Fr. Tom W. from Oakland, CA

Hi. My name is Tom. Hi, Tom. And, I've been a member of an I've been a member of Al Anon for a long while. And I, I only joined Al Anon because I absolutely had to.

I had already joined the Alcoholics Anonymous, and I thought that should meet all my needs. But I had problems other than alcohol, And one of them was all the other people in my life. And I decided I had better get to Al Anon so I would not be a sober person who was shooting people. That that that led me in because I was when I came into AA, I was exhausted and pretty sick. When I came into Al Anon, I was enraged and very sick.

So anger is a big Al Anon issue for me. So I'm sure glad to be here. I have opinions on everything, and I might give some of them this evening. And and if you're new to Al Anon, if you're new into this funny world of recovery in 12 steps, you need to know a couple of things. And one of them is as I'm only speaking for me.

I I you can disagree with me on anything and still be a member of the program. You know, well, I disagree with this week or I have to leave. No. I don't agree with anybody in the program, and that's why we have the traditions. And we who are cranky disagreeable people can cooperate.

And some of us think we're Hitler and others think that we have no opinion on anything and we have the Hitlers run things, but, we we can cooperate with the traditions. So that's one thing. The other is they usually don't get people with a lot of mental health to share at meetings like this. They get people who are pretty nuts so that everyone else can feel better comparison. So just know that if by the end of my time with you this afternoon, you feel like a perfect picture of mental health is good.

My sponsor tells me, I if I don't compare, identify, don't compare, identify, don't compare. But if you, compare, you'll find out that you're probably much more well wrapped than I. And that's fine with me. I it doesn't bother me usually when that happens. I think that Al Anon is a pretty sophisticated program.

This is an opinion. I think that Al Anon craziness is more difficult to notice than raw alcoholism. It's easier to spot alcohol because they're drunk. Although even that isn't always true. Alcoholism can make itself in lots of ways.

A lot of us who need Al Anon don't necessarily look like trouble. But if you scratch a little bit, we're in tremendous trouble. I, in in the other program and I don't want to do a whole bunch of comparisons saying one's better than the other. But in the other program, there are alcoholics who think they've gotten well just because they've stopped peeing on those. And although I think that is an important step in recovery, recovery moves beyond self urination, to all kinds of subtle things.

And and we know that. In Al Anon, it can take a long time even to know what our craziness is. Now I don't know what your Al Anon craziness is, but I can talk a little bit about mine. I have, some real problems with emotions. I didn't feel very many emotions for a long time.

And then I would the emotions I would feel would be in reaction to. And for several years in my own program, my own recovery, most of the emotions that I felt were either red or black, meaning real strong, real strong. And I, I didn't know, how to manage any of those things. And I didn't have a lot of words to use about my emotional life. My intellectual life I could talk about because as a very small child, I discovered that it was safe to live in my head and it was safe to read books.

And I just die. I'm glad to do both on any given day. I'll tell you. I still read books a lot, but if it my home, it read you were left alone. Boy, that's good to know.

Because otherwise, there wasn't a lot of privacy. Things were gone through. Drawers were open. Phone calls were listened on. It was a little bit like the East German secret police on occasion, But reading was kind of private.

And I remember in the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grade reading biographies of everybody in the library. I mean, they were written for 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th graders, but everybody else's life was more interesting than mine. And I remember I started reading an awful lot of history, and I would go visit other places and I would just other centuries. And I had fascinations and I could just mentally escape, do little mental geographics anytime the going got rough. I still do that and I recommend it.

There was a lot of alcoholism in the family. Another observation. For a long, long time, Al Anon consisted largely of wives of alcoholic, just as for many, many years, a consisted of a lot of men in middle age who were Irish or Baptist. Over the last 25 years, the face of Al Anon has changed. A lot of different people have come to Al Anon.

There are Al Anon people who like that, and there are Al Anon people who don't. They have as much difficulty with change as anybody else, I guess. And and more and more men have been coming into Al Anon. And we come in because of our wives or our parents or our children. And it the face of Al Anon has changed.

And a number of people come into Al Anon having first joined in the golf step program. Just like a number of people go into AA having first joined Al Anon. I mean, it it the door opens in all kinds of ways. I think that's great. So hooray hooray.

So I'm, alcoholism in the family. I'm an adult child. I spent 2 years in very intense adult children stuff when I was around 7, 8, 9, 10 years sober. And and I I find there is more room for me to move in Al Anon, so I spend much more time in Al Anon emotionally. We, Amada, was the alcoholic and, the alcoholic males in my family follow this pattern.

They're very busy and very hardworking and they're good citizens. And they show up to work. They are involved in school for the kids, parent teachers association, dad's club, all that stuff. They're also involved in church. They're involved in helping organize things.

And then they come home from all of that busyness, turn on the television, drink, and pass out. And you can do this for years. So I was an abandoned child, but my father never left home. This was very confusing. Physically, he was there, but not really, not in all kinds of ways.

And things were fairly sedate. Things were fairly quiet with occasional bouts of lots of anger. And most of the males who are alcoholic in my family have followed that pattern. It's easier if the alcoholism is more obvious. If they have 2 beers and end up in jail, you know what you're dealing with.

But when it's it's just maintenance drinking year after year, you know, have you ever really seen them drunk? Have you ever really seen them soldered? It get confusing. But I did learn a lot of things as a kid. I learned how to escape, and I learned how to avoid, and I learned how to placate, and I learned how to charm, and I learned how to make sure you were okay.

And I just didn't get very much concerned about me. I could deal with me later. You first, please. Always. And I got into a situation of reacting to everything.

Not acting. Reacting. And my intuition was very, very good and I could read your moods very, very quickly. And I I prided myself on this. If there was craziness in the family, I was the one who could take the edge off.

And in terms of, some of the crazy family dynamic stuff, played the role of mascot a lot. I was a very funny kid, and I could be funny. And I was all very angry kid. And what happened over the year, once puberty hit in and my life got more complicated, my funny and my anger got mixed up and I just became real cynical and sarcastic. But quick.

And if I good mouth. You know, I'm surprised I have all my teeth, but I but I was very verbal. And I could be extremely cutting. And if you called me on it, I would say something like Just joking. Just joking.

But but it wasn't joking. I mean, it was full and earnest. I was in recovery for a while and people talked to me about how angry I seemed, and I didn't know what they were talking about. I'm not angry. I'm funny.

You know? No, Tom. You're not me. You're deadly. You're deadly.

And you scare people when you like that. And I I didn't know that. That was one of the things. And I can still get like that. Now if I do if I get real sarcastic for a short period of time, I get physically nauseated.

This is an interesting thing. So I wear out quicker, and I guess that's good. That that tendency of of humor and anger and sarcasm and cynicism and and rage. And, I throw all that under defective character in terms of 6th and 7th step because I don't know how to think my way out of them. But I have asked on a pretty regular basis for the high power to some healing of me there so that I don't use humor to attack as a policy.

Although I can't. You know, like I say, it's always there. But I I think I think I'm I'm gentler and I'm a little I'm a little less dangerous to be with. I was, just starting to go to Al Anon. I was teaching in Los Angeles, and I I taught 17 18 year old kids.

And I taught a lot of them history and a few other things. And and I love teaching, and I loved my students, but I was, I was one of those teachers that used sarcasm to control. And so we had teacher evaluations at the end of one of those years. And one of my very bright students said that the material in the class was really good. He said, but you, pointing to me, have a way of making people feel real small.

And I sure did. And I didn't know how to change that. And it was it was that bitterness and that attack and that sarcasm and that cynicism. So I sure needed I sure needed the help with the program to lighten up. And what else is true?

In in my family, we didn't talk about alcoholism, of course. And why would we? On the on the Irish Catholic democratic side of the family, we didn't call them alcohols. We called characters. And we would say things like Sean is sure coming a character.

And what that meant was the alcoholism is advancing well. Don't let him drive. Now I my family is we're we're new immigrants. I mean, my dad was born in San Francisco for the earthquake in in 1904. He was here for the 06 quake, But his parents were right off the boat from the old country.

And my mom was born in the old country. So we're fairly new immigrants, and we had contacts with folks coming over. And and I do have a cousin named Sean, and he did come over about 5 or 8 years ago. And I showed him around San Francisco. I took him on the tour, and and he had his wife and his 2 kids.

And his wife is pretty embattled and looks pretty quiet and shy. And and he is the standard alcoholic male. And, what I noticed right away was about every 2 hours, he got a little testy And therefore, this man needs beer. So we just made sure that every 2 hours he had a beer and the rest of us had a pretty good time. Just keep him sedated.

You know? That's what 20 years of Al Anon has done for me. On the on the Swedish Lutheran Republican side of the family, we didn't have the alcoholics either. We had nervous people. And I have I have relatives who have been so nervous they've been locked up to dry out.

And then they get out of the hospital, and and they're fine until they start drinking again. One of my cousins had d t's and, they called it his nervous spell. And my mom who has been surrounded by alcoholic men her whole life still cannot spot alcoholism, although I have explained it to her over and over and over again. And I have given her pamphlets to read, you know, and have the right attitudes to have, and it is a disease and it has symptoms and, she still doesn't get it. And, one of one of the Al Anon freedoms that I have is I still do have to explain things to people sometimes, but only once or twice.

And then I don't have to explain it to them anymore. And I give a lot of people permission to be wrong and crazy, and I don't have to ruin my day because they're wrong and crazy. And there was a time when if you were wrong and crazy, I was responsible. Now I figure, well, good for you. I was talking to my mom a while ago and a lot of us, you know, who grow up in alcoholic homes, it's interesting.

We get along much better with the alcohol parents sometimes than we do with the non alcoholic parent who kept everything together. And I I don't I can't explain that. I know it's true. I always felt better about my dad and I always had more difficulty with my mom. And I've had sober friends who are grown ups and adults and college educations and PhDs who are shrinks come to my house to meet my parents, you know, just put could you figure them out?

I can't. And, one of them pointed out that, I make my mom very nervous. I never noticed that. I thought she may be nervous, you know, and I'm too self obsessed to notice. But pointed out, I'm I try to be easier with her, but she's not easy for me to be with.

Oh, well, it's it's just there, but I try to. I do try now. I was talking to my mom and she was talking about one of the neighbors who had funny behavior. And the funny behavior was he would put the car in the middle of the street and fall asleep on the lawn. So I asked her, does he drink?

And she said, of course not. But he's very nervous. So, when I started coming to meetings, one of the things that surprised me a lot was how we talk about things directly, not indirectly. And we can use the word alcoholism and we can talk about the disease and we can talk about the recovery. And in the Al Anon focus on this whole thing, I had to be able to do some real careful reflecting on how I've contributed to the craziness.

And I really have. The classic image I've I've had for years was in my family, alcoholism was a lot like having a rhinoceros in the living room. We all knew it was there, but we whoever talked about it had to take the rhinoceros out. So no one talked about it. I get into recovery a little bit and some of us get into recovery and we become missionaries.

We kinda wanna stand on the street corner and preach to the family. And I, I had a brief period of that. And now I just don't I I try to tell the truth, but I don't say it unless I'm asked. And if someone asks me a direct question, I give them an answer. Al Anon has taught me a lot of things about that.

I don't have to fix them. I have more than enough of my own stuff to deal with. Thank you. I was in Southeast Asia in February. I talked to a fellow there who's been around the program a long time.

And I said, how do you spend your day? And he said, well, half of my time, I spend taking care of my own business, and the other half of the time I spend making sure I'm not taking care of your business. And I like that because I have a little tendency to pay attention to you. It's a it's a great distraction to me. And then I feel better about myself if I can focus on how screwed up you are.

And I am more than happy to share that with others, of course. I have found that in the I also I mean, other situations. I've, I have a little difficulty I always have had with authority figures. I I hate them, but I want them to love me. And I want them to let me do whatever I want to do constantly.

But this creates a lot of tension and I've I've had to learn, how to when I'm dealing with people in charge of things, it's real important for me not to overreact, not to read into things, rather to tell the truth and see what happens. Not try to outmaneuver. I don't know if you've done that in your head, but it's very easy for me to have whole conversations and no one else is in the room. Well, I'll say this, then they'll say that. Then I'll say this, then they'll say that.

And I'll say this, then they'll say that. And I'll do that with anybody, and I'll have, one of my my, friends from Texas, an Al Anon from Texas, said that with her husband, she could walk in, ask him a question, answer it herself, and go away mad. And with my my craziness really is mine. I don't need anyone else to make me any crazier, and I have to watch that stuff regularly. And this is one of the nice things in Al Anon, you know, not to overreact, but simply to tell the truth.

I'm I'm sometimes very afraid of of telling people no. I want I wanna make people happy. Problem. If you try to make everybody happy, no one's happy. Least of all me, you know.

I just want everyone to get along. And what one of my patterns is I will try to be helpful to you. I'll try to be helpful to you. I'll try to be helpful to you. I won't take care of me at all.

At the end of the day, I'm in a murderous rage. And when will it be my card? Well, when you take it. When you take it. And I I was asked a couple of things.

I have some moments of Al Anon recovery I wanna share with you. I also have many, many years of Al Anon relapse, but moments of Al Anon recovery. I was asked to do a couple of things for next year. And these are good things, and they'd be all kinds of pluses around them. And I really don't wanna do them for a lot of different reasons.

And what I was gonna do though is not say anything and then end up doing them resentfully and being miserable and blaming others for my woes. You know? Well, they made me do it. So in a moment of sanity, a couple of days ago, I called both of these both of these situations. This is over a year's notice.

And I said, I can't do it. I'm not able to participate. And they didn't die. They said, okay. And I feel pounds lighter just simply telling the truth.

Sometimes when I'm in a situation, I thought I will agree. I'll agree to something real fast and then regret it. And I think if I tell someone no, I have to give them 12 pages of reasons. Well, the reason is a, b, c, d, e, and then my therapist said, you know, the medication I'm on and I asked my heart the fact is people don't wanna know that crap. What they wanna know is yes or no.

So I find that I could write a simple letter or a phone call saying, I'm unable to show up on June 13th, period. What a freedom. What a freedom. But I the anxiety around that form is always there. But if I if I can act anyway, if I can take the action anyway, I feel a lot better about it.

I'm I'm someone who gets angry easily. This is hard for me to recognize because like, I I didn't learn angry. I learned funny. I learned charming rather than being angry. And but I find I can get very angry.

And sometimes the anger in my head operates like this. I don't feel the emotion anger. I've seen angry people. We didn't do that. We are Northern Europeans.

One of my brothers married into an Italian family. They have feelings. They throw things. They shout. They shout when they're saying good morning.

It's everything's loud with them. And we always thought that was very low class. In in my Northern European family, we wouldn't get get angry. We would just get you extra cups of coffee and wish you'd choke on it. So it's more dishonest, you know, but just as angry.

What's the point? Anger, resentment, anger, resentment. Oh, in my head, I won't I won't feel angry. Instead, I will just suddenly notice that I am right. And you are wrong.

And for our own good, you will have to be punished. And I take no joy in this. This is so now when I when I notice and it I don't notice it right away. It might be at minutes or hours when I'm passing lots of cold judgment with no compassion. It's anger.

And I don't want to operate out of that angry place. I'm, I'm there a lot, but I don't want that to be the deciding factor. So I've, I've been doing some reflections on anger and resentment lady late lately. Yesterday, let me get the nomination. I mean, many of you know, I'm, I'm also a Catholic priest, which boy, do you need Al Anon there because everyone wants you to run their lives or they resent you.

I did a I did a real interesting thing yesterday. I I was I was asked to to go to Los Angeles to the Jesuit church down there and preach, during the Good Friday services, which is a very, very solemn time in the in the denomination on the 7 words of Christ from the cross. There are 7 in scripture, there are 7 sentences Jesus says while dying. And over the centuries, people reflect on these and pray on these. I've never attended that ceremony before, but I was asked to speak, for 10 minutes each.

It was, like, 70 minutes worth of of reflection over a 3 hour period. Well, I prayed over this, and I I I was kind of scared about this. And I'm going to try to lead people in prayer I don't know very well, and it's gonna be okay. And I I wore my priest suit, which I almost never do, to, to to the airport and down on the plane. And what's interesting in public is if you wear the Roman collar, you are a walking Rorschach test.

People react to you in all kinds of different ways. And, I mean, all and it's just hostility or they just think you're wonderful or they wanna buy you lunch or they ask you for $10. I mean, it's real interesting. So I, I I thought I would do it as an experiment. I do it once every 10 years.

I do it as a result. I did that. Then I got down there, and the the first phrase that the Jesus says from the cross is, father, forgive them. They know not what they do. So it's a big forgiveness statement.

And and frequently, there's lot of reflections on forgiveness that happened there and the importance of forgiving and letting go. I mean, what a topic. What a concept. And one of the older guys I talked to, I said, okay. He's been beaten up.

He's he's battered. It's been an awful couple of days. He hasn't eaten. You know, he's dehydrated. He's in tremendous pain and pain usually means angry.

Why why is the first thing this father forgives them? They know not what they do. And this older guy said, he said that because he didn't wanna die angry. And I think that's the most significant thing I've heard in a year. The resentment stuff I hold on to, and I do.

I think resentment can be sweet. It makes me feel powerful and it makes me feel smart. And if I can resent, I I had the gift for a long time, especially when I was drinking. I could bring back some evil done to me with clarity and passion. If it happened 20 years ago, it could have happened this morning.

I just relive it, you know. I thought that was great. And what I have come to realize is that is a bad way to live for me. And part of the Al Anon stuff for me is don't hit back. Don't hit back.

Don't react. I've been in some situations in my own family and a few other things in the last few years where things have been very dicey. Yelling has happened. There has been strong feeling. There's been strong emotion.

And if I hit back and I had every right to, it just would have made it worse. Part of of what I've been able to do is I'm not quite as defensive as I used to be. I'm still defensive. But there have been moments, and these are gonna flickers of Al Anon recovery, when someone has just criticized me. And I always hate that.

And I've just been able to say, okay, period. And I, and then I haven't worried about it and chewed on it and hated them for years. I I but I have to let go of that all the time. There's a guy who goes to meetings around, and years ago, he sat me down and told me he thought I was a big asshole and he hated me. I don't even know this guy's name.

You know? But he had to tell me that because he has an honest program. So, gee, thank you for sharing that with me. He could have kept it to himself, and I would have been fine with me. Well, it would be real easy for me to reciprocate.

But what's real clear to me is that I don't I don't wanna live like that. That's not fun anymore. I don't get mileage there. So whenever I see him and we end up meetings together still, I always say hello. Sure.

When I say hello to him, his skin crawls and that's fine with me. But I'm not saying hello to make his skin crawl. I'm saying hello because I I I wish him well. We're never gonna be best friends, but I wish him well. And if I I wanna be able to do that with all kinds of folks, I don't wanna be someone who contributes to the chaos.

I wanna be someone around whom there's serenity and I don't have to hit back all the time. I found it real interesting in looking at the development of the program. As you may notice that we're we're a culture and a society that loves lawsuits. Al Anon doesn't sue anybody. You don't ever see a lawsuit with Al Anon charging people of slandering Al Anon and we're gonna take him to court because there's no recovery there.

If someone wants to say awful things, we let them. Our actions will speak louder than their words. I don't wanna hit back. Yes. Letting go is such a big thing.

The forgiveness thing for me has a lot to do with letting go. One of the things I like about resentment and I've had major resentments against almost every major political figure in the United States. I have no sports interests whatsoever, but my excitement is around politics and my world series is elections. And when people I despise lose elections, I'm thrilled and I can be thrilled for days and my resentments cross state lines. I mean, I can get very crazy.

What I I don't want to live again in that place. Part of my recovery when I can be in that place is even to wish people I disagree with well ultimately. I had a moment of emotional health. In 1980 presidential election, mister Carter was running, mister Reagan was running, and John Anderson was running. And it was a crazy year, and mister Carter lost and Reagan won.

I was very involved in the campaign for 1 of the candidates. And, I wasn't a big fan of Mr. Carter's, but he lost real bad and he's a decent man. And the emotional response I had was sadness. Not hysteria, not doom, not please take me to emergency psych.

I just felt sad. And that's the first time I think that I had an appropriate emotional response to something that I found difficult because before again, everything was black or red. I mean, dramatic, big things. And in the last 10 to 12 years in recovery, part of the letting go for me has been very much tied up with grief and grieving and letting go of people who've died in different ways. I just turned 51.

I knew an awful lot of people and I've 22 years in AA and I've got about, I guess, 19 years in Al Anon. I moved back to the Bay Area from LA in 1981 and I was very involved with lots of folks, young folks and different things in 'eighty 1, 'eighty 2, 'eighty 3, 'eighty four. I knew an awful lot of people who were in recovery in AA and Al Anon in narcotics anonymous at that time. A huge percentage of the people I knew and hang out with 81, 82, 83, 84 are dead now because of suicide, because of overdoses, and because of AIDS. And I found that with so many people I've loved who have gone, who have died, who have relapsed, who have done whatever, I was so angry and shut down.

And I had to do some work there around the grief stuff and that was part of the letting go. And I I did get some outside help. I did see a therapist for a while. I did some stuff with Elizabeth Kubler Ross. I had other people to help talk about these issues because I had no idea how to talk about these things and it all had to do with letting go.

And when some people have died, one of the big responses that I had for a long time was simply, how do I feel? Nothing. That's how I feel. Nothing. And I preferred nothing.

How are you? Fine. And then when I wasn't using alcohol or other drugs to to medicate myself, what I found was I can stay busy and then when people say how are you, Tom, I can say very busy. And then when I've been very, very busy for months months months months months months, they would say how are you Tom and I could say very tired. And if I was tired, I didn't have to feel anything else.

Well, part of recovery over the last 10 years is getting some time and getting some space and slowing down and having greater access to feelings. A friend of mine died last night who's been a member of the program, died full of cancer, 45 year old man and I found out about this morning and we've spent a lot of time together in the last year or 2 and I knew he was pretty sick, but he died very, very quickly. And I was agitated and irritated and angry for about an hour. And then as I'm at my desk I just suddenly realized that what I'm feeling is sad. It's not the end of the world.

It's not a crisis. It's not an emergency. This is another appropriate emotional reaction. And one of the problems with having emotions is it's not neat and it's not efficient. And I didn't get a lot done today.

And getting here was a big deal. I live 5 minutes away. Getting here was, you know, shower, clothes, drive. It was a big deal. And part of it is just the sadness brings a certain amount of heaviness there and that that there was a real temptation to escape and run off and do other things, but instead just be there.

Just be there. I found that in the world of feelings, especially around the grief stuff, it comes in waves and each loss reminds me of every other loss. And sometimes it's a real minor problem and sometimes it's a great big problem. I thought that when I turn things over, they would all get neat. I have turned it over.

Why is it still messy? And I find that if I turn stuff over, a lot of times it stays real messy. Sometimes the most amazing things happen, but sometimes it just stays messy and I have to feel that and some of what I feel about that is ache and some of it's grief and some of it's just the pain stuff. And I come into Al Anon real angry and real rigid. And I think to describe my inner life at that time, I would use the word brittle.

And it's taken a long time. Al Anon recovery is slow stuff for me But there's a lot more room now. And I remember vividly when I when I started noticing gray in the I mean, everything was black or white. It makes life real easy if everything is black or white or up or down or you're with us or against us. I mean, life's real simple and you don't have to think very much which is why a lot of people live like that.

But someone pointed out to me and he was a scientist, botanist, chemist, one of those people who pays attention to details. He said between black and white, there's no gray. Between black and white is the whole spectrum of color. It's purples and reds and blues and yellows and greens. That's what's between black and white.

And if the whole world is black or white, you don't see any of the other colors and you don't taste any of the other flavors. What Al Anon has helped me do is learn to appreciate the colors and the flavors of being alive. And everything doesn't have to be a crisis or a drama. Now, I like crisis and drama and I, I loved emergencies and I loved being with people who were emergencies. And I had a this is part of, of my own spiritual and emotional poverty.

I really liked being with people I could help. Period. And if you didn't need my help, I didn't return your telephone call. So I didn't have friends, I had clients. And I was in a position of power all the time.

I was the understanding one, the compassionate one, the one who is doing x, y, and z. And I started in recovery, you start meeting people who have some emotional health and there were some people I wanted to be friends of mine. I found them interesting people, but they would get angry at me because if they needed me, I'd be there, but I never needed them. And they would say I would say, gee, I really had a rough month last month. Why didn't you call?

Well, that didn't occur to me, but really is, well, how could you help me? Is that kind of arrogance? And I did not know how to ask anybody for help. I did not know how to let down the barriers. I was very well defended and very isolated.

So part of the Al Anon stuff and I I still am not good at this, but I'm better. I like being with people who I see as my peers. And sometimes I listen to them and sometimes they listen to me. I don't have to be the fixer and there are people I do help out, but I'm they don't consider them to be necessarily my inner circle, you know, of friends. I used to love I worked in LA and I worked in a parish down there for a while that was in Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard between Highland and Vine.

And there were, it's a big it's Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the man's Chinese theatres in that neighborhood and the big three industries are narcotics, tourism and prostitution. It's a great place to work. There's always an emergency. And I mean, it's just it's chaos. It is the craziest place you could ever imagine.

The archangel Michael lived in the parking lot. He was a great big man who was usually not violent. They had, oh, when when one of our governors decided he would save money by emptying the insane asylums, making them promise first they'd take their medication. Dozens of these people ended up in our parish and I mean, they were coming and hallucinating and, you know, not bathing and having crises all the time and having, you know, Jesus just speaking to them and what should I do about that. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

I, I loved it. I had no boundaries yet. I and I I as I was not drinking or using, but I was using the drug of adrenaline. And I was also 30, 31, 32 years old, so it still worked for me. Some of this is not that I've grown virtuous, it's just I've gotten older and I'm tired earlier in the evening.

I used to love meetings that were over at 10:30, so I could then go out and just go for an hour and get the edge off and try to get to sleep. Now by 9 o'clock, I'm done. I'm just useless. The chemistry but I mean the adrenaline stuff was really big for me. I mean I identify with those dogs that chase sirens, I mean yes, it's me.

Hooray. We're gonna have a great time. And I would I would try to help everybody and help everybody and help everybody and of course, you get taken advantage of and taken advantage of and taken advantage of. And then you get angry and then you get angry and then you get angry. And that's where I was.

So there was a meeting and it was called the Hollywood Thursday night men's stag. I don't go to a lot of men's stag. They make me too nervous and but, I I I went to this men's stag and and it was a tough meeting. I mean, no one was friendly there. Men's meeting, you know, surly group.

And it was, no one talked much. The theme was this, If you were having trouble, you'd go to this meeting and they would read some program stuff, 12 steps, few other things, detachment. And then if you were having a problem, you put it out on the floor. And if someone had a similar problem and got through it, they would share. Manly men.

We like this. It's clean. It's problem solving. It's not messy. But it's men, you know, and I don't know if you've noticed with a lot of men, some of us are a little competitive and we don't trust each other because if I look worse than you, so I, I have to look confident and strong regularly but I'm at this meeting because I'm bleeding and on fire, will anybody notice.

And when the, when the moon is full, that meeting was fuller. I mean, it was just full with people sometimes and crazy, crazy, crazy. So I was by the end of the summer, I was at another bottom. I was just coming into Al Anon. I mean, but I was emotionally, I was flat and exhausted and angry.

And I went to this meeting and, you know, we finished reading and anyone wanna say anything? So I raised my hand after 10 minutes so I wouldn't be first. And I said, I've got a new job. I feel overwhelmed by it. Overwhelmed.

I don't know what to do. That's my problem. Now I edited out everything else but that. I wanted to keep it anonymous, you know. And there was a guy at this meeting whose name was Chuck and he was about 7 feet tall and he weighed a pound.

And he smoked cigarettes without filters. This is when you could do that at meetings, serious meeting. And and this meeting allowed crosstalk, which we've since had to stop because of all the fist fights. But he said, can I ask you a question? I said, sure.

He said, have you no. I said my problem is this new I said, I feel incompetent. That's my problem. I don't know what to do. I feel incompetent.

He said, have you done this kind of work before? And I said, no. It's brand new to me. He said, well then you probably are incompetent. He said, the way you learn how to do a job is by doing it.

You're new to this. He says, find people who've been doing this longer and ask them how which was a whole new idea to me. I did not know how to ask for help. And Eladon has been a great aid in this. I'm able to sometime and sometimes what I need for help is just another person to listen to me.

And I can call up and say, listen. I'm really nuts. Could you listen for 10 minutes? Now my head runs real fast and the impression that I have sometimes is that there are a 1,000 ideas running through what's left of my brain. The tool I use then is to write them down.

And what I find is I do not have a 1,000 ideas running through my brain. I have 4. They're just going fast but it's the same 4 ideas over and over and over and over, so it seems like a1000. But sometimes it's 2, you know. And if I do the footwork of writing it down, I can then share that with another human being and it's amazing what clarity comes.

And they can even ask me some questions like, in this circumstances, what would you like to do? I don't know. I mean, I don't know what I wanna do. Well, is there anything you don't wanna do? Yeah.

There's a couple. Well, let's start there. What don't you wanna do? We won't go Learning how to make decisions has been a big part of my Al Anon program. Because before, again, I'd let I'd react to your craziness and then it was all your fault.

Al Anon lets me know that, I have to take responsibility for my own behavior And I I find that frequently I can do that and I can even this is the 10th step thing, when wrong, promptly admit it. And I find that I'm wrong pretty regularly. And it's a relief. Well, I was wrong. I used to think I had to defend every stupid move I ever made.