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Source: Jenny P – Kentucky State AFG Convention 2021 Jenny P. – Eureka Springs, AR – Date Unknown.mp3 File: jenny-p-kentucky-state-afg-convention-2021-jenny-p-eureka-springs-ar-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:55:46
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Thank you. Wow, I'm here. This is awesome. My name is Jenny P., and I hail from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, right now. I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. My Al-Anon birthday is September the 9th of 1974. I love this. I'm going to tell you that you'll see me sort of looking down sometimes because I have to have notes. My brain is not what it used to be, even as awesome as I believe I am at 72 years old.
Sometimes I get wolf whistles. I don't know what to do with those sometimes. It's like, okay, I'm old enough to be your grandma, probably, but it's okay. Keep them coming. A girl always likes to know. My sense of humor is all over the place because I am so happy to be alive. I am happy, joyous, and free. That is the life that I lead. When I first came into this program, I was 25 years old. I now have spent more time in this program, as someone else said, than the time I've been alive. It's amazing, the life I have due to Al-Anon and coming into Al-Anon is a life I would have never imagined.
I am living a purpose-driven life. I really am. It is exciting every day when I get up. Four days a week, not the whole day, for about 45 minutes. If I extend my workout, I'm at the gym four times a week because that keeps me moving. A few years back, I went to the doctor because my body was hurting. When you hit those 60s and 70s, your body just starts hurting. He said I had rheumatoid arthritis and I needed to take all this medicine. I am not a medicine taker. I take a vitamin D. That is it.
They wanted me to go on this regimen. I said I wasn't going to do that. He said it was his job to tell me what I needed with rheumatoid arthritis, that in five years I would be in a wheelchair. I said I don't thank you, but no thank you. Here I am ten years later walking and talking and doing my thing because I looked at him and I said I don't know who your God is, but my God, JC, he lives up there and he writes out my prescriptions.
He said okay and I could go home and I've never been back. I'm going to tell you that in 1970, I met the alcoholic in my life. He was an alcoholic, but I did not know what an alcoholic was. He just drank a lot. He was a cop. I'm going to cut through some of this real quick because my life has been amazing and it will be for the next 30 or 40 years that I live. That's just the plan I have. I've spoken to God. He said it's okay. As long as you let him in on the plan, we're good. It's when you go ahead of him that he gets a little bit perturbed.
I had just come back from Eastern Airlines, the Wings of Man. I wanted to be a flight attendant or stewardess as they used to call them all my life since I was a little girl. We used to fly back and forth from Puerto Rico on Pan Am. If you remember what an airline was and when it was really an airline, those were those Pan Am flight attendants. They were gorgeous. I remember looking up at one of them and saying I just want to be like you when I grow up. I meant blonde, blue eyed, tall and thin.
Anyway, I got out of high school and I got accepted by Eastern Airlines. I went over to Eastern Airlines 12 weeks training, a 500 deer run in Miami. 12 weeks of training. Eight weeks into the training, they called me down to the office. At that time, you had to be perfect. They prefer you were single. Most of the time, you had to be tall and beautiful. I was, as I still am. Not much has changed. They called me down and they put me on a scale. First, they told me to bring my uniforms and I knew that wasn't good. They put me on a scale and I was still 10 pounds overweight so they sent me home. I think I was 70 pounds lighter than I am now, but that's the way it was back in 1968 or 69.
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I came home and I cried all the way. I could tell you that for the next 30 years, every day, I got up and I thought what would have happened if I would have been a flight attendant. I had pictures of Paris and all these exotic places because that's where I wanted to be and that's where my heart was. Instead, I came back home and I got a job with the New York City policeman tutoring the policeman in the neighborhood in Spanish so they could learn. I speak Spanish fluently. I am from Puerto Rico. I am bilingual.
Any Spanish speaking people? Good morning, how are you? I am glad you are here tonight. Welcome. From Colombia. Almost the same. The first night of class, I get a roster with all these cop's names on it and I start calling the roster and I call the good sergeants. He is still alive and kicking in Florida. Living it up. Some assistant living on the 17th floor overlooking the ocean. That's another story.
He walked into the room. I called his name. He was not present at the time. I kept calling his name every five minutes and all of a sudden from the hallway, I hear the words present and accounted for Missy. I waited until that man got right under the arch of the door. He walked towards me, took that hand, kissed it, said present and accounted. Once I got myself off the floor, it took me two seconds to plan their wedding. That man was mine.
Four months after we met in February, we got married in September. I didn't know a lot about this man. To make a long story short, his drinking got bad. I knew nothing about drinking. One night, he came in and we had a bunch of trouble because he got off on the wrong floor. He tried to get into somebody else's apartment, gun drawn because when the man came to the door, he thought somebody had broken into our apartment and the chase was on with cops all over the building and all that.
That was my first real realization that this man had a problem. He had to go to the farm. That's what they call the place where they send all the cops and whatever to heal. A wife beat us. They all went to the farm to get well. He came back in July. This past July, he did celebrate 47 years of sobriety. We went on trying to make it work and of course it didn't. We did the geographical cure from the Bronx. We moved to upstate New York to Monroe.
In Monroe, this is very funny first of all. I forget this and it's so important. I went to my first Al-Anon meeting because my husband invited me. I have got to say that was the best thing my husband ever did for me. That was the best gift that I could have ever been given. There is a line in my friend Jeremiah 2911 where he says that I have a plan for you. Unbeknownst to me, he had a plan for me. I didn't know it, but this was the beginning of my journey and my plan.
Anyway, we go to Al-Anon, Al-Anon upstate or vice versa. I go to my first Al-Anon meeting on a Monday night. It was storming and we were meeting in the basement. I went to that meeting on September 9th. I walk in the door and the woman says, is this your first time, honey? I said, yes, ma'am, it is. She says, why don't you sit here? Another woman asked me if I wanted coffee and cookies. I didn't know at that time that I had another issue with cookies, but that was beside the point. I loved my first Al-Anon meeting. This woman says, sit right here, honey. I'm going to be your sponsor.
That's the way we did it back in 1974 in New York City in Al-Anon. I spent a little while there with that woman calling her every day. It was a few months later that we had to move from the building because of the incident that happened.
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We're going to move up to Monroe, New York. My sponsor from the Bronx, New York calls a friend of hers in Monroe, New York and says, hey, I have a gal headed that way. She's going to need a sponsor and I meet my second sponsor. I didn't know what color she liked, how much money she made, where she lived, how many kids she had. My sponsor said, go meet your sponsor, call her when you get there, make an appointment and you'll meet her at the meeting. That's how I met my second sponsor. That's the way we did it back then.
I was engrossed in service. From the first three months that I was in this program, I was in service because that's what my sponsor said that you did and that's what we did. When I moved to Monroe, New York, I became a GR. I was not there six months and I was a GR. I didn't know any better than to say no or that I didn't know. I just said okay. So we went to assemblies and stuff. A year after I came into program, we are engrossed in the program, blah, blah, blah. We go to assembly and it's election time.
At that time, we did it a little bit different. We went down the row. If you were running for something or wanted to throw your name in the hat, you did. The district got pulled out first and they would ask, do you people want to run for chair? They said no. So they went through all the district reps and got down to the GRs. I was a district rep by 26. I didn't know my ear from my elbow. To be polite, I became a district rep. So we're all moving around. Now we're moving again because we want to get closer to the city because he's going to retire one day and we're going to head for Florida.
So we head up again to move and this time we moved to Bedford Hills, New York. Bedford Hills, New York was a lovely place. It was falling apart. You know how some districts become dormant at times. People are not interested. So I called my sponsor and I said I need to have a group where I'm a rep for because I can't give up my seat. Now I'm learning about it. We had the Roberts Rules of Order. Oh my God, that was awful. I could barely speak English let alone. So I started going around the groups and everybody had a group rep and I basically knew this because I was chairman of the assembly. I felt very smart and very powerful. I don't know why when I look back.
So my sponsor said why don't you call our friend Lois. She lives 10 minutes from you. So I said Lois. She said you know Lois W., co-founder of the Al-Anon program. And I said okay. I've seen Lois at places, World Service and such. So the very next day, you know, youth is ignorant and all that. And I picked up my baby, put him on my hip and went over to what's known as Stepping Stones. I drive up. I expected a gate. I expected guards. There was no such thing.
There was a little house which is really like a bungalow where it used to be. All the way in the back, lots of flowers. I drive all the way to the back to the door and I knock on the door. And she comes to the door, Lois Wilson herself. And I want to say I said hi Lois. I'm Jenny. I'm chairman of the state assembly. I need some help. I would appreciate some. I think what I said is hi Jenny, I'm Lois and I'm here. I think, I really do think that's what I said.
She looked at me and probably felt very sorry for me and said why don't you come on in and something like take a load off or something like that, which probably meant the child that I had on my hip. And I went inside. She instantly fell in love with my little boy who is now 40 something. And he was just adorable. And Harriet was there in the kitchen. I got coffee. I know it was March because we ate some birthday cake.
So there started a relationship with Lois W. herself. And I tell you this, not because I'm going to get on a train for free or on a plane, but because there's very few of us left that knew her. And you need to know that she was a wonderful white haired little old lady when I met her. And she still was driving. She was very active in just about everything. She didn't want to be recognized. About Everything. She didn't want to be recognized. She didn't want accolades of any kind. She was
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more or less a private lady, but I spent a lot of time with her at Stepping Stones. I was one of those people that could just walk through the door. How exciting. One night I slept at Stepping Stones because I had a fight with him. And instead of killing him, I just went for a ride. And I actually showed up at the door. It was about 10 o'clock at night and she was surprised to see me. She was alone most of the time. People would think that there were a lot of people around, but there wasn't. Once Harry went home and all that, it was basically her. So I stayed on the couch that day. I slept at the couch at Stepping Stones. And musty smelling back then, I could still smell it. We had a lot in common. I lived in Brooklyn. She lived in Brooklyn. She was a decorator. I loved decorating even at that time. And she loved an alcoholic. We shared stories. I wrote down a lot of the things that we shared. I don't think they'll ever come up because it's anonymity and some of the stuff she told me helped me and it was private. I talked to her about how embarrassed I was when my husband came home one night all bloodied and everything. She told me about the time Bill came home from New Jersey dragging his clubs and totally bloodied. She didn't know what happened to him.
So we shared deep stories. We shared stories about rumors that they were. And we did have those conversations. I'm going to leave you hanging because I know when you don't. We had a lovely time together. A little while later we were going to get together for Lady Cliff College. Our area was putting on a convention. And I was told since I had a relationship with Lois, if I would ask her, she would speak. And she wasn't doing that anymore because if she did it for one, she would have to do it for the other. So I went over to her and I asked her. She polite me and said she couldn't do it. I said I have a list of names there. My husband had recommended Marty Mann. She's in Women Suffer Too in the big book. His words were, why don't you call the old broad? She's still alive. I had never heard of Marty Mann. So I went to Lois and she said who's next on your list? And I said Marty Mann. I understand she's in AA. And she says, well, why don't you call her? She actually gave me her number and I called her. I believe she had called her ahead of time because it was all too easy when I asked her to come and be our speaker.
And one Saturday evening at Lady Cliff College, I welcomed Miss Marty Mann. It's a while. It's a while. I'm like a Forrest Gump. I was there, but I didn't know I was there until somebody told me I had been there. And as I looked back through some of my history and the people that I met in the program, Helen was in the World Service Office. She had flaming red hair like Lucille Ball, and that's where I remember her name. She was at a stepping stone salon and she helped us to put back the district because it was almost non-existent when I got there. So she loaned us her house and we got everybody together to get the district going again. So a little while later, I was ready to move to Florida because it was that or a divorce.
And I hated the man by this time. And I'm trying to tell you a lot about me and my experiences and how this program has helped me instead of the drunkologue. So I went over to Lois and I said we were moving to Florida and I wanted to just get together with her. And she invited me up and had a little luncheon for me. And Helen was there and Harriet and herself, another lady, I can't remember her name. And she gave me a copy of Lois Remembers that had come off the press.
And she wrote a beautiful inscription on it. About five or six years back, actually it was at our last big anniversary, I gave it to the archives in Little Rock because I felt that's where it belonged. It didn't belong on a shelf in my room. And there everybody could look at it and smell it and know that she was real. So a little while later, we did move to Florida. I did have a good relationship with Lois. She was my friend. She was not my sponsor, but she was my friend and we shared a lot of conversation together. Harriet made wonderful chicken. What you read is the truth. She tried to teach me how to do chicken. I still to this day
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can't fry chicken. That's neither here nor there, but I want to tell you. She had a restaurant in Westchester. And I think this is noted in some of the literature. She closed her restaurant down because she said her kids ate all her profits when she went to work for Lois and Bill, first part-time and then full-time. And one evening we had a storm through Westchester. And I want to say this was about May of 1980. And she couldn't reach Lois, but she could reach me. And I went over to give her a message as to Harriet would be there with her son as soon as she could get through. When I got to Stepping Stones that day, all I see is this little yellow figure, and it's going around the house and the outside. And I drive up close and there is Lois in a yellow little raincoat thing picking up branches and putting them in one place, cleaning up.
Okay, she's old by now. And I said, how could I help you? She said, just pick up branches and bring them over here. And then she told me to go back and call Harriet and tell her don't worry in coming that day that she could come the next day. I mean these are precious memories. These are unbelievable memories of her giving me a cup of coffee. I sat at that kitchen table that was also in Clinton, on Clinton Street. And I had coffee over there, coffee out of the same mugs that probably Bill drank out of. I got to go upstairs and see the clearing house where the World Service actually started for the literature. She had a saying, she would say, you know, one person starts something but then everybody else continues. She would never take credit for starting Al-Anon.
She said, you were the ones that started Al-Anon. And today I see that because without us grabbing onto those newcomers and continuing, it wouldn't be Al-Anon anymore. So anyway, we started to move and I did move down to Florida with my husband and my kids. And a little bit after we got there, it was time to get a divorce because life was bad. The abuse got worse and worse and worse and one of the things I had was verbal abuse. Never physical abuse because if he would have laid a hand on me, we would be either dead or in jail. But he never did. But he could kill you with the words he used. Things like, you're no good, you come out of the Bronx, you're dumb, you're stupid, you're fat. All those wonderful little things that build a girl up. I remember some of these things and I go, oh my gosh. So anyway, I decide I need to get a divorce. And I tell you what, one Thanksgiving evening after he got up from sleeping and we sat down to eat, he put one of those serving forks, carving fork things through the turkey, decided it didn't look good and threw it in the garbage. So there we sit, my three kids and I and the turkey in the garbage. And it was okay to eat the pies and all that stuff, but it was just so, I just wanted to beat him. Instead, I went to a meeting. That was better. And in that meeting that night was a man that I'm sure was a guardian angel, maybe mine. He said to me, why do you have to divorce? Why don't you just separate for a little while? I never thought about it. Because I don't know about you all, but with me, it's either flee, no in between, I'm going to murder you, no chances. You do something bad, I want to kill you. It's nothing in between and we're not going to talk it over. I'm so glad I changed that in my life. But that's the way it was. So I started proceedings at that time to get a divorce and to leave my home. As someone said earlier, if you have children, if you know how hard it is that for the sake of those children, you have to leave them behind, because you know that is best. I was so off kilter when I got out of that marriage. I didn't know whether I was coming or I was going. And I had to sit down my children, one in high school, one in junior high, and my baby in kindergarten and said, mommy's not leaving you, she's leaving your dad. I gave them each a talking to and each a key and the telephone number to where I was going, which was 10 minutes up the street. But I had to get out of the house, because that was safer for everybody. I could tell you that my kids were in private school. They lived in a four-bedroom house. Everybody had their own
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room and everybody was comfortable. When I spoke to my sponsor, she explained to me, well, we could do the selfish thing and you could drag those kids all over the place on welfare or whatever, or you could take the bullet, you could take a deep breath and you can leave them where they are with the alcoholic that's not drinking, that loves them, that will take care of them in a house where you know they're going to be comfortable. And that's what I did. And every night for about three months until he found out I was doing this, I would come over after I finished doing everything else.
He would go to work, because he had the night shift still there in the post office, and I would come and I would sit outside the house until about one o'clock in the morning, because he came home about three or something, to make sure those kids were safe and nobody came in and out of that house. Then he told me one day that I had no business being there because I had chosen to leave, and I had to arrange for a friend down the street to keep an eye on the house.
I loved my children. I loved my life. I just no longer loved the alcoholic. One day it just one snap and the love was no longer there. Okay, so I got a divorce by the grace of God and some wonderful sponsors. I have got to tell you that my sponsor, they're in the tapestry of my life. Their lives run with mine. Without my sponsors, I don't know what I would have done. I cannot say enough for sponsors. If you're sitting here and you don't have a sponsor, you need to get your butt off of that chair and go call somebody and get a sponsor to help you go through life. Life is hard when you do it alone. It gets heavy, and it gets smelly, and it gets dangerous, and you do stupid things that you don't want to do because you don't have someone to talk it over with. Get a sponsor. Every once in a while when I talk to someone, they say they don't have a sponsor. I say, how long have you been in program? Oh, three years or so. I say, what are you waiting for, references? Give me a break. Go get a sponsor. They're here to help you. You're helping me. I'm helping you. I have 10 sponsors today. To this day, I still have sponsors. I still do service. We were commenting on my convention. I'm chairperson of a convention that has been postponed twice now, and we're trying to keep it alive. We had a lot, Olivia and I, to discuss. Anyway, I get a divorce from this man, and I am in a tough place. I took no alimony because those kids were in private school, and they needed that private school more than I needed his money. I went to work. I made $150 a week, $300 every two weeks, and I paid $300 in rent.
That's how my life went. If my car broke, I had to go to the church because I had no other place to go because he wouldn't help me. I remember my sponsor calling me one day because I had called her after she called me three times and left a message on that recorder, the one you know you better call your sponsor. She asked me what was going on, and I said I was just having a hard time. I just wanted to kill myself. I was suicidal. I had the guilt of leaving the kids behind. I felt bad. I didn't have anything to look forward to, so I said I didn't have money.
I had paid my bills, and I think I had 50 cents after I filled the tank up so I could get to work. She asked me if I would be home that evening, and I said yes, and a couple of Al-Anon members and AA members came over. Number one, I had a couple of pieces of furniture that I had taken from the house. I didn't have a television. I didn't have a couch. I was sitting for entertainment on the floor of what was called the living room at that time. She walked in with these people, and they bought a couch. Her husband said that'll be $50. You have to pay me one dollar a week until it's paid, and I paid it off. One dollar a week until I paid off $50. When those people left, there was a television there, a little television. There was a bag of groceries, and she says be careful when you unload the groceries, so when I unloaded the groceries, there was a month's rent in there, and there was extra money, and there was food because that was my real family. That was my family, so I remember calling my sponsor one day and said I need help. I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to do. I am beside myself, and by the way, I was calling her from inside the closet, we had these telephones with the long I don't know why I was the only one in the apartment and there I was in the closet in
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the dark talking to my sponsor because she had called me about three times. I know it was her because I knew her ring. It said, it's your sponsor, where are you, what are you doing? So anyway, she finally got a hold of me. I'm in the closet in the dark crying and I said, Joan, I need help. I need a lockdown or something. We didn't have lockdown for women at that time. Everything was for the men. So we decided that I could not go to a lockdown, a rehab or whatever.
The closest thing was the mental ward. Did I need the mental ward? Could I have used the mental ward? Yes, that would have been the perfect place for me, the mental ward. But because I still didn't have custody of my children, a joint custody, she figured that would not be a good thing. So she says, okay, could you do 90 meetings in 90 days? I said, yes, ma'am, I can. So what I would do in the morning was I would get up, I would go pick up my children, I would make them breakfast, take them to the bus stop.
They would get on the bus stop. I would get over to a meeting that I could catch half of. Then at 12 noon when my lunch was, I asked the closed AA meeting if I could just sit in the back. And that's what I did for 90 days. Plus she would pick me up in the evening and she'd take me to a meeting. Okay, where there's a will, there's a way. And I know that I emerged from that much stronger. I cannot tell you how much gratitude I have for AA.
Thank you for loaning us your steps and your traditions. I am ever so grateful to you. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart because that is my life. I'm going to tell you about some of my sponsors that I've had. Kathy. Kathy showed me what it was like to be in love with God. She told me that I was the apple of his eye. She told me that when God woke up in the morning, his first thought was of me.
Kathy showed me how to get over to a God of my understanding. You see, she put me in another dimension. Like if I went in through sliding glass doors and I had another life. She introduced me to her God because his conference approved and mine was not. She introduced me to that God that didn't penalize you. She introduced me to that God that just waited for me on bated breath every day just for me to say, good morning, God.
And he'd say, good morning, Jenny. What do you want of me today? And it took me a little while to get to this because I wasn't talking to God every day. And then she says, you know, that is so rude of you not to talk to God every day. And I'd forget. And she'd say, this is what we're going to do so you remember to talk to God every day. We're going to put a chair in the middle of the room, okay? That's God's chair and he's waiting for you there.
And I walked by that chair and I walked back that chair and I walked by that chair. And she told me one day, what if I was there and I was sitting on that chair and you went back and forth all day long and you didn't say anything to me? What do you think I would think? And I started talking to God three times a day. And it was the best relationship that started. And Phyllis showed me how to be a woman of value.
Phil showed me that I was worth more than I could ever imagine. Millions. Millions. Filthy rich, if I were to cash me in. She showed me how to go first class for a buck more. She just showed me that I was entitled to the best that was up there. She showed me how to shop for clothes, where I could look like a million bucks on ten. Thirty dollars at the consignment shop, three dollars for the blouse, okay, I paid a little more for the wig, but that's the way I roll.
Susan, my last sponsor, showed me how to stay in my lane. None of your business, balance it out. If they haven't asked you, you haven't been invited, stay in your lane. Don't invite problems into your life. I'm going to tell you that when Susan died, I was with her to her last breath.
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That's one of the things I do through hospice. I like to be at the last breath because I don't think anybody should die alone. I was with Ms. Susan for about three months at hospice, visiting her every single day. They had her on a diet, so I bought her bacon and eggs and milkshakes. I figured if you're going to die anyway, my friend, why go that way? She would just smile. Everybody thought she was my mother, but she was ten years younger than I was.
She had cancer and she had beaten for six times. She was in remission, but the last time did her in. I was with Ms. Susan on the last day, besides staying in my lane. She showed me about compassion, how to have compassion for people. She introduced me to the jailhouse ministries, where I was part of until COVID hit and ruined that for us. The last night of Susan's life on March 4th, the first one I would have called was Lois because that would have been her birthday.
I was just reading to her from the Word of God, and I was reading to her from the big book. We just mixed it up because that's the way she liked it. I am looking through the TV channels to see what we could watch. All I could find was Billy Graham. The doctor had passed on and they were having his memorial. I was sitting with her all day because I knew she was going that day, I could tell. I was just rubbing on her arm, going, Ms. Susan, just look at whom you're going to follow into heaven.
She went, and she stepped in. You know, these are unbelievable moments that just make us cry. With a sponsor that was, she was there for me morning, noon, and night. I could go to her house at 3 o'clock in the morning. She gave me so much. Life is good, and then it gets better. A little while after I got divorced, my sponsor told me I couldn't go anywhere because I wasn't ready. I was too ripe out of the divorce, and I would be in to rebound.
I didn't understand what that was. I was just young and needed stuff. She told me not to go out with this guy. One day I did, and 3 o'clock in the morning, I'm being asked to pay more than I wanted to for that dinner and stuff. We were on the bridge. I looked amazing, as always, with my stilettos. We were on the bridge. You know, we didn't have cell phones a few years ago. In order to get help, you had to walk that bridge and get an emergency.
I want to say that he sort of slowed down, told me to get out in a nice manner, not get out of my car, and that I just stepped out very carefully and walked down the road. I'm sure he didn't even slow down, and I was out of that car. I had to walk down and find an emergency call, which I said, my car has broken down. I need to speak to my mother. Would you patch me through? That's what they did. So I called Phil, otherwise known as She That Must Be Obeyed, and She That Must Be Obeyed asked me if I was okay.
I said, yes, ma'am, I am. Are you bleeding? No, ma'am. Very well. Call me at 9 o'clock in the morning. I walked five miles in the rain, probably. 9 o'clock in the morning was a long time from 3 o'clock. I called She That Must Be Obeyed at 9 o'clock in the morning on the dot, because I didn't want to be in any more trouble than I was already in. So I called She That Must Be Obeyed, and she says, we need to talk here.
If you want me to continue to be your sponsor, you will do as I say. You will not be dating anybody for two years. You will not be alone in a room unless there's 100 people somewhere else. I said, you can't be alone if you have 100 people. She says, you will not be alone with a man, and that's all there is to it. A few weeks later, the Maytag man had to come up to fix the refrigerator. I called Phil, and I said, the Maytag man is here.
[00:40:00]
He's going to fix the washing machine, and she says, very well. You call me when he leaves. I said, he must be 100 years old. She says, so was Moses. Call me when he leaves. Yep, I called her when he left. About a few months later, because remember, we were into this two-year thing. A few months later, I got invited to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. If you've ever been to a base, and you are single, and you are, let's say, on the hunt, let's just put it that way to be nice, and there are all these guys walking around in uniform.
No matter how ugly they are, that uniform just makes them so gorgeous. I have a problem with uniforms, okay? Anyway, I go to this party, and it was the Blue Angels were there, and they were celebrating. I know you feel my pain. This gentleman comes up. He's a lieutenant colonel, United States Army, rings all over the place, medals and all. He comes over to me and says, I've been watching you from afar, and I'm going, yep, I've been watching you, too.
He comes up to me, and he says, may I have the honor of escorting you to dinner on Saturday? They had a big party going on. I said, would you hold that thought, sir? I need to go make a call. I went to call she that must be obeyed, and the conversation went something like this. Hello? Hello, Phil. How are you? Blah, blah, blah. Phil, there's a gentleman here. He's got medals. He is a lieutenant colonel.
He wants to take me out to dinner. So, how long has it been? A year and ten months. Is this two years? Click. I went back and spoke to that gentleman and said, I'm sorry, I have an avena that I'm carrying out, and I really don't have, I can't go out with you right now, but in two months I should be free. I can tell you that the gentleman did wait, and now we've been married for 30 years. Sponsors are smart.
Now, that's the good news. The bad news is that he sharpens my tools in Al-Anon, and he doesn't want to admit that he sharpens my tools in Al-Anon, and it's 24-7. I live with active alcoholism. I have for all these years, but I can tell you that without Al-Anon, this marriage would not have made it. It would not have made it. He is kind. He is beautiful. He is sweet, and I refer to him as my sweet alcoholic, because he is.
He sits in a chair and watches TV all day, lets me handle the checkbook, drinks beer. What else could a girl want? So as a matter of fact, in the last, we've gone through a triple bypass, and we've gone through an aneurysm in the last few months, and I was concerned about him because he was drinking more beer than usual. I had stopped counting, but sometimes when the beer cans roll over the sink and onto the floor and into the bathroom, you sort of say, gee, he's drinking a little more, but who's counting?
So I said to him, honey, I'm really concerned about you. I think I need to take you to the emergency room, because there was just something about his demeanor. I think he had alcohol poisoning. So he allowed me to do this for him, not to him, but for him. We went to the emergency room. They kept him there to dry out for three days, and then we went to counseling and stuff, and last week we saw his doctor, and his doctor said at the VA, said, I understand you were hospitalized, and he said, yes, I was, and she says, why were you hospitalized, and he looked at her and said, for alcoholism.
This was the first time in 30 years that he hadn't even come to admit that. So I say, that's a plus for our side, you know. She asked him if he wanted
[00:45:21]
When I told you earlier, I had gone to train for a stewardess, that was 30 years, my goodness, that was 1969, and every day, every day, I got up and I said, what if? On my 50th birthday, I earned my wings and I was a flight attendant at the age of 50. The route I took led me to be the lead flight attendant for the White House Press Corps. So I was in there, let me tell you this quick story, real quick, I wanted to meet the then President of the United States and I told my secret service detail that traveled with us, I would love to just wave to the President if that is possible.
And on this one day, we are wheels down at Anderson, and he says, Juanita, come quick, I thought I had done something wrong, he called me up, Air Force One was like where those doors are, the front door to the aircraft open, everything got settled, all the commotion, and the President of the United States walks up to the stairs, the top of the stairs, looks my way. I and the secret service agents were the only one there, and went like this to me, call me.
He said, I can't believe you did that. You know, miracles happen, and life is good. I'm going to tell you a little bit, when I first came to this program on September the 9th, this was the reading, people have issues in this program with the word expectations, because sometimes it's the perception and how you hear things and how you look at things. Here's my first reading, on the old ad, this is what I came in under.
Here's an eye-opening, mind-opening question to ask myself, what am I doing with what I've got, instead of crying over what I don't have, and wishing my life were different, what am I doing with what I've got? Am I so sure I'm doing everything possible to make my life a success? Am I using my capabilities well? Do I recognize and appreciate all that I have that I could be grateful for? Actually, I am the possessor of unlimited resources.
The more I do with them, the more they will grow to overshadow and cancel out the difficult and painful aspects of my life. Then my sponsor wanted me to go to a meeting the next day, they were also doing the old ad on September the 10th, and it says, again I ask myself the same question, as I did yesterday, what am I doing with what I have? This query can be applied in many ways, take for instance, the faculty of being able to remember, if I have been given the gift of a good clear memory, how do I use it?
It isn't likely that God conferred this gift to me for the purpose of degrading up old wrongs, dredging up old wrongs or injured feelings, fruit out regrets and personal sufferings. That would clearly be a misuse of this gift. I have been given so many gifts in this program. In about 209, I wanted to go to ministerial school, so I didn't want to leave the house because I couldn't leave my husband because he was getting older and couldn't really get around on his own.
So I spoke to my pastor and said, I want to go to ministerial school, how do I get that accomplished? I was always doing ministry, have been working with women since the minute I got into this program. Whether it's an advocate for a mother that has lost her children or someone that's on welfare and needs more, I'm there, God gave me this gift. I haven't gone to school for it, but I just know what to do.
So my minister said that if I couldn't go, he would sponsor me to start the computer courses. And I'm going to tell you that it took me six years to do a two year course, but I did it, and I became a minister, and I'm now ordained.
[00:50:10]
Last week, I attended my first class to become a chaplain, because this is what I want to do, be at hospice and be at the hospital when people are in need. And I get to that class, and I'm the youngest one, younger than the teacher, and all the other students. And I say go around the room, and they're introducing themselves. This one has a bachelors in theology. This one has a bachelors in this and that, and one is bigger than the other.
There were three retired pastors there that are now taking a different course in life, and it gets to me. And I looked at them, and I said, I do not have a bachelors degree in theology, but I've got the alpha and the omega, and I'm going to be just fine. And I believe that totally from the bottom of my heart. My children that I left behind are amazing human beings. They love me, and they respect me, because they have a way of knowing that I did the right thing.
When it came to make amends to my children, my sponsor said I needed to sit them down one at a time. My children now are 44, 40 something. They change every year. They have families of their own, and they're amazing people with bachelors and masters in doctrines. And I am so proud of those three kids that came out of just a high school education here. But I'm better now. I understand I rank a bachelors through my life experiences, and I'm going to take that.
So they're amazing. I've been able to make living amends. My first husband, like I said, is still alive, and he had a heart attack not too long ago when my son called me and said, we don't think he's going to make it, mom. And I remember that last night when he went to the farm, and he was standing in front of that window, and he knew he had to go down to the police plaza and present himself, because he was in trouble because of that incident.
And I remember he was standing by the window, and I didn't know if he was going to jump or if he was going to puke, but I preferred that he didn't puke, because I'd have to clean it up. That's where my mind was. So at that moment, I took the phone, and I prayed over my husband, because he's still my husband to the day I die, and I prayed for him to just be well. And I remember those ugly thoughts that I had, and I knew that at that moment God had restored my compassion.
Okay? My mother beat me every day that I remember. She died a few years ago. I sang to her. That's forgiveness for me. Everyone that has done me wrong in life, and there have been many with abuse where I came from, sexual and otherwise, I have forgiven them. Because you see, in forgiving all those people, I make room in my box for the gifts that God has for me. And so many gifts have come about, but there are so many more gifts, because God didn't just give you the ability to be an artist or to be able to sew or to be able to cook.
If you do that well, more comes about. And with these 12 steps, 12 traditions, 12 concepts, our warranties, we could just about write our own ticket in life. I know I have. I'm an amazing woman today, because of those 36 principles that were given to me. So I thank AA. I thank Al-Anon. I thank everybody that listens. I want to just profess that I am a woman of God that stands up here. And I would bless you with just saying, keep coming back.
And there's a little poem by John Alstein that says, as we stand in youth by the fiery stream, and we look ahead to what's to come,
[00:55:00]
we realize all of a sudden that it's all on us. The dream has come to be. The dream has come to be. You just have to stand still long enough to feel it and to know that you're in the midst of it. You don't need to go looking for it. You're in the midst of it. So I bless you by saying thank you. And I hope to see you all again. And God bless you, and keep coming back. Thank you so much.