The Border City Roundup

The Border City Roundup

▶️ Play 🗣️ Beverly B. ⏱️ 1h 8m 📅 01 Nov 1993
hi everybody my name is Beverly for now and I am very grateful recovering member of the al anon family group
and I am absolutely delighted to be here because of the airline
and some situations beyond Kathy's control she called me a few days ago and and and told me her dilemma and asked if perhaps it would be okay with me if he suggested that I come here and she called the Nancy and and explain her situation and and here I am and I am absolutely delighted to be here
I want to thank Mike for picking me up at the airport I was expecting and and luckily I was looking around and he was holding a sign that said Beverly and I said you don't look like a
and and I was
which to me and a little bit later on in the evening and we've had a wonderful time to visit together and after the meeting this morning she's taking me over to where she works and we had lunch and and it's just been a wonderful wonderful experience for me so far riding Kathy has been a big part of my life for a long time and has always have a choice I enjoyed listening to rod talkin death that I I I I know Ryden Kathy just ask folks and in the Dallas area and we get to go to Tyler and see them there and and they are just if you haven't had an opportunity to meet rod if you know it's a privilege and and I really appreciate knowing him and knowing happy and having them as a part of my life and I've never heard bill talk and I thoroughly enjoyed his story today and I I have an association with this love for motorcycles
and and somebody was willing in Maryland this summer to fulfill my wildest fantasy and that poor man probably is still riding around with a bag over his head we're taking the Allen on speaker for a ride on his Harley
I really knew
it was it was really good I came out they they had a hard time plan is right for me and when they finally got a hold of me I just got out the shower my hair was wet and I got outside I was so excited about finally being able to do this and I says you know but my here's what I really hate to put your home on my way here and the guy who rode shotgun with SSL honey at a hundred eighty miles an hour you're going to drive
so yeah I I mean I'm about living life today and not missing out on any any fun and and I've been able to do that for the last couple years you know just to get in there and not say no to things and and and I have I have just really had some awesome experiences they've been mixed in with a lot of things that are sad you know but I believe that's god's plan for us today you know happy joyous and free as a part of it but life goes on in a lot of sadness gets mixed in there and what I believe today is that it's our opportunity in our in our real privilege as part of the growth in this program to mix the joy and the sorrow together and blended equally because that's what god wants us to do and I believe that I've been able to do that as a result of this program and the steps and and lots of friends and
and in the last couple years you know the friendships that both robin and bill talked about today the fonts that we make in this program take us through the difficult times and it may hold us up you know and and keep us together and keeps laughing and they cry with us and I doubt it I don't know how people do life without Alcoholics Anonymous and Alan identifying if I sound like I'm excited about being a member this fellowship I am
I know that it has saved my life
I was born in Chicago Illinois
and I know that stuff without anybody in that family standing up and saying you know they were alcoholics I know by what I've learned as a result of being in this program that I was a product of an alcoholic home and and I am recovering from that today and you know all that I know is that there's no blame in that you know a lot of everybody in this room practically was obviously but most of us were raised an alcoholic homes you know we have a way out of all of those feelings today and I think that's the great part of it all and I was raised in this alcoholic home where more attention was given to alcohol the children and they celebrated everything they possibly could you know just on Christmas and thanksgiving and sometimes my birthday
and you know it's fourth of July St Patrick's day graduations death the whole thing well what happened in my home is that my mother would start to nag at my father about how he was to drink at these affairs you know she'd say now this thing's coming up Saturday and I don't want to get drunk because this that the other thing and the kids we've got you know got a make sure the kids are happy and all that what the kids were never happy you know with all that stuff going on it was real hard to be happy and at home I am
I would listen to all that stuff going on and I feel that not start to grow in my stomach and I knew what was coming
so they would have a full fight before the drinking and then they would have to fight during the drinking and then they would come home and have it a real fight and as a result of that they wouldn't speak to each other for a couple of days or a couple of weeks depending on how long you know they wanted that resentment to last and I noticed a small child that I could feel that knot in my stomach you know when I come home from school every day and as I walked upstairs I could feel the tension in the house and I knew that it wasn't gonna be better that day and finally one day I would come home from school and I came up the stairs and I could feel that you know they were talking to each other and everything was going to be okay for a little while at least what would happen is when they weren't speaking to each other is that I was used to know as the messenger my mother would say would you please tell your father this and my father would stand you go tell your mother this and it was a really comfortable place and I was a little kid you know it's four five six seven years old when this was going on
so I had this feeling you know I I think these feelings were already started I came from a family that I believe the children should be seen and not heard they had things to do when children were supposed to be well mannered and quiet so I had things to say and nobody to listen to that and I felt that nothing about me was important and I you know I don't know for sure if everybody who was raised in that kind of environment came up with those kinds of feelings but I felt really sick insignificant as a result of that it became very loud I you know I raise my voice about cannot get higher than the average person so that when I did have something to say maybe somebody would hear me then as a result of doing that my mother would come to me and say lower your voice you know so I started teller something and I'd be excited and talking loud and she taught me to lower my voice it would cut off my thought you know halfway through my thought was initially thank now finish what you were saying in a lower voice and I didn't want to finish yes I have this feeling of stubbornness you know if you don't want to listen to me the first time that I'm not going to tell you and so then we would have a fight she say now tell me what you want to be here and I say no that's okay it's not important and I kind of went on you know but it wasn't that it wasn't important I was starting to feel that I wasn't important and so if you know there was less and less communication I also felt that my home was an embarrassing place could be
idea when I would come home or try to bring some kids come first of all depending on what kind of mood or atmosphere was going on in that house often times my friends weren't weren't to be made welcome my mom had wisecracks about the neighborhood kids and she had standards and and all kinds of rules and everything and so depending on how she was feeling if I brought somebody home she could embarrass me in front of them or else he would my mom was wrestled their divine discontent she was not the alcoholic my father was I think and I never knew what was going to set her off so sometimes she would embarrass my friends by calling them names or sometimes she would be restless irritable and discontent because we had tracked mud up the stairs and what I would approach the house with his friend she would yell at me you know about this or that or the other thing and I'd feel terribly embarrassed so as a result of that I stopped bringing friends to the house because it was a scary thing to do you know I just I didn't I just couldn't stand that kind of humiliation so I stopped bringing children home I started to spend more time at other places because I began to realize that these kinds of things were happening at all in other homes where I would go that they were listening to their children and they were inviting the kids to come back again you know and another day of come back tomorrow and play come back you know next week and play and I think I mean that was like really foreign to me
so I was starting to get you know these feelings inside that I had the low self esteem that they'll you know not having very much self worth value I was I was terribly jealous I you know I I was lacking so much attention yeah I wanted attention so badly that when I went out and started to play with other children I couldn't only play with one other child if there was a third person involved too was company at three with the crowd and I learned how to manipulate and start a fight to stir up trouble until the third kid and it didn't matter which one state which one went as long as there was only one and the other one would go off and cry somewhere and I think she's all mine you know it's all my friend so I I know for a fact today that when I married my husband he was not because of who I was you know a lot of my character defects enhanced in some decreased but I already had a whole slew of problems before I ever met George I made some decisions that as a small child but if I ever got married if I ever had children I wouldn't embarrass them in front of their friends I wouldn't scream and yell and holler at them I would try to create a happy healthy environment and you know but on the other hand I thought to myself I am so ugly and so tall and you know did nobody likes me that I'll never get married so there were these two opposing thoughts first Ron tell myself if I ever got married it's going to be this way and on the other hand I didn't think there'd ever be a human being in the entire world that whatever want me for their wife so that was kind of how it was for from a really early age my father was a real find drunk my mother did not think so however but I did it I thoroughly enjoyed my dad he was my hero until the day he died and I just adored that man when he drank he went down the corner tavern came home a little sack of those little nickel back stuff you know spend a dollar that my mother could account for and that would throw off the deep end and he'd be yelling about all this stuff and wasted money and I just love that goes back to that little junk food I just loved it and he was funny and he really in his alcohol
I was a man in his truck and if you just want to play craps and for her to get off his back you know he just he just want to play with the guys just sit there and have a few beers and purchased a shotgun and I often wondered why he couldn't do that he did it in my opinion he just didn't seem to be bothering anybody he I could see he was having fun and there wasn't a whole lot of fun in our house and he would get out with those guys in the backyard without you know barrel of beer and ate the supposedly sending a boat or doing something like that and he was having fun and she get out there you know just start on him and you know I wanted her to do whatever he would tell you to you know get off his back in so many words and so you know this this feeling that I just didn't like my mother started to grow and grow and the more that it grew the more I like my dad my mom in this kind of process interfered with my relationship with my dad she was always trying to tell me things about him so that I would have a lower opinion of him our share the same opinion of him that she shared and so as a result of that I never really got to know my dad it was kind of like off here I thought it was a neat guy but I really didn't know who he was in nineteen seventy eight my mom died in a couple months after that my father had to have back surgery and I went to California and stayed with him for a week after he got out of the hospital in October and that came to be something that I did for the next ten years until he finally came to Texas in nineteen eighty eight and because as a result his cancer was coming out of remission and he came with us to live and during that time I got to know my dad and and have a great time with him and we formed a relationship that I never had that that's kind of jumping ahead because it that's all about a man city and it was some of it happened before the program and some of it happened after the program but the fact is is my dad was my hero and I had a chance to to get to be on to just have a wonderful friendship with him
so we had when I was a fourth grade we moved from Illinois to are from Chicago into a suburb and it was a time when I was the center of attention for a short period of time in school and I really needed that but then after a while everybody should be for the cafeteria was and how the school was laid out and after that they kind of dumped me and I was left on my own and so that few days of feeling really important went down the drain and and I was left but surely I started to formulate friendships and they were strong friendships and I had them until I was a senior in high school and the summer between my junior and senior year in high school my father lost his job that he had for quite a long time and he was offered a job in Salt Lake City actually Ogden Utah and they decided to take it and we left my father left to take this job about five months before my mom and and the kids my sister brother and I went
and when we when we got to Utah my mother and father went through one of the worst periods of time that I had ever known I mean they had fought bitterly most of the time from the time I was born but this this next period of time was one of the worst that I could ever remember here I moved there and I was lonely I had left all the friends that I had from fourth grade I changed schools three times that year I ended up walking the streets a lot I had enough credits to graduate and I just couldn't get into things I not only felt different outlooks different I mean I had we had gauged our whole life to American Bandstand and you know I was wearing a whole set of clothing that was totally different from anything that the kids in Utah we're wearing flawless like I belonged on the corner with the guys on the Harleys and you know I did not belong with these little well dressed Mormon girls and so I mean no matter where I look I just didn't fit you know always trouble with going on at home my mom was accusing my father of doing things I don't know whether you did or not it doesn't really matter but it caused chaos in that house the likes of which I had never felt before and they had fought bitterly up until that time I numbers of occasions but that particular year was absolutely the worst I have ever experienced and I had nowhere to go I mean I didn't have any friends I will I couldn't get it you know into the school we moved three times and change schools with armed it isn't that big of a community but they kept going to the different geographic areas where we had to end up in a different high school so my mom right away from home three times that year and I was left to take care of my sister and my brother and you know I was just I I just felt absolutely that there was no despair that would ever come to that it was what I thought one of my black or days to come I would come to find out that before I got in this program I was to have many days that were much blacker than that after I found I did graduate from high school my father got me a job at the company where he worked with the defense corporation and they had some clerk jobs available and they he helped me to get a job after I was there for a short period of time one of our calculator
is broken this man came in with his little suitcase to fix our calculators and at that time he was married and he did his job and he laughed and and I didn't know what that was all about me tell me that these guys are vendors and they come in to fix the machines well a couple weeks or months went by I'm not really sure which are calculator broke again and this man came in and now he's divorced and he asked me to go out on a date and I was still overweight by that time the the year have not done I had not done me justice and I looked as bad as I felt that time and this guy came in and asked me for a date and I thought that I had died and gone to heaven and I said yes and you know he was two hundred and some odd pounds and I was not far behind him and you know I mean we were a good match and and he was were in much despair I mean he was just coming out of this divorce and he was really sure he wanted to be divorced and he needed somebody to make you laugh and he told me I made him laugh and you know I mean it was just I I just thought I died and went to heaven so we went out on a couple of dates and if I would have known anything about alcoholism I would've known I was in for a long hard ride but the fact is that he was exciting and and I and I just I mean you know it just pumps me up I just felt good taste in cars that were lost and and he kissed me good night at midnight any fall off the porch and any some nights we were getting just a little bit later I was only twenty years old and I had a curfew and and I had to be at a certain time but I thought if I tiptoed in maybe we wouldn't wake her up and you know some nice to be out the door bell like this need to lean into the door and she'd be coming out to the door and yelling at me about being late and everything and I'd be embarrassed and all that stuff went on and saw that the profit that also happen to notice that my mother decided she did not like him he was a lot older than me she thought that I would do much better with a guy closer to my age and and but on the other hand my father adored him she he charged absolutely adored George and I came to understand you know as time went on and we certainly after we got into this program that my father George like each other because they both have something in common which was the alcohol and they were going to
kitchen and have a couple of snorts behind the wall and come out with a little cocktail for the girls and you know and they just had a great time together after a short period of time George would end up passing out my father go to bed my mother through an Afghan over George tell let himself out you know and and that's just how it was it was that it was acceptable it was the only thing I knew George was not doing anything different and of course I would love him why not you know I went out on a couple of occasions with guys who played chess you know you want to drink herbal tea and play chess in their backyard and and I think they knew all the varieties of birds and flowers and leaves and I thought they were the most boring individuals on the face of the earth you know I wanted a guy on a Harley I wanted
on the let my heart beat now I was alive you know this is this normal stuff was you know was not for me and I don't know why you know I didn't know that that alcoholism and all that insanity was all that I knew and and life other than that was boring and I'm for peace and serenity today but it has taken me almost thirteen years to get there
so anyhow I brought I I wouldn't be here about a year and a week after we were dating we ended up getting married and other criteria for our marriage was he saw the Oldsmobile convertible and bought a Volkswagen because he couldn't afford me in the Oldsmobile and that was okay
so as a result of that you know I wasn't I wasn't very worldly and and nine months and two days later I ended up with the baby and you know that was kind of funny if you're walking around in your calendar video pregnant you're kind of the center of attention and I really enjoyed being the center of attention and then when I got to be about eight and three quarter months pregnant I looked down at my father's house and thought how is all of that going to come out
and then what am I gonna do with it after it arrives and you know it all that reality hit me about what I was facing you know and so I ended up with this baby and thank god my sister like little kids and she was six years younger than I was and she came over and helped me get through the first few months of having a child because I literally did not know anything about having a child the other thing that I had already come to understand is about two days after we got married my husband went to work and did not come home for the next twenty two years and that's not a joke that's just the way it was with his alcoholism he stayed at work he left at five o'clock in the morning six o'clock in the morning he didn't come home till ten or eleven o'clock at night I could count on one hand the number of times on a Monday through Friday in twenty two years of marriage first twenty two years of marriage that he came home and ate dinner with us it was about five as a result of that I wasn't so much focused on the alcoholism because that was normal I didn't I I mean it didn't even phase me the drinking didn't even faze me but the fact that he didn't come home is what I got upset over and it made me restless irritable and discontent and all of the promises that I made that I was not going to be like my mother and my kids in front of their friends and I wasn't gonna scream and yell and holler at them and I wasn't going to create that kind of pain I was going to bake cookies and be a sweet mother in and out all of those things that I wanted I couldn't accomplish I couldn't do one I was a screamer and a Yeller and I was restless irritable and discontent and I knew that if my husband would just come home from work everything would be OK I didn't know what was causing it what the what the problem really was I didn't know that we had alcoholism
so anyhow I had nowhere else to vent this anger all of this frustration and I did take it out on my kids and I could stand up here for a long time and describe to you a number of events for about my insanity which are pretty sight and but the thing that probably happened that in just a couple of words would describe it as one day the kids were by now on what I ended up with you I have two sons they were born exactly two years apart and they were about eleven and thirteen and it was a rainy day and they invited some of their friends in the neighborhood to come and play monopoly and they were sitting down in the rec room at a picnic table and they were playing and I got crazy over something and you know it could have been a cult that wasn't hung up properly if that that wasn't made exactly perfect it could have been anything and I flew down those basement stairs and I started to raise hell with those kids and it wasn't but a few minutes the game was put away the kids were gone and one of the boys came upstairs and they said why do you always have to embarrass us in front of our friends and I stood there and couldn't give you the answer I didn't know what was wrong with me that I had to do that to those kids
we moved several times while the kids were growing up we went from Utah to Pennsylvania and from Pennsylvania to New Jersey my husband was able to progress up the corporate ladder in spite of his alcoholism I I had I have a lot to be grateful for because I always got a paycheck I really to this day do not know how that man got his money to drink but he gave me his paycheck and so we were never without lights or water or you know one roof over our heads income with tight you know there was a lot of times were we couldn't have some of our wants but most of the time all of our needs were met and I am grateful for that today because I know that alcoholism takes some of you down paths where you don't have your needs met and I know that just for that little part I have a lot to be grateful for that during the worst and most active years of George's alcoholism that all of our needs were met we were taken care of our emotional needs were met but are you know we have food clothing and shelter and those are the spiritual promises of god that we have those things and I had to come to understand as alcoholism progressed in our house I doubt that there are varying degrees of what food clothing and shelter looks like and I had to come to accept some other variations of that with the help of this program and I'll tell you about that in a little while
so anyhow George progressed and we had this opportunity to move to Texas and one of the other promises that I've made you know when I had to move when I was a senior in high school that was such a painful thing for me
and I promise if I ever got married if I ever had children I wouldn't do that an idea when our kids were sophomore freshman and a junior in high school George had this opportunity to move to Texas and we took the opportunity and we moved and I wanted to get out of the east coast and I knew that if we could just get to Texas everything was going to be better you know one of those your graphics that you take thinking that you know if you just got to a different place a different house a different community and he was with different people that he was working with it was going to be different he was gonna start to come home from work and we're gonna start to be a family and I had all those dreams and all of those hopes and of course we were in Texas about thirty seconds and I realized it wasn't going to be any different than it had been anywhere else but the thing that could start to happen is that not only
I had shorted out the hole is in progress to a place where you know it had just become bizarre well he was drunk more often than he was sober well also started to happen and it took me a little while to catch on is that my kids were indulging in drugs and alcohol and they were about thirteen fifteen fourteen and sixteen years old when we moved to Texas I'm Stephen got a pickup truck when we moved there and you know and I thought that it was gonna be just wonderful and I was going to try to participate and try to make it better for them and I was going to try not to yell and I was gonna try not to scream and holler and just you know we think we could start life over and make it better and yet the result of that one day you know I just was trying to do my very best really be different and as a result of that they came home from school one day with a little bag of seeds and they said that they were going to
the full science project and each child in the classroom was given a full bag of mystery C.
yeah and I I love plants I still I still love plants and so I said to them that I would be most happy with their science project and so I had ten flora park in my garage and I went down to the nursery got a nice big bag of potting soil and we got busy on our science project and we planted a mystery fees and I knew that the we have a house that faces north and south in my bedroom window has total southern exposure in the sun comes in there and it's really a nice setting for starting plants and so we put all can flower pots of mystery faith in my bedroom and I and I make sure that they were watered and asked a sprouted you know they lean towards the sun and I turned a little pot and and the little plants would grow and the neighborhood kids were you know they make friends in the in the neighbors were coming in and taking a look at our project and and I was asking whether or not they were taking notes and and you know I I come home for lunch in a little fees got higher and I'm turning them you know and I mean I am really into our science project and the thing that was exciting to me is that the neighbors were into our science project can every day this little trailer boys would come through the house in the bedroom swing back around and go out you know they say you know if you were doing great this is burned out you know I'm out the door they go and I was taking a lot of pride in if it was like it was my own personal victory that our mystery seeds raw growing in one day they got up to be about this tall and they were really gorgeous and I said you know I think we have ten parts of miracles and they said yeah you know you might be right we probably do have miracles and then I got up about this tall and they were a real lush dark green and the leaves were getting a little bit bigger and they have wonderful points all over him and I said you know I think these are gonna be hybrid miracles and
so it was coming close to the end of the finance project and and I was really delighted with her progress and you know I was making sure that we were taking notes and I K. I worked in a bank and I got home on a Friday night about seven o'clock and nobody else was in the house George of course had not come home from work and the boy that scattered for the evening and and I went into the bedroom to change my clothes in the pots were there and the plants were gone and I just got I was just devastated I thought my god for like five and three quarter we can do this project and they failed and I like I thought no what's that science teacher's name and I got a call and I and I couldn't think and I thought no I won't do that what can I do and I was so upset and I thought OK I'll just have to wait until Monday I'll take some time off work I run down to the school I'll explain to the science teacher what happened how did the effort we put into this that we really did have a project going and and in the meantime you know I change my clothes and put the laundry away and so when I went to discuss closet to put the laundry away the mystery faith with contact on the inside of the closet wall and I stood there and I looked at those things and and I knew what they were you know I think the Nile is the most awesome gift that we are given before we get into the program a Valentine and Alcoholics Anonymous because you know it just it gives us the opportunity to live to just stay alive somehow you know it's not that our souls are alive or or anything but denial helps us to just survive and I had this moment of clarity and I knew those were miracles I knew that that was marijuana and I was and I was just absolutely devastated and then this range came over me and I was so angry because I had made a fool of myself in front of all of these neighbor kids I had a lot of my kids to make a fool of me and and when you made a full of you know and you feel embarrassed I felt rage and a lucky thing for that entire family for that particular day is that they weren't there because I think I have a I have the kind of rage inside of me that really is uncontrollable and I would have
killed somebody or hurt them had cafe and walked in the house at that time and
that's going on I'm also starting to notice that we're missing tools in our garage that pieces of jewelry are gone when you have teenagers that are doing drugs and L. and they're alcoholics they don't make enough money you know carry in sacks of groceries out at the grocery store to maintain that sort of thing and they steal and you know and I'm confronting them about what they're stealing and I'm saying where did this go and Scott will go I don't know mom I don't think we ever had one of those and then he said well I don't know ask Stephen about that so I would say Steve where did that go and Stephen gonna think we ever had one started we have one of those vehicles no we don't have one of those and I think we'll have to be crazy in a couple weeks later I go back to look at something it's gonna go for waiting it's gonna go to put on some earrings they're gone I go back in the garage another piece of our own equipment is gone by now the neighbors are calling me and saying Scott was in our garage last night we don't have our girls did they carry it over your health by any chance you know are they really doing anything over there and I think no I don't think so but I don't think so that I think Scott were you in their garage did you by any chance take their things and he would go no and then he would do the whole deal without delay and then I would call the neighbor back in faith got thirty one in your garage you know what I would do it smugly I'd say my son was not in your garage you didn't take your things you know and and so then you know I'd find more things gone into come confrontations continued the game continued between the two boys no we didn't yes you know and I don't think I was crazy and I would go to work and I would start to tell people about the things that I was in so much pain I was making a joke about it you know hi I'm going crazy and then I got to play through that insanity and and all of this not being able to feel whether or not I had good judgment about anything I start off work and I can't remember if I've locked the garage door so I'd make a U. turn into in the hallway and come back home and check the garage door and then I get down the street can remember if I put the dog in the house and I come back and check that out by now I'm late for work and then I'm lying to my supervisor and I'm saying well I
we did start off accurate quarter to twelve but I got the the freight train came by and I had to wait or or that they were delivering something for you yes Sir I was just on my way out I realized I didn't have any gas that every day I was having to lie to my supervisor about why I couldn't get to work on time and I couldn't get to work on time in the morning and what was happening as soon as I would leave the house in the morning they would bring all the kids in the house because they either weren't going to work or going to school and they were doing drugs and alcohol at my house and then they could clean it all up and I committed eleven o'clock on my lunch hour and I sensed that my house had been used but when I looked around it didn't seem like anything was out of place but it was he was a feeling if you're a woman or even a man and you're in you're connected with this house you sense this stuff is going on and I thought that I was going crazy on
intro in January of nineteen eighty one a friend of mine at work her husband her son deed accidentally and he was in an emergency room for several days and when he got back to work I said to her what happened and she says I'm going to tell you what happened but she says I want you to keep it a secret because I don't want anybody else to know but she says you and I are good friends and you have funds that are the same age as my son and his I'd like to tell you what happened so she told me about this and she said that he's getting better and Infiniti's better they're going to take him up to this treatment center in Denton Texas and he's going to spend twenty eight days up there hopefully recovering from his drug addiction and alcoholism and there was something else he was telling me what was going on with her son it was going in here but it was also filtering down in my heart and there was a part of me that would stay in Beverly that's going on in your house you know but I I wasn't ready to get out of denial what do you do when you're trying to be a good mother and to raise good children and all of a sudden there's this little thought that's coming in here that maybe they're drug addicts and maybe they're all kalex and maybe this isn't as wonderful as you think it is I mean what do you do with that kind of information so as quickly as it sifted down I wanted it gone I couldn't even and there was no way that I could cope with that kind of information that you know I started to look and they had little tools hanging from he had little tools hanging from his truck and there were lots of beer cans in the bed of the truck and the things are disappearing from the house and and they would never let me see their eyes they always had a bottle of visine in a in a packet in their jeans and you know I find it in the washing machine and they would tell me it was because they were running into dust gets in their eyes will you know that makes sense to me I thought the whole farm from those kids I mean I just can't find this information from them because that's what I wanted to do it's the only thing I knew to do because I didn't want to know the truth my heart didn't want to know the truth so anyhow one day we take got to the heart to the treatment center because we suspected you know with the little bags of things and all of the little tools everything that maybe something was going on and he was the
are you waited by
the man who ran the treatment center and he said well I don't know for sure if Scott is an alcoholic or not but if he is it'll surface and it'll surface soon from what y'all have told us so we took Scott home and it was exactly two weeks to the day it was February ninth of nineteen eighty one that Scott took one more thing for me I confronted him he said he had sold it to a gold and silver dealership in here dealer he says there's no way I can get it back so I called in sick for work that day and you know I never realized until pretty recently that was probably one of the most honest things I did I called in sick to work and I had no idea how sick I really was and in a few minutes after I got off the phone Scott called me from school and he says mom if you'll come and get me and take me up to that place all goal and we'll see if we can do about that something about this well I was later to learn that the motives for which he went to treatment were not honest and pure but you know it really doesn't matter how we get here none of us walking here in fate okay I have this morning and I realized I was actually crazy that my husband if he realized he's got a drinking problem and we're going to just turn ourselves into Alcoholics Anonymous now and not I don't think anybody gets you're somehow or other we are manipulated and can I live into getting here or we have something you know somebody drags the center pushes us in and we get here and and if we're lucky and everybody sitting in this room obviously have had that wonderful experience that you found something here you don't even know what it is that your heart feels but you found it in the state and I think that's what happened for me but we took him up to the treatment center in this little lady she was only this big she weighed eighty pounds soaking wet and she had to stand on her toes to look at me because I'm falling and she doesn't and you're going to have to go to Alan on his will keep this kid here for twenty eight days and she says we're going to see if we can help him but he said he can't go home to an old idea and you have got to go to Allentown and I stood there and I looked at her with all the gumption I could muster up and I said I work and she says I don't care what you do well this boy is in treatment here you will attend Allen on meetings on a regular
basis or you can visit this kid now it has been a long time since I gave anything about that kid he he was stealing from me he didn't smell good he didn't look good I literally couldn't stand in and I hadn't touched him for a long time and when she says I can't come to see my kid I wanted to be there more than anything in the world and so I thought to myself okay
they had a had Allen on meetings in Lewisville on Monday nights and they took the key people there from the treatment center so I went to Lewisville on Monday night on Thursday night they drove the van into Dallas they had meetings at the alpha group we went there and what I did was interfering my son sobriety because I got there and met the Boston you know checked out his underwear and whether or not he brushed his teeth and all that really important stuff and what I had stopped him from doing with being able to fellowship with his peers and then I interfered with his sobriety after the meeting and the guy came to make sure that he went to bed on time and you know don't don't entertain although spot folks Scott was able to walk on his hands the whole distance of the highway and he was the youngest academy fifteen and a half years only skin treatment with a bunch of people that were all old enough to be as mothers and fathers grandparents and he was yeah I mean I thought it was adorable they did everything for him you know and he learned how to entertain him and he got off the hook on a lot of stuff because he was cute and young
and so anyhow I'm interfering with his sobriety and he's entertaining the troops at the treatment center in if you know if it's just a bizarre thing but on the twenty third of February we were at a family meeting at the treatment center my husband read a page in the big book and when we got out into the car he said to me you know I really identified with that page you know I didn't know that for a long time he had been questioning his alcoholism he already knew that when he got up in the morning he had made these promises to himself that he wasn't going to drink again today I am not going to drink and he says I would get to the office and before I even knew I was having a drink and then you know he's scared afterwards and drinking he wasn't working they were drinking they had a vending machine where he worked in fact each place he went he made sure they got an old coke machine and they would dispense those little pony bottles of beer for a quarter you know they just keep feeding that fear through those dispensers I always wondered why they even bother you know why they just control according to canon skipped the coke machine you know but they said it was a way to keep it cool and they would drink these cases of beer and that's why he couldn't come home at night and
so anyhow we're driving home for the treatment center that night and he was telling me about how he was feeling about his alcoholism and and that he didn't know that it was alcoholism he he came from a family that was terribly religious and nobody in his family nobody ever knew drank he was the only person he ever knew and yes I do not in his family but he went out he found people when he was young who acted in drink like he did he has a family that's very religious and and they just don't drink it and so he didn't know anything about the disease of alcoholism either and he but he's been having these feelings any for this page in the big book what talked about this guy who keeps running in front of a bus and breaking a bone and gets better and breaks another bone and does it over and over and doesn't understand why he can't stop jumping in front of the buses in the street cars and he said you know I kind of felt like that every day I make this promise and I just I jump in front of another bus and tomorrow night when we go to the treatment center and they have the opening anything he says I'm gonna get up and get a desire to because he says I'm an alcoholic and I look at him in in I mean this was as honest as anything I've ever said I said you have got to be kidding and what happened you see if I've already got one son in treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction and here's my husband sitting next to me in the car and he's telling me he's an alcoholic and you know what that makes me a failure I am a failure as a mother and I am a failure as a wife and it was more than I could stand but what I also saw and it came shortly after that was a sign that was hanging on the podium of the group that I went to a Monday night news said it was the three cities and I didn't cause it I couldn't I couldn't control it and I couldn't cure it and for some reason or other I was able to accept that yeah the flight just tiny little fraction of a second I was able to believe that maybe this wasn't my fault that I don't know how it wasn't my fault that there was a little part that every time I started to really blame myself for being a failure that maybe just maybe this wasn't my fault and they can't run away at us at the treatment center that we had that the Allentown people
I had to get this program for themselves because there was no guarantee that an alcoholic would stay sober because alcoholism is a disease and I am so grateful that the program that we went through back in nineteen eighty one push the big book and push the Allen on recovery and and told us about the disease of alcoholism and sent us out there to find a home group before they ever even released Scott from treatment so here we are by the twenty third of February I'm in Allentown
Scott going daily George's got a chip in his pocket however he was going to my al anon meetings and as I got a little bit healthier I threw we now
I think you get on my own I mean take your little desire keeping go next door and and he did that funny he minded me and then
he went next door and he started to go to a a meetings and and I like I took a look at those steps and and I wrote him down because I thought what if I never saw him again you know I wrote down all twelve steps in a book so I was I know that inside here there was always already a feeling starting about you know the pin portents of this and that that there was something here for me and I have I started to feel the laughter and I started to enjoyed hearing how you were laughing about the things that I was trying to cover up and I was I was looking around in fifteen people cry you know and the compassion and the love and you and you call this precious and you said come out for coffee and we felt a part of for the very first time in our life I felt a part of something and I was so grateful you know I know in the beginning I was in the fellowship I was here because you made me feel important she made me feel Darling and precious you're invited me out to coffee but
on March thirtieth our other son Stephen who was seventeen and a half years old came home from work noticeably drunk and I confronted that scouts is all my god mommy is worse than me I don't know how you could miss that well I didn't want to see it Stephen was my hero he ran track and field he worked the job got straight A.'s in school and I could not see the seeds of alcoholism and child I just thought he was absolutely gorgeous we walked into an a a meeting on Monday night we confronted and that he could either join us in recovery or had to leave and Steven does not like to have to part with any money that's unnecessary and he doesn't today so he came to me because okay so I'll go to one eight meetings we walked in the door that night at actually George never made it he jumped out of the car halfway there because he noticed even had a hearing on any security threat news scores hat yeah he was in his holy games and he says I'm not going to an a a meeting with the progress like that they decided he wasn't going to change in George jumped out of the car and he walked home and the kids and I went on to this meeting and I stood in the doorway and watch Stephen get his desire chip and that was twelve and a half years ago and Stephen his number today on his original desire king and that he has a wonderful life and I'm
when I got out of my Alan on meeting I thought that Steven was talking to a man and they had a big book between them and and that became his sponsor
and a couple of weeks after that I don't exactly know what the time frame was Scott went out and started to drink again and as a result of that the abusive behavior can backing Bobby started to tell me about how my home was a privilege and then if you wanted to live in my home you had to respect it and I didn't know that I thought if you have two children they get to live there no matter what but see that's not the case Bobby said my home is a privilege and that we were recovering family and that anybody who lived in my home had to follow the rules and the rules were simple you couldn't drink or drug you have to go to meetings
and you had to kind of be responsible and it was pretty simple and Scott was unable to follow the rules and after a little bit we asked him to leave for the first time and he stayed out for a while and ended up breaking his leg and he came back home and I wasn't so sure the leg was broken and I wasn't so sure you know that what we wanted to do about that and found we took him to the emergency room we have the like X. rays and sat and shortly after that within a few days we ended up finding him another treatment center for that was specific specifically for young younger kids with some marijuana problems and we ship them up to Minnesota and he stayed there forty five days and in the meantime you know we're all going to meetings and there's recovery happening in my house and I'm listening to my older son pray through the bedroom walls and bodies going to the grocery store and sitting with Stephen at one o'clock in the morning reading the big book because that was a difficult time for him my husband's going to his own meetings in his own room and I'm being told that I had to have my children had to put my arms around him and say did anybody tell you they love you today and we started to do these things with people told us to do and I've got that got back from the second treatment center and he stayed sober until somewhere around thanksgiving and he got drunk again and started to use drugs he quit school
he got a job at a hotel in night in Dallas and he was working and and the abuse of my home was continuing he was still kicking holes in walls and he was still are doing some things that were violating the privilege and so on February fourteenth when he was seventeen and a half years old I asked him to leave and he never lived with us again and it was during that time you know that I got to understand about the food clothing and shelter because his food clothing and shelter were not wonderful and I had a lot of pain in my heart over what I was watching happening to Scott one of the things that I'm really grateful for is that I know a lot of your children disappear in this disease and you don't hear from them from them for long periods of time and the god of my understanding knew that that would be too painful for me and so my Scott called home on a regular basis and a lot of times you would dump a lot of misery on me and see my sponsor said to me just be grateful for the call but you don't have to listen to that stuff if it hurts you that bad you do not have to listen to it and I didn't know that from my sponsor taught me how to receive a phone call from Scott and when he would call home to tell me how bad his wife was and anyway tell me Steve's going to college in Steve's got back you little target tracking your given Steve tuition money and Steve eaten every day at St still working at the store and I'm living in this house and we don't have locks on the doors and there's cockroaches and I don't have a winter coat and I don't have any shoes and you don't Love Me the way you love Steve and my heart would die
and I would just say read the book Beverly this is a disease it's called alcoholism
and and Scott falconer and he's doing his disease and Steve is working with a sponsor he's in recovery and he's doing what he's supposed to do and the one kid wants what he's got
but he doesn't want it bad enough to do what he needs to do what happened his bottom yet and I really had to get into the big book and start to read about that and then when Scott would start to tell me those things funny as if time went on my sponsor would say it's okay to tell Scott that you love it more than anything but what he does with his life hurts you so bad you can't hear it and so that's when I started to do when Scott would call I would say oh honey I'm so happy you called and I love you very very much but I can't listen to that because it hurts me and if you wouldn't mind just call me tomorrow and he would do that you know what I would call me in a week they always let me know where he was and we got to a place where he knew he couldn't tell me how bad his life was and after a while he ended up finding a girl and and she had all the criteria that in a car and they fell in lust and
and then on I was later to find out that they really love each other and after they were very little while Scott somehow there was working in this job and learn how to be a chef I don't know how we did it I really don't know how to do it how we did it but he ended up working with the team on a restaurant with a restaurant chain that they opened up restaurants and he went all over the country for a while when he was opening up our restaurants and they ended up where he was given an assistant manager's position in fort Lauderdale Florida and they ended up making a home there while they were there they got they decided during decided that maybe if they had a baby scout with mature and grow up and things would get different you know it's you know it's always the same story and so she got pregnant and and she was also doing drugs and alcohol but she stopped all that and created a very healthy environment for a little granddaughter and Scott's alcoholism progressed in Steve's career progressed he ended up going to college and graduating from Texas a and M. and he works down in Houston and he has a you know his life is just absolutely awesome and so god gave me the privilege of watching one kid who was able to survive and go through the steps to work with the sponsor and his life was X. successful I also got to see the other end of that and after shortly after our granddaughter was born Scott got really sick and ended up in hospital for several days and as a result of that he lost his job and for the most part he was unable to work and there was a lot of times during that period of time where I had to put this program to work again because they would call and say you know the baby doesn't have food the baby doesn't have diapers what should we do can you send us the money and we knew that if we spent money it would never go for the pampers in the baby food so we started just you know I'd say call my sponsor and say what do I do now and she'd say ship the pampers you know so we buy a huge case of paper you know and send it down to you PS and ship it off to Florida and we did those kinds of things and then as time progressed they ended up have
been to file bankruptcy because Scott was not able to go back to working on that salary that Doreen was earning they couldn't make ends meet I couldn't pay the bills and so on there was a time when they had about eighteen payments left on a little pickup truck and George and I made a decision that we would pay for that and I had to check out with my sponsor about whether or not that was enabling and she says you know Beverly sometimes it's about being a mother and see if this was a real kid and he didn't have alcoholism and these kinds of things were happening in these health problems had started she says what would you do when I says I pay for the truck and she says then you might have to make that decision source they help me to see what was enabling and what was the part of just being a mother because sometimes we just have to be a mom and father were heard in that area I told you that in nineteen eighty eight my father's cancer came out of remission and I was able to bring him back after I was in the program for a while I was starting to feel very uncomfortable about my relationship with my sister
and I get an inventory about that because I didn't like the way I've behaved in in regards to her and the whole bottom line was is that I just got upset because she got bored you know my mom and dad came to me when when my mom was pregnant they had this little ball of sugar in a little bag and they said we're gonna put this out of the window still in the stark is going to come in in a couple weeks this baby's going to be born and I just want to go like that you know I don't have enough trouble getting attention and here they are they're going to bring another child into this family and I didn't want it I mean it was more than I could cope with so the fact is is that for the rest of my life up until the time I did the inventory I treated my sister accordingly I did not treat her with respect and dignity that our relationship deserved and there was never a time when she didn't want from me love and respect and dignity and finally I wrote it all down a ticket to the lady that listen to my inventory and as a result of that she read me the story in the Bible about the prodigal son and I realized that there had always been sibling rivalry and then what I realized as a result of that is what you've taught me is that I can clean up my side of the street and I started to do that you know I started to call my sister just to talk to her and you know we we started to share some holidays together and then when my father got sick and came to live with with us we share the responsibility of taking care of him and we did that very well there was never a struggling that whatever one needed the other one was able to help why couldn't she could if she could not I could and we just work on that together and in the process of having my father there to care for our relationship mended and it was one of the greater gifts of of this program the young man steps
well after our granddaughter was born I got to go to Florida after she was about a week old story had to have a C. section and I guess I was able to see the progression of the disease of alcoholism and it was a very painful sight for me and I wanted to take that baby home with me you know take her home to Texas and lover because I could see what was happening in that family and there you know you just can't steal your grandchild kill it's excuse me I'm taking the child home and got to get her out of this mess but what I was taught because of what was happening with Scott is that I could hold my hands like this and picture that baby in there and know that god was taking care of her and so I stood over her crib on the day I was leaving and I pictured her in god's hands and know that many of us survived alcoholism and that she was going to be okay and you know she really was okay even though there was a lot of alcoholism a lot of drug addiction and a lot of really weird behavior going on in that house that child was always cared for and always loved and always nurtured after my father passed away Scott's health continued to deteriorate and in August of nineteen ninety they came back to Dallas to live and die with George and I had only seen Serra five times before that and they ended up having to stay at our house for about three weeks they wanted to stay about thirty seconds and be gone because they didn't like me neither one of them like me you know when you're practicing these principles and all your freighters and you're deciding about what you can do and what you can't do it you can say no you make people really angry with you I have a lot of fear of angry people and it's really difficult for me to sometimes make these choices because I would rather have you for my friend that make a choice that suits my dignity and so a lot of times when I had to make these choices and tell them no they got mad at me and you know that anger continues but they wanted to come home and and so they came there with this idea they would stay just long enough to get a place and get out and have been it would have as god would have it they couldn't find a place because of the bankruptcy and what we ended up having to do with signed for a lease and we don't pack up all of our income tax for the past three years and ship it off
to this apartment complex so they'd know we were okay and finally it took three weeks for the process to go through and the kids finally got an apartment about ten miles away from us and what happened as a result of them being in that house for three weeks is the fact that they realize that we were loving and kind and that we really cared for them and out while they were there my birthday my birthday is in July and if the girl that I sponsor took me to the symphony and after we got back they got finished with the symphony we went to a place where there's the computerized water dancing water in Dallas you know we sat there and watched all the colorful water and ended up talking program until you know the wee hours and when I got home that night I walked in the house and my house was all decorated and there was a birthday present sitting on the kitchen table and my daughter in law had put balloons up and streamers and she put up okay of flowers by my bed and she put a bouquet of flowers in my bedroom and my bathroom and I stood there and I just couldn't believe it you know because what I realized is that this girl was telling me she loved me and that's a long way from where we were until that day and it all happened in what seems like a just a just a microsecond and the next morning I woke her up and
I told her how much I care for her and how much that all meant to me and from that day until this I mean we have got the most incredibly beautiful relationship and I know that it's because I've been willing to work the steps even if I'm gonna make somebody mad because what they got to see is that I had a set of principles and values and that it wasn't wishy washy about what I said I meant and they could always depend on that and when I told him I loved him I loved him and when I said no it was now and that they had to go out that they were forced a lot of times to do things that they didn't want to do because it's easier softer way would have been for us to write a check and they had to go out and take care of their own business and eventually
Scott got sober and actually he came to Texas over and he had been sober about two months when they moved to Texas
all his health continued to deteriorate and we became more and more involved with family and my husband started to take my son for some our hospital visits and doctor visits and everything and their relationship had an opportunity to Mandan and in some ways be restored and on February sixth of this year Scott died and you know that the the fellowship held us up in this you know all of the people that I would have loved over the years came to us and they just loved us and sent us flowers and sent the flow of input calls and messages on our answering machine and it came to the house I have this little home group I it started one year before Scott died and it's just a couple blocks from my house I've always traveling to Dallas to Allen on meetings and heard this little meeting opened up just a couple blocks from my house and we were taken care of Serra pretty much full time by this time if you have a little nursery so I could take thirty needs because these girls that are going to get our new in the program and they're so enthusiastic and they got all these little kids and and so there was a nursery they got a babysitter and so it takes their attorneys will meetings and and our little group is strong we we use the literature at the foundation for our meetings and and they think it's just awesome to have somebody in their group with some time and what I realize is that I learned more for those kids and they think they learn from me and it's just wonderful end of I'm a Monday Scott died on a Saturday and on Monday morning this whole little group the entire Ellen on group was at my front door and they had pots and pans filled with stuff and they said to me we're gonna bring you there every day at four o'clock for a week and I stood there and I said oh my god you guys have all got kids you're all really busy please don't do this I think you know it's just George and I will be fine and they said no we need to do this and now I'm standing there arguing with him that I'm fine you know I I just I just don't even I don't know what's going on I mean I'm just shocking grief and I'm telling him I don't need them
one of them looked at me and they took me by the hand and they said Beverly we have to feel like we can do something for you and this is what we can do and I've learned in this program that I am a joyful giver but I have not really really learn how to receive your love and inches and inches along the way with a little girl standing at my door and some other things that have happened to me in the last couple of years I've been able to do a better job of receiving your love and they stood there and says we have to be able to feel a part of your pain and this is what we've decided to do for you so every day you know at four o'clock my doorbell would ring and then would come a little family you know they should have all the little kids behind and they set it all out for us and and you know I realize that I was in such a state that I had to put a paper bag on the kitchen counter and write that person's name on it as soon as we have two doubles I had to put the balls back in the bag because I knew that I didn't have enough left to feed a scramble an egg you know that I was so drained and we were so spent and so emotionally distraught that I wouldn't have been able to cook anything you know we would been pouring a glass of water and having bread water and so they took care of us and that's kind of how it's always been whenever we needed something it's been given to us and we've been taken care of in this program any answer that I've ever had that I've needed it far as what to do next for my own recovery I think you're going to a meeting it was the topic that day or you know somebody's called me up on the phone and say I have a real problem and that's the problem you know about the time we talk it out I end up with the answer I don't know whether they have or not
I I there's just I mean the gal me the person who came here thirteen years ago is not who I am today I just had a whole bunch my hair cut off on Tuesday and I look in the mirror you know the outside of me as who I used to recognize you know if I had on the right dress and have my hearing my make up that's why what's whatever you saw on the outside is who I was and today I realized that who I am is on the inside and on the outside really doesn't matter and I have felt really good about who I am on the inside for quite a long period of time I'm content with myself I'm at peace with myself but what's happened is up walk past the mirror looked at me and I don't know who I am yeah who is that lady you know you take off you know lots and lots of here and there's a whole different person underneath there so anyhow I kinda has made me laugh about that you know that that as we change you inside it used to matter about the outside and now it's the inside and I know that over the past twelve and a half years that you have created the person that I am on the inside because who I was when I got here was dead I was either happy or mad there was no in between as a result of being willing to write in a journal and I don't know how that happened either you know one day I was listening to a lady from Dallas I was listening to one of our tapes and she talked about writing in a journal I'm dyslexic I don't spell well I don't read very well and all of a sudden she's talking about a journal and I wanted one and so I went out by the journal and I started to write about a year later I took it to her and I says you can read anything you want on these pages to see if I'm doing it okay and she laughed at me and she said there is not a feeling on this page so she sent me home with a feeling church she says don't write in that journal into you know what you feel so as a result of being willing to write in that journal and I've probably been doing that for at least eleven years on a regular basis I have found out who I am at first it was really hard for me to write a natural who I was and what I was feeling and I thought at first I would think the reason I don't want to do that is because what if somebody finds that
Errol and find out who I am what would they think of me but what I really can't understand is that I was afraid to read who I was a natural I was afraid to write down that I was jealous of one of my customers at the bank or that I felt envy or I had a resentment against a fellow employee or absolutely hated something that my husband did or that I didn't like the way my son smelled when he was drinking that it was difficult for me to put my arms around him and tell him that I loved it but as I would became more free to put those feelings down on that paper and to read the myself I became aware of who I was and I was not at all a bad person you know I have character defects the same as everybody else and today I'm willing to grow through them and to find out who I am and to become the very best person I can be and in the process of being willing to do that I have also found out who I am in the good areas to I found out that I have a great deal of creativity and that I am extremely loving person and a very giving person and those are good qualities and they didn't have to be developed that always been there I just didn't know because I always kept seeing the bad part of me and this lady who scream to the lady who embarrassed by her children in front of their friends and and the lady who was a perfectionist and couldn't stand for anything to be out of order you know and what I realized today because she told me this is that perfection and is and is only the way I see things it's not the way it needs to be it's my idea of how things should be I believed me when I got here that the Sunday paper comes in a plastic bag my idea of how things should be is that that paper never come out of the plastic bag that you just leave it there the fact is my husband likes to take the paper out the plastic bag and read it he likes to read it in the kitchen and he likes to read it in the bathroom he likes to read it in the living room and where he finishes reading a section he likes to leave it late and I'll be running around gathering up all this paper making his life absolutely miserable and the man absolutely adores reading the paper he still reads the paper from end to end today and you know slowly but surely I was able to just leave those papers along and when I realized it
that by the end of the day he gathers them all up and you put some away you know and my idea of perfectionism cause problems with my children and you told me I could just shut the door you don't have to look at that you know Stephen sponsor made me get a sponsor because I was interfering in his recovery and they said to me you know he can take care of your phone your recent call this lady and ask her to be your sponsor because I'm trying to teach Steven how to be responsible when you're interfering in his sobriety so I was able because of that to let some of that stuff go to Stephen at at the age of only eighteen learned how to scramble innate he learned how to wash his own clothes he learned how to make his own bed and some of those things I was able to get to release to them because I felt that there was nothing left of me if I didn't scramble the eggs because what I did was who I thought I was and so I kept them from being who they were or who or to develop themselves because I thought that if I didn't do that stuff I'd be I wouldn't be important and today is a part of recovery I realized that I have my own life you know that I can go out there and do things and enjoy myself and it's OK you know it's just okay to have your own life in this program and as a result of having my own life you know and I I my fiftieth birthday one of my fears was removed and I took a flight in a hot air balloon because I wanted to do that more than anything in the world I wanted to ride a Harley Davidson motorcycle I I've been on this I've been sailing I've been I've hiked to the top of a mountain bike I'm in August this year I walked two miles up a mountain river in hiking boots and we can walk in any land and I and I walked with a girl that was twenty years younger than I was and I kept up with her and there were times that I want to quit and Tyneside said Tracy I can't do it anymore and she said we can quit if she's alcoholic she said we can quit if you want to
I mean how can you do that I mean how can you quit and so you know we ended up in and when we got to the top she said to me very early close your eyes and hold my arm and I close my eyes and I held her arm and she says now don't open your eyes and I didn't open my eyes and when I turned we got around a little bend in the river and when I stood there we were out of place with a waterfall was coming out of the mountains
and I felt like I had accomplished something that was absolutely incredible and we walked back down the river and she taught me about how to put your foot in the river at the river hold your foot in place you know and make sure it's really in there and it reminded me a lot about the program hang on to the program you know what to feel secure and then take your next step and it don't stop before the miracle because if at any point when I've gotten afraid while I was growing up that river I would have quit I would have never seen the miracle of the waterfall coming out of the mountains where it was born and that's a real spiritual experience to do something like that and at the end of that day you know I realized it was Scott's birthday and I had done something that he might have really enjoyed Scott was twenty eight years old when he died and part of me that that that that there's a little tiny part that dies when your child dies but there was a part of me that grew bigger than it had ever been before and what I realized is that each day is a new beginning and we never know you know from day to day if this is the last day of our life you know and my decision is is that I'm going to live everyday to the fullest to be the very best person I can be and to love people and he tried to be a maximum service to god and my fellow man and I really appreciate you listening to me giving me an opportunity to share my recovery in some of my life with you I'm excited about the rest of the weekend and I'm excited about who I am today because you've given everything that you had to me and it's my responsibility to give it back because that little lady in the treatment center said you can't keep it unless you give it away thank you for giving me a chance to give it away