The 3rd Spring Roundup in Marietta, GA

good morning everybody

my name is Dennis number very grateful member of al anon

and then she pretty much

you know I was looking at the program and I I saw that Janice was going there share this meeting and I saw Janice Kay and Dennis K. as first you know Janice can definitely my wife says yeah

but the

it's so wonderful to

you're the kind of these things and not just as a speaker I got a lot of conventions because I like to go to an

and I love to see people who have not been in the program for you know long times and get involved and you know the I know there's somebody behind the scenes pushing saying you can do this you know and it's so wonderful to see them get up there and and you know come out from behind that wall and be able to share a little bit in the program even if it's just man up here read that

because I think so many people who that's the first time you see them doing something and ten years later you go to a state assembly meeting in there your state delegate or something you know you can just see where they came from it's wonderful

and I'd like to

no thank the committee for inviting me down here I've been to Georgia a couple times before and and that's always been a real good time and I never really thought Lana very much because I was just passing through but I am I willing to enjoy the city and on again like to thank them for inviting me down here

and like to thank Creighton for wonderful message last night

you know it it's it's important to get a conference off real good and I I think it is just a wonderful job

B. R.

one thing the great let's talk about his name and everything about how sometimes it gets a little messed up and

because of anonymity you know we don't really mention our names too much in

and

reminded me of an calendar home meeting at she just had a terrible time with that work anonymity

and we would always let her read you know traditions eleven and twelve

you know for her growth you know to help her a little bit

and that were in the name of the would just come out any which way

and one night I was talking to her and I says now listen I says thank of a girl named Anna

and her last name is number three

now you just say her name Anna never take

and she shook her head and said no

and I said you can do it she shook her head again I said no and I said why not and she looked up at me and sparked a fire hysterical she said we don't use last names in Allentown

and then as I was floored you know I

what can you say to that

so and it is really need a

the friendliness of people here that I've known from other places and back right before the meeting it was really surprising how many came up to me and I'll introduce themselves and

we were at a mail online convention together thirteen years ago when she remembered me from there and and you know it's just amazing how

I think what it says on the bottom of the program there as we tried his journey you know where our paths will cross and you meet people on this program and you know they're never out of your life at some point in time you're going to meet him again you're gonna hear about them and it's just wonderful getting to know the people in the fellowship

a lot different than when I first came to the door so this program

when I got here

nobody

what if they don't know me they wouldn't admit it put that way and I don't know many people because that wall had been built up and we were total isolation this

but I go back to the beginning of like you know a little bit about how it was

yeah I grew up in Detroit Michigan

and peppering our childhood I remember my mother with her six track every night and a lot of times that she wasn't home I knew the corner bar where she was

but I can honestly say I never saw her drunk alcohol was not a problem he drank but that was it

my father was not a factor in our lives they were divorced and I was very very young

my mother and an older sister myself and I have a pretty good job

by all rights are you know I should be you know a mass murderer or something and grew up in public housing projects single family you know low income and everything you know but we managed to survive that and

I have good memories of my childhood secondly Corina I did this because I had a bad childhood that wasn't it at all

I went near forest

and while I was in the Air Force down to Virginia

one get away for a weekend so I went to Pittsburgh that's where my mother is from and I have a lot of uncles and aunts and cousins there and my cousin says I'm going to a dance would you like to go to a dance and I said sure

so I want to understand and she introduced me to some doubt that she went to high school with

and you know you made a number of people but this one person just stands out that's the one that catches your eye in this one gal get

the other galaxies so selling this one was just real nice and I said that's the gal I wanna get to know

for a few months later I was back in town and my cousin says

the gap I'm talking on the phone to the cal you met at the DSS let me talk to her so I got on the phone and talk to her and I said he was right to go out tonight and she said yes

so I got directions to our house in an evening I went over and knocked on the door he opened the door and it wasn't the one I thought it

my my my cousin was talking to so so you know and

so so I was sitting right out here in the second row in this past year when we were married thirty one years

so

what was approved I couldn't turn around and walk away what I did

but it's been exciting

without her I wouldn't be here today

tell us

we are calling for a couple years and it was it's interesting you know I was in nine Donatella began years years in Pittsburgh for her and twenty five miles every weekend and you know I went for two years back and forth on weekends like that all kinds of weather and somebody says you're crazy for doing that

and I think the way I look at it now it says I think I was just willing to go to any lengths to merry not a holic

it was so

but we got married and moved down to Virginia and we had our first time down there and and

if you have problems you have physical problems and and without a lot of medications

and I got out of the airforce and we moved back up to Pittsburgh and we had our second son there and she still had physical problems and without a lot of medication

no I got a job offer to move back to Detroit my hometown we kept battling back to Detroit and she had more physical problems in and out of hospitals and more medications

and eventually I notice that these pills were going very rapidly you know she was acting kind of strange

and I realize that you know she was taking more than she should and I went to the doctors and the pharmacy and I told him don't you give them anymore

and they could they show off thanks a lot for supplying affirmative to care that well I didn't understand anything about addiction and compulsive illnesses and I took her supply of pills and things the way that he was used to he just switched over to alcohol

and my introduction to alcoholism was not gradual

because one day she was taken because the next day she was screaming and yelling because you don't have any bills and the next day I came home from work and she was passed out in the living room floor and there were three of defense on the floor and that was day one about alcoholism in our home and it went downhill from there

I don't have a break in period you know I have no fear you're drinking too much of a party or anything like that you know you know what they want is three fifty yes

so so you know I am I kept asking her why why you you know I got the answer I miss my family so I went to work and said we gotta move we're going back to Pittsburgh and we will move back there

and she thinks that through this today sometimes that I did this on purpose but we wound up moving like twenty five miles out the suburbs

to our area they have no bus service

they had no faith stores where she could buy the Bose if you can drive

and you know it's not just pure coincidence

but

of course you know the reason she drank wasn't because she missed her family discussions Nakahara can select it continued and

read this real disintegration of our family started their

because I would get up in the morning and look at but have our little morning fight and I get my car and I work seventy miles away at the time and I would drive seven miles to my job and I'll be thinking how good it is to get away from when I'm leaving

and I would work really late because of course I can get along without ME office Mr indispensable at work I was calling Jansen you know as we're talking and everything my I'm I'm in the computer business I work with computers and

you know I was the one who was

hello I guess my best way to describe it you know people are coming to ask me questions and I say oh here's how to do it and all that but then I remind them that if they weren't so stupid they might know the answer to

see because

things were so bad at home

that I found a total failure as a husband and a father

I was raised by my mother and one older sister with no father in the home and when I got to the age where I started to go out and big girls I remember I would always get a full lecture and it's basically it always went on the theme of number one be good don't get in trouble you know I don't even know what they were talking about and the other thing is when you grow up and you have a family you are responsible I think they were trying to instill in me a sense of responsibility that my father didn't have

so here I am I grew up and I had a family it was a mess

every night I have that seventy mile drive home and all the way home might be thinking about what I was going to find and when I got home that's when I'd find

and I was responsible

I was supposed to do something about this and I have no idea what to do

but at work

I was useful I was a success you know I I would I could do things well

but I I took it out on other people

and you either have that seventy mile drive home and late

and sometimes I get home and should be in her usual condition passed out

and our two boys provide kindergarten first grade age

and they were not they were awake I'd wake him up and give them the bag hamburger have brought home

and I take my stairs and pardon the bad

and things got to the point where she wound up going into the hospital and the first time she went to hospital to their six months

and

yeah most people would make arrangements to have their children taken care of

I can never remember asking neighbors you know I'm going to get home from work at sunset time my kids get home earlier you know where you keep an eye out I don't do that because if I went to a neighbor and and ask them to do that they might say where's your wife

and I couldn't tell anybody where she was or why she was there

because I was responsible are we supposed to do something about it

so I bought him a baseball bat and a baseball in the complaint on the back and forgot are coming the house and it went on for close to six months and I thank my higher power today that nothing ever happened or children

I'm sure the neighbors watched but I know I never asked either that was the denial of the disease I could not tell you what was going on in my home

eventually it kind of became kind of hard to keep it a secret when you have ambulances and flashing red lights and police cars and things like that outside your house

it's kind of hard to keep that a secret

and we have those things are there were suicide attempts and overdoses yeah I'm not going to our story in detail but we had all those things

and we have a lot of activity at our house our callers that

and the the neighborhoods and have picnics in the back they had a big grassy area in the back of the ship apartments or townhouses we lived in and I come home and see all the neighbors out there sort order program covered dish into one neighbor would bring the baked beans younger bring the potato salad and everything but we didn't we were never invited and I took her out the window and get real mad you know I can understand why they should invite her about widening the invite me saying

one reason was that you as a surgeon Dr an idea

and we had our arguments no fights and everything you know first thing I would do is move away from the TV it should be thrown things you know and maybe bouncing off walls and people on both sides of us would hear things going on in the area apartment everything because we you know we have people on both sides of us

and then when it got too bad I'm not because she doesn't drive so I'm the one who believes you know and I walked out and slammed the apartment door so hard that the windows would rattle and neighbors windows with Ralph and I get in the car and I'd squeal Reverend king out of the parking lot and as I'm doing it I see all these curtains part and all these neighbors are peeking out the windows and looking at me and I'm thinking look what you made me do from her fall and then I wondered why they weren't invited me to their galleries you know names thanks they never saw her but they saw this man man running all around the neighborhood you know doing things

and one time I came home from work and my neighbor was talking to standing outside and look I never talk to me but he says I want to say something yeah

I don't know what is it and he said I just have one question he said when you beat your wife

and I said what and you should when you beat your wife and I thought what was in

I don't know about the alcoholics any of you may know but the one I live with can handle steps real well and we have a two story townhouse thank you no steps in her had a lot of problems

and not every time she would go outside she was always black and blue from falling down the steps and you hear all this fighting and screaming and yelling and actually her black and blue but two two two together you know and he said why do you beat your wife and I thought I'm just what I told you

I love to write nine six because she deserves it

because if I said she's drunk she falls down the steps he'd say you're responsible why don't you do something about it

I would rather have had people think I was a wife beater than to say I can handle it I don't know what to do it

that denial that I was driven into it's just you know unbelievable as I look back at it

we had one of our flights as usual I went out and got my car and I'm going to leave and she came out after me and she stood next to the car and she says

you're not wrong and I said yes I am he said no you're not I had my foot behind the wheel

well when she's drunk now ma'am we're both very stubborn people

so she stayed and I left

and I have had backed out of the parking lot I see her hopping around the parking lot on one foot I'm not sure what happened I went by you know but

so she happened around and I've driven over

in my very first thought was are those curtains open others neighbors walking

you know I looked around and then I pulled back in and sometimes I have to remind her to even now that you'll be great pride and gather again on the way back in

by John

I got in the house and he's moaning and groaning about her flight and Donna if you want to go to the hospital and we've been to the hospital a lot of times you know I'd written behind the invoices in their voices and I don't want to go to the hospital again so I give a **** hot water and for certain point

and she soccer for his **** hot water and she still screaming yelling about how it hurts and the guilt starts to set in

and I'm thinking oh Jeez you know maybe it's broken maybe we're going to have to have it taken care of and everything I just like I make a deal with you I first I take it to the hospital but you can't come I drove over here for

you have to say something like you drop an iron on it or something you know he said okay okay

and yeah nobody would have believed it anyways to this day I've never seen an iron it left tire tracks

but

yup

I got in the car and we went off to this hospital and I said you know my wife for her for they gave me a wheelchair and I went out together in the car got out the car put in a wheelchair and I we either up the ramp and they got the electric guy and the doors in the stores like your doors open up and I'm Russia through the doors and the stars running close behind me yet and she is screaming at the top of her lungs that she

that is the day we all trust was lost you know you know we we have we have a deal you know but

and and she was screaming and yelling at these doctors about moving over her flat and and by this time he was a first name basis with the emergency room at a newer and doc the doctor walked up and said how are you today Charlene she's point at me and yell and everything and all this thing and he just shook his head and looked at me you know he knew she was not going to work she said

so I got away with that one

my phone

when I'm sort of like that for about three and a half years in Pittsburgh and up front finally one day at work my boss said to me

you know there's some wrong

and I said yeah a little bit and I come a little bit about what was going on he said you think a move would help

and I think yeah we could just go somewhere and get a fresh start you know so I work for a nationwide company back here national

and

shop around a little bit he said house Washington DC No Way how state Ohio so

and I said wonderful

go big house and talk to a manager of the department down there he said yeah man you're winning people over but we'll take them so we're we're all set regarding a house and well before we were supposed to go my boss comes in and says coming in the office to get in there and on the phone and he says

got the guy in daytime phones I get on the phone talk to him and he says well I'm sad Graham said inform you that I have to rescind my offer

those are we can't take you on here

Weier says I thought it was all set he said here it was

but that much at our department meeting I made a comment that I retiring you

and three of the people that work for me stood up and said if he comes I quit

they had worked with me in the past and they want no part of it again

I want to grow

I have more problems with people being treated

yeah I guess it was just really strange I would three people just terrible because I was better than that there

because at home I was nothing I was a complete failure at home so I thought superior anywhere else

so I moved to Dayton was over

and finally they came up with Washington DC so we moved off to Washington DC

and of course

no we took ourselves with us of the problem stayed there you know and

things started to go downhill there

and that separation and isolation that the pain got worse

and I would return it at night I watch TV

and she would be passed down

and my favorite show with Star Trek

and I watch my favorite person was Mister Spock

because he was the man with no emotions

time when I was driving home from that job and I'd be coming towards the house not say what am I going to do tonight am I gonna be Mr compassion hello honey why what's wrong or would I be

the fear of god thing you know if you do that again I'm gonna break your neck or I would be the guilt one

what did I do to make you drink today

but those times have passed now you know I came home and all I had was despair and deep anger

and I had no more words I didn't know what to say

there was a time when I used to look at what was going on in our home

and ask myself when is this going to end

I had stopped asking that

I no longer ask when we're there and I can remember back then saying to myself one day this isn't

this is the way it's going to be

I remember that so vividly when first time I walked into one of the eight clubs and date

and I got a sign on the wants and hope is found here

because I realized when it was damaged total loss of hope I had given up asking one more change this

so I would sit there and watch the Star Trek and Mister Spock in the man with no emotions and I say if I could be like him then this wouldn't hurt me I wouldn't feel the way I am

so I work at becoming Mister Spock

and I did I have no emotions I blocked everything out

and one of things I did to stay away and get out of the house was to close lower league baseball our boys were at the age of a remote lake

one night I came home and the boys were

dressed in their game uniforms because of the game that night

and I to get my car I want to go in and see mommy and I went in the house

and I looked around and I finally found her back in the bedroom

and he was lying on the bed

and never empty pill bottles

and the booze bottles

and I leaned over

half of my year right by your nose in your mouth and I could barely hear breast

and I looked on the nightstand and there was a note

I picked up the note

number of words sounded like it was yesterday

the note said you and the kids will be better off without me

and if it happened before

and I did the same thing I'd always done before I grabbed the phone I started to dial the rescue squad

but this time I got about halfway through dialing that number

and I stopped and I looked at that note again

you and the kids will be better off without me

I think he's right

this is how it's going to end

I couldn't see any other way

and I put the phone back now

I put that note back on the nightstand

and I think nobody will know I was in here I can just say I found

and I turned around and walked out

I closed the bedroom door and I went out and got my car fixed markets which go to the game

I reached a point where there is no tomorrow there is nothing else left

so we went to that game we were there for a few hours when the kids came home they wanted to go in and get a drink and I said no go down and tell the neighbor cared about the game

because I don't want them to go in and find mommy

because I fully expected her to be gone by now

I thank my higher power today that you have she came through that

but I was at the point where I no longer care

anything that was going to happen with what was going to happen

I think that was a turning point in the sense of I quit the arguing I quit the fighting

you know and and and quit trying to show her how bad she was

I think I used to do with you maybe literally laying on the floor and I'd be standing over her calling her names

thank god I did I don't do that anymore

and it was not too long after that they should one of going in the hospital and while she was there she got

enter no they brought in meetings and she met this guy from a

and after he got out of the hospital

question drank again

and things got back to the usual case where she was

and Monday this golfer Mary came over to the house and he saw showing sitting in a chair with a blanket wrapped around her I'm a spoon feeding around the ball

get down in a chair for about three days

and he said what are you doing thank you thank you have to do something

I am a computer wizard the man who knows it all and I look better and I couldn't think of anything my mind was complete cal I had no idea what to do

I don't give up what's gonna happen is gonna happen

as always taken on my hands Vizquel picked up the phone call the doctor call the hospital range for room made another call call this guy in a actually I know this guy all I remember bombers cowboy boots and cowboy hats

it comes in the door the gal packed the suitcase close to my wife's clothes and this guy walks over to the caramelized sitting on a blanket he picks her up and they go out the door

and they don't even come in where they were going

I'm literally gave my wife

I thought for me one of the

from

yeah they've they've actually tell me what hospital she was in and everything and went out here and they told us about a treatment price

actually the secret to a long one was where all the senators and congressmen twice went back in for that one and the other one was this place that most

no more for the common folk I can for that one either

and I you may find it hard to believe today about what happened when I talk to these people and they told me what the cost was per week in that we don't have any insurance to cover that

and I said I don't have that many people will work something out later

I think things have changed since then but I'm very grateful that's the way it was then

and she went there and they said you can come out and visit her on Sunday afternoons

and the first year they set up at one o'clock so I went out there once in the afternoon and would it be for one

and I said okay I'm here to visit her and they said well you can see her too and I said well we're not supposed to use it I consider it one I can no you can visit one but what we got here she's in a meeting from one through

and you go in that room over there and I said what's in there and he said you're going to find out

so I went into this room and there were all the family members of the inmates

and

there there were these two lunatics setting up at the front

and they were expanding this profound wisdom upon us

and I thought my god how amazing

and after twenty minutes I had to tell them that I stood up and I said you are cruising I walked out the room that was my first Alan on meeting

because what they were telling me was something that I can no way could I believe at that time

but I'd like to share with you today because today I believe it from the bottom from my feet to the top of my head there every fiber of my body I believe what they said

but I didn't at that moment

what was

in your mind

you get a picture of the alcoholic in your life

and you just get a real sharp focus on and you just imagine that it starts to change shape

and out of the side

something comes out and it takes shape when you look at it and it's a bottle

and now you see two thanks

you see the alcoholic

and the bottle represents alcoholism

and you don't need a lot of alcoholism but you can love somebody who has a disease

and I thought that was the biggest piece of crap I've ever heard in my life because for years it was her who was ruining my life

of course what the program taught me in his alcoholism ruining our lives

I never knew that there was not a border in our house somebody living there yeah but there was

but I can understand that at their first meeting of course another today with people come back for the second meetings at all last week I heard of all this is wonderful you know and I think that for you you keep coming back you know because I wasn't that easy

but I went to a couple of meetings out there

and then she informed me she was going to a halfway house to live in a bunch of college women and she went there

and of course my helpful attitude was give me the address when you get there all your clothes will be on the porch

because my god you have a thirty day care come home now and be the good wife you should make up for all the bad times

that's what I wanted her to do I have no understanding of what was going on but

she had the will only strengthen the backing to disregard my insanity and go to where he needed to go

and then I would go out to the halfway house on Sunday afternoons and I walk in and talk to her and would fight and argue in the waiting room of course for kick me out

and then the next day I'd come back and I walk up the sidewalk with a bouquet of flowers and walk up and knock on the door and curtains and look out the window and say go away

and then I go home and I would call the place and I would talk to the lady who ran the halfway house and I would tell her she's not keeping me from my life and blah blah blah blah blah and then I would accuse her of trying to break up our happy marriage

so

and then finally she said you know if you quit if you keep doing this and up selling this place I'm going to have to ask her to leave because you're representing a whole house

and

for some reason maps I said that will be a good thing to do

and I said I thought you know that's not good she lives there so I quit doing that she states and he was born here and I was one of the two boys

and they said I had to go down on to get the visiting privileges so I'm you're lucky hello for different reasons you know I want to learn a few Bucks working giving privileges

and Rodgers hearing safe step slogan surrounding all this stuff and everything and but that no I was going to meetings and when she came out of there and we got back together

and we went and got a new apartment over near

you will learn the Virginian halfway houses in Maryland and so we moved over Maryland get close to the meetings

that was the first time I really had to be honest with somebody relating to end the program because

when we went to get a new apartment they turn the sound

that was because I had like an X. rating credit rating

and you see

years later you know in the program I was listening to alcoholics tell their stories and you know they have problems with police may have problems with jobs they have problems with credit and a center line my head not my head yeah I have all those problems but I wasn't drinking

you know in the first time I gave my love will never lied about fifteen or twenty minutes long or whatever it was after the meeting to alcoholics come up and said don't take a drink you know

you're one of us you know I just don't drink

and

you know because we have all these bills and medical problems and those for her for everybody because her her problem is

yeah all kinds of problems so I had to stand there and tell the person what was going on in our lives and I told him about the halfway house in the treatment center and that's being apart for about a year and that what I was going to al anon and we were trying to get it back together

in the apartment manager said well we're giving it a try you know so they they were kind enough to give us a place to live and move into their apartment

yeah that was interesting being doing that and the fact that I was able to do it because like I said before I would have you think I'd be here and tell you that he fell down some steps and now I'm telling somebody I don't even know

that's what was going on in our lives because that's what I should do

so we started to go to meetings and we started to make friends and get to know people

and it went slow you know at first we weren't even allowed to sit in the same room together he would get the file and she would sit in the kitchen and talk on the phone and I said in the front room and would pass in the hallway in the in the because if you can't find anything good to say stranded so we walk by each other in your background right

you know that's why you're here and

you know

and I can remember one night sitting there and I was like there was a TV show or something coming up on the C. and I said where are skipped a meeting tonight and everything and I said well then lining the last night but that's because I had this other important thing to do thank you mom I really got the Asenath motion and they aren't I had come across seven nights a week why didn't have to go to a meeting

and I thought for a minute and I said wait a minute I've we don't part of March right I'd go to meetings and it dawned on me I can see when she went to meetings

we offer reports when I go to meetings it was the first realization that maybe this program was helping me a little bit

and I kept going and I was in a little over a year

and there was a full time or you know the group time that we kissed dearly loved her name is Mary

and hello I got to the point where I really wanted to listen closely to what Mary and her friends had to say and and we had a big big square have a cable channel when I command and Mary was

but last week was sitting on that side of table fried roasted over there and it can manage that the other side

and then next week I say okay I'll be over there so I'm going that's it that's I need two minutes to down the other end table and I can I can never catch up from a year where they work and finally one night after a meeting Mary was talking to me and we were just there one on one