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Source: DICOBE-00265 – Elsa C – KENTUCKY STATE CONV – 1978-01-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00265-elsa-c-kentucky-state-conv-1978-01-15.mp3 Duration: 01:08:27
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Our Alateen speaker for today is Vicki P. from Pensacola, Florida. Good morning. My name is Vicki. Hi, Vicki. I'm from Pensacola, Florida, and I'm really thrilled to be here this morning. I'd like to try to share with you this morning two parts of my life, my life before Alateen and my life after and now. I'm 19, but I've really been only living four years. I say that because my father's been sober four years and I've been in Alateen four years.
I came to Alateen with no hope. This is the most important thing this program has given me, is hope. Before I came into Alateen, my hope was in short supply and I rationed it. I think the first time it occurred to me that my father was alcoholic was when we moved to Texas, Kingsville, Texas. And Texas is not my favorite state. While we were living in Texas, I came to several conclusions. One, that I was scared of a lot of things.
I was afraid of meeting new people in a new town. I was afraid of my father, and I was afraid of everything that crawls. I was afraid of, there's a lot of crawly things in Texas. While we were living in Texas, the reason I say this is when I realized that there was a problem was because my father got into two car accidents. I couldn't count how many fights he got into, how many times he came home with a black eye.
But to top it off, we got hit by a hurricane and our roof was knocked off, so it just wasn't a good year all the way around. Needless to say, my hopes were many, but my belief in any answers to any of my prayers was nonexistent. I prayed in hope without hope. I prayed for my father to come home one night sober. I didn't really pray for sobriety. I didn't know what being sober meant. I knew what not being drunk meant, but I didn't see that too often.
I barely knew what alcoholism was. I really didn't know anything about alcoholism. I knew when someone had too much to drink or when someone had a couple of drinks, but I had never heard the word alcoholic. My father was in the Navy. He's retired now, and I'm grateful for this. We moved almost every year of my life, and the only times that we stayed anywhere longer than a year was when we got stationed in Texas, and we got stationed there twice.
That's just my leg. Anyway, if there ever was the theory that a geographical cure would make you quit drinking, my father disproved it, because everywhere we'd move to I thought we'd have a new beginning and things would start over and everything would be just fine, but everything always turned out the same. I thought that the problem in my home was not alcohol but that it was me. Most people hate problems, and when you think that you're the problem, then you become to hate yourself.
I thought that my father didn't love me. I thought this is why he drank. I knew he loved my two sisters and my mother because they're beautiful people and they're really easy to love, and I loved them. But I thought if I wasn't there that we'd have enough money to pay the bills because I eat a lot, and I thought my father would quit drinking and he might come home at night to be with the family if I wasn't there.
I'd have to sit home. I think the hardest times of my life were on my birthdays. I'd sit at home and wait for him to come home, see if he'd remember it was my birthday, and a lot of times he wouldn't come home. A lot of my birthdays he wasn't there. He was in Vietnam or he was in Alaska or somewhere, but I always took it personally whether he could help it or not. On my 13th birthday I was living in Ohio and he wasn't there, and on my 14th birthday we were living in California
[00:05:01]
and he came home drunk, and I think he wished me happy birthday, but I really didn't believe that he meant it. The best part of my life, I think, was on my 19th birthday last year. He came to my office where I was working with my car and it had four brand-new tires on it, and I really needed those tires. It was the first time he had gone out and bought me a birthday present since I was 11, and this really meant a lot to me.
My father volunteered to go to Vietnam, and I never had any doubt in my mind that he'd come back safe. I had this much faith in God that he would take care of my father. We moved to Kentucky, and while my father was in Vietnam for a year I only wrote him a letter twice. I just couldn't write to him. I had nothing to say to him. I really thought that if he received a letter he wouldn't read it anyway.
When he came back from Vietnam he didn't come directly home. He went through the Alcohol Rehabilitation Center in Long Beach, California, and then he came home. I really missed my father and I loved him, but I didn't know how to talk to him. I didn't know how to relate to him. He lacked a lot of self-confidence. What do you say to someone that you've been living with 16 years that you don't even know?
When he came back he showed us his anti-abuse pills and told us that he would be taking them, that he was going to quit drinking. I can remember my mother and him going to AA meetings, and I resented it at first because I had to stay home with my sisters. I didn't get to go out every night. So then we moved to Florida. One night my mother asked me if I would go to an AA meeting. I didn't want to go because I was scared of people.
I said, well, I don't know. I don't really think I want to go. She said, well, why don't you just do it for your father? She knew that would get me. So I said, okay, I'll go. So when Monday night rolled around, I said, Mom, I just don't think I can go. I'm sick. My stomach hurts and I just don't feel good. Of course she knew what was going on. She said, Vicki, you only have to go this one time. You don't have to go anymore after that.
So I figured I could stand it for one night. I've been going ever since. And I'm really grateful for this program because even though I'm a slow grower in the program, it takes a lot of time for me to get over a lot of shortcomings, I have a relationship to my higher power that I call God. And L-tune to me means hope, hope that no matter what kind of problems arise, that the power behind me will always be greater than the problem in front of me.
Things haven't always been perfect since we came in the program, but I know that I love my father and I know that he loves me. And I know that if I hold resentments from things that have happened in the past, that I'm only hurting myself. I've learned to love other people and I've learned to like Vicki. And this took a long time. I don't know, when you despise yourself, it's hard to really think about anything else.
You just grind yourself into the ground every time you do something wrong and it's really a bad state of mind to be in. I'd like to read something. It's from the Bible. It says, There's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear hath torment. And I really believe this, that when you have fear in your heart, when you're scared of everything, you can't be at peace with yourself or with anyone else.
I thank God for giving me hope and L-tune. And I trust in him and I trust in this program with a perfect love, love that has no fear, but with a hope that can't die. This is where I run out of notes. I didn't really think I could talk that fast.
[00:10:00]
Um… I do want to thank all you people for coming this morning. I was kind of praying that you wouldn't all come, but… Sometimes you have to pray for someone else's will besides your own. I was very thrilled when they called and asked me to speak at this convention. And they called me long distance and it really thrilled me because I'll be turning 20 soon and I plan to retire my speech making and let my little sister take over.
But the main thing I wanted to tell you this morning is that I'm really grateful to be here. I'm grateful for this program. I'm grateful for my father's sobriety. I love every one of you. Thank you. He's a very lovely person. I had the pleasure of hearing our speaker at the convention in Indiana two years ago. And she was terrific. She not only talks good Al-Anon, she leads the Al-Anon program. I know that our speaker and myself have a lot in common, but there's one thing that I'm sure of.
We both like apple pie and ice cream. So at this time, let's welcome Elsa See from Laguna Beach, California. Thank you. I am Elsa and I am a very, very, very grateful member of Al-Anon. Hi. I'm so glad that you say hi back because we're so used to this in California that when we go to a place where they just sit there and don't say anything back, it gives you a feeling of coldness that I'm sure you don't have here in Louisville.
The warmth and the joy and the love that I feel in this assemblage here is very much like what we feel in the state of California, at least in Southern California. And I think that most of the Southern states have this beautiful warmth because what would we do, you and I, if we did not have this joy and this warmth and this love to share with each other? I think we'd just die on the vine, myself. And I look at the Al-Anons today and I think, my God, how lucky they are.
How very, very lucky they are. Because when I needed something like Al-Anon, there wasn't any. Because I'm an old-timer. I don't like that word because I don't think there is such a thing as an old-timer, really. Because I'm still learning and I'll probably be learning until the day I die. But I've been around this program for a long, long time. My husband just celebrated his 30th anniversary in AA.
So I know what it is to be without a program. And believe me, that is something. And I don't know whether there's anyone in this audience that remembers that far back. That when my husband was drinking so terribly, so very terribly, there was no place for me to go. No one could tell me what was the matter with him. I had no way of knowing why he drank the way he did. So I did all of the wrong things.
You know, out on the coast we have a thing called the do's and don'ts. I don't know whether you have that here or not. I think it has come out pretty much in our literature. But it's changed somewhat. Our original one was a little more to the point. But it gives me a kick every time I hear it read because I did every one of the don'ts and not one of the do's. And so I have to say to the Al-Anons today, I don't think you really appreciate what you have done.
I don't think you really appreciate what you have here, because I'm in a position to know
[00:15:04]
what it's like when there is nothing, when there is no way to go, no way to go at all. When I met my husband, I was young and naive and full of dreams, as most young girls are. And when I met my Prince on the White Charger, so to speak, here was a six-foot-one handsome guy, the best-looking thing I think I'd ever laid eyes on in my life. He had everything that I would like to have in a husband. He had not only the good looks, but he was smart, in fact he was brilliant.
And he was a perfectionist and he was an idealist and he was sweet and loving and kind. The only thing that I didn't recognize at the time that I began to see later was that he had a whale of an ego. Nice big fat one, in fact. And naturally, I fell head over heels in love with this guy and I thought, my goodness, we're going to have a wonderful life together, we're going to have beautiful children and everything is going to be just perfect, just perfect.
But I didn't count on the fact that I was marrying an alcoholic, because I didn't know I was marrying an alcoholic. He didn't drink alcoholically in those days. He was young and he was strong and he had been quite an athlete and he had a hollow leg, believe me. And I had no way of knowing how much he had imbibed because it didn't show. But it began to show more and more as time went on, and as all of you know, alcoholism is a progressive illness, and it got worse and worse and worse.
And the last ten years of Chuck's drinking was horrendous and the last five was impossible. And how heartbreaking it is, how devastating it is, to know that, to recognize, that is, in a human being the things that they have that are positive on their side of the fence And then watch this beloved person, day by day, month by month, and year by year, degenerating into an animal, because that's what Chuck had to become before he could hit his own particular bottom and do something about it.
I was not of any help to him during those years because I did not understand. And I fought it in every way that I possibly could, and nothing, nothing ever worked. And yet I kept on trying the same old things over and over and over and over again, none of which ever had any result. And I look back on myself and I think, how could you have been so stupid? How could you? And feeling that stupid, of course, Chuck helped that along too.
He was never physically, he never struck me or anything of that nature, but he could absolutely destroy me with words. And I think many, many Al-Anons have been through that very thing. He could make me feel like a stupid idiot, and I never could please him, no matter how hard I tried. The more I tried, it seemed the worse it got. And during those last ten years, there were many times when I tried to figure out a way to get rid of him and not get found out.
If I could have found some kind of a pill that they couldn't discover, you know? And it never occurred to me, never occurred to me once, that my thinking was pretty insane. Never did. That's one of the reasons why I've never had any quarrel with the second step of our program, believe me. I know my thoughts were insane, because you do not consider murder if you're really sane. And many of us, I am sure, have emotional blackouts that are just as devastating as the blackouts that the alcoholic has.
[00:20:00]
Because our obsession, like the alcoholic's obsession, is for the alcoholic, and we cannot get our minds off of them. They are the ones that are making us unhappy. They are the ones that are doing things that we don't approve of. And if they would just straighten up and fly right, everything would be fine. But you know something? My husband straightened up and flew right, and I stayed just as sick as I was for the next fifteen years.
It's a funny thing. But the time finally came with me, after having been on the fence for many, many years and going back and forth, shall I leave, shall I stay, shall I leave, shall I stay, and I never could make up my mind, I threatened it many, many times to the point where my husband didn't believe me, he didn't think I'd ever, ever leave him, but it got so bad that I was more or less forced into a decision.
So I actually forced myself to go to a lawyer and start divorce proceedings, and I started to business school, because you see, I'm one of those gals that was raised by a southern father from Memphis, Tennessee, who didn't think women ought to work. And so I never had been prepared to earn my own living. And this puts you in a pretty rough situation, especially when you have two sons and your mother to support.
And it scares the living daylights out of you, because the only thing that you're prepared to do is perhaps to be a clerk in a dry goods store or something of that nature, and you can't make enough money to take care of four people. And it scared me to death. But there comes a time in everyone's life, I think, when it's no longer possible to live with the situation as it is. And the thing that I want to tell you today is something that I had just found out.
I'm a slow learner. In the last couple of years, have I been able to see exactly what I did at that time? I gave up. I not only gave up the necessity for Chuck to get sober, because I didn't think he ever would. I gave up the necessity to keep the family together. But most of all, and this is something that I think is very important to a lot of us women, I gave up the necessity to be taken care of.
And that's a big one, believe me, when you've been used to being taken care of all of your life. And I liken it today to the very same thing that the alcoholic does when he comes to AA. Because I did not give up with love and release with love in my heart. I gave up with bitterness, with frustration, with anxiety, with misery, with the whole bit. I hated his internal workings. I did. Because Chuck was not a pretty drunk.
He was not a pretty drunk. But you know, I think it is exactly the same thing that happens to the alcoholic when he gives up and comes to AA, because he doesn't come with love in his heart and compassion and understanding and all this sort of thing, the things that we try to learn in Al-Anon. But you know something? It worked exactly the same way. So to me, the basis of this whole program, both in Al-Anon and AA, is letting go and giving up.
Because it didn't take more than two or three months before Chuck hit his own particular bottom and came to the program. Now from that time on, of course, that made it unnecessary for me to go through with the divorce. It made it unnecessary for me to go to work, so I quit business school real fast. Didn't like it anyway. And started going to meetings with Chuck. Now for the first six months that he was sober, he wouldn't even talk to me about the program, because he thought that we were going to be separated.
We were still living under the same roof, but we weren't communicating very well. And he just put on his hat and go to a meeting every night and every night and every night.
[00:25:01]
And finally after six months, he asked me if I would like to go. And I went, and it was a big meeting in Beverly Hills. And you know what that monkey did? He took me over and sat me in a corner and took off. This seems to be what alcoholics are wont to do sometimes, you know. They don't take you along with them and put their arm around you and say, this is my dear little wife, you know. And I sat in that corner for quite a long time at those meetings, until one day one night I found the courage to go over and speak to a woman.
And you know she practically fell on my neck, because she thought I was sitting over in that corner looking down my nose at her. And I thought they were all standing over there looking down their nose at me, because in those days the AA people didn't have much use for the non-alcoholics. That's a fact. They thought we were a pretty dumb bunch of nothings, you know. So then I started going to meetings with Chuck, and I went every night that he went for six long years before Al-Anon was born.
So you see I've been around a long time, and I should have learned a great deal more in this space of time, but as I said before, I'm a slow learner. Now Chuck had released me, actually, when he got sober, he set me free. But it took me fifteen more years to find it out. Now that's pretty slow, I would say, pretty slow. I loved the AA program. I read the book several times, and I enjoyed the people that came to our home and sat there and discussed the program, loved every minute of it.
And I thought it was the greatest program that I have ever heard of for you. I didn't need it. You see, this is one of the problems that I've had with my life, that it was my husband that needed it. I didn't need it. Some years ago I heard one of your good members in AA make a remark. He said, you know, many of us come to this program and get good before we get well. And that's the story of my life.
Because after six years, laws came to the coast and suggested that we needed very desperately a program for the families of alcoholics. And three of us were sitting together at the old 6300 Club in Los Angeles, and we said to each other, Beverly Hills needs this very desperately, let's start a meeting in Beverly Hills, which we proceeded to do at my home. Now my motive for starting that meeting was not a bad one.
It was a good motive. I was going to help you poor people that needed this thing so desperately. And that was my attitude and my motive, and I did a pretty good job of it because I was the grandma of that group. You see, I'd been around longer than anybody else had. And I was very adept at telling you what this program was all about. You see, I'd been listening for six years. I had a head full of knowledge.
Now having that kind of a motive, I found that it was a far easier thing to see your problem and see your answer than it was to see my own. And I had to get very miserable and very unhappy before I could turn around and take a real good look at me. And we finally, after many years there, sold our home and moved to Laguna Beach where we now live, into the home of my dreams, a brand new house that had never been lived in, high on a hill with the most magnificent view you ever saw, with huge windows in the front so that you can see everything.
The home of my dreams, the thing that I had hoped for and wished for all of my life, and I'm miserable as hell. I'm so unhappy I don't know what to do because my husband's business was still in Los Angeles and he was going in every day to work. in every day to work. Now, many of you know that have heard Chuck talk, know that he talks
[00:30:03]
a great deal. That's putting it mildly, believe me. And so he was gone three and four and five and sometimes six and seven nights in a row. And he didn't have time. Laguna Beach is about sixty miles south of Los Angeles. And he didn't have time to come home to dinner as he'd been used to doing in Beverly Hills. So he'd go from his office to wherever he was going to talk or wherever he was going on a twelve-step call and he wouldn't be home.
So I sat there all by myself in this beautiful place and nearly died, nearly died. And I began to put pressure on Chuck to slow down. And he tried, he tried desperately to slow down for about three months and then he got so uncomfortable he couldn't stand it. And he finally gave me an ultimatum. He said, I'm sorry, I can't do it this way. He said, my dedication is to this program. I owe everything to this program. And when somebody asks me to do something, I have got to go and you will have to adjust yourself to it. Well, I wasn't being very adjustable in those days, I promise you. And I didn't like it and I knew that I was stuck because I knew when Chuck made up his mind to something, that was it. So I had to let go of that. But I wondered what in the world I was going to do about me because there was no Al-Anon in Laguna, there was no Al-Anon close to Laguna at that time. And it's amazing when you get away from meetings how quickly you can slip back into your old stinking thinking, believe me. One of the things that has kept me coming back all these years is because I know that if I do not constantly keep myself reminded of what I need to do in order to keep my thinking straightened out, I've got to have the meetings and I've got to have the sharing, I've got to have the people, the love and the enthusiasm and the people with problems who come for help, who remind me of my own problems. And it's a great thing. But I wondered what in the world I was going to do about me because I was in a state of mind and being at that time that was hurting pretty bad.
And suddenly I remembered something that had happened in the very early, well in fact it was the first year of Chuck's sobriety, when he was asked to talk on Christmas. Some of you have heard this story before and I always hesitate to tell it and yet this is the turning point in my life. So it has to me great bearing on what I have been able to learn since then. I suddenly remembered that he'd been tasked to talk on Christmas and I gave him a real bad time about it. I said, how dare you? How dare you make a date on Christmas? This is a family day. You haven't any right to do that. The children will be here for dinner and you just simply don't have a right to make a date on Christmas. Well if you know Chuck you know that when he makes a date he keeps it. So I planned an early dinner and the kids were there. But the thing that makes me laugh today, and thank God I can laugh at myself today, is that about an hour, an hour and a half after dinner, they all took off. They had places they wanted to go and things they wanted to do, open houses and stuff and things, and they left. So we were left alone anyway. So I got dressed and went down to the meeting with Chuck, which was down in Santa Monica. At that meeting there were two very, very drunk winos that had just been pulled out from under the Santa Monica pier. The following Christmas he was asked to talk again and I went a little more willingly this time, not too much so. And at that meeting one of those winos was leading that meeting and the other one read the steps. And they had been sober that entire year.
And they told us afterwards that they had not heard or remembered anything that Chuck had said that year before. They were too drunk. The thing they did remember was that a husband and wife would leave their family on Christmas and come to share at an AA meeting.
[00:35:01]
And for the first time in my life I really saw what we have in this program. You and I, both AA and Al-Anon, we are in the business of saving lives. And whatever my husband has to do in order to fulfill his commitment to this beautiful program, I have to leave him free to do. But then what about me? What am I going to do about me? And my youngest son gave me the answer. He said, Mom, why don't you start another Al-Anon group? And that's exactly what I did. And if any of you ever move to a new area where there is no Al-Anon or where the Al-Anon is not the way you would like it to be, start your own group.
And if you've been around a while and you've had good Al-Anon, then you can start it the good way. Because there are too many groups where they spend most of their time talking about their problems and their troubles and their lousy alcoholic mates and all this sort of thing, and they don't really get anywhere. And I've had to come to learn that the answer is not in the problem. The more you look at and live in the problem, the bigger it grows and the greater it gets and the more it engulfs you. My husband often says that it's like watering and fertilizing a weed. It just grows out of all proportions. That's not what we're here for. We're here to learn a way to live that makes it possible for us not to have so many problems, or if we do, to learn how to cope with them. To learn how to live joyously and serenely and happily with ourselves in spite of what's going on around us. That's what our Al-Anon program is all about. To find our own joy and our own serenity in spite of what might be going on at home. And over these years I've seen many, many, many wives and husbands of alcoholics who are still perhaps have a practicing alcoholic at home find such peace and such joy within themselves that it makes it possible since so many young people are coming in today for them to set a tone in their household that will allow their children to be pretty much at peace. I love these Alatines. Doggone I, I love that little girl this morning. What a beautiful job they're doing. What a beautiful job they're doing.
You and I could take lessons from these kids because they don't have as much to unlearn as we do. And they're so direct and so honest and so to the point. And they find their answers much faster than we do, I am sure. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. This beautiful group finally was able to show me what I had to do about me. Because you see, having had the motive of starting that first meeting to help you people, as I said, not a bad motive.
But this time I started this group not because you needed me, but because I needed you and I needed you desperately. I was thoroughly and completely unhappy and miserable. And I didn't like it. And I knew I'd have to find a better way. And when, with your help, I began to see me, when I began to see the nothingness that was me, the person who had never really had a great deal of self-confidence, yet I had been quite successful in the things that I had done in the early years. But during those drinking years, I just went down and down and down and down to where I had no feeling of being a person anymore, no more of a feeling of being an individual anymore. And I was completely under the thumb of the alcoholic because I had put him on a pedestal a mile high. He was doing great. He was growing by leaps and bounds in this program. And he was leaving me trailing way, way behind.
[00:40:06]
And that's one of the dangers, I think, if we do not come to Al-Anon and learn a lot about what we need to do about this beautiful program of twelve living steps, the things that change us from a nothing into a human being, God's child, with a feeling of dignity and of worth that we can't get any other way, I am sure. And I began to see that one of the things that had given me problems all of my life was my terrible, terrible need for approval and my fear of disapproval, the very thing that had caused me to become what I had become. I was the good little wife that sat in the corner and made the coffee and never opened her mouth, you know? Scared to death to offer an opinion because if I did you might think I was stupid. I'd been told it so much I got to believing it.
The growth began to come slowly, little by little, bit by bit, one day at a time. And I began to understand that the only way I can express it is I can say I am what I am and that's all I am. And if it's not good enough I'm sorry, that's all there is there today. I'm trying to the best to be. And it's been a slow process but it has been a very rewarding, very rewarding thing. I had to learn that each of us is a unique human being.
A very dear friend of ours said many years ago to Chuck and me that if God had made two people exactly alike, one of us would be unnecessary. I think that's one of the greatest things I've ever heard but it took me many, many years to really see it and to try to put it into practice. And I began talking quite a bit and I began talking about the uniqueness of the individual. That if you, as a unique human being, a unique child of God, if there is no one else quite like you on the face of the earth, there is no longer any need for competition. And competition was one of the things that I think I could see in so many, many families. Not only in families but between people in AA and all and on. Competitiveness.
You see that need for approval made me have to be as good as or better than or like somebody else and I never, never was completely myself. And when you see this uniqueness in its true light, then you don't have to any longer beat your breast and say, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy. Sackcloth and ashes as I did for so many years. You can see that you do not have to be competitive. That you can, with this beautiful program, become the best person that you know how to be and you don't have to be better than or bigger than anybody else. Because if you do not find this out for yourself, you won't be able to pass it on to somebody else. Because if you do not give of this unique ability of yours, if you don't make this unique contribution, it won't be made. And believe me, it's a great thing to see people getting rid of the need to be as big as or better than or like somebody else. A unique God's child. And I have also come to know that I did not hate my husband in those drinking years. I hated the disease of alcoholism because underneath all that covering was still the beautiful man that I fell in love with in the first place. Even the alcoholic stretched out
[00:45:01]
that is still the person who does not want to be the way he is, but who is caught in the grip of something over which he has no control, and maybe you can have compassion for and love for in spite of, and look through that ugly exterior and see the real person inside. It's a beautiful way to go, it's a beautiful way to go. I had an experience a while back, something that I have had to get rid of in my long trek through this program, is the necessity to criticize and the necessity to judge, because I was very critical and very judgmental as a young person, and it gave me many, many bad times and got me into a lot of trouble.
And I had to come to see that people act the way they do because they have to, not because they want to. They act the way they do because they don't know any better yet. They have not been able to see themselves yet. Someday, hopefully, they will. And I had an experience a short time ago that almost threw me. You know, life, even in this program, is not always a bowl of roses. We all have difficulties, life is like that, but at least in this program we learn how to cope with the things that happen to us that are unpleasant and that are heartbreaking and that give us a bad time.
And not long ago, one of my pigeons, you call them pigeons here, we call them babies out on the coast, who had asked me to be her sponsor, called up one day, just madder than a wet hen, and she said, I want to talk to you and Chuck. She said, I've got something I want to say and I want you to listen. And she came up to the house and she had a list about that long of things that we were doing wrong.
She even picked out the things that I said in my story, that I was a people pleaser. She said, you're a people pleaser, and you're this and you're that, and you don't walk like you talk, and you've got an ego problem, and this, oh, she just went on and on and on and on. And I sat there with my mouth open. And she accused me of some resentments that were true. Because Chuck and I had last year been invited to the north of Ireland to their conference up there in Portrush to talk.
Now, we went up there and Al-Anon had its conference separate from AA, and it was different from AA, and Chuck was talking practically the whole time he was there. And they had these meetings for Al-Anon set up in maybe four or five people on each meeting, and they put me on the second day. Here I'd come all the way from California to the north of Ireland. My way had been paid, and they put me on this program with three other people and gave me twenty minutes and a subject to discuss.
I think you know what happened to me. I had been asked to come and share, and they didn't give me any opportunity, you see. And I got quite resentful of that, and by George we came home and I got sick and went to the hospital with pneumonia. And I am sure it was just because I had allowed myself the first time in a long time to be resentful and bitter over something that I thought was my just due, so to speak.
So this was one of her accusations, and I had to admit that that was right. But the thing that I want to talk about a little bit here is that she accused me of being still a people-pleaser. And I'd like to tell you how I've had to change that, people-pleasing, because this is what I used to be like. I have had to learn to like and to love people because of what is likable and lovable about them and skip the rest.
[00:50:02]
And believe you me, ladies and gentlemen, that is a very different thing from people-pleasing. It does not mean that I hide my head in the sand and say it just isn't there, because I can see clearly the things that are wrong or the things that I don't really approve of. But that's their business. It's not my business, because they do not yet see it, they do not yet have the opportunity to do anything about it.
But the reason that Chuck and I are so fortunate in getting along with everybody, I think, is because we have learned to love people in spite of their difficulties. Because everybody, I don't care how bad they are, has lovable and loving things about them. And when you can keep your eye on that and forget the rest and tell yourself, that is not my problem to judge that person. Because you remember the old saying of the Indians, that we shouldn't judge anybody until we have walked for many, many moons in their moccasins.
How do I know how that person feels inside? How do I know what their problems are? I have no way of knowing. The only person I can know is me. I've even had to learn to quit judging my husband, and that's not an easy one. But to get back to this uniqueness of the individual, time is going awful fast, jeepers, creepers. There is so much to talk about in this program, so very much, and I'm going to have to hurry along here.
Chuck and I were sitting in our living room one evening, just sitting there quietly, because you know Chuck and I have learned to communicate silently. That's something a lot of us haven't learned yet. We think that the yackety-yackety-yackety-yackety-yack is communicating. I hear too many Al-Anons crying, because they say, my husband won't talk to me. He won't communicate with me, he won't share with me.
And I say, well, what are you doing? Are you spending all your time trying to get him to talk? Did it ever occur to you that if you shut up for a while, maybe he'd start to talk? We have a terrible idea about the thing that you think if we just beg him enough and talk to him enough and chat around enough about nothing, that maybe we can get some communication, but I don't think it works that way. But anyway, we were just sitting there looking at the view and very comfortable, and I said something to him about having always been envious of his wonderful ability to talk and his marvelous spiritual understanding.
And he sat there very quietly for a minute, and then he said to me, do you suppose there could be a little competition? And that's a word that had never been expressed between us before, never. And if he had said that to me five years before, I'd have gone right through the roof. I'd have said, how dare you accuse me of such a thing? Of course I wouldn't think of competing with you, which was a big, fat lie.
I wanted so badly to be as good as he was that I could taste it, you know. But I had had to learn a lot of things in those last five or ten years. This time it didn't make me angry. I sat there and I looked at it. And I thought, why do I want to be like him when I'm not like him at all? Chuck and I are as different as the poles. We're as different as day and night. We're not alike at all, even though we think a great deal alike along many, many lines.
We are trying to work the same identical program. In fact, we're going down this pathway like two railroad tracks, separately but together. Separately but together. And we pretty well like the same kind of people. But we're not alike, essentially alike at all. And if you want to do it the way of the stars, he's a Leo and I'm a Taurus. Now you can't find a worse combination than that. I'm the practical, feet on the ground, you know, earthy one.
[00:55:07]
And he's the one that has all the wonderful spiritual values, even though he is a businessman and an athlete. And it hit me like a ton of brick that the only thing that I could do was to do it my way and allow him to do it his way. So even though lots of times we say many of the same things, we use a different language. And with this I'm comfortable, with this I'm comfortable. Because I had to learn not to care so much what you thought.
I had to learn that you asked me to come and share to the very best of my ability. So I come and share, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. And if I say something that is helpful to somebody, I'm glad. And if I don't, I'm sorry, that was all there was there today. I want to tell a story that I don't tell very often. I don't know why I've had the urge to tell it today, because I don't usually tell it in a big group of this kind.
Once or twice I've told it in our small meetings at home. But I think the experience that I had with my youngest son is one of the greatest examples of what this program can do for you of anything I know of, because wonderful things have come out of it. And maybe, just maybe, it will help some of the parents in this room that are having problems with their children. Ordinarily I don't like to talk about my kids, but this has to do with the program itself, and to me I think it's important.
We have a young son that my husband has never understood until recently, and he spent a good part of his growing-up years tearing him down and making subtle fun of him because he wasn't like the other boy, who is also a businessman and an athlete. And he couldn't understand him because all of his interests were in art, drama, and music. And he thought this thing, was this kid a sissy? Was he this? Was he that?
What was the matter with him that he couldn't stand up and be a real he-guy, you know, like his father? After we had moved to Laguna Beach, I was sitting there alone one night when the phone rang and it was my youngest son on the phone, and he was so angry that he just sputtered over the phone. Now believe me, this kid, this is the first time that I had ever seen him angry in his life. He was one of these bland, loving, lovable kids growing up, but definitely a loner, one who would not allow people in his circle.
And I never really knew him very well because he wouldn't talk to me very much. And he enclosed himself in a wall that nobody could get through. And this night, the anger that he felt at me, because I had given an interview that the studio had not okayed, and he didn't like it because it was about his childhood, and he was furious at me. But it served to open the floodgates, and out on my head came the doggone-dest bunch of accusations that you ever heard in your life.
I found out that night that this boy hated his father, and he didn't like me very well. He thought his father was a phony, that he was just a marvelous speaker and he didn't mean a word of what he was saying, and he just went on and on and on. I sat there absolutely stunned because I had no idea that my son felt this way. But you see, he had been holding inside of him all those years, all of the resentment and bitterness.
life. And boy, when it came out, it came out in a rush, believe me. And I was completely
[01:00:05]
and absolutely devastated. And I got to weeping. And Chuck was out talking. And I knew that I couldn't tell Chuck what his son had said about him because it would tear him apart. And so I made it my business to get to bed before he got home so he wouldn't see my swollen eyes. And this was probably on a Thursday. And when he was gone to work, I would walk the floor and cry and wonder what in the world I could do about this because I could see that my son hated us both. And I went down to my meeting on Monday noon thinking that I had put up a big fat front that nobody would see how miserable I was. But I couldn't fool them. And when I walked into the room, they took one look at me and they said, Elsa, what's the matter? You're hurting. And I broke down and told them about this situation. And they said to me, Elsa, but you told us this. But you said that. You're not practicing what you preach. And that's a pretty hard blow to take also, believe me. And as time went on, I began to see what I had to do. I still hadn't told Chuck anything about this. I began to see that the one thing I could not do was to get in the middle between my son and his father. This was their problem and they had to work it out. I could see there was absolutely no way that I could explain us to the boy because he would only be on the defensive and not believe a word that I said. So I had to, because I could not stand to hurt the way I was hurting, put him lovingly in God's hands and let go of the necessity for him to love us and to get busy and find my own peace and my own joy in spite of it. It took a long time. It took a long time. In fact, it took three years before the thing worked out. It took three years for Chuck to see what he had done to his youngest son. And he found it out because he was working with a number of young people who were resentful of their parents. And all of a sudden, it dawned on him that he had exactly the same problem that they had. And one night out of a clear blue sky, he said to me, I've got to call the boy and make an appointment with him because I've got to go and make my amends, which he proceeded to do. And they met in the middle of a big restaurant. And Chuck told the boy how sorry he was that he had not been able to see what he was doing to his boy. And that he had come to realize that when two people look at the same thing, they don't necessarily see the same thing. And immediately the wall came down. And they sat in the middle of this big restaurant and laughed and cried with each other. And we had to go shortly after that clear to England to get acquainted with our youngest son, which we did, and had a beautiful time with him. And the thing that I have seen happen, and that can happen to anybody who will let go of the necessity to change another human being, I've watched him come out of his shell, little by little, day by day, month by month, and allow people in his circle. And as he has been able to do this, he has become a better and better and better person himself with the enthusiasm and the love and the joy that you and I know, even without this program. Because this thing works by what we send
[01:05:00]
out comes back to us, pressed down and running over, believe me. And if I'm sending out hatred and bitterness and criticism and judgment, I get nothing but criticism and judgment and hatred back. What the fountain pours forth again returns again to the fountain. And I remember so well a thing I learned in high school, written by Bobby Burns, Oh, what some power the gifty giveth to see ourselves as others see us. It's a great gift and one that we learn in this program if we are taking those twelve beautiful steps and applying them to our very own lives.
One day at a time, the love and the sharing is the thing that makes this thing click, and without it we don't have a thing. This is a joyous program, a happy program. This is not one of sackcloth and ashes and I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy. The whole program says that after you have made your commitment and you've made your inventory and you shared it, we begin to come forth on the positive side of the program and learn to grow and live and love and enjoy.
This is a beautiful world, even though it's so terribly mixed up right now. But the funny part of it is, in the midst of all of this confusion and the awful things that are going on in our civilization today, there are a bunch of people all over the world that are living in joy and peace and serenity in spite of. And if we keep on growing the way we've been growing in this past year or two, maybe we'll spread out and maybe we will be able to help some of these poor, confused people and it will become then a beautiful world again. At least you and I can live in a beautiful world because we don't have to be like they are. Thank you so much for asking me to join you today. I think I've skipped around a good bit, but somehow or other I was impelled to tell that story about the boy because he is fantastic today. We have a relationship that you wouldn't believe. He's loving and outgoing and it's helped him in his work tremendously. So I thank God for this program because it has put our family back together again and has given us something that we could not have learned any other way if we hadn't gone through some of the real rough times that we've gone through, each one of which has taught us a lesson that we could not have learned any other way. God bless you and thank you very much.