Juanita U – Kentucky State Convention (2022) – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown

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Hi everybody, my name is Juanita and I'm a very grateful member of the Worldwide Fellowship of Al-Anon. I'll tell you, 36 years ago, the last thing I ever expected was to be standing up here telling my story, you know. In fact, I remember about a few months before coming into Al-Anon, my first meeting, I remember looking out the window of the bedroom of our two-bedroom mobile home and I thought, I had been raised with a mom who traveled because she worked with the judicial system, she was the district court clerk and so we traveled all over the state of New Mexico because she had court cases and she had to show up and be the support to the judges and the attorneys and jurors and stuff. And I remember traveling with her and staying in hotels and motels and I looked out the bedroom window and I thought, I will never travel again, never, never. I just thought my life from now on and had been for some time, drudgery, just horrible, horrible I thought. And I have traveled all over this world, literally all over this world for Al-Anon, for Al-Anon and as a guest of Alcoholics Anonymous and it is an absolute pleasure every time I get to stand here and do this and it is every time I do this, it is absolutely humbling and I am just blown away that I am asked to do this. And it is not my first time here at the state, AA state convention. I think we were here back about 10, 11 years ago when it was in Louisville and so it has been nice to be here and I have gotten to be here in Cincinnati for some other things. I did an Al-Anon state convention many years ago and some great folks and so it really is an honor and I thank you for that. I appreciate that. I walked into my very first Al-Anon meeting July 2nd of 1986 and I have heard you alcoholics introduce yourselves when you stood up to the podium. So what I will tell you is that by the grace of a loving God, and I can't remember all the words, I wish I knew what they were, but I will tell you by the grace of a loving God and thank you, the help and stick-to-it-ness of a loving sponsor, a pain in the rear sponsor sometimes, I have not found it necessary to plan the murder or even obsess about the murder of any alcoholic in my life. Now that doesn't mean I haven't thought about it might happening accidentally, but to plan it, I have never had to do that and I will be forever grateful. I was one of those Al-Anons that didn't come into Al-Anon because I needed it. There was nothing wrong with me when I came into Al-Anon.

Nothing at all. I was perfect, I was kind, I was considerate, I was caring, I was responsible, very responsible and I could do no wrong. And of course, you know, when you looked at me, when I looked at me and you looked at the alcoholic, it's like I could do no wrong. There was nothing wrong here. Little by little, as I came to more and more Al-Anon meetings, gradually I began to see that there was something quite not right about me and it snuck up, you know, I never intended to see this stuff. I mean, you talked about the honesty stuff.

It's like, no, uh-uh. And so, I'll tell you what happened is that my husband went into treatment and they asked me when we did, when they did intake for this treatment center, they said, we really, they didn't ask me, they told me. In fact, they didn't tell me, they ordered me. They said, you have to go to at least three Al-Anon meetings or we're not going to let him out of here. And I thought, hallelujah, you know. I mean, my gosh, I've been trying to get rid of this guy for like nine years, you know. It's like, you're going to be responsible for him now? Wonderful. And I didn't know what this Al-Anon thing was but I knew I wasn't going to go near it, right? And I didn't tell him all the stuff that was going on in my head. I just said, uh-huh, uh-huh. And I left there. And Tom was in the treatment center and he called me a couple of times before the first family

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day which was on a Saturday. And he said, have you gone to that Al-Anon thing that they

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suggested you go to? And I said, no, rolling my eyes, you know. And he said, well, I think you'd like it. You ought to go on that. And, okay, for any of you newly sober alcoholics, never tell your family members what you think they ought to do or what you think would be good for them to do. We will never do it. Never. If it's coming from you, we will not accept it or take it in. We will loudly roll our eyes and say, whatever, you know. And so he's telling me this stuff. And so then I went to my first family day and they asked me if I'd been to an Al-Anon meeting. And I said, no, not yet. I'm so busy. I am, I mean, I work. I've got the kids, you know. I mean, I'm responsible, right? And they said, well, we really suggest you go. And they said, he cannot go home to an old idea. Now, I didn't know what an old idea was. I just knew it didn't sound good. I didn't like the way it sounded coming out of their mouth. And so I thought about it for a while and I still didn't go. And finally, I knew that the second family day was coming up and I thought, well, I'd better go because I wanted to look good to the counselors and the therapists that were there at the treatment center. I wanted them to know that whatever was wrong in my life, whatever was wrong in our marriage, and the fact that he was drinking had nothing to do with me. Now, that's crazy. I mean, they knew alcoholism, but I think that I need to show them that there's nothing wrong with me and prove it, you know, and prove that I'm not the reason he drank. So I went to my first Al-Anon meeting because I had to look good. I had to look like the kind, caring, loving, supporting wife that I was not. And I was not, believe me. I fully expected for him to come out of that treatment center and he would start drinking within days, if not hours. And that treatment center was the last hope for me. It was the last stop on the block. I thought, if this doesn't work, I don't know what we're going to do. And I thought, that will give me the excuse I need to divorce him, which was stupid because I'd been kicking him out for years. I'd always take him back.

And alcoholics are like a boomerang. You toss it out and they always come back, you know. And there was the day that he said, Juana, I'll leave. I see how miserable I'm making you. I see how miserable I'm making the kids. He says, I'll leave. I'll leave. And I was like a little kid. And I said, no, uh-uh, because I couldn't live with him and I knew I couldn't live without him. He was my obsession. You alcoholics, alcohol is your obsession.

The alcoholic was mine. He was my obsession. He's all I thought about. What did he do? How come he did it? What was he going to do? How bad was it going to be when he got home? How drunk was he going to be? What's going to happen? That was my obsession. One of the biggest lies I ever told was when people would say, if they were to ask me what's the most important thing in your life, I would have said my kids. And it was one of the biggest lies because my kids never came first. The alcoholic came first. Always. Always.

So I walk into this Al-Anon meeting, July 2nd of 1986, and I've got to tell you, it was not my first 12-step meeting. My first 12-step meeting was a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. He had a day out and they said, we suggest you go immediately to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And because, you know, I want to do what's right, and he wanted to do what's right, we went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I sat there and I remember we had the last seats by the door. And the guy came around and he gave out these coins. And he gave one to him and he was wanting to give one to me. And I said, I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic. And he said, that's okay, take one anyway. And I'm like, I don't want to catch alcoholics either, do you know? It's like, I don't know, man. It's like, I was a little nervous about that coin, you know what I'm saying? But I took it and all it said was, one day at a time. And I'm like, okay. And I sat there at that meeting and I listened. And I will tell you that everything that those alcoholics talked about how they felt, I felt like that. When I heard one of them say that how bad it was when the wind

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was blowing through the hole in his gut, I knew what he was talking about. I didn't know what he was talking about as an alcoholic. I knew what he was talking about. And I was frightened as I sat in that meeting because I thought, what if I'm an alcoholic? What if, what if the reason I relate and understand what they're talking about is because I am an alcoholic? Because you see, I drank. I drank like a pig. I did. I did a lot of drinking.

And I was proud of the drinking I did. Because I could drink big guys under the table. Proud of it. So I'm scared. What if I'm an alcoholic? What does that mean? Oh, my God. And I walked into my first meeting of Al-Anon a few days later. And I didn't like the people I saw there. The people I saw there looked like old housewives. I was not, I was not a housewife. I could not do housewife stuff. And there's nothing wrong with it. I salute and I admire people who can do it. That wasn't me. That wasn't me. And they looked like old aging hippies. No, not me. I was far too responsible to be a good hippie, you know. They looked and dressed like professional women, professional men. And I thought, I know full well that the stories of what has gone on in my life, living with active alcoholism, is not something that people in an office setting can hear. Because I've tried it. I've tried telling some of these stories. Their jaws literally hang down to their chest. Because they can't believe, and I thought, well, you can't tell these stories in an office, you know. And so I don't know what I'm doing there. But I'm going to sit in this meeting so I can at least go to that next family and tell them that I've been here. And as I sat and I listened to everybody, they started talking and saying that word, the G word, the God word. And I thought, these are losers, man. They have no clue because you do not go to God. God's the reason I'm here with you guys today. God's the reason for my lousy life.

How you can even begin to talk and say you believe that there's a God who can be helpful? Don't buy it. I've been trying to convince myself that there was no God. I've been trying to convince myself because I was absolutely frightened that if there really was a God, I would be sent to hell for what I'd done and how I'd behaved. I didn't want anything to do with God. So I'm listening to these people. Finally, towards the end of the meeting, one woman speaks up. She raised her hand and they call on her. And she proceeded to ask them the question which I really thought should have been addressed from the very get-go.

And this was the question. How do I get my alcoholic husband into treatment? How do I get him sober? Dead silence in the meeting. Nothing. Nothing. I thought, somebody's got to help this poor woman. Nothing. I thought, I'm somebody. I raised my hand. I got him into treatment. And I proceeded to tell her and everybody there how to do it. How to get him sober. How to get him into treatment. And so when I was done, they used to clap back then at this meeting. Everybody was clapping and they'd go, thank you for sharing.

Keep coming back. And I thought, I really thought they meant, how stupid, huh? I really thought they meant, thank you for sharing. Oh, my God. Keep coming back. We need you. You know, I mean, that's really, I mean, I didn't think much of myself, but I'm sure it was egotistical. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I really thought they meant, we need you, man. You shared. We need you, man. You shared what we needed to hear. And I really thought I had, because I'd been to a family day. I had things to share with these people, you know?

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I mean, some of these people had been there for a while, and they were clueless. And so, I kept coming back. And the God of my understanding is incredible. The God of my understanding is incredible, for this one reason. God takes my defects of character. God takes my shortcomings, and He uses them. And He says, you got a little ego going here, honey? I'll use it. I'll use it. Yes, you keep coming back, because they need you. God's amazing. God's amazing. And so, I kept coming back. And I kept coming back for two years.

No. Because we probably have some fairly new sober alcoholics. I see our gal from last night. Glad to see you back, honey. Glad to see you back. If I could, I'd take you home. Absolutely would. When I got Tom and picked him up from the treatment center, I was petrified. I was scared to death. I didn't know who he was. Sober. Clean. At all. I was scared that in a few days, in a few weeks, he would look over at me, and he'd say, Juana, honey, it's been a ride. You know, it's been good. But I don't want you in my life. I don't want to be married to you anymore.

So the party's over. You're not thin enough. You're not smart enough. You're not rich enough. You're not funny enough. You're not sexy enough. You're not any of the enoughs. And I'm going to go find the next Mrs. That's what I thought. I really, with all my heart, thought that that was going to happen. You see, I didn't think he thought much of me. Because I didn't think much of me. And when I don't think much of me, how can you think much of me? You can't. So I really expected within days or weeks the marriage would be over.

And I was like a little puppy asking, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? You know, just not knowing. Just not knowing what was going to take place. And I heard him on a telephone conversation about three, four months. He loved Alcoholics Anonymous. Loved it. And one day I heard him on the phone with somebody in AA. And I only heard Tom side of the conversation. And it went a little like this. What? Jim's getting a divorce? I thought he loved his wife so much. And now that he was sober, it was going to be great. And he was really looking forward to it. What? She's crazy? She won't go to Al-Anon? His sobriety is more important than living with her?

That's what I heard. And I thought, well, I better keep going to these Al-Anon meetings. Because he's sober, right? I'll be darned if some other whoever she is is going to get him, you know? So I go to Al-Anon meetings, and I go to Al-Anon meetings, and I go to Al-Anon meetings. I went to all the Al-Anon meetings we had. I did this for two years, like four or five Al-Anon meetings a week, because that's all we had in our little town back then. And I went to open AA meetings, because you've got to keep track of him.

You've got to see who his new playmates are, you know what I mean? And so, oh dear God, please help me. Okay, so, and he does. Thank you. So I'm going to these meetings over and over and over again, and I'm getting these incredible words of wisdom. I'm picking up these incredible phrases, you know? And I sound good at meetings. I sound fantastic. I sound like I got my you-know-what together, you know what I'm saying?

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It's like at the end of the meeting, people come up to me, and they'll say, thank you for sharing that. God, I'm going to take that home, and I'm going to use it. And I'm like, yeah. You're welcome. Absolutely. I'm so glad it helped you, you know? I mean, that was me, you know? And one day, you know, you can sit in these meetings. You can sit in any meeting, I don't care what it is, for forever. Just like I could sit in a chicken coop, and I'm still not a chicken. I still can't lay an egg. I can cackle, but, you know, I can't lay an egg, you know? And I went to these meetings. That didn't mean I was getting any better.

It didn't mean I was getting better. It meant I looked good on the surface, and I sounded good on the surface. I left those meetings. You wouldn't know I was the same woman sitting in those meetings that was outside that door. You wouldn't have known it. The old timers used to say this. If you don't have a meeting, if you don't have a program at home, you don't have a program. I had no program at home. You know what they meant? I finally learned what they meant about how he can't go home to an old idea.

They meant I only knew how to live in a constant state of chaos, and in a constant state of crisis, and I only knew how to blame, and how to judge, and how to be self-righteous. That's what I knew. That's how I knew how to live. I'll finish on time, I promise. Keep it up and I won't, okay? Anyway, so one day, a couple of years after going to all these meetings, sounding good at the meetings, it was a Sunday afternoon. I remember it very well. I mean, I could be back there in a nanosecond. I was by myself, sitting in that mobile home, in the dining room. I was taking an accounting class, and if there's any accountants in here, or people in class, or taking courses, or whatever, it'll take you all day to do one problem.

They got the debits, the credits, and then this, and then this, and then you got to, it just goes on and on. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't do the homework. Tom had taken the kids so I could have some time, and I couldn't do it. I was absolutely in a place where I knew I did not like me. I did not like me. I'd always said if he just got clean and sober, I'd be okay. If he just got clean and sober, I'll be fine, because there's nothing wrong with me. And he was clean and sober, in love with Alcoholics Anonymous, loved Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was not okay.

I couldn't bear the way I felt inside. I was devastated. I was hopeless. I knew that what was going on with me had nothing to do with him. At all. At all. So I sat, I'm sitting there trying to do homework, and I can't, and all of a sudden I remembered all those OpenAA meetings that I went to, and at one of them, or some of them, I can't remember, they talked about doing inventory, and I thought, oh, I'll do that. That'll fix me. Inventory will fix me.

So I sat down and I wrote some inventory. I pulled out Tom's book, and it went to that page with the three columns in there. Who I was resentful at. The reason. What it affected. And I wrote on my mom, my dad, and Tom. Pages. Pages. I still didn't feel better, but I was doing something. You know? I was doing something. Taking a little action. A few days later, I went to a meeting, and I saw a woman there who I'd seen in Al-Anon, and after the meeting was over, I had this brilliant idea.

You know, last night, our speaker last night was talking about her solutions, and all I could think was what a friend of mine said one time. My solutions are problems yet to come. Like that? Isn't that great? My solutions are problems yet to come.

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So I, you know, I think I have this little idea, and I thought, well, I will, I'll ask her if she'll listen to this inventory. So I went up to her, and I opened up my mouth, and what came out of my mouth was this. Will you sponsor me? I do not ask for help. I don't ask for help. We've heard that from our speakers. We don't ask for help. I don't care what fellowship we're in. We don't ask for help. I don't need any help. I got this. Thank you. I got it.

I don't need you. You need me. Now, those words came out of my mouth, and I couldn't take them back. I thought, who said that? And I looked around, and there was nobody there. And I realized they came from me. Now, that stuff really does happen. It really happens. It's like stuff comes out of the mouth. I have no intention of saying. And by this time, if I say something, I'd admit that I'd made a mistake. Nope. I do not make mistakes.

So you've got to run with it, you know, so you roll with it. And so what she says is, okay, well, let's meet Saturday, and we'll talk about it. I can't get out of this, you know. And so I said, okay, so Saturday morning, we sit, and we have breakfast, and we start, you know, we chat and stuff. And she said, you know, she says, I'm really honored. I got to tell you, I'm honored that you'd asked me to sponsor you. She says, I've heard you at meetings.

She says, you've got wonderful things to say. And I'm like, I'm surprised I asked you to, you know. I have no clue why. I didn't say that, but that's going in the head, you know. And I said, well, I said, the reason I asked you is this. I have this inventory that I wrote, and I would like to share it with you. Get to the point, right? It's like, you don't have to admit you made a mistake. Here's what I want from you, and then we'll go our separate ways.

Thank you very much. No need to sponsor me. Just listen to this inventory. Then she got quiet. Now I will tell you, when these people with time get quiet, be careful, because you're about to hear something that you don't want to hear. Or you're about to hear something that you absolutely do not expect to hear. And what she said was this when she finally spoke. She said, well, honey. I don't know if she said honey, but it just sounds good, doesn't it?

She said, well, honey, you know, this program is not meant to be worked alone. The first word of the first step is we. So if I'm going to sponsor you, we're going to start with the first step. That's all she said. And got quiet. And I was like, okay, okay. I don't know what I'm getting into here. You know, I do not know, but I can't back out of it. You know, there's no way, I mean, it's like, there's no way for me to get out of this thing.

I'm stuck. I'm stuck with this woman. It's like, I don't, what am I going to do? And then she laid out her requirements that she was going to sponsor me. She said, this is what we do. And this is 19, this was, I came in, like I said, July 2nd of 1986. This is 1988. Now, back then, Al-Anon didn't have a lot of literature like we have today. We had how Al-Anon works. It's been changed. The name's been changed for a long, several times, and it's been updated and stuff.

You know, so we had that, and we had that. We had our only at the time daily reader, which is one day at a time in Al-Anon. And we had the Al-Anon 12 and 12, and we had some pamphlets. We used to have our favorite pamphlet. I don't think it's being printed anymore, but it was called An Alcoholic, A Miracle Round Called or Named Denial, you know, which was a fantastic pamphlet. And alcoholism, the family disease. We had, so we had some minimum.

And so what she said to me was this. She says, if I'm going to sponsor you, she says, I expect something from you. I expect a commitment from you. And the reason I expect a commitment from you is because I'm going to make a commitment to you. My time, my energy, my experience, and I expect a commitment from you. I said, okay. She says, no. She says, I'm going to tell you what my requirements are, and you're going to go home, and you're going to think, and you're going to pray.

But she never seemed like a hard ass, you know, when I heard her at meetings. It's like she sounded kind of like, you know, it's like, and all of a sudden it's like, where did you come from, you know? And so she says, you know, you go to at least, I think she said two meetings, three meetings of Al-Anon. I said, I'm doing that already. I think she said two meetings, three meetings of Al-Anon, and I said, I'm doing that already, and she says, and you go to at least one Open AA meeting every couple of weeks, and I said, I'm doing that already, I didn't tell her why, but I'm doing that already, you know, and she said, the reason you have to go to Open AA meetings, she says, is because you have to know you don't have the only alcoholic in town, you don't have the worst one, you don't have the best one, you just have one, just have one, and you have to learn some compassion

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for the alcoholics, because you don't have any, she didn't know me, where did this come from, you know, but she was right, I had absolutely no compassion, I thought you were fun, compassion, especially for mine, no way, and then she said, and we're going to work the steps, she says, and what we're going to use is the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, because that's how I was taken, and that's how I'm going to take you, and she says, and you are not to borrow your husband's Big Book, you are not to have him go buy you one, she says, you are going to go buy your own, and use your own money, I said, okay, and she says, go home and pray about it, and think about it, and if you want to do this, she says, let me know, well, two weeks went by, took some thinking here, I mean, how desperate am I, you know, I mean, that Sunday afternoon, when I sat down and wrote that inventory, I'll tell you that I was absolutely desperate, I was absolutely hopeless, hopeless and desperate, and what I believe is that I was graced with the gift of desperation, the gift of desperation, now, if you think about that, gift of desperation, what do those words begin with, G-O-D, by being graced with the gift of desperation, I was blessed with God, God was just waiting for me to be desperate enough to say, I can't do this on my own, just waiting for those words to come out of my mouth that, you know, I didn't expect to say, I need help, and the truth is, I did become teachable, I did become teachable, for the first time, I became teachable, and I met with that woman every day, I'm sorry, every week, on a Wednesday afternoon, first time I showed up at her house and I knocked on her door, I was, I thought to myself, quickly, can I get out of here with her not seeing me, because I didn't know what working with a sponsor was going to mean, I had no idea, how was my life going to change, what's going to be different, I was scared to death, you see, I had been comfortably uncomfortable in the family disease of alcoholism, comfortably uncomfortable, I had no idea what I was going to do, until I reached that place where I could not bear to be me anymore, well, clearly I didn't get away and I came in and sat down with her and she started taking me through those steps, we sat down and we went through those steps, this woman was the most loving, this woman was the most loving, kind, caring woman I knew up to that point, and she learned everything about me, she knew how I thought, she knew how I felt, she knew what I'd done, she knew what I'd planned on doing, I loved her, I loved her, she took me up through the seventh step, and when we got to the seventh step, through it, she said, you need to find a new sponsor, I'm like, I said, why, and she says, I just can't sponsor anymore, and I said, okay, but I was not going to do anything about that, I mean, if she thought I was going to be open to share me with anybody else, to the depth that I'd shared myself with her, no way, I just kept, hi, every Wednesday I'd show up at her door, you know, I mean, I did, I did this for months, and then finally one day, she invited me in and she says, this is it, you need a new one, and I said, I can't find anyone, she says, well, you may need to find a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, if you can't find one in Al-Anon, she says, the person who took me through this was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and then she

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said, I've only worked up through the seventh step, I can't take you further, I thank her for that, she didn't try to take me someplace that she didn't know, right, she couldn't do it, well, I'll tell you, I was sponsorless for a couple of years, maybe a year and a half, two years, I can't remember how long it was, sponsorless, sponsorless, now, I am going to meetings, I'm in service work, I'm a GR for my home group, I'm sponsoring people, we have a circle and triangle in Al-Anon, just like you do in AA, our circle is inside the triangle, your circle is outside, body, mind, spirit, unity, recovery, service, we've got the same thing, I was trying to balance on that triangle on two legs, service and unity, meetings and being of service, there was no recovery, no recovery, what happened was this, I'm going to make a long story short, I nearly killed my family, it's truth, truth, ask Tom, if he hadn't been holding on to that wheel, the way he was holding on to it, he, myself in the passenger seat and our youngest daughter who was sitting in the back would have gone down on the embankment, he pulled over and he looked at me and he said, what is wrong with you, and my daughter is in the back screaming and crying, what's going on, what's happening, I am in as shocked a place as they are, I have no clue what came over me, now I would tell you it's his fault because he wasn't listening to me, sounds plausible right, but I knew it didn't make any sense whatsoever, you see that first inventory had done something, it ruined my resentments, I could no longer have a resentment that I did not know that I'd set the ball rolling and that I'd done something in that, it ruined my, doesn't mean I didn't have them or don't have them, it ruined my ability to blame and stand aside and say I got nothing to do with it, because I always do.

Next morning I sat and I said God, what in the world happened, I nearly killed my family, nearly killed them, and this is what came back to me, you see the God of my understanding is like this, when I ask and I really ask and I mean and I want an answer, I really want an answer with everything that's within me, I'm given an answer. How many times have we gone to meetings and we'll hear somebody say, I've said it myself, I prayed but I didn't get an answer, I prayed, I kept, I prayed and I prayed, I prayed but it wasn't a meaningful prayer, I didn't mean it, the prayer was said because I'm supposed to say it, I'm supposed to say it, and I didn't like the answer so I didn't get an answer, or I didn't really want an answer and I won't get an answer. Well I got my answer and the answer was this, you quit working the steps, and I thought that's true, I did, I quit working those steps, and I started to look seriously for a sponsor, find a sponsor, and I found one, I found one, it was a woman who was sponsoring Tom, and he, Tom had, she was going to do a woman's conference in Colorado, we lived in New Mexico, and he came home from one day at a book study with her and he said she was looking for somebody to go to her, to go with her to this conference and she couldn't find anybody and I said you'd love to go, I said what? What is wrong with you? No way, I am not going with her, I do not want to go with her, I didn't even like

[00:40:05]

her for crying out loud, you know, it's like I didn't know her but I have my opinions, you know what I'm saying? And I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I do not want to go, and he said okay, okay, I'll call her and I'll tell her that you're not going, I said no, you're not going to do that, because I mean it's like how's that going to look, right? I mean that's going to look really bad, I mean it's all about self-image, you know, it's how you see me, and so I said no, I'm going to go, I mean the poor guy was thoroughly confused by this time, you know, but I said I'm going, so anyway, long story short, I go up to this conference with her and I'm a vision of Al-Anon Serenity, you know, her truck breaks down and inside I'm thinking this woman doesn't even have a truck that works, how in the world can she even be of any help to him, you know, how is she going to really change him and make him fly right and do right, you know, when she doesn't even have a truck that works, it's like she's not the right sponsor for him, but what comes out of my mouth is this, well, let's trust God, we'll let go and let God, and God will guide us to the next thing, and I mean, you talk about, the big book says the alcoholic is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, hello, what's going on in here, what's going on in here, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the doctor's opinion says the alcoholic is in full flight from reality, guess who's chasing after his butt, who's crazier, and we call you guys crazy, so coming back, you know, coming back, all of that facade, all my masks are gone, and she gets to see the real me bawling, crying, and she says, honey, you need a bigger God, I said, what do you mean, and she said, you need a bigger God, you need to enlarge your conception of God, I said, what do you mean, and she said, well, what do you think of God right now, when you think of God, what do you think of, and I said, the only thing I could think of to say to her, which was from my Catholic catechism, which was, he's all loving, he's all powerful, all, let's see, loving, powerful, knowing, and she goes, that's pretty good, she says, that God got you here, is that God going to get you where you need to go, so I asked her to sponsor me, and she says, he's, I'm Tom's, she says, you're going to have to ask his permission, I said, okay, so I did, and he didn't like it, just like, same words I'd said to him, and when I said that, Tom said okay, and she said, you can sponsor me, or I can be sponsored by you, she said, well, this will be interesting, she says, because I'll hear both sides of the story, and the truth is always somewhere in the middle, right, what do we tell our sponsors, what do we hear from our sponsors, we hear their side, she'll hear both sides of the story, and the truth is always somewhere in the middle, well, we had those moments when we'd had those fights, and our youngest daughter would, and I would, one of us would say, I'm going to tell her on you, and the other one would say, no, I'm going to tell her on you, and our daughter would pop up and say, I'm going to tell her on both of you, because she really had, she was a member of our family, she is a member of our family, I have had her as a sponsor now for 30 years, for 30 years, I love that woman, you know why I keep her, she loves God, and she's continuously seeking a deeper relationship with God, not to, Zoom has done some amazing things, you know, it really has, one of the things is that at a time when all of us were in absolute, the majority of us were in absolute fear, we didn't know what the heck was coming at us, we didn't know who to believe, what to believe, who was wrong, who's right, who said this, who said that, it wasn't even a week that we were in absolute It wasn't even a week that the first conference came up on Zoom for Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:45:03]

A week later, the first conference for Al-Anon came up on Zoom. And immediately, we had meetings showing up from everywhere, all over the world. It connected this entire world like nothing else, like nothing else. The Native Americans have this story from the grandmothers, and it's this. One day, this whole world will be connected by the spider. And the spider will weave a web around our entire world, and we will become, we will begin to come together.

And isn't that what happened? People all over this world who desperately needed a message of recovery, a message of strength, of hope, of encouragement, began to find it. I did meetings online in South Africa, in Russia, in Poland, in Jerusalem, in Canada, Mexico. I did meetings all over the world. Something that caused a lot of separation brought us together in ways we never could have imagined. Tell me that's not God. Tell me that's not God.

A friend of mine says, she says, she refers to God as the God of her experience. And looking back, that's how God's worked and shown up in my life, through the experiences I've had. Believe me, we were at lunch today on our way, and we were talking about amends. And I was telling him about a couple of amends that I'd made, and I said, you know what, if it wasn't for the power of God, I never would have made those.

I cried my way to these places where I had to make these amends, and I cried my way back, so incredibly thankful that I was able to make them. And knowing full well that it was not me who had the power to make those amends, it was the power of God. The God of my experience. The God of my experience. Forget understanding. I'll never understand God. But I sure have the experience of God working in my life.

The God of my experience. This God of my experience has changed everything, everything in my life. I'm not the same woman that walked into that meeting, July 2nd of 1986, at all, because I did not tell a thing. Nobody knew anything about me. Nothing wrong here. Today, I've got no problem telling anybody about what's going on in my life. My relationship with Tom. We've had some difficulties. Life is not without difficulties.

If anybody tells you, life is wonderful, life is great, you know, nothing's ever gone wrong since I've come into the… I'd watch them. Because life happens, man. We lose people we love. We have hard times. That's life. And this God of my experience has carried me through every one of these difficulties. In more honesty, in more integrity, and not pretending I'm somebody I'm not. That's a big gift.

I can show up and just be me. Take me or leave me. I hope you like me, but if you don't, I'm okay. I'm okay. The God of my experience. My children, their spouses, my grandkids, they love me. They love me. It says, we are going to be able to rely on our intuitive.

[00:50:01]

We have a mind and we're going to be able to use it. And I will tell you, there are things that have come to me to do that I think, that's just a little something, I don't need to worry about that, I don't need to do it. Give you for instance, my oldest grandson is 31. He was in Seattle. I made him, in New Mexico we have what we call the state cookie, which is a biscochito. It's a cinnamon anise cookie.

It's delicious. I make them for Christmas. My grandsons love them. My grandkids love them. And I thought, I'm going to send a box of these along with the gift to my grandson in Seattle. And I thought, nah, that's stupid. He's not going to care. And when we got the thank you from him, he says, oh my gosh. He says, thank you so much for the present. I really loved the cookies. He said, to have something from home meant so much.

We ate them all almost immediately. Am I listening to that little, still, small voice? I'll share a couple more stories. Back in like, I think it was 2005, we went to go visit who was Tom's sponsor then in Colorado. And I said to him, because I'm trying to make conversation, because the guy's dying of cancer, right? He's dying of cancer. And I don't want to put, I don't want to go, I'm really sorry that you're dying.

It's like, and cry. It's like, what a bummer. I mean, the guy's dying. It's like, tell some stories. Fill in the silence. Make something happen. Fix everybody, right? I mean, seriously. And so I said, you know, I was at this conference, and I didn't feel connected to the people. And I went back to my room, and I said, God, how come I don't feel connected? And what came to me was, you have this amends that you haven't done.

And I was like, okay. So I'm telling this story, and he gets quiet. And watch out for these old timers again, you know? And he said, well, he said, you know, he said, anytime there's something between me and another person, there's something between me and God. He said, if I were you, I'd make those amends as soon as possible. I said, okay. I went and I made it. I'm not going to tell you that story about what that all was, because of time.

And so I did it. I did it. Never in a million years could I have thought that I'd have made that one. I kept forgetting it, because I didn't want to make it. It was too embarrassing. Too embarrassing. Oh, hell, I might as well tell you what it was. You're all wondering, and you're not going to listen to the rest of the talk anyway until I tell you, because I know those minds, you know? They're going to spin.

So what it was, was I was working as an accountant for a medical, a small family medical practice. And across from my desk was the storage room. And in the storage room, it was like I could see this box of diabetic insulin needles. And my husband is a heroin addict as well. And I just had this bright idea that I'll just take this box home for him, you know? And so… I know, I know, I know. You ought to be really glad I'm here with you guys, man.

Let me tell you. So… I don't think I've ever told this from the podium before. So, it's like, I go home, I went home and I… It took some effort to find this place, because I had to find, like, the office place, the administrative building. I had to go to all these locations until I finally found them. And when I finally found the right place, there's all these people, and I have to say this in front of all these people in the room that I'm, like, having to make amends for the fact that I stole these diabetic insulin needles, you know, like, 15 years ago, and I came to pay it back, you know, and…

Anyway, long story, I did, you know? But if there's something between me and another person, there's something between me and God. And the God in my experience makes it possible for me to make those amends so that I can be closer aligned to God. And the reason I want to do that is because if I'm not clear with people, I'm not going to be clear with God. And I'm not going to hear God's voice when God's voice speaks to me.

[00:55:02]

There's no way. It's going to be too cluttered up with stuff. With stuff. And that doesn't mean that every day when I sit in prayer and meditation that it's like, um… It's like, no, there's no way, man. It's like all these things keep coming at me, and I just have to keep coming back and going, OK, OK, God, OK, you're in the present moment. It's like, what? You know, it's like… It's hard enough when stuff is cleared to sit quiet and be present.

I don't like it when everything is coming at me because I've got stuff with people. It doesn't feel good. Your topic, your heading, designed for living. It works. It really does. Back in the early days, if you had asked me, have you done those 12 steps? I'd have said, yeah. They're on the window shades at every meeting we go to. If you haven't been to a real meeting, face-to-face meeting, watch for them.

If you got sober and came to an Elanon meeting on Zoom and you haven't seen those window shades, we got these window shades. And the 12 steps, the 12 traditions and the 12 concepts are written on them. And if you'd asked me back then, you know, yeah, don't need that. There's nothing wrong with me. He needs to make amends. And I said, yeah, I've done those 12 steps. I mean, how long does it take? You just read them and you've done them, right?

I mean, how hard can they be? And the truth is, without doing them, I was off the wall, my life was off the wall, my relationships were off the wall, life is hard enough when you are doing this stuff, when you're living the design for living, when you're taking those 12 steps, when I meditate and pray and I'm close to God and I feel like I'm walking hand in hand in the sunlight of the Spirit with a God that I hold dear and near and holds me in the palm of his hand through every second of the day, this God of my experience.

I don't want a harder life. It's hard enough. When I rely on God, your book says this, to the exact extent that I come to rely upon him, will he enable me to match calamity with serenity, right? I'm going to read one thing and I'll wrap up. March 10th. No, sorry, that's not it. This is June 14th from our One Day at a Time book. Love this. Love this. Took me years to find it in here, which means it took me years to understand the words that were in here.

If someone were to say to me, this book can change your whole life for the better. It will put you in a relaxed, in a state of relaxed serenity, help you overcome the nagging undercurrent of guilt for past errors, give you new insight into yourself and your spiritual value, and let you meet life's challenges with confidence and courage would I take it. Sounds good, right? Let us not cling to our burdens, our emotional upsets, family wrangling, and wretchedness.

Will I take the medicine? Will I take the medicine? I had to reach that place where I was blessed with the gift of desperation to find the God of my experience and I wish you yours. Thank you.