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Source: DICOBE-00024 – Pat B – 29TH FLORIDA STATE CONV – 1985-08-10.mp3 File: dicobe-00024-pat-b-29th-florida-state-conv-1985-08-10.mp3 Duration: 00:50:24
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I'm so tall this morning, I may be too tall, but we did a dry run of this last night, and they couldn't see me too well in the back, so I think you can probably see me now. And I am a very blessed, grateful member of a worldwide fellowship of Al-Anon that allows me to come and make new friends in a place like Tampa, and from people from all over, and for that I'm extremely grateful. My home group is the Monday Study Al-Anon Family Group in Louisville, Kentucky.
There are some Louisvillians here who have been kind enough to introduce themselves to me, and so maybe I'll be able to talk with them later. I want to thank the committee for asking me, the people I've had contact with, Bea and Jan and Kathleen and Judy, who picked me up, and they sort of had to wait, I hope I didn't mess up their day, but we had bad weather, and that was the reason I had sort of a delay.
We were requested in our program to tell what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now, and so I hopefully can do that. If you all get tired of listening before I get tired of talking, well then you can go for lunch or whatever, I hope I don't go over time. I do sometimes talk fast, and I try to work on that, but I listened to myself one time that sounded like Donald Duck. The reason for that might be is that I'm from the mountains of East Tennessee, it's where I grew up.
I had a, I think a sort of a normal childhood. I did feel very special in my childhood, I had one sister who was twelve years older than I am, and I had four caring adults around me, my grandfather's and grandmother's backyard adjoined ours, and so our backyards ran together. So I had these small people who were older than I was, and they made me feel like I could just do about anything, and that I was pretty smart, and I was proud of that, and that got me in a lot of trouble later on, my pride, and I always sort of thought I was right about everything too, and that also got me in a lot of trouble.
There was no drinking problem in my immediate family, my grandfather and grandmother never traveled over that fifty mile radius of there, and there just wasn't any drinking, I didn't run across that at all. The only thing I can remember is that I did have a little bit of fear and resentment of my dad, and I had to work through that in this program, because he was a career army officer and when he said jump he expected us to say how high, and there were some conflicts with that later on, but all in all I felt very secure, and I had many happy memories of a happy childhood.
I met my husband when I was in high school there, my husband is very handsome, he looks like Glen Campbell, I wish he were here with me, you would think he was real cute, same way I do. He wasn't able to come with me this time, and we dated when we were in high school, and his family was sort of different than mine, as I had grown up with all these adults, and I don't know, we just didn't play cards and games and stuff, and his family had the best time.
They played games, and we went to the mountains, and they played cards, and they stayed up all night, and when I was young that was a lot of fun. Later on I tried to control him in doing that, because I didn't think it was, he shouldn't be staying up all night playing cards, but, and I let him know it too, so that shows how I was trying to be in control. But we did have a lot of fun, and I loved him, and he's a very fun loving person, and he sort of, he and our child identify with each other, he still knows how to have a real good time.
This marriage though was not blessed by my father, because he wanted me to finish school, and although I love my husband very dearly, and have never stopped loving him, I think maybe I got married a little sooner than I might have, just to show my dad that I can do it and be out on my own, because I was tied to him telling me what to do. There was a few unpleasant circumstances with drinking, after I met his family though, because I think his mother was alcoholic, she died very early, and she was diagnosed to be alcoholic, but none of us knew at that time, the family didn't even know it, I didn't know it of course, and then his dad was sort of a, I don't think he had Indian heritage in his blood, but he was sort of like an Indian, and he had a quick temper, and he'd sometimes take a few drinks, and you know it's been said around that Indians can't drink too much, so there were a couple of instances there, and that was my first introduction to any kind of drinking.
Those were good times in high school, and after we first got married. My husband's drinking, he drank now and again, he did throw up in our car one time, and I remember that still to this day, and my grandfather said something to me one time before we got married, he said, you know I've seen Butch down at the pool hall or something take a drink, and you know that can really get you in a lot of trouble later on in life, but I mean I thought to myself, what does my, as much as I love my grandfather, what did
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he know? I mean I had been to Japan with my dad, and I had lived in Washington D.C., and I was a woman of the world at 18, and what did he know about anything? But it did, that one sentence, and they only mentioned it to me one time, didn't turn out to be quite prophetic. While we were, we got married at an early age, and we moved to Memphis where my husband was in a professional school there, he is a dentist, and we did decide that I would try to go ahead and finish school, and we did this with the help of his family and my family, and there was some more drinking that got started then.
He had played football in high school, and he was in training a lot, and so he hadn't been able to drink too much, but we had more money now because we both worked part time, and there were some parties when we were in dental school, but, and it sort of caused me a problem because it seems like there was tension around this drinking, and we'd go to parties, and I didn't drink too much, first of all, I didn't like the way it tasted, and second of all, it put me to sleep, and you know if you're going out for an evening, you don't really have an opportunity to have such a good time if you're asleep, so I didn't drink too much, but he continued to drink, and it did start causing some problems early.
We did, both of us finished school there in Memphis, and we had been married about six years when we went into the service, and I was pregnant with our first child, and we'd waited that long to have our family, and we were glad that we were there, and we did have some good times in Germany, but this was sort of where the bad times started for me, because we'd waited a long time for these children, and I didn't seem to have any help.
He was either always gone, or asleep at night, and we were far away from home, they were both born there, and the drinking was picking up, and it was daily drinking now, and it really did start for the bad times for me, I started getting a lot of negative feelings, and a lot of resentments, and anger, and a lot of doubts about whether maybe I'd made the wrong choice, you know, and I had known this other boy, you know, these years before, and maybe I should have married him, maybe some of you identify with some of those things, because I see some heads shaking out there, and I was hurt, and disappointed, and bitter over this mother role that I thought I had to do alone, and I felt very isolated, and so that was the beginning of some of my bad feelings, negative feelings, and it was also the beginning of some of my negative behavior, because I was getting this anger all built up inside of me, and it would come out in a rage sometimes, and you know, there'd be a lot of screaming, and then when I didn't do that, then I was very sarcastic, because I had been trained in school, you know, and it was an English major, and I was very good with words, and I could really get it in there, you know, and twist it real good, and you know, that can be very hurtful, but at that time, I thought that showed how smart I was, the way I could use my words, but it was bad, I'm happy to say I made some gains in not doing that anymore, and then also, I would go on these rages, and then the silent treatment would start, and some of y'all might identify with the silent treatment, and the bad thing about that is, is that hurt me too, you know, I didn't know this for a long time, but being silent like that, and seething inside can hurt you, and it can be a constructive thing, but it can also hurt you, and there was verbal abuse on both sides, and hurtful things were said by both of us, and as I said, I was sometimes out of control, I remember one time, there were all these people in this little nice little German apartment, and we lived above the landlord, and we were supposed to be quiet, and we had these people over, and I went into this tirade about something, I don't know what it was, and slammed the door, and it wasn't two minutes till about ten people shot out of that place, and they all went home, that wasn't too good of a hostess that night, we did come back to the states, and we settled in Louisville, and I was hopeful, I had been hopeful along this time, but I was more hopeful now that things were going to sort of even off, you know, because we were going to have a new life, we were going to have our first home, and we had these two children by this time, we were going to start a career, you know, make a lot of money, etc., and so we had maybe six months at last, and you know, my husband was the fair-haired boy, and he was doing well in his practice, and his mother and father moved there, and they thought he hung the moon, and so anything I say, it's regards to me, you know, and but my dreams of this happy home life started to fade, because I still didn't have too much help, he was either on the golf course, or gone, or one of his, he would come home, and one of his favorite things to do was to play with the children, and ride a horsey around at nine o'clock at night, you know, two and three years old, when I'd had them all day, and I wanted to get them in bed, and gosh, I would have, I just hated that, you know, in the, since I've been in the program, I've been able to really appreciate the fact that he did, he does have a good time with children, and they got that, and they responded to him, and then going back to my upbringing, I started taking my children to church, we had not been
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church goers ourselves, my husband and I, but I think we revert back to some of those things, you know, when we raise our own children, we start doing the things that were done for us, and so I started, I thought it's time to take the children back to church, you know, and to get them baptized, they had been baptized, etc., and he not only did not want to attend with me, but he started making fun of this effort that I was doing, and, you know, we had some big arguments about that, and then we had more money than we'd ever had, he had more money than we'd ever had, I didn't seem to be having my hands on too much, I was worried, and that was another reason, because, you see, my grandfather had put, had helped put him through the last years of his school, and I resented that too, and we got, he got what I referred to as big shotitis, you know, carrying a lot of money around with him, and taking it out, and getting everybody's bill and everything, except then if I wanted to ask for extra money for the house, you know, you had to account for every five dollars or five cents or whatever, and so that was another thing I had to add to my list, and there were problems in his family too, as I say, his mother, I think had an alcoholic problem, and they decided to retire to Louisville, and his sister was going through the, going through a divorce, and things just seemed to be falling around my world anyway, and I really began to doubt whether I loved this man or not, our intimate life was gone, and I was so angry about everything, and you know, when we did have intimate moments, I would be screaming inside my head, and there were arguments that were just increasing, and I think that the family disease could be seen in me at this time, as I said, emotionally I was a wreck, I described that to you, I remember going, fixing dinner for the children one night, and getting them fed, and then as they were finishing their meal and going outside, I crawled up under the dining room table, and just sat up under there, and just cried, and then I would find a little corner between the wall and a bureau or something, you know, and I would go and just get in that little tiny space, I guess that made me feel secure or something, I don't know, and just fold my arms up over my head, and cry, and just say, I can't do anything anymore, and so emotionally, that's where I was, mentally I was getting very confused, and that scared me, it really did scare me, because I had two degrees from college, and I had spent many years in training my mind, and being able to reason, you know, and et cetera, et cetera, and I couldn't concentrate on anything anymore, I was sitting daydreaming, and needless to say, I was very serious about everything, and I had lost any sense of humor that I ever had, and I really, I didn't understand what was going on, I felt very betrayed, because I felt like this person who was supposed to love me, and care for me, and the most, and all, something was happening, and maybe it was my fault, or maybe it was because I didn't love him, and so everything was just all confused, and I did seek a lawyer, one time, to see what my rights were, and then I would run to my parents in Tennessee, I wouldn't tell them what was going on at home, I would just say, I'm here, you know, don't ask me any questions, and thank goodness, you know, they were the kind of people that did not delve, and I'm very grateful for the fact that I did have that brief relief, but then I would know, you know, this is nothing to do, this is the children's home, I shouldn't be running down there, you know, and jerking them around, and I think really what got my attention, though, was the part of the illness, we say it's emotional, and mental, and spiritual, and physical, was that all the tension and everything that I was under for myself made me sick physically, and I started to feel nauseated when I ate, and I would wake up in the middle of the night and had a pain in my stomach, and it ended up that I did have an ulcer, and I couldn't sleep, so I did get attention for the ulcer from outside, and I did start trying to find some help, I went to my doctor, and I did tell him what was going on at home, but he didn't mention anything about the family illness, he just said, well, you know, you won't get better unless you get your life straightened out, and then I started going to see my minister almost on a daily basis, because I would take the children to nursery school, and they attended nursery school in the church, and so then I could just go upstairs to his office, so I told him what was going on, and, you know, he knew about help for my husband, and I told him about the drinking, you know, I thought that had a bearing, but then, of course, I was telling him about all these other things, too, so he knew about help for my husband if my husband chose help, but he didn't say anything about the family illness or about Al-Anon, and then we had several big fights right there in a row or something, and my husband told me I was crazy, and I went to tell my minister about that, and he said, well, maybe you should see a psychiatrist, you know, so I said, okay, so I got the number, and I called, and I made an appointment, and so I started to go through this man for a while, and I told him about all this, and, you know, he didn't mention anything about al-Anon.
He didn't mention anything about al-Anon. About Alcoholism, and we had these big fights, and one morning I had a very bad emotional
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hangover, and my husband looked at me and he said, what are we going to do about you? He said, I'll tell you what, he said, I think I'll drop you off at Our Lady of Peace on my way to work. That made me so mad. I said, the hell did he say? Boy, it got me up and I got going then. See, my day had been shortened from both ends because in the mornings I would have a hard time getting up and getting moving, and this was another thing that scared me because I have a lot of energy and I have a lot of interest and I like to do things.
Well, I couldn't get started until about noon, and then about four o'clock I started dreading him coming home, so I only had about four hours in there, you know, to get anything done. But that morning, when he told me he was going to drop me off at Our Lady of Peace, it got me going real quick. But anyway, he did go see that psychiatrist that day. He took time out and went on his lunch hour, and they talked or whatever, and finally the psychiatrist told me, he said, you know, I really don't think I can help you unless your husband will come in because he was not willing to come in.
So the point I want to make is that I went to these three different professionals and not one of them mentioned about the family illness of alcoholism, and so I was just getting in more despair and more despair. But the God of my understanding, as we've often heard, did for me what I couldn't do for myself because he worked a miracle in my life in that he had me stay up late one night, and I'm not a night person, and I saw a program on Dick Cavett at one o'clock in the morning of a family of alcoholics, or a family of, I think it was the wife who was alcoholic.
Anyway, family illness of alcoholism, and our Al-Anon TV spot flashed on. You can see what alcoholism is doing to the drinker or something such as that. Can you see what it's doing to yourself, and a light bulb went on in my head, and I thought, that's what we've got. And it's strange because I had read some books about his mother when she was going to move there, you know, and I had checked books out of the library being the scholarly type that I am, you know, and read all this stuff, and honest to God, I don't remember ever being aware of being anything about the family illness.
It was all focused on what the alcoholic, you know, and what they could get help, etc. So really, God knew I wasn't going to get anywhere on my own, I'll tell you. So he was good enough to me to give me that information, and so, and I was thinking about this this morning, I even feel more blessed now because our first Al-Anon survey indicated that it's a very low percentage of people who get to the program by a media, information from the media.
It's a very small percent. It's usually by a friend, a minister, or some one-on-one, you know, carrying the message that way. So that dawned on me this morning how blessed I was again in another area because I'm one of the very few percentages that got to Al-Anon by way of TV, but that's how I got here. And this did start recovery for me, and it started much better times, and a hope and joy because the first meeting I went to, I don't remember really much about it, but I remember it was a little drab room and it was very crowded, but I thought, thank God there is someone else around who understands, and then they went on to explain about the disease of alcoholism, this was a newcomer's meeting, and I was so relieved that it was a disease.
Now it had a name, now there were some answers for me regardless of whether the alcoholics in my life could get help for themselves or not. So I started going to meetings, at that time the children were 7 and 8, and they had split the Al-Ateem group into a younger group, and so they got to go to a young group too, and goodness gracious they had somewhere to go, by this time we had no social life, if he went somewhere it was by himself, we didn't go anywhere together, and to go somewhere and talk with some adults, you know, and I talked on the telephone, and sort of a funny thing though, I had been in the program about 6 weeks, and they wanted a chairman, and I put my hand up, you know, being the one that wants to always be involved, but they were so nice, they very gently told me that they didn't think that was quite long enough to be in the program to chair a meeting, they were a lucky group, that they didn't get me for a chairman at that time, but I became teachable, and I think that's really what helped me, because I had, one of the things I couldn't understand is that I had been the leader in my church and had done some other things, and that's fine for me to be able to have talents and skills that I can use, but when I got to Al-Anon, thank goodness God was good enough to me to say, they know better than you, listen to what they're saying, watch the winners, go with the winners, watch these people that are using this program in their lives, and so I wasn't interested anymore in what I could do, you know, I just wanted to become teachable, and I chose myself two sponsors, and I know the reasons I chose two,
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and the ones I chose, I chose one because she was the most gentle-toned, gentle-mannered woman I had ever talked to, and I needed that, because my voice was very stringent, and I screamed, and I had, I knew I needed to change that, and then I chose another one because she had very strong program, and I was attracted to the people who had been in for a long time, and I let myself be sponsored, I did not resist being sponsored, I asked questions, and I trusted these people because I could see that they were working their programs in their life, and as I said, I could be smarter in other areas maybe, but in this area, they were the ones who had the answers, and I had better listen to them, and I even do that to this day, and I've been in the program now about 13 years, and I still check things out with my sponsor, and even, it's just reconfirmation, you know, maybe I'm right, and maybe I'm on the right track, but I still want to check out and make sure to keep in mind, you know, they've got the answers here, the people who have been around longer. It was so nice too because the children and I had somewhere to go now once in a while, we would be invited to potlucks, and I would have potlucks at my house because by this time, there had been a separation. I'd been in the program for quite a while, oh, maybe about a year, and my husband, he didn't have any interest in doing anything about his drinking, that wasn't the problem, and things were going along the same with him, so I did file for divorce, and he did move out of the house, so after he moved out of the house, I would have people in, and one New Year's Eve, I remember, he must have been watching the house or something to know because I had always put a bunch of people in on New Year's Eve, and they stayed, you know, after midnight and everything, and then after they left, he came in the back door, and he started throwing all our good china in the garbage can that I had used.
He didn't like it a bit that these people that he didn't know had been there because I had had another ulcer by this time, and so I knew that the children needed one stable parent, and that was the reason for my deciding that I loved this man as a human being, but I couldn't live with him as the husband because I was going to go down the tombs, too, and the children needed one stable parent, and so I did this as a survival technique. I didn't do it out of revenge, which is what I would have done before had I carried through with it, and so I remember going to my meeting and asking them, can you love someone but not live with them? Help me with this, you know, and we spent a whole meeting talking about that, and so then my decision was made for me, and the only thing I knew that was important was that I cared about him as a child of God. I might not love him as a husband, but I did care about him as a human being, but I had to get myself out of that situation so that the children and I would have some chance of recovery.
So we were separated. That separation ended for three and a half years. It never ended in divorce because I had another ulcer. In the meantime, I had to have some minor surgery, and I just kept putting the divorce off a day at a time because I thought God will lead me to know when I'm strong enough. He doesn't mean for me to deal with all of these things at the same time, and during this part of the time of the separation, I really got a crash course in Al-Anon, and I thought I was so fortunate because I didn't have to deal on a daily basis now with the active drinking problem. I went to a lot of meetings. I went to a lot of Open A.A. meetings. I tried to make daily contact. I went to conventions such as this. I followed my sponsor. She and her husband went to conventions. I went to conventions. If they did certain things, I did certain things, and we went to meetings after the meetings. So the children and I did get some consistency in our life, and sometimes my husband would drift in and out, and he would say he was going to do anything, but we really didn't ever make any plans based on what he said he was going to do.
If he happened to be there and could join us, then we were happy to have him most of the time, but he didn't even know himself at that time. It finally dawned on me he doesn't know what he's going to do 30 minutes from now. How can I expect him to tell me? So that was a very helpful concept. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about my sponsor, not about her, but she truly believes in the steps, and they have become a solution for me, and I did try to start to work them. For a very short time after I got in the program, I didn't really think I was powerless. I thought there was some way I could motivate my husband to want to do sobriety, so I did try to make him see, but finally after a while, I was able to let go completely because I did realize I was powerless over whatever he did, and my life was unmanageable. I have described that to you. It might not have seemed so unmanageable from the outside because we were able to sort of hold things together and the children were able to get to school, etc., but from what I've said to you, you know that my life was
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definitely unmanageable from the inside. I couldn't manage to even be healthy. And then when I started on the second step, I really didn't have a problem with the concept of God. It just really hadn't played a very important part in my life. I had been taken to Sunday school and church, as I told you before, but I had never gotten hold of the concept of a daily contact or turning your will and your life over to God, and so those were very hopeful things to me. And, of course, what I did in the beginning was to trust that the people in the program, and especially my sponsors in those long times, were going to help me regain my sanity, and I truly believe they did because God works through people. He works through all of us and He works through you and me. So then, when I could see that they had gotten some semblance in their life and that I was getting some beginning on recovery, it was not too hard for me to turn my will and my life over to the care of a God that I did come to believe cared about me and He wanted good things for me because, after all, He had given me this program. Just out of the middle of the night, I had been given this gift at Al-Anon. I truly believe that the first three steps are the surrender steps.
They are getting me out of the way of myself and putting me in a right relationship with a God of my understanding, my Creator. And I truly believe that He will take care of me in all areas of my life, not just alcoholism. I've had to use these first three steps every day. I get on my knees twice a day and I go over these first three steps. I've had to use them more extensively, or harder, or whatever you want to say, in the last year because our son, who is now 21, all of a sudden comes up with maybe the inherited disease of alcoholism. And so we had to make arrangements and everything and he did go to treatment in January. But he's not really convinced that he's alcoholic. And so he's got some more experimenting to do. He's not in any trouble now and he's doing a lot of constructive things in his life. But when we did finally sit down and he came right out and said, I don't think I'm alcoholic and I want the option to drink if I choose to, I really had to let go of that. And it was right before I went to the International this summer in Montreal and I had to say, God, I am turning this completely over to you. I am trusting that you will guide me to know what I'm supposed to do next if I'm supposed to do anything.
For instance, maybe he shouldn't live at home. He's living at home by now. I don't know that today. So I'm trying to focus on the good things he's doing and if he, you know, does have a problem again, then we'll find out sooner or later whether he's alcoholic or not. But in the meantime, my life does not have to be unmanageable. I can live a happy life and not worry about that. And my daughter, she's 20, you know, she's making, trying to make some life decisions. She's making some that I don't care one bit about. And also about this same time that our son was going through all this, you know, she made some stupid mistakes, I think. One of them right in my house, you know, and I never know about it. And this is rough, you don't do this. And I got right on her face, you know, and screamed at her and everything. Well, then I had to go back and use my 10-step on that because I didn't handle it very well. You know, I overreacted and chose to go right in there. But I mean, she knew I, I was determined, she was going to know I didn't like that.
But I didn't do it in a very constructive way. So this, I was powerless over what she did, you know, and I could give myself an unmanageable life, but I've also had to turn her over. God will take care of her, and he will guide her in the way that she needs to go. The fourth through the 10th steps are the action steps. And in the fourth step, I really dealt with my past and tried to, you know, it says, searching in fearless moral inventory. And you look at the, not only look at the bad things, but you look at the good things too, in the searching in fearless moral inventory. And my sponsor was one, we, we wrote it down. And at the top of every page, I wrote, God, please help me, you know, get all these sheets of paper and take six, or I took six months to do it because I'd get tired of it. You know, I think this is, this is no fun. So I put it away for a while, but I did take a written moral inventory and I took my time. And what I looked for in that were the broken relationships in my life and, you know, and how they related to our, the seven deadly sins, et cetera, and our blueprint for progress. And then I took my fifth step with my sponsor. Some people don't choose to do that. They choose to take a fifth step with someone else, but I want someone in this program to know me well enough that they can get, you know, see when I'm getting off the track, that they are doing the same kind of thing. They're attempting the same thing in their life as I'm attempting. And so I wanted to take this with my sponsor and I had to deal, you know, and deal with my pride and my self-righteousness. And I heard something not long ago that I really liked. It said, I heard something not long ago that I really liked. It said, we admit to God for forgiveness, we admit to ourselves for understanding, and we admit to another human being for humility.
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And I truly believe that I really need that. You know, I need to be humble enough to let someone know me enough. I need that. And when I took this step with my sponsor, she shared some of the things with her. I take updated fourth and fifth steps now, too, when I have a problem, like with this problem with my son. You know, I had to take a fourth step with that and then take a fifth step. And I took the sixth and the seventh step the same day that I took the fifth with my sponsor.
I was as ready as I could be at the time to have God remove all my defects of character. And I got down on my knees and I prayed the, I think I used to pray out of the AA book, the seventh step prayer. But there are other prayers that, you know, you could use. But that day was a long day. But it was a very rewarding day, and I've never regretted it one bit. And then going on down the steps, in the eighth step, you say you've made a list of all persons you'd hum and became willing to make amends to them all.
Well, you get that list from your fourth step. And I had a list. I had my dad on it because I had some very bad feelings about him. I didn't feel like, though, that it was a thing for me to go and make direct amends to him face to face to tell him that I hated him for a long time. You know, so what I had to do, and that was to change my attitude and to make sure that I spoke. And I remember doing this. I made a decision.
I'm no longer going to give any more time and attention to what I think he hasn't done for me or the bad things. I'm going to focus on the good things in that man. And there were a lot of them to focus on. And so that's what I did and changed my attitude. And we developed a much better relationship because of that. I had some amends to make to my husband's mother, who was dead by this time. We thought she was an alcoholic and I had not treated her very nicely.
I had some bad attitudes, but the way I worked that was I thought I can be nice to all alcoholics that come in my life. And, you know, I can have a better understanding and more compassion for them. And so that's how I have chosen to make my amends to her. And the 10th step is really the 10th through the 12th are maintenance steps. But the 10th one is really important because it helps me to maintain what I've gained.
And, you know, this is hard work, folks. This takes a long time. I don't want to lose what I've gained. And so I, you know, do the 10th step in different ways. Sometimes you can take care of it in the evening. Sometimes you have to, since I'm a morning person, sometimes I have to wait till the next morning. Sometimes you have to go through several days until you get things sorted out to know if you need to admit you're wrong.
You know, probably admit you're wrong. It's not just that you know it right away. But that keeps me guaranteed that I will be able to maintain what I have gained. The 11th is my most favorite step. It's the one I use the most. It's the one that gives me the most hope and the most joy because it is just right there. You can just grab onto it anytime. You can talk to your higher power, you know, about trivial things or about important things.
And it gets me in contact with the good that's in my life many times a day if I need to. And it can help me clear up my confused thinking and to help me to know eventually what I'm supposed to do. So it is really my most favorite step. And it's the one that I think that you can use in conjunction with all the rest of them. You know, my sponsor was a firm believer in taking them in order. But she said you can grab the 11th one out and you can use it on all the rest of them too.
And I was so happy about that because I do love the 11th step so much. Our 12th step, you know, says having had a spiritual awakening. We talk a lot in the program about whether it's a spiritual awakening or a spiritual experience. I don't know. I didn't have any spiritual experiences. I didn't have any blinding flashes of light or anything. I just know what I realized was that by trying to work this program to the best of my ability, I started to change.
And I started to like what I was doing and I started to feel so much better about myself. That was a spiritual awakening to me. And what I also realized was that there is so much good in this program and so much good in all the people that are in it. That was a spiritual awakening to me. When we have these bad, ugly experiences with alcoholism, you know we get the feeling that the world's not much good.
But there is help here. And that's the message that we're instructed to carry, you know, how we've been, how we've changed. And the most important thing it did was it made me aware that what was God, it was in everybody. And I need to treat people accordingly, you know, to be able to look you in the eye and to ask how you are and not feel compulsed to tell you the bad things or what I don't like that are going on in my life and to keep the focus off of me.
And of course that's not always possible. We're always human and we're always going to, you know, slide from that. But there is a healing in reaching out to other people. And that's been so important to me. My sponsor was also big on service. She also focused on the fact that there was more to Al-Anon than the 12 steps.
[00:35:06]
That is where we have our foundation. But there's much more to it. You know, Al-Anon, if you look at our, and NIH too, if you look at our triangle here, that's like a, to me it's like a three-legged stool. And if one of those get off balance, you know, you try to sit on a three-legged stool, stool on a triangle, you know, it's going to knock you off on your seat if one leg gets all out of whack or is too short.
So the steps really are our foundation. But there's so much more to Al-Anon than just the steps. The traditions are so full. In the steps we learn faith. I've described that, how my faith was built back. And trust, and we learn to be responsible. And we are able to participate because the only requirement for membership in Al-Anon is that there be a problem of alcoholism and a relative or friend. Everyone can participate.
And through working the steps you begin to feel some unity within yourself. And there's all kinds of hope here. Well, the traditions, surprisingly enough, have those same principles in them. You know, one of our first traditions said something about unity being the most important thing. And the reason for that is we need strong Al-Anon groups so that they will be here for other people who come behind us.
You know, I am so grateful that I was a member, that I went to a strong group in the beginning. Because they used the traditions and they didn't bring in outside literature and they didn't endorse, you know, anything else. They were Al-Anon because, you know, we can go a lot of places for a lot of help and that's good. Each person can do that. They can read anything they want to. But when I go to an Al-Anon meeting, I need Al-Anon and so I wanted to be strong Al-Anon.
And so I was very grateful for that. And we can trust the God of our understanding to work in the group conscience too. You know, we ask God for help in our personal lives. Groups can ask for God's help in taking a group conscience. And so that's what guides the group. There really are no leaders. We are all encouraged to be servants to one another and to this program. Anonymity is in our traditions too and I think it's very important.
Because it helps me to grow in humility because it makes me remember that we are all equals here. That's what it means to me. It's a spiritual idea of anonymity is that we are all equal. I don't have to worry about what your name is. You don't have to worry about what my name is. And we can share on an equal plane. And then as I was introduced, I was able to do some service at the World Service level.
And the same principles are there in our 12 concepts of service and we can learn from those. So don't shortchange yourself is what I want to encourage you to do by just thinking that there's no more than the 12 steps because there is so much more and you can grow in your personal life from that. Because I have grown and received so much more than I've ever been given by being involved in all three parts of our life.
What it's like now. You know the husband that I mentioned, I didn't want any help. He got sober almost 10 years ago, surprisingly enough. Surprisingly enough too, he did it on his own. He didn't go to AA. And I had a very hard time with that. Because by this time I had chosen this way of life for myself. And I knew enough to know that he was at extremely high risk if he did not choose some help and some support for himself.
So I struggled with this for a long time. And at the time he got sober he was still not at home. I was not considering divorce anymore. I was just going a day at a time and I was going to see how this thing came out. And he just started turning up sober. Talk about he was surprised. I was surprised. But when we started talking about maybe having a reconciliation, you know, I had to tell him that as a requirement for him coming home he's got to go to AA.
Because this is my way of, you know. And my sponsor and her husband said, leave him alone. By that time they sort of knew him. And he's sort of a no sweat kind of guy, I must say. And they could sort of tell that maybe we had a chance of a better relationship than people who go to AA maybe. And Al-Anon too. And they don't use anything but the first half of the first step. And, you know, they're still in trouble at their work.
And they don't get along with their wife and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So they said, leave him alone. So I left him alone. The only thing was that when he would start coming back in the house, I would talk on the phone to the answering service. And a couple of times I would excuse myself and go in the bathroom or back in the other part of the house.
[00:40:04]
I thought, no, because there was no way in the world that I was going to give up this program. And if he was not exposed to the kind of life I was living now, you know, he would be coming back in the home under a misconception. So I started talking on the phone and take answering service calls. And he'd be sitting right there in his chair. And I'd say, if you don't want to hear this, you can get up and walk out the door.
But we didn't have a problem. I mean, he would just hear these things. And, you know, and I would ask him to go to a meeting once in a while. But then I finally gave that up when I saw he wasn't going to go. And I really did love him. I was so grateful for the AAs, though, when maybe he would go once a year. Maybe he'd go to something. You know, and they didn't hop on him. I don't know whether he thought they were going to try to push the AA down his throat or not.
I don't know what he thought. But I was so grateful that they welcomed him with open arms whenever he chose to come. And slowly but surely, over a period of five or six years, he started going to things. And he'd have a potluck, and he'd say, yes, he believes he goes now. Or I would have these people in my home. And we would come across the decision to make where we were going to spend New Year's Eve.
And we would be invited somewhere else, and we would be invited to Al-Anon. And he would say, I want to go with those people. That's what he called y'all. That's for a while. I'll go with those people. I would spend every New Year's Eve, even before he, you know, for all these years, with AAs and talking to people. So then he did move back in the house. And I didn't know that he was going to move back in the house until three days before he was back in the house.
And I had to let go of that a day at a time, too. You know, there were these two half-o's being supported, and I tried not to ask any questions. It was during this time, though, that I really sort of got my sense of humor back. I was really serious. And, you know, I had lost any I ever had. And he's a fun kind of guy. And he's got a good sense of humor. And he's God's gift to me in that area. Because during this time when he was kind of, you know, we were still separated.
But we came to Florida one time. We were staying over at Disney World. And we're all sort of neighbors except my daughter. And we all had our little spots, you know, to keep our stuff. And she had stuff thrown all over the room. And he said, see the shorts I made. I said, they're not mine. Son said, they're not mine. Mother said, they're not mine. But he said, well, they must not belong to anybody.
And so he was sitting by the patio. And they were on the 11th floor. And he just threw his shorts out the window. I said, Donald, what is this? Now, I could never have done that before. Of course, Martin said, well, you'll have to buy me a new pair and et cetera. So he said, well, it doesn't belong to anybody in here. I'll have to buy you a new pair of shorts, too. That kind of thing, so spontaneous.
Before Al-Anon, you know, and before I got any kind of recovery, I would have been on his back about throwing the shorts out. And what are people going to think? I said, I love it. It's hilarious. And one time, right before he got sober, he came over. And he was, you know, sort of loving the influence a little bit. And I said, well, I'll get something to eat. And he said, what are we going to have?
And I said, well, let's go to Kentucky Fried or something. And he said, I said, what do you want? And he said, well, I want my independence. And I said, I can't get that. Because the Colonel said, no. I told that to my sister sometime later. And she didn't think that was a bit funny. I thought to myself, I will never tell her anything like that again. And it's not that she doesn't care. It just points out the fact that she doesn't understand the way you all understand.
And that we need to laugh at those things. We need that humor. And we sort of had a hard time after he did come home, though, because there was a definite negative attitude in our house. And I contributed to it some. And I had to always look on. If I say anything about his negative attitude, then all I'm doing is contributing to the negative attitude and the negative atmosphere in this house. But it was extremely hard, I will tell you.
So we went along like this for several, five or six years. But I'm here to tell you today that as a result of our son getting into this problem, my husband goes to AA meetings three times a week. He just said the other night to me, I just haven't been to enough meetings this week. And, you know, I always want to go, who's the man here saying this? I can hardly believe it. And he listens to tapes all the time.
And the last thing he said to me before I came here was, be sure and thank the committee, because, you know, all these tapes you listen to, everybody always thanks the committee. And he sort of laughed about that. And he said, you're not going to forget to thank the committee. I'll never forget the night the committee auditioned me. I said, I'll remember. Um, and it- I knew, when he was serious about this,
[00:45:02]
he sort of came in at me by the back door, as you might have heard from some other people. We learned about Eddie's problem and all and he made a decision he needed to go to Al-Anon. And so, I went to Al-Anon for two or three meetings. And the reason I knew he was serious about this is because he's one of the ones that is- there is ice on the road. He doesn't want any of us out in a car. He wants us at home in the garage so that we'll be safe and so our cars will be safe.
This was one of the slickest nights of last winter in February- in January. He went out to his first Al-Anon meeting. I thought to myself, he's really serious about this. And then he went to some of the Al-Anon meetings. And then he went to a meeting one night where there's an AA and an Al-Anon meeting both. And by this time, he's known some of the fellas in AA. And he goes in the back door and he says, I'm looking for an Al-Anon meeting.
They said, you don't want to go in there. You want to come in here with us. He said, okay. Been going to that meeting ever since. He loves it. He doesn't want to miss it or anything. This is truly a miracle. You know, in my wildest imagination, I would have never thought after all these years that he would be as involved in this program as he is. He is, and I am very truly grateful, as you can tell.
Because we now share the same program. We laugh and we cry together, as I've told you. And the clue to me was, or is, is that there was enough love in these two programs to get him well enough that he could start coming around and participating with us, even though he wasn't coming physically himself. And that, to me, is a miracle. You know, God really does love us all before he judges us. But we have a hard time because we judge before we love.
And love is really what it's all about. It's the most powerful force we have. But it's very hard when alcoholism and the… where's this ugly head, you know, and sticks itself in the picture, because it is an ugly illness. It has ugly symptoms that's very hurtful. But I finally realized about love that even though there were times when it was not… I didn't feel like it was reciprocated, it's good for me to show love regardless of whether I doubt it, whether I know it's there, whether I feel like it's going to be returned, because it makes me feel so lighthearted.
And there were times when we were trying to, you know, rebuild this relationship that I would want to give him a kiss, you know, and he would just be like a ramrod, you know. And I could have received that as rejection, but I learned that it made me feel so good just to say, I need to give you a kiss or I need to give you a hug, not worrying about what I was going to get back. Because I think, I know for myself anyway, I was too busy searching for love and searching for what was going to make me feel good rather than showing my love to those people around me.
And so it's very healing when I give it out. And I have to look for it in ways that it can be shown to me. I can't expect to always get it in the ways I want it to be shown. And he certainly has given me a lot of love in his laughter and his ability to have a good time, and when he keeps my car repaired, and when he… You know, that's really it, that shows he cares about me. And when he now truly asks for my opinion and he truly wants to know it rather than just to argue with it, you know, or to tear it apart, that shows me he cares about me too.
And when I tell you that I now work at our office where I would have many years, I didn't want to darken that door, and everything was going on in that office and with the people in that office that I didn't think I wanted to know anything about. And then I mentioned before that I didn't have too much access to the money of the family. And I now work at the office with him on a part-time basis. I now have full control of all the finances, and I'm not sure that…
I'm not sure that I like that too much either. But it does show that he cares about me and has enough trust in me to let me do that. And we all show each other that we care about each other by our hugs and our kisses and our sharing. God has really given me so very many gifts. He's given me a knowledge of this illness through this program. He's given me a way of life and the strict traditions and the concepts.
He has given me back my emotional, my mental sanity, and my physical health. He's reunited my family. But the greatest gift of all that I've been given is the awareness of God in every person, in every one of you. And these are all very precious gifts that I don't want to abuse in any way if I can help it.
[00:50:02]
I want to be close to God's children. I want to love them, and I want to share with them. And I want to thank you again for inviting me and for your love and sharing this weekend because it is another precious gift that I will cherish. Thank you.