The 30th Bellevue AA Anniversary in Bellevue, NE

yes right now I'm in line

I was gonna say by the grace of god god sponsorship

I haven't done this already got my husband's is January fifteenth nineteen seventy seven

I want to do I just

you having a problem over here

I am grateful I'd like to think Marlene and the committee for allowing me to come and join with you celebrating your thirtieth anniversary I celebrate my twenty fifth last week and I'm just like I say I'm really grateful to be here people at home said you're going to Nebraska in January

and I said I don't get any time I love those people

yeah I one of my favorite places because and I really appreciate all of you and I love you very much

I'm supposed to share my story

but if I don't want to

I can do anything I don't know who is responsible for the flyer

I'm one of those taking out on on

my name is merry peril with no he

there is no place that sounds a little rock Alaska

I don't know I don't know you could have screwed up

that you're being on organized is really a lot here

I love and wake her up all the time I just love it when the others due to

well I am not able to be you know how many people and notice I have a change that you sell me that

if you have been asking no I do not have cancer

I love that you look great too got cancer

dollars are my second favorite is you look so good now

you are a dog before

even since today they

your call yourself this is Dave alcohol

no I have made some life changes in the last couple of years and they were not of my choice

but you know all things happen and good things come out of bad things

and then November of nineteen ninety nine

exactly forty five years to the day that I watch my father died of a heart attack I watch my sister died in the front seat of my car with me

and she had gone into renal failure and if her hard into a bad read a minute stop

and I will go over there and she jumped a couple times I was rolled back in her head and that was it and I'm going oh my god because I mean this is Tuesday after thanksgiving in bumper to bumper traffic in front of the biggest mall in our state

and I'm saying god what do I do do I give her C. C. what do I do what do I do and it's like oh my god what do I do and about that time I saw a motorcycle cop coming at you never see how many more and I perceive that to be an angel and he got the traffic department and there was a new hospital and you just opened a couple of weeks before and I rushed her over there and they were able to recess a tighter

but she was down but I think between ten and twelve minutes

so my sister is no longer the sister I had she has profound and knocks the brain injury which means that her memory of the last fifteen years is totally gone

and her day to day memory yeah I mean she'll ask you the same question fifteen times in thirty minutes you know so it's it's a sad situation but what happened during that period of time when I was writing she was in a coma and they were giving her dialysis and the doctors noticed there was something wrong with me I couldn't quit shaking

and I've learned in the program you know that you can help other people if you can't take care of yourself and the doctor said to me honey you don't need to be sitting here in this waiting room you need to be saying and I said but you don't understand he said yes I do understand there's nothing you can do for her

she's probably not gonna make it but there is something you can do for you and I said yes you do that and so I went to the family physician and in a very few short minutes I determined that I was borderline diabetic and there was something wrong with my heart

and they sent me to a cardiologists where I probably failed my EKG

and I possibly failed my stress test

and I failed my nuclear test I'm telling you this is really degrading to an eight plus student I'm not used to failing test you know

and so then I said well we'll get her out of her heart so I'm in the hospital in one town and my sisters in the hospital in the other and J. D. is just bizarre because he said both my women or dial and you know

and the doctors tell J. D. that they anticipated having to do heart surgery immediately all may but as it turned out and I don't know I do know that while I was being prepped for the procedure that overheard the nurses talking and they said there's another lady in here and her husband's out there in the waiting room and the rest of those people are for this like

and they all came in and they gathered in my little cubicle there and route through the ages and they had little gardens either was just amazed and they all got around my bed and they held my hands and I cried with me and I think that's the reason that I didn't have to have that emergency heart surgery

but I did determined that I had a problem with my heart and I was going to have to do my life differently and thank god for our program

because you know if we learned anything in here is that you don't have to want to do it to do it you don't have to like it to do it you just five I do it

you know and so that's what I was going to have to do I was going to have to do those things that I didn't want to do in order to get the results that I wanted to have which was I had to be a live to take care of my sister because we're all we have left is family

so in eight months I lost a hundred pounds

now for those of you before I've been on high blood pressure medication from the age of thirty I'm no longer on blood pressure medication

I'm no longer on heart medication I went to my heart doctor last week I thought it was a week of celebration and it was not only did I celebrate my twenty fifth anniversary I celebrated the fact that my heart is doing I normally KGV that I'm in the best physical shape I've been in and I am smaller than I was when I graduate from high school and that's do they have god and what I learned in the program I A. N. Allen non and through the prayers of the fellowship I should be forever grateful for everybody and I want you to know just because you're in this program doesn't mean you are bulletproof

bad things can come to happen life is going to continue to happen to you and right after I got all this stuff and found out I was going to croak if I didn't do something different very quickly

my baby Daddy I had my two poodles as you all know that I'm a dog person have no children and he was sixteen years old and he died and I thought I can't stand this I just can't the next month the girl that I sponsor died forty years of age with a pulmonary embolism

S. A. got I can handle all of this stuff

do you months later the days partner dancer that so I lost all of this and then we had the ice storm that year

and we lost a lot of our trees and I got to sit there and watch all my fish some of which I've had seventeen eighteen years di was or lack of oxygen when we went when we were totally powerless for a week

you know it was a bad year

and you know if you tell me that when you've been in a program this long this kind of stuff what happened I

but I once again if I hadn't had the program and people people in this fellowship encouraging me and loving me I would not be here today so I like I say I am very very grateful but life is you know not all you know the all things come to pass good things come to pass bad things come to pass and this year like I say I have felt better I've been able to do things that I've never been able to do before in my life I want you to know that this past summer in June

I went to Alaska

hi hi the Chilkoot trail

it said moderately strenuous is there anyone else here who is high for this trial

all may scale of moderately strenuous

your in your eyes is when you know you know those little hooks into the face of the

it was two miles straight up rock

what we have to make your own the land house and put holes and I'm going my god in heaven why am I here I am here because I saw bears in the wilderness yeah because I saw swans in their natural habitats on that little high I saw your goals and the big mess and everything all those things I would have missed if I hadn't been able to physically I would never have been able to do that before we get to the very end and then you get the white water raft back home so I

I'm telling you the people survivor don't even know what drives

not at all and as a result this summer

I have reservations to white rap hells canyon in Idaho

we'll see how that goes

but life is good and then back in the spring I was up in Toronto and I had been looking for more babies and I went up there and I found there was a lady in Ontario who had the kind of poodles I wanted she had the big black miniature poodles and I wanted those dogs and I saw hers and she had won it looked just like my voters and I said that's the mama and I knew it before then I say I'm sorry but it was so funny she walked into the room and went

and there were several people that route and she walked right over to me later Paul my leg

I looked down at her and she's like my face

and is that Rick said he was with me and miracle melted

and that became the mother and I picked out the father and then on the day but in the first of August my birthday is the third of August my natural birthday and the babies were born and so on the first of November I made a twenty four hundred mile trip to pick up two dogs so we have babies again

it's awful

I had forgotten what it was a lot

I mean I don't know I'm now I am not after this you know I mean

I'm out in the backyard at midnight with a flashlight trying to find the remote control

I decided that I didn't need that piece of carpet that goes from the living room into the kitchen you know

well

I decided I didn't need the rug I stand down in front of the kitchen sink one of those pushing drugs is now flat piece of paper

you have to take the bitter with the better you know and I like I don't have it all to you little black ministers

yeah yeah

and then they'll look at you and go and you go out well it's only a

you know it's been it's been a real experience but I mean we're going through it you know it has its ups and downs and they can be roast waste one of the the funnier things that happened is that we have a new bed and are bad is one of those real tall beds now you know I think you know that's where you have so your **** out of gear to get into bed

I need a ladder it's sort of like a redneck trip you know

I don't know what I can to my dad had a they had lower to the ground but anyway I gotta get up there and and farm bubble walks past and even look anything

there's another dog it's the mirror of the dresser so we didn't get to sleep at night because

but do you know these are joined these are joys that are going on in my life today because life is good life is good bad times will come the our deal with my sister now you know you have to develop a way to DO

with that kind of tragedy my sister had been an exactly with Procter and gamble for forty eight years a brilliant one

and to see her with her by she she was a ferocious reader and she can't read it anymore because she can put the book down pick it up five minutes later and doesn't know what she's read

and so you know she doesn't have that she assisted her chair she watches too much television

I thank and she works for not a jigsaw puzzle

man does she work the jigsaw puzzle we were going to replace the house there's no only there's no wall I mean she's got puzzles and they decapod Jim and then like but I'm and I'm on the wall and I said well the walls are just about will do the ceilings I mean it's okay because it's something that she's doing she's enjoying and what have you and you know she has such a little in life to do but Dorothy website thing she's like dealing sometimes with a five year old child

and your perilous when you've got a five year old in an adult body you are powerless to make her do or not do things so many times even though I am or guardian

but Dorothy will say to me we will go to the grocery store and I'll say Dorsey

we don't need fifteen minutes

and she will throw them across the president

do you want I can have a what I can't have

so then I get I don't know if I set up you're going to get his car I'm

thank you

yeah

well get to the check out and she feels the car with all the things she K. eight eight

and so I've learned now go the same checker every time so you don't traumatize the entire staff

and I just won't get those items out of the car and they rejected it through and I tip him to put him back on the shelf you know and R. C. O. site what

and also like not paying for that stuff yeah

I said yes that's the reason mother nine to me me me girl

thank you

and then it's over and then it's over she said to me

would you promised me something I said I don't know what is it she said if I die in the car again with you will you let me stay did

and I said Dorothy trust me if you die in the car with me again I will drive around with you five or six hours to view our staff is a damn good

you know yeah I have to learn to deal with it the best way you can and so this seems to work for us and you know I thought my sister when I talked to her today where are you where are you and I'll say I'll have one you know up there and I said and Dorothy used to live up here and I said I know a lot of people up here and I said they're real kind and loving people she said are you coming home today I'll be home tomorrow she said we are you coming home I said tomorrow she said how long ago how long is that

I said not too long you go to sleep tonight you wake up and I'll be

you know and it's sad it's real sad but you know I had to

years ago Hey Jim Joe used to hand I guess he still does hands out these little cards and all this all cars a little prayer and it says god thank you for all you have given me

god thank you for all you have taken away

god thank you for all you have left

and this year has been for me to focus on what's left

as I was very angry for the first year about what had been taken away

because my sister was pretty much my best friend

we did everything together we travel together we we just went my sister was my surrogate mother all my life

and so it has been very difficult to let go of that but I'm grateful that I still have her

no matter how she is I have and whatever god's plan here I'm okay with that it took me awhile to get there but I'm so grateful that I have steps and I have people to share with his been there had a me and had to walk that long

you never know what life is going to bring that's reason it's so neat to have all of us here because with all of our life experiences somebody here has that experience something like you're have or will going to or whatever you know you got it all here right for you

and this is something I never had when I grew up I was a spoiled kid

my Daddy spoiled me rotten and my sister like I say she's a lot older than me and my brother was older than her and I had a brother who was dead that would actually died up here and and it was real funny because I was looking taking a girl to do her

she had hunter fish that she had been relying reader parents and their parents were dead so we went out to the national cemetery to

tell her mom back she's written a letter she wanted to reach want me to go which is a little trouble with this and and so we got out there and she read the letters kicked us down we were digging a hole and then national cemetery burying the letter after she toward that and we were having to while I was watching the guy mowing so that would put shuttle down when he we we weren't taking anything we were leaving something

and all the way back across the cemetery I found the grave of my brother who died and we had not yet had been lost from the directory all those years and I was able to find it so if that was sort of a closure thing to to be able so my whole family is out there now with the exception indoor theater well I took her there she kept saying his mother day end and I'd go yes mother's day and she said I wonder washing company

and we go out there to stand here you know and I said see there's another stone and are to just stand there and she looks at it and she says

it's so confusing

was out here and I said yeah honey you are in charge of the funeral and everything and she said it's so confusing to see that stone and not to remember and I can only imagine

it would be like having a continuous like that idea

that you're living in that must be very very horrible but anybody here is my sister and then my brother they were meriting gone by the time I was seven years old I was an only child and I love that status because I got all the addiction

and in fact I can't remember when I didn't get all the attention and looking back at family photos you you see my brother and my sister and me and I look like on there can't

exactly and I was they were old enough for me to be their kids

and

my Daddy died when I was twelve

and that was a real dramatic thing because my life as I knew it changed everything changed because I didn't like my mother my mother was a person that had a lot of rules and regulations and I didn't like people's rules and regulations because being a self centered individual I wanted to do what I wanted to do what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it

that's how most of us get here you know and that's not life that you're not gonna be able to deal with life on life's terms when you have that kind of an attitude and that was the attitude I had in my mother tried her best she tried her very very bad but you know some kids are just going to do their thing

and it wasn't because I wasn't taught good values it wasn't because I wasn't taught manners and to respect people and and property and stuff that had nothing to do self will ran right in this person and I was going to do my own thing

and I had I turned my back on god at the age of twelve because god took my father and if god took my Daddy I'd be more anything to do with

now does that mean I never went to church again no I never skipped a beat when every church thank you had to if you lived in our house

but I wouldn't mind the deal I just went living for the day when I didn't have to go there anymore and when that day came I didn't

I merry the man who was Yankee

and children only one gonna work right then

he was a broken person as well his mother and father had separated shortly after his birth is he never saw his Daddy until he was like seventeen years old and his mother died when he was twelve and he was left with a grandfather who did not want to he and his sister and so he lived to get away from home and he lied about his age on his application into the airforce and when he did here for you and airforce base up in their little rocky was stationed there and we met and we got married and then we went to New from land

not a place that was on my schedule to go

although I do want to go and see the world I was one of those I've I'm an adventure junkie and I found out something about that adventure junkies run on adrenaline adrenaline is very hard on your hearts

so when you have heart trouble are we surprised

you know and you know the the bottom line there was I was this is this your junk and I was going to do these things it's like say I wanted him to take me away from home in her

so I got me or not because I love this man not because I thought I was in love like most kids day I was in love with the idea of being in love did not have a clue what love was because it was all about me and love is not all about you

love is working us or not what can you do for me and that was the kind of person I work well I work for the red cross when I lived overseas

and as such I had a job with a little power in it because if you're in the military you know you don't get emergency leave without red cross verification so you got I got to know all the uppity up their stuff out a little black market there on the flight line for a while

I like living on the edge you know I always did like living on the edge and I got in trouble with my marriage there because I forget I was merry memory problems long before Dorothy

it's call purposeful forgetting I believe in its mission in the drive ins well but anyway

hi I ring my merry you there with that kind of bowl but you know how we got to keep trying we're going to just try it again and again and again doing just see how miserable we can possibly get you know I never know anything spoiled Hillis road

you know it's got a role model not the is something wrong with the you know so we we got transferred back to Arkansas and I told my husband I said I need to be separated and I want to be separated I wasn't ready to be self supporting a mile voluntary contributions

and so I use this man

and he did not want to be divorced from the for the home situation he came from you know it's like don't get a divorce no matter what not played on that

and so we didn't get a divorce but he went on and went to the next vice when this rotation came and I stayed there and now I'm free I am so sorry it's like when he left I became free

because he was the problem don't you know well everything went all right for about two or three days and I have this boredom problem

you know I can't stand boredom I have to have some excitement so I begin to always look outside for excitement and I noticed this this boy and his wife live cross street from us and every time you go out and drink he gets drunk come home and be here at just like my mama's family

everybody in my mom's family except my mom I was an alcoholic

they go out get drunk come home based one another at Martha house down what the heck one I'll go shot or so off you know I mean

he thought it was a snake in the bed with any

he was my favorite

he was merry seven time

he had a woman problem he actually died in bed with another man is what he got shot again

hi like the

he was fun to be around because he was excited you never knew what was gonna happen when you Runkle I think

well

this boy cross street he's acting like this I knew his one of them well she was pregnant she went into labor one notch came over to my house it come home drunk majorette so she's gone into labor and here she was in her mouth was busted your I was turning color and she said would you tell me the hospital that's it sure so I went over there whether in there he was passed out on their bed but this month on his side

and I looked at him and I thought you know somebody R. with your but

and then it came to me somebody

my first name

so I took a bad flat out is bad I tidied up initiate not be allowed in here

made me feel good all over

next morning he came over to my house and he said I was in a hell of a fight last name

I did not enlighten him

but this is a preview of coming attractions

then there was now college lived on the other side of me it's like I've been a Kerrier everywhere I go there you are

you know they're everywhere they're everywhere if your doctor your did your dentist everybody's got to be an alcoholic don't you know if you like they're bound to bait you know it's like anytime I've ever tried to anybody I wanna how much you drink

and if I say only

get away

that's the only question I need on that pamphlet when you drink do you drink more than two if they say no alcoholic alcohol

which I'll never admit to more into

I had problems the next door neighbor had problems with this one and that one in the bottom line was a sure start come and see me

cause mom behind you got a little bizarre

I would do things to the neighbors and what have you dear Tyson and so I decided maybe I better not do this and I'm joined a neighborhood softball team and it was a mixed team and we have a lot of fun and after the game we go back to someone's house and we talk about our strategy for our next game and some would pop a few tops among which smokes a little weird thanks so much different staff and others have these low sugar cubes just your normal neighborhood team

and you see I had to be around people like that because I didn't do that kind of stuff and I had to have somebody I could say I'm not that bad and after awhile it gets tricky just want somebody to run around with you know because if you keep lowering your standards are there you know that and if you hang around with people who do things like that long enough you will to you well to

and so course those are things I know now that I didn't know then but anyway it was my turn everybody off the house and one of the guys on our team of the nineteen year old kid he got drunk at my house well I knew if you got picked up going home this year it would come to see me I didn't want to have to deal with that man so I was driving home and it was round mothers I. India China T. set new trucks and he's got it sure is mother well you know how helpful we are so I know he's on dropping right because they can barely walk so it's a wee hours of the morning and I am here into China T. set fallen or drunken making your get into home I've never been in before in my life your typical situation

and he put the light on in his room and it was a man lying on the bed with nothing but underwear off and he looked up and he said well hot damn little brother you brought us a good home

and I said not to not tell us

but that's J. D.

later on that summer we met again and we started dating and it was just wonderful I mean we had more fun together in the next thirty four years we just really had a good time and then all things must come to an end J. D. rented he asked me to marry him

this is when you have a moment of clarity

and it's like I can't hear you and he says well why not don't you Love Me after that nothing to do with any so what do you mean you said

I'm already merry

he said you sure did not merry I said Walker got

the show yeah I think he was he still wanted to merry me a woman who can't remember she's merry

you know he's not retired either

so I got a divorce and alcoholism moved into my home now I had not a clue that he was an alcoholic because he didn't behave like my mother's people did

J. D. drive it was totally different and I thought all alcoholic said to be under the bridge Weyerhaeuser fighters and do things like my mother's family and so it never occurred to me that he could be an alcoholic and besides I wouldn't know letting me an alcoholic

you know I know we do know how to drink brother tried to teach him how to drink

I wasn't too successful I drank with him I try to drink it before he would but that wasn't too successful either because I'm you lose what's happening around you when you drink too much and think

I've got to be able to have control of that situation you know I start to feel it I have to go yeah because something might happen and I'd miss it for god's sight

I don't want to miss it and besides if you drink too much you get sleepy are you puke all of yourself and also that you know so that that you know I tried so hard to be an alcoholic too I really worked hard

but anyway I'll call isn't going to my home and JD and I got very very sick together in those years of alcoholism there was a lot of violence in our home not from here from may I was the one you know I would have to put him out of my misery

he didn't mind I told him he couldn't drink he go out and drink and enjoy the drink he also was a womanizer and I didn't like that and so I would go searching for and we play hide and seek it had not thank you and I find it and you know he's going places I wouldn't be caught dead in on a normal day good alcoholism what is normal you know and so I go in and what was normal for me was I go in I look around there yes he's at a table with a lower companions I go over slapper flaps or drink it is right for C. to pulverize yep and the bats or throws me out

and I'm only they're trying to say my home for god's sight

and so then I go around or two with a bouncer and then I'd go to jail it wasn't fun

but I didn't do that yes one time

I did that many times and then I got tired of that and so then I would stay at home and white

and I would price the floor and when you come in and then the war would take place and then I would be into a ball and then he would pass out and then I would take a washcloth and put it in ice water and then beat him in the face and so I wake up I'm going to talk since do you

you know that's a crazy that's the crazies we get crazy the families get crazy you know I think the alcoholic set over us because they can pass out or they get really

we don't get really

we don't get really we get a lot more new Roddy you can put down alcohol and you're gonna get a little bit better it's much slower for us but however I've been my experience over the years that inside I'd say most alcoholics if not every alcoholic lives a screening Elena

because you all seem to do like we do after you all get sober

don't you all get thank

stepping on toes tonight

that's it it's a brand new not so it's not

so I like a good selection not in my home

instead of voting we got

anyway I

here we are we're sick we're sick people I thank you into the family position he gave him a prescription for an abuse because that's what J. D. wanted he told him there was Alcoholics Anonymous J. you said I'm not an alcoholic that's right he's not

he is not an alcoholic I will not have an alcoholic

and so we got the prescription for any of you know what I heard the doctor say was if you give you really can't drink but that's not what the doctor says

but I've become keeper of the pills because he can't be trusted now by this time I have high blood pressure and epileptic dog and he's on the bail

every morning in a hurry I can't guarantee who got what but everybody got a bill

I was going to get really know Ronnie

because he's not drinking and everything's not okay and if you blame somebody for how you feel for all these years and then they're not drinking and you're still not okay where is the problem it's

it wasn't a drink you know just

he's you had the got it back well J. decided that it came to me came to me when I was having a little meeting and I had

I am so mad about Jeez I am too I what god wanted to get a divorce you can't get it and I get a divorce well you've already had one divorce I know Jeez I don't wanna could there be something I don't want to go there and I'm going there but you know if you were a winter what was saying

you know

but he's not dying no problem we can take care of that

do you want to do I want to send him in the neck with taking

yes why don't wait

rollover in with the car and squishy map in the thread make a note by new tires

and I begin to feel better

I begin to dream about murder name it was Bernie six we were having

not a good time not a good time and then I read in the paper I want to kill her husband and they put a bug in jail I said not if I'd been on a jury tacky tacky tacky

so now I got to have another meeting you know so we got together again it was and they were discussing the situation and all of a sudden it came to it if an alcoholic could pass out in the bath tub and dry on who would know it's a great conscious well liked

so I got it right now and sure enough I hear the week he quit drinking all that abuse guess what you got

we had I know

and I heard him when he came in the drive wise or made an attempt in that car so I like to do and sixteen seconds

this stock again definitely hit the hit your house to work out at the end it was cast iron block it over in anyway tearing across the yard hit a tree and then backed into the side of the house and look not bad boy he cannot drive only but the open that trunk door and he poured out I've seen it too many times

and I said ocular this will be the last thing I ever do

and so when you open the door I never said a word you heading towards a good

and when you feel you have to copy totally knocked him out and I dragging down the hall and then living room across the hall into the bathroom ran the bath tub full of warm water just goes off for a man held him under

tell about his great coming

he land there and the bomb the test is a voice that you guys do they have

I said

you can do this I think you know about the hell I try again

the voice came back now this is not a committee member

do you want

and it's like it talks about it because there's a motor party would you say your separate you truly have and I become an animal to fight an illness

and it scared me to death and I just came up out of that tab and I resuscitated him thank god I had worked for the red cross and I took him in our bedroom I got enough but him in bed stopping errors that is here didn't want him to get cold

can I close the door on that room and I did not go back in there for three days and I heard him back for help I heard him scream R. him talk thanks I heard him hallucinate many times before that did not bother me well what I didn't know was anything about alcoholism and JD had alcohol poisoning and he nearly humor to death in there so it's only by grace of a loving god that he's still alive and I'm not in a prison somewhere today