An AA and Al-Anon workshop titled

Good morning, everyone. My name is Linda Behzans, and I'm a grateful member of Al Anon. Hallelujah. And I'm nervous. I don't know.

I think I was asked if I was ready, and I said yes. And I don't know if I'm ready or not. We've had a wonderful time in your country. You've been so warm and gracious and welcoming, and we love the food and the mountains and the weather, but most of all, the people. And I wanna thank, Sola and Ellie and the man of many cars, Vicky, and, everyone else who's been with us at the quiet moments that we've had with you.

We've really had a wonderful time. My job this morning is to tell you a little bit about me, to share my experience, strength, and hope with you. And, so I'm gonna do my best at that. And I know that I just look at you and you're all there waiting and helping me, so thank you. I was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago, and I'm an only child.

From my very earliest memories, I was always told how wonderful I was. My parents were married about 6 years before they had me, and they, just made it very clear to me that I was like the apple memory with lots of love and lots of acceptance, and, I was like a treasure. I didn't who didn't like being an only child. People would ask us in America, at least me, I'm assuming all only children, but you're you're an only child. You must be spoiled.

And there was something about that that always made me feel different. It always sort of singled me out. I never liked that. My mother was a tremendous seamstress, and she made just beautiful clothes. She made coats and jackets and lined everything, and and I had very, very nice clothes.

My friends would say to me, that's lovely. Did your mother make it? I didn't like that. It it singled me out. I don't I really don't like that.

For instance, today, you know, everybody is looking at me. This is not the most comfortable thing for me. I, I run away from that, in effect, as as much as I can. Whenever I'm singled out, I I just, you know, I wanna just disappear. But I had a wonderful childhood.

I think when you're an only child, you have lots and lots of blessings, but one of the things you don't have is you don't have the ability to learn how to share. In my opinion, everything was mine, and, it took me a while to get over that. And yet I was the kind of kid who had a lot of friends and, enjoyed my friends. And, so I had a I think I had just a wonderful, blessed childhood. When I was going to go into college, I picked my my college, which was the College of Saint Catherine's.

By the way, I was born raised Catholic. And, I picked that college for several reasons. One is I wanted to be a nurse and they had it was the only college at that time Catholic that was I wanted to go to a Catholic girls' school. I went to a Catholic grade school and high school, and I liked that experience. And that was not something my parents put on me.

It was just something I wanted to do. But Saint Kate's was the only school that didn't have summer classes in nursing for the other ones had 2 summers where you would go all year long. And my dad had just lost his job probably a year before I went into school, and he was at age 50. And money was tight. We were never poor.

We had more than what we needed, but we were never there was never a lot of extra money. It was always, you know, we paid for with cash. Those were those days, for what you needed, and you saved for the rest. And when you had it, then you bought it. And I knew that I needed to to make a contribution toward the college because I knew it would be difficult.

So, that's why I chose St. Kate's. However, when I went up there and saw it, it was the middle of February, and I loved it. I fell in love with the campus, and I fell in love with I just fell in love with Saint Paul. So, I went to school up there, and at the beginning or middle of my sophomore year, one of my best friends, who was in nursing school with me, asked if I wanted to be fixed up on a blind date, and I said, sure.

And, Bob was the blind date, and we had a really good time. We went out and we had fun and we went I don't even remember exactly what we did, but we we had a really good time. And and when I got done with the date, I thought, gee. You know, he's really a nice guy, and I really liked him. And he didn't ask me out again.

And I thought, you know, that's unusual. Usually, when you have a good time, the other person has a good time. And I thought, well, guess that just wasn't the way it was with him. And, about, I think, 9 months later, I was at a party. And this was one of those memories where I started to look back on most all the parties that we went to in those days and especially when Bob and I got together.

They all centered around drinking. Drinking was what happened there, then there was an excuse to have it happen. Like, the Viking game was the excuse for the gathering, but the drinking took place there. So, anyway, I was at a party and Bob was there and I had another date and he had another date. And, I went out to have a drink and he fixed it and said to me, haven't I seen you somewhere before?

And I sort of turned and left and said yes very curtly and went into the other room. And about 15 minutes later, he stands up and makes an announcement. Now, again, all eyes, you know. Oh, I remember you. I took you out.

I mean, if if looks coulda killed, it's a good thing I wasn't armed. I think I would've had him in my sights. But, anyway, from there on, we started dating. And in many ways, I think I I I don't know if if there's love at first sight because I that isn't probably what happened, but I really enjoyed him. And there was something about him that was fun, interesting, very daring, certainly a lot different than what I was like.

And I really liked him. And and, so, anyway, we started dating, and our courtship was, I would call, very rocky. It was on and it was always sort of on, but it was there were a lot of things going on, a lot of moving parts in our in our courtship. One of them was many times he didn't have his license, which, you know, there were a lot of signposts that should have led me to believe that possibly there could be problems down the way. But you know what?

I I wasn't looking for those. And if someone had pointed them out to me, I would have ignored the the advice. So, I was just, I guess, stupidly in love. And, and we had a lot of fun. You know, don't get me wrong.

Most of it was fun. Almost in fact, probably 95% of it was fun. I was living in a dorm. So we'd go out and we'd have a great time, and he'd drop me off at the dorm and then he would go out and continue drinking. And many times, he'd pick me up the next day and we'd go to church.

So I was not aware of the amount of alcohol that was being consumed at all. And believe me, I was drinking right along with him. So it wasn't like there there was a problem that I saw. So, we became engaged to be married, and there was there was one incident that that always I look back on that should have been a real indicator to me, but, again, I wasn't looking for it. We went to a, a wedding, and it was an open bar.

And Bob came back with 2 drinks for himself and one drink for me. And the second time he did that, I said to him, why do you have 2 drinks, and why do I have one drink? And he said, well, it's an open bar. And I said, yeah. He said, well, the bar might close.

That was the first time that I remember taking information that didn't make any sense to me and making myself believe that that made perfect sense. And that is one of the things that I think happens to us in Al Anon. We take information, and we incorporate it in a may in a way that we make it work. And what happens, the more we do that, the more we lose ourselves, the more we our insanity starts to kick in. So that's why that that's an important I've done that with lots and lots of things.

But that was probably the first time that I remember consciously taking a piece of information that made no sense and saying, oh, yeah. I get it. I didn't get it. We were engaged to be married in December, and I was working, and I had a roommate. And, I was driving Bob to business meetings.

And they were in basements of churches and very unusual places, and my roommate said to me, do you think he's going to do other things? I mean, his business must not be doing very well if they're meeting where you're telling me they're meeting. And I said, oh, no. No. He's going to business meetings.

And, probably about 3 weeks later, not very long, he told me and I can remember where we were when he told me. He said, you know, honey, those aren't business meetings that I'm going to. He said, those are meetings of AA. And my reaction was, that's wonderful. Now if I didn't have a a sense that there was something wrong, I think a person who felt there was nothing wrong would have said, what?

Why are you doing that? That doesn't even make sense, but I was very pleased. I have to also give you another piece of information. This will also give you an idea of how bright I was at that time. I was working on an alcoholic treatment center at a psychiatric hospital.

So you would somewhat gather that I might be somewhat informed. You just needed to know that. I don't need to go any further with that. I am a psychiatric nurse, and I've had a lot of help with my family to keep the practice in in, continuous in my life because our kids have been real crazy at times, and and so have I. So, anyway, probably several days after finding out that Bob was in AA.

It was a Wednesday night, and I was driving him again to a meeting. And he said to me when I picked him up I don't no. I don't think I picked him up. I think he got a ride home. But we weren't living together, so I guess I don't know how he got home.

He said to me, you know, the wives of the alcoholics meet in the basement every Wednesday night. And I thought, oh, that was really nice. The next week, he told me, you know, the wives of the alcoholics meet in the basement on Wednesday night. And I said, that's neat. 3rd week, same thing.

And I said to him, do you want me to go? And he said, well, you know, I think it might be a good idea. And, I have to tell you one more defect or asset of mine. It's called looking good. You might think I don't look nervous right now.

I have perfected this because it is important for me to look good at all times. I am, you know, sort of quaking, but I'm looking good. So when he asked me to go to the meeting, click, a good wife would support her husband and attend those meetings. So okay. Of course, I'd love to go.

So the next week, I go to the meeting, and it was a very, very warm night. It was I always say it was either the Wednesday before or after Labor Day. It was very, very hot. We met in the basement. Everyone was smoking, including me.

We had a candle in the middle of the table, and I think that was either to make it hot or to get rid of the smoke. It didn't do anything, but we did have a candle in the middle of the table. And I remember thinking, this must be what a seance is like. Now I have never been to a seance, and I, you know, know nothing. But I I didn't like it.

I just it just it just felt weird. Everyone was talking about horrible things that I just knew would never happen to us. I mean, I was in total denial about things, and and and there were a lot of really, really sad stories. I felt welcomed, though. I felt welcomed, accepted, and there was a tremendous feeling of warmth in the room even though I really didn't like being there.

I guess I didn't know why I was there. I wasn't even married. You know, we were everyone else was married to or, you know, the child of, child of, but I was, you know and I was 21 years old. So I didn't really feel like I fit. There were several women in that group that told me later that when they found out that I was dating an alcoholic, they just wanted to say to me, you're going to marry him?

Just get out. Run. Go. Get away. But they didn't say that, and if they had, I wouldn't have paid any attention to them anyway.

That you know, I I was in love, and, I knew that those things weren't gonna happen to us. It I was sad that they were happening to all these people, but I knew that wouldn't have ever happened to us. So I was in I was stupid. I didn't have any respect for the disease of alcoholism. I didn't know what it was.

So, anyway, this is in August. And, in December, we were married, and you heard last night that we went to Acapulco on our honeymoon. And we got home and began our married life. And I had expectations around marriage that we had never discussed, and, he was not fulfilling these expectations of marriage. Now my expectation was we would get up in the morning.

We would have a lovely breakfast together. I would go off work. He would go off work after tightening up the kitchen. We would come home from work and I would have a a an ironed apron on, white starched iron apron. And he would come home and we would have this lovely meal and we would have a great evening.

We would talk and visit, watch TV, whatever, go to bed, and start the next day pretty much the same way. My father came home every day at 5 o'clock, and my parents sort of had that. That was what I was used to. It wasn't that way. First of all, I didn't know how to cook.

I only could broil, so we only had things that could be broiled and a baked potato and a salad with that. That was pretty much that was it. You know? Bob almost never came home at 5 o'clock. To this day, you cannot look at the clock and say, oh, Bob will be home.

So he didn't come home. When he came I mean, he came home. We would eat this broiled dinner, and then he would go to a meeting. And he would get home later than I thought he should get home, maybe 11 o'clock, and I had to be up and leaving the house pretty close to 6. So I was getting up maybe a quarter to 6, 5:30.

He was having trouble getting up in the morning, so he wasn't getting up until, like, 8 o'clock or I don't know. I was at work. So from the very beginning, my expectations around marriage were not met. My expectations were unrealistic, but they were still mine, and they were the only ones I had. And I'm going to Al Anon meetings, and I'm not liking them.

I'm becoming more and more angry. I'm becoming resentful. I'm not seeing him. He's gone most of the time. And when he's home, all he's he's sort of just busy.

He's you know, AA was his main focus, I felt. And, but I'm going to Al Anon meetings, and I'm not liking them, and I'm becoming more and more and more resentful, and I'm becoming angrier. And it took a long time for this to build up. My Al Anon program was somewhat shallow. I only did the steps that I liked, and I didn't like very many of them.

I guess I did 123 to some extent. 45 were never even considered. I was raised a Catholic, and I wasn't going to do those, and that was enough of that. 6 and 7, I didn't have that many defects of character, so I wasn't really looking at that. 89, I had some amends, and I I made those, so I had handled those 2 steps.

But 10, I was really good at, I thought. I I could say I was sorry, and I could say I was sorry better than he could say. I thought he could say he was sorry. Therefore, I was doing step 10 better than Bob was. 11, I prayed.

I had a god. Meditation, no. I did not have what I would call conscious contact with my higher power like I have today, but I was also young. So I thought I did step 11 fairly well. And 12, I didn't know what the principles were to practice in my life, so we don't look at that part.

I don't think I had much of an awakening, but, boy, was I gonna ram the program down your throat if I had the opportunity. And the reason was because if I had to go to these meetings, you had to go to these meetings. I was quite a wonderful member of Al Anon. And, that, in all honesty, now no one knew that because I have to look good. So you have to think that I'm conforming, complying, doing whatever.

But that was pretty much the kind of program I worked for the first 7 years. Bob's sponsor, Warren, who's a wonderful man, his wife, Jen, was my sponsor for 23 years. He says that even a blind hog will pick up an acorn once in a while. And I think that for those 7 years, I you gradually taught me. There were many things that I started to incorporate even though I didn't know it.

But I became very sad, very resentful, very, very angry, and we always had to sit in the front row. We went to everything that AA had to offer. We went I mean, we were constantly in AA. We always had to sit in the front row. And Bob was going through a very difficult time, 7 years that he told you about last night.

I wasn't even really aware of that. But I was going through my own time, and they co they they, corresponded, coincided. That's the word I want. They they they were together. We were both really going through a horrible time in the same household at the same time.

And, I remember one day, I I I just couldn't stop crying. And Bob said to me, why don't you work the steps in the order they were written? And, you know, if he had said that to me at any other time, I would have said something like, do your own program or mind your own business or something like that. But that day, I was hurting so badly, and I it was like, you know, there's something here. I know it.

I've seen people's lives change. Why don't you work the steps in the order they were written? And so I made a decision to do that, and I called, made an appointment for my 5th step, like, 3 weeks in advance so that I knew I'm the kind of person if I have a date I'm very German. If I have a date, I will keep that. And, so I knew and I wanted to have enough time to really do a good job at it because you see, I was never going to do another 4th step.

So I was going to do the fur the perfect 4th 5th steps because this was not going to ever happen again. So I thought 3 weeks was an appropriate amount of time, and I made the decision. And I I took an inventory to the very, very best of my ability, and it was the very best I could do because it was going to be the last. And then I took my 5th step, and when I did that, things changed. First of all, I knew what a phony I was.

I'm going to these meetings, and I'm letting you believe that I'm working the steps. I wasn't working the steps. I was looking good. I was showing up, but I wasn't doing the work. And now all of a sudden, I became a member.

I was no longer a phony. I had a list of defects now that I could work on. I did 123 because in preparation for 4 and let me tell you, it's different. If you're just doing 123 with no intention of doing 45, it's different. So I did it in preparation for 45.

I did 45. I now had defects to look at, and I was able to do 6 and 7 and then move on to the rest of the steps. I became a member of Al Anon, full fledged member after 7 years. I've been for years, I was embarrassed about that, but I no longer am. That's just what it took.

So I started working my program, and what happened? My heart changed. I became a different person slowly. My heart opened up. I now had tools to live my life that I didn't have before.

Before, I went to Al Anon so that I could sort of make Bob behave. You know, it never worked that way. It never will work that way, but that was sort of what I thought we did here. You know? So all of a sudden, I have tools to live my life, and my focus is no longer on Bob.

Before, see, Bob was just everything was Bob's problem. If he hadn't been alcoholic, I never would be the way I was. So I had a wonderful sponsor. And when she talked to me, she'd say, we are not talking about Bob. We are talking about you.

So finally, the the the tool that she used with me, she said, we will talk about you at around age 16 to 17, and we're going to talk about how you were then. What were your defects of character then? And you know they were the same ones, but then I didn't have him. And so that's how she taught me to start looking at me and taking responsibility for me and not linking it with alcoholism because I blame see, Bob looked crazier than I did. I was crazy on the inside, but he looked crazier than I did.

So I could blame it on him. But inside, I was dying. Inside, I was a mess. Inside, I was angry. And all of a sudden, now I'm free.

It's not like I got better overnight, but I've got tools. And I can talk about them because now I'm no longer a phony. Oh, my. I have notes here, but I don't know what they all mean. I think the program has given me somewhat more of a sense of humor.

I'm the type of kid who took everything so seriously. There was a lot of laughter in our house. It wasn't that. It was just that I always had to look good, and I was was always working at being good and showing up right. And I I took things too seriously, and so I think the program has really given me a sense of humor.

Now I'm not one of those people that has a great sense of humor. I don't tell jokes very, very well. But I try to laugh. I try to hear myself laugh at least once a day. I remember someone saying that a sad day is a day when she never hears her own laughter.

And when I heard that, I thought, yeah. That is a sad day. Because there are lots of days for us in this room that we don't hear our own laughter because things are serious and things are hard. I try to be more gentle with myself, and that goes along with not taking myself so seriously. I've had haven't had and have had 3 great sponsors.

My first sponsor died when she when I had her for 23 years. She was 69. But 7 years prior to her death, she stopped going to Al Anon. And one of the things that I was told about sponsorship is that you have a sponsor who has a attends meetings regularly. Well, all of a sudden, my and attends meetings regularly.

Well, all of a sudden, my sponsor is no longer going to meetings, and I'm a person of rules. You could probably tell that. So one rule is broken, and I needed a new sponsor, so I chose another woman. I had 2 sponsors for 7 years, and her name was Marceline. And she was a wonderful lady, and both of them were.

But Marcy just died last 2 years ago, September, And I, all of a sudden, was without a sponsor, so I just asked God if I could have a sponsor by Christmas. And I prayed about it and I prayed about it. And one day, I woke up and I started thinking about this woman named Beverly. Her name is Beverly Ahr, and she's a wonderful Al Anon, and it was like, I just couldn't stop thinking about her. In about middle of afternoon, I said, I got it.

And I asked her the next day to be my sponsor, and she's wonderful. She just has she has just the same qualities that my other sponsors have, that warm, gentle vitality. She doesn't tell me I'm stupid. She doesn't yell and scream at me. She just gently guides me, and that's the kind of care I need.

I'm not one of these people who if you get real mad and start yelling and screaming or swearing, I just shut down. I physically will be in front of you, but I sort of go away. I don't do well with anger. And so I have a just a wonderful sponsor now. I'm also able to sponsor people.

I love the people that I sponsor. They're just they're just incredible. They give me so much. Well, one of the things that Marcy gave me that I wanted to share with you, getting up here is very, very difficult for me. And Marcy said to me, you need to use the steps.

And I said, oh, how? And she said, well, she said, you look at step 1 and you look at the fact that the power that you're powerless over the fear you have and that the fear and the anxiety and the looking good is making it very, very unmanageable for you. And then you look at the fact that the fear and the unmanageability is making you a little crazy. You know, you're getting real self centered and you're getting real full of your or, full of pride. And so she said you need to ask God to remove the insanity and to restore you to wholeness and selflessness and peace of mind.

And then you take an inventory. What is what is it that's causing this anxiety? You know what it is for me always? It's pride. I can always ask the question, how is your pride affected?

And I have never not had an answer to that one, so I go right to that. Well, my pride is affected that I wanna please you. I wanna look good. I want you to like me. I don't wanna look stupid.

I'm hoping that my brain will work with my mouth in coordination because if it doesn't, I'm not going to look very good. And then I tell myself what it is. I tell God what it is, and I get down on my knees and do that. And if there's no place, like, in the room this morning, I'll go into the ladies' room and do that. And then I tell another person.

And this morning, I told several people that I was nervous, and then I give the talk. And, the first time I did it, it the first when I used to talk, I could never bring up a piece of paper because the piece of paper would be going like this. I could never have anything to drink because I knew I would spill it. And my knees were so quaky or fragile or weak that I was almost afraid walking up and down the stairs. And the first time I did that, all three of those things disappeared.

I'm still nervous, but I don't have that physical reaction to my nervousness. I use that technique when I go to the dentist. I use it when in other instances where I am really afraid of what I have to face. And what it does is it armors me with God. I don't go into the situation alone.

I sort of go in with this suit of mail or armor around me, and it's just wonderful. Probably about 15 years ago, I, made a New Year's resolution around my program every year, and every year, I do something different to keep my program vital. And the reason I started doing it was that I'm the type of person that would read all the daily readings, but I would get to the point where I was almost reading them to get them out of the way rather than reading them to get something out of them. And I didn't like that. It was getting stale and it was getting old.

And so every New Year's Eve, I do something new for my program that hopefully will in will revitalize me and enhance who I am and what my program is about. And 2 years ago or maybe it was 3 now. I think it was 2. I was in Texas, and I was talking to a woman that I sponsored with my sponsor because I don't do long distance sponsoring like that. But Marcy sponsored her, and I was sort of the secondary man, second guy.

And, I was talking to Amelia, and it was about the 4th or 5th January. And I said, you know, I don't have a I don't have a resolution this year, and it's it's bothering me. And and then I told her this and she said, oh. And then she told me about a friend of hers who just recently had just died, a very healthy woman who had just died. And I said, you know, we had that happen to really good friends of ours probably 4 or 5 years ago, this this young or not so young.

They were probably in their mid forties at the time. We're walking down the road one beautiful spring day. A car came by and Kathy was on the outside. It just hit her, and she died fell over and died in her husband's arms. And very healthy, vital, nothing wrong with her woman.

And one minute she was here, and one minute she was gone. And, I said to Amelia, I said, you know, if we really lived one day at a time, we would really experience our days because we don't know if we have tomorrow. Well, as soon as I put that into words, I knew I had my New Year's resolution. And so that year and I'm still doing it. But that year, I really tried to do the stay in the moment.

I gave lip service to one day at a time. I knew how it fit in. I knew when to say it, and I meant it. It wasn't like it was phony, but it was different when I really said I am going to appreciate today. You know how little kids I don't know if they do that here in Iceland, but in America, if they spill the milk or do something wrong, little kids will say, I didn't do that on purpose.

I made a decision I was gonna live my life on purpose, and I was going to appreciate I'm appreciating this because I may not have that, and it has made such a difference. I was the type of person that was always waiting for tomorrow, when I get married, when we have kids, when the kids can talk, when the kids can walk, when the kids can go to school. You know, it was I was always over here. I wasn't appreciating the moment that I had. You know, now I'll say to people that are engaged, just enjoy your engagement time because I didn't.

I just kept counting the days till we got married instead of saying, this is really neat. We're engaged. We're we're in this moment now. And I tell people that are pregnant, enjoy every minute that you're pregnant because you may never be pregnant again. I was I wasn't enjoying it.

I was couldn't wait till that baby was born. Then, of course, I couldn't wait till the baby would sleep through the night, and then you know how that goes. So I live my life on purpose now, and I don't do it perfectly. It was interesting that 1st year. January, February, I was just incredible.

And all of a sudden, it was March, and I realized I'd forgotten all about it. And then I renewed it again. And then I did really, really well in July. And all of a sudden, it's September. But you know what?

That's human nature. That's just the way we are. But if you have that intention, I kept pulling myself back to it, and I still have that intention. And then this last year, the year after that, I made a decision that I was going to live as a child. I was gonna do silly things, and I did them.

Oh, they weren't real silly knowing me, but I did them. I still did the stretch to to act a little crazier than I normally would. And this last year, my New Year's resolution was to be a joy to other people and to myself and to really appreciate the joy in the world. And I love that because it revitalizes me, and it doesn't it it doesn't keep me stale. I love the readings in the book.

Don't get me wrong. But I was stale with them, and I needed to sort of jump start me. And, that's been incredible. And I don't know what next year will be because I'm still in the moment, but it'll be incredible too. And I and I think that's just a a fun new thing that I'm doing.

Oh, well, we have 3 wonderful children. Bill is 34 years old, and, he's 16 years sober. He came into the program when he was 18. He's a just a remarkable young man. He married, 2 years ago.

It'll be 3 years this June. And our daughter-in-law is in the program, and she's beautiful, and we love her. And right now, they are both pregnant or she is pregnant and he is expecting or whatever, but we are gonna have a grandbaby, in June, a little boy, and we're just so thrilled. We We we just are just just makes me silly thinking about it. The program is in their lives, and I'm sure Bill would be a fine young man without the program, but with the program, he's just a he's an incredible human being, and I am so proud of him.

I am just so proud, I guess, not of him but for him, that he has lived his life and is living his life with such integrity. And then we have Peter. You heard somewhat about Peter yesterday. He, I was with him 13th or 15th of this of January. Peter celebrated 13 years, and it's the first time I was with him on his sobriety date except for his very first sobriety date.

And, that was real special. And, he's struggling right now because he doesn't have a job, and he's living in LA and he's he's a surfer and, he's a neat young man. He's 32. But he is so full of integrity and he is so wonderful, and that kid was so haywire. He was so I mean, we were so worried for him.

We were worried for all of them, but I think Peter and Dan were the ones I was the most worried for, and maybe Peter at the top of that just because he looked like he was not gonna come back. And then we have a son, Daniel, and he's 23. And, God willing, May 30th, he'll have 6 years of sobriety. He was on a drug run on his bicycle and got hit by a van, and it was a hit and run, and he was taken to the hospital and went into a coma and, anyway, then went to treatment, and, he's he's incredible. I think that it's hardest for me to talk about Dan because I didn't think we'd get the 3rd miracle.

You know? I thought, how could we be so lucky to have 2 miracles? And we needed the third one, but I just thought, how could we be? I mean, people don't. Some people don't have that.

And I was so afraid we wouldn't get it with Danny, and, we did. And Dan's walking straighter and and, he's he was so his he had no self esteem. He just had none. And now he can look you in the eye and have a conversation with you, and he's handsome, and he's he's just wonderful, and, he's our 3rd miracle. And, I have some good news.

We have no more children. I'm so glad we don't. I I had all the fun I could have with the 3 of them and their use. I had all the fun I needed. Bob and I have a good marriage.

I love him, and, we have fun together. We laugh together, and and, we do we we share our lives, and the program is an important part of both of our lives. So we both have that to share, and that's just so special. So special. My sponsor taught me one other thing.

I'm digressing here, but, when I said about using the steps. One of the other things that she taught me that I I wanted to just say to you that is so important is she taught me not to say why, not to ask the question why. She said, you're not that's not a question you're allowed. The question you are allowed is what can I do? And that has made such a difference to me because why makes me a victim.

What can I do gives me power? And she said, you just aren't gonna ask why. And if you ask why, we're going to change that. And I don't think I ask why very much anymore because I've been programmed. And and it's it was hard for me at first because I wanted but but when you ask why, I think the next thing that comes is who's to blame.

But if you ask what can I do, the next thing that comes is what can I do? You know? You start looking for options and you start it's it's just a different focus. And so that was another thing that that Marcy taught me that I think was really, really important. Today, I am very grateful, and I am most grateful to AA for their book and for their program.

I heard a speaker once say that they were grateful for that, but, of course, if it weren't for, a a for the AA person, they wouldn't need Al Anon. That was not true for me. If it I needed Al Anon. I needed Al Anon whether or not I had had an AA in my life or not. I didn't know it.

I was able to get the vehicle. I am so grateful for the program. I am so grateful for the steps, and I am so grateful that UAA shared it with us and that we have been able to run with it because it's made a difference in 100 of 1000 of people's lives. It's brought peace of mind to whole groups of people who are in despair, and that's what Al Anon is. We give ourselves up, and we we are filled with despair.

So I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm grateful for the gift of sobriety for my husband, for our kids, for our daughter-in-law, for all of you, for all of our friends. I am so grateful for sobriety. It's wonderful. It's fun.

I mean, we have so much fun in our lives, and we're all sane and well. It's just incredible. There are a lot of people who love me, and I am so grateful for that. You know, I'm grateful that I'm lovable. I'm a nice person, and a lot of people are so loving to me.

And I'm so grateful for that. I'm grateful for my own story and my own time. It took me 7 years to do what I had to do, and I'm no longer embarrassed by that because that's what it took. But I didn't leave. I went to 2 meetings a week for 7 years, and I didn't work the steps.

But I didn't leave. You know? At one time, I thought I shouldn't count those 7 years in my time in Allinon. And and I I really thought that through, and I thought, no. You should because that was part of getting ready.

And I certainly went. I just didn't go with very good motives, and I didn't do any work, but I went. You know, I was good at making the coffee, I guess, maybe something. We have so many miracles. So many miracles.

There's a line from a Broadway show that says, when you love another person, then you see the face of God. It's from Les Mis. And when I first heard those words you know how some words just hit you? Those are the words of Alan on an AA. When I love you and I work with you and I treasure you, I take care of myself and I see my God.

I thank you all very, very much.