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Source: Pat R – OAR 2008 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: pat-r-oar-2008-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:11:46
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Now that I have your attention, hi, my name's Marisol and I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon. Hi Marisol. Hello everyone. I'd like to also once again thank you for coming to the 36th anniversary of the Ohio Al-Anon Roundup. Absolutely. Would you help me start the program with the serenity prayer? God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Carla, would you come up and read the Twelve Traditions? Hi everyone, my name's Carla and I am a grateful member of Al-Anon. Hi Carla. The Twelve Traditions. These guidelines are the means of promoting harmony and growth in Al-Anon groups and in the worldwide fellowship of Al-Anon as a whole. Our group experience suggests that the unity of the Al-Anon family groups depends upon our adherence to these traditions.
One, our common welfare should come first. Personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity. Two, for our group purpose there is but one authority. A loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern. Three, the relatives of alcoholics when gathered together for mutual aid may call themselves an Al-Anon family group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation.
The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend. Four, each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting another group or Al-Anon or AA as a whole. Five, each Al-Anon family group has but one purpose, to help families of alcoholics. We do this by practicing the 12 steps of AA ourselves, by encouraging and understanding our alcoholic relatives, and by welcoming and giving comfort to families of alcoholics.
Six, our family groups ought never endorse, finance, or lend our name to any outside enterprise lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim. Although a separate entity, we should always cooperate with Alcoholics Anonymous. Seven, every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. Eight, Al-Anon 12 step work should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
Nine, our groups as such ought never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. Ten, the Al-Anon family groups have no opinion on outside issues, hence our name ought never be drawn into public controversy. Eleven, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, and TV.
We need guard with special care the anonymity of all AA members. Twelve, anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities. Thank you. Thank you, Carla. I purposely brought up my cell phone to remind everyone to shut theirs off. It's a happy little song. Again, we ask that you please do not smoke in this room or anywhere at Atwood.
The baskets will be passed for voluntary contributions. Although we have no dues or fees, we have expenses. Atwood has asked us to be checked out by 1130 a.m. Their usual Sunday dinner business will require that we be out of the parking lot. Those of you who plan to eat lunch here at the lodge before starting home, please make reservations in the morning. The Sunday morning meeting will begin at 10 a.m. in this room.
And the topic in the morning will be hope. The suggestion box is up in the hospitality room. Please let us know what you liked at the conference and if there's anything you didn't like. Also a box will be at the top of the stairs to receive your plastic name tags. These reusable name tags saves the roundup quite a bit of money. This evening, I had the pleasure of having dinner with Pat, and she said the most wonderful
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thing. She said that she did not at all feel nervous about being here, and she said that these were beautiful grounds. But the thing that she said that touched me the most was that she said to me and to the rest of us that were having dinner with her, she said, it's just like family. I feel right at home here. Without anything else, I'll give you Pat R. Thank you, Mirabelle. Hi, my name's Pat Roach, and boy, am I glad I'm an Al-Anon.
I wouldn't be looking at scenes like this, I'm pretty sure, if it hadn't been for that crazy man I married and a few other people in my life that didn't mind. Oh, what a beautiful place and what a wonderful time I've had. I don't have as much energy right now as I usually do. I'm kind of recovering from something. And so I have to say no to things. Oh, I hate to do that. I don't want to miss anything.
But I did get to see and some of the wonderful committee members, absolutely amazing people, took me around and showed me some of the beauty. And oh, it's just been great. I just had to go to rest a little more than I chose to, but I'm being a good girl, which is wonderful. And I want to thank them, all those committee members, so much for your generosity and your hospitality and your comfort. But I do want to say that, you know, I've been on committees, as I'm sure others have, and I think when you get around a bunch of people on a committee, it was said here earlier this weekend, we aren't always perfect in here.
We occasionally, you know, mess up a little bit, and where else can we make a big mistake or do it stupidly and everybody loves us all the more? So outside of a little minor skirmish in the airport, but I have to tell you right away, when I am together as much as I've been able to with this committee that are so much fun and so, but so hardworking and obviously doing a good job for all of you, I have to tell you about when I was kind of new in the program, maybe a year, my husband and I went to an AA meeting, and the leader asked one of the very, very newly sober people to read the traditions.
And they're hard to read anyway. And so this poor man, who was about two days sober, I think, he was shaken, and he was reading, and he read the second tradition, and he said, our leaders are but twisted servants. That's what they did. We all laughed and laughed. The poor man had no idea what we were laughing at, and I've never forgotten it because that's kind of true. I really enjoyed the other speakers, related so much to them, and June last night told little pieces of my story that kind of startled me.
They were so identical. We commonly identify in general, but that was a wonderful talk. I enjoyed it. And the speakers this morning were terrific. I think it was Melinda, one of the last, who talked about service, and my story is about service too, so I enjoyed that. And I don't want to welcome any people who are new. I know Debbie. Are you still in your chair, Debbie? Yeah, you're still in your chair.
That's all it takes, you know, to put your seat in a seat. That's kind of, there's nothing more fun than watching a newcomer be invited to stand up here and look at all these people and act like she's okay. She probably won't forget it. Well, my story is also, my husband likes to say that he was just, didn't do anything spectacular, just a fat little school teacher. He says it so I can say it. Speaking of such things, I don't tell anything about my family that I don't have permission from them, or about anybody, actually, that I don't have permission to do that, because I have a whole lot of alcoholics in my family.
A good percentage of them are sober right now, and they don't mind. In fact, they kind of like to tell, me to tell little parts of their story. And we're not here to take anybody else's inventory, as we all know. But in order to tell you what I reacted to, I do have to give you a few examples of what, an alcoholic would tell you what kind of liquor they drank. I will tell you what kind of behavior I had to deal with.
And I think I have to, to tell you. But it won't be new to you, I don't think.
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We really didn't ever have our gas and lights turned off, and we didn't have terrible scandals that I know of. So in some ways, I was very fortunate. That was true when I grew up, too. I grew up in a small town, was born and raised in a small town in California called Los Gatos. And it's about 50 miles southeast of San Francisco. Very small town at that time, settled mostly by Midwesterners. And my parents had each moved to California from the Midwest and had met out there.
And so it was a pretty comfortable little 2,000 people town at the time. It's not anymore, as everything in California is just getting more and more people. But the atmosphere in the town was one of love. I knew everybody in town. My family were good to me. I never had to question that I was loved. And I know that's not true of a lot of people. My mother, I found out, well, I didn't really find out, I kind of knew, was a periodic alcoholic.
Now, by the time I got to Ellinan, I certainly knew she had a drinking problem. But I didn't know why it hadn't bothered me so much. And that's why. She would go months and months and months without drinking. And then she'd, well, I could always tell when she was going to have a little binge because when I'd come home from school, she'd be drinking orange juice and vodka through a straw. Can I have my water, please?
I forgot it. Yeah, thank you. Where do I put it? Here, I'll put it right there. And I don't know what the straw was all about. I had an alcoholic woman tell me one time that you get a little more high out of that. I don't know. But it was a clue. And I knew that there was going to be a period of drinking. Now, the way my mom drank, she just kind of got dumb and silly. And then she kind of got a little tiresome, sat in a chair and, you know, kind of with her legs all tucked up under her and mostly drank beer, although that vodka and orange juice made its appearance regularly.
My dad worried about her drinking. I knew that. I had an older sister who was four years older than I, who was really mad at my mother. I don't remember her ever being not mad at somebody, including me. Poor woman. I think she still is, to tell you the truth. I sent her my Al-Anon book, The One Day at a Time, which we didn't have that many books when I came in. And she lives up by San Francisco still, and I'm down by San Diego.
And she, a few weeks later, she mailed it back to me and said, thank you for letting me know what it is you're doing. See, I'd been up there. Not only did she deny that my mother had a drinking problem, she just thought it was all because she was mean. Well, I never saw my mother do a mean thing in my life. And I mean that. She was a little irresponsible now and then, but she was one of the most fun moms I ever have met anywhere.
Funny lady. She did some writing. Full of the devil. And you just, you know, this is a long time ago. If you're wondering how old I am, because when I'm sitting out there, that's what I do. Don't you do that? I'll just tell you right off the bat. I'm 70-ish, and this October, well, we're in October, the 19th, I'm going to run out of ishes. I said, I'll be 80-ish. So there was a lot going on back then.
I was at the end of the Depression, and I remember being very poor, but I didn't know it, because everybody else was, most everybody else. And I remember the war very well, and we were patriotic, and we did things for each other, and my parents were very active in the community, and some of them were councilmen and various, and I had a lot of family around me. I mean, not sister, just my sister is the only sibling, but a lot of cousins and people lived there.
And so I got a lot of good values in that house. Real good values about sharing. I remember people coming to the door out of work, asking for help. One of the strongest memories I have is a man coming up our back steps and asking mom if he could do some work for some food. And then when he came back to get the food, he said, would you please just wrap it in an old newspaper? I want to take it to my family.
And I remember my mom saying, come here, Patty. And I was about four, I think, and we went in the kitchen, and she got out a big paper bag, and we put cans of things in it, and canned jelly, anything. And she gave that to him, and I remember that very clearly. And I remember this, knowing that we were giving away a couple things we could have probably used. And I think I said something like, hey, what are we going to do?
We won't have that, whatever it was. And she said, oh, we'll be just fine. He needs it more than we do. So look at that nice value I was raised with. That nice value I was raised with. The only things my mom did that really got my goat were when she'd get a little too drunk.
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Now, this is a long time ago in a small town. She'd stay up late drinking and she'd pick up the phone. And what is it about midnight with alcoholics? You all know, don't you? Very strange. But she had to pick up the phone and tell the operator somebody's number. Well, the operator, two of them actually, were our cousins. So mom would be getting pretty much in the sauce by then and she'd say, you know, give some number to somebody.
And the operator would say back to her, Pauline, go to bed. Hazel's asleep. I'm not going to wake her up. So the big deal about the secret, which was, of course, we had to keep it a secret that she drank now and then, was not, well, it wasn't as bad and awful as a lot of people. But, you know, little sneaky things like that would happen and we couldn't keep the secret. But, you know, I had never heard a word of criticism from her. In fact, she thought making a, if somebody made a mistake, it was hilarious.
She loved it. Now, what better validation can you get? I borrowed our little box camera when I was graduating from the eighth grade, a precious family possession. And they let me take it to my eighth grade graduation and take pictures of my friends. It only held eight pictures and you had to look down into this box and then, you know, you pointed it. And I was so excited and I got my eight pictures and I took them to the drugstore.
And a week later, I got them back and rushed home and we opened the envelope, my mom and I, and I'd taken eight pictures of myself looking. And she loved it. She put some on her bathroom wall. So, you know, that was a wonderful way to grow up. And it did not bother me that she drank. I don't think I realized till I got into Ellen on how very, how it still affected me. And I think it affected me more because of my dad.
And boy, those chickens were to come home to roost because he was so depressed. He rarely showed anger towards her, but he was just snippy and constantly criticizing her on a very low level. And of course, it was the drinking, but I didn't understand why. Because she acted better than he did. He was less involved. He would just kind of disappear with his newspaper and just not be there. And today I look back and realize how very depressed that man was.
Meanwhile, my older sister was just mad, you know, at something. So me, probably. But, you know, I'm very fortunate that way and I know that. And I appreciate that. And I was to get the blessing of having my mom come and live with us the last couple of years of her life, which was kind of an adventure. I'll get to that, I hope. So I went away to college, all 12 miles to San Jose State. But, hey, I was 18 years old and the war had just ended.
And the GI Bill was available for all these guys. And there were about eight men in that college to every one woman. And they were war heroes. They had been defending my life, they told me. And I told you I was raised to be patriotic. And I had a wonderful time. And I really, really had a good time. And surprise, surprise, I met this little guy. Looks like Mickey Rooney. Still does. And very talented in the same way, too.
He was a drama major. Now, I'll confess this right away. I was a psychology major. We have a few in these rooms. And nurses, you know, and teachers, all the givers of the world are here. But when I met him, he was so drunk it was disgusting. And I asked my date, who happened to be his roommate, I hadn't known that. I said, who is that? And why is he so acting like that? He had glass glasses, because that's all we had back then.
And he was smashing them against the refrigerator in this hostess's house and using four-letter words. Now, some of those guys, ooh. And I had been raised well, and I kind of knew those words existed, but I sure never heard them out loud. And I thought it was kind of exciting, actually. You know, you know. But I did not fall in love with him that night. I was not that sick. But it was a few weeks later, and we're walking.
That's pretty good with some of us in this room. And I was walking across the campus, and he was, too.
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And he wasn't drinking right then. And he had a load of books, and I did, too. And we were just talking, and all of a sudden, a bee began sticking to his head. You know how a bee will just stay with you? So he dropped his books, and he began having a boxing match with this bee. It was hilarious, just hilarious. And I remember thinking, oh, I'm not going to let this guy get too far away here. And so we began dating, and I really knew I wanted to marry him.
And we were all in a car together going somewhere, a bunch of us, and he began singing like Donald Duck. Now, wouldn't you marry somebody that could sing like Donald Duck? I needed no more. And like you've heard before, I would take care of the drinking. I had a couple of reasons to think I could, because my dad would call me, especially when I was in college, to come on up the hill and to talk to Mom because she was drinking again.
And she would listen to me. Well, it appeared that she did, because when I would get up there, I was probably just coming up at the end of a binge, but I didn't know what that was. And I would talk to her about her drinking. And she would say, you're probably right, I drank a little too much. I won't do that anymore. And she'd stop. But see, I didn't make that connection. I didn't know about it, so I really thought I had something to do with that.
So of course I knew I could do something with my husband's problem. And he admitted he drank too much quite often. And he was kind of loud, and he wasn't quite like my mother. He didn't bother with telephones. He got out in the street and yelled at everybody. And so it got a little difficult. But I began what we all do. I began trying to control everything. Now, not just his drinking, but in his case, his bladder.
Because he was a very spontaneous kind of a guy. You know, if nature called, he answered. But I got good at that, too. We get good at a lot of things, I think, coming in here. I think several people have mentioned that you develop skills. I didn't tell when he was heading for the hostess's potted plant or something. I didn't boob him. And don't tell me you haven't had a little of that. So I got clever.
And we got married, and then we moved to the L.A. area. Because he was an actor, and he was very good. Now, he didn't continue. For six years we lived there. I did a lot of things to make him okay. He also had a terrible anger problem. Now, the only anger I'd seen was my sister, and it wasn't like his. I didn't really mean that. I had not seen that kind of anger. And not necessarily when he was drinking.
And I really didn't know what to do with that. That was awful. But he told me what an awful life he had led, and I was a psychology major. And, you know, anywhere else I'd be embarrassed to talk this way. But, you know, and he said to me several times, you know, I think I'd like you to really help me not to drink too much. And we set up a plan. He'd say, when you can tell I shouldn't have any more to drink or wherever we're going, just come over and whisper in my ear and just say, honey, it's time to stop.
And I would do that, and he'd use one of those four-letter words. And I'd be so hurt, because that's what his plan was. And it went on like that. He didn't become an actor. He did some acting. But because the casting directors didn't appreciate how sensitive he was, sensitive, his sponsor told him, I love this, after he got into the program, that he wasn't sensitive, he was an immature son of a bitch.
His sponsor said that. I didn't. And then one of the things I did to try to help him with his anger was he decided to go back. He was a CIA, by the way, Catholic, Irish, alcoholic, you know. And that was completely foreign to me. My father was a member of the Masonic Lodge. And in those days, that was like oil and water. But he charmed my mother, I'll tell you, right away, because they could, you know, drink together.
And they were the same personality. We always find somebody out there. And I began doing those things that I thought would help him, certainly with his anger, because if his anger was controlled, then he wouldn't have to drink so much. And one of the things he decided to do was go back and try his church again, which was Catholic, of course. So I joined it for a while. And I thought, ah, this will help.
Now, it didn't control his anger, but it got us five kids. And I think God in his wisdom knew I needed a lot of testing in this world. And they're wonderful kids, wonderful. And aren't all of ours. And I wouldn't trade them for anything.
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But it didn't work. The thing is, what we ended up doing was having a house full of priests who drank more than he did. And I didn't know they did that. And I'm a little Methodist sort of girl. Well, we moved to the city of Oceanside. He became a teacher. I like to say I worked his way through teacher training. And all of us know the great martyr salute. And so that he could at least have that credential.
I mean, we'd both gotten through college, but he needed that. And it wasn't turning out to be very productive to be an actor in Hollywood. As I said, they didn't appreciate his sensitivity. And so we did those things. And he taught high school. He taught high school speech and drama and eventually debate. And we moved to Oceanside. And now I had these five kids on this. Well, one of them was born in Oceanside.
And then here I was now with a reputation to protect. Now, when you're in the Hollywood area and somebody's drinking too much, it's nothing. I mean, nobody, oh, well, nobody cares. They just, you know, take care of you. Different sort of people. But now we're in a, which was then a very small town in the 70s. Early, 1960 we moved there. And it was a small town. And it was, everybody looked at the new teachers.
You know, there weren't that many. And boy, did I have a scramble trying to keep him a secret. Because he was loud and he was out there. Now, meanwhile, we kept running out of money. I don't know if you had that problem. So I decided I better bring, generate money. Now, I did that whenever I could. I would give GED tests out at the school and various things like that. But we needed money. So I began giving piano lessons.
Now, I want to tell you, I did not know how to teach piano lessons. I knew how to play the piano. And I love kids. Now, I didn't know anything about teaching it. But I did it. You know, I just faked my way through. I think we Aldons can manage to fake anything if we need to. And by the time I came into Aldon, I was giving 37 piano lessons a week. Good response. And the reason I remember that so clearly is because every morning when he'd leave for school, I'd do the finger on the chest thing.
I'm giving 37 piano lessons a week. Now, if you go spending money on booze or whatever, I wanted to say, whatever I wanted to make him feel guilty about. And I began, I didn't know this until I got here, I began little by little compromising my own principles. Little here, a little there, a little more here, all for peace at any price. By the time I got here, I had adapted all the way out to here. And I would not have jumped from here to here.
I just didn't notice every time. I just compromised another principle. And it was my wonderful sponsor who was able to show me how I could back up through those principles and become who I was raised to be because I was. I had a good set of values and some good tools. I sure didn't know how to use them with him. I wasn't the kind of mother I wanted to be. I was well-mothered, and I wasn't being a good mother.
I didn't abuse them, but I wasn't there for them a lot. And I certainly, you know, their problems were, oh, everybody has those problems kind of thing, which is this form of abuse. I really neglected their emotional needs many, many, many times when I didn't want to. But I did because it was peace at any price. It was a little hard having a little dignified piano studio in my house because these kids were growing.
And then my husband began, once he got to know a few teachers that drank, they all find each other out there, then they'd start coming over to the house. It was margarita season. And our house was such that there was a living room where I had my piano and all those things. And then there was a door. And then there was a dining area and a kitchen and a separate room. So there's a door going there and a big family room.
And the bedrooms are all down here and another door. Now, first of all, I had to kind of help my students ignore the strange noises that were going on in the kitchen. My mom had come to live with us, and my dad had died, and she was delighted to live with us, as you may imagine. And everybody loved her. Everybody always loved Pauline anyway, drunk or sober. And, of course, there was a party in our house just about every afternoon pretty much.
And, gee, she was in her element. Now, she was on a walker by now. She'd broken a hip. Didn't remember how that happened. Thought it was odd. It had never hurt. So she had discovered little pills. So she had discovered little pills, too, just to add to the thing. But, you know, she was one happy lady, I'll tell you, and she was so loved. Well, they're all in the back of the house, in the kitchen, and because it was after school, that's when you teach kids, I'd make these enormous dinners. Now, we didn't have microwaves, so I'd stick them in the oven on warm. Mom would have been a nutritionist, so I knew what children should be fed, and I'd make huge salads in the refrigerator, and the kids would come in, and they would have their dinner all out there,
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and anybody, and of course, even though I thought I made enough for 20, by the time you get teachers in there, and all the kids' friends would come, because nobody was home at their house or something, and I couldn't tell, and then these margarita things were going on the three blenders, so there were noises coming out of the back end of my house, and, you know, I'd get so mad, so mad at him, and just be saying, I gotta divorce this man, this is ridiculous, this is just ridiculous.
And then, you know what he'd do? He'd appear out of one door in the little devil shorts I'd given him for Valentine's Day, with like a rose in his mouth, and he'd go leaping across behind my student. Now, how can you stay mad at somebody like that? You know, I reached the point where I, well, actually, one time, we were speaking up in Reno, and so I was sitting at a slot machine with my quarters, and I thought, alcoholics are just like slot machines, they pay off just often enough to keep you pulling.
And in psychology, you know, that's the strongest form of controlling behavior, is intermittent reward. But, you know, I was getting tired, and Mom used to bring home little old men, and I'm trying to be dignified, you know, and some of them had little bladder problems in front of their pants, you know, because she walked around all the time in her walker, and then my kids began smelling musty. I didn't know what that was. I really didn't. I thought they weren't washing their hair or something.
But I noticed that when, and when I say kids, there were more than ours. There were three teenagers when I came in here, and the younger two, and everybody else came to our house, and some of them lived with us for a year or two. I won't even go into all the reasons for that, and I loved them. It was just fine. But there were an awful lot of people around a lot, and often the drunks couldn't go home. We wouldn't let them drive home, so they'd stay for breakfast, you know, and my kids would just say, oh, hi, Woody, or whoever.
They didn't even think about it. But, you know, I was getting tired because I was trying to make everybody okay here. I remember a scene where, this is why I'm going to talk about the skills for a minute, and I'm kind of proud of this. I remember a scene where he hadn't come home. It was the weekend, and it was 5 in the morning in the summer. School was out, and I really was getting worried because he usually didn't stay away that late, and I stand at the window looking out, and daylight was starting.
And that man, we lived on a corner, that man was spread-eagled on the front lawn, stark naked. And a couple of my kids do that, too, when they drink. They take their clothes off, the men, and I thought, oh, my gosh, because, see, there was this little ring of paper boys around him. And I'm going to interrupt myself. Is this spitting? Can you hear it up there? That's better, isn't it? Thank you. If I can hear it, you can hear it.
Thank you. I'm not really spitting at you. So I'm standing in the window thinking, how can I look dignified in the midst of all this? Now, here, this is, I am really proud of this. I went out, and I told those little boys that Mr. Roach was practicing a new form of meditation. I'm so proud. But I did a lot of things, and we all did, made great sacrifices, and came up with tremendous ideas. I had sent him to a psychiatrist.
He had gone. The psychiatrist prescribed anti-abuse. Some of you would know what that is. If you don't know, if anybody is ingesting alcohol and they take these little pills, they get pretty sick. That's designed to help somebody control their drinking. And they really get sick. They turn red, and their blood pressure goes flying up. So I would get those little anti-abuse pills, and I would put one in his mouth every morning before he went to school.
And then I'd discover that he's drinking anyway, and he wasn't getting sick, so I realized he's not swallowing them. So then I would do what you do with a dog, you know, sort of stroke his throat.
[00:35:03]
And my kids, when that Adam's apple went up and down, I knew I was going to be okay that day. My kids often commented what an affectionate gesture I had when Dad went out the door. But I wasn't paying any attention to the kids by then. Had a dog that liked martinis, and, you know, we get them. We get those things. But I was getting tired. But we ran out of, well, the psychiatrist died, so I didn't have another source.
And we lived right near Mexico, about 40 miles up the road. So I would take his surfer wagon and my bubble hairdo and my two-piece polyester pantsuit and my small child, and I would go down to Tijuana, and I would go from pharmacy to pharmacy to pharmacy purchasing antabuse. Now, I could have bought 20 packages of it in one pharmacy. They don't care. They're delighted. But I didn't want anybody to realize how many I was buying.
I've heard alcoholics talk about going in their hometown, going from liquor store to liquor store, getting half a pint, so nobody would know how much they were buying. I relate. But it didn't work. He'd drink. We had it figured out. I went down to the UCSD library. I had a minor in science and looked up the formula for antabuse. It turned out that if I gave him one on Monday, another one on Tuesday, and a half of one on Wednesday, he could safely drink on Friday night.
I have no idea if that formula was correct. Excuse me. I've got a chemist in here. I have no idea. But he never made it to Friday night. He had to drink on Thursday, and he would turn red and glow, and he would get all his heart would pound. I just loved that. He'd get all anxious. All these kids that were at the house, they said, it's Thursday. Mr. Roach is going to be turning red pretty soon. But the day came where I was worn out, and we talk about these moments of clarity, or it says in the AA book, and June talked about the light bulb.
I often call it a Kodak moment where you can remember it today. I can remember it very clearly. I can see all the colors and where everybody was. And I was standing in that living room watching those kids, and they were smelling musty. Some of the time, when they were smelling musty, they were easy to get along with. And I noticed that, and then I'd find these little white tablets with a cross on them.
And then they were busy, and they'd do everything, I asked. You know, they'd clean the house, and they'd clean my car. And then they'd sleep all night and all day the next day and not go to school. So I used that, too, because that's convenient. You know, anything that would help. Now, I didn't tell my husband about all these goodies that the kids were getting into. I had a policeman friend because I volunteered down there.
I volunteered everywhere because that's what I was raised to do. And he was a juvenile detective, actually, and I would go down there with these little things I'd find. I'd say, what are they taking now, Ron? And he'd say, well, that's Quaalude, and if they take two, and then you want to give them Ritalin to combat that. And, you know, I was an archon on my kids, but I didn't think of that. I didn't even know what that was.
I was very fortunate they didn't grab them. One of the kids did end up in juvenile hall and being caught at school selling drugs. Our oldest son had become a hashish salesman, and he really, whew, he had a business going. And so, see, every day, you know, I would be every half hour another student would come in, and about every half hour he'd make a sale out the back door, and I could keep track of all these things.
That's another skill I developed. I could tell you how many margaritas they'd use then. I could tell you, we had all the windows along the side of the house, and there was one boy that was somehow in the habit of coming in and out that window. I don't know why. He was welcome to come in and out the doors, but he somehow got in that habit. And I could tell you all of that, and I was tired. And one evening I was standing in my living room, and I was, my husband had gone in and out of AA a little bit.
He was worse when he was trying to stay sober than he was drinking, and it was awful because he had nothing to help him. And that's one of my pictures, one of my Kodak moments. And he's sitting in the chair talking to the television, which he still does, actually, and our oldest daughter, who was always trying to help us feel okay, and she'd be passing around cookies or something to eat. I think when she made the brownies, we probably felt better, but we didn't know why.
And by this time, our oldest son had started using things like, well, LSD, things like that. And so he'd see things. And our third child is a girl, and her name is Jan, and she was an angry, angry, angry child.
[00:40:01]
And you could feel her anger when you walked in the room, and I remember just feeling awful looking at her. I didn't have to feel angry like that. I didn't know what to do for her. And I began feeling that pain in my heart for her. She was so, so angry, and that made me so sad that I had not done my job. Meanwhile, one of our younger boys, the younger boy, who was very talented like his father, had helped his dad produce The Sound of Music, and he was only 10, and he could sing like John McCormick and all the things that Irishmen like, and he would stand on a chair singing, this is weird, idol-wise from The Sound of Music, but with an Irish accent, and he would sing because his daddy would smile.
Anything to relieve the tension. And our youngest child, Mary, found a way to help herself. She was 7 when we got here. We always arranged our furniture. We had a couple of couches. So there was a, on the corner, so she had her place, and we called it Mary's Corner. And that's where she went. Mary went in her corner every night, and she had her things with her, and she had her John Denver tapes, and she would listen to his poems in my box.
I know you look familiar. This has been a few years. And I didn't have to worry about Mary because she didn't give me any trouble. She just, and many mornings I would get up and find out she'd slept there all night, and I hadn't paid any attention. And I would feel awful at the moment and decide I've got to do something better, but I didn't because I needed to keep peace at any price, and that meant keeping Daddy from being too angry or from drinking too much.
Of course, I learned by then I could do nothing about the drinking, still trying to do something about the anger. And there came a time. I mean, I looked at that family, and my little mom on her little walker telling, my husband would see my son doing these strange things, and I didn't tell him what they were doing. That would just be more trouble. I mean, you know what that's like. That just gives me him to deal with then.
And my mom, he would startle my husband. He'd say, what are you doing? So my mom would start explaining it to my husband. I have no idea what she thought, but they would be talking about it somehow. But I looked at all these people that I was responsible for, five children and a mother and a husband, and I felt like a complete failure. I felt like I had just simply failed. I think I surrendered something that night.
I wasn't in Al-Anon, but looking back, I know something changed in me. I knew that I was really powerless, and more important than anything, I knew that I had really let myself down somehow because then I saw it. Now, certainly looking back, I'd done a lot of things to tell me that, but I wouldn't look at that. I was doing what was right for the family, whatever that took. And a night came where he got angry at one kid too many.
He didn't slap the kids, not when I was around anyway, and I don't think he did when I wasn't around. But he got angry at one child, and it was just one time too many. And without any knowing I was going to say this, I changed my lines. Because I gave him a dirty look, and I said, get away from that child. He said his lines, which we all have these, you know, married 20 years. He said, well, I'll just move out.
Those were his lines. Now, my lines were to talk about that. This isn't the way you solve problems. This is my talking position, by the way. This isn't the way you solve problems. We talk about them. 20 years I've been talking about them. And he would agree to anything. But I didn't say the thing I usually said. When he said, well, I may as well move out. I think I'll just move out. And I said, good idea.
Who said that? So he did. Now, that was lucky. Some of you don't get that. Sometimes. But he was gone for some weeks. But he went back to AA. And the kids and I began taking the time to talk together. And I began noticing I didn't have a stomachache when I was coming up to the house because his car wasn't there. I didn't know I'd had a stomachache all those years until it stopped. And in that little period of time, I began, the sadness began creeping in.
And, you know, we all grieve. We show it in a lot of ways. We show it with anger and fear and many other things, sarcasm in my case. But I began feeling the sadness. Now, my mom thought I was being mean to kick him out. Of course. She liked him better than me. to kick him out. Of course, she liked him better than me. And he was wonderful to her. And I'm so grateful for that today. What a gift to have. He went back to AA and he got
[00:45:03]
this weird little guy around the corner from us named Bill Blake. Bill's been gone many years now. Bill is the one, like Joan, who told me that I could help Al-Anon out by, I could help Al-Anon is what he said. He'd been coming over with little pamphlets and things and he was a rude little man. He'd walk right to my door and be standing by me at the sink without even knocking or anything. But I liked him because he told my husband things like, no, you're not sensitive. You got to like somebody doing that. And he had a wonderful wife named Margie who was also an alcoholic lady. They lived around the corner and Bill had bring me these pamphlets and I would say, I don't need that. I was a psychology major. And after a couple of months, I think, he got on to me, that wily little alcoholic, and he came over and did much what Joan heard. He said, you know, Pat, I think you could really help Al-Anon out. Now, Oceanside at the time had one and a half meetings and by that I mean there was a half a meeting. You never knew if it's going to be there or not.
It was a small town still and Al-Anon wasn't, this was 38 years ago. And that happened to be, and I went to Al-Anon that night, by the way, and that happened to be St. Patrick's Day of 1970, which is my Al-Anon birthday. And is that ironic? And I married this CIA and because St. Patrick's Day wasn't my favorite day in our house. I went to the meeting to help you and I mean it. I was arrogant, smug, self-righteous, and dominating, which are one of our readings is. We read that every, most meetings in Southern California, understanding ourselves is the pamphlet. And there was a little lady there named Millie. Every meeting has a Millie, I think. She doesn't sponsor anybody in particular, but she sponsors everybody.
And she was a real lover of the traditions. And so I sat through the meeting and I knew a little bit about it because I'd gone to AA meetings with him and Bill and Margie and, you know, just learned what I thought I should know about what he was doing. And when the meeting ended, Millie came up to me and she said, would you, could you do a little something for me next week? This is so tricky with a newcomer. Well, of course I would, if I could help in any way. And she said, would you stand at the door and greet the newcomers when they come? Now, there were 12 people in the meeting. They didn't get too many newcomers. But this is how I answered, according to her, and I don't doubt her. She's been gone a lot of years now, but she remembers better than I do. I supposedly answered her by saying, I would be happy to. I know how to do that. I was been in many receiving lines in my sorority.
Arrogant, arrogant, arrogant. And you know what? That lovely lady and the others in that meeting, they never once told me to quit being so bossy or thinking I knew it all. They just said, oh, we're so glad you're here. We're glad you could do that for us. They knew right away, especially Millie, what was going on in me. And they knew the best way to keep me in there was to keep me busy. So I did that the next week. And I want to say this because it's about what service gives you. And I know that you heard that this morning.
This morning? The weekend, yeah. The thing is, anything I do of service to Ellen gives me something back, even if my motives are bad. So I did that the next week to show off how good I was, how poised I could be. And there was a newcomer. I mean, amazing. Now I know that. I didn't realize. And the newcomer came to the door. And I introduced myself. And I said, I'm Pat. And she said her name. I don't recall what it is. And she said, and I'm scared. And I said, so am I. And I don't think I knew I was scared till that minute.
I know that I acted out of fear all the time today. But I don't think I really knew it till that newcomer said to me, I'm scared. And I answered without knowing I was. So am I. I haven't forgotten that moment either because that was most important. Millie couldn't have given me a better assignment than to be important and to be helpful because she knew I would get something from it. And I did. And I've continued to through my whole Al-Anon life. She also, Millie said she couldn't drive. And the San Diego area was putting together its first, we call them intergroups. They're called information services a lot of places. But they were putting together a set of bylaws to open the San Diego office and have it available first time. So I drove her to San Diego, which is not far. And my only job there was to sit in the room and listen to these people work together. Well, they were trying to work together and they got more and more edgy and nasty. Have you ever been on a committee? You know, we change personalities when we get in there. We have a cause. And I began hearing all the anger and all the selfishness. And it scared me
[00:50:04]
because I had not heard that in Al-Anon meetings. One of those people said, listen to us. We're not putting principles before personalities. Okay. They held hands. They said the serenity prayer and they began discussing it again. Now I, of course, knew that tradition by then and read it many times, probably studied it. My sponsor told me I had analysis paralysis, and which is true. And, you know, I sat there and watched those people use that wonderful 12th tradition and something shifted in me. I could feel it. I could physically feel it that I had just experienced a higher power and the amazing power of that tradition. I've never forgotten that moment. And believe me, that's kept me coming because I had those wonderful moments. Now, everything didn't go well at home, particularly. He was again struggling terribly with sobriety. But I was going to my Al-Anon and I was doing what they told me and I had gotten a sponsor and a wonderful sponsor. And she lives in Laguna Beach. She's sweetish. Her name is Karen. She used to do a lot of speaking around. I don't know.
She hasn't done much lately, but no nonsense. The reason she is my sponsor is that sponsor of his, his wife Margie, I would run around the corner to her and I would complain. And I would say, yeah, he's doing this. Now he's doing that. And she would yell at me, you have to trust. You have to trust. And I would yell back, I can't trust him. She said, him? I don't trust him either. I mean, God. What good people in my life. What good people.
And she knew that the meetings in Oceanside were a little scattered and didn't have a real hold of the traditions as much. So she drove me several weeks in a row to Laguna Beach, which is up the road, about 40 miles. And that was, that's my home group because, you know, that's where I really, really got my start. That group will celebrate our 50th anniversary at the end of this month. And it was started by a woman named Elsa Chamberlain.
Some of you may have heard of her. Wonderful, wonderful Al-Anon woman. And she was my sponsor's sponsor. And that's where they, and they practice the traditions there. Boy, do they. That's wonderful. So I got a solid, solid start in all that. And I continued in the field of service. Now, a lot of that time I was showing off. Little by little, it didn't feel that way anymore. Little by little, I just became so grateful that I had a chance. Just so grateful.
And that I knew that what I was doing, 20 other people could do. You know, it wasn't that big a deal. I even got to be delegate and when Lois was still alive and sat next to her at one of the conferences in 1979. She encouraged me, as did some others, to go back to school because I'd married my term paper, my master's degree. And meanwhile, he's staying sober and the kids are smelling funny. And some of them are getting in trouble.
And I'm, and I'm supposed to be taking care of all this. And I did. I went back for my graduate studies. Now, that meant fewer piano lessons, which upset my husband a little bit. He depended on some money. And it meant not as much, my kids were the biggest supporters of all. They were wonderful. Two of them were in college already. And they would send me money for books. I mean, talk about. And it was the Al-Anon people that kept me going.
Because I was the oldest. I was older than the teachers, a lot of them by then. But what a, what a strength I've got for this program. So now I get to practice. I just have a little private practice now. And well, you know, one of the most fun in the world to me. I'll get a couple of me. I mostly just do couples communication. Now, I worked for many, many years with abused children, many years. And kind of just quieted it down. Now I'm doing a little communication work. But I'll get a couple in there and maybe a couple of weeks later I'll recognize, let's say, him. That he's probably got a drinking problem. And I'll talk to him a little bit about that away from his wife. Because, you know, the private.
You know what, the best thing that happens to me in my days is when I can get a guy to go to AA. And I'll say to him, if you'll go to three AA meetings this week, you won't have to pay me next week. That's very motivating for a drunk. And I know about the meetings around there. And they would go. And if they come back to me and they say, I don't think I need counseling. I think I need AA. I just won. Because is that ever fun to get to manipulate an alcoholic into AA? And get paid. The kids have had their struggles. Three of them are in AA today. You know, they didn't tiptoe through the tulips to get there. There's been a lot of sadness. When you have a big family, you have big joys and big sorrows. And they really, it's just been a whole lot. And I've learned an awful lot about where I belong in something. Do I belong here? Do I not? I learned a good lesson because that daughter
[00:55:02]
of mine that is in AA now, the middle kid, had had, she'd lost one child, partly because, I mean, she only lives six weeks, because her drinking had interfered with her already fragile body. And that little girl died. And her name was Sarah. She was our first grandchild. And the next one was born early, and partly because she couldn't keep her body clean and sober. And he's alive and doing well today, but he wasn't okay when he was born. And one of the most painful things I've done, and some of you know this, I sat in the hospital room with that little Nikki, who was getting shots and getting things so hard for little guys. And my daughter would be there. And then she would say to me, Mom, can you stay a while? I just kind of need to get some fresh air. Well, I knew what she needed. You know, she needed to take a hit or have a drink. And I had nothing but compassion for her, because of this wonderful program. Sad for her that she knew she had contributed to this little guy's problem. And what a painful thing to watch your child, my daughter, feel so much pain. And I couldn't help her. But she eventually followed Daddy into AA, even though he kept telling her he's saving his seat, which she hated. And she was the first one to come in. And the second one was the little kid that sang all the time, happy little boy.
He sat down next to me one day, and he was a grown man with a child by then. And he said, Mom, I haven't had a drink in a week. And I had done such a good job of letting go that I actually said, why? I'm so proud. And I had learned to change my lines. I learned to say, first of all, I don't know. That's a wonderful thing. Because I always supplied answers for everybody. And when I could say, I don't know, it was hard, by the way. And one thing my sponsor told me about that, because we had games we played, we all do. He knew how to push my buttons, and I knew how to push his. Now, I'll tell you how he pushed my buttons. He'd come home from work, and I'd be doing all that stuff I was doing. And he'd say, your house is starting to look like your mother's. Well, that was as insulting as you could get, because her house was a mess. It had been. She was living this. And I would give all the reasons why he was wrong and how if I didn't have to do all this work and blah, blah, blah, I would defend myself. And she said, well, don't defend yourself.
Just agree with him. What? And I tried it. Now, I had to choke the words out. But he came home. He said, it's starting to look like your mother's. And I said, it sure is. I never heard it again. I want to tell you, that's power. And my program began with small steps. And they weren't the steps. Of course, those were in there. Of course, they were. But there were little changes in my behavior, little things. Change something. Change something.
It wasn't so hard. I was told to apologize to him after we'd had a bad argument. And I said, what? He started the whole thing, and he's a mess. And my sponsor said, well, you're going to apologize for your part in this if you want to continue to grow an alanon. So I thought it over, because I'd called her, of course, to tell her all that had gone on. So I thought it over, and I thought, well, I want to grow an alanon. So I walked back to the room, and I said to my husband, Cliff, I want to apologize to you for the way I reacted to your childish and immature outburst. So I ran to the phone, and I told my sponsor.
And he remembers that, by the way. He remembers the wording and everything. He said, OK, honey. And my sponsor said, well, it's a start. But that's how I started, with little tiny things like that, while, meanwhile, we were working those steps. And I was anxious for the fourth and fifth step myself. I was ready for that. And it didn't scare me. And I guess I'd had enough trust in here. And when we talk about one day at a time, for me, that means I trust in a higher power, that I will be, I don't have to do another day ahead. Because I trust that whatever happens, I will be OK somehow. And I will know what to do when the time comes.
Our oldest son, well, I went to an emergency room. And the doctor said he wasn't going to live. His alcohol level was 0.40, which is sometimes dead. And I went to say goodbye to him and tell him I loved him and I was sorry. Now, he was amazingly successful in the world. Every alcoholic in my life, in my family, is successful. They're functioning. They look good on the outside. Getting straight A's in school, having jobs that are wonderful.
But I, you know, they had alcoholism. And destroyed a couple of marriages. And a baby died as a result of that. And we know what that's like. It looks good. It looks OK on the outside. He didn't die. He went home, where he lives elsewhere. And he emailed me and he said, I hope I never see you again. I just emailed back and said, I hope you don't either, you know. But I know we lose people
[01:00:00]
in this program. I know it, friends. My mom couldn't handle sobriety in our house. She was periodic still. And she'd gone a while without drinking because we didn't do that. And she said to me, why don't you go get a bottle of wine and we'll relax a little together? Because I'd been coming to you people. Again, I said something I didn't know I was going to say. I said, Mom, the doctor told you that if you went on another drinking spell, you would, you probably wouldn't live. She'd had a stroke in the last spell. And I, it's okay if you want to drink. She could get her own booze, by the way. She didn't need me to do it. But I can't be the one to put the bottle in your hand. And I love you. And if you want to drink, you go ahead. Or you can come to AA with us if you'd like to. Well, a couple days later, my mom took her own life. The first person I called was old Millie, who was just lived close, and Margie, the AA woman that lived around the corner. And Margie immediately told me she, I was, you know, she, I had to call 911. And Margie said, you know, you didn't cause this. She, she explained to me what she believed my mother was going through. Because she knew her, of course. She said, you know, Pat, she, she wasn't ready to get sober. She needed to drink. And she didn't want to leave here. She could have lived somewhere else. Because she loves it here. Everybody loves her here. And her only solution was to just not be alive anymore. And it took, and the AA women mean a whole lot to me, as you can imagine. So life does go on. My one daughter just went through breast cancer, very serious breast cancer. And got a little bit addicted to the pills and had to declare a new sobriety date. And, you know, things happen. I was telling my, my little introducer here, who's a sweetheart, by the way. You probably know her well. You probably know that already. My youngest daughter wanted so badly to have children, and she couldn't get pregnant. So they decided on in vitro. And they did, she got pregnant with twins, as often happens. And, and they were stillborn. And we were so heartbroken. And she tried again. And sure enough, she got pregnant with twins again. And so I now have two little 22-month-old grandboys. And they're an apple of my eye, as you can imagine. And they're nuts, you know. Two of them, two of them are funnier than one. I don't know why. But they're more work. But, you know, we have our, life is in session. That's all it is. Life is in session. People get cancer. Babies die. People, my 15-year-old almost died in a, in a 15-year-old type of accident. You know, crazy jumping off of something and just about killed himself.
That's just life in session. My husband's health is bad. We used to travel together. He just totally can't do that anymore. He loves, he's a wonderful speaker. I'm sure Bill has heard him. He's a wonderful speaker. A funny man. And a, and a, he loves this program. And he can't travel anymore. And he's missing something very dear to his heart. Because he was given the gift of gab. He's Irish. But, you know. And I think we all come here with a gift of some kind. And it may be the gift of simply being good at computers. There's somebody here that's doing all the computer work. It may be the gift of being really good with a newcomer. It doesn't mean standing up here and talking. It just means we all have something to give to Al-Anon. To be of service in whatever way our gift is. I miss him. I feel sad that he's not there. But he doesn't want me to not come to things. And, and I would do that. He would feel worse if I stayed home. But he still can go to meetings and he can talk to, talk at local meetings. Local meaning not getting on an airplane.
And whatever happens there, we've had to call 9-1-1 a few times. It's congestive heart failure. And a couple of other things. And you know, I know it's going to be okay. When I call 9-1-1, I don't get panicky. And he needs me not to. I stay still in my heart. And I trust whatever is going to happen. I'll be okay. And I'll know what to do. And I do. Before I came here, I remembered having given piano lessons to a little boy who asked me, if some of you have studied music, you know what a grace note is. It's a little tiny, pretty little note, or maybe two or three, that come before the beat. And it just makes it pretty. You don't get, it doesn't get any count. It just trickles down, kind of embroiders the note. On a piano, you'd go like that. And he said, what's that little note up there, Miss Roach? And I said, oh, just ignore it. That's where I was inside myself. Ignore the grace notes. Don't put anything pretty in there. And I want to tell you today, I don't miss a grace note for a moment. And they're everywhere. The room is full of them on this committee. You're full of them. And a wonderful committee, by the way, awesome people. And
[01:05:03]
it's, for those of you who are new, that's just my story. But if you can take some direction from somebody to just change something, whether you feel like it or not, that's called acting as if. It's amazing how much our emotions catch up to our bodies. Just saying to him, I agreed with him and let him win that argument, gave me more power than I ever felt in my life. And all it was, was a tiny little comment. So I urge anybody here who's new to keep coming back and to listen to people and reach out. And if your problems don't seem very big after you hear the really bad ones, that's not true. Don't let yourself stop from talking to somebody.
Because if you've got them, they're important. And they need help. Sometimes people do that. They won't talk to somebody because they think, oh, my problem's so small. Every problem is important to us. Every problem, we've all had them. And I love you all very much. And I'm very, very grateful to be here this weekend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. I just, there's a term in some of the groups that says, I just feel like I've been filled up. And that's how I feel today. Thank you so much for sharing such a big part of yourself with us. There's three things that you mentioned that I just have to comment on because they were wonderful things. My mother is also the alcoholic in my life. And you know what? I've forgotten what a great sense of humor she had. My mother told a joke better than anyone I knew. But you know what? You never heard the punchline. She would start to laugh. And her laugh was so infectious, we never got the punchline. But it was great. It was great. And then for your first contact to be someone who knew that you needed to be busy in Al-Anon, and for that woman to say to you, I'm scared, you know, and for us to get that little moment of divine intervention where God really does work through us, and for you to say, me too. And that was wonderful.
That was wonderful. Trust God and change something. I once told a gal pal of mine, change something. Cut your hair. Change something. And I believe that to be very true. I believe that the smallest change can produce the biggest, biggest benefit. Thank you so much. And now I would like to ask Joan C. to come back up to the podium. Did you go to the restroom? Okay. Well, in that case, I will drop back and punt. Okay. Well, we'll start with Pat then. Pat, first of all, we'd like to thank you for making Atwood such a success. Thank you so much for being a part of what we do here. And with that, make sure I do this right. Pat. And Joan, we'd like to thank you also for making this roundup such a success.
Thank you. Well, thank you so much. I love presents. There you go. Well, I could get it out of there, but my finger's moving. Oh, you have an old knife. Oh, my goodness. Look at us. That's right. You can just show us the picture if you like. Oh, that is beautiful. Oh, thank you. And it's engraved, and it says, in appreciation, OAR 2008. Oh, my goodness. Can I have some money? There it is. Oh, and the light's on.
[01:10:12]
Well, yeah, and I saw my prize. Patricia Roach. That's my real name. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're quite welcome. And then just a couple of final comments. Coffee and cookies will be served in the hospitality room, and the dining room is open for ice cream and pie. Please see Bill if you want to purchase tapes, and could you all join me in the Lord's Prayer? Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Keep coming back. It works if you work it, and you'll earn it.