Kansas 31st Annual Al-Anon/Alateen Conference

I'll be his brother if he's got money. Hi, my name is Chuck O'Neil and I'm a grateful member of Al Anon. I got some stuff to take care of some house cleaning chores. I'm not going to talk about the pen because I just use the pen to write down what time it is. It's 7/17 because I don't remember what time I start.

So I want to write this down so I know by 9 or 10 tonight that I should be getting close. Well, I don't know why you're laughing. I got this letter. I got a contract in the mail. Is Ashley sitting here tonight?

No, she's got a cool name, by the way. It's almost like a TV reporter's name. I'm not going to say her last name because she's not here. But it says you can talk for 500 minutes. Well, I figured that's 8 hours and 20 minutes.

So I can talk 4 hours, 20 minute break, talk 4 hours, you still get a barber in here in the morning, so we got time. Okay, 717. I want to thank the committee for asking me here today. So I got to write this stuff down or otherwise I'm going to forget it. The only problem is I do it kind of goofy and then I wonder why I wrote down certain words, I can't figure out, oh, I know why that's there.

I want to thank the committee for what the heck, If you see me disappear, you know why. And I move around a lot, so this thing might be falling on the floor before the night's over. I thank the committee for inviting me here today, and I want to thank Jim for picking me up at the airport. Jim brought me to a place that served Indian style food, you know, from India and I had never had that type of food before and I don't even know what I ate, but I had 2 helping to everything. So it was good and it was, it was a warm room last night, I'll tell you.

Woah, that's some hot stuff. But I do like hot food, so it really wasn't a problem. I like spicy food. I like hot Mexican food. I I want to thank Dave and Diane for hauling me around and being with me this weekend and we have had a good time and we have related their time in sobriety and their time in Al Anon is almost equals Sandy and my own, my wife's name is Sandy.

We came into the program, we've been in for 23 years and I think you guys said 21 or something like that. And our family situation is kind of similar too. And so we had a good time to sit and talk and just get to know one another. Got a fruit basket in the room. It must be like Kansas.

I've never been to Kansas before. I've seen it on TV with Dorothy and those people, but I always thought it was kind of flat, this fruit basket is flat. It's just a flat basket and of course I'll be able to get it on the airplane. So that's cool too. I got to tell you about what was in that basket, there was a lot of stuff in there.

Now I'm here by myself. My wife Sandy is in Eau Claire, Wisconsin right now with one of her pigeons and she's probably as we speak at an AA meeting right now. And then she had a concert that she sings and she sings with the school district singers. So I'm here by myself. Now in this fruit basket among other things are lemon flavored soap for sensuous bathing.

There's a lemon candle in there for sensuous lighting. There's tea in there that is sinfully cinnamon, and then there's some tea in there that is sweet dreams. Well, you see, I don't like to be sinful by myself anymore. So it's just not that much fun, you know. So anyway, I, I I had the other tea, whatever it was, mint tea or something, I felt safe drinking that.

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out here. It's going to be Father's Day tomorrow. So I want to take that opportunity to say it tonight. That's to fathers or father figures and I don't include sugar daddies in that. So you're on your own there.

See what else I got. I got that taken care of. Boy, I'm really ripping through here tonight. I didn't even know if he remembers that. We've had really wonderful speakers and I'm not going to go and talk about what they talked about.

But I heard some good stuff. And I heard things that are very, very common sense that I've not heard before. And I've been to a lot of these conferences and I've been in Al Anon for quite a while and it's wonderful to come to places and hear new stuff and hear common sense stuff that's new. So I appreciate listening to the speakers and what they have to say. And I especially appreciate being able to listen to your report.

That was very, very informative. Thanks to the grace of God in the Al Anon fellowship, I haven't had to be angry or upset or profane since 7:30 this morning when I stubbed my toe on that damn door stopper thing. The alcohols alcohols got it easy. Alright. I haven't drank since Terry Truman was elected.

No. Us poor Al Anon people, we don't have that luxury. I love the theme of your conference, let it begin with me. I had an opportunity, I've not said this before, so I don't know how this is going to come out. This has happened to me on Monday night or Tuesday night.

I belong to a church and I'm on the board of trustees and we had a meeting Tuesday night. And one of the guys that gave me a ride home from the meeting was a member of the of the our alcohol synonymous fellowship. And he got away from AA and got into the church and now he's on the board of trustees and he's very active in church and his church is his recovery. And I'm not saying that's good, bad or indifferent. That's just the path he chose.

But he knows that Sandy and I are in our recovery programs because Sandy and him went to meetings together, way home, And on our way home, when I'm alone with him, he likes to talk about the way AlcoaX anonymous was in his mind and he likes to ask me where are you going? I told him I was coming to Kansas City this weekend and he said, are you going to be talking? And I said, yeah. And so he said, Chuck, how does the Lord work in Alcoholics Anonymous in Al Anon? And it was a question that I hadn't expected him to ask.

And my reply was I don't know a lot about Alcoholics Anonymous other than what I hear from Sandy or just hear from being around. But I said in Al Anon, I think the way God works in Al Anon is that a lot of people come into Al Anon fellowship and they're either afraid of God, they're angry with God, they refuse to admit there is a God, and and they don't want anything to do with God. If if God was so great, why did he allow this to happen to me? That kind of thing. And I said the way in my situation anyway, in my thoughts in my head, I think the way God works in Al Anon is that he allows he works through us and we bring God back into a person's life in a gentle manner by allowing them to come to Al Anon.

We don't stuff things down their throats. If they want to choose God as their higher power, that's their prerogative. And to me that's the way God works in this fellowship. I can believe in God or I can choose not to and I'm not going to be condemned for that. I've never had my heart bruised in an Al Anon meeting.

I have been in other situations, in other spiritual situations where I've had my heart bruised by believing in what I believe in. You people allow me to believe what I believe and you don't take me any other place and I really appreciate that. I was born in I was born in Ironwood, Michigan, moved to Superior during the war. I'm 60 years old. My mom and dad moved to Superior, Wisconsin during the war.

My wife, Sandy, was born and raised in Superior, Wisconsin. We grew up about 6 blocks apart from one another, didn't know each other until 9 months before we were married. Superior is a blue collar town. It's a union town. I'm a retired teamster 30 years in the teamsters.

I work for the Superior School System now as well as my wife does. We're both in special education right now. Superior is a town of 25,000 people and 89 bars. You can't go too far without falling into a bar. I said, if you can throw a softball, you can hit a bar.

And a lot of them were family bars. When I grew up, both my parents drank. And when I grew up in the '40s '50s, we used to go to family bar and we'd sit and have great pop and chocolate bars and my dad would sit at the bar and talk railroad and drink beer and my mom would sit in the booth and drink beer with her lady friends. In Superior, Wisconsin back then up until the end of the sixties, mid sixties, it was illegal for women to sit at the bar. So if you women and liberals want something to think about it, you've come a long way, baby.

But we I never considered alcohol a problem. The arguments that my parents had usually happened when there was drinking, but I didn't see it as alcohol. We're the alcoholic. I have no idea. It doesn't matter anymore.

I'm a big boy. I gotta take care of myself. On Sandy's side of the family, on her paternal side of the family, alcoholism has run rampant. There's been several deaths from alcoholism on her father's side of the family. Her own father was an alcoholic, had to plug in the jug for 40 years.

And I'm not breaking anonymity when I say that. He used to talk about that. He found his recovery in another situation. He used to do work in the mission in Superior and we had a number of missions down in the down in the north end of town. I grew up on Third Street, which was the wrong side of the tracks.

Sandy grew up on Sixth Street, still the wrong side of the tracks. There was houses in the old repute on either side of our house, there was bars, there was bordellos, it was just the way it was. Sandy and I both grew up in a rough part of town and when we started drinking, we started drinking in that neck of the woods because that's where we were familiar. Sandy and I, well, I'm going to start with myself here. I got out of service in 1964 and in Wisconsin, I don't know what it's like in Kansas, but in Wisconsin at that time it was illegal you could not drink in a bar unless you were 21 in the city limits, but you could go out in the county and drink at a county bar if you were 18 and that bar only served beer.

Those were beer bars, that was the county and we used to drive. There was nothing for us to put 150 miles on a night driving out to the county to drink. And consequently there's a lot of kids that aren't around that died on their way home from the county. It was a given that you knew people that they were going to die coming home from the county. Almost every year there was 1 or 2 or 3 or more.

Sandy's fiancee at the time, shortly before she met me, a year or so before she met me, they were going to go out in the county, they got into an argument and she wouldn't go. So he went with 2 other people and all 3 of them died coming back from the county. I grew up in the era of the Super Bs, 426 Hemmings, those kinds of things. We had fast cars, cheap gas and cheap beer and that was the result of that. One particular night my friend and I and my friend Dale asked if I wanted to go out in the county and have a beer at Clara's.

Clara's was the family or was the watering hole that we used to frequent. I said sure, nothing else to do on a Wednesday night, so we went out to the bar. Got out there and we were having a couple of beers and all of a sudden, Dale's girlfriend Nancy comes walking in. Now Dale's girlfriend Nancy had this beautiful beautiful woman with her and and I looked and I thought, oh, crap. They're gonna come and sit with us.

Oh, I didn't I I wanted that woman to sit with us but I didn't want that woman to sit with us. Do you understand what I'm saying? Because I was a dork. I was I had glasses and I was tall and skinny and I had had well, I had long hair then, extremely long hair then and I just didn't feel good about myself. So here it comes strolling over and it was Sandy by the way and she she had this black sweater on.

It was 37 years ago and I remember the sweater was filled out to its maximum potential and she had this hairdo that came up the top of her head like Marge Simpson and it was that was what they did back then and it was looked like a root beer float because it was frosted, you know, and it had brown and light colored stuff in it and but 3 cans of Aqua Net and oh, man. She sat down next to me and I always say Aqua Net still can turn me on. Yeah. Because back then, that's all there was. There was none of this gel crap back then.

Nancy sits next to Dale. Well, where's Sandy gonna sit? Right by my left leg. And you ever rub your feet on a rug and then you walk up and you touch somebody and that spark comes out? Man, there were sparks flying up and down my left leg.

And it was just and I was getting warm and hot in this area, and I was getting warm and hot in other areas and I was just we were already engaged, married and had 3 kids before I even was introduced to her, you know, and and holy smokes and and she we were introduced and then she said, Chuck, what do you do for a living? And at that time, I worked in an auto parts store and that's what I told her and she went, oh, and I thought she went because who would want, you know, and I thought, oh, crap. There I blew this one. Told her where I worked. Hey, you're not, you know so I'm sitting there thinking, oh, god.

I would love to go out with this woman. That I she is so beautiful and she she just I mean, she had mascara that just stuck out like an inch and a half, you know. She looked like giraffe eye eyelashes and and her face is so pretty and that hair and that smell of that aqua net thing. And and then and I knew she wouldn't go out with me, but she did something and she denies this, but she took her toe and she touched my ankle with her toe. I had I had those night dreams for 3 weeks after that, you know.

I told her one time, I said if you would have kept doing that we wouldn't have to get married because that was good for me, you know. What did I know? But we did start going out together. We became from the first time we met, a couple of weeks later we doubled and we doubled a couple more times with Dale and Nancy and Nancy who introduced us works right next door in the next room in the school and then she's a school nurse and we work in a special ed room and so every once in a while she'll go, I introduced you to it. I said, oh, yes, I know.

I know. Forget it. What do you want, a medal? Should hit you in the head with something. Anyway, we're we're yeah.

Yeah. She was touching my leg and I was getting horny. Okay. We we we started going out and we just fit together like a hand in the glove. We were 2 sick people looking for one another.

And after that it was just like total exclusion of our friends. We both had friends, but we just became inseparable. We said we weren't going to be serious and that lasted I think about a week, 5 days and 4 hours and after that it was way beyond serious. It was just like we were just going to do it. We got married 9 months later.

It was January 21, 1967, it was 38 below 0 that night in Superior, Wisconsin, and we had to make our own heat which we did, thank you very much and then we started having kids and we had a good time so we drank a lot. Everything we did had to do with drinking. I mean we went to the movie, we took a bottle of wine, we went out to eat, sometimes we didn't get to go eat because we stayed in the bar too long and then there was no sense to go eat. She was 19 years old. I was 22 and we were just kids.

I had left the house, my folks' house at 17 to join the military. I got a military, moved back home. I met Sandy, and I lived home until we got married. The night we got married, I moved out of home. So we had never been apart we had never been alone, either one of us.

And in her in her house, alcoholism was, although dry was rampant. It was on recovered alcoholism. And in my house, it was, oh, I love you I love you I love you. My to this day, my is still like that. She'll call me up on the phone and go, I'm going to bring the paper out, Chuck.

I have to have the Sunday paper. She has to bring me the Sunday paper every Sunday. I can't buy it myself. She brings it to me. Okay, ma.

We're probably gonna go someplace. Don't go yet. I'm bringing you the paper. Okay, ma. I love you.

I love you too, ma. Goodbye. Or if she forgets to tell me I love you, she calls me back. Oh, I forgot to say I love you. Oh, okay, ma.

I love you too. Goodbye. And that's the way my house was, pass the potatoes. I love you. So here we are Sandy and Chuck together, you know, and it's just like, wow, we didn't even know what love was.

We didn't know what relationships were, we certainly didn't know what healthy relationships were and we're starting this life. And Sandy got pregnant and had my oldest son. I've got 3 kids. Chuck is 35 and Chris is 34 and and Kurt is 31. They're great kids.

They were great kids. They are great adults and I love them dearly. Although, I'll talk about my youngest one who's extra special. He's he's a good part of our recovery and I'll bring him up later on. So we started having kids and and I don't know about you allen on people here but see my wife if I talk about Sandy's alcoholism or if I talk about drinking or any alcohols, I'm not talking about them because they're all hawks.

I don't give a damn about alcohols. What I wanna tell you about is my insanity, the insane behavior I had as a sober most of the time, sober person, my insanity by being affected by somebody else's alcoholism. Alcoholics are nuts. Sure they're nuts. Everybody knows that.

But the nonalcoholics get nuts too and that's what I wanna talk about is my own insanity. I'll let you figure out who's insane, me or the alcoholic. And for me, it's pretty obvious who was crazy. Anyway, Sandy had this friend of hers and she her name was Squeegee. Well, it's still Squeegee, but her nickname was Squeegee and she had this thumb that was she smashed it in the door and it was about this big and she could use it for a spoon to eat with, you know.

And and squeegee, the first time I met her, she was throwing a beer can at a guy. And this is Sandy's best friend. Well, she's the one that forced Sandy to drink. Y'all got those people because the alcoholic wouldn't drink on her own, you know that. I mean, Sandy would have preferred to stay home with me rather than go out drinking, but but her friend dragged her out the door and and got her started.

And and one night I'm sitting home with these 2 babies, Chris and Chris and Chuck were 13 months apart, And so I'm sitting home with these 2 babies and Sandy's off drinking. By this time, she's turned 21, she's off drinking and, I'm sitting home alone and I'm thinking I'm gonna go get her. I'm gonna kick her butt and and I'll I'll drag her out of that place. I know where she is. I'm gonna drag her up by her hair.

I'm gonna give her something that she'll never forget. She won't do this again. And I'm thinking, well, I got the kids home. Well, I left the kids home. I jump in the car and it's in the wintertime.

I told you it's 38 below when we got married. So in the wintertime in Superior, it gets cold and I jump in the car and I drive down to where this lady lived and sure enough, there's lights on. There's a couple cars parked out in front. I recognize a few of them and and the party is going on inside and I'm, oh, I'm so mad. I I just I hate her guts and I hate myself for being involved with it.

Why didn't I do what did how did I do this? I deserve a lot better than this kind of behavior. This is crap. I'm going in there and I'm gonna kick her rear end. And I sat there for a little while longer and I thought, I'm gonna go in there.

I'm gonna go in there. You're not going in there. Start the car up, go home. Now who's nuts? I left my 2 little babies home alone in their cribs.

They were both in cribs at the time. Left those 2 little babies home in cribs, neither one of them get out of the cribs, and it's 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, whatever it was, and I'm driving around town. What would happen if the house caught on fire? What would happen if those babies started crying? Who's gonna be there for them?

Nobody. Now who's crazy? The alcoholic who's sitting in there having fun drinking a couple of beers or this nonalcoholic sober goof that leaves his kids home alone, and that's the way it was with us. We used to we used to go out dancing and and we go out together and sometimes we'd have fun, but there came a point practically every time we went out after a while that things stopped being fun and turned bad. And one one night, we're at this this wedding dance.

It was a room about this size. It was up on the 2nd floor of the VFW in Superior and we're up there dancing. Now you alcoholics aren't gonna understand this. You you all and all people are gonna understand this perfectly. You're gonna recognize this thing.

The alcoholics don't because by the time it happens you're too damn drunk to know what happens so you don't know And this is information for you. We we drink out of these ugly things here, these flimsy glasses that scare the heck out of me because I'm a I'm a spastic klutz and I'll spill that stuff, you know. Anyway, some nights it's a 2 beer night. Some nights it's a 2 12 pack night. Tonight was a 2 beer night.

So we're up there dancing and after 2 beers, Sandy looks at me and her eyelids went just like broken window shades. They just went about halfway down and then they do then this is what you guys do. You go like this and you start looking under the bottom of those eyelids and you just know you just know it's tear the guy's face off time, it's dance on the table time, it's time is awfully hot in here, I simply must take off some clothes time, it's time for me to get her out of here. Now I didn't have Ellen on but I knew that was the crazy time and it was gonna happen. Sandy was a militant drunk.

She has taken guys 1 guy had an afro and she grabbed his head and she drove it right into her knee and then she says, come on, Chuck, let's go get them. No. I don't know. I'm I'm too diplomatic for that kind of activity but, you know, that's the way it was. So I I told I told our friend, grab Sandy's purse.

We're getting out of here. Now I'm as big as I am. Sandy's little tiny thing fits right about here. When we would dance, she would lead because I do I don't even know what lead means. I see people dance but I don't know dance.

You know, it's like there's a block or I'm challenged when it comes to footwork and and, she would get up to me and she'd stick that aqua net right in my head and she'd say, let's dance, hon. And she when Sandy when Sandy calls me my love, I just melt. I totally melt. She could get away with anything and she goes, my love, what do you wanna do? It's up to you, dear.

Anyway, she's she gets her head in there and she would push me around the dance floor like a a tug pushing a barge up the Mississippi River. We never bumped into anybody. She couldn't see anything because her eyeballs were stuck right in there smelling my armpit. And so So this night, I says, come on, Sandy. We're gonna dance.

And I danced Sandy across that dance floor and I danced her down those stairs and I danced her into the parking lot. And I danced her to the car and I put her in the car and brought her home. And then when we got home, I did something I always do, I threw her over my shoulder, I carried her up a few steps to the house, carried her in the house past the babysitter. And she and babysitter go, hi, Chuck. Hi, Sandy.

You know? And I'd bring her up the stairs. That's what I always did is bring her up carried her up the stairs and and, I'm certainly glad I don't have to do that anymore. I'm very grateful for her sobriety for more than one reason or 2 and, then I would put her to bed. Sometimes I'd go back to the party, sometimes I wouldn't.

But that's where our life was and we started arguing in the bars and I just I just decided to start staying home and that's what I started doing. And I would I we have one of those Pyrex coffee pots with the blue corn silk flowers on the sides and they got the black cover on it and I'd have that sucker cooking. Boy, it'd be 3 o'clock in the morning and that thing would be bubbling away and I'd be pouring myself coffee and my body would be vibrating because of the coffee I'm drinking. And I'm making plans for her demise. Oh, I hated her so bad.

The next morning I loved her. I hated her Friday nights when she bowled. I I I fantasized her driving that car into the muddy in the river that's a mile from our house. I I fantasize the funeral. I had the I had the the the written up.

I had all that stuff in my head ready to go. And I I would adjust it once in a while because she was she was good. She was really involved in a lot of stuff like PTA president. You know, she was PTA president. So I I had to put that in honestly, president PTA 1968 to 19, you know, and and then the pallbearers.

If I saw her messing around with one of those prospective pallbearers, his name come off the list right away. He ain't carrying that woman's body. And then the next day I loved her. We'd go out to Patterson Park and we do camp hosting now since we work with the school system, we don't work all summer, so we go out camp hosting. And what that does is we just take care of the campground for all summer.

And Praderson Park was one of the places that we we now do the camp hosting. But back then, we'd go out there and walk around and I'd hold that woman's hand and I loved her so much. Man, she smelled good. She was pretty. She was kind.

She was affectionate. How could you hate her last night? You must be nuts to hate her. She's so good and she's not gonna do this again. You know she's you know, she's she's gonna it'll be better.

It'll be better. It was never better. It just got worse. Some nights she'd come home and I'd I'd I'd be waiting at that door because you know that I'm gonna give it to her when she comes through that door. And I've got enough caffeine in me.

Right? And I'm not responsible for myself. And I used to sit we had a couch, and I'd sit on the arm of that couch, and I'd look out the window. We live on 2 dead end streets. So, boy, traffic on a dead end street at 3 o'clock in the morning.

It's like rush hour. And I'd be watching and finally I'd see the car pull up and if it was our car, I was really glad because I knew the car was okay. Somebody else bring her home, you know, and she get out of the car, start stumbling towards the house, and I'd run upstairs and jump in bed. I'm £240. She's She's like a 130 or so at that time, you know, and I'm jumping in bed and pretending I'm sleeping.

She comes upstairs, does what alcoholics do. You know, she used to wake kids up all the time. She'd go in the bedroom, kiss them, give them their candy bars and stuff. God, I hated that because I'm the one that's gonna have to be up with them. I'm the one that's gonna have to get up in the morning with them.

Get to bed. Go to sleep. Of course, I never said that. But, then she'd go in the bathroom and she'd sing to the ball. You know how they do that.

And she had long hair at that time, you know. I'd go in there and she'd be puking her guts out in the can, and I'd I'd take her hair and I'd put it back over her head, you know. And I I'd she'd be in a very state of undress, she usually was. So I'm holding her hair back and I'm rubbing her back and she's barfing her guts out, you know, and It's okay, Sandy. It's okay.

Let it go, hon. You'll be okay. You'll you'll be okay. In my mind, I'm going, I'd stick your head down that toilet. Room.

Oh, no. No, dear. It'll be alright. It'll be fine. Yo.

Who's nuts? Who comes on drunk and stumbles and pukes? Who's the guy running around the house with a caffeine jag and and and just hating her head in that toilet? I just wanted to stick it down there and and then saying, oh, it's okay, dear. It'll be fine.

This death wish I had for her, one night she came home after a particularly long drunk. She was over in Duluth, excuse me, over in Duluth drinking with her sisters, which is a whole another story. She come home and and she came upstairs and I was pretending like I was sleeping and I could hear her crying in the bathroom. So I went into the bathroom and I says, hon, what's the matter? Hon, 15 minutes before that, I was thinking, let's see.

Steve will be a pallbearer and, Karen will feel sorry for me and perhaps hug me. And, hon, what's the matter? Chuck, I tried to kill myself with the it's a long story, but it had something to do with the car. And she says, I tried to kill myself. I said, are you crazy?

What do you mean try to kill yourself? Don't you know I love you and the kids love you and your mom and dad loves you and all these people love you? You're selfish. You're you're just a selfish person. You think about yourself.

Was there one other selfish person in that room? I'm I'm planning her death and her funeral and then I'm calling her nuts her saying she tried to kill herself. And that's the fantasy I'm having is that she's gonna kill herself. Who's crazy? The alcoholic and the nonalcohol?

I got 2 little kids then then Kurt came 4 years later. Wintertime in Superior, Wisconsin, it gets dark real fast. 5 o'clock at night, it's blackout. You can put kids in bed, they don't know how to tell. Try and put them to bed.

Then you're worrying about yourself, you know. So I put these kids to bed and little Chrissy, she's just a little doll. She's a little blonde hair doll, usually had a little snot hanging on her hair coming across, you know, and she comes to the top upstairs, say, dad, I need to drink water. So I go upstairs and I give her a drink of water and I bring her in the bedroom, you know, and tuck her back in bed and everything. And I like Chris and I give her a little kiss on her on her little snotty lips there, you know, and and I go downstairs and and, little while there, Christy, she's very persistent.

She back up top of the stairs, dad, there's a book in hand in my bedroom. So I said, well, let's go look. And then I'd bring the flashlight and we'd look under the bed and she'd have her little head right next to mine and she's looking too, you know, looking in the closet and doing all that kind of stuff and no boo boogeyman. Chris, we go in Chuck's bedroom and look and put her back in bed and she'd say, dad, where's mom? I'd say, shut up.

What does that little kid think is going on? Who is the crazy mean over in that house? Is it the woman that brings home candy bars and pop? Or is it that stark raven sober sharp tooth bitten in the face 6 foot 4, 240 pound guy screaming at her to shut up. What was the crime she had committed?

She asked where her mother was and when she was coming home. And I slammed it right into her like that. Who do the who do the kids think is crazy? Alcoholic or nonalcoholic? My son cowering in the corner and me thumping him on the chest and he's crying.

I said, what the hell are you crying about? His dad, I'm afraid of you. What do you gotta be afraid of me for? I'm your father. And my mind was so enveloped in my situation and all the fantasies that go along with that situation because alcohols the alcoholic I was married to didn't get drunk every night.

She didn't run around every night. She wasn't I I had infidelities in my mind. I had drunks in my mind. I when I I worked midnights at that time and I used to think about her being gone, you know, what's what's gonna happen when I get home. I worried constantly.

I was fretting all the time. She went and got drunk once in a while. I always worried. Is she gonna be home? Is the babysitter gonna be there?

If the babysitter's there at 7:30 in the morning, I come home, I'm really gonna be embarrassed. What's she gonna think of us? Those are the things that went on in the sober mind. So again, I say, who's crazy? And I love her and I hate her and I didn't know why.

She comes she comes home one night, gets upstairs, she's stumbling drunk. So I help her. I help her in the bathroom. I help her in the bedroom. I take her clothes off of her.

I put her in bed and then I take sexual advantage of her. She's a passed out body laying in the bed, and I sexually molest my wife. Who's crazy? The alcoholic who's passed out and doesn't have a say in what's going on or the stark or even soul maniac who's jumping on top of her? You know, the reason I bring that up is because I'm not alone.

Almost every time I tell my story, there's a guy that comes up to me and says, Chuck, I did that too. As a matter of fact, that where I first saw that story was in the element of phases of alcoholism, the first edition. There's a guy that writes a story in there about being married to an alcoholic. And he said he took sexual advantage of his wife when she was passed out by. And I thought, my god.

I did that too and I'm not alone because I never told anybody. I never told my sponsor that because I figured that I was the only one that ever done that. And thank goodness for literature that is candid enough to talk about a situation so so serious and so so controversial as that that I can stand up here and tell you that today. Or I can work with a guy, one of the guys I sponsor. And if he brings up a situation similar to that, I say, yeah, Tim, I know what you're talking about because I did that too and you're not alone.

I had a guy in Colorado talk to me 45 minutes about that after I got done talking out there about the things that he used to do when his wife was drunk. Who's crazy? Who's got their own insanity? The alcoholic or the non alcoholic? I hated her and I loved her and I couldn't figure out why and I thought it was phony.

I thought about running away. That never worked out. I was too chicken. I couldn't live with her. I couldn't live without her.

I accepted promises. 1 night she called me up. She says, Chuck, if you were half a man, you call me at the bar and tell me to come home. There's your answer. Call me at the bar and I'll come home.

That's all I needed to hear. I felt so good. And I called her at 10:30 at the bar. I knew who she was. She was over at Canary's.

It's a neighborhood bar not too far from the house and, they find she finally gets on the phone and says, well, Sam, it's 10:30. She says, so what? Well, you said that you'd come home at 10:30. It's 10:30. Well, I'm not coming home.

Now here's something. Alcoholics, you know, they talk about blackouts last night or today, the gentleman said he was a blackout drinker. I do not remember what happened after that. I don't remember a thing what happened after that. There's several things in places in my life where I got to a stage of anger or frustration or fear, and I don't remember what happened next.

I remember everything up to that point. So as far as I'm concerned, I had emotional blackouts where my mind was so focused on on either imagined or terrorist things that I just couldn't go any further. I was in a state of terror, I was in a state of constant fear. Things are getting worse, very much worse. We Sandy and I sat on the couch one night or one day.

We were sitting kind of knee to knee and she was looking at me, and I said, if you could just come home just come home. Just don't drink so much, and man, was I taking a risk saying that. And she looked at me and she said, Chuck, I don't know whether I can just come home. I don't know whether I can't just drink so much. And we both started to cry.

And we never thought about alcoholism. That didn't enter our minds. We just knew there was something wrong in our lives and we didn't know what it was and it was ruining our life together. We went to marriage counseling, we we did some other stuff, nothing seemed to work. And things just kinda got worse.

And I also had that love hate thing going on, and that that really bothered me a lot because I love Sandy so much. You know, I was not an experienced person when I met this lady, and and she just was, she was number 1 in my book. And and for me to be able to hate her so much when she was out drinking, I love her so much when she was home. I just couldn't figure that out. One of Sandy's sisters went into treatment and, part of the treatment philosophy back then was for, the family members for the family week.

And if you went to family week, in order to go to family week, you had to go to Elenor. You couldn't and you you weren't able to drink. That's what they told you anyway. So Sandy starts going to Al Anon with her mother and her dad and I'm thinking, well, this is great. That's Tuesday night and where she was, 1609 John Avenue in Superior Wisconsin.

She's having an all night meeting. That's wonderful. Maybe they'll teach her how to drink, teach her the important things about cooking and staying home and doing stuff like that. Jeez. So anyway, I'm sitting home on Tuesday night, I'm I'm feeling serene and I'm not even going to Al Anon, you know.

I I read about it in Ann Landers. I knew what it was about. And so, anyway, she the phone rings. And I I hello. And it's my mother-in-law.

My mother-in-law and I have a relationship that is tolerable. Put it that way. We've been Sandy and I have been married for 36 years. It's gonna be 36 years. So anyway, it's my mother-in-law.

Yes. Do Do you know where Sandy is? She asked me. And you ever get that, like, when you forget to make a payment or or you've done something in school and you get caught and you know your butt's gonna be pinned to the wall, This this heat goes right through and comes out the top of your head and that's what happened to me and I said, ma, she went to Al Anon with you. Well, she said she went to Al Anon with me, but she picked up her one day at a time in her shoes and she walked out the door and she went downstairs and she said, Chuck, I think she went to Alcoholics Anonymous.