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Source: Winnie E – Al-Anon Retreat, McKenzie Bridge Part 4 1989 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: winnie-e-al-anon-retreat-mckenzie-bridge-part-4-1989-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:07:44
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And that was the beginning for me, I believe, the miracle of wanting what I had thought, what I, what she thought I had given to her. And I called my sponsor when I got home and I was crying by this time, and I don't cry often, that's why I don't cry well. But, uh, I called Wilma and I told her what had happened and, uh, and she said to me, I was waiting to see how long it was going to take you to find out what you were doing.
And I said, but I've been carrying the message. And she said, no, you've been carrying the disease. And that's exactly what I had been doing. Not to other people, but within myself. I think, I told you about my other spiritual awakening, but I have always thought of that experience, that one particular time that I went to see this girl, who is still in Al-Anon, I might add. And I told this story one time when she was sitting in the group and her eyes got about that big.
You know, cause she didn't know. And that's another thing I learned. People don't know whether you're doing what you tell them to do or not. And it really doesn't make any difference, I don't think, to them whether you're doing what you tell them to do or not. But for me as an individual, if I tell you that I'm doing something, or if I suggest that this is an experience that I've had that has helped me, I better be telling the truth.
Because you'll never know. And I'll never be able to forget it. And that's part of what this step means to me. Carrying a message that I have. Because if you don't have a message, you can't carry it. And I proved that to myself. Then when it says practice these principles in all our affairs, I had a lot of trouble with that too. In fact, I went to Wilma one day and said to her, I don't understand that part of the twelfth step.
And she said, well, what is it you don't understand about it? It's very simple. Practice the principles in all your affairs. I said, well, what principles are they talking about? And she just hesitated for a very slight second before she said to me, well, I can understand that after all. You don't have any. And I was really rather surprised that she would say a thing like that to me, because I have been very principled all my life, usually in her office.
But before I could say anything to her, she said, listen to what I'm trying to tell you. You have spent your entire life living by his principles, her principles, their principles, those principles. You've got principles you don't even know where they came from. She said, what you have to do is to find a set of principles that are comfortable to you and practice those in all your affairs. That means that I have to be comfortable and honest within myself.
And it's taken me a long time. I still find that I add a principle here and a principle there, because deep down inside there's been a whole lot of this judgment and all kinds of things that I didn't even realize I was guilty of until something happens and I realize, my damn, that's me. And what I have to do is I have to turn around and I have to say, I want to get rid of that. And for me, I have to actually do it.
I don't know about anybody else, but I've got to have some kind of a gimmick to hold on to to remind me of what it is that I'm doing that's lousing up or making me uncomfortable. Because I don't like to be uncomfortable. You know, I've prayed for a lot of people. I've done a lot of things, a lot of gimmicks trying to take care of this. I was telling one of the gals out there the other day that when I was working in the office for Eddie, I just love that, I used to say with Eddie, but that wasn't true.
Anyhow, I was working for him and I used to give some of the alanon to some of the patients. Now, I didn't say, this is alanon and this is what we do. What I did was I just used the principles of the program as I knew them to kind of give them to the patients. And most of them were, we had a very unusual dental office. Most of them were real glad to see the dentist, you know, because they got away from me.
I was in the front. And I had this one little gal come in that she came in for a checkup and I had taken her in and was starting to take some x-rays and so forth and she said, she was a real kind of timid little thing, you know. And I've never been a timid little thing. I've tried to be a timid little thing a couple of times. It didn't work out well.
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But, you know, when you walk into a room like a bull and try to be timid, it's hard.
[00:05:07]
It's really hard. But anyhow, I sort of sensed there was something wrong, but I didn't know what it was. And I said to her, Mrs. Williams, are you alright? And she said, yes, dear. And I just shut up because I didn't want to ask anything. And then she said to me, you know, I lost my husband. And I said, oh, I'm sorry. And she said, if I had had just 20 minutes, I might have been able to call the fire department and they might have been able to save him.
And I said, well, that's true. But supposing you'd had 20 minutes and you had called the fire department and you hadn't been able to save him, would you want to go through life for the next however many years wishing you had 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour? And she said, oh, but that's not the point, really. It's just that I don't have anybody to talk to. She said, I have one daughter, but she has her own grief, so I can't really talk to her because we're just not good for one another.
And I thought about it for a minute. I said to her, you walk down here for your dental appointments, don't you? And she said, yes. And I said, well, the next time you're walking down and you feel like you feel right now, just stop somebody on the street and tell them what you want to tell them. I mean, you're never going to see them again. They'll think you're crazy, but what do you care? You don't even know them.
And she didn't say anything then, so the conversation kind of died. About six months later, she came back in, and she had on one of the brightest, reddest coats I have ever in my life seen. And she said, how do you like it? And I said, it's beautiful. She said, don't go with anything, but I've always wanted a red coat, and he wouldn't let me have one, and I saw this, and I decided I would get it. And I said, well, good. You look great.
She did look great. She said, I got a new game, too, Winnie. And I said, what's that? And she said, no matter where I am, if I feel upset, I just pass people on the street and look at them and say, could have been you. You see? So you don't necessarily have to stop them and tell them, but what she was practicing was the freedom that they give us in this fellowship, the freedom to do it without feeling like a jackass.
My sponsor gave me that to do one time. I used to walk up the street, and I'd see a complete stranger, and I'd say, hi, and go right on, and take about 10, 15 steps and turn around, and that guy's still standing there trying to figure out who I am. Because people have grown away from the idea of being friendly. Everybody is sort of in a box, and they don't know how to be friendly. So what I had given her was what you had given me, and that was the freedom to do it if you want to, which is a principle that I practice.
My husband, of course, is not as happy about some of the little things I used to do in the office, but that was not my problem. He used to say, if you don't let her alone, she's going to be in here every day, and she was in there every day. But I didn't care, because I think she felt that was sort of a haven, a place where she could come where everything would be okay. And when we moved the office, I ran in.
Well, we were having lunch, and she was in there, and Eddie used to say to me, please don't think about people, because when you think about people, they show up. And for a long time, I thought I was psychic. But we were sitting in this restaurant, and I looked over, and I said, oh, my Lord, there's Mrs. Williams. And I got up and walked over and said hello to her and came back and sat down. And Eddie said to me, well, she'll be in the office.
I said, what makes you think she'll be in the office? He said, everybody you run into, think about, or talk about comes into the office. He said, I don't know why these patients just keep coming back. You see, he gets real cantankerous. And I said to him, well, it's a shame that you decided to be a dentist. You should have been a mortician. And he said to me, why would you say a thing like that? And I said, because their patients never come back, and you wouldn't have to worry about them.
But anyhow, let me see here what I wrote last night.
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I want to thank you, believe me, before I forget it. I've done more writing this weekend than I have in 20 years, and I learned an awful lot of things that I had let slip. So I don't know what I have brought to you, but I want you to know that you've given me something that, I don't know, I never would have thought of just sitting down and doing this, you know, because I already know it. So I don't have to do this.
I tell other people to do it, but I don't have to do this. But I've had to do it this weekend, and like I told you the other day, I've got all kinds of stuff written here that I haven't even said. But it's not important to you, it's important to me. And that's the strange miracle of the way this thing works, you know. You go someplace and you don't know what you're doing, and you're not sure whether you're doing it right, but what can you do?
That's all you can do, you know. And so I write and I write and I write, and I sat over there in that room last night and I thought, now why did I write that? You know why I wrote it? Because it's something I hadn't thought of in a long, long time. The idea of not sharing anything that I hadn't done. Experience, strength, and hope. And I had a little gal whose husband was kind of an abusive type. But by the grace of God, I might have tried to help that girl without any experience whatsoever.
But for some reason or other, when she started to tell me what her situation was, I realized I had no idea what she was talking about. I had never had anybody treat me the way she was being treated. And I said to her, if you'll give me your telephone number, I'll call a gal that has had experiences similar to yours, and I'll have her call you. And I did. And I think that's part of the principles of this program.
Because once I try to tell you how to do something that I haven't done, and I have no experience to connect it with, I'm given advice. And advice is one of the worst things in the world that I can do. Because you don't know everything that's going on. Nobody, I don't care how honest you get, is going to be able to tell the story and tell all of the details that make it possible for another human being to make some kind of a legitimate suggestion.
Because that one little thing that they forget to mention is the kicker. That's the thing that makes your decision or your advice unworkable. And I don't want that responsibility anymore. I want to be able to pass on. See, I don't keep track of who I sponsor. That's their problem. In fact, when they call me and say, will you be my sponsor, I usually say to them, I'd rather be your friend. And they say, but I need a sponsor.
And I say, no, it sounds to me like you need a friend. Because on a friendly basis, it's a two-way street. She gives to me and I give to her. And that's what Wilma was to me. Wilma was my friend. The first woman I believe, including my mother, that I ever trusted 100%, felt free enough to tell her anything that was going on and not caring whether she told anybody else or not. Because deep down inside, I knew she wouldn't.
That's her principles. I got a lot of my principles from her. The idea of allowing somebody the dignity to do whatever they have to do in order to absolutely, positively want what we have in this fellowship so that they can survive. One of the little gals here asked me why I didn't tell the story about my son getting drafted. And I didn't remember that I hadn't. But that was a story about dignity. When my number one son was drafted, I was in a tizzy.
And you know, the funny part of it is, when things like this happen, I don't realize that it's control that I'm dealing with. I don't know what I think it is. Maybe if I write a couple of days more, I'll find out. But the minute that he got his notice that he was going to be drafted, I just went, flipped over. Everything I knew about letting go and letting God and all of these other things just went right out of my head.
Right now, I've got to do this. See, I have a tendency to fall that way. And I didn't know whether to join the Army myself, because he's a lot like his father, or send him to Canada, you know. Send him to Canada, you know, and I kept going to the meetings, and I kept, I didn't come out and tell him what I had on my mind, see that was another little principle that slipped into my life later on, I was still playing that game, that game of, I'd been around too long to let the newcomer know that there's such a thing as a problem after Al-Anon, you know, sort of like after death, anyhow, I hinted a lot though, and my girlfriend,
[00:15:27]
Glennis, the one with the nasty woman, I guess she listened to it until she was just fed up to her eyeballs, and one night she said to me, Winnie, why don't you get off that kid's back, and allow him the dignity of failure, I had never heard those two words used in the same sentence before, I didn't know there was a dignity to failure, but she went on to say, if he never fails, he can't possibly succeed, because if he's never experienced one thing, he'll never recognize the other, and do you know that since that night, I haven't been to an AA meeting, to an Al-Anon meeting, or even to an Al-Ateen meeting, and I'll bet you haven't either, that you haven't watched somebody walk through that door, stick around, and become a success, now I don't mean from a monetary standpoint, because success to me today isn't something that you invite people over to, drive them around the block, in or where to a party, success to me today is the ability to get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and know who I am, or to stand here, right this minute, and say, my name is Winnie E., and know who I'm talking about, because like I said the other day, all my life, I had a name, but I never had an identity, I was always somebody's this, somebody's that, somebody's something else, and I grew up that way, I grew up believing that it wasn't what you knew, but who you knew, and I came to Al-Anon and found out that who you know is only important from the standpoint of you know them, that's all, but that was a hard lesson to learn, he got along beautifully in the army, it was when he got out of the army he had his problems, but I told you all about him the other day, I won't hear anything from him for about six months, but that's alright, I'm, you know, all right, I'm not I'll be in better shape to talk to him then, because he just, he's the one I told you the other day called me and one noted I think he was an alcoholic, that's the one, but anyhow, that's beside the point, but that's pretty much the idea of how I found out what success was, because see, I was brought up to believe you had to be successful, I didn't know what it was, that's why I couldn't find it, and as I went back and did my inventory and did a few thousand other things, even to writing this weekend, I realized that there is a certain amount of snobbishness in thinking that you have to be something that somebody else thinks you are, now if you understand that, then you know what I mean, he's already in trouble, because see, I can't go through life being what you want me to be, I have to be myself, and sometimes I walk away from some place and I think, God, I sure made a jackass out of myself that time, and then the other side of me says, so what the hell, you don't have to go back, see, today it is not necessary for me to be so masochistic that I keep going back, where I know I'm going to be unhappy, it's almost like the story about the guy, the Polack, remember when they had the Polack joke, and the guy that went to see John Wayne and something about 15 times, and somebody said to him, what did you go to see that thing so many times for, and he said, well, the first time I went, he fell off the horse, and the guy says, yeah, and he says, well, I'm going to keep going back until he doesn't fall off the horse, because I know he can ride better than that, and that's sort of the way I was, see, keep going back to see if they've changed so I'll feel better, now that's a pretty flimsy piece of ice to set your life on, but that's one of the principles too, that I developed, that I practice in all my affairs, Wilma also told me that if I wanted to really and truly develop a comfortable set of principles within and without of Al-Anon, to concentrate on the 12 traditions, I think I told you that the other day,
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and I also think I told you that the first tradition allowed me to become a member of my own family, because the first tradition has given me the ability, I don't know whether ability is a good word, but anyhow, it's given me the incentive to take labels off of people, I don't think of people as being doctors, nurses, ditch diggers, I don't think of them like that, people to me are people, I either like them or I don't like them, but it doesn't make any difference to me what they are or who they are or where they came from or anything else, because I can't afford that kind of luxury, I can't afford, because you see, I'm one of those people that latches on, I think somebody said last night something about negativity, I was born negative, I probably objected to the hour, the day and the time I was born, I don't know, I did later on, so it's possible, but one of the things that Wilma told me in developing these principles and also in working those traditions was to search out whatever situation I am in, find one positive and hold on to it, and every time my mind would slip into the negative, come back to the positive, and I told this one little gal last night, she gave me a tape called Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative, and I think it was Bing Crosby that recorded it, and between the daily word on the one hand that I was reading every day and Accentuate the Positive, it's no wonder my neighbors thought I was nuts, I was either reading or listening, it was one of those things, but it got it into my head, but two years ago, I had a bad day, I mean a really bad day, an Al-Anon gal that had passed away, I was five minutes late for her funeral, now when you're five minutes late for a funeral, you're really in big trouble because it's all over, and it was raining and the freeways were a mess and I came back and Eddie was in a tizzy, oh, it was just going downhill, going to hell in a handbasket is what it was doing, everybody seemed to be tense, they were all upsetting me, never thought that I was the one that was tense that was upsetting them, it was always coming this way, see, and I had been asked to come down to Tustin to talk on serenity, and about 5.30 just as it was getting dark, I headed out of the driveway with my husband standing on the porch yelling at me, you're crazy to drive that damn far in this rain, of course that didn't help my serenity either, and I just kind of pushed down on the pedal and thought you damn people better get out of my way because I'm going to Tustin to talk on serenity, and I got on the freeway, and the one freeway wasn't too bad, but as I made the transition to go on to the 57 from the 60, there was some smart-aleck little gal in a red sports car that almost ran me off the road, well that was one too many, I mean I had been serene all day, but now I had to do something about it, and I was going to race her because I had a red sports car too, anyhow, the way it comes in, eventually this lane goes out and there's only one lane, and we were about from here to maybe where the coffee is before that lane comes in like this, and she thought she was going to beat me, she had another thought coming, I had years of experience on it, and I started to tromp down on that accelerator when the thought went through my head, if you miss, you may be the one that dies, so why don't you just let her have the damn thing, so I did, I raced her later, I let her get on the 57 first, and then I played my game of tag, she'd get ahead of me and then I'd get ahead of her, and I kept looking for the police to stop her, she was really rather a dangerous driver, but anyhow I got to test it, but on the way while I'm playing footsie with this female on the freeway, the thought goes through my head,
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I wonder if she realizes that if it hadn't been for Al-Anon, she might have been dead, because I might have raced her, because I never knew how to back off on anything before I got to Al-Anon, and so I thought Al-Anon saved her life, so I began to count the number of people that did things to me on the freeway that I didn't retaliate to because of Al-Anon, and when I got to testing, I told that story, and after the meeting this guy walks up to me and he says, Winnie, are you going right home, and I said, well I don't know, I thought he was going to ask me for coffee at least, you know, and I said, why, he said, well, I want to wait until you get off the freeway, but you see, those are the kind of things, those are the kind of principles, those are the kind of things that I learned here, it don't mean that I get pure, you know, I probably break people, one of the nicest things I do on an airplane is write nasty letters to the airline, because I found out that if I can be busy doing something, being mad at somebody, then I'm not quite as nervous, I don't have to, you know, one of the stewardesses said to me, oh, you're finally looking out the window, I said, yes, I'm looking for an emergency landing place, but I hope I'm getting across to you the fact that there is no such thing as ever getting well, that I know of, better, yes, well, no, but like Don G. says, if you don't learn to laugh at yourself, you're going to miss the joke of your generation, and I believe that, see, which is rule 62, don't take yourself so damn seriously, you know, and Elsa has a few little things that she says that I like, like, we wouldn't worry so much about what people think of us if we remembered how seldom they do, you know, because that's true, people don't go around thinking and talking about each other as much as I used to think they did, and in the final analysis, I didn't go around talking a whole heck of a lot either, and that's also one of the traditions that I used, these rumors, people going around telling other people, you know, you never hear anything good, maybe you do in Oregon, but you don't in California, you know, nobody calls you on the phone and says, guess what, so and so, and tell you something good about them, they call you on the phone, they say, have you heard, and it used to bother me, you know, because I've got a memory, and my memory does not allow me to slough off some of these things, if I'm in a particular, particularly vulnerable position at a certain time, how do you like that sentence, I couldn't even spell it, but I knew I could say it, anyhow, if I'm kind of in a rut myself, and somebody calls and says, have you heard, you know, I used to be very interested in what they heard, I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but at least it was once again, I guess the lower companion bit, I don't know, but it was bothering me, and Wilma said, well, we have a tradition that covers that, it says we have no opinion on outside issues, hence our name ought never be drawn into public controversy, and I didn't know how she was going to get that down on a personal level, but she did, she said, when somebody comes up and wants to tell you something about somebody else that is hurtful to them, all you have to do is shut them up, you don't have to listen to it, or sometimes they'll start it off, don't tell anybody but, and she said, when they do that to you, just say, don't worry, honey, I won't tell anybody, and sooner or later they'll quit telling you, because the idea of telling you is because they want to carry it on, and sometimes there's not one basis for this story, whatever it is that's going around, and I've known of a lot of gals, and guys, really, in both AA and Al-Anon that have been really hurt by something that somebody started that had maybe a little teeny-weeny bit of truth in it, but not a whole lot, and as it grew, it was like that kid's game, where you sit in a circle and you whisper something, and it goes around, and it's hurtful, and so that was one of the traditions that helped me, again, develop a principle that I could practice in all my affairs.
The 12th one, of course, I loved because that allowed me to stay married to the same man.
[00:30:04]
I can't believe I've been married to him as long as I have. Aside from Al-Anon, it's the only thing I ever did for any length of time in my whole life. I'm not sure I had anything to do with that either. I was a dependent dictator. Have you ever been one of those? Instinctively, I think one of the reasons that I never left him was I instinctively knew that if I had walked out, I would fall flat on my face.
It wasn't fear of not being able to take care of things because I would always call on some of my relatives to do it for me, you know. And if they look sad long enough, they offer. And if they don't, then you have to ask them. But I wasn't concerned about that. Somehow or other, emotionally, we were like two leaning towers of pizza or whatever it is. And I knew that if he moved, I'd fall. That's how emotionally attached I can become to people, places, and things.
Last night we were talking about, Madeline, I think she said, had all kinds of boxes that she is eventually getting cleared out. I'm not clearing mine out. I'm going to leave them to the kids. And have you seen that sign on the back of the truck? It says, we're spending our children's inheritance. I got mine in boxes. But it's just the last train of thought. Can't remember what it was. That's what I get for being…
Emotionally attached. Yeah. I can get emotionally attached to anything. Anything at all. I cannot let go of it. And there used to be a guy in our area that talked a great deal about clearing away the wreckage of the past. And I had a decorative cup that my mother had given to me. And somehow or other it got knocked off and the handle came off of it. And every time I passed the darn thing I'd think, oh, I want to get some of that china glue and fix that cup.
Because I couldn't get rid of it. My mother gave it to me and it was Christmas or something and it was this. You know, that whole rigmarole. And I went to this meeting and Dick H., who always talked about it, said, we have to clear away the wreckage of the past. And right away I thought about that cup. Because now I had the glue but I had lost the handle. So now I had the glue and the cup and no handle.
And so I vowed that I would practice what I had heard that night. And I went right home. And the next day, with great pomp and circumstance, I got rid of the glue and I got rid of the cup. A week later I found the handle and I almost went nuts. You know. And I kept telling my friends, I should never have done that. See. I should never have thrown that cup away. And then of course they come back with, well, supposing you hadn't thrown the cup away, do you really believe you would have found the handle?
And I said, well, I don't suppose I would. But that's not the point. The point is that I threw it away and then I found the handle. She said, well, now if you throw the handle away, somebody will find the glue, the handle and the cup and they'll all be happy. But we don't talk a whole lot today about clearing away the wreckage of the past. But it is necessary, I guess. That's why I keep it in boxes.
But anyhow, I'm about talked out. Has anybody got any questions? All right. May I? I threw away the handle. I sure did. And I felt real bad. You know, I haven't missed that cup at all. I've got some other cups. And I never stop to think that I have to wash the darn things and I have to do all these things. I create problems for myself by having all this stuff. And yet I keep collecting, you know. That's why I've gotten to the place where I've told my kids, don't give me eight or ten little things, you know, because I've got eight children, three daughter-in-laws.
I don't always count them. But anyhow, I've got eight children. I've got nine grandchildren. And at Christmas time, Mother's Day, birthday, it's like a perpetual Christmas, you know. I've trained them that way. And I get all these little things. And then I can't keep them. I can't get them away. I don't know what to do with them. I've got more stuff sitting around than you ever saw in your life. So I said to them, why don't you just pool your money and get me something nice.
[00:35:03]
And they did. That's what they're doing now. Of course, I haven't found out yet how much each one is spending. I have to go into that a little bit more. But I remember one time when my son, well, talking about training them, my son, George, one day wanted something. I don't know what it was. And I said, George, I'm sorry. We just can't get that because we can't afford it. And he looked so sad that I just went on.
And, you know, the sadder he looked, the bigger the story got. That's sort of a torturous thing to do. But I did it. And before long, I had George almost in tears. He's only a little guy, you know. And he disappeared. He said, can I use the phone? And I said, sure. And so he disappeared. And he used the phone. And pretty soon he came back. And he says, Mom. Oh, I did tell him how Daddy and I were getting so much older.
And we might not be able to, you know. I can't give you the whole story. But you've got an idea what I'm talking about. And he came back after his phone call. And he says, Mom, do you think you could live on $800 a month? And I said, well, I probably could, yeah. Why? He said, because we're going to give you $800 a month. And I said, who's going to give me $800 a month? And he said, we are. And I said, well, I can live on $800 a month, George.
But what about Daddy? And he turned around and he walked away and went in and used the phone again. And about 20 minutes later, my number two son, Billy, called on the phone. And he said, Mom, what the hell is going on over there? And I said, what are you talking about? He said, I've had two phone calls from George. And I said, well, what does he want? He said, he's calling everybody telling them he needs $100 a month for Mom because Mom's getting old and she's broke.
And he said, he just called me back and said, do you want Daddy to get some money too? And that's what you call training them right, you know. Any other questions? Yes, ma'am. In AA, when you get sober, your physical health improves a lot. Does that happen in Al-Anon too? Yes, yes. In Al-Anon, I didn't look good, but I wasn't sick. But I have seen people come in in Al-Anon that are one jump this side of being gone because they don't eat right, they don't sleep, they don't do anything.
And they get run down physically and they don't take care of themselves. That was one thing, I wouldn't go to a doctor because he might tell me I was sick. And if he told me I was sick, then I'd be in big trouble because I didn't want to be sick. See, I never faced reality. I kind of dodged around. But I have watched, and I'm sure there's lots of you that have watched gals in Al-Anon. I don't think that the change is quite as drastic as it is in AA.
In Al-Anon, they seem to come alive again. It isn't a question of getting healthier, it's a question of being alive. Because, you know, I've seen people that have come into Al-Anon that have, they looked like they were just ready to lay down and die. But that was despair. It wasn't a physical type of thing. And I sometimes think that despair can be worse than having some kind of a physical disability.
We were talking, you see, I've talked so much in between that I don't know what I've said here and what I've said out there or said over there or wherever. So if it's a repeat, I'm sorry. But a gal down in San Diego took a panel of Al-Anons into a psycho ward. And she called me one day on the phone and she said, Winnie, do you mind if I play your tape? And I said, do what you want to. I mean, it doesn't make any difference to me.
Once I found out, I don't care who else knows. So she took this panel with this tape in, and there happened to be a female in that ward that had not spoken a word since they turned her in. She wouldn't eat. She wouldn't do anything. She wouldn't talk. She just wouldn't do anything. And Nora asked the nurse if it would be all right if she brought that gal in to where they were having the meeting just to listen to the tape.
That's all they were going to do. And the nurse said, well, if she'll go, yes, she can. And so she played my tape. And about halfway through it, all of a sudden the woman said, She end up here? And Nora said, no, I don't think so. And the woman said, well, she should have. She's crazier than me.
[00:40:02]
Now it turns out that that gal had a daughter who had a problem with drugs. And she had gone to an Al-Anon meeting. And somebody had asked her what they, you know, like they sometimes do. Is your husband the drunk? Or is your daughter the drunk? Or getting information that they never got from me when I first came. Anyhow, she made the statement that her daughter had a problem with drugs. And they asked her to leave.
And she ended up in that mental hospital because she was cut off. And that's one of the reasons that I don't give a damn who you are. And I don't care what the problem is. If you come to an Al-Anon meeting where I am, you'll stay. Because I believe if you don't belong, you'll eliminate yourself. I don't have to be responsible for that. But I'm glad you asked that question because I forgot. I did tell somebody about that.
And I think that's criminal. Yeah. You were talking about getting emotional. I tell people that if I do anything more than twice, it becomes a way of life. I don't know over the years if I've gotten too much better about this. It wasn't too long ago I went to see my sister. And we had been out for a hike. And we came in. What made me really become aware of it again was we sat down. She made a pot of tea and put out a plate of cookies.
And we sat down and she drank one cup of tea and ate one cookie. Well, you know, I've never done anything, one of anything. Me either. And I just was wondering if you have gotten any better over the years at that. And if you have, how? Well, I've gotten a little bit better. I don't really know how much better because it depends on what it is, you know. I can give you a very classic example that it was recently, though, that in fact it just happened last night.
When they said snacks, I thought, well, I'll go over and have another cream puff. And I went over and I got another cream puff. And then they brought out some delicious looking cake with strawberry icing and ice cream. And I thought, well, I was rather good last night, so I'll have a piece of that too. And then I saw the cream cheese, so I got the cream cheese and a bagel. And I had my own banquet sitting there.
But by the time I finished the ice cream and the cake, I really wasn't too interested in either the bagel or the cream puff. And that's when God sent me another Eskimo. Somebody walked by and said, oh, you got one of those. You were lucky. And I said, will you please take it? And she said, oh, no, you go ahead and eat it. I had to beg her to help me, you know. But finally she took it and we were both happy, I hope.
I enjoyed it. Good. Raven's the one that took it. But that's an example of it depends on what it is and what frame of mind I'm in. You know, I can pass… Oh, a yes or a no? Well, I can't give you a yes or a no. Nothing in my life anymore is a yes or a no, believe it or not. I mean, it depends on the day. You talk about celebrating the day. Yesterday, I might have answered you entirely differently.
And tomorrow, I may answer you entirely differently. But right now, this is the way it seems to me. That example is still fresh in my mind. So for today, I will use that example of my gluttony to make today a little different than it was yesterday. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Sometimes the experience of yesterday or last night will put me in good stead today because I practiced what I learned yesterday.
Now next week, I'll have forgotten she took my creep up. See, it's all the way you say it, too. But, uh… I hope she forgives you. Oh, I forgive… I was so grateful to her you cannot believe. I just can't believe it. I'm sorry, honey.
[00:45:21]
I was very seldom dealt with and, you know, in a group that I was in at the time. And my experience was when I went, try to go back to Al-Anon and talk about the horrendous pain I was in. It was like, it was too painful for these women to look at. They didn't want to even hear the word relapse because they were, and I understand that, they were in fear that their partner would relapse. And I even had the experience of someone backing away from me as if they would catch the relapse from me. It was real painful for me. And I just wonder what kind of experience you had around that syndrome.
Do you have a sponsor? My sponsor, when Eddie had that, he called it a safari. In fact, I even thought of that last night when I was walking over to my room, you know. Because there was an AA, this is just an aside, but there was an AA fellow that, a priest in fact, that was doing missionary work in Africa and he said he knew the bishop was mad at him when he sent for him at 5 o'clock in the afternoon because 5 o'clock in the afternoon is dark in Africa and you have to walk through the jungle and he figured some snake would get him.
So anyhow, I thought about that, but when Eddie had, I'm not as well as you think I am, but when Eddie had his one beer after a year and three days of sobriety, that was a catastrophe for me too. And as I look back, and I didn't realize it at the time, I had changed my focus from what it had been to him again. Now, my sponsor was the one that said to me, did you learn anything from this experience?
And I said, yes. And she said, then it wasn't a wasted experience. Because anything you learn something from, feel sorry for him that he had to go back out there. But I can understand people backing away from me because they don't know what to say. But you were talking about him instead of you. This is the way I feel. This is what's going on in my life. Not he got drunk again. Because you see what you do then is exactly what I did and I'm not criticizing you, don't misunderstand me. I went right back to square one.
That's why I went down to call Chuck Chamberlain. Because I had spent what I thought was a year and three days watching him improve the quality of his life without moving myself. And I'm sorry, I hope that Eddie never has to find it necessary to go out and take another drink. But if he does, I hope and pray that what I have built up, the knowledge and the faith and the hope that I've built up will allow me to allow him the dignity of doing whatever it is he has to do. I would far rather have him do that than for me to live on such thin ice that every time he walked out the door I'd wonder, is he going to get drunk again?
See, I had to separate myself from his problems. I had my own problems. And if you have a sponsor, lay it right on him. I mean, I don't know what the situation is now. And it really, as far as he's concerned, doesn't make any difference. Like I said to a little gal in a meeting one night when she was about up to here with him. And I kind of leaned over to her very quietly as she stopped. And I said, honey, that wouldn't have bothered me at all. And she looked at me like I'd crawled out from underneath a rock someplace. And she said, why wouldn't it have bothered you? And I said, because it was your husband.
And that's the truth, see. Your husband never bothered me. And sometimes, unfortunately, that's the attitude that you'll get in some meetings. But you may be the pioneer that changes that. You may be the one. Don't stop talking because they back off. If they back off, let them back. You'll still be where it is. And God and His time, like the ABC at the end of chapter 5, He'll make it. Just won't make it in our timetable. Yes, dear?
[00:50:00]
Can you talk a little bit more about the concept of being in a detentive dictator? We can talk another three days about that. Well, I was always so scared inside. Afraid that he'd leave. Afraid that I'd make him unhappy. Afraid that I wasn't doing the right thing. And always constantly the same, actually the same thing as I did as far as the drinking was concerned. The focus was on making him happy so that he'd like me. I felt so thrilled that this person would choose me.
Now, I think in the final analysis, I chose him, but he didn't know it and I didn't find it out for a long, long time that I made up my mind. In fact, last night somebody was saying, I made up my mind I was going to marry him and I did. And I made up my mind I was going to marry him and I did. But then it switched to where I thought, oh, I'm so lucky that gradually he became my higher power. He became the one who controlled how I thought, how I felt, what I did.
And then that feeling changed around to where I was caught between feeling so grateful and wanting to kill him. That's when the drinking got bad. Even though I never blamed the drinking. See, it was that control. That's the dictatorial part. And knowing that if he left me or if I thought about leaving him, I would be a complete failure. He was my life. And I didn't even know it until I got to Al-Anon. It was one of those strange things.
Yes, dear. I'm in a dilemma because I know the disease and I know what he can do and I'm very angry with him. Maybe I'm asking for an answer that he can't give me. But how can I practice those principles in this situation? The principles to me that I practice tell me the difference between being comfortable inside and being screwed up inside. Do you understand that? And I'm the only one that knows when that happens. I can put on a facade and I can make you think everything is just wonderful.
Because I practiced for years. That's what I used to be like. But inside, I'm like a volcano that's getting ready to explode. When something like that happens to me, when somebody gets me so upset that I can get that feeling back. And I recognize it because I had it for many years and I know when it's coming back, I get out of there. If I can't leave the house, I go into another room. I do something to get away from what it was until I'm calm enough to make the decision. Do I want to stay here and put up with this or do I want to go to a show or do I want to call somebody on the phone? Getting away from the situation helps me.
There's a gal down there by the name of Martha that has her husband resign from Alcoholics Anonymous in about 1963 I think it was, wasn't it Madeline? He got mad at him and so he just wrote him a formal resignation and resigned from AA. What's her name? Martha had been going to Al-Anon. She's got 34 or 35 years at Al-Anon. But she came to, she had to come to a conclusion of how she felt about Bill. And she realized that she loved him and that leaving him because of his resignation and because of his drinking that she'd be cutting off her nose to spite her face.
And those are her words. And so she decided that what she would do would be to accept the bad days and enjoy, wait a minute, enjoy the good days and accept the bad days. And what she does is if she calls home and she can tell on the phone that Bill's been drinking. She says, I just called to tell you I'm not coming home, I'll see you later. See now he's the type of guy, he's a real nice guy and he's not abusive and he's not this and he knows what she's doing.
[00:55:13]
She just lets him drink until he's through, he's a periodic. She lets him drink until he's through drinking and then picks right up and goes right on. It is possible to enjoy life whether the alcoholic is drinking or not. That's in our literature. All you have to do is live your life instead of his. Now I don't know whether that's going to help you or not because it's not easy to live with somebody that has you bouncing up and down like this. But it's okay, see.
I had to quit thinking about drinking as being the scourge of the world. It had to be alright to drink. Otherwise the concept of alcoholism being a disease did not make sense to me. Everybody that drinks is not an alcoholic. But there are people whose other people's drinking bothers them, that's a disease too. And that to me is the line, that's where you have to come to terms with the fact that everybody that drinks is not going to be an alcoholic.
And everybody who's married to somebody who drinks is not going to be an al-anon. It takes a very particular kind of person, like me, to end up here, see. That's why I'm grateful I married an alcoholic. Hell, I could be out there running the world and look at the shape you'd be in, if you know what I mean. But it's okay. Just don't sit around and watch it. Because while you're watching it you're trying to figure out what I can do to stop it. And before long you'd be in worse shape than he is. I don't know what, you told me, who told me I couldn't read this watch? Kathy did. She's right, I couldn't see the damn thing. I wear it just to make Eddie happy.
I've gone from being actively alcoholic and self-centered and not aware of anybody else, and certainly not my feelings, to personalizing everything. Having feelings and then having feelings about other people. Everybody else is that. I mean, it's not that bad. When you just have this thing about dependence on other people's responses and therefore the need for control of it, that's a huge piece. I mean, I know all this new language about boundaries and trying to know where I leave off and you begin, and I could sense my own stuff, which is the message you're bringing me over and over. Can you talk a little bit about personalizing? I think it's called detachment.
Well, detachment, yes, I guess detachment. Detachment to me means to separate. And separate to me means you go your way and I'll go mine. But it is possible to have an attitude of detachment without actually separating. Is that what you're talking about? Because it's just like my not responding to what Eddie says. My formula of I never answer a statement. And I answer each question with a statement. There's no argument there, see? Like the example I think I used the other day is if he looks out there and says, boy, the moon is really out tonight. That's a statement. He wants the moon to be out, let the moon be out. It's not going to, no skin off my nose.
My problem was always that if he said something like that, I'd say, what are you trying to do, be smart? You know that it's the middle of the day. Why would you say a thing like that? And then he would tell me why he said that just to see whether or not I was bright enough to know whether the sun was out instead of the moon. Now we're really into it, see, because he's insulted my integrity and everything else.
And everything that went on I took personally. Well, I had to put a stop to that because that was worse than the drinking. And so what I did after lots of trial and error things was just decide how important is it? Is it going to change the quality of my life to the better? And if it's not, let it go. Why be bothered with it? Does that answer your question? Question? Yeah. And there's a part in there, too, though, of being willing to own my feelings, you know.
Own your feelings? Yeah. Have them and know that they're there. Yeah. And some kind of continuum, some kind of balance of, you know, responding and not reacting.
[01:00:03]
Exactly. You just said it. And I couldn't say it. Oh, how do you do that? Well, if I don't respond, I won't react. You see? If I let it go, then I don't react to it. I don't carry it away with me and say, I'll think about that and go back and take care of it. I don't carry it away. I let it go. I forget it. Sometimes it'll come back to me and I'll think, I wonder why I didn't tell her that. I'll think of that on the plane, in fact.
And the reason I probably didn't say it or didn't do it is because I wasn't supposed to say it or do it. You know, that's kind of one of those coincidences where God comes in and takes care of it. You may learn the answer to that by making the mistake of doing the wrong thing. And that's all right. You strive for spiritual improvement rather than spiritual perfection. See, I memorized the whole 5th chapter.
I'm going to ask you a question about something you said last night. I know that Ellen and I are really talking a lot about loving relationships. It is possible, you know. And sometimes, you know, and I mean, basically just a basic tolerance for the person you're with, you know. But oftentimes you don't get to hear a lot about the successes. Like when you talked about grabbing your husband's hand and saying that you love him, you know.
Sometimes I'm sure that can be the hardest thing in the world. It is. And I know how headstrong I was with my husband before we were married. You know, it was like he had to be a certain way until I was actually comfortable enough to maybe even give him a hug. You know, going through all that, you know, and growing through different parts of your loving relationship. And Ellen has brought a light on my relationship that's just unbelievable.
That's right. So I can allow him to be him. And still give him a hug, you know, not play games of denying him this. That's learning not to fear rejection. Rejection is a label. Sometimes when you walk up to somebody and you want to throw your arms around them and you can almost feel the ice, they don't want you to come near them. They don't want you to touch them. Well, I don't know what you do, but I go ahead and hug them.
Because if one of us is going to be uncomfortable, it ain't going to be me. You see. Survival. And usually the person that throws this attitude of, don't come near me, is afraid of you. I was that way. See, I was afraid to let my kids or my husband or my mother or my father, anybody, know that I cared about them. Because it was the only thing I had that I knew they could beat me to death with that I had to keep deep down inside without them knowing it.
I thought that if you did things for them and you took them places and you bought them things and all this monetary stuff, they should know you love them. And the difference, I've got eight children as you already know. There are four older ones who had the benefit of my personality, my intelligence, my integrity, my pocketbook, the whole bit. And you can see the line. The younger four had the benefit of Al-Anon.
They had the benefit of knowing I cared about them. And I've had a hard time for a long time teaching the other ones not to be as rigid as I was. See, I brought them sort of up to be like I had been brought up. Because it was the only way I knew. But through Alatine and through Al-Anon and through AA also, those older four have begun to melt. You know, I've got a daughter that has a husband that does quite a little bit of drinking.
And he came home, I told the gals this last night, he came home one night and he was feeling pretty good and he got mad and took his pill in his blanket and he went out and he slept on the porch. And Marilee called me the next day and she said, You know what, Mother, some guy just called me on the phone and asked me if I wanted to put deadbolts and shutters on the house for my protection. And I just told him, what do I need protection for?
I've got a big dog that sleeps in the house, I've got a husband that sleeps on the porch, I'm well protected.
[01:05:08]
So there was no shame to the fact that he slept on the porch. As you can tell, that's the point of the whole thing. She was upset because the guy hung up on her. But that's just sort of the way it is. You have never heard the story of the Eskimo? Oh, well I will tell the story of the Eskimo. There were two guys up in the north, probably Washington or maybe Oregon, I don't know. They were discussing whether or not there was a God.
And they were sitting in a bar during the time and this one guy said, there is not a God. And the other one said, oh yes there is. And the first one said, I can prove there's no God. And the second one said, well if you can prove there's no God, go ahead. He said, well I was up in Alaska, back in the country in there. And he said, there was a sudden snowstorm, a blizzard. And my dogs ran away and the sled broke.
And I was just having a terrible time and I just knew I was going to die. And I got down on my knees for the first time in my life. And I said, God, if there be a God, help me. And the second man said, well, you didn't prove there wasn't a God, you proved there was a God. Because you're here. And the first man says, oh, don't jump to any conclusions. An Eskimo came along and led me back to civilization.
And they refer sometimes to people as Eskimos. You know, instead of as God's intermediary to doing what you want to be done. I didn't know you hadn't heard that story. It's been going, well, I don't have to tell them how old I am if I don't shut up. Is it okay, y'all? I'm okay. Anybody else got anything pressing you'd like me to help you with? Oh, thank you. I'm taking away much more. Thank you very much. I love you all.