1995 San Diego Spring Roundup

Hi everybody. My name is Larsen. I'm a really grateful member of Al Anon. And that's right, I didn't know where I was going, but that's never, ever stopped me before. And anybody who's ever been on a search and seek mission for an alcoholic knows what I'm talking about.

So

I made it and I always found him. So I'm in the right place. I really want to thank the committee for asking me to be here today. It's a real honor and a privilege always to be asked to speak at A at an Al Anon meeting and I am really honored to be here tonight. I want to thank Michael for her fantastic talk. I really enjoyed her and I've heard her before, but she just is one of those people that just it's one of the reasons you keep coming back. I want to thank Cliff and Pat for being here too. Cliff is just about my favorite alcoholic,

maybe #20

but Pat's my real hero. If there's ever an Allen on Hall of Fame, she's going to be the first person I vote into that for anybody that's married to Cliff. Definitely

need some kind of ribbon.

But anyway, it is a real honor to be here and I'm just going to tell you a little bit about what it was like and what happened and what it's like for me today. I also want to thank you because the committee took us out to dinner and we had this real nice meal. And about halfway through, Jim was sitting at our table and a bird flew in the restaurant

and he thought he was having an LSD flashback. And, and if so, and I'd known that's what he thought, we wouldn't have told him we saw the bird. But

but it's a real pleasure when you get to meet new people and, and talk to other people from out of the area. And it's really neat to come to a place like this because also we got to meet some of the AIDS speakers. And right away, you know, they were teasing a little bit and, and joking and, and that makes me feel loved. That makes me feel a part of and, and it's always, always just kind of

blows my mind when I go someplace and no matter where we go, the love is always there. And when you walk in the rooms and you feel it, then you know you're home and you know you're in the right place. And, and I'm grateful for that feeling today. Like I said, I'm just going to tell you a little bit about what it was like and what happened and what it's like for me today. I'm the oldest of four children. My dad was a master Sergeant in the Army, so that made me the automatic corporal of my family,

and I was put in charge of my I have two younger sisters and a younger brother, and I was just from as far back as I can remember. I don't ever remember not having siblings,

sisters just 13 months behind me. And I was just always in charge of them. And, and they had, I had to do what my dad told me to do and they had to do what I told them to do. And, you know, and my dad ran our family like he ran, you know, his, his outfit in the Army. He even just referred to us as his outfit at home. And we had, you know, a room inspection and we didn't do the dishes. We had KP duty. You know, my dad had bounced quarters. We had Army blankets on our bed and he bounced quarters off of them, you know, and do all that kind of good stuff. So I learned a lot of discipline and a lot

responsibility at a really early age. And, and I don't ever regret any of that today. You know, I always think if you're going to marry an alcoholic, it's real good training. And it came in handy for me anyway. And, and it was just the way that we grew up. We just grew up with all that discipline. And it was yes, Sir or no Sir. And, and you know, and I don't have too much recollection of my dad ever. I don't even own a picture of him today without a, without him holding a can of beer in his hand. And, you know, and I never knew that, that, that my dad was alcoholic. I never knew that

alcohol ever played a part in my life growing up. My dad was just a person who just got drunk a lot. And I just saw that that's what everybody's dad did. I just thought it's just what went on. And you know, I didn't know there was anything bad or good or any, any, you know, kind of feeling about that. That's just what went on in our house. And, and my dad was a very verbal person. Like I said, he was a master Sergeant in the Army, so he had a voice he could just tear the ceiling off of with, you know what, subsequently, you know, we'd be 4 kids playing out in the backyard and he'd call us and instantaneously four children

instantly pee their pants on the spot, you know, just to come in and find out that dinner was ready, you know? But you know, and another time you call you and you come skipping in the door and you get one right across the mouth and not quite know what had happened or why, you know? And again, I never ever attributed that to the fact that my dad drank or anything. For a long time, I lived under the guise that my dad was just a very mean man.

He could be very, very loving, but he could also be very, very mean. And it was like either one or the other. There was never any black or white or anything going on in between. It was just the way that he was. And again, you know, how was I supposed to know there was anything going on? You know, sometimes we'd wake up in the morning and there'd be a pyramid of beer cans to the ceiling from the fight that might or from the party that my parents had had the night before. Well, fight fits in there too. But, you know, and again, you know, it was just, it's just what went on and and it used to impress the neighborhood kids,

bring them over. And maybe, you know, it's like, you know, when when you live in Army bases, you know, having pyramids of beer cans in your living rooms, kind of like having a wonder of the world, you know, So it was, you know, there's not much entertainment going on. And we always lived in military housing and we always live with other military families, you know, and the benefit for me was that my dad was usually the senior noncommissioned officer, which made me the senior noncommissioned kid in the neighborhood, you know, so I was just in charge. I just always kind of had that deal. I don't ever remember, you know, they joke that I came out of the womb with a, with an armband and a clipboard,

you know, I don't ever remember being, you know, in school where I wasn't the room monitor or the playground monitor or the cafeteria monitor, because the teacher knew,

you know, she left the room, you know, that I would tell her who did what, you know, and I would write it down, you know, and I found out at a really early age that that's what I'm really good at. I'm really good at watching what other people down, watching what other people do, writing it down and reporting it to the proper authorities. That's just what I do, you know. And you know, after almost 14 years of now and on, I guess I haven't gotten very good at that because yesterday in in the company I work at, they made me the floor warden.

I have a hard hat, a flashlight, a vest, a big orange vest. And

they gave me a bullhorn with this iron.

I work with all the all the group vice presidents are on my floor. So they needed someone who could get those guys to go. And so one of the guys from security called me up and said we know that this is a job for you. And I had to call and report myself to my sponsor and I'll try and keep working in that area. But but it is a lot of fun and I really like the job.

But anyway, growing up in this house,

you know, with my data, my parents did used to fight a lot. And, you know, and what I remember the most is that my dad would get really angry and he'd do these big stomp out things and he would leave and he'd be gone for two or three days. And and then he'd call, he'd call the house and he'd never want to talk to my mom. He'd want to talk to me, you know, and I'm four or five years old or something. And he wants to, you know, tell me, you know, tell your mother if she does this and she does that, she does this, you know, that I'll come home, you know, and I'd have to put the phone down and I have to walk over to my mom. You know, when I say, well, dad says if

this stuff, he'll come home. And my mom would say, no, I'm not doing any of that stuff. And then I go back and pick up the phone and say, OK, Mom says she'll do everything, you know, and, you know, because I'm a fixer and I got to make everything be OK, you know, because an absolute terrible fear I had as a child was that my parents would get divorced, you know, and the real fear behind that was, was that my dad would get custody of me. I was just absolutely terrified of that, you know, because he never made any bones about the fact that I was his favorite child. You know, especially the first three of us were girls, which was a huge disappointment,

my father, but he always accepted me because I was first born. And like I say, he made me this little corporal in this family and he gave me a lot of authority and he gave me a lot of responsibility. And he was a very, very strict man. And he just did not disobey him no matter what. And, and I remember one time, you know, he was gone off on maneuvers and

we were thinking that he was gone. We were playing with these children that we weren't supposed to be playing with. And, and I thought it was safe because he wouldn't catch us at it. But he happened to come home early for maneuvers and he caught us playing with these kids. And I saw him drive around the corner and we tried to hide, but there was, you know, he saw us and we were in trouble. And I knew it. My mother sent for us. And my sister and I were sitting in the living room and we were sitting in this one chair together. And, you know, and we were just little guys. You know, I was fixing. She was 5. And my dad was standing over us. And he was so angry. He was,

you know, we were just in this big trouble. And he's waving his finger and he's waving back and forth and he's going. How many times have I told you girls not to play with those kids, You know, when I knew enough to be quiet and say absolutely nothing? But my sister, who's 5 is, is stupid. And she says three times, you know, so, you know, this just incensed my father because now not only had we, you know, disobeyed a direct order, we had insubordination to add to our charges. And

and what happened, always happened is I got my, you know, I always got all the perks first being the illness, but I also always got my punishment first. You know, when I'm in the bedroom and I'm crying, you know, for my whooping and unsniveling. And I'm waiting for my sister Lucy to come and she doesn't. And she doesn't. I finally get up the courage to open the door and creep down the hallway and, you know, peek around the corner and there she is. And she's laying across my dad's lap in my father's passed out cold.

Now many, many years later, we are adult children. We're talking about things that happen to you when you were kids, as you do when you're adults. And I reminded her how her big mouth had gotten me a spank and she gotten off Scott free. She says you just think that's what happened. She says you got your spanking and you were in the bedroom and, you know, a minute or less. She says I spent an hour and a half trying to get off dad's lap without waking him up. And,

you know, and for Al Anon's, justice is a real important factor. And, you know, you know, and what I got to learn from that is, you know, justice is always going on. We don't always see it, but it is always happening.

But anyway, you know, in this family, you know, I got to watch my mom and you know, and as my dad's drinking increased and again, you know, I never had any idea that it was my dad's drinking that was going on. I just watched my mom really kind of just be quiet and kind of close up and not do too much anything at all, you know, and we'd be sitting at the dinner table and my mom would have these like epileptic fits, you know, which, you know, she got to the point where she could read when my father was getting ready to explode. And so her her signaled us at the dinner table. You know, she just makes these flinchy, you know,

facial things at us because she couldn't come right out and say your father's getting ready to explode, please don't do anything because you know they don't like that. You know, she would just have to make these facial expressions at us and it would be a signal to all of us that, you know, you don't talk, just look at your plate, don't do anything at all. But if you have 4 kids at the table, someones going to do something, whether it's scratching your knife on your plate or kicking your glass or spilling milk or whatever. And something like that would happen and there'd be this huge explosion and my dad would just erupt and all I would know is that a few minutes later,

everyone would be in their bedrooms crying and sniveling, you know, and then the next morning we get up and it would just be like, what do you want for breakfast this morning? And it would be like nothing had happened. And I had the good fortune when I was very early on and Alan on to be an open a, a meeting. And I heard an alcoholic share of how alcoholism and the families like having us sleeping rhinoceros in your living room. But everybody pretends it's a coffee table. And every so often, you know, you walk around the coffee table and you just keep going on. And every so often the coffee table turns into the rhinoceros, you know, and breaks everything in the.

And then after, you know, as long as it does its thing, and then it goes back to being a coffee table again. And that's about the best description I can tell you about what it was like growing up in my house. I always knew there was something wrong, but I absolutely never had any idea that it had anything to do with alcoholism. You know, I just thought my dad was mean. I didn't know why he was mean. I didn't know why he was so hateful. It got really difficult to bring friends home from school, you know, So we just didn't do it anymore because sometimes you bring friends home and my dad would be friendly and nice to him. And other times you bring friends home and he would call you

an idiot and just give you a real chewing down in front of them. So what you kind of learn to do from that is just not to bring people home anymore, not to let yourself be vulnerable. You have functions at school or you're getting an award. And sometimes Dad comes and he's proud of you, and other times he comes and he's a drunken mess falling all over people. So you learn not to tell him that stuff is going on at school anymore. You don't even sign up to participate in things for fear you'll win and Dad will come. You know, And I had absolutely no idea that it was alcoholism that was causing all this stuff going on in our house. I thought he was just mean. I didn't know why he was,

why he was so hostile. I just plain old didn't understand it. I remember one time when we were changing duty stations, we got out to California, but I had gone with my mom and my sisters and my brother to California to see my mother's family. And my dad was making all the arrangements. And we were supposed to be there for two weeks and then fly home. And I remember getting off the airplane and being 8 years old and knowing, having that feeling in the pit of my stomach, that my dad would expect a big hug and a kiss from me. And I didn't want to do that.

And I remember feeling really awful about that, that there was something really wrong with me, that this was my dad and I didn't want a hug and kissing. And I had absolutely no idea that it was alcoholism, absolutely none at all. I just thought it was a mean guy.

Anyway, my dad got out of the Army when we were teenagers. And, you know, up until this time, we'd always lived in military housing, you know, on the East Coast with the other military families. And, and when my dad get out of the Army, we moved to California. And you have to know what a culture shock this was to us. You know, coming out to California in the 60s will rattle your cage. And we had absolutely, you know, this was just such a whole new realm and a whole new thing going on. And, and it was really difficult to date. It was really difficult to bring guys home to meet my dad because

my dad was over 6 foot tall and he had this one eyebrow that he could raise like 6 inches off of his head And he would stand over these guys, you know, and give him the same old rocking back and forth thing, you know, about what are your intentions towards my daughter? You know, and we're like 14 and 15 years old. We don't even know what movie we're going to see, no less what intentions are. And so guys would take us out, but it would be like, you know, they shake our hand at the door, get us home early and, you know, just say, hey, it's really nice and I like you, but nobody's worth this, you know, and, you know, and off they would go. And, and what kind of subsequ

came of that was lying and cheating. You know, the only way that we could go out and have fun and do things was just just to go out and, and, and lie to my dad about what was going on. We're staying the night at girlfriends. You know, my mom helped, you know, maneuver these things and make these things possible for us. You know, I just saw the line and the cheating and the, and the stuff just started going on. But I tell you what I did learn for myself

and you know, and my reaction in all four of us reacted very differently to what was going on in our home. But you know, my reaction was just through the very best you can, excel in school, do exactly what you are supposed to be what you are told to do. Be a rule follower. Do not rock the boat and no negative attention will come to you,

you know, or at least what negative attention does come to you. You know, you can, you can deal with because that was usually on a group basis, because that would be when my dad was drunk and having these huge explosions. And it didn't matter what you did or didn't do anyway. And so anyway, when I was around 17 years old, I met my husband. You know, I met him on a blind date

and when he when he came in to meet my dad, I should have known there was something really wrong with him because my dad liked him right away. But that of course went right over my head and and we went on this bowling date with this other couple. And I tried desperately not to beat him at bowling, but it was almost impossible. And you know, because right away I know all this stuff. You're supposed to make the man feel like he's big hero guy. You know, when he's drunk and throwing gutter balls, it's kind of hard. But

I, I did try not to beat him, you know, And another clue, you know, that should have been, you know, going through my head that there might be something going on with this man as, you know, he was, he's he was a few years older than me. He was like 23 years old and I was 17 and he'd been married before and he was still living at home with mom and dad. You know, that might have been a little flag, you know, that there was something weird about this person. But, you know, all I saw was just this absolutely wonderful, fabulous person because the up until then,

you know, I'm just, I'm the rule follower, you know, I just take these little weenie guys that don't do nothing, you know, real boring, nothing people. And, and you know, and it's an alcoholic, you know, of this type walks into your life. I don't know, it just really grabbed my attention and I just thought it was just the most fabulous thing in the world. And I remember going back to his house and and stopping at a liquor store and he asked me what I would like to drink, you know, and I told him because I'm a rule follower, you know, I don't drink. You know, the number of times I've had, you know, that I've actually drank, I could count on one hand and that always

in the presence of my parents. And you know, I'm a real follower. I just don't drink. And I said, so you're just going to have to pick something for us. And he got a gallon of Red Mountain wine, you know, obviously to impress me, if nothing by sheer quantity alone. And, and we went back to this house and we played this game and we drank this wine. And, and what I remember about that night is how very drunk I got. I got totally blotto drunk. And, and the second thing I remember about that night of what absolutely wonderful, fabulous time I had,

I just had just the greatest time of my life. And even today, when I think back, you know, on, on, on that first date that we had, you know, it still makes me feel good. It was, it was just an absolutely wonderful time, you know, and Butch and I pretty much started dating fairly regularly from that point on. As much as you can regularly date an active alcoholic. You know, that's not always easy either. But you know, my name is, is difficult, you know, for sober people. And and he used to have to write it down on a piece of paper when he would call me, I would

with him because it was high as larceny there, you know, that's spit it out. You can say it and,

and we started going out and I want you to know from the very beginning that alcohol and drugs was a part of our relationship. It was basically his part of our relationship. But it was, you know, not anything that he ever hid from me. You know, I can't say that he led me down this path. And, and, and I didn't know that he drank and I didn't know that he did drugs. He was very obvious. He was very forward with all that stuff. This is who he was. This is what he did

and and from the very beginning, you know, it's real important for me today to remember how much I participated in all of that because later on after we were married and the drinking got really bad and as often happens in the case when the Alcoholics drinking increases, the Al anons completely decreases. I forgot that I participated in it. You know, that I drank as much as he did, that I got drunk as often as he did, but I encouraged it that I participated it and I used to love to take what's to my little weenie high school parties. My little weenie girlfriends would be there with those little weenie

drinking their little weenie beer. And Butch like to drink whiskey and he'd pour this huge Tumblr of whiskey, you know, and do this gum, gum gum thing or just drink it right out of the bottle, you know, And these boys, their eyes can get this big watching them, you know, He was their hero, you know. And most of all, you know, important to me was he was my contribution to the party, you know, to the festivities, because he was always good for some bizarre

scene or some bizarre act or whatever, you know, and all the girls just thought I was just, you know, that I could handle this guy was just amazing. And, you know, so it was working for me. There was a time when it was really, really working for me, you know. And again, if you to ask me when I first come into Al Anon, did I ever get drunk with him? Did I ever do any of that stuff? I would have been at least denied all of it. I just, you know, and to me, that's just the way that that that my disease progressed. For some reason, all that stuff just gets blacked out of me. You know, I have absolutely

no idea that I participated in it, that I had any responsibility and what went on. You know, I would have said that he deceived me about his drinking and that he deceived me about the amount of drugs that he took. And he never did any of those things. But I just blocked it out just so I could look good, so I could one more time be the victim and be the martyr

and, and I had to be an Al Anon a while and work on the steps. And when they say more will be revealed. Those are the kind of things that I've gotten to remember since I have been in the program. I am really, really grateful for that because I am a participant in my own life. I always have been. But sometimes I deny that I have anything to do with what is going on. And I don't think that's true in any circumstance. You know, I am responsible for what comes out of my mouth and what I say and what I see and what I hear, you know, and I'm grateful to Al Anon for those lessons. I truly am. But anyway, Butch and I were dating.

And we were having a pretty good time. Things were going along really well. He was really kind of a disappearing drunk, though. Like I say, it's they're really hard to keep track of sometimes. And, you know, a lot of times he'd be gone for two or three, four or five days at a whack. Nobody would know where he was or anything. And I'd go out to work in the morning and there he would be in the sleep in the back seat of my car. You know, he'd have a breath, breath that could not a camel off of its feet. But I was just always grateful because he came to see me first. That's all I ever cared about, you know, And I never really asked him a lot of questions. I never gave him, you know, the third degree or any

kind of stuff. I was just always so thrilled, you know, that he was finally back. And, you know, he didn't do this once or twice. He did it lots of times. I got to the point where I left a blanket and a pillow in the back seat of the car, you know, right away I'm taking care of, you know, and making it be OK, you know, because that head risk, you know, that's not a headrest, that's an armrest, you know, and just just doing those kinds of things.

We weren't dating six months. And I saw that he was having difficulty making his car payments. Now, he's never said to me larceny, I'm having trouble making my car payments. Can you help me? You know? But all I know is that, you know, after nine months of dating, I'm making his car payments for him, you know, and again, that wasn't anything he ever did. But see, it was it was very important to me that everybody else thinks that he can make his car payments.

Least you think I'm a crummy picker, you know. I mean, he's got to look good and I'll do whatever I have to do to make him look good because, you know, Butch has with so many other Alcoholics have and that's the P word. And that's potential, you know. I mean,

you can do stuff with these people, but you know, but the problem with them is they're kind of like Gumby. You get one arm twisted up and the other one goes down the other way. And, you know, and I never knew that's what I was working with, you know?

And I knew he had potential. I knew and I knew that I could fix him. I knew that the right woman would make this man be OK

and, you know, because he'd been married before and she didn't understand him. And, you know, if she, you know, and, and I, I just knew that I could make everything be OK with him. You know, when I'm 17 years old and I've already got all this, you know, romantic fantasy in my life about how it's going to be, you know, and how it ended up is that I got pregnant. And it's really important that I share this with you too. I was 19 years old and, and I became pregnant and later on, again, when the drinking got really, really bad,

you know, I was sure it was because God was punishing me for having gotten pregnant before I was married. And, you know, and, and what I had to learn after, you know, being an Allen on for a little while is that if you're going to screw around and not use any birth control, you might get pregnant. It's just a fact of life. I personally like the God is punishing me thing because it's just, you know, if you're going to do the martyr, you need the if God isn't punishing you, even you can't do the martyr thing, you know, and again, I've always thought I was such a big responsible person. I always thought I was accepting

the responsibility that was going on in my life, in his life and everything else, you know, and again, the part of my disease, you know, that half the time I wasn't accepting anything. I was always blaming other people. It's his fault, it's her fault, it's this persons fault. And all this is happening to me because, you know, and Butch is drinking and has gotten so bad and everything is falling apart, you know, and because God has

punishing you because I got pregnant, you know, and for a long time, that was a really just my biggest, deepest, darkest secret, you know. And as Michael shared earlier today, that's not that big of a deal anymore. And it's not even that it was that big of a deal back then. But what is important today is that it was a big deal for me then. It doesn't matter if you think it's a big deal. It was a big deal for me, you know, and occasionally we would have to go to work functions and I would have to take Butch with me and all the way to this work function, I'd be telling them now, if anybody asks you when we got married, you tell them and in the proper year. So the birth of our

and corresponds, you know, appropriately and no one would know this big, horrible, dark secret, you know. Well, I don't know how many parties you've been to, but I've yet to be the one yet where I've said I'd like you to meet my husband, Butch. They say, Butch, it's nice to meet you. What year did you and Larcen get married? You know, I don't know why I think that, you know, that my coworkers were staying awake at night thinking about that kind of stuff. But that's just my sick thinking, you know, this, that that they're watching me and they're thinking about everything I'm saying or what's going on. You know, I joke with them today. If anybody ever does ask him, you know, he

still won't know what year to tell him. I have personally lied about it so much myself. I don't even know what year we got married anymore. But but actually last Tuesday we did have our 21st wedding anniversary and, and that's a real blessing too. But anyway, you know, when I was in Al Anon in my first year, there was a Al Anon family groups convention that we have every year. And, and a bunch of the girls, we, we do this thing where we get 2 rooms and we cram as many, you know, people in them as we possibly can.

And one night and we were having the meeting after the meeting, everyone was sharing about what I assumed was their deepest, darkest secret. And when it came around to my turn, I shared with these ladies how I had gotten pregnant before I was married. And there was, you know, six of us in the room. And it turns out that five of us, you know, had had to get married. You know, we decided the 6th was the sickest because she married an alcoholic and didn't have to. And,

and that's still true today, I think. But

but see, what I got to learn from that was I got to learn some trust, you know, because when I was sitting and we were sitting there and we were having the meeting after the meeting, we were talking about our feelings. And I thought that these women were trusting me with their failings. And because they gave me some trust, I was able to give them some trust back. And what I got out of that was that the steepest darkest secret is no longer a deep, dark secret. It stops being a deep, dark secret. That night. It stopped when one more time, you know, if someone reached out to me and I was able to reach back to them, to me. That's what this program has always been about,

you know, and I always try and keep that in my mind all the time because I'm still a sick person and a lot of times things are going on in my life, you know, that I don't want you to know about. And basically they're what I what I don't want you to know about is how badly I am handling them. So I don't want to talk about it and I don't want to share it with you because I know I am not doing what I am supposed to be doing,

you know, and I constantly get to be reminded over and over again, you know, that the only way I can get over those turtles is when I do share with you, when I tell you what I'm doing, you know, when I get that guidance and that love and that support. And it's not necessarily, and you know that this is what I need to do or this is what I need to do. It's just, it's just in the hug that I get from people that says we love you and we care about you and we're here for you. And I'm just so very, very grateful for that. But anyway, Butch and I got married about a month after our son was born. So I wasn't pregnant when I got married either.

And I used to brag on that big time too. And

it was all a big lie, But but I was not. And if you knew the right questions asked and you could find out the right stuff, but that's just the way that it was. And, and up into this time, I want you to know, I never ever talked to Butch about his drinking or any of that other type of stuff until the day after we were married, You know, when I sat him down and I had this, you know, the heart to heart talk about, OK, we have a child now. And you know, I know all the party thing was fun and all this stuff. But now, you know, it's time to get it together. And maybe once a month we'll get a babysitter and we'll go to a party. But that's all we're going to do from now on.

Now he nodded his head like this to me, indicating affirmative that he understood what I was telling him. You know, of course, the very next day he was drunken off and doing his thing, you know, and the very next day the war started. It just absolutely, positively started for me right then. I want you to know, you know, I watched my mother for years do absolutely nothing about my daddy's drinking or say anything to him about his drinking, you know, So I knew the silent treatment did not work. You know, I want you to know that Butch prayed for the silent treatment. I am so proud to report to you. He never got it

even once. You know, I was just one of those Al Anon's whose mouth was attached to the doorknob boy. The minute he came in the door I was like a little Pekingese dog.

No, and I always feel part of the reason I talk as fast as I do is I only have so much time from when he got home to when he passed out to tell him everything. It was I had to tell him.

God knows I absolutely, positively had to tell him, you know, and I and I was the master Sergeant in our house. I was the one taking the roof off. You know, I was the one that the people would say to me, our neighbors would say to me, Larsen. Well, God, no wonder the poor guy drinks. All you ever do is yell and scream at him, you know, because Butch just never did anything. All he ever wanted to do was just get drunk and pass out. Now I shared that one time and he was sitting in the front row and some guy in a a was sitting next to him and leaned to him and said, I don't think that's too much to ask for. And,

and I guess it probably wasn't, but it was more than I could give him because I was angry. There was no way I was going to let this behavior go on,

you know? And so I constantly was just, you know, someone has to watch him and tell him and tell him and tell him all the time the things he's doing wrong and, and what a disappointment he is and what a failure he is. And why can't he get this right, you know? And I would have drinking lessons with him, you know, I would set him down in a chair. And I pour a drink and I take a couple sips and I look at my watch and go. At 6:00, it's time to go home. See you tomorrow, you know, And I go walk towards the door. You know?

Butch, can you do that? He's not his head. Yeah, I can do that. He was always like I say, he's agreeable, you know, whatever. All he wanted to do was just hope I'd shut up and he could go to sleep.

And but we would just, you know, just those kinds of things. We're always going on. And

I remember one time he came home and just to show you how drunk he was, he woke me up and,

and, and he demanded to have his dinner, which, you know, was really unlike him because this again was the beginning of this Doctor Jekyll, Mr. Hyde personality thing. And we were getting a little bit of that Doctor Jekyll guy there or Mr. Hyde rather. And, and he demanded to have his dinner and he scared me because he was really kind of forceful. And that's not

the type of person that he is. And I kind of scurried off into the kitchen. And you have to know, this is 2/30, 3:00 in the morning. So it took me about 5 minutes to kind of wake up and get my wits about me and remember who he was messing with here. And I made this Mexican casserole that called for one jalapeno pepper, but of course I had a whole can full of them.

So I'd, you know, take every single one of the jalapeno Peppers and I just put it in this little casserole portion of his, you know, and, and he ate it and he was so drunk. I don't know why his mouth must have been on flame and fire from the very first bite, you know, And then he did what I wanted him to do, and that was go in the bathroom and throw his brains up, you know, And I don't know how you are about it, but you know, you know, I was in bed giggling and laughing because I just get, you know how I don't know how you feel when you're alcoholic throws up. But when I does, I just get a warm feeling all over and,

and, and I don't know what it is about throwing up we think is going to fix them, you know, but there's just, you know, and and I guess Cliff is the one who knows because you know, Eleanor don't like to throw up. We throw up once and we go, oh, cooties, I'm never going to do that again.

And, you know, but you know, and we think Alcoholics think like that too, and they don't because Butch is thrown up enough for 100 people. And I don't think he even today, though, it's still, you know, all this time. And even when he throws up today, you know, I don't laugh out loud anymore, but it's still, you know, I don't really feel bad for him either. And

so I still get to work in that area as well, you know, and I've got a friend who always says, you know, alcoholism doesn't knock on your door and announce itself on any specific day. It's just one of those things that just gets progressively worse one day at a time in your home. And and that's just what happened in our home. It just got progressively worse and progressively worse, you know, and, you know, and I always wanted to Sausage and Harriet existence, you know, and that's what I had hoped that we would have. But the only way that you saw, which was like Ozzy was you didn't know what he did for a living either, because it was like all of a sudden he was just this non,