Together We Can

hi everybody

my name is rose S.

and they take a recovering alcoholic you know they'll trial of an alcoholic and a member of Allen on

and

I'm really really grateful to be here today really grateful to be here today I feel like I really feel like this is family I just do it sometimes is

I mean I I feel like I know you and I do know you I mean you're you're we're we're so much the same so many ways

and when I was here four years ago

I would it's amazing to have an opportunity to contact us out of the house things are different

I was surprised when I got the call I have to be honest with you the price when I got the call

big this year because I thought that I had four years ago when I came I was having a great deal of difficulty with my father I had

been born in Boston I was born in Boston but I was brought up in Detroit from the time I was two and a half to ten

and I had a lot of healing that had not yet happened was my father so when I was here four years ago I remember talking and talking and talking about my father in the stuff that was going on yeah within me

around my brother and I remember when I finish speaking I stopped when I went on much too long and I talk about my brother much too much and I just that is what they want to be there for and I'm sure I have done a terrible job so when I got a call kind of you can never judge yourself you really can't blame me back wonderful I was thrilled to be able to come down

because maybe I can talk about something else of my father's a time

but my memories of being here as a kid and and I'm supposed to be a spiritual speaker and and I'm not even sure I want to say with the word search well the really even is that it's been such a process for me growing and what I think throughout the years and and I'll talk a little bit more about that later but

but he is a is a very vague thing I think it's individual to all of us

but thinking about that as a close personal speaker

I remembered my time here in Detroit when I was a kid

we had moved here my father and lasting

jewelry business in the depression and he struggled for the rest of his life he's going to be ninety four in June is still alive but he struggled for the rest of his life to find himself

and

at the time he came here because you have a job opportunity at that time they were

the movies we're giving out dishes and I think that's what he was doing and he was also a traveling salesman he did some closing he sold some cars

but we were very very happy here and he at that time has not reached any difficulty with alcoholism so that he was we had a good relationship in the years that I was here

and I remember he took me to bell island we close because I'm not quite sure where we did things but but the happy times for Sunday's one another with a hundred is only because the the the Sunday dinner my father would take me on a Sunday morning

and go kite flying and pony riding and I remember we did something where he took me in a little cartons and I've only sold out and he gave me the love of nature and he gave me the level for I was very very athletic and I I love sports and they need a lot of lot of stores and we had a wonderful relationship in those years

and

then

we moved back to Boston you've got my age now so we moved back to Boston the end of the war in forty five when I was

but not quite not quite and I was going to go in October

I know what you think of that

but then every my life changed I remember being free here I remember going to school and going over fences and neighbors backyards and taking lilacs from people in Britain who owns my teacher I don't I just remember being a real free happy kids without worries because it was during the war and and we would even put I guess in the backyard and and during and and tried to neighbors and nickel or something you know and the kids would thanks and I didn't have a voice and I could do that not even no worries I do have a voice I didn't well I think it was done as I can worry what will people think of me I think I just because before all that happened

and incredible trying to remember but then we moved back to Boston my father had lost the job or the job we moved to we have to live with the very rich relative in Newton Massachusetts that was a a very wealthy place at the time and then we moved and lived with another relative this was on the fifth grade level three different times and then we moved to Burke at the Brookline we're everybody looked like had money but in my mother's spend extra money to send me to a school where other Jewish where because we live near an area where there was one thing I get to my mother wanted me to be exposed to which you wish to discuss something I would never have issue with customers as a kid you know and in the fifth grade or something like but this was her goal because at that time and I don't think that that was at all unusual at that time that's the goal for girls and you know you get married and you have kids and somebody take care of you when you're happy if this person has money

so I got the message right away when I was playing in my backyard with my baseball back my baseball glove and when I wore jeans with my sure it out and I was happy you know because I was happy like I was in Detroit the media message I got was

you will address like a lease and manager we're have your here curled like Margie you know this is across the street from my immediate message was that I'm not as good as them or my mother wants me to be different and and the guy was broke

writing I talk a lot about not being good enough and and that was my message right from the time that time that they are better than you why can't you be more like them and on top of that I love for

and the kids that like Ford we're the Irish kids in my school they were about three or four I was just my school my mother said to six hundred fifty dollars depending because of school were Jewish because we're like yes I'm bringing home I remember another ticket with Janet o'brien and and help somebody out the lease were you know these are the kids that I connected with because they were the kids just like the same things I did

so even my friends weren't good enough that's when my friends were my selections warm but enough my choices weren't good enough when I were working good now but I like wasn't good enough and in my heart I still love the same things so I would take my bicycle and I would go to the beautiful place in Brookline we're they had outside three trying got over upon and I would certainly I would think that I would write and I'd be very very happy there and I go along and another was coming or something wrong with me because I was alone you know I get things alone

and we have an apartment and I go on top of the roof and paint and again what's wrong with you I can should be with the kids so these contradictory messages I mean what was in my heart

and now I know my spirit that was my true spirit and connecting that was my spiritual life that's when I was connected with god with nature

I was told was not right

and that was didn't feel comfortable leaving

I was told I should do that's what that's what other people that I could do

well over the years my complexes I guess developed in hindsight I only know my mother only want the best for me I truly know that and and I love to my mother very dearly and I I truly know that her life

was very unhappy

with more so as my father became more and more alcoholic that her life was very unhappy and what she wanted for my brother and I was happiness in this truly was how she thought that I could that we could be happy so I I really don't have resentment that all against my mother because she gave us a great deal of love and a great deal of support and she really did love and honor me and that she would tell me dark glasses and she would you know make sure that I had the things I love the things I needed but her views still was them out there and what will the neighbors think and trying to be more like them and then made over the years

things really got worse inside of me and my inferiority complexes got so strong that my mother had actually gone to camp

so that my brother and I could be a king and my mother became the king of secretary because all the kids in the neighborhood were rich enough to go to camp and she couldn't afford to send us the camps so he went to work as the OEM stuff that my brother and I could go

and

at one point in high school

they had to

group in high school that was in honor if you were asked to join and I was invited into one of the group the curry club

and I remember thinking this gal had invited me into the groups to join and she'd come to campus you're going to the same camp and I remember thinking she never would have invited me if my if you didn't know my mother working on

so somehow I thought so little of myself that I couldn't give myself enough credit to be invited in because of who I am and I have to figure out why why would they have ever invited me and I'm not like them at all it must be that you want my mother to like her now in looking at this later in many many years later that's real close to thinking

but my my thinking was twisted my self esteem was so low but that's how I thought in those days they wouldn't they wouldn't like me for me there must be another reason

and somewhere in there around sixteen

a few different things happen number one I found out

and I found that that was the only time that I could feel comfortable the only time that I can feel we lack the only time that I would like all of the

huge in addition to that I could be an

and then I also try to finding out that something was wrong with me which I thought something was wrong with me because all my friends were dating and they were enjoying dating

and I was getting a lot too I did a lot

and the guy who just like brothers to me I had no interest in anybody

and I didn't put anything together for many many years I would not think together for many many years I just thought well there's something missing in the

and I continue today could you not to find anybody and I continue to date night my mother was they wanted to go out with somebody more than once or twice and I would say you know they're nice guys but if you say how you know if you don't go out more and I just had no interest

and I didn't know anything I honestly didn't know anything

like the dark ages when I look back

so I went on to college

guarding the greeting card business in college

medic guy I continue to drink in my drinking got more and more I was even in a sorority I was I was popular I did a lot I was well like I still didn't like me inside accepted by drink

and at the end of my senior year we had made a pact with a group of people good friends that we would all have at least one drink between thirty seven days before graduation graduation

and I remember the group got smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller but two of us last and we we made the thirty seven days of having at least a drink that's like I was drunk a lot I had a wonderful time with alcohol like like I surprised that I could bring anybody under the under the table you know it was really

something where I could do was wonderful

and you know looking back I still I mean I still love the the idea of the taste of gosh I can think of it now and I still like it it just really well you know

but I started greeting card business at the end of college and didn't need a guy that at the time I saw we have ninety five things ninety ninety five percent things in common as the end of America I think it was really five percent but but we like to see like to ski we like that we played bridge we did a lot of you like sport any direct with me while we were we got engaged I I knew

you probably never heard

I knew I didn't love him by

I think it was as close as I would get to somebody that I could that I could now are you we have a lot of fun together and at any rate my drinking continued we drank a lot during during our dating and then my drinking continued we got married and he stopped drinking at that point I'm tired

drinking made him tired

and I continued my drinking on a daily basis I was a daily drinker by then then I would stay in the kitchen and I would suffer I say separate and ready yet you know so that I could for another and another ride I have just by then I had this continual glass like always at a certain level so that he would never know that I can just but he never saw it and so we think I was just still sitting on the same let this guy

and the years went by and somewhere inside of me I knew

but I was having trouble and somewhere inside of me I knew that I was afraid to go a day without insurance and you are trying differently than other people there was and I knew I needed it on a daily basis on a level that I wasn't even ready to ever talk about with anybody because if I talk to but if somebody might want to do something about it really and I didn't want to put the words out of like now when we the same thing now if I know that I have something to change I want to talk about it so I'm really ready to change

well that's the way it was and I continue to hide

can get more bottles in the house and kind of when I started the whole process

the trouble of getting rid of them season and the struggle of spending the money

that we didn't have been charging and taking away from other things and if you like the money and then if later in my life around alcohol

I was I have three children during these years in the first two pregnancies somewhere inside of me I knew doctor and and I was able to stop that was the only time I stopped drinking during my drinking years when I was about two and a half months pregnant with my first daughter remember for your classes gotcha and not having it again until I came home from the hospital after she was born

same with the second

and by the time my third Charles when my daughter

I had come to con myself enough to to be in denial enough to say it didn't matter because I really trying to pursue and have you know most of the first pregnancy so it's not gonna matter if I continue to do right now and I she's fine today and she's

twenty two twenty nine sure but when she was born she was born seven weeks early there was a fifty fifty chance as to whether she would live or not and I remember not wanting to ask the doctor did my drinking have anything to do with it we have played poker the night before and to to neighbors and myself to consume two and a half course got her number and then my water broke the next morning and she was born I remember tearing this is Whitney style here the something would be wrong and thank god she she's she's fine

but that's where my drinking was by then

and I still had a lot of time to go before I was going to get any help my drinking got worse and worse my life depended on my my daily life depended around my drinking I couldn't imagine living without it I couldn't imagine living with it any longer and the last five years of my drinking were mainly trying to stop everything yeah I I tried to stop drinking every day I'd say today's the last day of my drinking

and I would

not have anything in the house because I would've finished just the night before I had my own business so I I would drive to work with the way I I did not I the way I work is that always the home because when I came home to school so I would come home by three thirty so my current phone to package or three thirty

and I say I'm not gonna drink today and I would only get a fine

and then the I get another price before the package store closed at night I was I was constantly struggling with not drinking I was I came to a place where I totally hated myself really I thought it was a terrible mother terrible white I'm a terrible person and I couldn't figure it out I figured that other people knew how to live and I had I did not have a close I didn't know anything was all about I have no idea why I feel so empty why I feel so nothing like that also

nothing I got really I had no clue at all and after

different instances such as

probably one of the most profound one was

the I. T. V. had fallen and my daughter's got a cut in her head and I remember we had to take her to the hospital and arm and I was drunk and I remember not wanting to talk to the doctor because I didn't want to open my mouth because I didn't want the now the blues to just pour out vitamin I was always changed I remember not even saying anything to the doctor

to ask any of the questions that I want to ask because I was just exchange it was terrible mother and another time my my ex husband was out of town and my son had a very very high temperature

and I had to take him to the doctor again as it was yeah a hundred three hundred and four and and I remember driving because Cher fully house it was two thirty in the afternoon I have been and I was already high and I'm driving so carefully and always change driving him to the doctor to find out what was wrong

an important thing happened here that that same time my car was stolen in my glasses were run over by a truck

thank

and I remember my my husband called on the phone and I told him these these three things in the last

get that when you came out I have to do a laugh when I told you these three yeah really really serious thing and he said because I know you handle it

and I was still didn't know it but I was still putting it out there that we could cancel anything Bruce could do anything I was still covering up all the stuff that was going on inside of me to the point where my husband you can handle it was no big deal

my brother told me I could handle anything with to do anything

no matter he always told the story to my brother that I don't

climbing up the hill he took me to a place to go skiing and I would climb up the hill and ski down as well but I think myself up and climb up again and P. down in politics that's right keep on beating myself up so we always tell the story was can do anything I have to do is one is doing that nothing you can do anything I really got that message but I could not stop drinking

finally I guess what I hated myself enough I had called a number of times in the last five years

my brothers and he's gotten much worse and I actually called in with the present I was calling for my father my brother had come out to the house every Sunday and he'd bring a bottle of Scotch with him because he could get a wholesale which people can do that

but I remember always hiding the other bottle that I had in the house because I used to think it's not good for him I don't want him to have too much to drink and truthfully of course I'd be hiding in so that have more when you left

but I calling my father has a problem and they told me they gave me information about where meetings were I went to the big book and I I went to the library and I got the big book and I remember thank god and I returned that I wanted no part of it at all

but finally I guess I came to the place

grace of god that I could not live the way I was living any longer I I truly couldn't I was there was nothing there was nothing in my life other than hating the way I was and yet not knowing how I could possibly live without drinking

and I finally finally I had gone to a psychiatrist a couple of years earlier I remember speaking to my gynecologist and obstetrician and and earlier when I was pregnant and telling him that I thought I might have a problem is the only person I ever did tell them I have a problem and he said don't worry even alcoholic of normal babies

and and they didn't know what they know today and he didn't know what he was saying to me but I have the picture it was the first time I think I ever heard the word alcoholic

and I had this picture of somebody with a long black dress shuffling along I don't know where I even got the image but that was my my picture

and

yes call me when you're ready to do something about it and finally I did at one point and he gave me the name of a psychiatrist who said

there's nothing wrong with you just a few visits well health and if you go

two and a half years later I have been on something like thirty two different kinds of pills because this man was committed to helping even W. nothing but alcoholism dot one still didn't work you know here's another here's another here's another in fact I was taking so many pills that I was shaking and he said take our change the Nancy Schechter I member that

that's the reason that I've had to really work on that man

but finally after seeing after two and a half years as a psychiatrist I finally

came to a place where I had a very dear friend who is my secretary artist in the greeting card business and I had asked her to come over the house one afternoon

and I I had a bottle of Scotch in the closet of my bedroom

and

came over and remember two thirty in the afternoon and I told her the truth for the very first time I had told somebody really the truth and I was really I really couldn't stop drinking I was really afraid about what it was doing to my life I didn't know what to do and she called she I can speak to her today she got the telephone and she called a is that you have to do something to help it grow and he handed me the phone and I shook my head and I wouldn't take I wouldn't take the receiver and they said to her something very very profound that'll never never forget they said we can't do anything for her so she's ready to help or so

and I excuse myself from broadly and I said I'll be right back because that's what I was going to calling me in the bedroom

and I brought it out I tried to be very relaxed and normal yeah this is just a normal thing to do with two thirty in the afternoon after all that I was telling her and I poured a glass of Scotch and she looked at me and she said I will I did not think he would want to kill yourself as you walked out of my house

and that was very powerful because she was the only person I trust is the only person I have talked to

and she left and that was a Tuesday and I remember promising myself I wouldn't drink on Wednesday

and I didn't I went one day without drinking but by Thursday I was sending him and I did go away and that was in January

of nineteen seventy three

and that was incredible because

I was thirty I remember I I was just dirty and Robbie

and I had

Bob that I had hit this horrible horrible bottom but it was the worst place that I was going

and I have been told to speak to a secretary when I went in and I did I introduce myself with somebody new and she had picked woman's around me right away

and people just reached out and it was so incredible because I knew I was home

it was for the very first time in my life I was thirty seven years old

and

the very first time in my life I was with people who understood me people who have been where I had been

units you know me and I knew I knew that I was home and I knew I had found what I've been looking for all my life and I had no idea what it was that I had found but I just knew my heart no you know this person might have just opened I guess for the first time

and I was home stop drinking right away I spoke with two weeks together I drink I put three weeks together I drink I I kept on saying still next time it'll be different I didn't totally want to give it up but but it grew on me

and

you told me to ask for help and I didn't believe in god

my father is only was could do anything and I still believe that even though I knew I couldn't stop drinking I really thought that god was the week

regardless of religious thing that was for the week

and that I would be weakened by

right

but each time I picked up another drink it got worse inside of me

and finally I was able to ask for help but I didn't believe in and I said if you're up there with doesn't matter

and

if you're up there you'll understand if you're not it doesn't matter but please keep me away from one drink and the desire for a three for one day and and hello this is R. for appeal

and we're I need to be credible so he worked was like my god I can't be working I can't be honest you know whatever it did work it was incredible

and

gradually I was able to put a few days together and gradually I wasn't I did get into steps right away

and the part of the story that I don't usually tell because usually when you speak you have twenty minutes usually I speak as well yes that's great meeting

but the part of the story I didn't help don't really sell happens really early on Friday

because

what I didn't know about me and truly didn't know about me something very very Scerri started happening for me and it was Gerry I started getting attracted to women

and

it was

horrible it was really horrible hearing

because because I thought for sure if something's wrong with me now

yeah I really I really didn't know anything I was just naive kid in my growing up we never talked about anything I didn't know anything we actually my husband I'd actually got the product on you guys skews me and and watch the guy told him to such any wow you like that's another world didn't understand this you know I don't even think women were holding hands and this is sounds like it was dark as it was only twenty years ago what is that government was another world it really was another world

and I have had one sponsor that I talked to after I drink all the time and I knew I had to find another sponsor

and it was really two girls

and I want to tell the suppositories she was the Irish because of my mother my mother didn't want me to bring home you know

she has freckles and and she was very silly to wash is in a meeting Monday was recently she was wearing glasses you have freckles no real to smile and after you want to play tennis it was around now is back twenty one years ago I think was around March thank you for Easter twenty one years ago and asked if you want to play tennis and she plays horribly is really bossy script when she credits well I could be either but she was really really cute

and asking me my sponsor and then this incredible thing happens and I have to say we're still together I have to tell the story real fast because I went from a marriage relationship and I still have a very limited experience in my life but this is been a twenty year relationship and it's really incredible

it can happen you can do it

I keep the program first

only advice got to keep the program for at any rate

things got very very very hard at that point we really did fall in love it was the following a lot of that that I you know never never had on my life because it was like coming to find out who I really am it was extraordinarily it was wonderful it was painful it was horrible we had a marriage twenty five years hi I'm twenty years old

and for kids and and I had a marriage of fifteen years and three

and there was a lot of pain here as you can well imagine and maybe some of you have gone through it but I I it's it's very awful I we could not give each other up and and it was a praying in a struggling and I

truly believed in this program I mean who believed in god by now

and I knew

that I had to be me and I knew that I couldn't go back to marriage it wasn't me and I and I prayed and went up to this place called the shell in Massachusetts and New Hampshire just to get away for three days and and and to get some help and I remember telling the priest the first times again it was just talking to a priest the whole thing just makes sense to me

but I told him and he said falling in love he said it's like falling in love with you followed you fall and you're out of control you gave me a name of a psychiatrist to see just to talk to and I talk I called me and it's very dearly and so only for two and a half hours and he even charge me and he told me some very wonderful things that I needed to hear

and he said you know I could have looked for a thousand people and waited for the thousand and one person to get the answers you know that I want to hear

but I'm real grateful I heard the first time what I needed to hear and when you know it's right it's right in your heart

and it's not turning back really I guess or what could have been but there wasn't for me and I and and it's all my choices but he said that if I went home I would drink and I could be and I would probably die and I knew he was right about that I could picture my kitchen table

and I did get your bottles got in addition tables and wooden cutting back you know I could just even I know that and

he said if you if you

live the life that you choosing to live you can be a much better mother

and I looked into that I looked into that and I knew he was right and I I and I prayed and asked for help and finally when I was six months over I heard a meeting honesty and I probably heard it a thousand times but I really heard the word on the and I knew that I couldn't sleep in the same bed with my husband anyone and I knew I had to do something about my life

as it turned out my partner she thought that she had a harder time tonight to make the decision on the school bus ended up making decisions independently of each other so we had to leave the merit because if she

shows changed her mind I couldn't blame her you know what vice versa but it turned out she couldn't make the decision and she ended up having a a missile kind of a mess of not a break down really but she just went blank she could not make the decision she couldn't find him and she ended up in a in a psych ward for seven weeks and then just end up leaving and after she had left the state board for seven weeks and got an apartment I left a week early a week later

and I told the kids it was to find myself but I could never go back and in the

we both

news that it was better for the kids to be with their father this was the the most difficult part of it we we weren't capable of taking care of the kids we certainly couldn't take or so because we have no money and we need to get the better resting with their fathers so we made that decision and it was

probably the hardest decision I've ever made in my life

and then it took weeks we kept the program first in the years to go by the years that go by

I was very involved with was a I got involved working with the women we were able to start a halfway house

we we put our whole lives to helping women and I guess this was the way it was meant to be people can't do that when they're married they can do that when they're free we were very very deeply committed to getting back to the program

and and we built a an alcohol treatment program and it was very it was it was very very wonderful and very very rewarding

and

it took many years to get back a relationship with my peers

my daughter didn't talk to me for many years I was eleven years old when she got married the first time and she wouldn't buy candy the wedding she finally did the day before but you know it is that a lot a lot of pain

and I and I don't want to little the joints during the years of recovery because there was some great wonderful wonderful things that happened in the years of recovery and it was a lot of pain it was really about life I guess it was like and if you can go through anything things over

by the time my daughter married a second time though and that was it she she got a divorce marriage a second time and he was six years later

our closeness that already developed I worked on it every day I worked on it every day and trying to be there for the kids and I it was very very thankful we left we left the kids you know and it was very painful for them because they have Leslie and others and they were abandoned I had alcoholic mothers of the kids went through an awful lot of stuff and I did everything I could to just always be there for the

and

at the end of eighty eight we left the alcoholism treatment program that we have been working for fourteen years it was time to go out and somewhere before that I got involved with meditation and I got involved with really being who I am and and the more I ask for help and the more that I just continue to ask for help because guidance in my life

I began being the writer that I always wanted to see and I began to have to to write the book and it was very very wonderful because I was able to really give of myself and become more and more of who I am

and I was able to have the opportunity to do a lot of thinking because my publisher I've already said you speak and I said no anything because I said no and then you call me in two weeks and I said no

and he called me in three weeks and said you're you're on sports speaking in Albany I think this was an eighty seven and that started a lot of things that I was petrified opening I have been totally I've been very very shy would never speak in public and and yet I believe in what I was doing and I guess that's really I guess the point that I want to keep one thing is that

I mean very profound if you don't mind Schering it so and we're talking before this morning and I thought it was pretty much since before was really profound she says if you're has nothing to do with things and and we're always process faces the at the pier is the lack of thanks to this is absolutely true I could stand up for the past five but I could still have paid that it's the right thing to do you know when I went around doing a lot of speaking on notation things and really being very very nervous and and still with all that stuff I'm not good enough and why would anybody want to hear me because all those other people really speak so they know how to dress I know what's the where they know what to say but I believe in my heart that this is what I'm supposed to be doing so I continue to do that

I did not put this part of the story out

okay guys so if I'm going around a little bit forgive me but well I was traveling my father

I heard it and while I was traveling I created a conference one that