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Source: DICOBE-00534 – Vannoy S – WICHITA KANSAS SPRING RNDP – 1980-04-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00534-vannoy-s-wichita-kansas-spring-rndp-1980-04-15.mp3 Duration: 01:01:52
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It's a very special place to me and I've been privileged to see her at least once a year since that time. The program has taught me what the meaning of love is. I didn't know that when I got here and I sure was not going to tell any female that I loved her. I didn't even tell my mother that. But this morning it is a great privilege for me to say that I love the night and that I give her to you. Thank you.
Thank you. Let's see, what did you say my name was? Good morning, my name is Vanoi and I am a member of the Al-Anon Family Group. I think it's a real privilege to be here. I want to thank the committee and whoever had anything to do with my being invited here. It's really special because there's some really special people here that I wanted to be with and look forward to seeing and some that I met before.
I would like to thank the members of Alcoholics Anonymous for allowing me as an Al-Anon to share your podium and be a part of this conference. It started out to be just real fantastic. I made a great talk about 430 this morning. I sure wish I could remember how it started. I've been in this program for 11 years, 11 years in February. And I love this program. I love it very, very much. It has become the most important thing in my life.
And I'm like Virginia, when I got here I had absolutely no feelings at all except that stark para. My family were Southern Baptist Jim. And not only men can think, you know, at that age little girls do too. And I was one of the little girls that thought. I have three brothers and when I was quite small my oldest brother had a very bad accident and was just real critical for several years. And this happened out of state and my parents stayed there quite a bit and I was left with friends and family for at least two to three years.
And that stopped any spiritual things that was in my home. I barely remember being in church. My parents were bankrupt. It was a real tragic thing that happened to them. And our lifestyle changed quite a bit. The things that I can remember about what it used to be like came to me through the steps of this program. And I'm not real sure that they're really how it happened. It's what I remember. It's how I saw it.
So it may not be true at all, but this is how I remember all this stuff. And I can remember that people came and just drove and gave my parents groceries. And I remember my mother crying when they did that. And I remember a lot of sadness and a lot of strange people. And I was with a lot of strange people. And my inventories told me that this was the beginning of a time of real insecurity for me. And my father was real important to me at that age or that time or whatever.
And he just almost disappeared staying with his older brother. And that started a series of things that I searched for for a long time. I searched for someone to make me okay and some security. And I did not. I wasn't a sweet little thing that married a big, bad alcoholic and turned my life into bedlam. Not at all. I started out seeking alcoholics because I had the personality that needed the alcoholic.
[00:05:00]
There's a lot of things in my character I have discovered that are quite similar to the alcoholic characteristics. And I drank. In my teen years, in my young adult years, I drank a lot. I got in trouble over my drinking. I absolutely, totally adore honky-tonks. I just love them. I was tall and real skinny. I had pimples on my face. And everybody knows where you get pimples. And I just… The honky-tonks were quiet and, I mean, noisy and they were real dark.
And the guys couldn't see too well. Especially about midnight when they had all their two beers, you know. So it was a very comforting place for me and I enjoyed the honky-tonks. And I enjoyed the things that went on there. So real early I found honky-tonks. My parents didn't particularly like me and honky-tonks and I had to hide what I was doing. I started lying and hiding and having a secret life.
Real young. The people I met in the honky-tonks at home then, there was only about two or three and the real nice people didn't go there. And it wasn't an in thing to do. And I felt real uncomfortable about being there but it was such excitement and so much fun. Come in, son. Come right in. Sit down. You're welcome. There's just not a lot of simple ways to put this and I don't mean to offend anybody.
And Marnie told me to tell it like it was and she heard that I could get raunchy and just go right ahead. So I just got to tell it like it was. I discovered a way that men would pay attention to me and I could get their company. So I wasn't a young girl very long. I became a young woman at an early age. And used that for many, many years to get my comfort wherever and however I could. And the more that I did this, the worse that I felt about myself.
I finally fell into a group of people that I used to think were what society out there calls the scum of the earth. I believe today that they're real sick human beings and I was right in the middle of them. They were thieves and prostitutes and pimps and met a professional hit man one time. They were gamblers. They were really a bad bunch of folks and I was just right in the middle of them. And it was exciting to me and it was fun to me and it was different to me and it was something that was wrong and I was doing it.
I really don't know how I wound up there, I just did. And I met this man and he was a bootlegger and he had lots and lots of money. And like I said, we had been in bankruptcy and just didn't have hardly anything. And there was four children and a brother and lots of medical bills so I didn't have a whole lot. So I met him, he totally fascinated me. And time came that we began to live together and back in those days you did not live together as is talked about nowadays.
This was one of those no-no's. And I became pregnant and my family found out about this and absolutely, totally, completely disowned me. They knew who he was and where I was at and what I was doing and they did not want any part of me and my mother told me so in no uncertain terms. But I was still my daddy's little girl. I could always call my dad when I really got in bad shape. I saw so many things in that environment that I didn't know real people did.
Those people that I was with and associated with, I saw them absolutely strip the dignity from human beings and absolutely think nothing about it. And I often wondered why I was there and what I was doing there but I stuck there. And I believe today, and this is my opinion, that this man was an alcoholic. And he was a violent alcoholic and began to… Well, he started when he'd get drunk and we'd get in a fight and I'd have black eyes and busted teeth and he used a blackjack on me several times and he shot at me several times.
[00:10:08]
He stabbed me once and all these things just were a part of life as far as I was concerned. I did not know that it should be any different. I was stuck there literally because I had no other place to go. So I allowed that to go on and on and on and on and just really didn't think that I should question it. It's just part of living. When this little girl was born, he asked me and she to leave. He did not want the responsibility of us.
So I was out on the street and scared and mad and so I called my father and told him my situation and he said, well, you can come home. And I certainly wasn't open with open arms, I assure you, but they did let me come home. And I was so angry at him and so hurt that I did the only thing that I knew to do at the time and that was try to get back and try to hurt him and try to make him jealous. And so I went to the friend that I'd had for a long time.
And this friend, I assume was in love with me, told me he was. We were all young. I don't know if any of us knew what it was, but that's what his statement was. So I used that love to get back at Donnie for kicking me and the daughter out. And it just was a short while before Donnie took a shotgun and blew Jimmy's head off one night. And they came and told me about this. And just for about that long, I felt some guilt.
And boy, I buried that deep in my soul. And it took a long, long time to get that out. Well, of course, Lubbock was smaller than it is now. And this was big headlines and all this, that and the other. And my family didn't have a lot of money, as I said. And they used what little they did to try to keep me out of that. And again, they were without money. And I felt guilt for that, about that long. And eventually he went to the penitentiary.
And right before he went to the penitentiary, he came drunk in the middle of the night and was going to put me beside my friend, he said. And, you know, at that moment when he was saying that, and as crazy as he was, and I knew he was insane and he was very drunk, it never occurred to me at once, at no time, that there was a drinking problem involved in that. That was just Donnie. And I really didn't care if he did it or not.
I really just flat didn't care. I had this little baby daughter. I loved her and I hated her at the exact same time. She reminded me of the whole mess, and I just hated the whole situation. She woke up crying that particular night, and it stopped him from doing anything. And the next day he went off to the penitentiary. And I decided that I was going to do something different. I had to, and I just couldn't stand my life the way it was.
And I had absolutely no conception of who God was. I wasn't talked about, didn't hear about him, didn't know anything about him. So I assumed that the answer would be a different kind of man. So being from Texas and raised in Texas all my life, I knew what a real man was. The real man was a cowboy. And I thought, I'll go find a cowboy and he'll be all right. And I'll con one into marrying me. And if I just get married, I'll be all right.
That'll be the thing. That'll be the thing. That'll make me okay. So I found one. He was a bull rider and a hard drinker and a, you know, a hell raiser. And I just adored him. I thought, this is it. This is it. I did con him into marrying me. We were out honky-tonking. And I don't have any earthly idea what it was, but we were thrusting and fighting. This occurred to me in a four-step once. I was always talking about all this violence these four men did to me, you know, how awful it was.
And then it dawned on me as I was talking to my sponsor one day in a fifth step about a situation. I picked up a beer bottle, a quart beer bottle. Back in those days, you know, you had to carry your drinks in and bust it over his head. I did. And in a few minutes, he came up and he said, you know, you've really knocked some sense into me, and I think we ought to get married. And I said, I think we should, too.
And we had an absolutely beautiful marriage for the first six days. It was just beautiful. And then the surprising thing happened, you know. It was just exactly, exactly like it was with my first alcoholic. There was no difference except he was. With my first alcoholic, there was no difference, except he wore a cowboy hat and the other one wore a pistol. There was just no difference.
[00:15:04]
And I still didn't think anything about this. I just really didn't. And that started a series of years of the same thing. The sixth night of our marriage, in the middle of the night, I was standing at the glass window, looking out. I looked up and down the street, and it was real dark. It was the middle of the night, and there was a light post at the end of the block with a little bit of light. And I was looking, and there was cars and pickups parked in the drive and in front of the house, all up and down the street.
And all the lights were out. And my house was the only one that had a light. And I stood there and I thought, you know, what in the world is wrong with me? What is it? Why can't I be loved? I didn't understand what was left out. It just was a mystery to me. I didn't know why that God had me where I was at that time. I just stood there, and that was something I repeated year after year. I decided the thing to straighten that old boy out was a son, so I went to work and had a son.
And the only thing that that did was give me company in the middle of the night, you know. One morning, it was on a Thursday morning, I got up and like Jim said, it wasn't any different than any other Thursday morning. This Thursday morning I decided I was just going to die. I didn't want to die permanently, I just wanted to die for a little while. And I couldn't figure out how to do that. And I thought about my two children, who would take them.
My folks were still not extremely happy with me. I just didn't think they'd take the kids. So I decided against that, and then what else was there to do? And there was an article in Ann Landers, and everybody knows that Ann Landers knows everything. So I read this article, and it could have been written by me. It was about a lady that was having some problems with drinking. And I remembered that something was said about Alcoholics Anonymous in that.
So I called Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was told to come over, and I went over to this lady's house. And she talked with me, and I couldn't tell you what she said at all. And I left, and before I left she asked me if I would go to a meeting with her, and I told her yes. So I went, and as I've heard over and over and over, I'll never forget the first meeting that I walked into. I'll just never forget it.
When the first thing, I opened, we opened the door and walked in, and there was two guys leaning up against a cigarette machine, just laughing and laughing and laughing. And then I heard some more laughter in a room back there. And it just stunned me. Laughter. You know, I'm not sure what I thought Alcoholics Anonymous was, but it just didn't have anything to do with laughter or joy or anything. It was just, you know, by God, I was at the pits, and I guess I'd go down to that A&AA joint.
That's all I knew. I walked in that room with the Al-Anons, and I sat down, and I don't remember one word that was said, absolutely none. But there was something. And I learned later, you know, that it was the feeling. The feeling that was in that room is what got to me, because I don't remember faces or anything. Many years later, I read in the book The Prophet, which describes, I believe, what I felt.
And that line says, say not that God is in your heart, but you are in the heart of God. And I really believe that's what I stepped into that night, the heart of God. That the spirit that flows through, you know, a meeting like this or a small meeting, has to be the spirit of love, and that has to be God. So for some reason or another, I don't know why I kept going back. And I went back and went back.
And I'd go in about two seconds before they started, and I was out before they said the amen, because the way all those ladies looked and the way they sounded and the way I felt in that room, I wouldn't be a part of it if they knew about me. If they knew where I came from, I wouldn't be allowed to stay. So I didn't tell them anything about me. All I wanted to do was just go in that room and sit down and listen.
I was too frightened to say anything to anybody. And there was a lady there, and she started watching me escape every Wednesday night. So two or three of them had talked about it, and they had told me much later about the way my face looked. And my face disturbed everyone in that room.
[00:20:02]
It evidently did. So they decided that they'd post one at one door and one at the other door and see if they could catch me. And she did. She caught me, and she said just a very brief thing to me. And she told me later at the time she didn't know why she was saying it, because it was a very personal thing, a very private thing. And it shocked her that she was telling me that, because they didn't know one thing about me or nothing.
And, of course, later she knew that God had given her that message for me, and it really got my attention what she told me. Later she became my sponsor. Her husband became my A sponsor. Many of you know him. It's Jack C. and his wife, Pat Claytor. They're from Austin, Texas, now. I have another couple that sponsor me that I asked later on. Many of you know them, Johnny B. and his wife, Octavia Brooks.
I love them. And Pat and Jack literally started the healing within me, you know, just loving me, because I couldn't hear what they were saying. When they would talk to me, and Pat would say to me over and over, you know, I really love you. And when she'd say that, I'd duck my head and I'd look off, and I'd go every which way because I couldn't tolerate those words being said to me. I just couldn't tolerate it.
Now, the cowboy was out of town all this time that I was going, and he didn't know what was happening. And so I went for I don't know how long before I told him. And that was fine with him. You know, it was okay. And I continued to go. And I got brave and started going on Saturday night and listening to the open meetings. And I have come to believe that those are just as important as the Al-Anon meetings.
They are for me. I see no difference in my program. I've got to have open AA meetings to understand what's going on, and I've got to have the Al-Anon program for me. And after a while, something started happening. I didn't know it, but he got a little disturbed because I was going to meetings. And he tried to stop me. And then I realized that, you know, when you want something bad enough, you'll just do anything.
And I was strong enough one night to literally throw him out of my way to get to a meeting. It was just that important to me. I just threw him right out in the ring and went. And I went for six years, still living with this man and him still drinking. And probably, and I don't know, but maybe if the violence had stopped, I could have continued living. I don't know. Somewhere along six years, I started getting a little better and decided I didn't need that.
And that took a long time. And we have been divorced four years now. When I first got here, the things that I heard were a lot of things about, like, God, which I didn't know and didn't believe in and thought it was like Santa Claus. I had read in a magazine years ago, in Life, I believe it was, just a headline, and it said, God is dead. And I thought, that sounds probably pretty logical. There may have been one at one time or another, but I doubt there's one now.
And that's what I thought about God. So when I got here and I started talking about God a lot, it kind of disturbed me and bothered me. But my sponsor said, there's a lot of other things that you can use. If this bothers you, don't worry about it. So she and Jack spent hours with me explaining their story. They gave me literature to read. They told me exactly what to read. And the literature I noticed that I had for a year without any other literature is these two books right up here.
And I studied them and read them and I poured over them. What I couldn't understand, I'd go to Pat and Jack and we'd stay up hours and hours and hours. Those people are so precious in my life. And, you know, my sponsors, I'm blessed with my sponsors. They're still in the program, 18 years and 17 years. They're still very active. And I think that's a real blessing because I know a lot of people don't have that same relationship with the sponsors that they came in with.
And I started asking questions about God. And they started explaining what they went through. And it was just a total mystery to me. I believed for y'all and what y'all were saying that it was probably true. And that always fascinated me because I couldn't believe in anybody in a long, long time. I didn't believe anybody. Y'all were strangers to me and I began to believe everything you said. And there came a time when I wanted that relationship.
I didn't know who God was for me. And I said, how do you do it? How do you know? What, what, what? So they started telling me things to do.
[00:25:00]
They were real simple things and things that I could do and I could understand. One of them was putting little pieces of paper all around my house. Where I'd see it when I'd get up in the morning, where I'd put my makeup on, on the mirror, on the front of the refrigerator, the windows, everywhere. And I'd see these papers and it would remind me to say, please. These and thousands of farts and all that just really, you know, I just couldn't understand that.
And I told them I couldn't and said, well, that's not necessary. Just say please. And so I started doing that. And I'm like, Jim, you know, nothing happened. You know, nothing happened, but I just kept on doing it because they told me to. And then she told me something else to use that I did. Pick something that's something that you use all the time. And when you say it, say thank you. And that will be that God, you know, you're expecting God to talk to you.
You're expecting to have this relationship. So I picked doorknobs. And every time there was a doorknob anywhere, I'd say thank you. And I remember distinctly the first time that I knew anything about spiritual anything. And I'm always so thrilled to see the steps posted anywhere because that was the first thing that happened to me. I was sitting in the meeting one night and I looked up to the third step.
And the last line, it says, God, as we understand him. And it was like somebody turned a light bulb on my head. I didn't understand God at all. And I could start from there. For some reason or another, I knew it was all right to start from there, from just absolutely knowing nothing. So I started using my little tricks. And after all these things kind of fell in place and I was going to work one morning and I said something about my son.
He was in a nursery and I didn't know about the nursery and I was frightened about work, you know, what was going on. There had been some things in Lubbock about nurseries. So I had heard about, you know, talk to him just like you talk to a friend. I said, okay, on the way to work. I said, okay, God, you know, I'm worried about this nursery. Is there something, you know, some way that this can be worked out?
About a half an hour later, this lady came in and we got to chit-chatting. And she started telling me about her boss. It was raining and she wasn't working, blah, blah, blah. Her boss inspected nurseries in Lubbock. And she told me that in the conversation at the particular nursery that my son was at was rated the very best in Lubbock. And I thought, isn't that nice information to have? And she left and I thought about it.
And then it dawned on me that that had been an answer to the prayer that I had said. And it just scared the holy hell out of me, I'll guarantee you. I thought, God, there really is a God. There really is one. And it just took him 30 minutes, you know. And that was pretty close as far as I was concerned. So that started a relationship that has grown and grown and grown for me. And that took one year.
It took one year. My first year in the program was absolutely on the first three steps. And it came time to take an inventory, which I was absolutely, totally scared to death of. It wasn't the inventory, it was the fifth step. I didn't mind writing it down particularly, but I knew I was going to have to take the fifth step. And I knew that it was going to have to be with my sponsor, Pat. I knew I was going to have to do that.
And I had rather take a beating than let that woman know all about me. Because she was my higher power. She literally was. I worshipped her. I thought she did no wrong. And to expose myself to her was just the most frightening thing. But I have since found out if you want what they have, you have to do what they tell you to do. And I wanted it real, real bad. Bad enough to risk that, whatever it was I had for my sponsor.
So I took an inventory. And I left out two things. One accidentally really and the other one on purpose. After I wrote all that crap down, I'll tell you, I didn't think, you know, enough's enough. I just didn't have to tell it all. My first inventory had to be on my sex life, my involvement with men. Because that was where my greatest guilt and hang-ups were. And I went over and I took a fifth step with her.
It took three days to do that damn thing. Her son was sick and I didn't tell her I was going to take the fifth step. She kept putting me off, kept putting me off. And I'll tell you, it was just terrible. Finally got over there and finally got it done. And she said, thank you very much for trusting me enough to share this with me. Boy, that just really blew my mind. Oh, and that just really blew my mind.
She was thanking me for that, you know.
[00:30:01]
And I got a lot of relief, and I watched her like a hawk, you know. I'd slide up to her to see if she was talking about me. I'd watch her face when I walked in the room, see if she could go look up and look off real quick or change chairs, and you know, she didn't, she didn't. She just seemed as if we were closer. It seemed as if to me we were closer. And a little while after that, as Virginia mentioned, Cedar Glen happened to me.
I went down there and there was a lady called Neva, an AA lady, and she talked on Friday night, and I was just in the best mood when I went down there, just real excited and having just real good times. First time I'd ever been to a conference, and I was just having a real good time. And she talked, and I just felt horrible when she got through talking, just horrible. And Pat took one look at me, and she said, what's the matter?
And I said, I don't know. And I started crying, and she took me to Jackie, as she always did when she didn't know what to do with me. And he said, what's wrong? And I said, I don't know. And he said, did that speaker get to you? And I said, I don't know. And he said, well, you need to go talk to her. And I said, hell, I ain't gonna go talk to her, she's a speaker, you know, you don't do that. He said, yes, you are.
So he gathered me up and took me to Neva, and she took me off, and she said, honey, what's the matter? And I said, I don't know. He just told me to tell you I was hurting. She said, well, do you need to take your fifth step? And I said, no, I've taken my fifth step. She said, well, okay, let's get to what you left out then. And then she shared with me the sixth and seventh step. And that rest of that weekend, I bawled like a baby, and I am very vain.
No one sees me without makeup, and I wear false eyelashes and false everything I can get on my face. And that weekend, I had nothing, you know, just the false eyelashes finally, you know, I kept, you know, they'd get in my eye, and I'd put them back up, and I just, you know, I finally just gave up, and I cried, and I cried, and I just don't ever remember. Feeling as good as I felt, you know, at that point in time, and I was able to look people in the eyes, and I was able to let them look me in the eye, and City Glen is a beautiful place, and I swear to you, I had never seen a tree in my life, and there was trees, and I was just fascinated at the trees.
I knew there were such things, but I never had looked at one. It was just the most marvelous weekend. It was just beautiful, and I felt as pure and as clean. I just can't describe it to you. It was just the most marvelous thing. And I came back, and I went to work on the other things, you know, and I started making attempts at amends, and the first amend that I thought of, you know, I heard one time in a meeting that what you do if you're having trouble, like on a four-step, is you take someone that you really don't like, that's really, you know, a creepo, and you write everything about them that you can on a piece of paper, and when you get through, you go back and you put your own name at the top.
Well, while they was talking about that, before they said put your own name at the top, mentally I was putting all this stuff down about this girl. Boy, she was a real, you know, and then when they said put your own name at the top, it stopped me short, you know, it really did. So I had taken all these steps, and I thought, well, it's time to take the next step, and she was the first one that came to mind, and hadn't seen this girl in years.
And I said, okay, God, you know, if you want me to do this, I'm willing. And I thought there'd be a big amend to start with, and I went to a shower, I think in a couple of days, and opened the door, and the very first person I saw was this girl, hadn't seen her in absolute years. And for me, I made a big, big amend for me. I went over, sat down, and said, hi, how are you? And that's all I could say, but for me, it was a big amend.
I started working on changing the relationship with my parents, and I had told them about coming to this program and what I thought was the problem in our home, what the problem was with me. And they had started changing their attitudes towards me, and I was told by my sponsor, that probably is one area that, you know, I'm sorry, it's not going to cut it, you know, it's going to have to be your change in lifestyle, and they'll see that, and they'll appreciate it.
So I started making amends that way to them. The very last place that I started making amends was to my children, and to, at that time, my husband.
[00:35:02]
I don't suppose I've ever made amends to my ex-husband yet, I told him, you know, I'm sorry, but that's as far as I could go. So I started working on all these areas, and I'd been in the program, I don't know how long by this time that I was still in this area, still going back over, you know. In our group, we have 12 steps, you know, over and over and over and over. We have one a week, and then we have like, when we get through that series, we'll have slogans and sponsorship, whatever, and then we'll go back over.
And each time that we do this, you know, I learn something new and something different about each step. So all this time I was doing more on the other previous steps. And I'd been in the program, and I hate to tell this, but I just got to, I'd been in the program about, I think, five or six years, and when I was about 18, my brother worked in this wholesale house, department store kind of thing, and one Sunday afternoon he asked me if I'd go pick up something for him that he left, and I did, and I opened this back door, and the back door opened into the department store.
It was a Sunday afternoon, it was way off the beaten track, and there wasn't a soul around. And I got the most marvelous things that Sunday afternoon. I got suitcases and Polaroid cameras and pretty mirrors and sheets and towels, I just made a haul. And I'm not a thief, you know, I don't know why I did that, it just happened. And so I was in the program about six or seven years, I thought about this, and I knew it started coming up, you know, and I, oh, I don't want to do that.
And I went, finally I had to, I went down and talked to this man, made an appointment, had to wait a solid hour to see him, a solid hour. And I got in there and I started telling him what I was there for, told him about the program and why I was there, and at this time it had been, I don't know, 12 years or more since I had done this. And he was so interested in the program and why I was there that he wasn't paying attention to my great confession.
You know, he just was totally ignoring it and I just had to keep going back to that, keep going back to that. And finally I said, you know, I really would appreciate it if you wouldn't put me in jail because I've got two kids. I'll work out anything with you that I can, I'll pay so much I don't even know how much I owe you or anything, and he was such a delightful man. And he said, I would assume that you coming down here after all these years and worrying about it would be payment enough as far as I'm concerned.
He said, I have employees that do this all the time and we'd take off for this on a yearly basis. And I left there finally when I couldn't convince him to let me do anything, and I didn't feel good at all. You know, I hear people say, boy, I did this, and whoo, and I didn't feel good at all, I just felt sick, I was sick, and it took two or three days for it to, for me to understand what happened in that situation.
I had heard a whole lot about the grace of God, that it was an unearned gift, something that we couldn't do anything about, and I realized for the first time what you were talking about when you said the grace of God. And from that day to this day, I have been taken care of financially. You know, prior to that, I just, it was really rough. But from that day to this day, I have been taken care of financially.
I left my husband, and I had done this many times before, but this time I knew it was time. I knew that I was going to have to do something different. And this time I wasn't afraid, I knew that God was going to take care of it. You know, God has been, I have been able to trust God a little, little, little, little, you know. And by this time I had enough trust that He was going to take care of me and my children.
And so I left him, and I'm not one at that time to get on my knees and pray, but that day I did. You know, I had, I don't know, some change in my pocket, and that was it. No education. I quit school. Two kids, and didn't know how I was going to make a living. And I said, you know, God's me and you, and, you know, whatever. And so, it had just been a matter of days, you know. And I had never dreamed this, never thought about it, and in a matter of days I knew that I was going to be a nurse.
It just started falling in place. And I bought, I'll tell you, I didn't want to be a nurse. I said, oh God, those bedpans, let's think of something else to do, you know.
[00:40:03]
I get car sick, and I just couldn't imagine being a nurse, but it just happened. It fell into place. I got on, I went to Texas Rehabilitation, and through AA members and Al-Anon members that I didn't even know were there, they went to a different group, I would just shuffle right into that program just beautifully. And I, through another AA member, I was helped to get on welfare. And that ate my sack lunch.
I just literally hated being on welfare. I just hated it. But I knew it was God doing it. I just knew that, but boy, there's just times that I don't accept what God gives me, and I didn't do it gracefully at all during that whole period of time. And we have food stamps now, but then we had commodities, and you had to go down and pick them up. And I'd put scarves on and sunshades and coats, and oh, I just thought I'd die if anybody saw me in there.
I just thought I'd die. And I was so ashamed of that, and they gave me money every month, you know, and medical bills. My kids were taken care of, you know, dentist bills, everything. It was a marvelous program, and I was resenting every bit of it. And it just got to the point where I was sick of it, and I went to my sponsor and I said, I can't, you know, this is just killing me, just killing me. And so she talked to me about a thing called ego and false pride and the gifts of God and acceptance and what he would do with it in the future.
Neither one of us knew at that time, but there was a reason for it, and that if I trusted God, if I wanted to trust God, I would have to assume that there would be a reason for it. And later on, there was a reason after I graduated and started working in two different situations I've had to deal with people who are on welfare, and I identify with them. I know where they're coming from, and we always treated them with the highest dignity and the most love that we possibly could.
No one knew who was and who wasn't on welfare, and it was the reason. And that opened my eyes to something that has helped the years since, that God does really and truly, really and truly have a plan for me. You know, I can look back and see how it's all been set up. This has to happen, and this has to happen, and this has to happen. So I got self-supporting and started helping paying back those taxes that I was taking from, and it made me feel real good.
And all these years, I had this daughter that I both loved and hated and was trying, you know, to sort out my feelings with her. When she was 15, I discovered that she was drinking a little, smoking a little marijuana here and there, and lying to me, and crawling out windows. And I just hated her more for doing that, because I knew where she was going, and I didn't want her to go there. And I hated her because she was showing that I wasn't a good mother.
And I loved her, and I was scared to death for her. And it got worse, and it got worse, and it got worse, until I had to ask her to leave my home. I took pencil and paper, and I worked through the steps on it. And I talked with my sponsors, and I talked with my God, and I really had to know that it was all right to do what I needed to do, because I was so worried about what y'all would say about me taking this child and putting her out on the streets.
Two things bothered me that might happen, and my sponsor and I went through what they could be. I was afraid, first of all, that she might get killed, second of all, that she'd be raped. So we talked about these things and settled them in my heart and in my mind, and I was doing just real well. And I got a call about a month or six weeks, two months, something like that, after she was gone, the middle of the night.
And she had been drinking, and she was drunk and passed out in front of a honky-tonk, and two men had crawled in the car with her and had a knife at her throat and really did her bad. And I just… And I just about died for that long. And I went and got her and took her to the hospital where we had to do all this stuff.
[00:45:03]
About dawn, I called my sponsor. And she said, well, we talked and talked, and she said, you know what you need to do? You need to pray for those men. And I don't ever remember being that angry at that lady. I said, how dare you? How dare you ask me to pray for those men? How dare you? But I knew when I was saying it, you know, why she was saying it and that I would have to do it. I wanted to get better. I wanted to get better, so I did.
And I just nearly threw up, and it took me a long time to be able to say it, but I was able to. And then I remembered all the people that I knew in this program. From all over. And I remembered that they, you know, did things when they were drinking that they didn't really mean to do and that hurt them. And they came to this program, and they got well, and they got healed. And I thought these two men were obviously very high on something.
And I thought, you know, if they ever come in to the club, you know, how would I treat them? You know, I had to settle it. You know, I had to settle it. And after a while, it became okay. It really did. My daughter and I have talked about this at great length. She knows that I talk about this when I go off, and I have her permission to do that. Because it was a really traumatic thing, and I started to look at my relationship with her.
And it started to bother me real bad. Because I wanted to leave. Real bad. Because I wanted to love her that night, and it was difficult to. You know, I wanted to wrap her in my arms and let her know, and it was real difficult. So I knew it was time to deal with my part in that murder. I knew it was time. And this is nine years into this program. And so I started going around asking people, and I believe I asked Jim once.
I'm not sure, but I think I asked you once, you know. How do you make amends? Blah-de-blah, blah-de-blah. And I was told all kinds of different things from, I consider the winners in this program. Become willing and it will happen. Make a phone call, write a letter, whatever. You know, all these things. This man was at this time out of the penitentiary, and I hadn't seen him. And then, just one day, it dawned on me, you can't make amends until you, you know, work the steps previous.
So I had to sit down and I had to put on paper all that stuff. And I got in the car and I drove to Austin, Texas. And took a fifth step with my sponsor. And a sixth and seventh step, and I left all that stuff down there. I really did. Came back home, picked up the phone in ten minutes and found him. Met him for coffee. Told him what program I was in and what I was doing and what I was there for. He had gone to AA while he was in the penitentiary for an excuse to get out.
So he knew what I was, vaguely what I was talking about. And he, in his way, made his amends to make amends. And he was a good man. He was a good man. He knew vaguely what I was talking about. And he, in his way, made his amends to me. Now, I had been so totally afraid of this man. I was afraid when he got out of the penitentiary he was going to come look me up and I heard that he did try to find me.
And I was just scared to death of him until that day. When I walked in, I knew it was alright. It was just absolutely alright. That was just a little while before my daughter was raped. I had to go back. When she was raped and I was feeling all this stuff, he found out about it and he sent her a new car and some money. And I said, isn't that marvelous? You know, when I do what I have to do, all this out here falls in place.
And I really believe, for him, he was trying to do his amends to this child. It still wasn't right. You know, it just wasn't right with my daughter and it wasn't right in here with me. And I ran into this nun at Cedar Glen. And I usually tell about it but I'm not going today because she's going to talk. The only thing I ever knew about nuns, you know, was what is it, don't get nun, don't want nun, everyone going to have nun or something like that.
And I thought they were real strange, like Jim, you know, Catholics were real strange. And I heard that this nun was going to talk and I was so disappointed. I thought, jeez, you know.
[00:50:01]
In a little bit somebody said, there goes the nun. And I looked and she was on the back of this motorcycle and her hair was flying, her feet was flying and she had on dirty white pants and off she went. And I thought, well, I went to the meeting because I saw her on the back of that motorcycle. And Helen, you know, is such a part of my life. I can't tell you what a part of my life she is. She is the channel that God used to help me forgive myself.
And that's the biggest chore I've ever, ever had to do. Is forgive myself over that situation. And it came time to talk to this daughter right after that. And one Sunday afternoon we talked for a long, long time. And there has really been a change in that situation. I told it all to her. I mean every bit of it. And I was so frightened. I was so scared. She wanted to meet her real father. She had never seen him and this had been such a nightmare all these years.
Lying to her and my family and on and on and on. But I called him the next day and I hadn't seen him all this time. And told him that she wanted to meet him. And he agreed. He came out and he met her. And she had been wanting to go to college. So I said, let's go ahead and send in your deposit. Let's go ahead and do this because I believe that God would have you go to college. I think it's something you need to do.
And let's just act on faith. And act as if it's going to be and we'll just do it. And they sat and visited. And before he left he had agreed. He had asked to pay for her first year of college. And when he said that she turned to me. And this is real important. It was just so important. She turned around to me and she said, You know mother I've seen God do all kinds of things for you. But this is the first time he's ever done anything for me.
And I know it's for me. And I knew, I knew at that moment it was okay. I knew it was okay. She's still drinking. And she's still partying. And she's still doing all that stuff. And you know she magically turned 18. And you know she's 18. My son was the most precious thing in my life. I'll tell you he was just my joy. I had no problems for my son. Last year in March at the age of 11 the principal of his school called me.
And they caught him and another child just hiring kites. And just almost out of it on energy and they'd been sniffing. So I went to school and got him and found out that he'd been doing this for quite some time. And I didn't know about it. I discovered that I had been real busy in Al-Anon and going off and doing Al-Anon things. And I didn't even know what my own child was doing in my own home. And it just about killed me I'll guarantee you.
Set my priorities a little different. And at the age of 11 it just terrified me and I wanted to do something. So I decided to send him to a boy's ranch in San Angelo, Texas. And we started and a lot of people were helping me. And I thought I really knew that was the thing to do. In between this time this little boy was over at some car races. And there was a man that got him and got him in his pickup.
And took him off down the road and tried to sexually molest him. And he got out. This time I knew who it was. We knew who this man was. And it really tore me up and I called my sponsor and she said, Well you know what you're going to have to do. I had to pray for him. I just prayed for that bastard all the way right down to the courthouse. His trial was a few weeks ago and they found him not guilty.
I had to do some dealing with that. I had to do some dealing with that too. Anyway, right after this situation with this old man,
[00:55:01]
I went home one night and my son wasn't there. He was gone. And I searched and I searched and I searched and I couldn't find him. I called my ex-husband, his father, and he didn't know anything about it. We had the police out, the sheriff out, everybody out. And I found out much later that my husband had kidnapped him and had hit him because he found out I was fixing to take him to the boy's ranch.
Boy, I just, I understand how some people in a moment of anger and rage can kill. Because if I could have had my hands on that SOB, I guarantee you, I'd have killed him. Because I thought my son was dead. I thought this old man had come back mad because we'd filed charges and got him. I just knew, you know. I went to everywhere there was to go. I went to police, sheriff, judges, lawyers, child welfare.
Everywhere there was to go. And there's just literally not anything I can do about that situation. His daddy is drinking and he's drinking bad. And he vowed up and down that he was going to stop drinking and raise this boy. And the boy wants to be with him. He never felt love from his father. Of course, the alcoholic, you know, sometimes can't show love. And this boy thought his father didn't love him.
So it's, the boy wants to be with him. And his dad's helping him. He's not letting him smoke marijuana or sniff or anything. He's letting him drink beer and showing him how to be a man. And as far as I can tell, this is the hardest situation I've had to deal with in the program. I had to totally surrender my son to God as I understand him. Just in utter defeat because I couldn't do anything. I just really couldn't.
And I have learned the value of one day at a time. That's, you know, sometimes I just tolerate it. I don't accept it. There are days when I just can't understand it. I'm not allowed to see him. I've been over there two or three times and I think he stayed sober. His bowel lasted, I think, two weeks. And I went over to see him and I was thrown out the front door. He was real sick a while back and my ex called me to see about him.
I went over and I was thrown out the front door. So whether he's sick or whatever situation he's in, I have to stay away. And I've had some real help and some real support through that and today. And there's a thing that I do, another gimmick that my sponsor told me. In my prayer and meditation time in the morning, I close my eyes and I picture me and my two children. And they're, one's on one side and one's on the other.
And we're all praying and everything's alright. We're all praying and everything's alright. And I have to believe, I have to believe that God knows exactly what's going on with my two children. And me. They've been gone since last October. And I want to say this to some people that I was with then. Y'all know who y'all are. And I said something to you then, I'm going to say it to you now. My experience has been with y'all.
My hope is with y'all. And my God is with y'all. And that weekend that I spent with those special people, really was a turnaround. In that situation with my son. And I have, you know, been so much better and done real well. I worked for quite some time, all through this time, at the club at home, the A club. And I got a lot of support from my folks there. I'm not going into it because I went into it this morning and I think it's okay.
But I got into a real mess there. And a real bad situation and some real hurt feelings. My own self allowed me to be threatened about being in Al-Anon, being in the program. What am I doing here? here and I have discovered the reason I'm here is because I need y'all very, very much.
[01:00:05]
I don't have to make apologies for that. This weekend has been very necessary for me and I've gotten a lot of support and a lot of love this weekend and again I think it's changed. The turnaround has come and I'm going to be okay. And I love y'all for allowing me to be a part. Thank you very much. Thank you, Benoit. Shall we close this meeting with the Lord's Prayer? And Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.