Sacramento Spring Fling in Sacramento, CA

my name is our views so neo and it is by the grace of god that I belong to the nonsense thinkers

I am

analysts over people

prices and things

and because of the program I can make this admission today without feeling guilty

my last continues to be on manager Paul

when I fail to practice the principles that were given to us by a bunch of X. drunks who found sobriety an Alcoholics Anonymous

I like to believe that the families of the early members of AA and AA were convinced about the miracle of sobriety that this program would work for everyone

and it was out of this conviction to Alan and family groups group to reach all over the world and if shown astounding results

we subscribe to the concept that alcoholism is a family illness

and then we got so carried away telling people how sick we got that we forget to say

we have a program for family recovery

that's what this weekend solemn barracked

this is a showcase of recovery we listen to the panels on

the speakers

and some groups that have Allentown sections that we participate in

and we see whole families getting well

together

well they're having a wonderful time

and I'm very grateful to be a part of this weekend

this last year has not been the best year of my life

and

I'm trying to find my place again

I've had many other dentists in my lifetime

a child

a student

a married woman some other

cannot handle does pretty well

but I'm not handling this slash the dignity that warehouse

I don't like the word widow

but I did the best I can

and that's how you can expect

they call me a long term or in the Allen family groups

and that doesn't mean very much until you get to be a long time

and it's not hard to do

you just keep coming to meetings and stay alive and you'll likely

from some people who were very news and to come to their meeting rooms while there you had amazing and that's hot winters

we met and dirty little kitchens around the country and there are a wide hair Holloway used anywhere we could put a few chairs and we sat together and we talked

you know very well what we talked about

it was a kind of a more of a competition to determine which one of us lead with the sorry yes my

and I'm very comfortable in those meetings because I didn't live with us sorry man I lived with a fine young man who drank too much

and I wasn't very comfortable

of course I don't know it is a kissing cousin to invention but because they were both born of necessity

and these dear people who put their life changing program of Alcoholics Anonymous together were visionaries they knew that in turn him

the families who have become aware of this necessity and so when they wrote the book on comics anonymous

they made preparations for us because they included in that book

two chapters for the families of alcoholics

one of these chapters and is entitled to wiretaps now that is not intended to be a put down for you find men who were members say on on family group not at all the truth of the matter is that when the book was written there were no women in age so the address that chapter two the one

the early groups in Canada call their groups the wiretaps groups

and the other chapter of courses

to the family afterwards

and then in my part of the country where I grew up in Allentown

we took a paragraph founded that chapter

and made a preamble

and that we use to open their meetings and this paragraph sentence

the past is the principal asset of the alcoholics family

frequently it is almost the only

this painful past couldn't be events in that diet to families still struggling with their problem

we feel that each family that has been relieved only something that to those who have not and when the occasion requires each member but it should be only too willing to bring former mistakes out of their hiding places warmer mistakes no matter how angry VS out of their hiding place showing others how we were given the help is the only thing that makes our life worthwhile

cling to the thought that in god's hands your dark past is the greatest the section you

the key to the LAR and happiness for others

with it you can never dance or measuring appointment

my good friends that have a stern

that is heavy stuff

this paragraph is kept me active in the Allentown family groups ever since it started

of this paragraph has made it necessary for me to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles and to top ten Mindy Mindy

and there's just a little confusion about the literature in our fellowship

the literature that we developed in the al anon family groups was intended

to be a supplement

to the first one hundred and sixty four pages and that

yeah the book Alcoholics Anonymous

we assume too which is always a mistake

and that you had started the first those first one hundred and sixty four pages and so we developed literature or early on to supplement that

I have no idea how much literature we having I think we have a bird of the dozen hard back books each contradicting each other

probably enough employees to paper this whole room

but to

and and it makes me very sad it makes me very sad because we're changing our newcomers I couldn't get well on harbor giving honest commerce no I'm sorry

and I was extremely fortunate when I came here

because I was exposed to this spiritual giants in this program

that our managers in the harsh towards a new chart chamberlains and those people

and when I came here I was absolutely scared to death

over seventeen hundred miles from home right the big Midland Texas

thank you note from my own family my father gave him gave us gave me his blessings when I left home to come to Texas with her four children

he said if you're determined to go to Texas and live with them damn drunk and you go hungry I don't wanna know about it

and I came to Texas and I lived with that damn drunk and sometimes I went hungry and he didn't have a vast

bill's family wouldn't accept me they readily understood Hotmail o'neill had a drinking problem because he married that Yankee from North Carolina where they make all of where they make all of that liquor in them cigarettes

and there's there are people trying to help me

but they couldn't

any more than we could help the alcoholic

it seems to me that take took me up to the edge of a precipice and they didn't push me over but they just kinda let me dying coal fire

and and I said to them

I don't understand do not understanding

Hey it's a liner but you can't tell the truth

and and and he's responsible

I half the time I don't know where it is I don't know when he's coming home he's coming home I don't understand him

and they said to me

read this book

where does book

it will describe it will explain

the nature of the illness bill hi this

and it will take to the philosophy that you need for your recovery and that's what I wanted

I understood that if you put it in a book I believe it

and if you forget if you forget what you read you can always read it again I believe books

and that was the answer I was looking for

I attended my first open a a meeting in Amarillo Texas in nineteen forty eight

and I didn't want to go to that meeting I was like the little girl in Illinois

I could see no constructive purpose to be served in associating myself with a group of people who buy their own admission it ruined everything it ever trying to do

they're growing their health

they lost their families that lost their businesses some I've done terrible things and been in jail dear lord I didn't associate with that kind of people I certainly didn't want to get mixed up with the group problem I was having enough trouble with one out and the only reason that I went to that meeting it was because I had put myself under an obligation to a very lovely woman who is married to a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and if you haven't picked up Hyundai accent yeah it's it's not the southern accent it's a hillbilly accent

in hillbillies don't like to be advised to people

and I didn't want to be obliged at that moment and so I went to the meeting and I'll be forever grateful that I did go to that meeting as I told you it was an open meeting there was about a hundred and fifty people there and

probably also picked up on the fact that I think a lot of complex and I'm sure I've made a number of trips the coffee bar and after we were seated in a meeting

a beautiful woman and then I later learned was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous leaned across Marguerite and whispered to me

forty seven bars how long's it been since you have that during turning

yeah I didn't get here in such a great show

wait a hundred and seven pounds bill so they had to stand trials to make sure I don't

L. to Chamberlin describe me pretty well long before she ever met me she said

people came to her meetings out here in California just to jump ahead of us and that's how I got here

this

ahead of the threat

and I was not embarrassed but the lady's question I am not just to tell

I used to say I wasn't that I didn't trust teetotaler spent I don't say that anymore I've got little friend down in Wichita falls Texas it never even tasted like her she's a real teetotaler

and I would trust Mildred with my last so I don't say that anymore but murder rate was embarrassed about it and she answered the question for me she said Mrs o'neill is not an alcoholic

ms o'neill there's not an alcoholic

but she knows about alcoholics

I grew up in a house with two men

both of whom much much faster

there was a two fisted construction man who worked hard

he played hard

nature and card

dad was a great I'd R. Schmidt who taught me to love poetry

they taught me just saying Irish folk song

he had the patience to teach me to work my geometry problems with these framing squire

but on Saturday night my dad turned into a devil

my father's alcoholism destroyed both of my parents

my father's alcoholism turned my beautiful mother into an old

do they better one one who hated him

she hated my dad as a loner she later

she hated my dad

long after he was dead and any scoring

and the last years of her life which she spent in total darkness she hated anybody at that is there for love John Martin

and that included me

Mrs o'neill is not an alcoholic

but she knows about daca holders

my dad was a craftsman alliance you don't find a name or and he loved to build things for my mother

it could be a China closet or coffee table

can he spend those longer days and

the winners twenty couldn't work out doors

and build something from other

Hey select they would very carefully

and he put together with great precision is only R. Christman contain

he was sanded

powershares I've watched it many times caress a piece of wood much the same as the lady crisis a piece of satin or piece of me out there and he'd say oh that would this word has a beautiful fall

and I you know I was talking about to lap around this program

but he would build these things from other

and as I say Polish them and send them and truly make a thing of beauty

and then he went to smash it drunken right

my father's alcoholism destroyed both my parents

and for many years after I found the courage to ask the god of my understanding for special papers

my clothes every day of my life with a special prayer for my father

god don't let not dead doctor

I cannot tell you why this is such a teratoma I cannot tell you I can only tell you this is this

god don't let not Ted Dr

my father died in nineteen sixty five

I hit counter this term

he did not return

and when my brother my call to tell me that they had this terminally ill he said

we're going to have to pray extra hard for dad are viewed as he's not gonna make it

and I said no no

are you know very well I did want to tell the staff to destroy that beautiful baritone voice you know I did

you know I didn't want to tell the staff to make it impossible for my father to eat and drink water you know a distant

but I prayed

god

this is only a

there's not an alcoholic that she knows about alcohol has

no one should know that

when I married that tall Texan that was to become the father of my children I was not concerned with bills drinking

not in the slightest father Martin says the only way you can identify now comic is that it is but the one that you know

and bill didn't drink contest

there were several other singer hallucinating drunken self creeping crawling things and and mother

right and and

he he knew really didn't intend to hurt her mother when he broke her jaw he just intended to kill a centipede at the sprawling and are higher the mother couldn't understand that I'm quite sure I couldn't understand that either

but bill didn't drink like that build us a life of the party drunk he he crush debutants partisans taught them to put your little fat

he didn't drink white male

and we work for an advertising company that since all over the United States and we got drunk everywhere we went it was exceedingly important in my generation to have fun with them

prince the night a lady said she had so much funny like to kill her

and and that's about what happened to bill in may but we got drunk and before we went good lord of mercy we have been so drunk in Los Angeles

we got drunken San Francisco Chicago Saint Louis San Antone anymore we went

and

but then in nineteen forty

two things happened that shouldn't might bill when they grow up

we've came parents

and the world became involved in the world

and I quit drinking with them

things were too serious I was watching troop movements in Europe in later and of South Pacific because both my brothers were in the military

a number of bills or cousins brothers were in the military I didn't drink with him are

we had our second child the next year and Bahnsen Thurman and she was born

thank you came on Wednesday

michi did major dental center

Ellenville came to the hospital

in Cincinnati Ohio

with the usual paraphernalia that you men bring to us when we have your babies take counts a great deal of confusion in the hospital because he wanted to catch that takes a Catholic nun who was in charge of my maternity ward the text a stone and then the good sister didn't want to die

and when he left the hospital and sat down on the street kart track in full view of my window source the motorman to stop so I could tell him about her new baby girl you see bill is still having fun with his drink

then the next year we had our only son now don't get nervous there's not that many options

we had our only son

and this time the trip to the delivery room was a little different something went wrong

and they needed bail

and I couldn't find that

I have been able to talk to them I could have told him that he had

be on the bar

but I didn't know which one

maser mail there's not an alcoholic but you know just about alcoholics

I couldn't talk about this for a long term but because so

the guilt that I felt

we had two little girls

and bill going to learn about

I guess you mammal argument when the sun

seven minute pillars that pregnancy

and I gave bellissima

he couldn't walk

Mr respond with a birth defect and doctors told us he'd never walk

right now is absolutely and totally over around with guilt

and I spent

days and weeks and months

taking that child the one crippled children's hospital after another

defended Dr

that would make my son walk

I didn't pray for looser to walk because I had nothing to prove to

but I believe didn't doctors

and from one hospital to the other I took that little ball defended Dr

tonight March seven o'clock

three seven our first child

I was born there after like a year and one and three days after looser wishbone

thank rate for late tree service on those healthy babies that thrived on lobbying neglect and that's how she got

the concert was determined

the tenth boy

and he did talk

twenty three years so

does it get on tap into town to do some shopping for me and Hey about that red card during open house for Luther and the straps were too long

so I just did the buttons on the straps and put those overall certainly Sir and

stadium after living room from my and he said to let her walk over here to me son and later took nine steps

and they were both current

they just sent me a list not an account like that she knows about alcohol last

and of course

the drinking progress as it always does

and bill change jobs pretty often

one of these jobs took us down to Knoxville Tennessee about town they've brought that this comic energy plant into Knoxville

and thousands and thousands of people came into that little southern town it was a mad house

over frozen to their jobs you all are not old enough to remember this landlords couldn't evict people from their homes and all this kind of stuff

but we were affected

from a furnished house in Knoxville Tennessee is that rented for fifty dollars a month for non payment of rent now bill o'neill had a good job he works for Holland furnace company as a good salary he made commission on all of Paris this week so that he wasn't one bit reluctant to take a little extra money on the counter he needs a furnished room for rent

but we were evicted from a furnished house that range from fifteen dollars a month

and I couldn't find a place in Knoxville now I was expecting to reset in a minute

apparently found a garage apartment seventy miles away in a little town up in Kentucky

and I checked into the hospital there

to see about

terminating a pregnancy

and I learned that I couldn't go there are to be delivered of My Baby because it misspelled the exclusive use the coal miners

and I could not go there to have my baby and about the time that I learned that to carry them home now they came home before but this term is like this program

he had an argument with his boss in the millennial never wanna fight needs far

he must've felt ten foot tall when you drink quicker because he took on the biggest man in the bar and just get that but J. person beat out on my

and it was usually because somebody had been careless enough to use profanity in front of the ladies that were in the bar

take care and be all home and

and mother didn't know I was pregnant again mother was only twelve years older than my husband and allow mercy she hated him with a purple partitions I used to have these god awful arguments bill would yell at her because she hadn't taught my birth control and she'd yell at him because I was pregnant again and I'm in the middle with my big belly

it was awful

and that

we had to come home to mother

can I get the picture

we got on a greyhound bus

Peggy was three years old

Nancy was to

Richard was almost one and he couldn't walk

and I am pregnant my stomach looked like a watermelon and you just taken one slash softball

and we gather on that greyhound bus and went to Cincinnati Ohio

I cannot tell you who was most relieved when we got there may or the bus driver

and we go out to mother's neighborhood she lives in one of those restricted areas that didn't allow children

less fancy apartment houses

and it didn't have an elevator

she lived on the third floor

so nineteen thank you held hands and I'm carrying on their ballots Tom a big ballet and we go out now come other store

and she like to dart

she liked to dance

and I said to her would you please go down the lobby and help build mother and she said and what is the matter with him as he drunk and I said no ma'am we select program

so she went down on her bell up the stairs and

send us down on the living room couch for one of those talks as you all know about

and she said our business there's no doubt in my mind that you're the most brilliant child on her own no doubt at all

it takes a damn genius to get in shape like this

and because of the volunteer work that my mother had done with the salvation army hospital at that house separation army I was privileged to go to the salvation army hospital

to have my fortune

this charity work

salvation army hospital

I don't think my friends in Texas quite appreciate this part of my story and quite frankly I'd like to leave it out but my bill says I must not because it's real good for you how about him drunks

how are those emotional scars to migrate from cart sure

and then I wish to learn about their you know their agency

called welfare

SRO the look of pity and disgust each one of them each time when those eviction notices Mister bass or

and I saw the look of pity and disgust on the social worker space when I had to go to a welfare agency to get food for my children

when she wrote on my application blank in bold black letters as if I couldn't read

husband is a drunkard

certainly it was not an alcoholic

but she knows about alcohol

how bout those four children

our our return my skill at mid term in nineteen forty four

and brought to the children to Texas

my grandfather

was that why this old man

and

he said he told me I should go to Texas

he said the man is never successful hurries on happy or beautician village so I'm happy and I knew it wasn't easy for bill to be referred to as the husband of John Martin's oldest daughter I knew that it wasn't very comfortable form so he came back to Texas and and got a job

and found a house for us and got me a pretty little Mexican girl to hope that the children a lot yet stats and I brought the children out in nineteen forty four

and I had never heard the term alcoholism

in reference to Mario's young husbands drinking never had I heard even heard the term

but I watch this nor lose everything that he had

that he wanted to keep

there are also

lost his left arm

in a drunken accident

and he could not stop drinking

my bill lost his left arm

in a drunken accident

and he could not stop drinking

and I watched this happen

and I wanted to help him with every fiber of my being I wanted to help but I couldn't

I will say something to you eight people and again please don't misunderstand me I would never want to say anything from this or any other podium that would hurt you you've been hurt enough

but I have heard you stand at places like I am right now and say non alcoholic don't know what they're talking about

and I want you to know

that I know who I'm talking

I have held an alcoholic in my arms through the long nights when he was in conjunction scared to death that he wouldn't live tomorrow

scared to death if he did live we wouldn't have any sanity left I couldn't tell which one of those ours was artificial

I know for some talk about

our book drunken women up and down

feeding them black coffee

and gone home great but when the knowledge that but for the grace of god somebody might be walking me up and down and feed me black coffee to send my children to school

I know what I'm talking

we are not callous insensitive people

we know the physical pain that you and your

we know the emotional torment

it seems to me that the to put us on the other side of the bus six Dorrance warbles and we can see you and we can hear you but we can't get through to you

are trying trying harder to describe this feeling it's a feeling that those are of you who are parents couldn't recognize it's the feeling you have when you send us when you tender sick baby

the baby cries is burning up with fever and you want to help the baby but you can't the constant baby can't tell you who are you hurts

then they all call it couldn't tell us where they hurt and we couldn't help

thank god we won't eat

are some people here this afternoon about a pretty penny that would not be here if it was not for somebody like me we wanted to help you

but we couldn't help you because you would not let us

now I want you to remember this that the next time you tease and Alan on member

I had never heard the term alcoholism applied to bill's drinking

and I was I came to Texas with a great deal of

anticipation because bill was one of a large family which one he was one of ten children had cousins by the dozens and I knew I'd have a support group when I got to Texas

but that was not true

as I said earlier as I understood thoroughly as built drawings because of the unsponsored my family it turned on him catering for American made

he belonged to the southern Baptist church and did all those things but I didn't have a support group

but then we made a strange group of people

they call themselves members of a

Sunday's paper could help them

as I told you earlier if they could help mill

but they couldn't help me

and I never shall forget the first day eight members are protected

he came to my house in the middle of the afternoon and he described to me what are referred to them as this rehabilitation program for the alcoholic I didn't know anything else currently

after about two and a half hours are asking the question I said what do you have in this rehabilitation program appears for their wives and children of alcoholics and nobody's ever asked him that question before I'm sure because she couldn't answer it he said we don't have anything for the virus in children Mrs o'neill you do not have a problem

I thought it was horrible

still think it was her

at that moment could not wear sleeves but because of a rash that the doctor said this car's been nervous I weighed a hundred and seven times

I was so nervous I couldn't stand in my own shoes

and that their man said you do not have a problem

and I believe with all my heart that it was that cold November afternoon when I stood in the living room of the main little ranch house and brown would Texas where we live now that I made up my mind

Sunday

some day I will find a way to help the families

and by the grace of god that opportunity came because I'm as another group of people

now if I thought those eight people were weird oh my dear lord

news non alcoholics who founded vitally necessary to

work this recovery but that's twelve steps of the recovery program to

S. to preserve their sanity and I'm interest to preserve their stability and to restore their sanity and they were

they were scary

there are two were dead

I went to one of those meetings and I like to scare the daylights out of me there was one woman that group was twice as old as our bars and I'm worried about her I was afraid she dropped dead of a heart attack because she was she was fifty eight years old

and and and bill kept saying to me you need to go to those meetings and I said no those people are sick and I don't want to go out like that

and when I came here and everyone didn't

you're all set was talking this before I do it they had talked about

the

in the military to

I understand and and how sick she got one she really was six point two

but

the thing that I couldn't understand was that there they were so hopeless

and and I don't mean it do you do this nothing minor

and now let's turn to deadlines

but thank god looks after fools and drunks mother said I don't know that that's really what happened in my life

we got a new member in that little group in Abilene Texas

from California

her husband and my husband were cousins and

Tom went to work for my bail thank god I had been in Allentown she was a good friend Elsa chamberlains and she'd been in Allentown for ten years

thank you came to our group

there are very proud of preamble that incorporate the constitution United stars the bill of rights in America

and it monitors to be virtuous and modest

Barcelona

eight eight our primary purpose was to provide entertainment for the AP poll I'm not I'm not I'm not an entertainer

Mendhar came to the meeting and they read the S. for example

and

those little size five feet hit the floor she said Friday in the

and this time she turned that group around Wilson and your statements

and we met on Tuesday on Thursdays and Monday nights

and I work fifty two hours a week

not that Texas wouldn't recognize my teaching certification because I hadn't started Texas history so they wouldn't let me take care of and I wouldn't go back and start this Texas history so it was a Mexican standoff

but I work fifty two hours of the minimum wage job I lived in the twelve room house camp for children in school

and run a one parent household for fifteen years to a bill got us out of debt so I was a pretty busy person

and I have course when bill came home on weekends the house had the classified glove inspection my decision not males

and then I didn't always make the Monday night meeting

because I had to put that house together Monday morning it looks like a herd of buffalo and consulate after bill went back to work and I didn't go to work till nine thirty so I had to put it in shape before I could go to work and blah blah blah blah

so I didn't always make the Monday night meeting but one of those Monday night and they had their regular meeting and I was the only thing on the agenda

those women sat down together and tried to determine which one of them had the courage to be my sponsor

true true true

I guarantee was a

clinical psychologist I didn't know that for a long term or Wednesday in the same room with

but she decided she had the courage to be must sponsor says she came over to my house and tell me she was my husband's

and I didn't care I knew it wouldn't have a very long

because I learned early on when I first came to Texas it was very easy to shop southern Baptists and I had a ball

other Shakhter shoes are

so guys sat down in my dining room during a marker for

and

put me through a little catechism

she said have you come to terms with the first step part musician us is most certainly a step says brown brown brought us into everybody's powerless over alcohol and chemical

and the Polish it off I said I'm also pero sobre strychnine carbolic acid

nineteen M. ago about within

and the time it was she put my nose down in those twelve steps and I had the distinct feeling that if I didn't

check those boxes steps she wouldn't let me come up for air

and I was willing to take them I was going to take those steps and got a ninety plus sent in a corner my paper I've never seen anything else on one of my papers

I was gonna slap that down and throw them in Korea and sponsors say I took these applies to each steps and they didn't work

and they didn't

it is

I didn't come here to get millennials sober I want you to know that

I came here to try to find the disintegrated

this is of a personality that was once me

and then

some have lost it I came here because my children were afraid of me no I don't

S. understand me I am not a child abuser my children were afraid of my disapproval

they were afraid to bring home a great card it's a major city on it because I would not tolerate it I sent in a Vatican be average

I couldn't watch a skill player if they were acting in it

your first set out in the audience they forgot their lunch I had to watch from the wings my children were for each of

I placed among Marshall thinks they spilled a glass of milk on a white table cloths and nine sisters on white tablecloths never did make sense to me that I would try to convince my own children and I'm an aristocrat but under it

tornado took care of my heart table costs for a period of time I

I made mention of that and Jones were Arkansas one time and good lord have mercy I got tell our table costs from every corner of the globe

and you know if you need some art table because I'm going to

in Manville was showing him a

I didn't want my children to be afraid of

and I didn't want him to be ashamed

and I took those five seats steps and my life changed

that's what they tell me

you work this program your life will change and that's what I wanted the first thing I noticed was that the children were grown for freedom and they got some very nice last spring and I took a lot of nerve

and then a little later I realized that once again build was proud of me

this sick need for approval that those of us who love alcoholics is a real thing ladies and gentleman it's a real thing and the and the approval that we won't is from the alcoholic