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Source: Susan K – OAR 2022 Susan K – Arizona Wisconsin – Date Unknown.mp3 File: susan-k-oar-2022-susan-k-arizona-wisconsin-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:41:28
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Oh good, I have a helper. Here we go. Can you hear me? If you can't, just yell. Hi, I'm Susan. I'm a very grateful member of Al-Anon, and I can't believe I'm here. What a ride. I've spoken a lot locally and in my area and in conferences in my area, but I've never traveled and spoke. So I'm thinking, okay, I remember one of the first times when I did start speaking, and I heard somebody say that their sponsor told them that you're just not that big of a deal. And I thought that was great, and I thought that's so true. I'm not that big of a deal. This is not about me.
It's about you. And then I found out it was your 50th anniversary. And then I'm like, oh no. Oh, here we go. And when Beth first, when we first, when she first called me, I've lived in Scottsdale for 10 years. That was my destination, and I had never planned to move or ever leave there. And so a lot has happened since we first started talking in my life that I'll get to once I start with the beginning. I was talking to my sponsor, and I thought, you guys are an easy crowd, because how hard can it be? I'm just telling you my story. So you can't screw that up, right? And you don't know me.
Who knows what will come out of my mouth? No. No, I'm just praying that God will speak through me, because right now I'm just feeling very humble and very real and very raw. I've had, I've lost all my facades. I've lost all my let's get it together and let's look together. And if you think that I look together, it's probably fake. There's something, you know, don't, I don't. And I love when God does that. And when God lets me know that I can't do it, but he can.
But I'll start with my story, where I'm from. I grew up in a town called Burlington, Iowa, and that's in southeast Wisconsin. I am the middle child. I have an older sister and a younger brother. My family is an academic family. They're all doctors and lawyers, except me. And I had undiagnosed ADD, which way back then they didn't diagnose anything like that. I had the inattentive kind, so I was not like the problem child. I was just like, what is that leaf over there? And where is it going?
Anyway, unbeknownst to me, I didn't realize it at the time, but unbeknownst to me, I was always attracted to the guys that were more fun and the more people that were more fun, because my family was not fun. And I hope they don't listen to this. But they might. Nobody in my family drank. Not on my father's side or my mother's side. So when we would go to family reunions, there was no drinking. And I was sure that was what the problem was. They needed to drink. These people are so uptight. They need to loosen up and show their emotions.
And anyway, so I went along my way. I was the duckling that never quite went right in the row because of my ADD. And so I understood the alcoholic, which you can tell right there, that's a red flag. Big red flag. So I always went for the exciting person. I only dated alcoholics. Of course, I realized this, this is in retrospect, all through high school. And the chaos to me just seemed very normal. It wasn't like, oh gee, do you think there might be something wrong with this relationship? He hasn't called you? And it's like, oh no, that's just normal. That's just how it is.
And I went on to grow up. I did not finish school. But I went to grow up and I got married to my first alcoholic. So I met my first alcoholic in church. So that's a good one, right? No. I thought it was, I'm home free now. So I married my first alcoholic and we had a child. And as you know, when you know nothing about the disease and you see the craziness around you, you don't really know what's going on except that he must just be a terrible person.
[00:05:09]
He doesn't love his family. He's not doing anything. So he's bad. So I will get rid of him. So that's what I did. I thought, okay, here's my plan. I will get divorced. I will take the baby. That's the time we were in Arizona. And I will move back to Iowa. And then I will move back to Arizona. And everything will be just great. Well, now you get to hear what really happened. I took the baby. I went back home. I got divorced. And it was suggested to me that I might want to try Al-Anon. Now, I was 25 years old. And I don't know how any of you were when you were 25, but I knew everything. Everything.
And nobody was going to tell me what to do at 25. I just got rid of the problem. I don't need to go. Okay. So then I met my second alcoholic. And I met him in a bar. But, as I was saying earlier, he passed my test so I knew he was not an alcoholic. My test was he had a job. And he got up every morning and went to work. And he functioned. Now, that's a pretty high bar. I thought, okay, here we go. Because I thought that alcoholism, like, alcoholics are people that can't handle their lives. They're in the gutter. They have the brown paper bag.
They can't function. They can't do anything. I knew nothing about alcoholism. And I knew nothing about a functioning alcoholic. So I married that one, my second alcoholic that I met in the bar. And he adopted my daughter. And we went on to have another child. And I stayed in the Midwest because I wanted my children to grow up around their grandparents. And so now I have this idyllic life. And everything is in my control and everything the way I want it to be. And you know that didn't last.
As time went on, my husband, his drinking grew and grew and grew. But he's, my husband's Irish. So when he drank, he got better. I don't know how else to say it. He was a happy drunk. And the problem was when he wasn't drinking. So I never, it never entered my mind that he had a problem with alcohol. It's like, no, no, no, no. We just need to go out and we'll talk. And I just thought he was just an asshole, you know, the next day. I mean, it's like, what's wrong with you?
But what happened then is we moved to, we were in St. Louis then. And then we moved to Milwaukee because of my husband's job. And that's when the fun really started. My oldest daughter turned into a teenager. And that's when the problem started with her. And if any of you have ever had a child that has this disease, you understand the turmoil and the pain. I've never lost a child. I have heard that that is the worst pain that you can possibly have. But I think next to that would be having a child that has this disease and not having this program to know how to deal with it.
I never, I couldn't get rid of her. I couldn't get rid of her. And I didn't know what to do. But by God, I was going to fix it. And after many, many times of trying everything, my brother said to me, why don't you try Al-Anon? And I went, Al-Anon? What can they do? Besides that, my daughter was not an alcoholic. She had mental illness, which she does have some type of a mental illness. But I was looking for an answer anywhere but alcoholism.
I thought if we could just get her on the right meds, if she would just get in the right program, if we could just find the right facility for her, if we could just get the right people who would be nice to her and figure all this out, that that's all she needed. I had no clue that I was dealing with something so powerful, so cunning, and so baffling that was just like smoke slipping through my hands. And unless you've been in that kind of a heartbreak, you don't really know. And I don't care who it is in your family that has a disease. I don't know any of you. And I love you all. You're my people.
That's what my husband said. He goes, oh, you're going to be with your people this weekend. And I said, yes, I am. Because we're like foxhole buddies. We've all been there. We know what it's like to be in an impossible situation and not have the solution and have everybody around you tell you what the solution is.
[00:10:15]
Well, while we were in Milwaukee, my daughter really started to become out of control. My brother, I'd tried tough love. I'd done everything. I'd done this. And so I'm like, fine, I'll go to Al-Anon. I went to my first Al-Anon meeting in April of 2005. I was late, of course. I slithered in the back. I was the last one there and the first one to leave. I don't remember what happened. I just remember everybody knew what to do except me. And they all had their dollars out. And they were holding their dollars. And I'm like, what's this? Okay. But they were nice to me and I thought, okay.
But all I remember was for one hour I was at peace. And I didn't have to hide anything. And I could just let my guard down. And I couldn't believe the things that people were sharing. And I couldn't believe they were telling things that I was trying to hide. So I kept going back because really I had nowhere else to go. So I kept going back and I tell people, do not do this. But I went to one meeting a week for one year. And please, you know, that's not, I mean, I can't even believe now this is recorded that I did this.
Shoot. All my sponsees are going to know. Go to meetings. So I went to one meeting. I went to one meeting a year. And because I had serious trust issues. I didn't know who these people were. And I'll tell you something else, too. All of you people there with your smiles on your face and everything's, you know, everything's just great. It's like, yeah, well, if you had my life, I'm just going to sit back here and watch you and let's just see where you are six months from now.
And let's see how this happens. And I was amazed at what I saw. That these people, not only did these people have my problems, these people had worse problems than I did. Some of them did. Which I couldn't believe. Could anybody be worse than my catastrophe? And I got a good sponsor. I was too scared to ask. So she asked me. Thank God. You know, just show up and God will pull you along. And so she asked me. And, you know, God love her, Lynn. You know, she helped me. She was old school. And the older I get and the longer I'm in this program, I'm so grateful for old school. I love old school.
You know, you do this. You wear a dress. You know, all that stuff. And I'm just so grateful to her that she taught me all of that and the importance of this program and the principles of this program. Well, I had been in Al-Anon for two years. Now I'm still sitting in the back. I'm still kind of, I'm not staying real late for a little bit, but I'm making friends with the people in the back row. And I'm finding that these are women who had alcoholic husbands. And I thought, oh, my husband does that. Oh, my husband does that.
So I've, you know, I'm like listening to them thinking, hmm, okay, but I'm here for my daughter, not my husband. You know, drinking, my husband doesn't have a problem. Well, as time went on, it became very apparent to me because I started getting more educated in this disease that my husband did have a problem. And I was, you know, it was, there was that moment where I had to give up that drinking was the solution. He was so nice and so understanding and we had the best talks when he was drinking. And now I have to give, now I'm going to give that up. And it's like, okay.
And it wasn't just something like, oh, gee, he needs to stop drinking. I had, you know, it was me coming to terms with the reality that this man, I married another alcoholic. I did it again. So with the help of my Al-Anon friends and my sponsor, we had to come to Jesus with him and I gave him the number of a rehab and he decided to go. And so then everything's fine, right? No. So he decided to go. He went to a 90-day program. Oh, outpatient, by the way. He's professional, you know. He's not doing inpatient. Okay. He did the 90-day outpatient. And then when he got done, everything was fine. And then he came home and it's like, okay, now it's time to start.
home and it's like, OK, now it's time to start AA. OK. So he goes to AA meetings. Oh,
[00:15:03]
I can't relate to any of these people. I'm not like them. I'm not like these people. And I'm like, and I just, you know, co-signed his bowl, just like Mary Pearl says. Like, oh, really? OK. Oh, that's too bad. Oh, well, then you just need to be around people that understand you. Oh, God, help me. And he finally, he came home from one meeting and he said, if I go back to that meeting, I'm going to start drinking again. You know, and I'm like, OK, OK. So I just, and my sponsor told me, you know, leave him alone for the first year and just concentrate on your program. So that's what I did. And that took me on a whole other ride. And that ride was called Dry Drunk. And he had stopped drinking and he had stopped the medication, but he did not replace it with anything. And so now the fun starts. I knew nothing about Dry Drunk. Nothing, nothing, nothing. And it was amazing to me. I don't know, you know, you learn things when you learn them. You learn things as they as, as, as God brings them to you. I don't know if someone had tried to tell me and I just didn't hear. I don't know. But I, I didn't understand that my husband's behavior was Dry Drunk behavior, which, which was passive aggressive, which was not being able to handle things, which was living in an angry home, which was, could do, you just never knew when you walked in the door what you were going to get. And it was like, gee, this reminds me of my growing up. So now I'm back to my family of origin. I'm like, gee, my dad was like that. Oh, really? Okay. So I start learning. So at this particular time, my husband had gotten lost his job and our kids were out of the house and it's like, okay, I'm going to Arizona. I didn't think he would come with me, but he did. It was his choice. So he came with me and we moved down there and we bought a house and it was, life was good. He wasn't happy, but I was. I found a great group of people. I found a great Ellen on meetings.
I got plugged into people. I got a new sponsor. I got, I was around women who were older than I was physically and also in the program. And they were like mothers to me. And, and I just, I'm like, I just can't, I can't be in this marriage anymore. It's just too crazy. It's just, it's just too much. And so I, what happened was, is my sponsor started teaching me about dry drunks and the behaviors of the alcoholic. Behaviors? What are those? What do you mean behaviors? It's like, I just thought they're, when they're drunk, they're drunk.
And then when they're not drinking, then they're supposed to be okay. It's like, oh no, no, no. There's so many behaviors in this, in this disease that I didn't realize how entangled my life had gotten involved with, with the tentacles of the behaviors of alcoholism. And I just have to stop here just a minute because I, you know, I know part of the story is what was it like, what happened and what it's like now. And I have to tell you a lot of my story, I didn't know what was happening when it did. I was blind. I was walking through this, my program with not all the information that I needed. I was walking through trying to figure things out, which I'm sure is what we all do. But it was like, oh, I'm realizing now what a deficit I had come from. And I realized that I, what I, what I've come to know now is that I believe I grew up in a home that my father was a dry drunk. And it was, I know, I know there's alcoholism in his side of the family. And I know my mother for sure, her father, my, my grandfather was an alcoholic. He was the town drunk according to my mother. I never met him. So I grew up with all of these behaviors of not knowing how to do relationships and not knowing how to do conflict. Conflict resolution, positive, what, what is that? It's knock down, drag out. That's who wins. And I didn't, I didn't know how to do life. I didn't know how to do anything. And I was always in survival mode if I could just survive. And, and I got very tripped up by the drinking or the using the drugs. I didn't, if they weren't using or they weren't drinking, then I thought things
[00:20:02]
were fine. And if I was with my daughter and she wasn't drinking, then it was like, well, I can see her today. It'll be okay today. But then I realized, no, active disease is active whether they're using at that moment or waiting to use that night. But as long as they're not in a recovery program, active disease is, is, it's active. It's very active. And I didn't realize how much of my life here, here am I, I'm not an alcoholic. I did not grow up in a home with any drinking in my life has been so permeated and devastated by this disease because I didn't know how to have relationships. And I didn't know how to have boundaries. And I didn't know how to say no to alcoholism because I, I, I thought I was just being nice or I thought I would look at the person and I didn't realize it was a disease. I'm dealing with the disease, especially when it comes to your children.
My oldest daughter, my oldest daughter, oh, my husband and I split up for a little while while I was in Arizona. And then he decided to go to one AA meeting a week. So we got back together. Oh, Lord, help me. And so, so, so we got back together. But there again, I have to go back to, I didn't, I, I lived with chaos my whole life. I didn't know there was anything other than. I thought, okay, this is, you know, at least I'm living where I, where, where I want to be. My, my oldest daughter, problems with her. She got married.
She'd had a child and oh, Lord, I don't even think we have enough time to get into, I don't even want to get into the drama of that. But the most important thing is what recovery has done for me. I was going to save my grandson. I couldn't save my daughter. Okay, fine, I can't save her, but I am going to save him. And both my husband and I, you know, one way or another, this disease will just reach out and just pull you right back in, in some baffling, cunning, and powerful way. And there were times when I was, I would, you know, she would live with us. His grandson would live with us. We would be involved. And all of these things would be meshed together. And then she would take him and just leave and my heart would be broke again. And it wasn't until I learned, when I came to the point in my recovery where I learned, now this is just for me. I can't have close relationships and really, really good relationships with people who are still active. I can't, I can't be involved with people like that. Because it is, that's what makes me crazy. And I go on that crazy train with them. And that's why, you know, that would be what my biggest problem would be. I would just get sucked in, in the pain. You know, just the pain of always being in turmoil or always trying to fix and always trying to control. I know I could have left my husband and I didn't. And at times I'm like, oh, why didn't I leave? Now I'm glad I didn't. Because he did get into AA. There came a point where it's like, okay, I turned 60 and I had a breakdown. I mean, a real breakdown. I'm like, I'm so old. Oh my gosh, my life is over. And I'm like, I'm not. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this. And I decided I wasn't going to continue to live my life in this kind of a chaos. And that was, we started separating assets and then I told my husband I said, because he had tried AA by the way. Remember, he went to the one meeting a week. So he, and he had already been there.
And he wasn't like them. And he didn't get anything out of it. It's interesting too, the other thing I learned was, he said, well, I don't have that desire to drink. I haven't been drinking for a long time. So I don't have that desire to drink anymore. So I can't relate to any of these people. And I said to him, I said, you know, I've never met anybody whose life wasn't completely changed who did a 90 and 90. Never. I've never seen anybody who wasn't completely transformed. And I said, so, you know, maybe give it a try. I couldn't believe it. He did it. I think he did it just to spite me, just to show me it wouldn't work. You know, just to say, here, I told you. And he started going. So the first month, okay, the first 30 meetings, nothing. Same guy. Okay. Okay. Now we're in the second month.
[00:25:03]
Okay? We're in the second month and now it's like, eh, there's a little bit of a crack in the armor and I'm like, oh my gosh. It wasn't until the third month that he finally got it. It was in the third month that he continually went to meetings and he started to hear that this disease is not just about the drinking, but it's about the thinking. And it's about the way that they think. And it's about the crazy thinking that they have.
And just like how we all know each other so well and we're, you know, we know crazy Al-Anon's control, you know, color-coded, organize everything. And, yes. And it's like, it's the thinking. And he started, the old timers, you know, when you start going to meetings, the people who have been around a while will start to notice you. And they'll start to reach out to you and say, oh, I see you're going to a lot more meetings. And so the long timers in AA would start to reach out to him. And then they would have good shares and they would be able to talk to him something more in depth than what he thought AA was.
This program is such a gift that you unwrap. And the way you have to open it up and unwrap it and look what's inside. You can't just go, oh, that's it? Well, that's not enough for me. And that's what he had done. He got a new sponsor who I absolutely loved who just kicked his butt. I didn't do it, his sponsor did. And the man changed. And this just happened in the last three years. I mean, he completely changed. And all the times I was sitting out there, just like you are now, and I said, if one more person says to me, just wait until the miracle happens, I thought, no. I'm sick of it. Well, you never know.
And I'm not suggesting, I am not advocating to put up with unacceptable behavior. And I'm not advocating to put up with abusive behavior. I had set some boundaries. I didn't do it perfectly. But I did set some pretty strong boundaries of how I was going to be able to live with that. I had no idea. I think it was when I gave up trying to think that my life would be better if. My life would be better if. If he went to AA, if she went to AA, if they all did what I wanted them to do because I found the way, just listen to me, then everything would be better. And how many times does that not work? Like, every time. And when I finally gave that up, and it's like, my life will be better when I get better. And I know that sounds cliche, and that sounds like, but I'm telling you, I hung around some old-time Al-Anons, and they would say, what's your part? What's your part? And I'm like, what about his part? And they'd be like, what's your part? And I'm like, it's very difficult for me to look at my part when, to me, their part was worse. Well, it is. Their part was worse than my part. But my part was just as damaging because it kept the balls in the air. It kept the balls in the air. My part was allowing it. My part was being silent. My part was not speaking up. My part was not doing things differently.
My part was letting the disease control me. That was my part. My part was victim. I'm a great victim. Look at what these people around me do. And I finally, when I came to the end of the road, and it's like, I realized, if I really want to get well, I have to look at myself. And that's not an easy thing to do. And that took me years to get there. Years. It wasn't the first four step, let me tell you that. It took years to take these layers off of me to say, okay, what is going on here? To look at my family of origin. To look at how this disease has affected me. And how this disease has affected my relationships.
And how this disease has affected my family. Here's what I have now. It's not perfect. My husband is in recovery. He's in, with both feet, in recovery. My youngest daughter is just celebrating four years in Illinois. And I had nothing to do with that. She lives in California and I learned from my sponsor
[00:30:02]
to stop asking questions and stay out of it. And she finally, she went. And I said, what cost you to go? She said, I couldn't take the pain anymore. And I'm like, well, that's what I went to. That's exactly what I went. And, you know, she, she's in Al-Anon and she's in recovery and she has a great sponsor and a great program. My oldest daughter still is not in recovery. There's always hope because she's alive. And I'm very grateful that she's still alive. And I know that, and I tell this to newcomers all the time, my life is so much better. My family is so much better because I got into recovery. Nothing changed. This has been a 17-year ride. But I got better. And I took one step and I did one thing at a time. And I see that the theme is one day at a time. And it's like, that's what I did.
I did this one step at a time. But I want it now. I want it all now. It's like, no, I needed something I could believe in and something I could trust. I'd spent my whole life building sandcastles and having them crash to the ground. And when I came in here, I realized this is real. These people are real. And this is something that I want. So I'm going to do whatever it takes to get what they have because these people are peaceful.
And I'm not peaceful. And these people are sane and I'm not sane. And that's what I did. And that's when I started. That's when it was like, it's okay. It's my part. Now I'll come. So these are all of the wonderful gifts of the program that are given to me. Another thing that I wanted to say that has gotten me to where I am today that I learned from my sponsor was staying in today. Life happens. It just does. COVID happened. Everything happens. And it's staying in today. Staying in today. Staying in the moment. And I learned the importance of you can't live unless you stay in today. And you can't live unless you stay in the moment. And I realized that I can't go backwards and think about all the things I did wrong. I can't go forward and worry about all the things that could go wrong because God's not there. And he's not behind me. He's right here. Do you know how many times I wanted to rehearse being up here and say everything perfectly to you? And I'm like, no Susan, that's not going to happen. No, no, no. You don't know. You stay in the moment.
That's probably one of the most powerful lessons I've learned in this program that's helped to really balance me and center me as my life is in a difficult period right now. My daughter went and had two more children and she left them. And these two little boys are on their own with their father who we love dearly. And they live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And the father also has two autistic boys that are teenagers. And he has his hands full.
And we knew we needed to get back to Milwaukee. I needed to leave Scottsdale. I needed to leave my dream. I needed to get back there, not to be their savior, but to do what I could do and to help. I couldn't live with myself because I could see the path that these kids were on. They were going to juvie. They were not doing well at all. And they needed a woman and they just needed help. They needed support. I felt strong enough in my program that I'm not their savior. So with God, we sold our home in Scottsdale. And I was telling him at dinner tonight, I mean, it's just so crazy down there, you guys. You just wouldn't believe it. I mean, it might be crazy here too. I don't know. But everybody wants to move to Scottsdale.
Everybody wants to move to Arizona. And people will call us all the time. Oh, we'll give you this for your house. And we're like, what? You know? And you go, oh, wait, you haven't even seen it. It's like, you're, it's just, it's wild. So we did. We finally got an offer that was, so my husband would say these outrageous things and then they would go, they would say yes or they would, you know, they would counter or they would go away. And finally one of them said yes. And I'm like, what? Oh, my gosh, it's a scam. You know? It's a scam. And I'm like, wait a minute. How can it be a scam? You're not giving them any money.
They're giving you money. I'm like, oh, no. Nobody does this. So this just happened in May of this year. So in one month's time it was, it was pack up the house and move to Wisconsin, which we did. Spent six weeks in a hotel. I don't know how we did. We're
[00:35:04]
still married. Still married. Six weeks in a hotel and in with this, these crazy kids. You know? It's, these kids were wild. They just, they didn't know boundaries. They don't know anything. They're just, they're like, I tell people, they're like uncivilized heathens. I mean, I don't know how else to say it. You know? These kids are out of control. And it's like, God, what did you get us into? But after six weeks we did find a place. We found a place that we really liked. We found a place to live that was brand new. And we moved there.
And so now I went, I don't have a permanent residence in Scottsdale, just a temporary one. And now I'm in, I was in Scottsdale and now I'm in Slinger. Slinger, Wisconsin. And my life has turned upside down. My meetings, I'm in a place now where everything is new. All the meetings are new. Everything is new. Even though I lived there before, I lived in a different area of the Milwaukee area. And I was telling Beth, I said, I had such good program when you called me and asked me to do this. I had everything. You know, yes. You know, Miss Al-Anon. Oh, God. I am not Miss Al-Anon. God has a sense of humor.
And I was thinking, you know, just coming here and coming here today. And I thought, you know what? What am I going to say? I'm going to say I don't have it all together and my life is messy right now. And my daughter told me, she said, you know, I always get more out of people that get up there and are real. And say what it's really like. Instead of scaring a newcomer off and saying, you've been here 17 years and what? It's like, no.
My life is really messy right now. Alcoholism has affected my grandchildren. Alcoholism is a thread that runs through the family. And I'm not doing, I'm doing God's will now, not my will. And one step at a time, I'm following and doing. And then I ended up here. And I thought, oh boy, what do I have to say? I haven't been up on my meetings. I haven't been working. I haven't been deeply working except for recently or anything like that.
But what I have is this. This program has taught me how to get out of the muck and how to get out of the pain and live a life without that kind of pain anymore. And I didn't know that was possible. I didn't know. I thought it was always going to be like this. And when I, I can't tell you when it happened, but it did happen. Because I went to meetings and I cut everything else out in my life and I worked at it. And I went to meetings and I went to meetings and I worked the steps and I worked with my sponsor. And all of a sudden I changed. And these things that used to pull on me and the things that used to break my heart don't do that anymore. And the things that used to, I have control of my life now. And I still have, my oldest daughter and I, we still do have a good, we have a, I was going to say we have a good relationship. It's a surfacy relationship. But it's cordial and it's doable. And I can do life now because of this program. This program has given me tools to do life. And life is hard. Life is hard. And my life is hard right now, but it's also very rewarding. These children are changing. Things are changing. They are getting better.
Grandma, I love you. Grandma, you know, things, all of the different things that, you know, that God does and brings us to. And I just, you know, I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart how grateful I am to be here because this facility, even though I've been lost several times, where's Sarah? Thank you. She's my personal aide. I'm going all around. But thriving here today and coming down here and meeting people that I don't know, but I do know you. And I do love you. And you've been so kind to me. And it's so beautiful.
Your leaves have turned more than ours have. So it's just stunning here right now. And I'm really, I don't know, I'm probably forgetting something, but that's all right. I'll be here all weekend. You can hear me then. For those of you who have been here, what was the 40 years and the 30 years, I'm so grateful you kept coming back. I'm so grateful you're still
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here, that you're with us and that you're there to show us the way and realize how important it is to keep coming back. And those of you that are new, you have no idea. Your life has just changed. And just because it hasn't changed today and it hasn't changed tomorrow, as long as you keep coming back, your life will change. And this program of change is whether you live in Arizona, whether you live in Wisconsin, or whether you live in Ohio.
It's the beauty of this program and the beauty of the fellowship that we have together and the connectiveness that we have. Because it's being connected like we are, is what heals us. And we all need healing. And we all need healing from this disease. And we need someone who understands without having to explain everything. I don't even know how long I've talked. Do I even have a… Okay. I think I've said all I need to say for tonight. Thank you so much for being so kind to me and smiling.