The 2nd Olympic Roundup in Port Angeles, WA

My name is Ellen Cassidy, and I'm an enthusiast at Al Anon. Hi, Ellen. Good morning. She did very well. She remembered Addison for about 30 seconds.

I am so happy to be here. I'm just delighted to be here. I I have grumbled about this trip and grumbled about this trip because I spent 11 hours. I here I go. I spent 11 hours yesterday trying to get here just to be of service to you.

And, progress, not perfection. And, and I you know, I've grumbled about it. And it was a fabulous day yesterday. I had a great time. I had a wonderful time.

In spite of myself, I had a great time. And I get on this tiny plane to fly the whole 20 minutes it takes to get here from Seattle. It was such a short trip that the attendant I am not making this up. The attendant said from her little jump seat up front with the phone in her face, she said, I don't have time to serve you anything, but if you want peanuts, I'll throw them to you. Hands went up in the plane.

That's great. And there was a lady sitting next to me who wept. She wept when the plane landed. She'd only been gone from here 4 days. She'd been in Chicago though.

And she was when we flew over, she goes, there's my house right now. Mean, she was so happy to be here. She was just beside herself. She got off the plane and she was dead. This is some kind of magic place.

This is really, and I I had the chance to just walk a little neighborhood this morning. I just got up. This is absolutely breathtaking. It's just gorgeous. But the best part are these people.

And I am I just feel honored to be here and so so grateful that god thought it was a good idea. And I wouldn't be here if he hadn't thought it was a good idea. I introduced myself as an alanon, and, I'll I would like to explain that to you. But, of course, I would because explaining is one of the things I do best. It's, of course, part of my disease as well as part of my recovery.

I just think this god of my understanding that you have given me would talk about a sense of humor. Explaining is part of the reason I got to Al Anon. And now god has made little nests of people all over the country, and he says, go explain, honey. Just explain to your heart's content. And I got a lot of explaining to do.

Al Anon is not what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn't know there was such a thing as Al Anon. It was not on the West. What I wanted to be when I grew up was I wanted to be somebody's wife and somebody's mother. And I was gonna be the best wife he had ever.

And I was gonna be the best mother those kids ever had. What I ended up being was somebody's judge and somebody's jury and somebody's executioner, And it wasn't fun for any of us. When I got to Al Anon, I didn't wanna be here, but I didn't wanna be anywhere. So that wasn't too unusual. When I got to Al Anon, the I don't know why AA finds it necessary to put the sickest people they have at the door in our area anyway, but that's what they do.

And it's those guys that go, hi. Welcome to AA. Come on in. You know? Just kinda once they get a hold of you, they don't let go.

It's like, you know, you're in the room. And there was a guy at the door. Hi. Welcome to AA. And I went, oh, well.

I'm really not looking for AA. I'm I'm looking for Alec. And he and it you know, the whole thing changes. He goes, oh, Al Anon. And he said, I'm not making this up either.

I make up very little. I still make up a little, but you won't be able to tell. I'm a professional. Anyway, he said, oh, well, to get to Al Anon, you'll have to go through the big room where the really sick people are to the little room in the back where the tables don't exactly match because we've given them all of our hand me down tables. And they're all purse slipped and blue haired and that's Al Anon.

These are the people I wanna spend the rest of my life with. Oh, really? You know? And and I was in Al Anon a while and, actually, I decided the thing I would really much rather be is alcoholic. And there were several reasons for that.

Number 1, it really appeared to me, that alcoholic women had a lot more fun than we did. And, apparently, my husband preferred them. So I decided I'd be alcoholic. Now I did not wanna drink to become alcoholic. For one thing, I had no idea how long that was gonna take and I needed to be alcoholic, like, that afternoon.

You know? And to be honest with you, I wasn't sure that I could control it. You know, I've been told that I'm about a, about an 8 ounce Coors away from from the seat in AA. But, I I my solution to that was the same solution I had to everything else in my life. I thought if I changed how it looked on the outside, it would change how it felt on the inside.

So, obviously, all I needed to do was look alcoholic. Before I explain to you how I manage that, let me tell you that, alcoholic women saved my life. I did not come to Al Anon surrendered. And I don't think I can't speak for Al Anon. They they say that.

But it's not true. I really can. I didn't come to Al Anon surrendered, and I don't think most of us do. I came to Al Anon looking for one more thing that might work. I came down and I'm looking for a little more power so I could get him to be the way I thought he needed to be so I'd be okay.

If you, if you're not sure sitting out there today, you lovely beautiful people, if you're not sure whether or not you've surrendered, you have not. When that happens to you, it will leave no question in your mind. If you have not surrendered, it's okay. It's okay. Hang around.

Your chance will come. And if you miss that one, that's okay too. There's another one right behind it. It'll be a a little louder, a little bigger, a little more painful. But, it you'll keep getting them.

They'll keep coming. There's not a shortage of surrenders. I came, I didn't come surrendered. I looking I came looking for one more thing that might work, but surrender happened to me. Almost 3 years into the program, surrender happened to me.

And when I hit that place, when I saw the big black hole and knew I was falling in, I didn't have to explain it to AA women. They already knew because they'd already been there. There's a wonderful AA lady at my club who took me aside after a meeting one night and she said, honey, those Al Anons mean well. They have no idea. She said, what you need is 448 through 452 every day for a month.

And I went, I'm on it. I am on it. I'll do anything. I'll do anything and I did it. I am a big book alanine.

There are parts of this country where, that's not acceptable out the big book for whatever reason do not ask me. I do not know. Is it not, approved Al Anon literature? I personally think it is a bit insane to attempt to work the program without the directions. Hello?

And they are in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now I have to tell you that I did read it about 42 times before I quit highlighting parts for my mom and turning down corners for him. But on about my 43rd time through there, I I was reading this page or someone was reading it to me which is often what had to happen and I went, oh my god. They're talking about me. I have the same disease.

One of my solutions, however, is not alcohol. But I have the same disease. Anyway, so having told you that alcoholic women saved my life. I am from, Addison is a very nice way of saying Dallas. And in gorgeous North Dallas, alcoholic women looked all looked pretty much the same to me.

So my solution to looking alcoholic was to outfit me myself that day in skin tight jeans and stiletto heels. Well, I learned a couple of things from that little experiment. Number 1, I didn't like anything control me like those pants did. Number 2, Al Anon's are doomed to sensible shoes. We really are built for speed and not looks.

If you love an alcoholic, you better be ready to go in a flash. And those shoe you could hurt yourself in those shoes. You might even lose him, you know, in in those shoes, because he hardly ever looks at your feet anyway. Anyway so, the place where I did this little experiment, because god has this fabulous sense of humor, was at the Crested Butte Mountain Conference where I go every summer to spend the week with 600 of my closest friends. And, that week, I got to spend the week with 4 people who had between them a 125 years of Al Anon.

One of them was Elsa, Chamberlain. And I like I got to not only hear their talks, but I went to meetings with them. I had meals with them. I got most importantly, I got to watch how they interacted with their families and how their families interacted with them. At the end of the week, I had the answer to the question that bugged me most of my life, which was, what do you wanna be when you grow up?

Deep down, I knew I didn't know the answer to that. You know, it implied a couple of things a, I should know and oh my god what if I picked the wrong thing? And 2, that I was responsible for my life and that was really your responsibility not mine. But I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. What I want is I wanna be free.

I want the freedom that's offered me in step 3. I want the freedom to be who it is that god would have me be. And I'm so grateful that God has given me a way to get there. And it's the 12 steps of Al Anon. I, when I got to Al Anon, they said I had to quit pronouncing myself.

I had to quit pronouncing other folks as alcoholic. And I'm really very good at it. I I really am. It's it's a it's a curse and a blessing all in the same thing. At this school where I used to work when when these teenagers would come to enroll in school, sometimes if they were concerned about the child, they would have have me meet with them for and if I thought he was the cutest kid in the world, they'd go, that one, we gotta watch him.

It's gonna be on the way. As a matter of fact, I've been in the program I've been in 4 or 5 years, I guess. And, I was a single mother raising a couple of kids, and my best friend in the program had was a single mother. And we needed a little extra cash, and so we were it was in the year of what color is your balloon or whatever that thing was, you know. It's just you should follow your heart and just do the thing you're really good at and the money will come.

So she might we we thought for a long time about what is it we're really really good at? Well, the thing we were best at was picking out alcohol. So we decided we're gonna open a little business and we were gonna call it drunk and busters. And if and here was the deal. If you love somebody and you you weren't sure for a very small fee because we would love our job For a very small fee, we would go out with them.

And if we came back thinking he was the cutest thing since sliced bread, you'd know that if he didn't have a chip, he needed one. Well, our sponsor wouldn't let us do that for some reason. I'm not sure why but she wouldn't let us. They said I had to quit pronouncing people as alcoholic, that it's a self diagnosed disease. But they said, honey, if he walks like a duck and he swims like a duck and he quacks like a duck, treat him like a duck.

Other people have been dictating reality to you your whole life. This is where you get to start having your own reality. Treat him like a duck. I was I suspect the doctor quacked when I was born. I, have been around quacking my entire life.

And the issue really is not their quacking. The issue is my need to hear the quacking. Because if it gets too quiet, I will head up a quacker. I don't feel really, like, comfortable in my skin unless there's quacking somewhere around me. You know?

It's just I I adore alcoholics. I just think alcoholics are the I mean, what's the point in these other people? You know? What is the point? The I mean, I never liked those easy guys, you know?

Anyway Anyway, my, parents quack. I'm not the only one who's heard the quacking there but, the issue is that there are other people who have not heard the quacking. And you heard our tradition that says the only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend. And it does not say that the relative or friend has to say I'm an alcoholic. All it says is I that I my bother is stirred up.

My parents quack. I am the oldest of 9 children and most of the rest of them quack. I have married several folks who quack. I worked for a man who quacked in his office for 13 years, and I am the mother of a quacker. And yet none of these you know, that's the first part of the first step.

That's how I got to Al Anon It's because I'm addicted to quacking. What's kept me in Al Anon is the second part of the first step. It's the unmanageability of my own life. Al Anon is not a program for people who need it. This planet reeks of people who need Al Anon.

You meet them every day. The surly little woman in the grocery store. The, the rude waitress. The, the guy who cuts you off. Now he could just as easily be need this program as AA.

Al Anon is not a program for people who want it even. There are a lot of people who come to my my meeting, my regular my home group, and they love the way the fellowship feels. Some of them even love the laughter, and we laugh a lot in my group. Some people are turned away by the laughter because alcoholism is not a funny disease. And if anything I say up here to you today, you hear other people laugh and it's not funny to you, that's okay.

You can't laugh about it till it's healed. But if you heal hear yourself laughing, there's another little healed place probably with no scar. What happens is these people come to our room and they sit in there and they feel the fellowship in the room and they, hear you know, we they will say to you sometimes, gosh. You're so wise. You know such wonderful things.

Until we get to step 3. Al Anon has often been accused of being a 3 step program. We do the Al Anon Walls. We do 11212, 11212. We know what the problem is.

We got the answer. Let us tell you about it. All that other stuff in the middle is is really just for folks who just don't know like we know. Because step 3 is the place where we tell folks, if you work this step, your life will change. And we go, oh, no.

Wait. Oh, wait. There's a little miscommunication here. Did did you think I I, like, wanted my life to change? No.

Actually, you see, my life is not that bad. It was really his life. We're like, we're we're folks in a lake of liquid manure up to about here. And it's not particularly pleasant but, it's comfortable. We know how it got there.

It's ours. And we're used to it. You know, we know where the edges of it are. You know? And so we're just hanging in there and people come along in a boat and they say, you don't have to live like that and we can show you the way out.

And we go, oh, no. Oh, no. Really? Really? It's not that bad.

I just want you to keep that guy over there from making waves. Well, now and you realize, as I did, I'm sure that the only thing that guy can kick up is my stuff. I would like to draw this big boundary and tell him don't cross that. Don't you be pushing my buttons. Hello?

Who's buttons are they? You're responsible for the buttons. See, what happens sometimes at my group is, we get to that you know, people hang around. They come for the fellowship. They understand.

We get very powerless. There's recovery. Yada yada yada. And then most of the time in my group, about 99.9% of the time, we really do what it says. We and we have to remind ourselves at every meeting that we keep the focus on us and not on the alcoholic.

On us and not on the alcoholic. You think once or twice would be enough. No. Every meeting, we gotta talk about that. Oh, yeah.

It's like on the other side of the wall. And we would laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh. And for a couple of months, every time our meeting was over, the door would open and these EAs would come and they go, what were you laughing at here? They really were laughing at them and we really didn't think they were that funny. Anyway, yeah.

Sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes one of us will get started talking about the old days, you know, back when old Frank was, you know, doing his thing. And she'll say something about, you know, he she came in one night, and he was passed out. And she got some fingernail polish or something and poured it into one of his body orifices somewhere, you know. And old Frank pulled up the next morning and went, oh my god. And he's been sober ever since.

You know? You watch that little newcomer in the room and she goes, oh. Check you. You know? And she's out because she got what she came for, you know.

And you gotta pray for poor old Frank because he's in for a rude awakening in the morning. Al Anon is really a program for people who are willing to work at it because that's what it requires is slight persistent effort. You are not an Al Anon because you love an because you love an alcoholic or you're married to an alcoholic or you know an alcoholic. Those people are alligators. I am an Al Anon.

I'm an Al Anon because I have a 12 step recovery program that I practice like my life depends on it. I am convinced today of the fatal nature of my disease. I'm an Al Anon because I have a committed meeting I go to every week like a doctor's appointment. If you wanna find me, you come to the 6:15 Monday night Addison Al Anon Family Group. And when I walk in that door, they go, Alan, There you are.

Give me a hug. How are you? And fine is not an answer they will accept. They know me better than that. And when they say, how do you feel?

I stop and I feel myself all over. And I tell them the truth about how I really feel. I'm an Al Anon because I have a sponsor who knows everything there is to know about me and, apparently, more because I've never told her anything that made her go. You did what? Like my poor mother used to do.

She she really seems to love me more after I've told her some new thing I thought up some new solution I've come up with, you know, than she did before. I I discovered in Al Anon that, really, the problems in my life are not the problems in my life. The problems in my life are the solutions I've come up with. And we have to say that at every meeting. Trying to force solutions.

Not just any old solutions. Our solutions. Okay. So there you go. I'm an Al Anon and I know you're pleased.

And here we are only 20 minutes in a meeting. When I was 17, mama diagnosed me, as boy crazy and she sent me some place where she thought it'd be safe and was Lubbock, Texas. I know you'll love this. The very first Al Anon meeting in the entire state of Texas was held in Lubbock because it reeks of it. It's a place where they told alcoholics they can't drink.

So nothing makes them drink faster than telling them they can't drink. So that, you know, the this. I went looking for him. Of course, I was always looking for him. And it took me 6 months to find him.

But and when I found him, he was married to somebody else and was £60 overweight and had 2 kids. But none of that seemed insurmountable to me. Like I said, I don't like those easy guys. You know, I don't. I don't like those ones that come up and go, oh, you're really cute.

Can I have right for me? I want those ones you have to fight for. You know, those ones you have to make yours. Those ones have to, like, you know. A year later, we had shed the wife to 2 kids and the £60, and I I had my prize.

Oh, lucky lucky me. I've been out and on a little while, and I look at that relationship and I realized there was something desperately wrong with it from the beginning. I grew up in a family of heavy drinkers. I grew up in a family that acted as if there was something that matter with people who did not drink. Now understanding that part of my disease is selective hearing.

I hear what I want to hear. Doesn't mean that I like it. It's just what I anticipate I'm gonna hear and by God I hear it because it fit into my little world of things, you know. So having told you that, I will tell you that what I thought I heard him say was stay away from people who don't drink them. They are probably fanatics.

They could even be Baptist. And so I stayed away from people who didn't drink. And then I I find him. And one of the deals is he's not drinking. He's belong he's in a religion that people don't drink, and so he's not drinking.

I find that very strange that I would have picked someone who wasn't drinking. But I think the chaos of alcoholism was already a big part of my life, and I was looking for something crazy but stable. Now I have to report to you that by the time we married he was drinking. It's a pattern in my life you will hear repeated. We've been married 6 months when he hit me the first time.

I didn't grow up in a family where adults hit each other so the reaction I had to that was not anything anybody taught me. I came up with it in that wonderful place that I come up with all my solutions right between these little ears. And my solution to that was to double dog dare him to do it again. I've been in Al Anon a while. I've done I I was, like, in my second time through the steps before I looked at that and went, wow.

That was insane. What kind of deal is that? One of the things I discovered in that little experiment was that it didn't take any more insanity for him to hit me the second time than in the first time. For some length of time, I volunteered for that abuse by double dog dare him to do it again. At some point, I crossed a line, And I went from the volunteer to the victim.

I do not know when it happened. But today, after a number of times through the steps, I know how it happened. Every time he hit me and I believed what he said, which was if you hadn't done what you did, I wouldn't have to do what I did. Every time he hit me and I believed him when he said, you deserve that. Every time he hit me and I got up the next morning and I looked at myself in the mirror at a at a black eye or a bloody nose or a swollen lip and I said, it's not that bad.

I'll just stay in the house a day or 2 and nobody will know. Every time I did that a piece of me left and it was a piece of me that didn't come back back until 9 and a half years later because I'm a sticker. I make my bed and by God I will apparently I will come real close to dying in it before I decide to get out. Nine and a half years later, when somebody said to me, you don't have to live like that which I'm sure I've heard many times before. But this one said, you don't have to live like that and the magic words I love you.

I left. And I did it like I did all my other male relationships. I go love you. Love you. Love you.

Love you. Got you. Don't need you. When I did my first 5th step and I shared with her what this this first husband had done that I called hitting me, She said, honey, when somebody holds you repeatedly under a cabin cruiser in 20 feet of water, that's not hitting. It's attempted murder.

But I have this disease called it's not that bad where I rationalize and justify and make it about me. Because if it's about me, then I got the power to make him different. Now number 2. I'll just number him for you. It's really simpler that way.

Number 2 comes along, and he was perfect. Oh, you woulda loved him. He was perfect. He was the right height, right age, right coloring, right family, right job, right education, right everything. He was.

Well, there was one teeny tiny little flaw. He didn't come home nice. But, I'm thinking a couple of home cooked meals and a little and I got it. That's how I mark my territory. And, so I followed that plan, work that solution a while, and I nailed him.

But I'm like the mounties. I always get my man. If I set out for him, they need they ought to just go on and give in early. It would save us all a lot of energy. But, anyway, I got him.

And, for about a year or so, it looked like my plan was working. God was on my side because he kept coming all night. It was great. And then, of course, because he was a bar drinker. Now the reason we call them bar drinkers is because they drink in bars.

So simple. It really is. It was real confusing to me for a while, but I get it now. He was a bar drinker. And, that means that there's gonna be a night he doesn't come home.

And the night came, but he didn't come home. Well, I lay on the floor of the bathroom and I cried because I was pretty sure he'd seen the £2 I gained and that's why he didn't love me anymore and that's why he wasn't coming home. And then, I pulled my little stuff together and I decided I just needed to go sit down on the sofa and wait. If you're in training for Al Anon, you must pass through graduate waiting. And you know that you're in graduate waiting if when you are waiting, you can do nothing else.

You cannot cook. You cannot, clean. You cannot watch TV. You cannot read a book. You cannot talk on the phone.

The children would come up to me and they go, mom, I can't talk to you. I've waited. And that's because while you're waiting, you're listening. And you are listening for the sound of those tires. There are ummpia, a 1000000000 other tires on the on the road.

Don't matter. Don't care. Know the sound of those tires. And because mine too is a 3 fold disease, it's physical, emotional, and spiritual. I would have a physical reaction when I heard those tires.

I'd hear those tires and I'd go, oh, he's home. Now the the next the next thought may be, I'm a kill. I'm sorry. Oh my god. We're walking home.

You know? But the first thing was, well, I'm waiting. I'm sitting on the sofa and I'm waiting. And then I decide because this is what I do. I decide that if I could just, like, see his truck I would feel so much better.

So I decide to go press my little nose to the window and see if I can see him coming. These are not, wrinkles. These are Venetian blind marks. This is the corner. If you've ever been to Dallas, this is the corner of Midway Road and LBJ Freeway.

And probably about 10,000 cars every 10 minutes go by there. But that's okay. If you're a graduate waiter, you just watch faster. And then my mind does what my mind does left to its own devices. I used to call this love.

I realize today it's not but, this also was a hard lesson for me. In my mind all of a sudden I knew when it happened. Oh my god. He I don't know why, but he threw this car out in the country for some reason. I don't know why, but he just decided to do it out in the country.

And then all of a sudden, for some reason, I don't know know why, but it doesn't matter. A new car just like, blow up. And then blow up. And then blow his body into this dish. And now all the animals are coming and tearing off body parts and it'll be 7 years before we can identify the body.

See, what I like is what I think is really, really cool about this whole deal is you understand that. You will never see on Al Anon Room assigned think, think, think. And that's because we see think, we think obsession. If you let us think, that's where we go. Obsession.

And obsession is an obsession until in your mind somebody dies, until you take it all the way till they're dead. I heard an AA say one time that the reason it says think think think is you can only think about it 3 times. If you once you get to 4, it's obsession. God. I'm so grateful for that.

I like those hard and fast rules. Anyway, well, I'm here to report to you that 99 times out of a 100, alcoholics come home. It may be that day or the next day or 3 years later, but they come home. And when he came home, I was at the door like a 3 year old who's been caught crying all afternoon and you said stop it. You know, I was at that place, you know.

And, you're smart slinging everywhere and swollen. I think about that picture. I think, no wonder he drank. You know? If that's waiting for me at home, I'll just have another.

Okay? I met him at the door. I asked the second stupidest question we ever asked. Stupidest, of course, is have you been drinking? 2nd stupidest is where have you been?

Because, actually, the only answer that would have saved me would would have satisfied me would have been in a ditch bleeding. Really? And he looked at me and he went, oh my god. What happened to you? I just been so worried.

I I didn't know where you are. I just been so worried about you. Oh, my. Your address is in my wallet. Anything ever happens to me, it'll be the first amount.

Well, thank you. I feel so much better now. And then he said, you knew where I was. And you know what? I knew where he was.

He only went 3 places. He was either at home, at work, or in the trap room drinking. But I have the ability to hold opposing thoughts in my head and they never touch. And the two thoughts were he loves me more than anything in this world. He told me that.

My life hung on that. And the other one was he's in the trap room drinking. But if this one's true, that one can't be. And in my diseasiness, I would rather wishing dead than acknowledge the truth. And he said, he wanted me home.

All I had to do was call me. Even I knew that wasn't gonna work. And he said, I I I don't know why I'd say married to you. You're crazy. It's crazy than your mother.

And I said, I'm sorry. Now what is the matter with this picture? He is 3 hours late drunk, and I'm saying, I'm sorry. We marry alcoholics hoping we're gonna change them. They marry us hoping we're never gonna change.

Al Anon fall in love with people's potential. You know? We just think it's up to us to dig down there and get it out. You know what I mean? Well, okay.

So now you see that the real problem here is I have an addiction to mind altering people. They're the ones who would say to me, isn't the sky a lovely shade of brown? And I go, oh, brown? Oh, right. Yes.

I think I use these brown. And by the way, I do. I see brown over there. They're not a good way to live. Well, I walked on here married to the, you know, the perfect guy with the little foie for a number of years.

And and then this woman called me at work one day and she was a woman who I was very afraid of because she was an angry woman. And she was angry all the time. She always talked like that. She called one day at school. She said, I wanna ask you something about my child.

She told me something that if it's not true, I'm gonna rip her lips off. I mean, I really like to lead her. And I thought for a long time, I thought I was afraid of angry people. What I've come to learn in Al Anon is I'm not afraid of angry people. I'm afraid of my own anger.

I had never allowed myself to be angry. I had turned it all to the inside. All I ever did was hurt. It was the only feeling I had when I got to Al Anon was hurt. I just hurt.

Of course, I've I'm happy to report that I have been angry a number of times in recovery. And, the first time it happened, I called my mother. I'm like, oh my god. She said, wow. What's going on?

I said, I don't know but I'm gonna kill all my life. She said, oh good. Well, I said, what am I supposed to do with this? She said, nothing. Nothing.

Well, I have learned a little trick. I just get a pasteboard box and kick the snot out of it all around the house and call it names, and I feel so much better. Anyway, this angry woman called and she was crying. Now, the primary alanine illusion is when you're okay, then I'll be okay. I will go places in my diseasiness.

I will go places I don't wanna go with people I don't wanna be with. I will stay up when I'm tired. I'll eat when I'm not hungry. I won't eat when I am. I'll sit up all night with your sick mother when I don't like sick people and I sure don't like your mother.

It looks very loving and kind on the outside, and it's the most self centered behavior on the planet. I do not do it because I care about you. I do not do it out of the kindness of my heart. I do it because I need you to be a certain way for me. I need you to be okay.

And in my diseasiness, I will lie. I will cheat. I will steal. I've been told that maybe the the greatest thing we do for each other in Al Anon is we tend to each other's pain. We don't tell each other when we start having a hard time like that.

Look off your face, missy. Go to your room. And when you can get a better attitude, you could come out here with the rest of us. In my little group, we really practice this. We have boxes of Kleenex that sit around the table.

But if somebody starts crying, we don't shove the Kleenex at them. We sit still and we let him cry. I've learned in Al Anon that everything, every day, every relationship, every book, every feeling, every everything has a beginning and a middle and an end. But if I'm not willing to get past that beginning, if I'm not willing to get into the middle, I will never get to the end. And a lot of us come to Al Anon so hurt, so angry, so confused that we are terrified to start crying.

We're terrified to start feeling again because the feeling is if I ever start, it'll never stop. It will take over me. So little pieces at a time when people start crying. You know, you watch newcomers. The one the most, the one thing that most newcomers do is they sit in the meeting and they cry.

They look fine when they come in. And they may laugh through a couple of people until it's their time to share, and then they go, hi. My name is and they just weep. Know? They just weep.

I I I thought I was I remember saying about 6 months into Al Anon, I remember saying, oh, I'm so sorry because I'll get to this crying. They said, that's okay. We're the sponges. Go ahead. And they let me cry a little bit at a time a little bit at a time.

We don't in the meetings, we don't pat each other on the back. If somebody's having a hard time, we keep our hands off. We let them do what they need to do. We don't tell them it's gonna be okay. You know what?

I'm not supposed to tell you when I get up here what it's like. I'm supposed to get up here and tell you what happened and what I'm like today. Because there are a lot of times that it still sucks. And that's not the difference in my life. The difference in my life is not the it's, although it sounds like that.

The difference is me and how I respond to things rather than react to things. We do know and we can tell them you're gonna be okay. There is an end to this. This too shall pass. As a matter of fact, it came to pass.

That's the whole reason it's here. So this woman calls and she's crying on the phone and she says to me, my husband is in a 12 step recovery program for alcoholism. And as part of his recovery, we're gonna pay this school all the money we owe you. She's crying. I'm an alligator.

I'm feeling very dis easy. And I lie to her. I say, I understand because my husband drinks too much too. Now, the problem was not his drinking. It never was his drinking.

The problem was he didn't come home. But see, I wasn't gonna tell anybody that because I thought that was about me. I thought if I was a better wife, he'd be there. If I was somehow different, I'd be enough for him. And if I was enough for him, then I was gonna be enough for me.

I was talking to somebody who was new in Al Anon and we are deadly when we're new. She was evangelizing for Al Anon. And, for months, I lied to her. My grandmother got sick and things were just it just wasn't that bad. And then the day came when it was that bad.

And that's what will happen if you live in alcohol active alcoholism. It will get that bad. And, I had to turn myself into her and she took me to a meeting and, for a long time, I didn't tell him I was going to Al Anon. And then it came out, and I told him I was going up. Because I went during the day while I was supposed to be at work.

They didn't care at work. I was pretty useless at that point. So, I told him I was going and at first, he was very angry because what will people think? Now now here's the guy who came home at 2:30 in the morning, 2 o'clock the bar is closed. He comes home at 2 with the air conditioner on full blast, so that he's like icy.

You know, it's like ice dripping off of him when he gets home because he's gotta keep himself awake till he gets there. Yeah. And he insists on backing in. I don't know why. That garage to this day, he would back in, wham in, slide back a little.

And then as often as not, would pitch forward and pass out on the horn. And this is the guy who doesn't want people to know. You know? Anyway would you give me would you hit me one more time? I don't think you Then after a while, he decided it wasn't so bad that I was going to Al Anon.

He decided, as a matter of fact thank you. That it was so not so bad that one Monday morning, I got a call from a woman who said, I wanna talk to you. Your husband has been here with my husband all weekend drinking. And I said to your husband, how can you do this? How does your wife put up with this?

And he said you found a way and I should call you. He was 12 stepping for Al Anon. You know? Because Al Anon had told me, get off his back. Leave him alone.