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Source: DICOBE-00027 – Clancy I – AL-ANON FRIDAY – 1980-06-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00027-clancy-i-al-anon-friday-1980-06-15.mp3 Duration: 00:44:42
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But anyhow, they've told me that this is an honest program. So I'm being honest. I'm scared. And only the Lord will get me through this. Martha and I were talking one day, and I said, Gee, Martha, I'd really like to get out of doing this. She says, The only way you can do it, Julia, is to break a leg. So I didn't break a leg, so here I am. I remember one year I came to Founders Day, and the Friday night meeting, they had the air conditioning on, real cold.
The next morning when I got up, I had laryngitis. Couldn't speak a word. Well, I went there last night, and they don't have the air conditioning on now, because, you know, the energy crisis. So I couldn't do anything. I couldn't get out of it. I am grateful to my friends and to God, who has given me the strength to be here and participate in this program. The topic today is rediscovering freedom. I was born a free person, free to choose where I would live and what direction I would take in my life.
I may have been influenced by many people through the years, such as my parents, teachers, and friends, but the final decisions were up to me. I was the one who had to live with those decisions, whether they be right or wrong. Some were right, and some were wrong. The only person I have to worry about is me. I am responsible only for myself. I have control only over myself. I cannot depend on anyone else for my happiness.
I came to this program feeling inadequate. I came with guilt, and I still have it from time to time. I came with guilt because I felt blamed for the alcoholism. I had self-pity and thought, Why me? Why not someone else? What did I do to deserve this? I must be a bad person. I had resentment toward the alcoholic because he was spending too much money and too much time away from me and my children. I was depending on this human being for my happiness.
I learned since coming here that I am an important person, that I can be special. I can be free to be me, to make choices without fear. I can take time to know myself, learn what gives me joy, and allow myself to experience more of it. I can accept reality, which is better than fantasy and projection. I can be human, not perfect, but special because I am me. In our book, Al-Anon's Favorite Forms, it speaks of the many doors that Al-Anon has opened for each of us.
The door to freedom, it says, is there all the time, but we hold it shut tight with resentment, self-pity, and despair. I can allow that door to remain shut. It is my choosing, or I can use the key that Al-Anon provides to open that door to a better life for myself. To begin with, I had to ask myself if I really wanted freedom. The answer, sure I did. Who wouldn't? Then did I have the courage? Am I willing to do what is required to set myself free?
Yes, I was, for my life had become unmanageable. Because it had become so unmanageable, I made the decision to use this program to open that door to freedom. The key that I used was the 12 steps. I hope to show you how it worked and is working for me in my life. First, it was hard for me to admit that I was powerless over other people and other situations. I was crippled by the need to control. I wanted my life like I had dreamed it to be as a child.
I thought I would just change things. It's as simple as that. Then I found out I couldn't change other people. Nothing worked no matter what I did. I allowed my life to become unmanageable. I was powerless, completely powerless. After I finally had taken the first step, I became willing to proceed on my own to make a life for myself. Whenever I am in trouble, I have to go back to that first step and start all over again, which is many, many times.
[00:04:59]
Step two is the beginning of the end of the old life
[00:05:03]
and the beginning of emergence into a new one. It is the step of hope. I am suffering from the effects of alcoholism. No human power by itself can relieve me from my illness. God can and will. I could now see my insanity. The more I tried to control, the sicker I got. After six years in Al-Anon, I'm still trying to control. Turning my life over to God as I understood him was when I was able to see some order to my life.
I became able to do what I could and give the rest to God. I know his will is best. I didn't see it for a long time. It was very difficult. When I was finally able to trust and let go, I could accept things in my life. When I follow God's will, that door to freedom is opening to me. I began to do an inventory by writing my feelings down on paper. Seeing it written out gave me a new perspective about what was troubling me.
I began to know myself better. My problems didn't seem so big when I wrote about them and then read them later. Admitting these things to God and another human being brought about greater faith for me. I got rid of isolation and the feeling I didn't belong. I received humility as I began to see who I am. In admitting the nature of my wrongs to God and another human being took a burden from me that I needed no longer to carry.
I was given freedom through forgiveness. Being ready to have God remove these defects meant I must be ready for freedom. Without my defects to fall back on, without my faults to blame, was no restraint to freedom. I asked God to remove all my defects, but one at a time. I am really fighting giving them up, and when they aren't removed, I realize I have more work to do. Being humble is an avenue to true freedom.
To do my social housecleaning, I had to make a list of all I had harmed and make amends. I started with myself because I put myself through unnecessary pain and because I didn't feel good about me. I started to forgive myself, and so I became able to forgive others and work on my amends. As I continued on in inventory, I reviewed the miracle in my life, and I became more aware when resentment, self-pity, and fear were setting in.
I was able to see some growth in myself. My daily contact with God is important for me. I ask him for guidance every morning and thank him every night for all my blessings. My contact with God depends on me. Somewhere it says, do not pray for a task equal to your strength. Pray for strength equal to your task. Then the task will not be a miracle. You will be a miracle. I believe that I am a miracle, and we are all miracles.
I believe anyone who lives this program is a miracle. I can best carry the Al-Anon message to others by putting it into practice in my life. It took me a long time to share my feelings with other people in the program, but once I was able to do this, I received love in return, more than I could ever give. Those that I shared with were not shocked and were able to share with me what they had gone through.
It makes me feel good that maybe I have helped someone by sharing my feelings with them. Sometimes I hurt so bad that I would have probably gone crazy had I not been able to call an Al-Anon friend and talk about it. I want to thank Al-Anon for asking me. It is a great honor to be asked to be a part of this program and this weekend. I want to thank all the Al-Anons who have helped me so much the past six years.
I am grateful to my friends in the AA program who have helped me and my family. I truly feel I belong. Thank you. Applause Okay, now Martha will give her story. Hi everybody.
[00:10:00]
Hi Martha. Hi Lois. I want to start out by paying tribute to Lois. I read her book this spring and I just am overwhelmed with gratitude for Lois because she figured out that the 12 steps and the AA program would apply to us too. I was like Lois. I started out by going to AA with my husband. I recognized that the 12 steps and the program were a wonderful way of life for him. I didn't know it was for me for quite a long time, but I'm sure glad that Lois figured that out a few years ago that we could use that program and share the blessings.
Thanks Lois. Now, Rediscovery of Freedom. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. I heard that saying many times during my life, but I didn't understand what it meant until I started to study the 12 steps and to begin to see the truth about myself, the truth that has begun to set me free. When I was first given this topic, I wondered why the topic was Rediscovery of Freedom. I thought, why not just Discovery of Freedom?
But as I studied and thought about it, I realized that my first real discovery of freedom was the first time I struggled to go up the steps. And my most recent discovery of freedom happened just this week. I'll tell you about the happening. Well, I'll tell you about both of them. But first, I'll tell you a little bit how I was when I first came down on. I had pretty much withdrawn from life. I was walking around kind of a dead person.
I had a smile on my face, but it wasn't a real smile. It was just kind of pasted on there. I had retreated behind a wall, and I had turned off all my emotions. I quit crying finally, and I had quit laughing a long time before that. And it was from this self-made prison that I was finally set free. The first thing that started to set me free was the unconditional love that you gave me. From the first time I walked in the door, you loved me, and you started to warm me back to life.
Then after a good time in Al-Anon, I started hearing what you were saying, and you said, It's all right to allow your feelings to happen. It didn't matter whether they were good feelings or bad feelings. And so I started to let my feelings surface again. And as they started to surface, I became aware of a lot of negative feelings, things that I just, all my lifetime, I would not allow to come out. These feelings were there, and I began to realize that it was those feelings that were making me sick.
I discovered that I had a lot of resentments and a lot of fears and a lot of self-pity with regard to my husband. I didn't like these feelings, but they were there, and they were hurting. About three years ago, I decided to spend 15 minutes every day studying the steps. I would spend this time each day either reading about a step or talking to someone, writing or doing, just meditating on a step. I didn't really know where that study was going to lead me, but it has taken me many places that I would not have believed.
One of them is right here. As I started with step one, it wasn't too much trouble for me then. I'd been in Al-Anon for a few years, and I finally came to realize that I was powerless to control my alcoholic, and every time I tried to control his life, my life was a mess. So step one, I could believe that, that I was powerless over him when he was drinking. Step two was no problem. I still do. Problem, I Still Try to Control Him When He Wasn't Drinking, But, Then Step Two Wasn't
[00:15:08]
a Problem for Me at That Time Either, As I Meditated on It, Step Two Says, Came to Believe, A Power Greater Than Ourselves Could Restore Us to Sanity, I Had Known God, I Guess All My Life, And I Did Know Him to Be a God of Miracles, And Who Wouldn't Believe in Miracles When You Go to an AA Meeting, Or When You Go to an Al-Anon Meeting, And See All the People That Have Been As Far Down As You Can Get Probably, And The Smiles, The Happiness, The Peace, You Have to Believe in Miracles, I Just, At That Time, I Didn't Know How to Pray to This God, Because I Would Pray, Get Him Sober, I Didn't Know How to Pray, Or What to Pray For, And As for the Insanity, I Wasn't Insane, I Knew He Was, But I Wasn't, But Finally It Came to Me, That My Withdrawing Was Definitely a Sign That I Might Be Headed That Direction, I Had a Picture in My Mind of All the People in Mental Hospitals, Sitting There Withdrawn, And I Knew That, That's Where I Was Going, So I Knew Finally, That I Was, I Could Be Insane Too, Step Three Says, Made a Decision to Turn Our Will, And Our Lives, Over to the Care of God, As We Understand Him, I Tried to do This, Previously in My Life, But I Kept Having Trouble, I Wanted, I Kept Taking That Will, And My Life Back into My Own Hands, So Once Again, I Made a Commitment of My Will, And My Life to God, And I Done, I Done That So Many Times Before, And I Had Said, What Is Your Will, God, And I Never Could Figure Out What He Wanted Me to Do, But Now for the First Time, He Started to Show Me His Will, It Was Clear to Me, That He Wanted Me to Make That Trip Up the Steps, And If I Would Follow the Outline, And As I Read Lois' Book, And Found Out How the Steps Were Given to Bill, They're God's Steps, I'm Sure Lois Knows That, And Bill Knew It Too, He's Showing Us, Maybe We're A Little Slow About Learning, But He's Showing Us an Outline, How to Run Our Lives, If I Would Follow That Outline, He'd Show Me What to Do, Step Four was the Big, the Hard One Then for Me, Because That Said, Take an Inventory of Yourself, And I Had Taken So Many Inventories of My Husband, I Could Have Told You His, Given You His Inventory So Easily, But Now It Said, Take an Inventory of Yourself, So I Spent a Couple of Weeks, And As I Was Writing This, I Think Maybe It Was a Couple of Months, Working on My Inventory, Because I Knew I Needed to Write Down All My Resentments, All My Fears, All the Self-Pity That I Had Stored Up for Many Years, For a Lifetime, Going Clear Back to Childhood, And Finally I Came to a Place Where I Thought It Was Finished for Then, And Step Five Said, Admit These Things to God, to Myself, and to Another Human Being, I Felt That I Had Already Admitted to God and Myself, But the Other Human Being was the Difficult Part, I Knew They Would Think I Was Crazy, If I Started Telling Them All These Things, I Just Didn't Like to Admit, All This Terrible Things About Myself, But It Said to Do It, So I Called An Unknown Friend, And I Asked Her If I Could Take the Fifth Step with Her, And I Hoped That She Would Say, Okay, We'll Do It Sometime, We'll Get Together and Do It Sometime, But Bless Her Heart, She Said, Come Over Tomorrow and We'll Do It, And I Went Over, And She Took the Phone Off the Hook, And She Listened Patiently While I Waded Through All That Garbage That I Had Piled Up in My Head All Those Years, Then Step Six Said, I Don't Know What It Says, I Didn't Write It Down, But Anyway, I Was Ready to Entirely Give All This to God, And That's What Step Six Says, Are You Entirely Ready to Give All This to God, And After Going Through That, I Was Sure Ready to Give It to Him, Step Seven, Humbly Ask God to Remove
[00:20:05]
These Things, To Me, Humbly Means to Get Down on My Knees, So I Got Down on My Knees, And I Asked God to Remove All These Things That I Had Found Out About Myself That Were Making Me Sick, And It Was Done, I Was Free, I Was Really Free for the First Time in My Life, And From That Day On, My Love for That Beautiful Husband Has Grown and Grown, We've Been Having a Fantastic Love Affair Since That Time, And I Think He's The Greatest, And I Was Gonna Make Him Stand Up, But I'll Spare Him, And My Daughter Probably Won't Forgive Me, Because She Said, You Better Make Daddy Stand Up, But He's Sitting Back There with a Yellow Jacket on, In Case, Since Then, I've Worked the Steps Many Times, Because I Did Discover That the Steps Will Work for Any Problem I Have, Whether It's a Big Problem or a Little One, If I Had Time, I'd Stand Here All Day and Tell You Some of the Problems That I Have Worked Through the Steps, And Some of My Friends Have Worked Through Them, But I Just Want to Tell You Real Quick About Two of the Big Things That Were Removed, The First Was My Fear of Speaking in Public, I Was, When I Came Down on, I Was So Shy, And We'd Go Around the Table and Say Our Names, And About Killed Me Just to Say, I'm Martha, But Here I Am Today, And, Well, The First Time I Had to Speak at a Meeting, I Just Was Paralyzed With Fear, I Said, I Can't, And Yet, My Notes Said That I Was Going to Tell You, If You Have a Fear, Work It Through the Steps, And Yet, Here I Was Paralyzed, But, So It Finally Dawned On Me, Take It Through the Steps, And By the Time I Had Gotten to Step Four, Writing Out My Fear, And Why I Had That Fear, It Was Removed, Because I Get Scared, But That Paralyzing Fear Is Totally Gone, And The Other Really Big One That I Worked Through the Step, Was My Christmas Depression, Every Year at Christmas Time, I Would Go Into Depression, And This Was Before I Even Knew My Alcoholic, Although I Think Later Years It Got Worse, But For Many Years, I Would Go Into Depression at Christmas Time, So This Past Christmas, I Thought, I Don't Have to Have This Anymore, Take It Through the Steps, And When I Did Take It Through the Steps, I Had the Most Beautiful Christmas, I Really Knew What Christmas Was About for the First Time, And I Just Want to Tell You a Little Bit About My Trip Through the Steps This Past Week, As I Looked at Step One Once More, And Thought About the Problems I've Had Through the Years, And That I Know I Will Continue to Have, I Figured Out That, I Think Ninety-Nine Percent of My Problems Were Caused, Because I Was Trying to Control Another Person, So This Time, I Took Step One, And This Is How I Wrote It Out, I Admit That I Am Powerless Over My Desire to Control, And I Wrote Five Different Names in There, Because There Were Five People That I Was a Little Disturbed Over, And If I Try to Control Those Five People, My Life Will Become Unmanageable Again.
Step Two, I Do Believe My Higher Power Can Restore Me to a Sane Relationship with Those Five People. Step Three, I Do Want God's Will in This Matter. Step Four, Time for Another Inventory, And I Sat Down and I Wrote Out Details of Why I Felt It Was Necessary to Control Those Other People. I Wrote About My Fears of What Would Happen if I Didn't Control Them, My Resentments, Disappointments I've Had in the Past, and Frustrations.
Step Five, Admit to God, Myself, and Another Human Being, and It Was Much Easier This Time to Admit That. Step Six, I Am Entirely Ready to Give Up Control of These People. Step Seven, Then Ask God.
[00:25:02]
Again I Discovered Freedom. I was free to live my life as I chose to live it, and to leave others their freedom too. I know now what it means to let go and let God, because I have a new love in my heart for those five people. But Steps Eight, Nine, and Ten are important here too. I needed to make amends to those people that I was trying to control and to change. And Step Ten, I need to watch that I don't slip back into trying to control them again.
In conclusion, I would like to say that if you would like to discover freedom or rediscover freedom, try the steps. They do work. I feel like I've just had a small glimpse of what God has in store for me and for each one of you. Thank you. I'm Paula. Hi everybody. Can you hear me? I can't hear me. When I heard Julia and Martha's talk, I thought, well, I won't have to say anything because they said everything I'm going to say.
So you don't want to hear it the third time, do you? I just kept shaking my head. I thought, this is unbelievable. We didn't even tell each other, I don't believe what we were going to talk about. We just said it in different ways, but I guess this is Al-Anon. I have my thoughts and ideas, and I opened an Al-Anon book. I put all my ideas down first and how I felt about rediscovering freedom, and then when I opened up some of my Al-Anon books, one day at a time, and some other pamphlets, and I thought, my gosh, here it is.
But I thought about it first. Anyhow, you know, everybody says how nervous they are. Well, I really wasn't that nervous. I got tea this morning, got out two saucers instead of a saucer and a cup. And I've been a little nervous all week, and when I heard Julia say that, you know, if she broke a leg or something, well, I think I was trying. I ran into the door twice, and I hurt my shoulder, and I hit my ankle on the table when I went to cross my leg.
I mean, I was limping and holding my shoulder, so I don't know, maybe I was trying to do something too, but I guess we were all a little nervous. Anyhow, I brought this little thing that I got from the forum, and I thought, well, maybe some of those people out there are a little nervous, and I want to put you at ease, okay? So I'm just going to read this little thing. Maybe some of you remember it.
It was years ago. An Al-Anon member told how she watched some new neighbors move next door on a hot summer day. After hours of lugging things into their new home, the man came over to her house and asked, Do you have a bottle opener I could borrow? Oh, yes, she replied, but he's not home right now. See, I knew I'd get you a little loose, okay? Anyhow, I am married to a sober, not so complicated, alcoholic.
We have six children, one son-in-law and a grandchild, and I'm also a grateful member of Al-Anon, and I also belong to another group called the SFS, the Society of Folks Who Shake, and maybe it'll get, does it get better? It's so good to have Lois with us again this year, and it just, I don't know, I just get the goosebumps when I say her name, and I'm just glad you're here, Lois. By working the Al-Anon program, especially the 12 Steps, having a little more faith and trust in God, and with the help of all my dear friends and my family, I have been able to rediscover freedom, to rediscover the kind of person I am.
I find that I have some good qualities and maybe some not-so-good qualities, and I find I am for myself and against myself at the same time, and I'm united in some ways and divided in other ways. Now this might sound like I'm a confused person, but I'm not. I'm just a normal, average human being. I'm just a normal, average human being.
[00:30:03]
I'm no further from the top than I am the bottom. I'm also a very unique person. That means there's only one like me, and my husband is also in the audience. And I thought, well, I'm going to throw this question in the basket and see what the panel has to say about it. And I asked, when people don't act or say what you expect, what do you do? And I thought, boy, this is really going to help me, and came back the answer from a very dear friend of mine who was on the panel.
She said, go bananas. And I thought, geez, that's what I've been doing. Anyhow, my husband was in AA a year before I came into Al-Anon, and he always introduced me and always had as the wife or the secretary of war. I didn't have a name, and I really didn't like this too well, but for a year, I sat in AA meetings giving everybody there the evil eye, because they could care less whose wife I was and whose secretary of war I was.
That was the way I felt then, but today, I'm still introduced as the wife or the secretary of war, and it's okay. My husband loves me, and I know that, and I am the wife, and I am the secretary of war. And with a changed attitude, when I came into Al-Anon, I'd been in a while, I could see that I had to change my attitude, and then when I went to meetings, then I got up, and I went around, and I shook hands, and I told people who I was.
So it really wasn't his fault because of the way he introduced me. It was my fault. I just sat there. No wonder why nobody knew who I was. I think it was a whole year before, and I started to go around and tell people who I was. Nice to meet you, and one of the AA ladies said to me, I didn't even know who you belonged to. For a whole year, she sat there and didn't know who I was. Anyhow, they know who I am now.
I came into Al-Anon, like a lot of you probably did, with anxieties, fears, resentments, the poor me's, and the most dreaded sickness of all, the controller syndrome. See, they all said this before. Anyhow, I thought controlling and managing was my job, and when my husband was sober and he started to interfere with my job of playing God, it kind of irritated me a little bit, and I didn't like it. You know, he wasn't all there anyhow, even though he was sober.
He couldn't even communicate with our kids. Everything he said to them, I had to explain to them what he said or what he meant, and I thought, huh, now, heck, can I let somebody like that take over my job? But, you know, after years of growing and hurting in Al-Anon, I have come to realize that I cannot control or manage another person. And I have also come to realize that my husband can communicate with our children without my help.
I'll tell you how it was. I'll just give you an example, and this particular daughter happens to be here today. She graduated from high school, and this is really just a little thing, but, you know, those are the things that kind of make trouble for you, are the little things. And she graduated from high school, and she had told me already that she wanted to go to college for two years and take this course.
And I said, well, you'll have to talk to your dad about it, you know, and so I had mentioned it to him, and he started yelling at me, and he said, I don't know why she wants to go to, and I don't know, she's going to end up getting married and all that money going down the drain. And he's going on and on, and I said, wait a minute, why are you yelling at me? I'm not going to college. She is. And you know, when she came home, he's on the sofa, and she went in, and he, she sat down in there, and I'm sitting there crocheting, and she said, Dad, oh, he said, what's this about you wanting to go to college?
And she says, well, I'll tell you, you know, and she started to tell him, and I went, so I could keep my mouth shut and keep my nose out of it, see, and you know, she did beautifully. She had him wrapped right around her little finger, and I had nothing to do with it.
[00:35:02]
They did it without me. They were communicating without me, and I just, I almost cried, really. I did. I mean, it just, you know. Another example was our youngest daughter had a paper route, and she used to bring them in in the front hall, and there's little bits and pieces of paper would get all over the rug out there. Well, I'd run out there and clean it up, because I knew if he'd see it, he'd yell at her, and I didn't want him to yell at her.
This is controlling, see. I don't know if you recognize that or not, but anyhow, one day I didn't happen to get it swept up, okay, and he come through the front door, and I'm getting sick and tired. He yells, you know, I yell, too, a lot, but I'm getting sick and tired of this mess. You're going to have to do your papers out on the porch. I'm getting tired of this mess, and she just got hyper. She's hyper anyhow, but she did.
She got hyper, and she came running in the kitchen, and she says, I'm telling you, hey, this and hey, that, and she's yelling at me about her dad, and I said, you quit yelling at me. I'm not your dad. If you want to yell, you go yell at him, and tell him, don't yell at me. I didn't tell you to clean it up. I didn't yell at you, and she's going down the basement stairs, and she's still yelling, and I said, if you don't shut up, I'm going to come down there and smack you one.
Anyhow, this is what happens when you are a controller and a manager, and you become a mediator, and it's a bad place to be. You're in the middle, and they're coming at you from both sides, and then you end up like this, and I don't like that place, and I have given up that job, and that is one of my freedoms, and sometimes I go back, and I have to, you know, kind of rediscover this freedom again, but anyhow, they kind of let me know about it.
By making amends to my husband and my children, I have been relieved of a great burden. I have been able to show my children how to get rid of their guilts and fears that I had so generously given them over the years, and I'm not playing games anymore. I'm playing for keeps, and I ran across this article. It was in the Reader's Digest one time, and it said playing for keeps, and it just kind of, I don't know, struck me, and I carry it with me all the time.
It says, when I grow up, like when you were children and used to play games, when I grow up, I want to be this. I want to be that. Well, this is when I'm grown up, and I'm playing for keeps, so when I grow up, I'd like to be able to throw away all these damn masks. I'd like to allow myself to get angry without feeling guilty. I'd like to trust the running of the universe to God instead of trying to upstage him so often.
I'd like to be able to cry when it hurts. I'd like to laugh at myself more often. I'd like to be able to pray again and to say no to the demands upon me that destroy my inner peace. I'd like to tell people the nice things I often think about them but too seldom say. I really like that, and I believe it. I did want to say a few words about having a sense of humor. I can see that the other two gals up here on the stage had a sense of humor.
I think you have to have a sense of humor to live with in an alcoholic atmosphere. You must. You have to have. Anyhow, humor not only means laughter, but it means having a smiling attitude. I didn't used to think this, but I do today. This describes my husband. He does have a smiling attitude. He has a better attitude than I do, and when I found that out, I didn't like that. I resented that, too, but he does.
This smiling attitude does describe my husband. By the way, he's sitting back there in an orange sweater. Anyhow, to live in our house, you do have to have a sense of humor. You know, sometimes when I try the Al-Anon philosophy on my family, it backfires. I had this thing, you know, these small irritations that we have, we can just blow them up way out of proportion. I had this thing, you know, there's eight of us in the family, and nobody wants to clean this bathtub, and we have a shower, okay, so I thought, I'm going to fix them, I'm going to show them.
Well, one thing I found out, the AA's like to suffer, the alcoholics like to suffer even after they're sober, and I also found out that the Al-Anon's like to suffer, too, even after they come into Al-Anon, so anyhow, I thought, I'm going to fix them. I'm going to put cleanser in this bathtub, and I put it, it must have been an inch thick, and I left it overnight. The first guy up is going to have a surprise, they're going to pull the shower curtain back
[00:40:00]
and see all this cleanser, and they're going, oh my God, I've got to clean this bathtub. Guess who the first guy up was in the morning? I forgot, I had to go, I had made a commitment to go with a friend of mine to the hospital, and I had to get up at five in the morning to get ready. I pulled that shower curtain back, and I thought, oh my God, I've got to clean this bathtub. So anyhow, see, that didn't work.
Now, another thing that happened was I had been having this problem, you know, I don't know, Al-Anon's, I don't know if there's any AA's in here, it's just something that you'll never be able to understand, and I hope that you will just accept it, Al-Anon's cannot live without a telephone. In fact, we had quite a large telephone bill, and my husband said, I don't know if I'm going to pay this or not, and my youngest daughter said, well, Dad, don't pay it, we can live without a phone for a month, and she looked at me and she said, on second thought, I think Mom would go bananas if you took the phone out, and I said, oh God, don't do that, but anyhow, when I'm on the phone talking to Al-Anon's, I mean, I have a sense of humor, and, you know, I laugh about things, but it's sort of like having a three-way conversation when my husband's there.
He makes comments, you know, sometimes I can handle it, sometimes I can't, and sometimes I want him to butt out and I don't know how to tell him, okay, so I sort of mentioned this at an Al-Anon meeting, and it was suggested to me that when I confront him with this, be very careful how I word what I'm going to say to him, so I was told to say, don't tell him, you're doing this to me, you're making me feel this way.
You say to him, I am having this problem. This is exactly what I did, too, and I said, I am having this problem. I am being made to feel like I don't know what I'm talking about, that I have been in Al-Anon and that I can't give or tell or help people, other people in Al-Anon with problems they may have. I said, I'm being made to feel like I'm sort of nothing or that I don't know anything, and I'm going on and on with this thing, and we were on the front porch folding my daughter's papers, and he said to me, now see, he was supposed to say something else, but he said to me, who's doing this to you?
I just shook my head, and I said, you're doing it to me, what did I do? So then I told him, and it was funny, and we laughed about it, and anyhow, it doesn't bother me, and I don't care if he wants it a three-way conversation anymore, it's not really that important. But anyhow, these are just a couple of the things, that's why I say you have to have a sense of humor when you live in an alcoholic atmosphere.
I wanted to read this, it's from Our One Day at a Time, and it sort of explains to me about rediscovering freedom or being free. It's on page 269, in case you're interested. No matter how close are the ties of love and concern that bind me to my family and friends, I must always remember that I am an individual, free to be myself and live my own life in serenity and joy. When I know I am free within myself, I will be better able to give loving thought to others.
I know there will always be heartaches and hurts and resentments in my life, but I also know that I have the Al-Anon program and you, my dear friends, to help me. I want to thank all my Al-Anon friends, my AA friends, and my family for appreciating the things in me that I have ignored, for giving me a new view of myself and a new way to believe in who I am. God bless you, I love you.