marcy White and her husband were in Laguna and we decided to have a meeting in our living room. There were quite a few of us. And they condescended to let the Al-Anon say a few words. So they decided to go around the group and each one tell of a little experience in their AA or Al-Anon life that had been outstanding.
And when it came my turn two very vivid pictures popped into my mind. One was from at least 20 years before and one happened very shortly before this meeting. The first one, I was standing in the bedroom and Chuck was standing on the other side about two o'clock in the morning and I was screaming at him at the top of my lungs calling him every dirty name that I could lay my tongue to and a few, I guess, that I didn't even know I knew.
And he was standing there not saying a word. And in the midst of it my eldest son came in and he said, Oh mother, can't you be quiet? We can't sleep. And the other picture had happened just a short time before. Now remember, I told you that this need for approval had been so terribly strong. I had thought I had gotten rid of most of it. But I was sitting there thinking I wish to goodness that I had the kind of sense of humor that my husband has.
He has a delightful sense of humor, one that it took me many, many years to understand. But when I finally learned to laugh at it, I enjoy it. And I don't seem to be able to do this. And I said something to him about it. I said, I wish I had the kind of humor that you have. And he sat there very quietly for a minute and then he said to me, Do you suppose there could be a little competition? Now if he had said that to me three or four or maybe five years before this, I would have done just exactly as I used to do.
I would have become immediately on the defensive. I would have gone right straight through the ceiling and I would have said, How dare you accuse me of such a thing? But this time, for some strange reason, I sat there and I thought, You know, he's right. Here we are. Two individuals. Two individuals. We are not alike at all. We are total opposites. He is Leo the lion, and I'm Taurus the bull. We're not alike at all. Not at all.
[00:30:13]
Why do I want to be like him? Why can't I be myself? Each one of us, and I've known this intellectually for a long time, each one of us has our unique value in this life. None of us are alike. None of us. Why then do we beat our breasts and say, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, as I did for so many, many years? Chuck, I've often heard Chuck say, and a great man that we both knew said it before, that if two of us were born exactly, if God made two of us exactly alike, one of us would be unnecessary.
And also, I remembered a thing that came out in the grapevine so many years ago, that possibly some of you remember, where it said that if we wouldn't be so concerned with what other people thought about us, if we knew how seldom they do. How seldom. People are wrapped up in their own affairs, and they don't pay that much attention. And it takes a good bit of ego, I think, to think that people are watching you and making book on you anyway.
And I have come to believe that my problem was a reverse ego, but it was still ego. It was self-thinking. I, me, I. And I can see now why it's taken me so long, so very, very long, to grow in this program and progress at all, because you see, when Al-Anon came into being, I was no longer desperate. I had had six years of good living, of a sober husband, a quiet household, and love. I was no longer desperate. I thought I was happy. I thought I was free, but I was not.
So that when Al-Anon came into being, I was no longer a desperate creature like I had been when Chuck first got sober. So that was the reason why I spent my days and hours trying to tell you how to live and not doing a very good job myself. So if any of you have had difficulty in a slow growth pattern, don't be too discouraged, because it takes time with some of us. Some of us are pretty slow learners.
But I think one of the greatest things that I have learned in this program is the light touch, the light touch, to be able to see myself as I am and be able to laugh at me, to see the funny side of the stupid, horrendous things that I did in those years. To be able to stand up and say, this no longer has to be me. I can now open my mind. I now can accept love, which I never was able to do. If you came up to me and said I love you, I wanted to crawl under the table because I felt like a hypocrite, because I could not say I love you back. I could not.
But somehow or other, the free pouring out of love that comes both in Al-Anon and AA has a way of melting down that frozen inside that many of us come into this program with, and eventually we are able to say I love you back and mean it from the bottom of our hearts. And to me, this program is all one ball of wax anyway. I've gained as much from AA as I have from Al-Anon, and I have as many friends amongst the AA as I do in Al-Anon.
[00:35:02]
And while we are two completely separate entities, and we do not affiliate, still, the love is there, and the sharing is there. This thing of being an individual, I see so many of the Al-Anon members come in desperate, just practically falling apart at the seams. And invariably they come to find a way to get the alcoholic sober, and they're rather discombobulated and confused when we tell them there is no way, no way for you to get him to quit drinking.
But if you are looking for an answer for yourself, so that you can learn how to be at peace and joyous and happy in spite of the drinking alcoholic, then you are in the right place. Because in this room is much experience, and when you see the happy faces and the smiling eyes, you will realize that perhaps half of this group is still living with a practicing alcoholic, and that they have learned how to find some peace and some joy in spite of the alcoholic.
Then you will be willing to do what this program suggests and find a better way of life so that you may perhaps set a tone in your household that will allow your children to be more at peace. And it's amazing what happens. It's fantastic. And I've seen it time and time and time again, that when a gal or a guy comes into Al-Anon and really begins to find themselves and find this program and quit trying to manipulate and to make the alcoholic quit drinking, I've even heard of them buying a case and setting it on the kitchen sink and saying, here it is boy, help yourself, drink yourself to death if this is what you want.
And you'll find them in not too long a time hunting an answer. And I've seen it happen sometimes inside of a week or two, and sometimes within just a few months, that the alcoholic will come to AA because he has felt a freedom that he has never felt before. And when we get off their backs, and I often say this to a newcomer, when you can go home and say to your mate, my dear, I have found out that I cannot do anything about your drinking.
I am completely and absolutely powerless over what you say, think, or do. I am giving you complete and utter freedom to drink yourself to death if that's what you want. But as for me, I have found a way that will allow me to find some peace for myself because I no longer believe that it is necessary for the whole family to go down the drain with you. I love you very dearly and I would give my life to help you if I could, but I know I can't. So at least perhaps I can set a tone in my home that will allow our children to be more or less at peace so that we will not all be destroyed.
And then get busy on this program and when the time comes and you can, get that light back in your eyes and that smile on your face and go singing around the house, you'll drive him right straight up the wall. I'm not kidding, it will. It will make him so resentful in the first place that he won't know what to do. Because you see, misery loves company. Misery loves company. And they'd love to make you just as miserable as they are.
But you don't have to be. Because this is a joyous, this is a happy, beautiful program. And we don't have to anymore go around with a long face and sad eyes and look like death warmed over as I did and as I see many of them come in.
[00:40:14]
This is a learning process and it's a beautiful way to go. And when we too learn to quit being a crutch for the alcoholic and to allow him the freedom that is embodied in what we mean with release with love. The only way that I can explain it, I say it in the same words every time I open my mouth because I don't know how to explain it any other way, is that we give every human being in the world the dignity of a human being.
To give them the dignity of God's child. To give them the dignity to find their own answer in their own time, in their own way, without interference from us. To give them the dignity to make mistakes and to be wrong. To give them the dignity to find themselves. And then let go and put them completely and absolutely in God's hands and get busy on yourself. And then maybe he will find something in you someday that he would love to have and get very, very curious about it. And he might, he just might come to AA.
The freedom. Then perhaps we can do what the 12th step of our program suggests so beautifully. Take this program home. Take this program home. So many of us, both in AA and Al-Anon, I think, have a habit of going home, maybe after a hard day's work, frustrating circumstances, and when we walk in our front door we take off our program like we take off our overcoat. And we revert to old habit patterns. And it's so easy to do. So easy to do. I had a gentleman come up to me one night after a talk where I said something about this. And he said, I want to thank you for saying that because I can see that's exactly what I've been doing.
I've been taking off my program like I take off my overcoat when I walk in my front door. The book says home is the place to start. But it is just as important for the Al-Anon as it is for the alcoholic, I believe, because the Al-Anon who is left at home with the frustrating things that happen, possibly with small children and all the household ills and work and stuff that women have to put up with, and maybe she meets her husband at the front door with all the trials and errors of the day, and he comes home tired and wanting a peaceful, quiet home. So we're just as much at fault as the alcoholic is.
But oh how beautiful it is when both of us are practicing these principles in all of our affairs. And we can go down this pathway like two railroad tracks. Separately but together. Separately but together. Giving love and support to each other, but each working our program in our own way. And not taking each other's inventory. Embodied in the Al-Anon program is everything that you have in AA. We stole it from you, with your permission, and we've loved every minute of it.
And don't misunderstand us. We are trying in our own simple way to grow in livingness, in lovingness, in security, in freedom, just as the alcoholic is. Then perhaps we can meet on a common ground and have the thing we've been crying about. And have the thing we've been crying for forever, and that is to have some communication.
[00:45:00]
To be able at long last to tell each other exactly how we feel inside. I should say we should share with each other, because I think that most of us have spent a lifetime telling each other. And nobody, but nobody likes to be told. This is one of the problems I think we're having with our children today. We try to tell them and they won't accept it. But you just try sharing your feelings with your children and see what happens.
I know what I'm talking about because I can remember so well. Sitting with my son in a London room. And for the first time in my life saying to him, You know Dick, it's a funny thing, but I've always been scared to death of you. And he looked at me kind of strange and he began to laugh and he says, That's funny, I've always been scared of you. So for the first time in our lives, after much working on this program, Because we had no communication at all.
And he hated me and he hated his father. And it wasn't until he finally began to know us as we are today, That he began to get rid of the terrible, terrible resentment that he had built up over the years And had never told us about, never had mentioned it to us. But he had some growing up to do himself. And if it hadn't been for this program, I never in the world could have left him free to do his own growing up.
But you see, we had to grow up too. And when Chuck and I grew up enough, and Dick grew up enough, That we could get together and talk freely and share freely, Did the wall come down. And we're the best of friends today. And we have beautiful communication. And it only happens, I guess, when it's supposed to happen and it takes time, it took years. He was 30 years old before we found each other. That's a long time to lose your son.
A long time. But it's a happy deal now. And it's beautiful. And we love it. And we love you. And we're so happy to be here in this beautiful, beautiful place. And we're so happy to be here in this beautiful, beautiful place. I've heard a great deal about Cook's Forest. And I'm glad we've finally come to see it. And to get acquainted with you. And will you someday ask us back? And will you someday, when you come to California and you're down in Laguna Beach, come and see us?
And you Al-Anons come to our Al-Anon group. Because we would love to share with you, as you have shared with us. And thanks, committee, for asking us to come. We've enjoyed every minute of it. And Dot and her husband have been so good to us and everything has been so lovely. And those of you who might be new in the Al-Anon program, do keep coming back. Keep coming back. Don't ever let it go. Because I can tell you without the shadow of a doubt, that for 25 years and 8 months, it has gotten steadily better.
And it's my life. I love it. And God bless you. And thank you. Al-Anon.