The 16th annual Hiawathaland Get-Together in Austin, MN

Hi. I'm Sue. Hi, Sue. Very grateful member of the Al Anon family groups because I live an alcoholic. And if you're new and sitting in this room, a new qualifier for Al Anon, if you don't love the alcoholic you're with, Al Anon can teach you how to do that because I didn't when I first got here.

And mostly because I didn't know it was a disease. I just thought he was stupid and crazy. And, they told me that he was sick. And then I was too. Yeah.

And if you're new and you're sitting in here and you don't like what the alcoholic's doing, wait 5 minutes. They'll change. A newcomer at our meeting the other night, her biggest problem was is her mother's the alcoholic. And what are they gonna do for where are they having Thanksgiving? And and the newcomer is gonna have Thanksgiving at her house because her mother complained, being the alcoholic, of having the mess in her house last year.

And she said so she told her mother, I'll do it at my house this year. And her mother said, I don't know if I wanna do that. I was thinking about going to Greece. And she goes, Greece? It's thanksgiving.

We told her not to worry about that, that, you know, by thanksgiving, she'd be in Germany or Japan. She'll be a lot of places before Thanksgiving. Good news is is most of the time, they don't get there. You know, alcoholics make all these plans. These are that's one of the things that really, made me insane Is he would say he was gonna do this and I would try to manipulate it where he didn't do it, and he never did it.

And I'd spent so much time on trying to get the roadblocks set up and everything, and then he never went that way. There were all those roadblocks over there, and he got out over here. Yeah. So I wanna thank the committee for asking Keith and I to come and share with you this weekend and for you, loving on us this weekend. And I wanna thank Annette.

She's a good driver. She didn't get lost or nothing. I was really proud of her. I went to a conference one time, and I didn't, the lady was gonna pick me up when at the baggage claim when I got there. And so I went over the information, and there was an escalator there.

And, and I'd seen this lady looking around, and I thought, well, you know, she'll come over to me because she's gonna have a sign and stuff, or she'll page me. And so I went over to information, and I said, would you please, page the person that's picking up Sue Drummond is right here, you know, at the information desk. And so they paged that. And I looked over, and there was this lady walking up the escalator. And when that page went over the PA system, she started walking down the up escalator, and I go, there she is.

Well, that's an Al Anon. We're so fun. Everybody's so fun. It's good to see the other people on the program here this weekend. We've known them for a while and love them to death.

And I love their time. I respect time in this program. And, always try to fill my bucket up with the long timers when I'm around them. I just, I love them to death, from where they come from to where they are today, has helped me so much. Yeah.

And, I I wanna thank our friends from Minnesota and Des Moines for being here. I love them a lot. And, they come to love on us. And God's so good to us because we get to see each other 2 or 3 times a year. You know, God put special people together.

And we're all special people here today. And, you know, Keith was so funny last night. Some of you guys have come up to me and said, God, I just love to hear Keith share. I love to hear him talk. Well, I want you to know that I'm standing here right now today because listening to that stuff made me crazy for years.

But he is so funny. He's my entertainment today. I love Keith. He is so funny. And, he does funny things all the time.

And but the difference is today that I don't get embarrassed by it. Yeah. He doesn't embarrass me anymore. I just look at him, ain't he cute? And I laugh.

And because he says and does things that normal people don't do and say, you know. It, it's funny. He has a shop and, and he builds motorcycles. And there's alcoholics in there all the time. And and he just loves doing that.

He's retired, but he's working harder than he did when he worked. And, and the deal is is he has alcoholics there all the time, and he just loves doing what he's doing, and I love him doing what he's doing. And, here awhile back, I went over there. And, so I went in, and he introduced me to this guy. And, he said, this is so and so.

He's from South Texas. And so I stuck out my hand and I said, hi. I'm Cyn. He said, yeah. I'm from Bay City, Texas.

And I said, that is South Texas. He said, well, my hometown is really McLean, Texas. And I go, Really? I was in my mother's home with a lady from McLean, Texas. And he starts shoving me out the shop.

Okay, Sue. We'll see you later. Bye bye. Yeah. And so on the way out, I asked some of the guys in his home group, I said, what's wrong with him?

And they go, Sue, that guy's not an AA. He's a customer. I thought, woah, paybacks or something, aren't they? Yeah. I wonder if that embarrassed him.

That guy just, So because we have no secrets today. We are who we are, and we've been taught to share in a general way what it was like, what happened, and what it's like today. And, and I'm gonna try to do that. It's, you know, I love being able to share at AA conferences because alcoholics are so funny. And, we love you so much.

And I'm so grateful for Alcoholics Anonymous giving Allan on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous because we really needed him, because we got sick too. We wouldn't have, if it hadn't been for you, but, but I'm grateful that you gave us a program of recovery. Yeah. And, and alcoholics are a lot of fun. And, and we love you.

We love you so much. We are we hang in. You know, I know there's a lot of people in here that, when they start drinking, get in trouble, and all that kind of stuff, whoever they were married to left and moved on, and no problem, they were out of there. And that's not a pre alanine. Pre alanines are the ones that hangs in and don't give up.

We just don't give up. We know there's a person in there somewhere that is loving, kind, and gentle. And we're constantly looking for that person. In our literature, it talks about every time there's a sober period, we think the problem has gone away. We have so much hope that one day, it's gonna be okay.

It's like this, man that he was gonna fertilize his yard, And he had a bunch of fertilizer brought in and dumped in his backyard. And, he's gonna plan landscaping and everything. And he had an optimistic son, and he had a pessimistic son. And the pessimistic son came up to him, and he said, dad, that stuff stinks like crazy. He said, what in the heck are you doing?

He said, it's horrible. You gotta get rid of it. And the father said, No, I'm going to plant grass, and we're going to spread it around. We're going to have a beautiful lawn, and it's going to be fine. Don't worry about it, son.

He goes, No, it's horrible. I can't stand it. And the father looks out the window, and his optimistic son's out there, and he's just digging in that fertilizer like crazy, just digging, digging, digging. And he goes out there and he goes, Son, what are you doing? And the optimistic son looks at him and he said, well, daddy, I know if there's this much horse shit, there's got to be a pony in here somewhere.' And that's who we are.

We know there's a pony in there somewhere, you know? And we're constantly looking for the pony. But it's like, I wasn't raised in an alcoholic home. And when I got to you, I was told, once you're attracted to the alcoholic personality, you will always be attracted to an alcoholic personality. And, I thought I wasn't raised in an alcohol home alcoholic home.

I didn't know no alcoholics. I did not know about alcoholism. It had never been a problem in my house. And, I looked at me, and I had to do a lot of writing about me and find out, you know, the smug and arrogance that I came in with. What's a lady like me doing in a place like this?

And, I did a lot of inventory work. And what I got to find out is that I had some characteristics that, when I met the disease of alcoholism, they turned into flaming character defects. I already had them there. And alcoholism brought them out in me big time. You know, my dad worked in the oil fields, and we traveled all over Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle and Western Kansas for years.

We live in a trailer house, and we pulled that trailer house, followed the oil wells. And I was called oil field trash a lot. And there was something in me that started believing what people would say to me. I never felt like I belonged because I go 5, 6, 7 schools in 1 year. And, and I didn't like it.

And my folks finally settled down the Texas Panhandle, and it's like, I never felt like I belonged there. I wasn't a hometown girl. And, I had an older sister and a younger brother. When I was, my older sister ran off and got married and started her own family. And I was 16, and my father passed away with cancer, and that left my mother and younger brother and I at home.

And my mom started partying a short period after my dad passed away. And I hated her for that because she's been disloyal to my father. And I was taking care of my little brother, and I resented that because she was going out having fun. I'm the teenager. I'm supposed to be having fun.

I'm supposed to be doing this stuff, and she's doing it. And who does she think she is? And so I started looking for love in all the wrong places. And I ended up in San Antonio on an unwed mother's home. And I stayed there for a period of time, and I gave a child up for adoption.

And I'm so grateful that I did that today because I know at that time, no way was I ready, willing, or able to be responsible and be a parent. And, I heard something in there from a counselor that I never heard until I got to you. She said, God uses people to help other people, and God used you as an instrument to help people have a child that they couldn't have. And so I accepted that, and I went back home. And I got home, and it was like boring with the kids that I used to know and run around with.

And one night my mother said to me, would you like to go to a honky tonk? And I said, Yeah, I'd like to go. Because I wouldn't have much fun with the kids, because I'd learned some things while I was in there. And so I got ready, and I went that honky tonk with her, and we walked in. And it was a room bigger than this, in a Quonset building.

And it was, smoky. Everybody was drunk, and they were rowdy. The music was loud. People were fighting and, yelling at each other. And it's like, Yes, I'm home.

I loved everything about it. It's like, oh, wow. You know, I'd never done anything like that before, and I loved it. And I looked around the room, and I saw this cowboy, and he was starting fights. And I thought it took a lot of courage to do that.

And he started this fight, and he came running past me. And he said, honey, let me know when the fight's over. And he ran in the woman's restroom to hide. And so after the fight was over, I said, okay, cowboy. You can come out now.

And he came out, and it was the last dance. And usually, the last dance is a slow dance where you rub up against each other and get ready to go home. But this was a fast dance, and it kept getting faster and faster and faster. And we never missed a lick, and I loved it. And as I look back on that, what I understand from that is that he got me downtown in the fast lane right now.

He did for me what nothing else had ever done for me. And I understand today that the only difference between the alcoholic and the Al Anon is that the alcoholic's obsession is the booze, and mine's the boozer. And that's the only difference. It set up that, obsession with me immediately. He called me the next day and asked me out.

My mother said, no. You're not going out with him. He's older than you. He's been married before, and he's in trouble all the time. And I said, I don't care.

Keith comes over to pick me up, and we walk outside, and there's no car. And I go, now wait a minute. He said, You don't understand. I towed my car and I lost my driver's license forever. And I said, No problem.

I got a car and a license. And so I got him in my car, and I knew what to do. I took him to the drive in movie. And I knew what to do there. You kiss and smooch and steam up the windows.

And we got the drive in movie, and we sat there, and we watched the movie. And I thought, well, this must be what it's like to be with a more mature man. And then I noticed that he had a 6 pack of beer sitting between his legs, that he was more interested in than me. And that set up that obsession. I wanted to be number 1 in that man's life more than anything.

And I started competing with alcohol from that day forward. And, Keith and I started dating. Many times, he wouldn't come pick me up. We'd schedule a date, and he wouldn't come and pick me up. And I'd think, now he can't treat me like this.

He doesn't know who this is. And all that smug and arrogance had come up. No training whatsoever, and I would start into this. When he gets here, I'm gonna say this, and he's gonna say that. Or when he calls me, I'm gonna tell him.

Do all the what for us, and then he'll understand. And so he'd call me, and I he'd go, Hi. I'd go, Where were you last night? He'd go, Well, I don't know. Why?

Well, we were supposed to have a date. And he'd go, No problem. I'll pick you up tonight. And I'd go, Okay. And then I'd be really mad, you know, because I hadn't told him all this stuff.

So I thought I'll show him. I'll show him how it feels. And so before he'd get over at my house, I'd chug a lug a few beers so I'd know what it felt like. He'd walk in my house, and he'd look at me and he'd say, well, you're not going anywhere tonight.' And I'd say, why not?' He'd say, 'Because you're drunk.' I said, 'I go with you when you're drunk.' He'd say, I know. You hang out with drunks, I don't.

You know? That's the way it was. Yeah. And he was so funny. He, he used to have long hair and a long beard, and I hated that.

I did not like long hair and long beards. And I would bug him about getting a haircut and a shave. And the more I bugged him about it, the worse it got. And he was coming over during the week to watch TV with me, and my girlfriends would talk to me about him their boyfriends coming over and doting on them. And they'd sit on the couch and smooch.

And, my boyfriend was coming over and falling asleep. I did not understand Pass Out. I did not understand the disease of alcoholism. And I thought, Well, I've got to change this. I'll show him the sweet taste of revenge.

God, I lived on that for years. So one night, Keith came over, and he went to sleep on me, and you're not gonna treat me this way again? I'm gonna show you. And I got a razor, and I shaved off half his head and half his face. And he got up, and he went home.

He came back the next day to take me out, and he looked the same. And he went around like that for 2 weeks. And, with Greg Main Street, go down this way, clean shaven, they turn around with Greg and reveal on, and he'd say, the people in this town think I'm 2 faced anyway. And I would just laugh and giggle. I thought he was so funny.

Yeah. And we used to go across the Oklahoma Panhandle up into, Kansas to these honky tonks up there because you could drink out of the packages, you know, get packaged liquor and drink out of them. And, so we go up there to the honky tonks. And I went up there one night, and he wasn't paying attention to me. And I know how to make a man pay attention to me.

You flirt with somebody else. And when he sees them paying attention to me, then he'll pay more attention to me. I didn't know alcoholics worked in offices, and he just got really mad at me. And, we got in a fight, and we were leaving. And who's gonna drive?

And he won. And so we start out toward Texas, and we get to the Oklahoma state line, and they have radar set up there. And he said, oh, my gosh. If they catch me, I'll never see the sun again. And I said, no problem.

I've never had a ticket. So we switched places in that car going a 100 miles an hour. But there's nothing wrong with me yet. And, we got down at the end of the other state, the other state line before you go into Texas, and they had a roadblock set up there for us. And the highway patrol came up to the window and said, We don't know how you got under this wheel, because you weren't there when we clocked you before.

But we've checked on this car, and it's been reported stolen. And so we're gonna take you both in. And he swatted off the cops, and they handcuffed him and put him in the sheriff's car. And they told me to follow him 40 miles to the county seat so they could arrest me, so I did. And, and we get there, and they're fingerprinting and booking me.

And, they said, you can make one phone call. And he said, I wanna speak. I wanna talk to the district attorney. And I'm I'm being fingerprinted in a book, and I'm thinking, oh, my gosh. This man goes straight to the top.

I am so impressed. And so he makes a phone call, and pretty soon, this guy comes in. And he's an older man with a dirt gray hair. He was really cool. He had on a coat with a fur collar turned up, you know, and he looked really good.

And I was immediately attracted to him. Today, I know it's because he's an alcoholic. And, Keith introduced me to my future father-in-law, so I was in custody, alcoholism is a disease. I did not know that I was contacting that disease. And I did not know any of those things.

Nobody taught me how to do any of those things, how to start taking the rap, how to cover up for him, how to do this or that. It came natural for me. And, you know, I think it, it's so funny because, my sponsor says, you know, if we kicked everybody out of Al Anon that had drank and used was an alcoholic, we wouldn't have a membership. And it is so true, because I am so grateful today that I don't have the phenomena craving. I think it's so important that for Al Anon's to read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Not in a meeting, but on your own. It's not conference approved literature. But our literature says to learn everything we can about the disease of alcoholism. And I think it's so important. And I don't know a better reference point than to find the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I'm grateful to the long timers in this program that raised me on that book, because it told me a lot. It told me about me. It says, No human power can relieve their alcoholism. And that God could and would if he was sought. And I did a lot of damage in our family and in our marriage and with my daughter, over and over and over again, thinking I had the answers that I knew.

I had to have the answers. Because the disease of alcoholism, and Keith is starting to tell me that I am stupid, and that I'm dumb, and that I don't know this, and I don't know that. And the disease in me is starting to believe the disease in him. And so I have to know everything. I mean, he came over at my house one time and he had been in a fight.

I didn't know he'd been in a fight. And his jaw was hurting. He said, It feels like it's knocked off kilter and all this kind of stuff. And I don't know what's wrong with me. Can you look at my jaw and see what's wrong with me?

And I had to have the answer. And I told him I thought he had polio of the teeth. Yeah. I had to have an answer because I couldn't be stupid. Yeah.

Keith had been to school for many years, and his folks and I decided he needed to go back to school. And so, you know, Keith and I ran off to Amarillo, Texas, and got married because he'd gotten a draft notice. And then the next weekend, Uncle Sam didn't want him, so I got to keep him. And then we decided that he needed to go back to school, and we moved to Oklahoma. And shortly after we got there, we had our daughter Simone.

And I can remember looking at her and thinking, Thank God she's a girl. Because Keith's a drunk, his dad's a drunk, and his granddad's a town drunk. If we have a boy, he'll carry on the family tradition. I did not know that alcoholism doesn't care what sex, color, race, or creed you are. It'll take you to the gates of insanity and hell, and you don't even have to drink booze to get there.

Alcoholism is a family disease, and it affects everybody in the family, the non drinkers, the children, everybody. And I'm so grateful I know that today. And, and we have to do everything that we have to do in order to hit a bottom, in order to get here. And I believe that every, every non drinker has to hit a bottom in order to get talam on. You see, I don't I don't believe that being married to an alcoholic is making makes me an alanine.

Being affected by the disease of alcoholism and recognizing that I need help and going to a program called Al Anon Family Groups, getting a sponsor, working the steps, and giving this thing away makes me an Al Anon. When Keith, went in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for those 4 years, he used to be a drunk. And then he started going to AA. And then I'd call him an alcoholic, and that would make him furious. And so I understand today that alcoholics are only people sitting in rooms like this.

Drunks don't come in here. And I understand today that we can't call anybody an alcoholic unless they call themselves that. We have a newcomer in our group right now that wants her husband to call himself an alcoholic, and he's drinking really bad. And she's complaining because he's not responsible and he can't do anything. And so the other night, he was gonna make stir fry for dinner.

And he said, because I make the best stir fry, and I know you like it. And you're going to these meetings, and you're trying to change, and I wanna help you. So I'm gonna fix dinner so you can get to your meeting. He loves her going to meetings, but she doesn't like him being drunk. And so he put stuff on the in the skillet on the stove, and she went by and turned the stove up, and walked on.

And, it started burning, and he went in there. What's happening? And she said, you can't do anything right. You're too drunk. She totally set him up for failure, robbing that man of his dignity.

And I identify with that. I used to do those kind of things to Keith. Only mine was in a more violent way. You know, I don't know why, Keith and I were both very physically violent people. The disease of alcoholism brought out a rage in me that nothing else had ever brought out in me.

And I had to fight it with all the vengeance I had. And, after Keith and I got married, we started fighting because the disease progressed. And I'd get in his face, we'd do things, and I'd get in his face and shake the finger. You can't do this. You can't do that.

And he'd say, Sue, get out of my face. And I'd take one step closer, and I'd start shaking that finger and yelling at him again because he had to know what I was saying. He'd say, if you don't get out of my face, I'm gonna hit you. And I'd take one step closer, and the knockdown, drag out it and fight was on. You see, when I did an inventory, I used to blame Keith for being mean.

But when I did an inventory, I had to look at me when I did the 4 column inventory outline in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was responsible for the violence in that house. He would tell me, leave me alone. He would tell me, get out of my face. And I would test him.

And then he had hit me. And I loved it when he hit me because it always did in the very beginning, I remember the first time we got in a big fight like that. And, I couldn't give up, and he couldn't either. And he had me on the bed, and he's got his hands around my throat, and he's choking the living tar out of me. And I'm thinking, Oh, my God.

I'm gonna die. I'm literally gonna die here. And I looked up in Keith's face, and he's looking down at me with all the intensity I am number 1 in his life. And I would start those circumstances like that all the time because it was the only time I could get a 100% of his attention. And I craved it.

I craved it. I believe, just like the alcoholic craves alcohol, I craved his attention. And I had to be number 1 in his life, and I competed with alcohol. And like he shared last night, you know, he liked guns. He fought with guns.

And I hated that because they shoot things you don't want them to shoot. And it's like, I'll show you. And I picked up a butcher knife and I started fighting back with my butcher knife. Because I didn't know what else to do. It's the progression of the disease of alcoholism that I can make you stop.

And he'd come home, we get in that fight, and he'd pass out on the bed, face down one time. Almost a fatal mistake for him because he was ignoring me and you don't ignore me when I'm talking to you, and I got my butcher knife and he's laying there sleeping. And I took that butcher knife and I started stabbing him all over the back with that butcher knife saying, God, please help. Please help me do away with this. I didn't know that this that I was dealing with was a disease of alcoholism.

And then I go, oh, my gosh. What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? This is the man I'm supposed to love. And I'm trying to kill him.' And I laid down and I cried myself to sleep.

My God, what's happening to me? And the next morning, we wake up, and Keith goes, oh, my God. Something's wrong with my back. And I said, well, let me look at it. And I peeled his t shirt up, and I looked at it, and I said, you've been drinking all that rock up whiskey, you've got acne in the back.

But don't worry, honey, I'll get the rubbing alcohol and I'll fix it. And I loved it. I loved every oh and ah. We tried, to the best of our ability, to do the right things, to be normal. And he shared with you the trip from Oklahoma to California, which was crazy.

And, it took us 30 days to get there. And we were insane one day at a time for 30 days. And, we get to California, and it's gonna be different out here. It's gonna be different out here. And he had told me to get me to move to California.

He said, Babe, when we get to California, you don't have to go to these honky tonks anymore. You don't ever have to drink out of a paper sack anymore. You don't ever have to get in those fights anymore. Because, you see, I started in on the fight and deal with him. You don't flirt with my man.

You know, I got in a fight with a girl one night because she was flirting with Keith, and you don't mess with my property. And I threw her through a plate glass window. One of those honky tonks. And they came and got her and took her to the hospital. And she didn't come back for about 6 weeks.

And she walked in that place one night, and she said, Look at my face, what you did to me. They had to take skin off my hip to graft my face back together. No guilt and remorse there at all. I said, 'Fine. From now on, we'll just call you butt face.' That's the kind of person I was.

No compassion. No feelings for anybody else. She deserved it, Because she was messing with my man. And, I don't ever want to be that kind of lady again. So I know about the disease of alcoholism and how it progresses.

And when, you know, Keith was saying, you don't have to go in those fights anymore, you know, I was he said, you can go to a restaurant in California and order a cocktail. And you can be a lady out there, Sue. Oh, my gosh. I wanted to be a lady more than anything. I didn't know how to be.

And so, when we moved to California and got all of our stuff out there and got moved in, And Keith had started working in the oil fields, and he'd be gone. And, 1 Friday night, he came home, and he said, Would you like to go to dinner? And I said, Oh, yeah. We'd been waiting. So we hurry up and get all dressed up, and we go, and we drive up in front of this brick building that's not a Quonset hut that has Rosies painted on the window.

It's not a place that has a board with Shangri La carved across the door. It's a nice place and people are dressed up. And they are nice, classy people. And God, I'm going to be okay in here. It has cocktail, a neon sign on the building.

And God, I am so impressed. I want to be a lady. I want to be in there. I want to be like those people. And so we go in there, and they seat us, and they came over, and they said, Would you like a cocktail before dinner?

And I said, You bet. We didn't leave Simone out at all. We ordered a Shirley Temple for her. And they came and they set those drinks down in front of us. And Keith picked up his drink, and he said, 'Babe, let's toast to the good life.' And I'm going, yeah, because that's what it's gonna be now.

We're gonna be okay. And so we toasted to the good life. And then he started ordering more. He ordered 10 of my one. I knew exactly how many he had.

And then the waiter came over and he asked us for our order, and he said, 'Would you like wine with your dinner?' I said, oh, yeah.' Because, you see, I'd watched those people in there, and they had these long stemmed crystal glasses, and they were swishing it and sniffing it. I didn't know what in the heck they were doing that for, but I wanted to be like that because they looked classy. Because growing up in a trailer house, you don't have fine shine and crystal, and you don't, you're not classy people. You're, you all feel trash, and I want to be like them. And that's gonna make me like them.

Because, you see, I was always judging my insides with your outsides. If I could just feel the way you looked, I'd be okay. I had to come to you to find out that happiness is an inside job. And so we said, 'Yeah, we wanted wine with our dinner.' And so they brought the wine over, they set the glasses down, and it's like, oh, yeah.' And they pour Keith just a little bit, and he says, is it okay? And I looked at him and I said, what do you mean, is it okay?

He drank stuff in Oklahoma, had things spoken to him. Pour mine. And he poured mine. And I sat there in all of my smug and arrogance, and I swished it, and I sniffed it. Oh, my God, I was a lady.

For the first time in my life, I felt like a lady. And I look across the table at Keith, and he's drinking out of the carafe. And I yell at him, what are you doing?' And he yells back at me, I'm drinking. What's it look like I'm doing?' And Simone slides under the table and said, 'Not here.' ever forget I'll never forget this. Because, you see, it's me.

And he walks over to our table, and he said, I'm sorry.' He said: 'You're not eating here.' And I said: and why not?' He said: 'Because you don't know how to act.' Oh, my gosh. You don't understand. It's not me. If he wouldn't be acting like that, I wouldn't be like this. You don't understand.

Constantly blaming my actions on somebody else, not being responsible for me. And so we're being escorted out of that restaurant, and we can never go back again because Keith's talking to everybody in sign language. And we get home, and I get right in his face. And he says, Get out of my face. And I take one step closer, and the knockdown drag out fights on.

And we did that all the time. And when Simone, when Keith would get tired of fighting with me, he'd walk away, and Simone would be standing there. And I had that rage inside of me, and I didn't know what to do with it. I can't quit. I'm not ready to quit yet.

Don't you understand? And I couldn't see nothing. It's like a fog. And I'd turn around, and Simone would be there, and I'd take the rest of that rage out on her. Because, you see, it's a family disease.

And I didn't have any answers. And we went through a lot of stuff, you know. We'd put Keith in jail, call the cops, and they'd come get him, take him to jail. The neighbor would call the cops. The cops were at our house all the time.

They came one time, and Keith and I had been fighting. And I couldn't get my butcher knife, and he had the gun, so I picked up the holster. And I started beating him with the holster, and the cops drove up. They go, What's going on here? And he behid the gun, of course, when the cops came out.

And Keith said, I don't know. Look at her. Ain't that cute? And they go, 'Where's the gun?' And I said, 'I don't know. He had the gun.

He had the gun. This holster's my weapon.' And they're going, 'Yeah, right.' So I had to give them a demo. And, they put the handcuffs on me. I was the crazy one, not him. I was the crazy one.

It is, the denial in the non drinker with this disease is so overwhelming. I went to a meeting a few years ago, and I've never forgotten this. And I shared at that meeting, and afterwards, this lady came up to me and she said, Oh, my gosh. She said, My home is just like yours. My husband and I fight just like you do.

And, I said, you getting his face? And she said, no. My husband is so mean, I don't get any space. I don't do anything.' And I said, 'I don't believe that.' She said, it's true.' She said, 'But I'd like for my husband to meet you. He's over in the AA meeting.

And she said, He's only been sober a couple of weeks, and he won't believe this, that we're so much alike. She said, can you wait here and I'll go get him? And I said, sure. And so she goes, gets her husband, and she comes over, and she takes his arm and sticks his hand out to shake my hand. And I said, what are you doing?' She said, 'He's blind.' And I said, and you're not getting any space?

He's got to find you before he can hit you.' Yeah. The denial that we come in with is unreal. And I know that I had to do everything that I had to do in order to find you, in order to find God. And I know that my God loved me enough to let me go through everything that I went through so I could find you. In order for me to hit a bottom, to be willing, to be willing to come in here and do life somebody else's way.

True surrender. And, I don't ever want to forget the last drunk. And, Keith came home and, we left. We got in a big fight. We was always leaving each other, taking turns who was gonna divorce who.

That's how I got him, I thought, 4 years earlier, how I got to go to take him to Alcoholics Anonymous. But see, when I hit my bottom, that wasn't the answer. That didn't work. He was in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for for years. And like he shared last night, when he would go to that AA meeting that I took him to and made him stay in there, because I was sitting in my car with my butcher knife, said, if you come out before 10 o'clock, I'll gut you.

Power. I had the power. So I knew that AA didn't work, and I had no answers. And I was tired. I was so tired.

And, the last drunk Keith was, he had turned on Simone, and he was doing the things to her that I'd always done for her. And it had happened before, but it was like, this is the first time I'd ever seen it. Like a moment of clarity. And a feeling came over me, a calmness of nothingness that I'd never felt before in my life. And I looked at Keith, and I said: Keith, I don't love you anymore.

But I don't hate you either. And if you've got to become a Skid Row bum, because that's what I thought happened to drunks, then that's what you've got to do. But we ain't going there with you anymore. I'm done. And Simone and I got some things together, and we walked out of that house for the very last time.

And I am so grateful. I don't remember what happened in the next 4 days, but I do remember sitting in a corner of an empty room somewhere. And I'm rocking in the corner, and a little 13 year old girl is standing there patting me on the shoulder, saying, Mommy, it's gonna be Okay. The child is comforting the parent. And she said, Mommy, I need some things for school.

I gotta go home. I gotta get some things for school. I was so wrapped up in the disease of alcoholism and my obsession for Keith and his drinking that I was 3 or 4 years in this program, where I was telling that story. And later Symone said, Mom, do you know why I had to go back home and get stuff? And I said, for school.

And she goes, no. I was trying out for cheerleader. And I didn't even know it. That child had no support from her parents to do things that she wanted to do, or try to be good, or try to be right, or try to get involved in her school functions. Alcoholism is a family disease.

So I finally said, Okay. And Simone and I got in the car, and we went back to the house, and we didn't know what we was gonna find. We were afraid it was dark. Because Keith was always shooting stuff with these guns. And, he had shot a dog.

Simone brought a, she's a little Cocker Spaniel dog home one time, and it was licking her in the face. And Keith jumped up from what I know as a blackout, and said, You can't love anything more than you love me. And he shot that dog right in our living room. Nobody cried. Because, you see, if you show any weakness, you might be next.

And so that was the kind of insanity we lived in on a regular basis. You had to be strong. You couldn't show weakness. And Keith was always committing suicide. He had, sit in his recliner after he'd come home from a big bender, and he'd wind down with Red Mountain wine, and he shot off sawed off shotgun.

And he'd sit in that recliner, and it was one of those jackback kind that his granddad gave him. And he'd put it on the floor, put his toe on the trigger, and he clicked the trigger with it in his mouth. It made me crazy. I got so tired of watching that that I put a shell in that gun. I'll show him this time.