Aim for Aimes in Aimes, IA

Thank you. Hi, everybody. My name is Larstine. I'm a grateful member of Al Anon. Hi, Larstine.

And it's a real honor and a privilege to be here. And I want to thank Doug and the committee for asking me and Mary and Teenie for picking me up at the airport. We had a great time out here. An Al Anon named Teenie, don't let the name deceive you. I knew right away, you know, do not do not piss this girl off.

And and I worked hard not to, but I accidentally moved to the front row to hear my friend Scott and now I'm in trouble. So I wanna tell her I'm sorry right now. It's really fun to be here. I've had the privilege of, sharing the of being on the same program with Scott, you know, on a lot of different occasions. And, you know, every time I hear Scott speak, you know, afterwards, I have such admiration for his wife, Nancy.

I mean, I you know, I know we do not supposed to have heroes, but if, if we have them in Allinon, Nancy is 1. I mean, the woman's program, you have to admire someone who can stay married to this guy for 26 years. When I was coming down in the elevator, a lady I'm all dressed and obviously, you know, surprise who's the speaker. And, and she said to me, are you Scott's wife? You know, and I said, no.

If I was Scott's wife, you'd have 2 different speakers because we'd both be dead and and that's the way that goes. And one thing you learn in Al Anon is you get to find out who you are. You get to find out who you are and I'm and I'm really really grateful for that and it's fun to be in Iowa. I love being outside. Even though I came from California and it was really warm and it's really cold here, I still wear my really cute California little sandals last night just because and to show I could do it.

We're sick people what can I tell you and I made them into my toes when I got up to the room and and everybody's better now? But anyway I'm just going to tell you a little bit about what it was like what happened and what it's like for me today. I'm the oldest of 4 kids. My dad was a master sergeant in the army, so that made me the automatic corporal of my family. My husband jokes that I came out of the womb carrying a clipboard and wearing an armband and he's not too far off the mark You know?

Ever since I can remember when I was in school, I was always room monitor, cafeteria monitor, playground monitor. And why? Because if you do something wrong, I will write your name down and report you. I don't care if you're in the 6th grade or whatever. If you're doing something wrong, by god, somebody's gonna know about it.

And, you know, I don't know. What can I say? It's a gift. And, just for me anyway. And it's just the way I did it.

And I don't know what it is about me too because I just seem to have this authoritative thing because, I mean, I'll be in a restaurant waiting to be seated and people will come up to me and go, is it okay if we push these two tables together? I'm like, fine with me. Good idea. You know? I mean, if you want an answer and you ask me, I will give you one whether I have any information to base that answer on or not.

Because, you know, for me, this Al Anon, I can't stand a void. If anybody's hesitating, my husband and I took ballroom dancing lessons. Huge mistake, anyway. A lot of stupid rules in ballroom dancing. The guy leads.

God. Where did that happen? And because my husband wants to do the next right thing, he will hesitate. I all I know is that everybody's watching us and we're not moving and dancing. You're supposed to be moving.

And so I naturally take the lead and take us somewhere, and it's always the wrong place. And, consequently, I was always being chastised by the teacher, and my slow husband was always being, complimented by the teacher. And so we only took it for 6 weeks and we were done because he was better at it than I was. And, it was it was an experience. But, anyway, I grew up in this in this home and my like I say, my dad was a master sergeant in the army and I had, you know, absolutely no idea that I grew up in an alcoholic home.

All I know is my dad drank every day, you know, and if you grow up in an alcoholic home and you're born into something like that where there's just drinking that goes on every day and your dad gets drunk every day you know how do you know what's an alcoholic home. It wasn't an alcoholic home for me. It was it was a normal home for me because that's what normal was for me. And if you grew up in an alcoholic home, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And when I was very, very new in Al Anon, I went to a lot of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

And if you're new in Al Anon and even if you're not, you know, that's one thing I cannot recommend enough for you to do. It says in our Al Anon literature that we should learn all we can about the disease of alcoholism. And to me, there's no better place to learn that than in open meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. And, when I was new in the program, I went to this meeting with my husband, and I remember the speaker that night. And for whatever reason, whether or not this is what he said or not, what I heard the speaker talk about that night was alcoholism, the family disease.

And he described alcoholism in the home like having a rhinoceros in your living room, but everybody pretends it's a coffee part where she could always tell when my dad was ready to have one of his alcoholic explosions and, and she could never say to us kids, okay, nobody talk, nobody do anything because your dad's ready to blow up. Because if she said that of course my dad would blow up. So my you know the first thing that goes out of any alcoholic home that I know of the first tool that goes out the door is any form of verbal communication that's the first thing to go. And in my house, it was absolutely no different. And so my mom didn't talk to us verbally, but she talked to us facially.

You know and if you grow up in an alcoholic home you know a lot of this you know there's meaning behind all that stuff I mean there is it's the red giant flag you don't need anybody to talk you know and my mom would make these faces at the dinner table and we would all know everybody looked down nobody talked nobody do anything. If you've got an alcoholic who's pissed off and ready to blow it's going to happen and nothing is going to prevent that. You know and sure of us you know one of us would do some very minor infraction scrape a knife on a plate or spill some milk and baboom you know and everybody would get hit and everybody would get a spanking and everybody would get sent to bed and everybody be sniveling and crying in their bed and this could be 5:30 in the afternoon and everybody's in bed the kids the dog my mom you know we're all gone you know and then you get up the next morning, you know, when you get up the courage to creep down the hallway and you walk in the kitchen and there's my dad at the breakfast table and it's good morning, what do you want for breakfast?

And no one ever said, gee whiz dad, what was that about last night? Gee whiz dad, how come you had to hit everybody? Gee whiz dad, how come you had to throw dinner on the floor? Nobody said anything because the rhinoceros goes back to being a coffee table. You just want it to be over and you hope today it'll be different.

You know and that's just the perfect description of the house that I grew up in. I don't mean to make it sound any worse. You know, everybody has their own deal about how it was for them, and that's just how it was for me. But I remember taking on that responsibility at an early age. We were in the army and we moved a lot.

And and I remember one time when we were changing duty stations, my there was, like, you know, a 3, 4 week thing before we could move into our house. So my dad sent my mom and my sisters and my brother and I to California to visit with my, her family and we were out here for 3 weeks and it was the most unusual thing in the world because we stayed with my aunt and my uncle and my uncle pickled the kids and sat down to dinner with them and everybody was happy and smiling and we went to Disneyland and just had an absolute ball. And I remember 3 weeks later getting off the plane in Chicago knowing that my dad was waiting for me knowing that he was would be so happy to see us and having that feeling in the pit of my stomach at 8 years old that there was something wrong with me because I was afraid to get off the plane and I didn't want to go to him and hug him and do any of those kinds of things. You know and again it's the family disease of alcohol and how we're all individually affected by somebody else's drinking and the screwy part of it is you don't even know it, you don't even know that it's going on.

And when I was about 14 years old my dad got out of the army and we moved to California. Now my history up until then had always been we'd always lived in military housing with other military families a lot of discipline always going on all the time. So this was in the 60s. So you got to know what it's like moving from the East Coast in the army to California in the 60s was like we've been better off going to Mars. I mean it was just hippie dippy fun wolfie.

It was weird. There was not much discipline in California at all. And my dad absolutely hated being here, absolutely hated being here. But we still had a lot of rules and regulations in our house and that didn't change. One of the big rules and regulations was, dating.

You know, you had to bring the guy home. My dad got to question him, you know, and, my dad was a master sergeant for a very long time. I don't he could take his voice alone to take the roof off of the place and, I mean he would call us kids and poor kids would instantly pee their pants on the spot just to find out dinner was ready, you know, but you never knew. You just you just never knew. And, but anyway, we bring these little weenie boys home to meet dad and, my dad is over.

My dad's slightly over 6 foot tall and he has one eyebrow. He can raise 6 inches off of his on the right side here. It looks like Satan himself when he's standing over you. These little weenie boys would be there and my dad would just grill them where are we going what time are we going to be home and what part of their anatomy he would remove if we were not returned in the virginal condition of which we left our house and subsequently very hard to get a second And, you know, and growing up in this crazy house it was, you know, and there were And you know and growing up in this crazy house it was you know and there was 4 of us kids and all 4 of us will probably tell you a very different story. All 4 of us reacted in very different ways.

You know, it's funny when we get together, just how different it was for all of us and the different paths that we all went on. My path was just to be the rule follower. Just follow the rules and regulations, keep your nose clean, do exactly what is expected of you, do it to the best of your ability you know and stay out of the sergeant's way and it's going to be okay. You know the my sister that was 13 months behind me was so rebellious and and she took a lot more beatings at the hand of my dad just because that was her reaction to it. My 3rd child, my sister Kathy just was just this little kind of fantasy kid just lived in fantasy land.

And my brother who was 8 years behind me was protected by 3 girls you know, and a mom who tried to protect him from this guy all the time, you know, and and and everybody is all paid a price just kinda to show you where we all are, you know, well, I'm named Iowa. And, and, and and my sister, Lucy, isn't with us anymore. She was killed in an automobile accident as a result of her drinking and drug use, and, and I miss her terribly today. And my sister Cathy lives up in Sacramento with her very dysfunctional family and, and I and I talk with her on a weekly basis and I love her unconditionally. And then my brother Larry at 18 years old he had a brain tumor and he's in a home for brain injured people.

And my dad died at 55 from the disease of alcoholism. And my mom is married to another man and she's doing pretty good. She pretty much maintains that she was unaffected by my dad's drinking and she pretty much thinks Al Anon is a cult and that I'm getting my brainwashed here, but then like I tell her my brain needs washing so I can't think of a better place to be. And, but she absolutely, you know, she's gone with me to a few meetings and and, and and the one thing that she says that she's always felt in the rooms of Al Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous is she says she feels the love because it cannot be denied. I don't care how hard hearted you are or how you think you've been affected or not that's one thing I've always found in the rooms of A and Al Anon is you can feel the love and she has certainly felt that when she's been a guest here.

But anyway, this was the house this was our wacky thing and I'm growing up being a rule follower getting straight a's in school and having an alcoholic dad you know. If you've ever had you know I got a lot of awards at school, you know, because I strive for that kind of stuff. I wasn't getting it at home or doing it, but boy at school, I could just really, you know, I just could tell me what the rules are, tell me what I need to do, and and I'd be getting all these certificates and awards and, you know, and it got to the point where I could never really tell my parents this was happening because if you've ever had a drunk father show up at a school function, you know, pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization is just not reserved for the alcoholic. And so, you know, you just kind of quit telling your parents that You quit bringing friends home too. You know because some days the sarge could be charming and wonderful and other days he just rip you up and call you names and embarrass you and you know and again just typical behavior in an alcoholic home.

But when I was 17 years old I met my husband, I should have known there was something wrong with him because my dad liked him right away. But my dad never liked anybody right away, but he liked him right away. That that clue went right over my head. And when we double dated with this other couple and I remember we went bowling and I tried not to beat him at bowling but it was impossible and and then we're going back, to his house, you know, and and I'm 17 and he's 24 and, he's been married once before, you Maybe clue number 2 to me that there's something wrong with this guy and and he's living with his mom and dad. Clue number 3 that there might be something weird here but and, and on the way back to, you know, this this house with this other couple, he stops at a liquor store and he asked me what I'd like to drink, you know, and I tell him, I'm 17.

This is the state of California. It's you know, and you know and he just you know looked at me and went into the liquor store and came out with a gallon of Red Mountain wine you know if nothing else to impress me what he could consume in sheer volume alone and we went back to his house and I did indeed end up having some of this wine and what I remember is that you know I got a little light headed and and what I remember the most about that, date is is what a great time I had. You know, just how much fun he was. I have no doubt that he was absolutely totally, you know drunk and having a great time but he was a fun guy. He's just when my dad drank he was mean.

He was nasty and that's what I equated drinking to. You know that if you had a problem with drinking if it made you mean and nasty and made you hit people and do things like that. My husband just like to get drunk and have fun you know, and and basically his MO was get drunk, have fun, pass out. I shared that one time and he was sitting in the front row and Hank j was sitting next to him and Hank turned to Butch and said, Butch, I don't think that's too much to ask for. And, you know, but it was more than I could give him.

That was absolutely the truth and you know we dated for a couple of years and every date I went on with Butch involved alcohol absolutely positively and I share this with you because later on you know the first day that I walked in down on, if you would have said, Larstein, did you know that Butch drank as much as he did, that he did drugs? You know, I would have absolutely denied that I knew that he drank as much as he did or whatever. And, again, I don't know why that is. Again, how I'm affected by the disease of alcoholism, and I don't even know it. Because when the truth gets too hard for me to look at I just pretend it isn't going on.

I just look the other way because it's so important for me to be innocent victim in all this. I'm the good girl. I'm the good wife. He's the person with the problem. You fix him, then I'm gonna be just But, you know, from the very beginning, he was right up front with the fact that he drank a lot and he did illegal drugs.

Illegal drugs. This is huge for me. I am a rule and regulation person, you know, and stuff. I mean, I had a heck of a time with this, but it wasn't anything I didn't think I couldn't fix. And, because there is nothing that I cannot fix that is on the face of this earth and don't ask me where that came from too because I have absolutely no idea But anyway, you know, we dated for 2 years, we had a fun time and what ended up happening is that I got pregnant and I shared this with you because again later on when our lives got really really bad behind the drinking I was sure that you know this was God's way of punishing me because I'm the big rule and regulation person and I've broken the big rule and the big regulation and this was the cross I was gonna have to bear now for the rest of my life.

You know, I was in Al Anon a while before someone told me, you know, Larsene, if you screw around and you don't use any birth control, you might get pregnant. You know, just a fact of life. But, boy, if you're like me and you're blaming God, isn't that one more way? You don't have to take responsibility for what's going on in your life. If God's punishing you, what choice do you have?

You know, it fit me like a glove exactly what I want. Still get to be innocent victim because God's punishing me and there's not a darn thing I can do about it. You know and again when did I start taking all this on, when did my life start changing like this, I have absolutely no idea. When did I start becoming this person that I didn't want to be? It just started happening how I'm affected by the disease of alcoholism and I'm not even the person that's drinking and more importantly I don't even know that it's happening to me.

I don't even know that it's happening. But anyway, this was a huge deal for me, absolutely huge deal for me, you know that Butch and I had to get married and after we were married occasionally I would have to take Butch to a work function with me and all the way to the work function I would tell him, now somebody asks you, you tell them we got married blah blah blah so it works out in a chronological order that I know you want it to work out in, you know. And I don't know how many parties you've been to but I've yet to be the one yet where they go, Butch, it's nice to meet you. What year did you and Larsene get married? You know.

No one seems to think about us the way we think that they think about us, right Scott? I mean, it's just the way, you know, that that goes. Poor Bush, we'll be married 29 years next April and the poor guy has no idea. I mean, when people go, how long have you been married? Who kinda looks at me?

You know? It's okay, honey. You can tell him now. It's fine. But, you know, the real, you know, the the the real story behind that is it it is is the big deal that I made that into, the big deal that I made that into because if you take something and you keep it a secret and then it starts to become your dirty little secret.

And then what started happening for me is this little boy started growing up and this little boy started having birthdays and his birthdays would just bring up just horrible feelings for me, just absolutely horrible feelings. And here's the small little child that I am blaming for my horrible feelings. You know? And, again, how we're affected by the disease of alcoholism, and I don't even know it. I don't even know that I'm doing these things.

You know? And and today, what I know is he's a wonderful, loving human being how grateful I am to have him in my life. If it wasn't for Al Anon I wonder what it would be like today with him. You know today I have a wonderful relationship with my oldest son you know and I'm so grateful for the day that he was born you know and it's a day of celebration and it's a gift that you guys gave to me that I can never ever repay for. But anyway, we got married a month after we had this child.

So it began it became a huge, huge deal for me. I remember when I was at my first AFG convention in Southern California, we had the Al Anon Family Groups Convention and we'd always do the deal where we go for the weekend and we get 2 adjoining hotel rooms and we cram as many Al Anon's in these 2 adjoining hotel rooms as we can. And this is my very first AFG convention and there was 8 of us up in the room and we're having after the meeting. And it seems to me that what I'm hearing everybody sharing again is their deepest darkest secret. Now one more time, I don't know if this is what they were sharing, but this is what I heard.

So when I came around to my term, I had shared with these, you know, 7 other ladies how I had had to get, you know, married because I was pregnant. And, and it turns out 8 7 of them had to get married because they were pregnant. When we decided the 8th one, she was the sickest because she married an alcoholic who didn't have to, you know, and so, you know, you are a city's your secret in here through, so. But, anyway, Bush and I got married a month after our son was born. So I wasn't pregnant when I got married, you know, and if you ask me, I told you I wasn't.

And, but at any rate, you figure it out. And, and I remember, you know, up into this time, I'd never discussed with Butch's drinking or his drug use or any of that stuff. I never said one word about him. And at this point he was already a blackout drinker, already disappearing, gone for 2 weeks, 3 weeks at a whack. I knew all that stuff walking into the marriage and but the day after we were married, the day after we were married I sat him in the kitchen chair and I told him the rules and regulations of the marriage and that from this point on that once a month we would get a babysitter and we could go out and party, but that was it because we had to work, we had to earn money, we had to buy a house, we have a child, we have responsibilities, obligations and there's just rules and regulations about those kinds of things that just cannot be ignored.

And he sat in a chair and I asked him if he understood and he did this, you know, which to me was, yes, he understood the rules and regulations of the marriage. What I know today, he was so flaming loaded. He's just going like this, you know, because this is what my husband always hears when I'm talking, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And, but I thought he knew, I thought he knew. And then now day 2 of our marriage, day 2, the very second day, he doesn't come home all night long.

You know, right away a violator of rules and regulations and, you know, and I watched my mom for years. I watched my mom for years do nothing, so I knew that silent treatment didn't work. I am proud, proud to stand before you today and tell you my husband begged for the silent treatment because he never got it, not one time. I was, I was the alanon whose mouth was attached to the doorknob, boy. Just a minute he came in the door, I was like a little picandese dog just and just every 4 letter combination word combo that I could come up with to let him know how angry I was.

I never knew why I thought that I for whatever reason, I got this I call it information from nowhere. Land here and becomes fact for me. But I just really thought, you know, that if I cussed in the right sequence of mothers and efers in the right order, you know, that he would understand how upset I was, you know, have that spiritual awakening that I wanted him to have. You know? Oh, Larsene, I'm sorry to make a wonderful woman like you cuss like that.

I must stop drinking immediately. And, I don't know what I I was just for whatever reason and, but that was just absolutely the way that it was. I mean, you know, and like I said, he just wanted to lay down and pass out. If it wasn't for me, our house would have been a quiet place, but I just couldn't let it happen. I was so angry and I mean, he'd be passing out and I'd be picking them up from the shoulders and shaking them because I wasn't done.

You know, he joked. He he joked that part of the reason I talk as fast as I do is I only had so much time from when he came home to when he passed out to tell him everything it was that I had to tell him because by God he was gonna hear it. And, there was no way I was gonna let him skate like my mom let my dad skate and, you know, but even at this point I'm not looking at the drinking. I'm really not because see I have been to probably 100 if not 1,000 of open alcoholics anonymous meetings and the time I've been in the program and I have heard wonderful AA speakers and they have described alcoholism, but I can sit in that chair till the cows come home, you know, and I am never really going to understand the compulsion to drink because that is not mine. That is not what I suffer from.

And because I did not suffer from that, I could not understand why my husband had to drink. I didn't see it because see I don't have to drink and if I don't have to drink, you don't have to drink. And if you're drinking it's because that's what you want to do. Maybe you don't love because you're drinking at me. You know, and again information from nowhere.

No one told me this stuff. I thought it up all by myself and it lands in my little head and becomes fact for me. If the thought crosses my mind for whatever reason, I believe it. You know? And I used to believe he was drinking at me.

I used to believe he was having fun. My husband never came home looking like he was having fun. He always came home looking like he'd been run over by a Mack truck twice, But for whatever reason, I decided he was having fun. For whatever reason, I decided he was drinking at me. For whatever reason, I decided he didn't love me and our children enough to stop what he was doing and keep on doing it.

And therefore he must not love us because if it was me I would stop. So why can't he do that? Again information from nowhere that that caused a lot of harm and damage to my family and how I'm affected by the disease of alcoholism and I and I don't even know it. You know, and I want you to know that when Butch and I got married, positively the driving force behind that was the fact that, you know, that we had this child. There's absolutely no doubt about that.

But I want you to know that that the day that Butch and I got married and we stood up in front of a minister and we and we did our vows and we talked about loving and honoring and cherishing each other and I believe with all my heart, you know, that we really wanted to do that. I believe that he loved me and I know that I loved him you know but alcoholism doesn't love or cherish anybody and it wasn't just Butch and Larsene that got married that day it was the disease of alcoholism you And alcoholism means to tear your family apart. It just absolutely means to rip it to shreds in any way shape or form that it can because that's the family disease of alcoholism. And if you don't even know what's going on, it's even twice as deadly because it's going to get you. And so anyway Butch and I are off on this wonderful married life and you know and it was pretty much a war from day 2.

You know after the rules and regulations day it went downhill from there. And there's just a couple of things I'll tell you about and for the most part he was easygoing but alcoholism is a progressive disease and he got progressively worse. And one night he came home and to show you how drunk he was he woke me up and he'd never done anything like that before and, and it startled me and he was really gruff, this doctor Jekyll, mister Hyde personality they talk about in the big book and, you know, and give me some dinner and, you know, and all this stuff. And he was really mean and rough and and I kinda scurried into the kitchen. This is like 2 o'clock in the morning and, but then I woke up and I remembered who he was dealing with.

And, and I made this Mexican casserole that night that called for 1 jalapeno pepper, but I had a whole can of them in the refrigerator. So I just cut up every single one of those jalapeno peppers and just stuffed it in there and he ate. He's so drunk his mouth must have been on flaming fire. You know? And then he did what I wanted him to do and that was go in the bathroom and puke his brains out, you know?

Because I don't know how you feel but when my alcoholic froze up I get a warm feeling that just, you know, lasts me for days and, because this is what it's come to, you know, this is what it's come to. This is our 1st year of marriage, you know, and and and and my idea of fun is making my husband puke, you know, I mean, this is and again, how I'm affected by the disease of alcoholism and I'm not the person that's drinking and I don't even know it. I don't even know I'm retaliating. I don't even know I'm punishing. You know because what ended up happening for me especially in the beginning was you know when you're an alcoholic you know their wrongs are like this big they're just like this big you know and in the beginning you know it was just you know my little stuff was just little stuff you know, and stuff.

But it isn't very long before, boy, I get on the I get on the fame. You know, I just get right on the path too. And my wrong started growing even bigger than his. You know, again, how does that happen? You know, I didn't have a conscious thought that I wanna hurt him.

Occasionally, I'd be yelling at him and calling him names, you know, after he's sobering up, and and I could look in his eyes and see the pain. I could see how sorry he was that he didn't want to do those things that he didn't want to spend our rent money you know, that he didn't mean to do half of the stuff that he did, how sorry he was that he told me he was sorry. And I know when he looked at me and he told me he was that he meant it with every fiber of his being. And I would have that little voice that would just say, Larsene just leave him alone, walk away and just let him be, but I couldn't do it. I could not do it because I've got that other voice in my head that's just louder and louder all the time that information from nowhere that says no, you got to ride him and ride him hard.

Don't let him get away with anything. You know, punish him, make him feel worse than what he does because then maybe, you know, it's the adversion therapy thing that I was going for, I guess. You know, someone asked me, you know, did I ever do intervention? We've had it every flaming night in my house. And, you know, it didn't do anything.

But, but again, you know, I don't even know that I'm being affected by the disease of alcoholism and that I'm turning into this person that I don't want to be. You know, when did the laughter go? You know, there was a while nothing was funny anymore. Nothing was absolutely funny for me. I got no joy out of life.

When you wake up every day, you know, and and my first thought is of him and what he's gonna do and where he's gonna go and is he gonna go to work. You know, that's just how I'm affected by the disease of alcoholism and I don't even know it. I just don't even know it. And, one time he was with his friends that I affectionately refer to as come of the earth people and, and these were heavy duty drug dealer people and and these heavy duty drug people called me and said that if I didn't come get him, they were going to call the police. I love this, the drug dealers were going to call the cops And, which shows you what a pig my husband is when he's drinking and using.

He is absolutely a pig. And, and there's a deal you know and I adhere to this and I recommend you do too. You know alcoholism is like wrestling with a pig, you know don't do it because you both get dirty and the pig likes it. And that's what I did. I wrestled with alcoholism and got just as dirty.

I got just as dirty. And so anyway, when I got the call, you know, I did what I always did. I put on my Superman cape and got in the car and went to go rescue my husband. There he is laying on the drug dealers front yard. They pushed him out of the house.

He's that drunk and that obnoxious. They don't even want him in the house. And the drug dealers are peering out the curtains to make sure I've come to get him. And so anyway, he wanted to drive like he always does, but I just pushed him and he landed in the back seat of the car. And, I drive us home and I take our young son upstairs and put him in his crib.

I come down and my husband's made the fatal mistake of getting out of the car without my help and he's fallen into the street, hit his head on the curb, blood is gushing out all over the place. Now I'd like to tell you how concerned I was for his well-being, but the real truth of the fact is is that I didn't want the neighbors to see him laying on the gutter bleeding. Another embarrassing situation from mister anonymity here. And so, so I just grabbed him by the ankles, you know, and I'm trying to heave him up over the curb and lug him down, you know, the the driveway and haul him into our apartment before anybody sees him. Now why we call these people normies?

I have not a flaming clue. But here is this guy driving by. I've got a guy by the ankles bleeding out of his head. The normal guy stops his car and says, are you having a problem? These are the normal people in the world.

And I said, yes, my husband's fallen and he can't get up. And so he insisted on helping me and he got him up and so I'm on one side of Butch and he's on the other side of Butch and we're taking him up to our apartment. Our bedroom, we have a 2 story townhouse. And so I had to have him, you know, on rules and regulations. Head injury needs to be in bed.

So he's gotta go up the whole flight of stairs, you know, to get him in this bed. And, and now, of course, we he and I are having the words, you know, and now mister Good Samaritan wants out of the situation. And we get to the top of the stairs and the guy is out of the house, gone like a bullet, you know, and so and I get butch in bed and now the bed spread, nice big puddle of blood. I'm hysterical. I'm nuts.

I call 911 and, and I'm so hysterical. They don't even know what's going on. They sent everything. They sent the paramedic, hook and ladder, truck, police, Everything we don't do each had at that at that time was at my house. They even got a hold of my mother.

And so here I am in the bedroom with the baby, all holding the baby, patting the baby. Oh, husband, oh my god. And the paramedics clean him up. He's got a little mini cut, needs about 3 or 4 stitches. And, So they come to me and they and they say, Mrs.

Dantner, your husband says he injured himself because you pushed him down a flight of stairs. And and I reassure them that I did not do that. But I tell the police, if you'll prop him up, I'll be happy to push him down in front of the Redondo Beach Police Department. And they assured me that that wouldn't be necessary. And like I said, they clean them all up.

He just needs these 3 stitches, but he's too drunk to be, you know, go to the hospital on his own. So they got the paramedics are taking them out, you know, and, you know, and I know how your neighborhood is, but 5 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, boy, the neighbors were out there hooking ladder truck, all the excitement going on at Larsene and Butch's house again. Butch comes out on the gurney, oh, how you Frank, how you doing? He's here as you old friendly neighborhood guy self and, you know, and I come out behind a newspaper like they won't know it's me, you know, because I was huge on anonymity at that point and, you know, and somewhere in all that insanity that's when I called the council on alcoholism. Don't even ask me why.

I don't even know how I heard about it or whatever but I looked in the phone book and I found this council on alcoholism. And I called this number and I talked to this woman and no and no matter what I told her was going on in my house and I just she was a stranger, so it's the first time I ever told anybody all the stuff that was going on in my house. And all she would say was I know. I know. I know.

I know. And then she asked me for my address and she asked me if she could send me some Al Anon literature and I'd never heard of Al Anon. And she told me a little bit about what it was like and I said yes, she could. And and I remember the envelope coming because it was a big brown envelope and, but I to this day, I don't remember if I even opened it. I have absolutely no idea.

For what I know that happened for me is I don't know how long it took a week for that envelope to get there and a week later everything's different. The rhinoceros goes back to being a coffee table And I just tossed it out, we're just going to go back and pretend that everything's okay again and one more time try and fix it. And again, just the absolute insanity of the disease. And, you know, towards the very end of my husband's drinking, I was standing toe to toe with him. Rage just coming out of me.

I was so angry. He was one more time so drunk and so loaded. One more time, we have no money. One more time, you know, the bill collectors are calling and I am beside myself and I am just screaming and ranting and raving at him. By now we've had a second child and I became very conscious in all of this of the yelling and screaming of these 2 little boys who are at that time 5 3 years old and they're both standing next to me and they're yanking on my jeans and I looked down at these 2 little boys and they're just sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, begging their mom to please stop yelling at their dad.