The chapter "The Family Afterwards" and answering questions at the CPH12 v2 convention in Copenhagen, Denmark

Okay. Some people have come up to us and asked if we talk a little bit about some of the things that have happened in our family to do healing and for us to begin to heal as a lot a lot of damage, and it's taken a long time. So it's not an overnight matter. And that's what the book says. But one of the things that I'd like to read, just in case, what is we we were talking about this earlier because I'm in both fellowships, AA and Al Anon.

And one of the things that one of the statistics that we hear is that every alcoholic touches at least 10 people. In that case, Al Anon ought to be 10 times bigger than a than AA. But it's not. And it's because it's like you can see alcohol and drugs. And when you put it down, you have something to put down.

But it just it just seems it's a very insidious thing. Most people think that their problem is the alcoholic. The problem is alcohol ism. And this is what the book says, years of living with an alcoholic is almost sure to make any wife or child a neurotic. The entire family is, to some extent, ill.

That's what happens alcoholism, and they didn't take a drink. And I have seen people die from the disease of alcoholism, and they didn't take a drink. People commit suicide. They end up in the same asylums. There's all kinds of things that happen to people from the disease of alcoholism, and they're not the alcoholic.

So what we began to do is to try to heal. And one of the things that we begin with is the steps. We do the steps. We do the 4th step. We take a 5th step.

We see what our character defects are. We make a list of our of the people we need to make amends to, and then we commence to go make amends. We make amends. Direct amends whenever possible. And what happens is is we go to our families and we start to make amends.

And a and an amend is not I'm sorry. We are we're the we're the king of the I'm sorry's. The book says, we go and we we state our wrongs. And then, we ask the person, what is it I can do to make this right? We to to make an amend is to repair, to fix.

And that's what we're trying to do, is repair the damage we've done. I, my hardest amends were to my sons, because that's to me where the damage was done. The most. That's what I did the most. Now they were certainly not the only people that I hurt, but they were the people that I hurt the most.

And when I made amends to my sons, you know, it was it was very difficult, but I can assure you that we didn't get up from that amend. And they'd say, oh, gosh. She's all better now. That was not what happened. It took a long time.

One day I was sitting outside and, I was sitting by a pool and I had a I had a coke and it was sitting by the side of me. And my oldest son walked by and picked it up and smelled it, and I've been sober about 18 months. And I just felt myself get a little but see, he still didn't trust it. He still didn't trust that I was sober. It takes a long time.

There's lots of families who go home and the lights don't go on, or the phone doesn't work, or there's no water, and different things like that. And sometimes it takes a lot of years for somebody to flip on the light switch, and the light comes on every day. Every time you flip it on, and, you know, 5 or 6 years later, they say, the lights are on. It takes a long time. It says that we will not make these amends in a lifetime.

We have to keep we will not write the past in this lifetime. So what we have to do is we have to keep doing it. My job is to be the very best mom I can be all the time. Parents, it's hard because there's many times to start the healing process of the family afterwards. Because many times, many times, as a child of a parent, even though I'm the one in recovery, we feel like that what was done to us was far worse than what we did to them.

But what I have to stand responsible for is what I did. And begin to go make those amends. The family afterwards is the beginning. It is just constant step 9. A constant step 9.

I'm the one with a program. I've never heard anything from my parents. My job is to be the very best daughter I can be. That's my job. I feel personally I've always been my mother's mother.

That's how I feel. Doesn't matter how I feel. My job is to be the very best daughter I can be. That's my job. My job is to be the very best mother I can be.

And little by little, day by day, the family begins to heal. Sometimes, the amends that we have to make in order for the family to start to heal is to step back and let go. Maybe a child has said to you, I don't want you here. Don't bother me. Or a parent.

Whatever. Don't bother me. I don't want you here. And what we have to do is step back and allow that. Maybe all we get to do is send a card.

I have a woman I sponsor who had 5 children taken from her. None of those 5 children wanted to see her. They didn't care how sober she was. And so the family afterward didn't heal very fastly. But what she began to do is she began to send cards, and then she began to to reach out as much as she could.

And pretty soon, they let her in just a little bit more, and then just a little bit more. It's a very slow process. And see, we're the feel good people. We wanna go in there, say I'm sorry, and make and everything be right. It's not gonna be that way sometimes.

It wasn't for me. It was not that way. Sometimes, I have to just bite my tongue. I have, both of my sons are married, and they're doing things, and they're into, you know, they have their own children. And there's just lots of times I feel like that my way is better.

My job is to do nothing. To just do nothing. To keep quiet. I don't need to be telling them how to screw their kids up as well as I screwed mine up. I don't need to do that.

It's just to allow that family to heal. One of the things that I do a workshop with my old with my youngest son, James. And we pretty much go into detail about the things we've done to, heal our relationship. My son, James, was a practicing alcoholic until I was 6 and a half years sober. And our relationship, after he got sober, began to really get much better.

Because he was that anger stayed for a very long time. My oldest son, Russ, is still very angry at me. He, you know, I can say to Russ, you know, one one day we were talking and he said to me, he said, I said, I just wish you would, you know, I could help you with the anger you have toward me. I'm not angry at you. And I know, just leave that alone, you know.

But there's always, I wanna get in there and and help him, you know. I just I just wanna help him. Get it going. So that he doesn't have to feel that way. But I need to just let that heal on its own time.

And that patience patience and tolerance, tolerance sometimes can be really, really hard. My son and I were talking, and we tried to describe some of the stuff that we had done. And one of the things that is was more difficult for me, as I sat down and I made amends to my children. I liked it didn't make it through him making amends to me. Because, you see, I just felt like I had done so much worse.

But he began, and I knew I had to let him do that. So those of you who have it going both ways, it isn't any easier to hear than it is to do. Some of our children don't ever make it. They don't ever see that, we really mean it. And what we have to do is just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

What is wonderful about the chapter, the family afterwards, is that all the good stuff is there. That's where it says, we absolutely insist on being happy. Here's where we live happily, joyous, and free. This is where I begin, as the book says, to do some self sacrificing. Go do things with my family I don't feel doing.

Go sit and with my 86 year old mother in a little podunk town. And podunk, in case you need to know, is a little bitty dump of a place in this little bitty town in Texas that is so boring, you can't even stand it. There's not anything going on. And listen to my mother who's got so much dementia, say the same thing over and over and over, and me act like she said it for the first time. That's part of making amends.

I get to be of service to my mother. That's the family afterwards. My mother, I'm not go live go live in her house with her until she dies. That's the least I can do for my mother. That's what I feel like I can do for my mother.

I want to be the one to take care of her. That's my commitment to her. That's doing something for the family Because what I've done, there's not any way I will ever repay the heartbreak I've caused my mom. It's the very least I can do. Call.

She lives in Texas. I live in Washington. Call. Make an effort. Put my self out.

I'd much rather spend my money, you know, going somewhere fantastic, than spending my money flying into Stanford, Texas. But that's what I need to do. I believe that the main thing that we have to do is recovering alcoholics in order for our families to heal is we have to be the spearhead to just do the right thing. I've heard people that, say, well, I just can't be around my mother or my father because, you know, this, that. It's a really painful situation.

And it's like, well, maybe because of you, if you can just start to send letters or something, this will heal. Maybe the hardened heart of your parent, because of whatever happened to them, will begin to soften and heal because of your membership and service in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. That those will that those relationships will begin to heal. And that's what we've been talking about this weekend, is relationships, necessarily always gonna be fun, but it will not necessarily always gonna be fun, but it will be the right thing to do. Because, you see, it's it's not always about me.

It's about what is it I can do for you. How can I make your life just a little bit better? I was, something I I just have to share this if, you know, to have some something if you've if you've never done this. My mother is a very she's 86 years old. Her little mind is just about gone, and, she she doesn't she can't and she can't get in a bath by herself.

And I have a lady that comes in once a week that gives her a bath, the rest of the time it's just a sponge bath. And I started I put her in the tub, and I washed her hair, and and I when she got out, I I rubbed her legs and massaged her with lotion. And she just looks at me, and she just puts her little hands there, and she says, you know, you're such a good daughter. You know, that's what you get to that's what because of you, we get to do those things. And we get to be good daughters and good sons and good parents and good grandparents.

And we get to do the next right thing because we are doing recovery in the family afterwards. Care about your family. They're the ones who have paid the highest price for our alcoholism. They're the ones that have hurt the hurt the most from our drinking. Dave talked about little kids because you're sober get to go to bed unafraid tonight.

Well, you know, some of you didn't get to go to bed unafraid, and some of your children didn't either. But if we stay here, we can begin to heal those relationships by just doing the next right thing. So I'll let Dave share all the family afterwards. I know you all must be getting very tired, and so this this is gonna be, just a brief status report, on our family. When when Polly and I got sober, we were not even in the same family.

And, everywhere you looked, there was just disaster. Children hated parents. Parents hated children. Mothers and fathers didn't particularly care for each other. Grandparents, were something to be tolerated, never enjoyed.

And, so here we are, all this time later. And it it is obviously, sobriety is not an event. It is a process. And, so a quick status report. Well, our oldest son, Russ, is happy.

He's married. He and his wife are doing well. They have 2 daughters. They have found their path, in church. They are in church.

They are heavily involved in church, and they are thriving. They love us very much, and we love them very much. Our granddaughters love to talk to their grandmother on the phone, and that is a warm, rich relationship. Our son, James in Chicago, he is married to a lady named Kelly. He has 20 years sober.

He's probably sold you many times. Kelly has 14 years. They have 3 children, and our oldest grandson is deaf. And, because of you, not because of us, but because of Alcoholics Anonymous, that little boy has no idea that he's handicapped. He isn't always handicapped.

Because of you, it has never been I mean, you know, when you have children with special needs and they have siblings, things get kinda complicated or can. But because of you, it it has never been too expensive. It has never taken too much time. It has never been too late. It has never been too early.

They are the best parents you have ever seen in your life just because of you. They did not learn those skills at home, let me guarantee you. And we are very, very close. We spend as much time with our kids as we can. We have a daughter, my daughter in Denver, and, perhaps you've noticed this weekend that I seem to spend a lot of time around young women.

And and, that's because, you know, I have to depend on I had to depend on you for many years, and I still do, to take care of my daughter. You know? That's the way it is. You know? I'll take care of your girl.

You take care of mine. You know? I I will be an example to your daughter, you know, that not everybody, is gonna be whistling or, you know, or acting inappropriate. That that there's a lot of people around that will encourage her to have a vision for her life and and to have something you know, to to not amuse herself with bad boys and and all that other stuff because she's bored. You know, do something with your life because that's I I give your daughter the kind of advice that I an attention that I hope somebody gave mine and is giving mine.

And, we can't save you know, we couldn't save our own kids, our boys. We couldn't save them. What what did we do? What did I do that caused my son, who has now died, what I did to cause him to get sober and me? I just was an example.

You know, I didn't tell him what to do or what not to do. I didn't tell him how he should act or not act. But because of this program, our entire family has been healed. Now all of this sounds you know, we're up here talking all weekend long about this big deal and that big deal, and isn't it wonderful? We're all happy.

And, well, if this seems overpowering, let me try to take a little bit of the fear out of it. You do it one day at a time. Just one day at a time. You don't have to be wonderful for the rest of your life. You just have to be wonderful today.

You know? Are you gonna are you gonna get eternal life? Don't even think about it. You can't answer that question. Don't even ask it.

Try to can you get your mind wrapped around eternity? Of course not. Can you get your mind wrapped around you know, I I have morning and say, today, I'm gonna be the best bee I can be all day long. Just today. I do I can do something today that would terrify me if I thought I had to do it for the rest of my life.

I can do it for today. Can do it today. So that's what takes the fear out. That's maybe one of the most important things you'll learn in Alcoholics Anonymous. One day at a time.

Just do it today and watch the day string together. And you look up one day, and, man, you can't look you know, your kid will come in and say something and say, holy mackerel. That was great. Where'd he get that? He got it from you.

He will have gotten it from you. She will have gotten it from you. So, I guess we're supposed to do questions and answers. Is what you wanna do? You gonna do it?

Do you have question written questions? Oh, break? You gonna take a short break? Oh, okay. Sorry.

I missed that part. Okay. Here's some questions that we have been given, and I will just just go through them as they, this. I'll read the question, and then I'll I will, tell you what, my response is, and I'll ask my wife if she has anything to add. And we'll just alternate back and forth between the 2 of us.

K? So the first one is, what are the solutions for an adult child? Presumably, that means an adult child of an alcoholic. Are they the same as for AA, commitment to a home group and action. Do the same things apply for us?

That's a that to me, is a very easy question. The answer is yes. It is quite possible that as an adult child or as a spouse, a member of Al Anon, or or as a child of an alcoholic, spouse of an alcoholic, close family member of an alcoholic, it is quite possible that you have actually become sicker than the alcoholic. You have acutely felt, and been through many things that the cold sober that the alcoholic went through drunk. So it's quite possible that you have been damaged worse than the alcoholic.

And I don't know of anything that heals that kind of damage, that kind of emotional and spiritual and mental trauma, but the same thing that addresses alcoholism, the appropriate 12 step program. That's we we to the appropriate 12 step program. That's we we have become really good at that. There's a lot of support for you in those programs. There are a lot of people in Al Anon and in ACA, AA who have been through all this and who can help you.

So, the solutions for an adult child is to become affiliated with with a 12 step program, work the same steps that the alcoholic works. What you're saying is that I am powerless over alcohol whether it's in your body or mine. Now I'm just as powerless over alcohol as you are, and I don't even drink. And and that's what's so spiritually traumatizing is that, you know, you you had no choice in the matter. You had no say.

Your father didn't ask you if it was okay with you if he were an alcoholic. Your mother didn't say, can may I have your permission to be a drunk? You had no choice. But you have a you have a choice on solution. You you can you can stay in that misery and throw your life away.

Please don't do that. Or you can just come in and find a program that that you fit into. They're around. There's Al Anon. Great program.

Work the steps. Do the same thing that everybody else does that needs a spiritual awakening. And guess what? It'll work great for you too. I I can I can march?

I can parade Al Anon people in front of you as long as you'll sit there and watch them go by, who are well and happy and joyous and free. What if a what if you get a sponsee and he or she is not in a condition to read and write, but desperately need to clean her house? I have had that. I have had that. And there are many ways to help that person.

First of all, I don't know what you have here in Denmark, but in English, they have AA on the bay AA big book on tape. So that's one of the things, if a person can't read, get him the AA big book on tape. And then what I have done when it comes to doing a 4 step is we sit down and I write it down, as they tell it to me. And then, we do the 5th step, and we make the list of character defects, and we make absolutely it can be done. Okay.

Let me do one, and then he can get up here. Do you offer do you offer yourself as a sponsor, or do those who need a sponsor have to ask for it? Both. I'm real good at assigning myself, you know, to be your sponsor. We have in our home group, if I'm not assigning, I'm sending one of my to assign herself.

Like I said, I I don't know where we ever got the idea. They didn't used to do it in the old days that newcomers can interview sponsors. I just, you know, maybe they'll change later, but what they need is a sponsor now. Right now. So that they can get to meetings and so forth.

And, I'll just go up to somebody in a meeting and say, do you have a sponsor? If they say, no. I'm it. Just tell them I'm it. I'm gonna here's what we're gonna do, and I'll pick you up.

It doesn't so. And sometimes that they are just so shell shocked, they don't even know what to do. But you know what? Most of the time, we both get to stay sober. And, what I do is then, you know, if not, if they don't have a sponsor, if one of my spons if one of my sponses is standing close, and I said, you have a sponsor?

They say, no. I say, she's it. So I'm not shy. And with regard to that question, let me ask you let me ask let me pose a question a quick question for you. Where the hell would we all be if if, doc if, Bill had waited for doctor Bob to call?

Okay. The question is, what what made you surrender to God AA and the program? What made me surrender was that I was just about to die of the disease of alcoholism, and I simply could not go on with my life without something. I I just could not go on. And, you know, I had all the all the drama stuff, you know.

I mean, I had frequent thoughts of suicide culture, surrender is shameful for men, you know, for men. Surrender is shameful. You don't ever surrender. So it's not easy, and it and it, it's just, you know, it was either do that or die. And, and I'll tell you the honest truth.

I can't go back in my memory and find details about that answer. When you're drinking as much as I was drinking at the time, things are pretty foggy. You know? There's a lot I don't remember. I'm just gonna stay up here.

I'm just gonna stay up here and do this. He's my manservant. Yeah. Polly's manservant. How do I stop caring about what people think of me and start caring about others?

One of the things I'd like to say is it takes practice. I'd love to say I get up every morning and say and the thought that runs through my head is, gee, how I'd like to go serve you. It doesn't. You know, the first thing that I think about is what about me? But what I do is I take actions contrary to way to the way I feel, and the way I take, and the way I take the way I think.

To take actions contrary to the way I feel and the way I think. I just do the action. And that's what the book talks about. It is not necessary that we feel or think anything. Just do the action.

And, wake up, I wake up, and if somebody's not calling me, I get on the phone. Just take an action and go do something kind for somebody, if it's nothing but let them in on the freeway, for those of you who drive. It says I I have trouble passing the message on. What can I do to help this? Our 12 steps says we tried to carry this message to alcoholics.

And and the truth is, you are the message. The way you live and the way, you react to your life, that is the message. You can't convince somebody you're wonderful if you're not. I mean, you could try. We have all tried that.

Many of us still do. Yeah. But you are the message. And as far as you deciding who needs what in terms of the message, that's I don't know how you do that either. I don't know how to do that.

I tell you how I make myself of service is I get up and volunteer every morning for service. I report for duty every morning by saying the 3rd step prayer and become willing to do whatever's put in front of me. And, and that's what I do. I don't go around looking for people that need the message. I just get up and say, god, you know, I'm very happy for you to use me in any way you see fit today and just go about my day.

That's all. If if you're ready, you'll come face to face with somebody that needs your help. Mhmm. And you may not even know you helped them. Don't make that a requirement.

Would you ever say no to a to sponsor a person? If yes, when and why? The only thing I say no to is that I am in both programs, and but I only sponsor an Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's because I just wanna just wanna focus on Alcoholics Anonymous. And I kinda and I really do have a strong belief in singleness of purpose.

So that's why. But I have I never say no to sponsoring someone in AA. And one of the things that happens is when somebody asks me to sponsor them, I say, yes. And I say, I have one requirement, and that is that you have to call me for 30 days. You have to call me every day for 30 days.

And I have a really good reason for that. I just wanna see how willing somebody is to work. And if you're really not, I'm not gonna work harder on your program than you are. It just gives me an indication how willing a person is. Would you ever fire a If yes, when and why?

I have never fired a I've been fired a lot, but I have never fired a sponsee. And usually, what happens is is that I I'll go a 1000000 miles with somebody who's willing. But if not, I mean, it's I I can I can tell when somebody's just, you know, they've just either asked me to be a sponsor in name only? I think I sponsor people somewhere somebody once said, oh, you're such and such a spa so sponsor. Sponsor.

I am? You know, they probably asked me 5 years ago, and I've never heard from them. I'm not their sponsor. That is not sponsorship. So I've never fired anybody.

It is just never been what usually happens is is that I have I don't demand anything of anybody. I just tell people, I expect you to do what I do. And sometimes, that's just more than people wanna do, so they fire me. You know, if they don't think they have the time to be as involved as I am, that's okay. You know, whatever works for you.

But I just, you know, I'm forever volunteering people I sponsor. They just just need to be doing the deal. K. Since I live on a small island with no person to sponsor Since I live on a small island with no person to sponsor me, what do you think about this idea, a group of women doing step study out of a book with and, for example, with no sponsor? Okay.

A couple of things. One is I think doing a step study out of the book is an absolutely fantastic idea. We do those a lot, you know, where you just read the book, I mean, and and talk about what you just read, you know, and and try to see how it might apply to your life. We do that a lot in the US. We have a lot of of step study and book study meetings.

So I think that is a great idea. If you if you don't have anybody that you feel compatible with, it can be your sponsor. If you have access to the Internet, for example, that is a a very powerful tool that we can use. Now I wanna say that nobody that I sponsor will ever, get the idea from me as their sponsor that sitting at home at night alone in front of a flickering monitor on an AA chat room is the same as going to a meeting. No.

Sorry. You know? However, I I have people that, I sponsor by email, so does Polly. And, it is preferable that you and see and this step study that you're talking about or or book study, this gives you a lot of face time with other alcoholics. K?

That's important. You need close relationships. Because once in a while, when a crisis comes, you know, if you have a sponsor that's 8 hours away through 8 different time zones and the Internet, then they're not gonna be very quickly have access to the have access to the Internet, find somebody that you're really compatible with and and strike up a communication with them over the Internet, through email. Another thing is that, you know, I have no idea what kind of what kind of cost the phone service may be where you are, but, you know, also phone service. You know?

You you can phone sometimes. You know? That also makes it relatively easy to be somebody sponsored, but but don't think that I'm recommending that you do that instead of spending time This the last one? Oh. I think this is the last one.

No. We already did that? Nope. Those that's it. That's it?

Did we do this one? Yeah. We did that. Is that it? What do you think?

No. We did that one. We did it. Alright. We are done.

Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. You know, in in just a few short days, we have fallen in love with you, and it's gonna be really hard to it's already very hard to know that you won't be going on with us in our life.

We're gonna see a lot of you again. I know that to be true because we have people sitting in the audience who thought we'd never meet again, and here they are, and here we are. So a lot of us will meet again, and our paths will continue to cross through the years. But that's not you know, for alcoholics, that's not enough. We wanna all be in the same home group together.

We wanna see you every day. So your kindness and your generosity has just been overwhelming, and we love you so much. Thank you. Thank you.