Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- Al-Anon Speaker — North Texas Roundup Dallas
- Speaker
- Tom B
- Date
- 2015-08-16
Transcript
Source: Tom B – Al-Anon Speaker – North Texas Roundup Dallas – 2015-08-16.mp3 File: tom-b-al-anon-speaker-north-texas-roundup-dallas-2015-08-16.mp3 Duration: 00:54:25
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My name is Tom Barczak, very grateful member of Al-Anon. I've been in this program since June 15th of '93, and for that time, I'm extremely grateful. I came in this program—well, first of all, thank you for having me, most of all. I was, with the exception of you, Valerie, I've gotten to listen several times to all the speakers we have this weekend, and I've just grown up in recovery with all of you.
Usually I get weepy at the end of my talk. I'm going to get out of the way now, I hope. So it really feels like home here. Thank you to the—I've got some guys I sponsor that came up. I appreciate you all taking some of your time and effort to come up here. I came here at the strong suggestion of others. I was not the first place I wanted to be in Al-Anon, and, you know, what was shared last night, you know, this is—and, you know, you kind of get this place like, Well, here I am, you know.
And it wasn't first on my list, and I was dating a girl who had been in AA and went back out and was just coming back in, and I kind of followed her through the door. And it was—there's something that happened to me my first meeting, and I could feel my shoulders come down. I don't remember what my date—somewhat arbitrary. I think a lot of Al-Anon, at least with the men that I sponsor, very few of us remember the day we came in.
And so I just kind of had to go back and pick a date, but I remember what it felt like. I remember my shoulders came down a little bit. And, and it was a room full of people, blue-haired old ladies I had nothing in common with. And I don't even remember what was said, but I remember something touched my heart. And you said, Keep coming back, and I kept coming back, and it's been an incredible journey ever since.
I grew up, you know, I'm from Oklahoma. I grew up in Oklahoma City, youngest of four kids, to just a normal, normal middle-class household. No active alcoholism that I was aware of. It's in my family tree, but, you know, I just, I remember growing up, and Bob shared it wonderfully. The funny thing about it is every one of the AA speakers, and I think it'll be the same with you, Valerie, is, you know, I relate, with the exception I don't have that allergy to alcohol.
But the mental part, the feeling different, the, you know, I was happiest when I was by myself, pretending I was someone else, someplace else. And that happened all the way into adulthood. And Al-Anon, what it's done is allows me to live in the reality of my life today. But, you know, I grew up just feeling different, didn't look like you felt, or didn't, you know, feel like you looked, and just, just didn't, just spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning constantly. And I remember just leaving these depressing notes for my mom to pick up, you know, so she could understand what I was feeling, and she didn't get it.
I think she just kind of tossed them and didn't know what to do with them. I knew I was loved. I grew up, we were loved and hugged and had everything I needed. But it just was never enough. And Bob talked about last night, you know, you just can't love me enough. And it just goes in and out, in and out. And so anyways, I grew up that way. And I remember when, in high school, I saw everybody in one of two groups. There were those who were the popular kids who dated all the girls or girls who dated all the guys.
And they didn't necessarily do so well in school, but they had the party life and they were popular. And then there were the kids that did real well in school and had no life. And I was the worst of both. I had like a 1.5 grade point average and no friends. I had a few I took prisoner, and that was about it. And that was the best I could do because I could never be where my feet were. I'd be in class just staring off into space and just that daydream land.
And it works good for my writing I do now, but at the time it was very counterproductive. And anyway, so I did that. Something happened the summer before my senior year, and I was just—high school was not fun until the summer before my senior year.
[00:05:00]
And I heard a voice in my head that said, You need to do something different. And I went back to school that summer and I started dating, made a 4.0. I don't know that I did anything different except God allowed me to be where my feet were. And I excelled at everything I touched that senior year. And it wasn't enough. And I got into college and I had scholarships, and somehow I went from that to that. And I'm still chasing this, you know, you all look like you got together and you're going to figure me out because I'm just spinning on the inside and I'm dying on the inside. And I started hanging out—I started in high school, but I started hanging out with these people who…
They looked like I felt on the inside. And they went out of their way, and I began—we went out of our way, and for some reason that made everything okay for a while. You know, when we're all wearing, you know, black eyeliner and spiked hair and all black and big crucifix, we were these goth kids, and I felt okay. It's kind of like going to sleep with really loud music. It kind of balances it out. I think it's true for alcoholism.
You've got to have something going on. You can't sit still in a quiet room because you're just not okay with who you are. And we were all like that, and it ran that. But what happened to me as I got into college and as I started growing up, it was never enough. And so I remember consciously—and I grew up with principles, I grew up with values. I was given everything I needed to have a happy, prosperous, joyous life.
But when you got this God-sized hole, I didn't know what it was then, and I'm sitting trying to stuff it with people, places, and things, and it's not working. Something said, Well, this is the thing that's holding me back. It's this principle, it's this value, it's this moral, it's this. And I remember just going down the list and saying, John, this has got to be the thing, because you're not doing—I mean, you're getting away with this, and you seem pretty darn happy, and I want what you have.
And so I started just giving this stuff up one thing at a time, and giving away everything I'd been given. And, you know, gradually things got worse, and gradually things got worse until I found myself—I graduated from college. I got a bachelor's in fine arts, and I got my degree, but I got to a point before I came to the program, I was living in an apartment that stunk so bad that the neighbors called the landlord because you could smell it through the wall.
I was living like a drunk. I did drink on occasion. I think I kept a bottle of vodka in my freezer I'd touch every once in a while, along with a pack of cigarettes I'd touch every once in a while, you know. But, you know, it wasn't alcohol that got me there. I had a realization over the last couple of years that she's my vodka. I get a sense of ease and comfort from the effects produced by her acting right and doing everything I think she ought to be and do.
And I will go to the gates of insanity and death to try and recreate that experience, no matter who it will hurt, no matter who gets in the way, because all I want to do is feel okay. And that's my disease. And I was wired that way long before I ever met an alcoholic. I don't have a qualifier. But the woman that I did meet, that I did follow in the doors in here, you know, I was living in this apartment, and it was right before Halloween, and she was getting her costume ready, and she was Catwoman.
So she had this black bodysuit on, this long black prehensile tail, and she's spray painting a leather whip out on the sidewalk, and she had my attention, because I was into that. But what had my attention was she didn't put paper down on the sidewalk. And, you know, I can go to a bank today and I can straighten up all the cards on the countertop just right, but ask me to do that at my desk in my own office, and it's a different story.
But, you know, I live in an apartment that stinks of rot, and I'm worried about what the sidewalk out on the city street. And so I went out and told her what I thought about her painting on the sidewalk, and we started dating. And it was the most, you know, I'd never had any experience like that. I'd never— it turns out I chased a lot of alcoholics, but I never really knew what one was. I just— and, but there was something about this one, something about Kayla that I just— it was intense in both extremes, and it was fire and gasoline, and we were, you know, madly passionate, and then we'd
[00:10:03]
fight like cats and dogs and make up, and it was, I mean, just from day one it was like that. And I couldn't— I'd never met anyone like that. I'd never been in anything like that before. And even from the very beginning, I couldn't stay and I couldn't go. And what happened, though, is I began one more time, even to a greater— I began to say and do things I swore I would never say and do. I'd already given up all this other stuff, mind you, when I got to this point.
I was primed and ready. I had no solution in my life. I'm sponsoring a guy now, a young man who was born the day— within a couple days of when I came in the program. And I'm thinking of myself at that age, and I'm just like, you know— and he does his best, but, you know, he's— I'm just like— but I make myself remember where I was at when I was that age with no solution. So, I mean, I'm like, I'm in awe of the fact that he's going to meetings and he has a program and he practices it to the best of his ability.
I'm just like, God bless you, please, you know. You can do this or you can do what I did. I'd strongly suggest you do this. You know, it gets much better. But anyways, we were off and running. I began to say and do things I swore I'd never say and do. And I just, you know, I remember standing on the front porch. We'd been dating a few months, and she, we get in a fight, and she's peeling out of the driveway, spraying gravel. And I'm on my front porch, butt naked.
This is on Boyd Street in Norman. It's where Andrew lived there. A guy I sponsor lived there later, turns out. But I'm on the porch just, you know, saying, F you. Just, how do you get there? I had no idea. And then we'd make up and we'd do it all over again. And, you know, I'm not responsible for anyone's alcoholism or sobriety, but I found I can make you thirsty. When we first started dating, she was in recovery.
She was in AA. And we were neighbors is how we met, and she was in AA. And then we started, you know, dating and, you know, just doing what we do. And I had an art show. We'd been dating two or three months, and I had an art show. And I got to write up in the paper about it. I got my degree. I did all these paintings, and it was at the OU College of Art. And the article in the paper was, Artist Wrestles with Demons was the title.
It was awesome. And anyway, so I had this show, and it was with this other guy too. And he had his half the gallery, and I had half the gallery. And so I was in this performance art piece with his part, and we were—it was three guys and three girls. All we wore were G-strings, and we were painted blue head to toe. And we were trees, and we were dancing and doing these awesome positions. And there was a box of wine right there, and she had come, and, you know, I think that would make you thirsty.
But that was my norm. That was my normal. And I didn't think that much of it when she went back out, you know, because everything I heard about Alcoholics Anonymous was, My sponsor this, you know, and it's like, why are you letting them control you like that? Be your own person. And so it was not that big a deal until two or three months later. And I never saw the worst of her alcoholism then. Saw it later, but I never saw it then. You know, I would see one beer, and she drank five in the car, and so she hid it.
But we were coming back from—we went to see my parents, took her to see Mom and Dad, drove out to Arizona, and she was wearing a shirt of mine. But I got to be honest there, it was my shirt, but she was wearing this lime green miniskirt and this T-shirt. It said, this band called Hate Party, and it said, Hate Party sucks. And, Hey, Mom, this is my girlfriend. And, you know, we just make good impressions, and I was no better. I was no different.
But we were coming back from that trip, and we'd stopped in Santa Fe, and I thought she'd had a little drink, but she'd had a lot to drink. And she's just—we're driving back, and she's just screaming at me. We're getting in one of those fights again. And she's driving, she's behind the wheel, she's raging, she's screaming at me. She's raging. She's screaming at me.
[00:15:00]
And the best idea I had, the best solution at my disposal, was I wish it would just all go away. Off a cliff. Didn't like say I wanted to. I wasn't willing to grab the wheel and turn us off the cliff, but I would have been okay. Never occurred to me to drive. To, you know, never occurred to me to get in the car first, or I just was powerless. I was powerless over the effects produced by alcohol in another person and in me.
And I, you know, gradually things got worse. And what happened was very quickly all my friends, all the relationships that I had had, and just within a few months, I'd given up one more thing that was holding me back until I had nobody. I had her, and that was it. I painted myself in a little box. So when she walked into recovery, I started meeting some of her AA friends. And I burned out all mine talking about her, because I could not carry on a conversation with you without talking about my girlfriend.
It was not possible. And Bob talked about that starfish. I had that starfish on my face, and that's all I could see. And so I started burning them out. They were like, you know, you might want to try Al-Anon. And it'll help you figure her out. And to me, and looking back, it's like what I heard was, okay, if I figure her out, then only I can manage better, and then, you know, and everything would be okay. And so I did.
I came into Al-Anon, because I really didn't have any choices. I had no choice. I had nothing left. It was that or just do more, and the unbearable had just become too unbearable. And so I came in the door full of a room of people I had nothing in common with, and sat there and felt my shoulders come down for just a little bit. And I started building heartstrings. And I started to, you know, just hear little things. I don't remember whether I went to one meeting or ten meetings a week back then, but I know I went until I started coming to meetings.
And it was that one hour I felt okay, and I would go back to the insanity of my life. But I started looking forward to that one hour when I could just sit. And I couldn't talk to you without just, you know, and I was just—I saw a picture of myself with, like, in my first year from Canyon, Canyon Conference, and man, I looked rough. And, but, you know, it just—I don't want to forget where I come from. You know, when I got in the program, I love watching newcomers walk in who just jump right in the middle, and they're just surrounded, the light comes on in their eyes, and that was not my experience.
You know, I came in and I think I just kind of circled. But what happened is I got, for some reason, I got to stay. I got to stay, and that circle started getting tighter and tighter and tighter. And, you know, it's—and, you know, I just—what happens, I went from that one hour a week where I could just sit to I began to take stuff home. I began to say O instead of F-U, and I began to apply these principles in my affairs, and it started getting a little bit better.
You know, the chemistry, we still fought a lot. My girlfriend and I, Kayla and I, we still fought a lot, but there was still some recovery there, and it did, it got better. And we were dating, and she kept wanting to get married. And I was like, you know, maybe after we quit fighting so much, I think that might be an okay idea. But, you know, it's not before then. And I went, and we actually split up for a while, and I went overseas.
I went to spend a semester in England studying architecture. At this point, I'd gone back to school again. I was studying architecture, and I was overseas, and I was talking to my sponsor, Joe W., and, you know, Kayla and I started talking again, and he said, you know, she's too good a woman for you to be messing around with. And he used different words. He's like, either marry her or leave her alone. But don't just do this back and forth. She deserves better than that, and so do you.
And I came back, and it was the first anniversary of the Tulsa Going to Any Lengths group in Oklahoma, and it was one of those times after the meeting where you're sitting with the old-timers and they're sharing, and it was Albert and Sally M. And Albert shared that, he said, this is something that's just very profound. He said, the quality of my relationship with another human being doesn't have anything to do with them. It has to do with me and my relationship with God.
[00:20:03]
It is one of those things that's either true or it's not. And it just grabbed me by the heart, and I bought an engagement ring on the way back from Tulsa and proposed to her a couple days later, and— We, you know, we had a, we had an, you know, we got married, we had an AA wedding, and we were still nuts. But, you know, it was, you know, as amazing as I look back, how many things you see in 2020 you didn't see then.
But, you know, we did our best. And, but the next thing that came up, she wanted to have kids. And I was like, Well, that sounds great. Let's have kids after we quit fighting all the time. And so, you know, the thought of it just, I was like, No, I do not want, I just didn't want to do it. And then one day she shows up at my work with a little blue bag. And it's one of those moments where a day before it would not have been okay.
It was okay. And we had our little girl, Olivia, and gradually things got better. And one thing, I fell in love with being a dad. I mean, literally the thought of little kids. I remember it was like a month before we were at a friend's house, and, you know, they got the little scab on their belly button, and I had to go out and chain smoke after I saw it because it just horrified me. And here I am falling in love with just being a dad and, you know, rocking her to sleep and just doing all this stuff.
I loved every bit of it, every bit of it, ate it up. And, you know, just cruising right along, and I was sponsoring, by this point I'd been in the program, you know, six, seven, eight years. And I'm sponsoring guys, and I'm getting active. I'm real active in the area and our service structure in Al-Anon up in Oklahoma, and I'm sponsoring Alateen and just, you know. Life is good. I'm down in Lawton at a Big Book study, and I get a call. I just been there like 30 minutes, and I got a call from my neighbor that my daughter was going into febrile seizures, and borrowed Sponti's car, raced back, and my wife had been walking down the hall.
She just laid Olivia down for a nap. She was two and a half, and had just laid her down for a nap and just kind of felt a nudge and went in and checked on her, and that's when she found her. And she called 911 and did everything she was supposed to do. And so Olivia was being taken care of. And what happened was, I mean, she had been fine, and she just shot up to like 107 fever just out of nothing and never came out of it.
And we were just didn't know what to do, and she was just unconscious the whole time. And I get there, my sponsor comes. We're just surrounded and taken care of. I remember, there's some moments in my life I just I'll never forget, and this was one of them, where I was standing in this vestibule, went out to smoke, and I was at this vestibule and was taking a breather, and I realized I had two choices. I had God and I had insanity and death.
And I personally, opinion of an Al-Anon of my type, that's true number. If I'm buying peanut butter sometimes, it's a big deal to choose between those two things. In this case, it was very clear. I had two choices. And it's amazing how appealing insanity and death can be. And my daughter was still alive, but I knew what was going to happen. And I remember my sponsor came up and was up that weekend.
He said, Everything I've done in the last nine years is allowing me to do this. And for whatever reason, for lack of a better term, call it the grace of God, I got to make that choice. Not everybody gets to. That moment, that time, I got to. And, you know, Steve, my sponsor, Steve talks a lot about preparation and opportunity. And it was this preparation over the last nine years, you know, just for life.
But if I hadn't, I don't think I would have been able to make that choice. And so I started looking for God. I started looking for God all over the place, in the hospital and everything. And I remember my talking to my sponsor, him telling me nothing had changed. She was still my daughter. I was still her father. I was still my wife's husband.
[00:25:02]
She was still my wife. I still sponsored the men that I sponsored. And I just did the next right thing. And I got to do just the next right thing. I got to just sit there and hold my daughter's hand. I got to let people take care of me. I got to, you know, listen to the stuff going on in the guys I sponsored's life, because it kept me from thinking about me. And thank God, you know, I got to. You know, my daughter lived about two days and passed away, and we got to stand there with her. My parents got there just in time from Arizona, and so they got to be there, and we all got to be there together.
And I kept looking for God through all this thing: the nurses, the doctors. Still had no idea why she died. And I remember we had found out we had, like, people on five continents praying for my daughter, like 400 people at her funeral. I began to hear stories of sobriety, of Al-Anon recovery, that my little girl, for some reason, had a connection with them, two and a half. You know, and just, I got to let God take care of me, and I just felt Him everywhere through that whole thing.
I remember even got the giggles at her funeral because there was a psalm played. We started laughing, and just got to do the next right thing. And I've got a picture on my wallet. I'd be happy to show anyone who wants to see it, but the moment right before my daughter laid down for a nap, she had grabbed a camera and said, Mama, take a picture of me. Happiest can be. Beautiful, happy girl. I don't think she ever felt a thing.
You know, we were just taking care of her. She was taken care of. So anyways, through that time, my sponsor, who had just gotten a job, started a week before, he came and stayed with me for a week, stayed with us for a week, and just, oh, thank you. You know, and his boss let him, and he got to. I mean, how do you repay that? If you ever want to be transparent with your sponsor, have them live with you for a week. And, you know, it was okay.
It was okay. And, I mean, our finances were just abysmal. Always had been, but it was just a wreck. And, you know, it was okay. But the thing, the point of all that is I remember as afterwards, as we started picking up the pieces and started to just do the next day and the next day and the next day, I went from, with my sponsor, from having constant contact to calling every day, and then pretty soon it was every other day.
Within a month or so, within a month or so or two, probably a month, I was back to my—I almost made my call time. Been very diligent about that. It's part of my recovery, part of my structure, and going back to that call time once a week, and I caught myself starting to censor. I caught myself starting to hold things back, not out of any malintent, but just, this isn't that important. But the thing was, I caught myself doing it because it was such a drastic difference between our relationship then and just within a few weeks and within a month.
And I remember talking to him about it, and we made some changes. This one is when I started, I call my sponsor at least twice a week, a couple times a week. Now I do a lot of other things too, but even if I don't catch him. And with, I don't catch him a lot now with what he has going on. But the fact of me picking up the phone, the fact of me is a surrender. It's a way of, because I love Bob's talk last night. It just, it just doesn't take long for my brain to get going.
And I need that constant pressure around me, that constant structure that makes me feel safe. My actions may be the same either way, but I feel safer with that. And that's one, and there's just been a lot of things like that over the years that, you know, I just… You know, I just, I don't know which one of them work, which one of them don't, but, you know, they all give me a structure which allow me to have a
[00:30:04]
relationship with God today. I could go all the meetings I want. I could go to every conference. I could call my sponsor 20 times a day, and I could still have no relationship with God. What these things allow me to do, what Steve's taught me, is they allow me the opportunity to have a relationship with God. But at some point, I've got to take responsibility for that. At some point, I've got to stand alone with God and be okay, and stand naked in front of Him, and be okay with who I am.
It's a six-step and seven-step thing. And when I get to do that, I get to stand naked, you know, with my sponsor. I get to, you know, be okay with who I am with another human being. You know, and then I get to do that with all of you. And then when I'm done, you get to zip me back up. And that's just an amazing thing to me, because I'm not capable of having that. I'm not capable of manufacturing. I'm not capable of managing that.
You know, after, it talks about in the Big Book, gradually things got worse after that. You know, it was just backwards and forwards, and things coming out sideways. I had my wife's sponsor's number on speed dial, and one time I just handed her the phone. I called her sponsor and handed her the phone. And I had permission to do that. But it was just, you know, things come out sideways, and there's some conversation we didn't need to have. But what happened was…
Nine months later, found out she was—we were going to have a baby. And we had a little boy, Nicholas. And I was just overwhelmed. You know, I didn't know if I'd get a chance to do that again. You know, another one of those moments I remember standing there. I was talking to my sponsor. I was tired. I'd been up all night before rocking the baby, staying up with him, and he not feeling good, and just a little bit, just a little bit kind of whiny.
And I remember my sponsor said something to me. He said, That's a privilege I don't have anymore. And he was talking about his kids are all grown up. But the thing that floored me, and I don't know if this is what he meant or not, but it's what I heard. Just a few months before, I could have just easily never had that privilege again. And here I am complaining because I'm tired, because of the privilege of rocking my son to sleep and how quickly I could forget. And I remember, you know, it's one thing to think, it's another thing to do it. I remember for the next three weeks, I'm rocking the kid, like, It's a privilege, it's a privilege, it's a privilege, it's a privilege.
And I have to use the tools. It's not a—just because I had the idea means nothing. And every year and a half, we had two more boys after that. I have three sons today, Nicholas, Maxwell, and Julian, and they're the light of my life. And they're six, eight, and ten now. Youngest one's fixing to be seven. And, you know. Several things happened after my last child was born. The biggest thing was my wife had always had back problems and had, you know, just dealt with it.
Through a series of doctor visits, found out afterwards that her spine was actually kind of collapsing, like rapidly. And she had to have a 10-level fusion on her spine and, you know, went through, did all the minor procedures. It just got to a place where that's what happened to them. And what should have been, you know, really a three-month, six-month surgery and recovery became a two-year or three-year ordeal because the surgery got botched twice, and it was just, it was bad.
And MRSA and everything else and re-dos, and you can imagine. And we were just doing it, and the whole time, you know, you can't do those things and not be on the opiates that they prescribe. But something happened with her, and, you know, it's a bad combination: alcoholism and prescription pain meds. We all know stories, and she never came out of it. And it just got bad. It got real bad. And I remember at some point, it just was so constant, I
[00:35:04]
started calling Vinoi every day and just checking in with her and just still just trying to walk through this and trying to practice these spiritual principles in my affairs at home. Be the best husband I can be. There's a lot of other things that were going on too, financially and everything else that were just—I had to quit blaming my wife for stuff. I had to take responsibility for some things. And in my house, you know, and taking responsibility for those things meant quit participating in some of these things. And I couldn't do peace at any price anymore.
I had to take some responsibility for some of this stuff. And so I actually joined a program called Debtors Anonymous at that time, and I started trying to—money was an area I'd never allowed God into. Didn't know I didn't, but it was a pretty common thing with people like us. But for me, I just, I couldn't. It was at a point with all this going on still, and I was two months behind on the mortgage.
I didn't know I was going to pay this month, and it was Christmas, and it was just, it was a bad deal. And I reached out for help, and I got it. And so I began applying—and when I began applying these principles at home, it actually, it didn't make it better. It made it worse. It made it harder because she wasn't willing to do some of these things. And between that and the opiates, and she would just—it was raging, and it was not so much physical violence, but emotional and intimidation, a lot of that going on in my home. And it was never at the kids.
It was always at me. And I remember, and this was after, I remember looking back and I caught myself saying, Well, she only hits me when he's drunk. And I was doing the same thing, and I didn't even know it. And I tried moving out for four months after talking with marriage counselor, with Vinoy, with Steve, and just to take the heat off. Maybe if the— because it wasn't, I thought the kids were okay with her.
I never saw any drinking or drugging or anything like that. It was just the other stuff I just mentioned. And so I tried that for four months. I went home every night and tucked my kids in bed. It was about a mile away, and just to make some space. And it seemed to be getting better. After about four or five months, I came back home. At this point, I exhausted all of our savings, any sort of extras we had, prudent reserve or anything like that, and went back home.
And I just, I didn't want to go. I didn't want to go in debt. I was about three years of sobriety in DA, and it really, it seemed to be getting better at my home. And went back, and it just got bad again real quick. And I began finding drugs around my house. I began to find all kinds of stuff that were just absolutely unacceptable. As I was talking, I had this conversation this morning and last night, I remember, I think it's important. There's a part of me that just wants to believe.
I remember coming home from an Al-Anon meeting, and Kayla was walking in. My wife was walking in from the backyard, supposed to have been watching my kids, and she's got something, you know, a little hand behind her back. What's behind your back? And it's a little pot pipe. And I'm like, man, you know, and she goes, It's not mine. It must be my brother's. Of course. Well, that made perfect sense because, you know, her brother's worse than her.
I was like, but it's still hot. Well, it's been there all summer, you know. And she could have said, This guy was purple. And no matter how much recovery I have, no matter how good my relationship with God is, there's a part of me that will always be thirsty for that. No different than an alcoholic hanging out in a bar on a daily basis. I can't live with active alcoholism and not be affected by it.
I remember, and I can't speak for her, but I remember Vinoy and I having a conversation about, you know, making some suggestions, just kind of planning out the, as she gets out of it, you know, there's some place she can get help because it's going to be hard, and her saying, I can handle it. You know, I think that was—she was gone from day one, the moment she thought she could manage it. And same for me.
I can't live in that and not be affected by it. It will affect my judgment. I remember talking to her pain doctor. It took a year and a half for him to admit that, okay, this might affect your judgment and your decision-making skills to her. And, you know, I can't live with active alcoholism and not be affected by it.
[00:40:00]
It's just not possible. A guy like me. So, you know, we gathered the facts, we avoid controversy, and we let it unfold. I did not want to get a divorce. I did not want to leave my wife. I did not want to break up my family, the last thing in the world I wanted to do. And I'm talking to Vinoy every day. I'm talking to Steve every day. And what happened, long story short, it got to a place where I had exhausted my spiritual toolkit. And I knew in my gut that if I didn't do something different, I was going to start picking up the unspiritual kits, unspiritual tools.
And I didn't want to be the guy who cheated on his wife. I didn't want to be the guy who beat his wife. I didn't want to be the guy who hit his kid, because it comes out sideways. Because at some point, it just would have been too much, because I can't live with that and not be affected. And I knew that, and that's when I knew I had to go. And I filed for divorce. I mean, the last day I'd come home and I found this just big bag of weed sitting on the bathroom counter right where my kids could get it.
And I called the attorney, and I'd already had the paperwork. I just was still waiting to pull the trigger, and I was like, Let's do this. It took four months for us to get to court, and when we finally got to court, she had been to treatment and was looking good and smelling good, and I lost everything. I lost my house. I lost my kids, because she was a stay-at-home mom, and now she was sober. And so suddenly I'm paying for two households for a period of like nine months.
And I gave up my solvency, and I think it's important because it wasn't. And I talked to my sponsor and DA about it, but I did that to protect my kids. And I remember being so upset about how it just turned around on me. And I know now, looking back, it's exactly the way it had to be. And, you know, I just got to do the next right thing. I didn't like it. I remember talking to Vinoy, and I was telling her, It's about time you got angry about this. And then I got to the point where I had to pendulum swing back the other way, and I've had to get away from that because I went too far with that too. But anyway, so I just did the next right thing, and I took care of my kids, and I was present, and I did everything I was supposed to do and everything I could do to take care of them.
It's in the limits of the law. And, you know, there's two things I found that you can absolutely count on without a doubt. You can count on God, and you can count on alcoholism. They will always do what they said they're going to do. And I knew, even though I never saw the bottles, I knew she's still using, and I knew she's lying to her attorneys. And two attorneys later and da da da da da, you know, the day we finally get the decree signed a year and a half later, she gets busted for public intox with our youngest getting ready to put him in the car. My kid goes into protective custody for two hours because I'm down in Cache, Oklahoma on a project.
And so we got DHS involved now, but I've got custody of my kids. And went through that, and it just is—my word for the year, the last couple years, has just been unfolding, and just allowing God to unfold this in front of me. And I know without a doubt in my mind, if I had gotten what I'd wanted the day I filed, right now she's not well. She has no legal visitation or anything with the kids at all.
She calls every two or three weeks, and we meet at a McDonald's so she can see them, just because I think that's good for the boys. And after talking to my sponsor, you know, I don't know what kind of mom that God has in plan for her to be. And it might be the mom that calls once every three or four weeks. I don't want to stand in the way of that. My job is to protect my kids and let God do what God wants with her.
You know, it's just been an amazing journey over these last couple years since all this happened. You know, some days it was so hard that I could barely climb the stairs. And I remember talking to my sponsor, and the best I could do was breathe in and out. And I breathed in and out, and I did the next day, and gradually things got better. And I think that's important. I got so used to the gradually things got worse.
And I really believe that gradually things do get better. And, you know, I think that the life I have today, I'm blessed and overpaid. It was, you know, I got to a place where I kind of figured this was as good as it's going to get. And I couldn't see tomorrow. And there's so many things I wanted to do, and I just couldn't do it. And I think it was just because I was living with active alcoholism. I just couldn't do it, and I think it was just because I was living with active alcoholism. And it just sucked me dry.
And today I get to do all these things I've always wanted to do.
[00:45:00]
I get to ride, I get to landscape, I get to learn. I sponsor a lot of guys who are, or some guys who are in similar positions. And, you know, at least with men, you know, when we live by ourselves or get divorced or whatever, it becomes this kind of cell block house sort of thing. And I just kind of got to the place, like, you know what? If I like flowers, then why do I have to get married to have flowers in my home? Why can't I just go get flowers?
Why can't I just be this man I want to be? And so I began to do little things like that, and it allowed me to do these little things in my yard. We've got a vegetable garden, we've got a flower garden, and it's not the Ritz, but it's home. And we have structure, and my kids know that they're loved. And I can't tell you how many people have seen, and I see it because they see it, my kids have calmed down, and they've settled.
They're not unaffected by it. We have conversations that come up every once in a while, just out of the blue. We had one the other day that we were driving by, there was signs in the corners—check my time—signs on the corners of uncontested divorce, $25. And so they ask me questions, and we had already gotten to the point where I decided to, you know, we're beyond the point, okay, Mama's not feeling good, sort of thing, and, you know, they're smart kids.
So in a very general but kind and gentle way, I told them the truth, you know, and… And they're asking about the divorce, and I just said, you know, things were in our home that I wasn't okay with, and it was a contested divorce. Your mom didn't want what I wanted to do. And I told him, I said, you know, and I just kind of explained what I just said in like 30 seconds, but simpler. And then Nick, my oldest, was asking about, and this was a hard one, and he still had this mind that mom had only been to jail once for just an hour or two. And she doesn't talk about it.
Why should she? And I don't bring it up. But I said, no, your mom has been to jail more than just once and more than for just an hour or two. And she's still struggling with the drugs and the alcohol. And she doesn't talk about it because it's just hard for her to. You know, I know that she loves you and she's doing the best she can, so we'll just keep praying for her. And I get to have that kind of conversation with my kids so that they can live in the reality of their life, but that that can be okay.
You know, reality doesn't have to be something you have to run from constantly. We put our dog and our cat down. This has nothing to do with Al-Anon, but it's kind of an awesome story. We put our dog and our cat down this last year, and the dog was 14, the cat was 18, and the dog had cancer, Carlo had cancer. And I remember when I was a kid putting my dog to sleep and getting to be there with him. And so the four of us got to sit there with the dog and just love on him, let him go, send him off.
And I got to see that that's okay too. You know, a couple months later, the cat just starts falling over on the weekend. And so we take her on Monday, and this, I wasn't so sad about the cat dying as I was the dog. Because she was peeing on everything. And so we get to the vet, and dang it, the cat doesn't start walking again. Anyways, she didn't make it out. But we, it was, you know, it was just, we get to live life on life's terms today. And I get to, you know, share in a general way, and I get to be honest with them.
And sometimes I overshoot and sometimes I undershoot the mark with parenting. When I'm wrong, I get to apologize. And at the same time, I get to be a parent too, and I get to, and, you know, kind of like what you all do with me, there's a structure in my life today that allows me to have a relationship with God. I can't tell Him, I can't mold Him into these little people I want Him to be, but I can give Him structure, and I can give Him a safe place to be whoever it is that God wants Him to be.
My oldest one's the thinker. My middle one's the doer. And my youngest one is kind of a lethal combination of both. He can both plan and execute. And they're just these amazing, unique personalities, and I'm just in love with all three of them. And they're just good boys. And, you know, one of the things I— you get divorced and immediately start, okay, boy, it'd be nice to start dating again. And I didn't.
I waited, and I talked to my sponsor, and I did. I talked to Vinoy, and, you know, it was just, I remember, and there wasn't ever any moratorium or anything like that, but I remember just talking
[00:50:04]
to Steve because he had been through the same thing. And, you know, there's a physical divorce, and then there's a spiritual divorce. And I'd kind of gotten to a place where I'd kind of set aside this right, wrong, good and bad, but just getting down to this: there's choices and there's consequences. This is going to be hard no matter what. Why make it harder than it has to be? You know, if God's in charge of my life, I don't need to rush it.
I don't need to force a solution. And, but there's days I just didn't want to wait. But I did. And I got to do all these wonderful things that I wouldn't have got to do, because I would have been one more time filling this God-sized hole with somebody else. And, you know, today, you know, I started dating this wonderful woman who's spiritual, she's intelligent, she's beautiful, and she's a part of my life.
But she doesn't have to be this absolute center of my life. She's got two boys, and they get to do their thing, and me and my boys do my thing, and they have their path, and we have our path, not knowing what our path's going to be next year or next month or down the road. But today I get to enjoy that privilege and that opportunity of getting to know another human being on a spiritual level. And it's—I've never experienced anything like it. And I'm grateful for that.
But again, this is one part of my life, and I think that everything—this was not what I was looking for when I came in the doors. I just wanted to breathe. And today I get to have a life that is so unfathomable to what it was when I walked in. You know, I sell myself—even today I will sell myself short. And I just don't have to do that today. And if I stay in the middle, and I stay in the middle, you know, we got this real simple program. It's the same thing today as it was when I walked in the door. You know, go to meetings, get a sponsor, work the steps, sponsor others, take commitments, pray on your knees. It's real simple.
I don't hear anything in my meetings today that I didn't hear the day I walked in the door. But I tell you, when I'm working with a guy and I hear it come out of my mouth, it goes from my head to my heart. And then I get to be a better man. And it's just really pretty amazingly simple today. And if I stay in the middle of the steel, you know, when I came in it was these major course corrections. And today it's just little bitty ones.
You know, I don't have to grab the wheel anymore. And God takes my humanness, and I'm very, very human. I do not work a perfect program. I'm not a perfect man. I make a lot of mistakes. But God somehow, I'm just in awe at work. I get in a lot of fear at work sometimes. He takes my humanness and makes it perfect. I've sat there in meetings and watched Him change people's hearts I've sat in meetings with. I've watched Him change mine. I've watched amazing things happen that I cannot explain short of the grace of a loving God. I have a life today that, if I add up all the pieces, the math doesn't add up. My job doesn't add up.
My relationship doesn't add up. My kids don't add up. Nothing. I have no idea how I can get it all done. But somehow it does. And I have a roof over my head and food on the table. And I do a little laundry every day, and I clean a little bit, and I go to my meeting, and I do the… And most of all, I get to lay my head down at night and be okay. Without being resentful, without being bitter, without being heartbroken.
I'm just going to be okay. And I can have all those feelings in between. I can be sad, I can be happy, I can be mad, I can be all those things, and I don't have to take it all the way to the end. I can just, a little bit of a time, be the man that God also made for me to be. And I don't know how to do that, but somehow you all showed me, and you all let me get to do that. And for that, I am truly grateful, and thank you.