Colorado State Convention in Pueblo, CO

My name is Dawn. I'm a grateful member of Al Anon. And I am an old timer. You know, I never thought that day would come. You know?

I can remember when my husband and I came into this fellowship, we were always the youngest people. You know, we took great joy and we great pride. I remember when Peter was quite disgusted when somebody else came younger than me and all the concentration of the group went over to him. But, that's that's what it's about. It's about growing and staying and developing.

I'd like to say that I've been here for 44 years in November, and I'd like to say I understand it all. I've got it all. I don't need to go to meetings anymore, but I'm sorry. You know? I need meetings now more than ever.

The more you grow and the more you learn and the more you know, the more you realize how little you know. But if you keep coming back, more will be revealed. That's the good news. So that says that even though I'll be 71 in November, I will continue to grow. I think that's such good news.

I wanna thank Glenna for meeting me at the airport and being so gracious to me. And all the people in Alamo that I sat around the rooms with today and last night. And the fellowship that is as alive here as it is in Chicago, as it is in Reginald, Virginia where I used to live, as it is in upstate New York, as it is in Detroit where I came in. You know, I am one of the slowest learners in this program. And so anyone here who's having a hard time getting this program, the good news is just keep coming back.

Not so long ago, before I moved to Chicago, I had been traveling a little bit and talking here and there. And I went to my home group, and I hadn't been there for about 4 weeks in a row. There was a newcomer there. And she came up to me, and she said, are you new? And I said no.

And she said, how long have you been coming? And at that time, I said, I've been here about 40 years. And she said, you must really be sick. Well, you know, it's all in how you look at it. I was she was certainly smarter than she she thought she was.

Yes. I really am sick. The good news is I'm getting better. The even better news is I have a path. I have this path.

I have a path that I can follow. And if I follow that path and live by that path, every situation in my life will be solved, not with my help but with the help of my higher power. My job is to show up. My job is to give service, and my job is to be loving. It's really very simple.

Now you think that I can do that all the time? But more times than not, it works. When I came into this program, my husband had been sober about well, let me not start there. Let me start there with I went to a psychiatrist. My little son, he must've been around 14.

He was having problems getting his life together. And the psychiatrist, wanted to talk to his parents. And so Peter and I went there. We were looking very good that day, my husband in his business suit, and I had just gotten off of work. And I was looking I was looking like I knew what I was talking about.

You know? So she said, I wanna know on a scale of 1 to 10 what kind of parenting you each receive. So she looked at my husband, and my husband said, on a scale of 1 to 10, I received about a 0 or a 1. And she looked at me and I had my little Al Anon crown kinda pressed to the side, you know. And she said, what kind of parenting did you receive?

And I said, I received, I would say about a 8 or 9. And she said, it's you. She said, no one who received a 8 or a 9 would marry someone who received a 0 or a 1. She said you need to look at yourself. I was so angry.

I mean, I was so angry. I remember going home and I called my sponsor and I said, let me tell you something. Let me tell you what this woman said today. I haven't sitting around these rooms a long time. Let me tell you what she said.

And she said, I've been telling you that all along that she didn't have to say she should have just said. Anyway, you know, I came from a family that looked good. I call this fig trees. There's a story in the bible about these fig trees that are over here blooming, you know, and they look like they've got fruit on them and all the blossoms are out, you know. And then the master goes over to pick a blossom and, took a piece piece of the fruit out of it, And there's nothing there.

It's just, you know, just blossom. Well, that's how we looked. People came to us all the time for wisdom and strength. Meanwhile, our kids were in the closet hiding because Peter and I were at one another circus. Just yelling.

Just Telephone would ring and I'd pick it up and say, is there anything I can do to be of help to you? Miss Al Anon. You know? Is there anything I could do? My family was in turmoil.

My husband was sober. He had been sober for some years. You know? I was going to Al Anon meetings. The family was sick.

The family I grew up in was sick. My father was a bishop in the Methodist church. Looked good. Looked good. No alcoholism whatsoever in my house.

We were all compulsive eaters. We ate from the time we got up till the time we went to bed. I mean, we sugar and flour substances just fed us, you know. And then we didn't stop there. I mean, if it just could move, we could eat it, you know.

We'd have great church services, and these church services would be so high. People would be shouting and just just so happy. The old method is solid. I don't know what they do now because I've been so many religions since I've been in this program. I said she popped up.

The good news is my faith, my life, my wholeness, and my relationship from god comes from these steps in these rooms. And I just visit other places because I like to hear people sing together and celebrate my higher power together. But my recovery comes in these rooms. But anyway, my family looked good. You know?

Now my grandfather, who died when I was about 6, had sexually abused me. So I had joined church from the time I was 6 on trying to get cleaned up. I thought I was so dirty, so unclean. I just couldn't fit in anywhere because I was a 6 year old child who had the feelings of an adult because I had experienced sexual abuse. Now my grandfather wasn't a bad man, but he was a sick man.

And I was angry from the time until I came in these rooms and worked that through. I also had an experience when I my father was elected to bishop when I was, oh, 12 years old. We left that wonderful church. We had a church My father had a church this this is in the early forties, which was unheard of, a church that had at least 6,000 members. My father was an eloquent preacher.

My father could it was just I would sit at his feet at any time, but he always preached occasionally, if not always. But, you know, I'm a daughter of a well, let me say this. I'm in the program of Al Anon, but my thinking is totally alcoholic. So I would not say seldom, always. That meant maybe once or twice.

Okay. Preach about the prodigal child. And I always thought, you know, a prodigal child at 6 is kinda hard to do. You just can't be there. But that's the way I felt.

I'm talking about feelings now. I also, at this church, the people were very nice to me. I had a personality disorder long before I met my husband. I had a give me thing. You know, like, it was your job to make me happy because I was a depressed child.

You should make me happy. It's always gonna happen on the outside. Somebody out there was gonna do something to make me happy. I used to go to church, and I carry a little purse about as big as the purse I have. And I stuff it with Kleenex and I stand at the end of the counter counter stand at the end of the the church altar and I'd wait for people to come by when they speak to my father, ask them also to put a coin in my purse.

I thought nothing of that. I mean, I thought that I was my father's child. They ought to do something. I would leave there with this purse full of money, which is a lot of money back then. You know, a purse full of money?

Didn't like pennies. Never did like pennies. I I have this and then I would buy friends. The reason I had to buy friends is my personality was so bad that people didn't wanna be bothered with me. I mean, it was just I had a personality disorder from the beginning.

You know, it was just be happy. I felt bad about myself, but by the same token, I thought I deserved a whole lot of stuff. That's just who I was. That's who I was. Then I had this experience when I was about 16, 17 years old when this choir director told me I could sing, and that was a pivotal moment in my life.

I was gonna be a star. There was no question about that. You know? I could sing. You know?

Everybody in my family could sing, so it wasn't a big deal. I mean but it was a big deal to me. I can remember someone saying to my mother, oh, your daughter really could sing. She said, did you hear her sister? And I was like and I said, why are you talking about me now, mama?

You know? But it was just it was always somebody well, the first place, my mother had 8 children. I was the last. By the time I came along, mom and dad were tired. You know?

They used to say every time my dad built a church, my mother had a baby. So by the time I came by the time I came along, mom was tired. They're both tired. So they built they bought this church in Detroit, so that was the stopping of all the babies. But I was the last one.

And mom and daddy were doing god's work. They really didn't have time for us kids anymore. They were busy telling the story, doing the good works of the church, and I always felt that nobody was there for me. There was always somebody there helping to take care of some so I grew up with this little attitude, you know, a little attitude. Well, this man told me I could sing and I was gonna be a star.

I was gonna really sell this thing. Basically, I was singing in churches. One of them asked me, I wasn't that good. You know, by the way, I was singing in churches. And you can connect with people in churches because you're singing from the bottom of my heart.

I have always, always had a deep hunger to know God. Always. You know, I think now about all the times I tried to fill myself with foods and all other kind of substances and so forth, it was because I hungered. It was deep inside me, this hunger for God, that I would connect with people. And this man, he gave me the solos, and I was really feeling like I was really something.

I was this grossly obese child. I was the only one of my mother's children who was I could just hang off seats. My mother used to say, whatever they'll put on her, you know, because they would always look nice. And here I came, and I'm either breaking out of whatever she fixed for me. I was just big, but this man said I was wonderful.

And he took advantage of me one night on the way home from church. And I couldn't go in my house and tell my parents because you don't talk about those kind of things in my house. And 10 months later, I gave birth to a £10 4 ounce baby boy. I remember going to women's hospital in Detroit, Michigan. I remember going up to the admissions desk and saying, I have no doctor.

I've seen no one, but I've been in labor for 2 days, and I need help. And this man was standing next to me, and he said, I don't know who she is. He said, but I'll be your doctor. And I delivered that baby, and they called my parents from the hospital. And I can imagine now what it must have been like for my mother and father.

All they knew was that I was a fat kid. And they had to call them and say, come to your hospital. Your daughter is here. And my father came to the hospital and he said, you won't talk about it. He said, everything is alright.

And I this great sense of relief. And I remember leaving that hospital 2 days later, And we got to a stoplight, and a woman opened the door of the car and took the baby out of my arms and closed the door of the car. And we drove on. My father said, I'm a bishop in the church. My father said, I've lived an exemplary life before you.

My father said, you get yourself together, young girl. He said, you've embarrassed me. You get yourself together, and you make something of your life. And I remember screaming and crying. I remember going from 1 church to another church looking for my baby, looking for the way it blew hair, blew in the back.

And then one day, I looked in the mirror and I said, there's only one thing wrong with me. I'm fat. If I fix the outside of me, everything will be alright. I always thought that if you looked good, then something must be good inside. And so I found this diet doctor in Detroit, junkyard.

And I remember taking a cab there and the cab driver said, young lady, I wouldn't take my dog to that doctor. And I said, young lady, I wouldn't take my dog to that doctor. And I said, neither would I. I'm going. And this doctor gave me diet pills and he gave me shots.

And, I would become a lunatic. I mean, I was lunatic. I was just I could be just running around. You know, I could do anything. Exercise.

I was always a sedentary person. I was exercising. I would help clean up the house. I did all kind of stuff, you know. Well, in 9 months, this grossly obese, homely young woman turned into a stone fox.

I mean, I was looking good. I don't mean I was looking a little bit good. I mean, I was really looking good. I mean, I wasn't looking I looked so good that my brother said that I could ride in the front seat with him. Now, I mean, that's looking good.

So I said now the only thing wrong with me is I need to find a husband. And see, if I find a husband, I can reduplicate. I can have children. You know, I can now I'll be okay because this pain that's inside me that I don't talk about that's disappeared. You know, that would be alright now because I'm gonna find somebody.

Well, there was this wonderful young man who was pastoring a church in Pontiac Pontiac, Michigan. And, I was wondering, one day I'm gonna be speaking somewhere, so I just gotta come up and say, I know him. Of because now he would be 78. So chances are, wherever you are anyway, I have tried to find him to make amends, but my brother said the best the best amends she made to him was she didn't marry him. Anyway, he said that he had fallen deeply in love with me.

He fell in love with the outside. He didn't know what's going on in here. You know? He didn't know that in here, these little tapes were going on saying you're nothing. You know?

You don't amount to anything. You're fooling all these people. You know? I didn't he didn't know that. He always saw it was this gregarious, you know, looking person like I really am altogether.

And he said, will you marry me? And I said, yes. Well, there was this other young man who just, he had a job with the government. And he said, I've fallen in love with you. And he said, will you marry me?

And I said, yes. Now there was this other young man who had just come home from the service and he was kinda spacey. He really was kinda strange. I remember we were, well, he took me to places I've never been before. I went with him to a bar.

I've never been to a bar before. And, every time we went to a different bar, they called him one bar said he was doctor Crawford. The other bar said he was attorney Crawford. So this guy is really bright. You know?

I mean, he is really one of your top notch intellects of the day. You know? We were standing at a bus stop because he didn't have a car. And he said to me, he said, darling, there's something I'll tell you about myself. And I said, what is that?

He said, I'm an alcoholic. And I said, isn't that old, Matthew? All you big thinkers are alcoholics. You know. This is really something.

And then he said the magic words. He said, Don, I need you. What did you say? He said, I need you. I said, need me me.

He needs me. He said, I could be anything if I had you in my life. Who do you think I married? You know, who do you think I married? You know, I had a mission.

I had a destiny. Forget all my stuff. Don't even look at my dysfunction. Don't look at the home I came from. Don't look at the troubles I've been in in my life on my own without the alcohol.

That wasn't important. What's important is right now, I have a mission. Well, the mission didn't go quite like I expected it to go. I didn't know that alcohol got drunk. And I I didn't know that they would forget to bring their paycheck home.

I didn't know that either. I didn't know, that alcoholics do a lot of lying. I didn't know that, you know. I didn't know that, I didn't know how undependable he was. I didn't but the thing about it, as bad as he was, you see, he made me look good.

You know what I mean? Now I knew this man, he he was truly my mission. I mean, he really made me look good because he was so dysfunctional. You know, like, I could at least get up out of the bed every day. Right?

I could at least cook. I mean, I didn't know how to cook much but I could cook. I mean, I I was just amazed at what a job I had. The problem was, after our first child was born and he forgot I was in the hospital and didn't show up and I had to call my dad to get money to get out of the hospital, after that little incident, he decided that he was gonna call program called Alcoholics Anonymous. And don't you know, after being at my house my little boy used to say, don't you know?

Anyway, I had been in the house for 3 days and there was no food in the house. And here comes old Peter coming in. He had this quaint little habit. Every time he would, get drunk, he'd wet his pants. And so he'd been out for 3 days.

You know what those pants were like. He took those pants and they were standing over in the corner. And, he called AA and AA showed up on our doorstep in less than 3 or 4 hours. Now I had called my preacher during that same time to tell him that I needed him to come and counsel us. And it had been 3 days since I called it and he had not shown up yet.

Remember, I'm the bishop's daughter. He should have been there. You know? But a a came for my husband. Now my husband had had an incident.

You know, the trouble with this is I'm in this program so long, and I'm so old that I can't get all the stories in there that are extremely important. So I'm kinda rushing this stuff, you know? Why doesn't it have been in AA way back? Well, it was just before the traditions were signed into effect. My husband came into AA because he was sentenced there by his commanding officer in Georgia.

Well, Georgia was totally segregated, and they wouldn't let him in the meeting. They made him sit inside the door and wouldn't let him in. And he went back week after week after week, and he was totally demoralized. But he kept going because he had to or his commanding officer would have put him in the brig. So here, after those years in 1956, when he knew he had hit his bottom it's interesting the way god works.

When he knew it, he didn't spot him. Even though he had all the anger and resentment towards those people in those rooms, and he had fixed them for a few years. You know, he'd been out drinking and messing up. He called them, and this time, these guys ran to the door and helped Peter. And I remember standing at that house saying, who's gonna come and get me?

I'm the one in the house with the baby. I'm the one in the house alone. I'm the one in pain. Self pity, self pity, self pity. Here I am.

Who's gonna come and get me? And they took Peter to a meeting. And I'd like to say that Peter immediately began working the steps, but he decided that he would work the first step and the 12 steps. If a man of his intellect didn't need the rest. And women called my house.

I didn't like that. I didn't like that. So I decided that I was going to go to Al Anon. Now I'd like to give you a better reason for my going. I'd like to say that I thought I was sick.

I went to Al Anon to see what was going on where my husband was concerned. And there wasn't an Al Anon group where his home group was. So I went out to Old Hammond Y, and, that was a good meeting out there. And I took about 3 or 4 lessons. And then I decided I was ready to start my own group because I had all this stuff up here.

So where do you think I started my group? I started it right there where his group was. I heard someone in one of the meetings I went to, they said I could watch him and see what was going on. And I had a big book. We only had this little pamphlet.

We didn't have the wonderful literature we had now. We had this little pamphlet that had a little blue book and had the steps on there. And I would read those steps and underline all the places where I could really help him. And, my girlfriend said to me, you know what we should do is that we should come to the meetings and we could lay down in the backseats of our cars, cover ourselves up. And then when Pierre Diemercard go home, I will find out whether he's going home with other women, you know.

And I said, this is the most brilliant idea I've ever heard. And so I asked her to be my sponsor. Needless to say, my recovery was rather slow, you know. We were helping one another. It was the blind leading the blind.

We were helping one another. I remember once they asked me to give a prayer at 1 of the it was like, the big annual Michigan meeting. It was like asking a babbling idiot to get up there. I I mean, I don't know what I said, if I said anything. You know, people say, keep coming back.

I mean, that was all they ever said to me was, keep coming back. Keep coming back. And I said, they really must like what I say, you know. I didn't understand till later till I started saying to my spouse, keep coming. Throw me some of this great wisdom.

And I yeah. Okay. Keep coming back, honey. Now we're we'll look at that through another eye a little later on. But that's that's the story.

That's the big story. But then one day, when we took David to that psychiatrist, I began to understand that I needed more than a surface program. And I'd been in that program for about I've been in Al Anon then for, I guess, close to 15 years. Would you believe it? Close to 15 years.

The good news was it kept coming back. The good news was no not not many people listened to me. That was the only good news. The other good news was that in spite of me, a lot of people I sponsored got wet. You know, isn't that interesting?

In spite of me and that has always kept my ego intact. In spite of me and often, even when I wasn't aware of it, god uses broken people. Isn't that the good news? Why else would they ask me to come here and speak? You know, I mean, that's that kinda keeps you they ask us to come here and speak, not because we're some gurus or because we have this thing altogether.

They want us to keep repeating the story because people like me forget. And all at once, I'll be sitting up in that condo in Chicago looking around, and I'm living pretty good. I said, woah. I got here all by myself. I don't think so.

And if you want to stay here, you better keep going to meetings. You know? I began to look at myself and I realized that I really am powerless. You know, there's nothing wrong with being not having power. There really isn't.

A I realized that as the children grew up and they wouldn't do the things that I wanted them to do, they wouldn't be cute for me, they wouldn't, you know, do all these little couldn't show their report cards anymore. Always looking here. I look over here. What? You did what?

You skipped how many times you whisked with that alcohol in your closet? My child who grew up I mean, her when she played house, other kids played house, she played go to meetings. You know, she's everybody down to AA meeting here on the porch. My child had alcohol in her closet? You know, what are we talking about?

You know? I said to my sponsor, she said, darling, you gotta work on you. And I said, but I can't. Let me tell you what's going on in the house right now. She said, when you're on the airplane and they say there's gonna be a crash, they say put the oxygen on yourself first and then on those other people.

And I carry this sense of responsibility, but if I had been saner soon, if I had got my act together earlier, they wouldn't have to suffer the repercussions of this and this and this and this. Listen, I had to learn their lives. The best thing I do for my children is to live what I talk today. The best thing I do for my children is not what I say, but how I walk. If I walk this life, then I have a better chance of seeing recovery in them.

And so I was willing to throw up my hands and say, God, I can't do it anymore. I just can't do it anymore. And I had seen enough people in these rooms who were as equally crazy as me get better. And I knew if god could do that for them, if he could put those broken eyes together, there was hope for me. So I waddled into these meetings, staying as always, this big, fatter girl, just just so full of self loathing.

How come I couldn't get it together one day? And I discovered that I also had an eating disorder and I stopped eating sugar and refined flour and it was like turning a light on in my life, you know? It was like saying, wait a minute, maybe, maybe I can be fixed. And I turned my will and my life and my choices and my children and everything else in my life over to the care of god, and I took inventory. I looked at me and I realized the broken places in my life and I realized beyond the shadow of a doubt that the God of my understanding that I found in these rooms wanted to heal me.

You know. That it wasn't just a joke, that I was more than that. I was a significant human being and that God loved me and loved loved me like I was the only person in the world, Just loved me and had waited so long for me to begin to love myself. Remember my sponsor kept saying, okay. Look in the mirror and tell yourself that you're a beautiful woman.

I said, well, I guess you're a beautiful woman. Go sit and hang out like this. And, you know, I began to see a reflection of god in myself that I am a beautiful woman. I'm a child of god. I don't care what Peter said or what the children said.

I mean, they were always they pointed out my flaws here and there. I remember once, we took David and Alma to Selena Horne, and it was her 5th it was my 50th birthday, Lena Horne's 70th birthday. And I said, boy, I wanna look like that when I get stuck. They would say, well, you don't look like that now. You watch yourself feel.

But by that time, I had enough recovery that I could smile. It wasn't a big, you know, Yeah, okay, whatever, but I look good for how old I am, you know. I could say that and I felt good about myself. I began to understand that these steps were about making a way for me, but even more than that is that god wanted a way for me. You know?

He wanted me to get some healing in my life so that I could become a channel. You know? Not just for me, but because I could tell other people who've been broken and hurt that it's possible to put your life together again. I don't care where you are, how hurt you are, or what your story is, and I don't care what you've done, what you've done. Nothing is too bad for God to fix.

Just nothing. You know? So I kept working those steps in my life. I got to 6 and 7. One of the things that made me understand that the 7 step worked was one of my character defects was jealousy.

I was so jealous of people. My husband's a good looking man. I mean, seriously good looking. I mean, he's kind of mad. You know, I remember we were in New York.

We were going to see some plays, and we were he was waiting for me in the corner. And, some people came up to ask him if he modeled, you know, and if he could come. He said yes. And my wife would come along with it, and I waddled up to it. They changed their mind.

But anyway anyway, that was then. They would have taken me the last 25 years, I like to say. But anyway, he was a victim. Women were always calling. Now I'm not saying that my husband was perfect.

I'm not saying that all my feelings that, he was not faithful, he was not were all part of my disease. I think he had some problems. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was what was going on in me, my feelings. I remember, we had gone to he was directing a health care center.

He had really progressed in going back to school and got some degrees. He was doing very well. Anyway, we he was directing this health center, and we were entertaining his staff. And he had told me the week before that he had hired a new secretary, but he said she was an older woman. And I said, that's very nice.

Well, we were standing there and this woman in this miniskirt sashayed up to me and said, Mrs Crawford, I'm your husband's new secretary. And I saw Peter across the room making a beeline towards me and he was kind of dragging me out of and he kept saying, she didn't look like that when I hired her. This woman had had a transformation in, you know, less than a week. Anyway, I remember just being so angry on my way home, what you said, and then this and this and this. And Peter said, don't do you think it has anything to do with your low self esteem?

Well, he hit on Sunday. I remember calling my response and I said, let me tell you what he said. And she said, well, does it? She said, why don't you pray about that? You know, it seems to come up a lot in your life.

Why don't you pray about that? And I said, I've tried every means in the world. She said, well, why don't you ask God to live that character defect? Maybe it's getting in your way of being a good servant. And I remember praying about that and praying about that.

We went to a conference about 2 months later. And we were standing at a conference and my husband was standing over the corner and there was a whole lot of nice looking women all standing around. Now let me say this, these women could have been 90 years old. I started to say 70, but now I'm 70s. I wouldn't say that anymore.

He's never gonna have been 90 years old. You know, I would have said the same thing. But he he was standing over in the corner talking to these women. And you know what? I didn't feel a thing in my heart but love for him.

God did that. God did that. God lifted those feelings and those emotions and changed this person inside. I was free to love them and love Peter. That's a miracle.

And I feel god could do that. He could do anything in my life. I could give him a little more of this and a little more of that and more and more and more until I could sing in the shower each morning, I surrender all. I surrender all. You know?

Anything that stands in the way of my relationship with god, I don't want it today. I don't want it today. Now that doesn't mean I've reached the stage of perfection. That means I don't want it today. And I know that if something comes up, I know where to go with it.

You know? I started trying to make amends to those children in particular. I wanted I had this rage I carried in me so long for my grandfather. You know, the things that he had done to me, I just was so angry. The problem was my grandfather was dead and I was living the anger.

And who was being hurt but those who were around me and myself. And I remember asking God, whatever it is, just help me with it. And I looked at my grandfather's spiritual life and I realized my grandfather had been a slave. He'd been brutalizing his life. He had a really horrendous story.

And my grandfather was a sick old man. And beyond that, I still loved my grandfather. And it was like just a sense of forgiveness and love that came over me. That man who took advantage of me, I wanted to get rid of him. If I could have found him at any given time in my early recovery, I would have found a gun and shot his genitals.

Just as jealous. But don't do it in a spiritual way. But nevertheless, you know, when I looked at that man through a spiritual eye and realized the damage in his soul and realize had it not been for him, I would have never had that older son. And 20 years ago, I was reunited with that boy and he became a part of my life. And I have 2 beautiful grandchildren by him.

What a gift, what a gift. God has been so good to me. Those children that I really just messed up in front of, I said, okay, now I'm gonna have a chance. I'm living this program, and I'm every time they come to me, I'm gonna come. I'm gonna give them the great answer.

I'm gonna be just miss wonderful. Of course, my favorite thing to say to my children anyhow is, I don't know. Tell me how you work that out. You know? Because I really don't know.

I don't know. I don't really answers to many things in life. All I know is that god is faithful. Lisa came to me and said, there's something I ought to tell you about myself. And I said, what is it, Lisa?

I was ready, especially when I say I'm pregnant. I said, I'll be a good mama to her, you know, because I couldn't go to my mother. And she said, I'm gay. And I said, no, you're not. And Lisa left for a while.

I know where Lisa was. Lisa was gone. Lisa lived in she lived in California. She lived in Boise, Idaho. She lived in Philadelphia.

She lived in I don't know how many places. And one night, we got the call and and Lisa said, mom, I'm suffering from the disease of alcoholism and so was my partner. And she said, we need to come home and get sober. And my sponsor said, you read the big book, Dawn. You read 4:48 because you're going to get a call one day and you need to be ready.

And when she called and said you wanted to come home, I said, you come on home, Lisa. And she brought her partner. And they celebrated 19 years of sobriety in these rooms. God has a way of using situations to transform and change our lives. And then old Alma.

Alma was the child that, she's a child that my mother used to say, you know, I hope one day you have a child just like you. That's dangerous. Don't ever say that to your children. I got Alma. Alma was a child.

I remember thanking her. She's about 2 years, 3 years old. She had done something. And she said, it's too bad that a big lady like you has to hit a little girl like me. And and she was right.

You know, I should have been able to reason with a 2 year old, you know, but for some reason, I didn't know we were on the same wavelength. But she was a challenge. She always was a challenge to me. She did things that just she just amazed me with her. First place, she was smarter than I was.

It's very difficult to have a child who's smarter than you are. She was smarter than me, and and I think that she looked down in many ways on my inability to deal with situations. It's interesting. Now she thinks I'm a giant, you know? But this is at teenage years, you know?

She was really something. And, I remember that coming home from church one day, this man no. Let me tell you about Ellen first. Ellen, she got this job. She quit school.

Peter and I are going through this period where Peter lost his job. We were doing pretty good thing. We had a big house. I think I had a tremendous sense of humor. He lost we lost, he lost his house.

I'm working my program. He's working his program. He lost his job and we lost our home. We went from the having health in the house to losing the house to being on food stamps. It was a really hard time in our life.

The interesting thing was my program got better and so does Peter. It was like God stripped us of things and gave us grace. You know, it was a very important time. For 2 years, fear was out of work. And I ended up going to work, which was a blessing.

You know, I never thought it was like god said to me, get up off your whatever and go on and get a job, you know? It is There's one of those you know that meditation in in one of our I think it was all that book, of this woman who has her foot on a man's neck and she can't understand why he can't stand up on his feet. Woah! I wonder who they're talking about. Anyway, I went and got this job and I saved all my money from the job so I could send this girl to college.

And she came home from college and said that she decided that she didn't want to be there anymore, that what she was gonna do. She had found herself, and Peter and I, looking at one another. And she said, I'm going to be a waitress. Now there's nothing wrong with being a waitress. It's that this child has never helped anywhere at home, she never cleared the table.

And I said, how is she going to be a waitress? And I said, well you just go out there honey and you be a good waitress. And And then Peter went to his meeting and I went to my meeting. And we went down to where she was waiting tables and I've never seen a waitress like that in my life, never. I ordered one thing, she brought something else.

A man at the table next to me said, this is the worst waitress I have ever seen in my life. Alma said, if you want better service, go to a better place. It It was just amazing. We didn't leave a tent. That's how bad it was.

We just got up and left, you know. I'll never forget also, she had this boyfriend. This boy I am she said, I want you to meet my boyfriend. And Peter and I got you know, we're veered up. Okay.