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Source: Michelle B – OAR 2018 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: michelle-b-oar-2018-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:14:11
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Hi everybody. My name is Michelle B.. I'm a very, very grateful member of the Worldwide Fellowship of Al-Anon and Alateen. It's always an honor and a privilege, but this weekend is amazing. You're amazing. And thank you, Jeff, so much. It's been such a pleasure to get to know you and for that wonderful introduction. So, in closing, I've never been to Ohio before and Pennsylvania is amazing. The people are so friendly there. And I was like, I wonder what the people in Ohio are going to be like. You are just like Pennsylvanians. You're so warm and so friendly and you love to chat. So it's been great. Everybody I've met, we've just struck up conversations and been chitty-chatting and your recovery is astounding. I have never met people at a conference before that have so impressed me like you guys have impressed me. All of the speakers, all of the workshops, even gentle yoga. You're authentically yourselves.
You're vulnerable. You're real and your recovery and how you apply it to your lives, you have what I want. I'm so glad to be here. So don't think for one minute I'm here for you because you are here for me. And as those traditions were so lovingly and lovely read, I was struck by tradition one. You know, we're here for a common purpose. We're unified in that common purpose but we're not uniform. We're just unified. Our diversity is where our strength is. And I was also struck by tradition six. In tradition six, we are reminded that we're humble servants, that we're all the same. In my experience in recovery, especially working with alatines, is we have our circle and somebody comes in and the circle just gets wider. And that's been my experience here with you guys this weekend. So you, everything good that comes out of my mouth is because of recovery, because of the open rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, because of Al-Anon. And so give yourselves the credit. I don't deserve any credit. What I deserve is to thank you. Humbly, humbly, thank you. You've taught me to ask for what I need. I will speak from my heart. I ask that you listen with yours because as what has already been said is what comes from the heart reaches the heart. So I'll do my job, you do yours. In my home group, we are allowed to mention non-conference approved literature briefly. And one of the things that I mention all the time in my group when I lead a meeting is the AA set aside prayer. So I'm going to say the set aside prayer tonight. It's an AA prayer. And if you can just close your eyes for a second, invite your higher power to come, open your hearts, and set aside everything you think you know about recovery, about yourselves, about me, and most especially about God and be open to new ideas. Amen.
I am not a speaker. I always love to give the committee a heart attack when I say that. We invited you here. We paid for you to come here and you're not a speaker. But that's the truth. Just like everybody else this weekend, somebody called and said, would you? And I said yes. But the truth is it was kind of sort of part of a desire of my heart because we don't have a lot of money. We kind of have suffered from typical alcoholic finances our entire married life. And I love to travel and I love to go to conferences. So I say to God, you know, I really want to be able to do this and travel and participate. So God said, okay, speak. So I get to do this. But my sponsor keeps encouraging me to just get up there and be yourself and tell your story. Your story is a powerful story. So she also tells me if I touch one person in the room, I've done my job. Now I would love to touch everybody. In fact, my ego wants you to like need a cigarette when I'm done because I was so good. Even if you don't smoke.
I was at a meeting one time and I was, the topic was humility and it got to my turn and I said, I'm the most humble person I know. And I wasn't kidding. And one of my friends started to laugh and I looked up at him and I was like, yeah, so you know, I'm one of
[00:04:59]
the most humble people I know. And he laughed again and I was like, oh, he thinks I'm kidding.
[00:05:03]
Oh my God, I should be kidding. Oh, I can't believe I just said that. So then I was like, yeah, I'm kidding. That's supposed to be a joke, everybody. And then everybody laughed. But the truth is I really meant that at the time. Oh my gosh, I just keep coming back, so I was raised in the family disease of alcoholism and I didn't know that until I got to you guys. I had no idea my family was normal to me. We looked like all of the other families in the neighborhood, but I was profoundly and deeply affected by the family disease of alcoholism. My mother was an untreated Al-Anon and she was probably the most problematic in my upbringing. My mom was extremely controlling. She was extremely angry. She took a lot of her anger out on me. And the messages that I received growing up were that I was incapable, that I couldn't. I remember my mother being upset that my bed wasn't made. And I went in and made the bed and then she came in and she remade it. And those kinds of things happened all throughout my childhood. And I was a real nervous, nervous, nervous kid. So when I get nervous today, I revert back to that sometimes and I want to become invisible.
Because as a child, invisible meant safe for me. Just don't see me, I'll be quiet. Tell me who you want me to be, what you want me to do. Just don't hurt me. It kept me safe. So when I get scared like I am now, my voice gets really quiet and I want to be invisible. But this is not about me. This is about God, the God of our understanding here today. And the amazing things that his answer to my cries for help, which is you, have made in my life, have given to me in my life. So I've heard a lot, I hang around a lot with alcoholics in recovery because they have more conferences than we do. So I get to be their token Alan on a lot. And I've learned so much about them and the disease and I have true compassion today and I understand that there really isn't a whole lot of difference between them and me. My husband, being retired from corrections, for a long time I needed to stand on other people to make myself look good. So he would come home from the jail and I'd be like, so whose kids are in there? Give me the names. And after a while, one day he said to me, you know Michelle, the only difference between them and us is they got caught. Yeah, yeah.
Because I did, you know, when he was doing what he was doing, I was doing it right along with him. In fact, one of the things that, this is how I digressed, one of the things that I learned in open AA meetings was about the best thinking and where their best thinking at the time got them. So my best thinking early on in our relationship was trying to keep him home, let me become the drug dealer so all of our friends will come here. And he, the active alcoholic, said that's not a good idea for us or our family because I was all ready to do it. Another example of that was I really didn't like him very much when I met him. He was a city slicker and I was looking for a lumberjack, but he wouldn't leave me alone. He was like relentlessly going after me to date him. So I went out on a mercy date with him. And on our first date, I became like super positive I didn't like him. But my real motive was that I played on a women's softball league in Brooklyn and they told me that he was good in bed. That was my motive for going out with him. And if I don't say this now, somebody online will ask me, yes, he was good. But it wasn't like the basis for a good relationship or a good marriage or whatever. I needed more than that, thank you very much. But he was really, really exciting and he was fun and he was crazy and I just wanted to have a good time. But for whatever reason, he wanted to marry me. I really wasn't interested. So we're dating and he was even too much for me. I mean, I was pretty good at handling people about, you know, kind of subversively getting them to do what I want them to do, but he was like this major wild man. So I decided to break up with him, but he had invited me to his best friend's wedding and I was too much of a lady to do it that night. But he did what he always did wherever we went. He would bring me like the Fender princess and then he would be off with the true love of his life, Bud Light or Zambuca or, you know, whatever he happened to be drinking or drugging or whatever it was that he was doing that night. So he's doing that and I'm just sitting there biding my time. In fact, at one point, I even went out to catch a cab or a bus or something. Now, we're talking
[00:10:00]
about Brooklyn, like the city doesn't sleep on a Saturday night and it wasn't that late and it was like a ghost town, like there were tumbleweeds, there was nobody out there. I couldn't believe it. You know, now in retrospect, I wonder if it was my higher power doing for me what I couldn't do for myself, bringing me to my knees to bring me here to you. So I go back inside. He's over at the bar. His mom was at the wedding, so he brings me over to meet his mother, whatever, fine, you know, we're breaking up, he doesn't know yet. So he introduces me to his mom and he says, hi mom, this is Michelle, my girlfriend, isn't she pretty? And his mother says, oh yeah, Kenny, they're all pretty. My best thinking in that moment decided, I'll show you, I'm going to marry him. And that was, and I said yes. Actually, I asked him to marry me and he said no. He asked me seven times, six times I said no, one time he said no, and then I said yes. And there we went. So the truth about what was going on with us is that our diseases met, our diseases dated, our diseases had good sex. Our diseases got married and before you knew it, we had four little diseases running around. Sick attracts sick. Recovery attracts recovery. Sick and recovery repel each other. And we were just drawn together like magnets, just stuck together. So, but we had a little chit chat, you know, before we got married because he was so out of control and there were some things that even I wasn't going to accept. And the partying thing was going to have to slow down. And he said, he said so many magical things to me, you know. And in that relentlessness, I did wind up falling in love with him, crazy, crazy in love with him. And we had a little chit chat that went something like, you know, we have to settle down. This just can't continue. And he said, you're absolutely right. The man of my dreams, the magical words. And he said, but, you know, right now this is like the period before we get married, this is the party time, so after we get married, we'll settle down. Great. We just had a blast. We just tore everything up and it was so much fun. And the night we got married, I remember, I reminded him what he said, what he agreed to, you know, we're married now, we're going to settle down. And he said, you're absolutely right. However, we just got married, this is the honeymoon period, we're going to continue to have a good time. Okay, that makes sense to me. So we went to Barbados, I paid for it, I also paid for the wedding, you know. Like I was color blind to the red flags, the yellow flags, it just, there were so many all over the place. But I didn't have the eyes to see them, you gave me the eyes to see them. I didn't have them before. So we're on the plane to go to Barbados and he wants to get a drink and I don't think it's a good idea to drink until we get there, so we're having this little, about whether or not he's going to get a drink on the plane and he's flirting with this tortoise and I'm stopping him and oh my gosh. So he gets up to go to the bathroom, he was gone for 45 seconds and came back drunk. I don't know how he did that. But I swear to you, up to the bathroom back, you know. What I didn't know then was that he didn't have skills. He had no skill sets to deal with reality and alcohol had become his solution. I didn't realize I was trying to take his solution away from him. I thought I was trying to fix my problem and I didn't realize that he was my solution because I didn't have the skills to look here, only out there. So if this was okay, then this would be okay. So I was ferociously going after him. He's ferociously trying to defend alcohol because we're both after our solutions.
So we get back from the honeymoon and I remind him of what he said. Honeymoon's over, party's over, now we're going to settle down and get serious here and stop all of this partying. And he said, you're absolutely right. However, I've been doing this for a long time, a lot longer than you have. It's going to take me a little while to stop. Everything he said to me made so much sense. So I agreed to that. But things got really badly. Things got really worse. Things went very badly. So we continue to argue. We start having children because we're good at that.
Because we're good at that. And at one point he came to me and he said,
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I think I'm an alcoholic. And I said, don't be ridiculous, you just drink habitually. You just have to learn how to control it, and I'm perfectly willing to help you do that. Because in my experience, the alcoholics in my life were my Uncle Kenny and my Uncle Harold. Uncle Harold could never stay sober when he got out of the rehab, so they hired him. He had to live there. That's an alcoholic. And my Uncle Kenny was actually a bum under train trussles and stuff like that, and got into recovery, wound up in the Salvation Army, and he was kind of sort of doing okay, got married to a woman in AA, and then something went wrong with the relationship and he picked up and they found him dead.
That's an alcoholic. First of all, you're way too good-looking to be an alcoholic. Secondly, you're with me. I would never do that to me and my children. And thirdly, it's just habitual. You know, we can do this. So I complained so incessantly about him to my best friend that she said, I'm not going to talk to you anymore until you go to an Al-Anon meeting. Her parents were in recovery. She wasn't, but she had a clue.
So I went to my first meeting, so my best friend would let me talk to her about him. And it was a very large meeting in Brooklyn, New York, downstairs in the basement. There were over 50 people there. And I was so humiliated. I was already pregnant with our second child, and I was very pregnant. He couldn't miss me. And I came waddling down the basement stairs and joined the meeting. And I don't remember anything that any of you said, but what I can tell you I heard today was the language of the heart.
And I knew that I was home here. Unfortunately, I got to the meeting right before it started, and they had a speaker that night. And then they went around the room and shared, which totally blew my mind. To this day, I really don't care for that. And they went around the room, and they started over there, this really, really large meeting, and it was going around and going around. And finally, somebody said, I pass.
And I was like, oh, my God, that's an option. That's fantastic. So all I can remember thinking from that moment on was just say you pass, just say you pass, just say you pass. And it got to me, and I passed. And it went on to the next person and so on. And they closed the meeting. And at the end of the meeting, I looked. I was home. I was with you. And like I said, you were speaking English, but you were putting the words together in this really weird way that made absolutely no sense to me.
So I didn't understand what you were saying, but you had what I wanted, and I knew it in that moment. But the person over here turned that way. And I looked over here, and this person turned that way. And I looked around the room, and everybody was broken up and kind of talking to each other. And I stepped away, and nobody looked at me. And I stepped a little further away, and nobody looked at me. And by the time I backed over to the stairs, I was saying, again, my best thinking.
Don't you dare look at me now. Don't you dare. I'm leaving, and I'm never coming back. Don't you dare look at me now. And I backed out of that room and gave myself to the family disease for another six years. And I always make sure that I say that when I talk, because I don't think that's something that should happen. I think we have a responsibility. When we have meetings, somebody should be there.
And I think when we have newcomers, somebody should notice them. And if you're new, I'm gunning for you. Like a bee. I notice, because I won't let that happen on my watch, I won't let that meeting door be locked when somebody shows up. So Kathy started to talk to me again. I was happy. But Kenny decided that Brooklyn was his problem and that we needed to move, and everything would be just fine. And that really worked for me.
So we got priced out of New York, we got priced out of New Jersey to buy a house, and we wound up in Dingman's Ferry, Pennsylvania. And what everybody always says to me is, where? What? Because we have a bridge that is total entertainment charge to go across this rickety wooden bridge, and we have a zip code, and we have bars, and that's about it. And some really good meetings. There's not very much there at all.
This little teeny tiny town that was kind of sort of dissolved, and then we all moved in because we all got priced out of New York and New Jersey. So we move up there. Now the problem with the geographical cure was that I and the kids, we now had four at this point, I and the kids were up there, and he still worked in Brooklyn. So I got pushed out of the picture. He kept doing what he was doing down in the city.
It caused a little bit of dissension. But I've got to tell you, as we were driving down the street with our real estate agent to pick out our house, there was a couple standing outside with their baby, and it turned out that it was somebody that we knew.
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We couldn't believe it. He had worked with the husband and the wife when he worked at Playboy in New Jersey, and I had been introduced to them, and I knew them, and we pulled up alongside them, and we're renewing our friendship. Isn't this great? Oh, my gosh, you guys live here too. And the real estate agent drove three lots down and showed us the house. We were thrilled. We knew somebody here. And I was thrilled because I knew that Tommy was a really good guy, and I thought that he would be really good for Kenny.
Of course, Kenny wasn't there very often, but Lynn and I got to be really good friends. And one day we were sitting having lunch together, and she said, I'm so glad that you and Kenny moved in down the street because I think Kenny is going to be a really good influence on Tommy because he drinks too much. They're everywhere. So it took a little while, and eventually, pretty quickly, actually, we were in the office of our new pastor's office, and I'm telling him the exact nature of Kenny's wrongs because I was really good at, like, my pre-Hellinand fifth step on him.
And I would tell anybody straight, excuse me, hi, my name's Michelle. Let me tell you about my husband and exactly what he's doing. I was so desperate for somebody to help me. So the new pastor's listening, and he's smiling, and he's nodding, and he looks at Kenny, and he says, you know, is this stuff true? And he was like, you know, I don't know. And he said, you know, Kenny, I think you're an alcoholic.
And at this point, I didn't care what you call him, just freaking fix him because I was a mess. And he said, I'll take you to AA. Great, this is great. And then he turns to me, and he says, and Michelle, you're a classic enabler. You need to go to Al-Anon. Oh, I don't think so. Wait a second here, you know. I tried that. It wasn't right for me. It wasn't a good fit. And he said magic words to me that night, and he said, we have a meeting right here in our parish.
You'll be surprised who you see there. So I went to my first meeting, so Kathy would talk to me. I went to my second meeting because I was totally nosy to see who needed to go to these meetings. So I go to the Saturday night meeting, and it's this little tiny meeting, and they were so wonderful. And I wanted to make sure that they understood that I was wonderful and I was fine and I was not the one with the problem, that it was him, and I just needed to go and get the recipe so I could shove it down his freaking throat and fix him, and then I would be fine.
And I didn't know why you guys needed to go there, but it was some sort of service that was fine, just tell me what to do. And I made sure that you knew that it wasn't me, because I was absolutely precious. I had the hat and the makeup and the coat and the nails and the shoes, and I was just adorable, and I'm just fine, thank you. And you guys welcomed me in and sat me down, and then you started the meeting, and you said some things that made me really nervous, like we are powerless over alcohol and our lives have become unmanageable.
And this little puddle of sweat started to form under my hands because I thought, oh my God, I'm in AA, they think I belong. No, no, no, I don't belong here, because why would I ever have to be powerless over alcohol, I'm in the wrong room here. This is mistaken identity, I couldn't wait to tell them. But you didn't give me a chance to tell you. What you did was, did this really sweet little welcome, and you know, we suggest you get a sponsor, and we suggest you try at least six meetings, and if you choose not to come back, we'll gladly refund your misery.
Ho, ho, ho, we all laughed, I laughed too, because you were laughing. Okay, but I remember thinking, how did you know that I was miserable? And I used to be able to say to you, because I've never met anybody who walks into the rooms of Al-Anon and says, yippee, I qualify. Because I was not saying, yippee, I qualify to be here. But then I started to be an Allotine sponsor, and they say, yippee, yippee, there's somebody just like us, yippee, we're not alone anymore.
So I can't say that for real anymore, but most adults are pretty resistant like I was when they first come in. And of course, you know, denial was an essential skill. I didn't have the tools to deal with reality, so I had to have denial. In my family of origin, I was taught very clearly, you're only as safe as your secrets. And then I came to you, and you said, you're only as sick as your secrets. So basically, what you started to say to me right from the very beginning was forget everything you've ever known, and we're going to teach you how to think totally differently.
We're going to give you skills that you can deal with life on life's terms. We're going to give you skills so that you don't have to be a doormat anymore. So one of the first things that I did, being a little obedient me, rule of following me, was get a sponsor and start to do what I was told to do. And A.A. didn't stick for my husband at that point. He went a little bit, and he was still drinking and pretty defiant about all of that.
But I was sticking with you guys. I was sticking with the winners already and didn't even realize I was doing it. So I got myself a sponsor, and little by slowly started to eke out the truth
[00:25:04]
because I was so afraid to tell somebody exactly what was going on. But you guys, you were smiling, you were hugging each other, you were laughing, you were free. And I wanted so badly to be free. And there was some link between having the courage to tell the truth about what was going on inside of me in our house and that freedom, and I wanted that. So I got a sponsor, and I didn't share at a meeting for a very long time.
I used to grab her after the meeting and say, If I was going to share, this is what I would have said. And she would listen to me, and she'd say, That was really good. You should tell the group that. But it took me a long time to have the courage to talk. But I started to tell her the exact nature of what was going on. At one point, I was so miserable that I had these four little kids in five years.
And she said, You're understaffed, and you're outnumbered. And she said, And Michelle, what do you think caused that? Whoa, that was like a splash of cold water in my face. What do you mean, I'm responsible for those four kids in five years? Well, yeah, how do you think that happened? Oh, my gosh. So she started to teach me how to take responsibility for myself because I was like a perpetual victim, his perpetual victim, the victim of circumstances, the victim of life, the victim of my past, victim, victim, victim, victim.
And that wasn't working for her anymore. And at one point she said to me, From what you're describing, you sound like you're a real doormat. And I said, Yes, he's turned me into a doormat. And she said, Well, get up off the floor. Like she wasn't letting me get away with anything. So I had a perception of a higher power when I got to you guys. It came from my childhood. I was taught by my mom, There's something wrong with you.
When things are going this badly in your life, it's your fault, and you're not praying hard enough, and you're not being good enough, and you don't have the right kind of relationship, and God can't hear you because you're sinning too much, and things like that. That's not the perception of a higher power that I have today, but it was the perception of the higher power that I had back then. But my sponsor started to enlighten me about so many things, and the perception that I have of my higher power today is completely, completely different than the perception that I arrived here with.
We were at a district workshop one Sunday, and we had a spiritual speaker at the end, and she kept a miracle journal. She called it a prayer journal, but by the end of listening to her speak, I knew that she had a miracle journal. And since I was out of the full-time job of tracking my husband, because you fired me from doing that, you wouldn't listen to me anymore, et cetera, I figured let me track God and see what God's doing.
And she thought this was a wonderful idea. So I started to write stuff down, and she said, you know, have fun with this. Have fun. And, of course, what she was doing for me was developing evidence of God in my life. And evidence of God in my life was all over, but I didn't have the eyes to see. You gave me the eyes to see the evidence of God all over the place. And this is one of the places that it started.
So there are little things that I started to see, little things that started to happen, and she said write everything down. So I'm going to tell you a few things that I wrote in my journal. So, you know, having the typical alcoholic finances, we really needed a this-ends-up coffee table for our children to do their homework on. And she said, you know, don't make God-guess, be specific. Go ahead and do this.
And so I did. You know, I wrote about it, and I wanted these dimensions and this color, and the kids would sit there, and they'd do their homework. And one of our friends in recovery was very well-property. His wife used to like to redo the house all the time. And he called and he said, you know, we've got this furniture, and do you want it? Absolutely. You know, some end tables and a coffee table and some other stuff.
So he comes over, he pulls in the driveway and starts unloading the stuff from the car, and it was the exact this-ends-up coffee table. And I was like, ooh. Run to the phone, tell my sponsor. And, you know, is it odd? Is it God? Is it coincidence? Is it God-incidence? I don't know. But one of the things that I learned that day was I would rather believe and be wrong than not believe and be wrong. You believe, and you're free.
I'm not really buying all of this. I don't have this great relationship with my higher power, but I'm not happy, and you are. All right, so let's see what else we can do here. So, you know, I wanted my kids to go to Disney. Who doesn't want their kids to go to Disney? So I write that I want a trip to Disney for me and my husband and the kids. Now, I'm writing lots of things. I'm only telling you about a few.
Now I'm writing lots of things. I'm only telling you about a few. And I'm writing them all at once, and I'm going back and I'm watching all of this stuff unfold.
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So there's no way, you know, there's just no way that this is going to happen. And Kenny's family was having a family reunion in California, and his cousin, who's an executive for IBM, called, God bless you, and said, I have all these frequent flyer miles, why don't you guys come to California for the family reunion? He paid for all six of us. So we got to go to Disneyland, and I was pissed because I wanted to go to Disney World.
And my sponsor was like, oh my God, just keep coming back. We had this car that I used to get in and try to start it, and it was like a please start, please start, please start car. And my aunt and uncle won the lottery and they bought us a car, a brand new car. And I was at the New Jersey State Convention in a workshop, and I was telling everybody that this had happened, and I said, but I'm really concerned because what's going to happen in ten years?
And the whole room groaned. Oh my God, Michelle, just keep trusting and keep coming back. I wrote in the journal that I wanted to go to Europe, and my nephew was a lieutenant in the Air Force, I think at the time, somebody important. And my mother and my aunt and my sister and my niece were going to Germany to spend ten days there and visit with him. And my niece had just graduated college, got a full-time teaching job, and my mother called and said, Leslie can't go to Europe. Do you want to go for free? Because it's a non-refundable ticket.
We'll just eat it. Do you want to go? Yeah. You know, if I didn't have the eyes to see, to look for the evidence of God, to keep this kind of track, when those things came up, I would have been like, oh no, that's okay. Like accepting that compliment. No, no, no, that's all right. I feel uncomfortable. Oh my gosh, yes, these are things that I'm asking for. These are the desires of my heart. Just kind of like that speaking thing that I really didn't want to do, but I wanted to be able to come to conferences.
And sometimes my higher power comes in all of these different directions, but there's evidence that he's coming nevertheless. After two and a half years in recovery, I got strong enough and I wasn't that victim anymore that walked into the rooms. And you had given me enough skills to move from I can't take it, I can't take it, I can't take it, I can't take it, to all of a sudden I was this woman of quiet dignity and unassuming grace that I discovered in my step work.
Who knew underneath the screaming fishwife that that's who was there. All of a sudden I was a different woman. And I went from I can't take it, the victim, I can't take it, to this woman of dignity who said, I won't. I won't take this anymore. Page 269, the original printing of From Survival to Recovery, talks about we come to have the ability to stand for ourselves without standing against someone else.
It wasn't about him anymore. It wasn't about him not drinking. This was about me and who I was discovering, the woman I was created to be, who I was being called to be, who I was being challenged to be daily. And I knew that this was not the life that I was called to live. This isn't the life I wanted to live or was choosing to live. And he could do whatever he wanted to do. I just wasn't willing to do it anymore.
There was violence in our home. It was subtle violence. It wasn't like overt violence that I could, you know, that is blatantly wrong. It was just always kind of right at that edge, you know. But there was no safe, inanimate object in our home. There was a lot of, you know, I was controlled. The kids were controlled by my husband's raging anger. And one day our oldest daughter was doing homework, and she was having trouble with it, and he wanted to help her.
And she was afraid of her dad, and she was right to be afraid of her dad. And he was calling her over to help her with her homework, and she was resistant. And she started to cry, and she didn't want to come close to her dad. And her dad had her come and stand right there in front of her, grabbed the notebook, rolled it up, and smacked her in the stomach. She went to the floor, not because she was in pain.
She went to the floor out of fear, out of desperation. And on page 269, it also talks about the veil will lift, and we will perceive reality and recognize truth. And in order for that veil to lift and for me to have those perceptions, I had to have this. And I had to have a sponsor and be an alum on a good standing, have a home group, and be working the steps, the traditions, the concepts, be in service.
[00:35:09]
Have a phone list and using that, having a sponsor and having her know that she's my sponsor, calling her on a regular basis, using her. And with all of that around me that day, I was able to see what was going on in my home. And that's when I said, I'm not doing this anymore. We're not doing this anymore. And I put the dinner back on the stove, and I remember saying to the kids, let's go. And everybody just got up and started to move toward the door.
And I remember splinters. We had a toy chest. Something hit the toy chest, and there were splinters flying, and there was stuff moving around the living room. And we were just walking toward the door. And when I got there and opened the door, the dog was the first one out. The smartest one in the whole family. You're not leaving me here. Right out the door. And I grabbed the cat, and we got in the car.
And this was so long ago that there were no cell phones. I had to drive about four miles to the nearest pay phone, and I called my sponsor. My first sponsor taught me so much about boundaries and anonymity and just the basics of recovery. She taught me good etiquette in recovery. She taught me when you go to a meeting, you go early and you stay late. And when you go see your family, you go late and you leave early.
All those essential skills when you're new in recovery. And I went to the pay phone, and I called my sponsor, and she said, We're having a birthday party for my son. Come on over. And I arrived. And at that point, our son had been very sick, and he was recovering from a trach. And we had his trach and the trach machine and the dog and the cat. Our youngest daughter had a seizure disorder. She was having a seizure.
The other two kids are in the car. We pour out of the car. The cat goes underneath in the engine. The dog took off and got skunked in the woods. She opens the door and goes, Come on in. We're having cake. It's almost like bizarre, except that I knew that it was a good boundary, and I listened to what she said. Now, we saw this coming. She saw it coming before I saw it coming. But again, I'm feeding a little bit of information here and there to give her a clue of because I want that freedom.
This is what's going on in the house. So she had me do things like look into an order of protection from abuse and look into legal aid. And I found a lawyer in recovery who told me the exact nature of what that looked like if I ever needed to do that. And she also said to me, We just bonded immediately. We had a wonderful discussion, and we were speaking recovery language back and forth, and it was just a phenomenal experience.
And she said, But I need you to know, I need you to know all of these things so you can put them in place because this big wheel here in Pike County turns very slowly, and it's not going to come around to me to be your legal aid advisor. You're going to get somebody else. So all of this is going on. The kids are having cake. They're playing. Later on that night, we get everybody settled down into bed, and my sponsor is finally ready to talk to me about what we need to talk about here.
And she had me make that phone call to get the order of protection from abuse. And I was assigned a lawyer in legal aid, and it was her. Just more evidence of when I take that leap, I leap into your arms, and I leap into the arms of my higher power. I cannot limit my God by my imagination. So we get this order of protection from abuse. We're out of the house for a while. He's in the house for a while.
And we're being passed from one of you to the next, all of us. One family to the next family to the next family. Who's taking them for lunch? Who's letting them sleep there tonight? Who's making dinner? Who's helping with the homework? Who's picking kids up at the bus stop? You did all that because this is who you are. This is what you do. I couldn't have gone to any of this with my own blood family or my husband's own family.
They didn't have the skills to deal with the reality of what was going on either. That's how we wound up here to begin with. But you people, you're just my angels. So he gets served with the order of protection from abuse, and we get to go back home. And we went back home, and I straightened up the house, and I got the kids in bed, and we were just so glad to be back in our own house. And we had to take the dog and the cat back before we were able to go back home because there were five of us, and the dog and the cat were just too much, so we needed to bring them back.
And I was worried about them being in that actively alcoholic situation because they were victims profoundly and deeply affected by the family disease of alcoholism, just like we were, and there's no allopop in my area. Although our dog today goes to meetings with us both. He's a double winner.
[00:40:02]
So we go back home, and I got the kids in bed, and I lit candles, and I got into the tub, and I was profoundly and deeply sad because I loved my husband, and I loved my family, and I wanted my marriage to work. But I needed to have hope in the house, and hope meant that he was going to go in recovery, and that wasn't happening. So while I felt that deep sadness, I also felt this incredibly deep peacefulness, that peacefulness, you know, when I'm doing the next right thing.
And that's what taught me, was life by the yard is hard, life by the inch is essential, all I have to do is the next right thing. And I was walking those steps. Buoyed by all of you, I was walking those difficult steps in recovery. We had to go before the judge, and our lawyer told us that our little girl, I think she was eight at the time, wouldn't have to testify, but they actually put her on the stand and asked her a question before the judge stopped it, and this poor little girl, she was just shaking, shaking.
She loved her dad. She didn't want to have to testify against her dad. But the order of protection from abuse was on her behalf, so she was going to have to. While we were waiting in the courtroom, I was using all sorts of my essential Al-Anon skills that you had taught me. Look at the architecture, Danielle, and let's breathe in and out together, and let's feel, let's use all of our senses here, and I kept bringing her back to the present moment, but when we got up there, we got up there, and he asked her these questions, and that's when the judge stopped, and he said, I think I have enough before me.
And what the attorney and I had worked out, that if Kenny had gone to 30 meetings, or 60, 90, 90, 90? 90 meetings in 90 days, that he could come home. If he agreed to do that, he could come home. And the judge asked if he was willing to do that, and it's part of his story that the night before, when he had been served the papers, and he was hiding out in a neighborhood house. That's another part of the story, but he had a Tangerine Tonic in one hand and a Pinewood Derby car in the other hand, and he was weighing what he was going to do.
Am I going in recovery, or am I going to keep drinking? Am I going to lose my family, or am I going to keep drinking? And I heard in the open rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, a really good friend of ours, Al, said one time, and I think this just sums it up for me. He said, I traded everything I ever loved for a drink. And there was my husband, willing to trade everything, all of us, everything he ever loved, because the pull of the disease of alcoholism was so strong.
I don't get it. I can take a sip. I can leave it. I can have it. I cannot. And he marvels at me, really. You can have a sip and leave it? And I'm like, yeah, and you can't even have a sip? Really? Wow. That's amazing, and we respect those differences. But that's the difference between somebody who has the allergy and somebody who doesn't. And my sponsor told me that our friends in Canada put it this way.
For him, restless, irritable, and discontent. For me, itchy, bitchy, and twitchy. Kind of coined me, especially when I arrived in the rooms. So that day in the courtroom, he agreed to go to 90 and 90. And the judge said, okay, here's your card. You have to have it signed. And he looked at me and he said, and I will hold you in contempt if he doesn't do it. That's what I said. And I was about to, like my lawyer saw me take the breath to, you know, let me explain to you that I've been going to these meetings for two and a half years to not do that.
Like my sponsor, that's not okay with her. And before I could get any words out, the lawyer said, and she said, we agree. And she whispered to me, go home and call your sponsor. So he had gotten a ride to the courthouse. So we get in the car, the three of us, this little girl who has disorder protection from abuse, and not anymore, me, two and a half years in recovery, him stuck ravingly not drinking.
And we're 30 minutes in town outside of where we live. And I'm like, there's no cell phones. I can't stop and use the pay phone. I can't leave him in the car with her. I drove. I went flying home. That phone that weighed 2 million pounds a couple years before was my lifeline. I could not wait to get home and tell my sponsor the latest. What do I do now? And I get home and I run in the house and I pick up the phone and I dial her number.
And she answers, thank you, God. And I'm like, blah, blah, blah. And she said, left, right, breathe. Left, right, breathe. If you have to make that phone call, we'll make it together. Just for today, you don't have to make that phone call. I never had to make that phone call. And right now, this month, I celebrate 30 years in recovery. And in March, he celebrates his 30th birthday. years in recovery and in March, he celebrates how many? 27. Yay!
My sponsor told me that if Al-Anon had a yearbook, we would have been voted the least likely to survive recovery.
[00:45:16]
But we were here, so far apart, but now there's hope in our house. Now we're going towards a common goal. So even if our marriage doesn't work, we're always going to be tied. We've got these four kids together. But now we're moving toward the same goal. And you can't help but get closer together. Even if we're not together, we're going to get closer together. We're going to be able to apply the traditions and the concepts and the steps to all of this.
Our fights were becoming very different. They sounded more like, I think you better call your sponsor. Things like that. And our marriage worked. My sponsor had scared me before all of this. She said, you know, not every marriage made in disease is meant to survive recovery. And I went, mine, mine, mine. No, wait a second. This is my worst nightmare. I lived through all of this crap. Now he's going to get sober and some woman in AA is going to reap the benefits? I don't think so. I'm fighting for this bastard. Thank you very much.
So it wasn't always easy. But now we're applying this and we've got all of these people around us to walk us through everything we were navigating. And we duked it out for a long time. But there isn't anything, there isn't any historical crap that can't be addressed in recovery. So, you know, we had lots of different issues. And at one point, like, you know, the whole sex thing came up. And when I did my inventory on that and I said to my sponsor, I think I should do my fifth step on sex with my husband.
And she said, oh, thank God. She was so afraid to hear that one. So I did. You know, I went to my husband about it. And there were so many things that we didn't know about each other. So many things that had happened to me. I don't think that God orchestrates. This is just my belief. I just don't think so. I think that we have free will, that sometimes we're the victims of other people's free will.
Sometimes I was a victim of other people's free will back when I was a small child and as I was growing up, etc. But I think that what my higher power who works an awesome program does is like allows that and waits for me to invite. And when my God comes invited, not uninvited. So when we invited him that day, we did my fifth step on sex together. God was in between the two of us. And we were at this really cool marriage thing once with our parish.
And he was in another group and I could hear them hysterical laughing and I was so envious what was going on over there. And they were talking about, like, as Catholics, what's okay in the bedroom? And somebody said, well, what if you bring in a third party? And my husband said, well, as long as everybody's Catholic. But what we did, the third party we invited into our bedroom was the God of our understanding.
And God's not a prude. You know, he invented sex. God's cool, you know. And once we did that, once we had that third party in all of our affairs, so many things started to change. And somebody said it this weekend and I did it too. I asked to see him through God's eyes. I asked to see my kids through God's eyes. I asked to see everybody through God's eyes. And, you know, all of a sudden I'm coming from this place of unconditional love and compassion.
Like, who knew that was an option? And who knew I didn't have to take things personally or not make assumptions? And who knew all I had to do was my best all of the time? Like, all of this stuff started to come. And we started to heal and get better and better and better. Our youngest daughter had a brain tumor and surgery, and that's another story for another day. We don't have time for it today. But, again, it was a really neat experience what we went through and how we came out the other side.
And she had support and services when she left high school for a little while. And she's just an amazing young woman. And staff was concerned because she dated a couple of really humdingers there for a little bit. And they wanted to intervene and we didn't want to do that because we knew how we had raised our kids. They saw active addiction. They saw what happens in recovery. They saw me and my husband like Major Donnie Brooks on a daily basis.
And they saw us applying these principles and changing how we disagreed and agreeing to disagree and saying things like, you know, you might be right, or let's think about this for a little while, or let's talk about this later, or let me calm down first.
[00:50:01]
And having conversations, the really important stuff, knee-to-knee, hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart, those talks that we needed to have on occasion. And they watched that and we knew they did. And we knew that left to her own dignity, she would make good choices or she would learn her lessons. And one day she came to us and she said that she was going to break up with him. They were engaged and she wanted to give the ring back.
And we talked about it for a while and, you know, we thought that that was a really good decision. And she said, you know, Mom and Dad, the bottom line is it's not good enough because it's not like you. A little side effect gift of recovery, right? Another time our oldest daughter made some choices and choices that we didn't necessarily agree with, but, you know, as parents we get to say something once and then we get to let them go.
And she made some choices that led to some very difficult circumstances. And she called from very far away and she said, you know, Mom, what do I do now? And I said to her, Danny, the only thing I've got for you is go to Al-Anon because that's what worked for me. Like everything is being addressed there. I'm growing up there. I'm learning how to navigate life. That's the best that I can give you. So she had been in Al-Anon and she went back to Al-Anon way out in that other state where she still lives.
And when she got there, you guys welcomed her and you loved her and you allowed her to share. And I have her permission to tell you that what she shared at that first meeting was I'm here because I want what my mom's got. Like it just doesn't get any better than that. As we navigated through our lives and we hit some really pretty difficult spots. At one point our third son came down with a very rare neuromuscular disease known as Guillain-Barre syndrome, which attacks the peripheral nerve coverings of the body.
It works its way from the feet all the way up to where it's done and then it reverses, hopefully. Without you dying from side effects. And for TJ it went all the way up. He was three years old when this happened. It went all the way up and up half the side of his face. So he was totally on life support. His lungs collapsed. His heart stopped. He was intubated for seven days. And on the eighth day they trach, but they didn't have to because he started to breathe on his own and the disease started to reverse itself.
But he was an extremely sick little guy. And the year later they discovered a subglottic stenosis. And we had to go back frequently for surgeries and physical occupational therapy. And the doctors had said to me, if you don't believe in God and in miracles, please do. Because this child should not be alive with what he endured and the side effects and how they kill people. And he had every single one.
And the fact that he's here is just absolutely astounding. And with those four children and five years, there was very little time that any of us ever had alone. And because TJ was trached and tied to this machine, he had some alone time with me. And the other kids were, our houses open, and they were like running around screaming, the dogs after them barking. This craziness is going around. And he's laying with his head in my lap and I'm petting his hair.
And TJ never wanted to look at the pictures of himself in the wheelchair with the walker when he was really sick. Pictures that we had that they said were good to take because people like to go back and talk about it. And TJ didn't really want to look at any of that. And when we did talk about it, he just would kind of go like this with it. He just didn't want to. And we knew that we were going to offer him every opportunity to deal with that when he was ready.
And we weren't going to force him to do it. But he was laying with his head in my lap that one day. And he said to me, you know, Mom, do you remember when I died? And I was really surprised that he brought that up because he never wanted to talk about it. And I said, yeah, baby, I remember. And he said, you know, Mom, when I died, I saw God. And I said, really? And he said, yeah, God is all white and all love, just like you, Mama.
And I had been struggling at that point in my recovery with the perception of a higher power. This was before the Miracle Journal and stuff. But it was one of those turning points in my recovery. But this child who knew I loved him, like I would give my life for these kids in a New York second. This kid could equate this baby.
[00:55:01]
He was three when it happened. He was four when he told me about it. And this was back in the 80s. This was way before, like, all of this, you know, hearing God stuff was going on. And I knew that it was genuine. If he could equate my love to that kind of love, I could put my will and my life in the care of that kind of God's hands. All white and all love, just like you, Mama. My sponsor had said to me early on, why do you think you're in recovery?
And I used to, like, be all intellectual and come up with all these reasons why I was in recovery, you know. Well, it was because of him and because I needed to learn and because this stuff happened and I had to go back. And every time I have a visceral reaction, I get to look at the historical crap and I need you guys to walk me through it. Like, I was always coming up and every time I'd see her, I'd be like, I know why I'm in recovery.
I know why I'm in recovery. And, you know, when those four kids became teenagers almost simultaneously, I went to her and I said, now I know why I'm in recovery. And every time I went to her and said that, she'd say the same thing. She'd say, just keep coming back. Just keep thinking. Just keep coming back. And, you know, in retrospect, there were so many reasons why I was in recovery. It took my life and just totally transformed my life.
And I was able to deal with life on life's terms in such a different way. My friend Robbie used to say, we have good days and other days we grow. And in 2011, I had a real growing year. My husband and I had, as a result of recovery, as a result of believing in family and each other and being in love and working toward all of that, we had reached like this marriage nirvana. It was incredible, absolutely incredible.
We didn't say a cross word to each other anymore. We just had this amazing, loving, gentle relationship, the kind of relationship that I think we all deserve. I think that marriage is supposed to be heaven on earth. And we reached heaven on earth in our marriage. And it was great. And it lasted for a good period of time. But in 2011, the love of my life, my best friend, I was at a meeting and he was sitting on the couch in our living room.
And he had this strange sensation around his head and down his arms. And he was on a program phone call with one of the guys in AA. And when I got home, he told me about it. And we're getting older. We're to that age now where we have to start listening to really big signs like that. And I said, let's go down to the hospital. And he said, no, no. I'm not quite ready to go yet. I'll give the doctor a call.
24 hours later, I'm down in town at my home group. And he calls. Now we have cell phones. And he calls me and he said, I was on the phone again talking to so and so. And that thing happened again. And I said, I'm coming home. Let's go. And he said, okay. So I went home to get him. And I'm like, all right, let's go. And he's like, yeah. And I said, no, really, I love you. I want to grow oldy moldy with you.
Get in the car. And he said, I promise you I'll go tomorrow, but I'm definitely not talking to that guy on the phone anymore. So I did the best I could. And then, you know, I give him the dignity to be himself. And he's a grown-ass man. If he refuses to get in the car, I'm not going to make him get in the car. And I tried my best and I let it go and I called my sponsor and I turned him over. So the next day he wound up in our physician's office and he went through a series of tests.
And our youngest daughter had a brain tumor. Again, another story for another day. And I know what that looks like. And the woman next to me, her husband, had just died a couple of months before from a brain tumor. And he called me. And everybody in recovery and in our church and at work, everybody was praying, knowing that Kenny had this thing going on and what was it and blah, blah, blah. And he called me and I was at my desk and he said, I have a brain tumor.
And I got up from my desk and I walked down the hall to a friend of mine who worked in the library. And everybody was waiting to hear how Kenny was doing and what the results were. And I walked in and she was on her knees putting books away. And I thought, oh, good, she's in the right position. And she said, hey, what's the good news? And I burst into tears and I fell on her arms and I said, he's got a brain tumor.
And it was an incredibly large pituitary tumor, which is very rare for men. It had gone straight through the whole center of his brain and into the back of his skull. And we saw we did all the next right things again. You know, the steps protect you from me. The traditions protect the group from me. And the concepts protect the world from me. for Me. And when I went into all of this, we went in armed with you and our recovery.
We went down into New Jersey and we did all the next right things and we left whatever wasn't up to us in God's hands. And all along I knew that it didn't really look really good,
[01:00:07]
but I knew that I was going to be okay. I knew that I was going to be okay because I have me, because I have God, because I know that I can walk through and come out the other side and I know when there's one set of footprints. It's because you say jump in my arms and today I can do that, gratefully and joyfully. Okay, you want to carry me? Here I come. I'm jumping in your arms and you carry me. And that's what happened for us in 2011. Kenny had two brain surgeries within six weeks. The first one they went through his nose and they didn't get it and they had to do a craniotomy and he wanted to have the surgery fast because he loved his job and he wanted to get back to work. And they did the second surgery and when they did the first surgery, they picked at that point that went into the back of his skull and they took a graph and they stuck it there. And when they did the second surgery, little did we know that that piece had moved and we didn't know it and he kept having these outrageous complications up and down, up and down, up and down. And you don't go from ICU level of care into rehab, but for Kenny they kept trying to get him out of the hospital because he kept coming back with all of this horrible stuff. So they sent him and he had multiple blood clots in his legs and in his lungs. He had septic shock. He had renal failure.
He had adrenal failure. He had a stroke, these two surgeries. And he went back to the rehab and I kept like noticing this little drip and the nurse said, no it's just from the oxygen mask. Well, it wasn't. He had a cerebral spinal fluid leak and he winds up with E. coli meningitis. And they sent him again. Here we go again. And this time we couldn't get the nurse to call for an ambulance. It was like, it was bizarre. And my daughter and I kept remaining calm. We were alone, which was rare because usually you were all around us, but we were alone and we had a hard time. And, you know, finally I said, Danny, I think we're just going to put him in the car and go. This is ridiculous. And they're arguing about like who's in charge. And I'm like, you can't have this argument right now. This is your, we got to go. They finally did it. It was not a good experience. We get back to the hospital. We find out this is what's going on. But the most incredible thing was they were going to have to do another surgery. They were going to have to put a stent in.
They put a drain in again. And because he had the E. coli meningitis, his brain swelled and sealed the leak. They didn't have to do the brain surgery. But he was in really bad shape at that point. And he just kept going more and more downhill. And, you know, for a while they would induce a coma here and there. But this time he was in a coma and it wasn't induced. And they told us not to leave the hospital. And they said, call the family. Call your friends. He's not going to survive. I knew what taking care of myself looked like at that point. And I knew that it meant meetings and it meant daily reading and it meant feeding myself and getting a good night's sleep. And one of the things in my miracle journal was having a relationship with my sister, which I didn't have. My sister is 16 years older than I am. It came out, you know, one of those you're only as sick as your secret family secrets, that my sister and my dad got along fine before I came along.
And somehow I got villainized and all of that. And I adored my sister, but she never really liked me. But when all of this happened, she invited me to come and stay in her house in New Jersey because we were at Morristown Memorial. We were a couple of hours away from where we lived. And I stayed there. And through all of this, my sister and I developed a relationship and we became real sisters. My sponsor had said all along, you know, God will grant you the desires of your heart, but you have to have the eyes to see it. So you can't have your real sister for today, but look at your sisters in recovery and look at your fathers and your mothers in recovery and your aunts and your uncles. And then, you know, when I became an Allotine sponsor, your grandchildren in recovery, look at all of these gifts around you. Don't neglect, don't reject the gift because it looks differently than you think it should look. So I had all of these sisters, but then, you know, God who can't be outdone, who works within everybody's and respectfully of free will, I don't think he made my husband sick to make that happen. Absolutely not. I think that, you know, we have environmental reasons that, you know, life choice reasons, DNA reasons that these things happen. But my God takes stuff and he'll work with that. My God can take that and make something good come out of it. So here we're developing this beautiful relationship, my sister and I. But she won't go to the hospital. She's kind of phobic. So I know what it looks like to take
[01:05:00]
care of myself. I'm letting her make me breakfast. She has a little bag lunch for me. She's waiting for me in her pajamas when I get home, you know, what's going on. She's giving me a hug. And my family does not do hugs. It's kind of like hugging an ironing board. They're really uncomfortable. My husband affectionately refers to them as the broomstick up the ass family. A little uptight. But this is happening and I'm receiving it and I'm, you know, and I don't have to go, you know, after all these years if you're rejecting me, I'm not so into this loving thing. No, no. You've taught me. Like all that historical crap is worked out.
So now I'm ready to receive the gift and have the sister relationship. So they, a friend of mine gave me a GPS. Every meeting in northern New Jersey is in the GPS. By the time I give it back to her, I'm going to meetings. I'm leaving for lunch. I'm taking care of myself. And they say don't leave the hospital. So in the meantime, there was meetings right in the hospital. So on Sunday before I went to see him, I went to back to pack meetings and I'm developing relationships with you in New Jersey. And the New Jersey AA guys are coming out of the woodwork. And they're like, he's in a coma and they're reading to him. They're having meetings around the bed. Awesome, awesome, awesome. So that night when they told us not to leave, there were 22 people who stayed in the ICU waiting room with us.
And it was me and four of my children and a couple of their friends and the rest of them were you guys because that's what you do. And you gave us water and you gave us food and what can we do for you? And we hugged and we prayed and we met and you guys gave us space when we needed it. And one of my friends came to me and said, what do you want? And I said, I just don't want him to be alone when he passes away. So she made up a schedule.
So he was never alone and there was always somebody sitting there holding his hand. And we were afraid that two of our kids weren't going to make it before he died. And we were out in the parking lot waiting for them to arrive. And I had my oldest daughter and my oldest son sitting next to me. I was sobbing. It's just, my heart was broken. I didn't want to lose him. And my sponsor said to me, did you ask for a miracle? And I said, no. And she said, why? And I said, because we've had more than our share. We've got TJ, we've got Amanda, we've got our marriage, serenity and sobriety. And she said, ask for another miracle.
So I did. And the next morning, we had a little trouble getting a priest to come and my sponsor got on the phone with the Archdiocese of Newark. And she came to me, she's like a wild woman. She came to me and she said, I don't know if we're excommunicated or somebody's coming, but we had a talk. So the next morning, we're all like hanging around, having a little breakfast together. And the priest comes down. And 22 people swarm the priest in this little coffee area all around. And he's like, what? And we're like, how's Kenny? Because we thought he came to tell us that he was dead. And he said, Kenny's fine. I'm just getting coffee.
And a few minutes later, the surgeon came down and he's smiling. And he said, we are this much optimistic, this much optimistic. He's like in the sub, sub, sub, sub basement. Like there's no chance. But he lived through the night. Don't leave. But he lived through the night. And they had to stay there for a couple more nights. And you guys stayed with us. And then the surgeon came to us and he said, we've got him. We've got him. You know, like alcoholics don't freaking die. I don't understand.
So he comes out of all of that. He lives in, I mean, it was a huge deal. This started in January. He didn't come home until the end of August. And he came home too soon. The insurance company wanted him to stay in the hospital. I wanted him, or the rehab, I wanted him to stay. And social workers in rehab settings, that title is a misnomer. Because it's not about helping us. It's about, this is how much we're getting paid to have him here. And this is how much time we have to get him out to make our money. That's what they really do. And she went to him and said, you want to go home? And like, you know, freight train brain injury brain was like, I'm going home. And I was afraid. It was the one decision that I made out of fear. You know, fearful people do stupid things. And that was a really
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bad decision. So he came home too soon. And I'm like in the throes of the beginning of school. This is not the time for me to be off. And I couldn't be. And so you guys, again, here's the schedule. Who's coming to stay? Who's doing shift work? Who's making dinner? Who's doing laundry? Who's helping clean the house while I'm like going to school and coming back and taking care of him? And when he came out of all of that, he was not Kenny recovery.
He was dry Kenny. He reverted back to who he was pre-recovery. So here I am in this house of love and nirvana and recovery. And now I'm living, I'm in bed with this man I wouldn't even go out to lunch with. He was awful. He was mean. He was terrible. And now what do I do, you know? So everybody's helping and I'm working my program of recovery. And I go to my sponsor after several months of this horrible behavior in my house. Like what do I do? And she says, you know, why are you there? And I said, well, you know, this is not of his choosing in sickness and in health. I'm dedicated to this marriage and I don't think it's right for me to leave. And she said, you know, it doesn't really matter why.
It matters what you want to do with it. So make that decision. So page 45 on the courage to change talks about not taking the bread out of the oven before it's ready. It talks about how when you're not ready to make a decision, you're indecisive. And I was indecisive but I also know that if I step out in faith in a direction of a decision, sometimes it unfolds and that's the direction I'm supposed to go in. So I'm like so unhappy and this is such an abusive situation and I don't know what to do. And so I tried to sleep downstairs in another bedroom one night and I knew immediately there was my answer. My answer was no, no.
Work your program of recovery. So a special thank you to tapers because my recovery life needed to change. I couldn't keep doing what I was doing. And my recovery went down to one meeting a week, my home group, and listening to tapes and doing my prayer, my meditation, having a power hour with my sponsor, et cetera. And I was afraid to do that because that had sustained me through all this lifey life stuff. And now I've got to trust God to take me in a very different direction. Well this has been going on since 2011. My husband keeps getting better and better and better. The jail was willing to take him back unsighted because he lost his eyesight in the second surgery. But they couldn't take him back out of his mind and without cognitive ability and they wouldn't want him back if he didn't have his recovery brain, I'll tell you. So he lost his job, he went on full disability.
But little by slowly, all along, ever since then, he's getting better and better and better and better. And that tenderness, that respect, it's different but it's returning. The recovery piece is returning. You know, we were talking about patience earlier and that patience isn't granted, it's earned. And recovery, kind of, sort of granted as we earn it, as we do the due. And my husband is working really hard on that. I continue to work really hard on that. There's so much more I want to tell you but I have to be done. So I'm going to wrap it up and tell you, you can't get rid of me. I can't imagine what people do without this program of recovery and without all of you. You are, you give me the tools to deal with out there and that's where my life really is. But these rooms are sacred. I am so grateful to all of you and to having a life that's full and free today. Thank you.
Thank you. Wow. Did you watch?