Miami Valley Winter Conference in Dayton, OH

Hey, everybody. My name is Benoit, and I'm a member of Al Anon. Hi, y'all. I certainly wanna thank the committee for inviting me and and, Judy. God bless her heart.

I I listened to her whine a lot. She started whining about all the speakers changing and switching and some canceled and she was out scrambling. She didn't know what to do with this and that and the other. I guess this was Thursday afternoon. And I said, well, you're lucky that I'm okay.

I've just been sick for several days, but I'm fine. And, about an hour later. Do y'all know what the green apple quick steps? I know you do. Do y'all know what green apple quick steps is.

Uh-huh. It's when you don't know whether to sit on the pot or puke in the pot. You know? And I had that hit me. And I called Judy, and I said, you know, I am really sick, and there's no way I can get on that plane in the morning.

And I am really, really sorry. And I could just hear this. And I told her to call me and I'd, you know, I'd see if if I could get, you know, get my stuff together. There's about 30 of us went up to Lake Arrowhead up the mountain in California last weekend, and we come down that hill and people just started falling off right and left. There was 6 of us that I know of as a fugitive that had this stuff.

So somebody was a carrier, and I really wanna know who it was. I'll tell you. I was sitting there about 2 AM. I guess it'd be Friday morning. And I had the trash can in front of me and I was sitting on the commode and I was, you know, this, you know, thought came to me.

You know, I hear our colleagues talking about this doing this all the time. And after what I went through for 3 days, I mean, I'll kill the person who get I can't even imagine going out the next night and doing it all over again. That's sick. I mean, jeez. You know what's causing it, and you go do it again.

I I just kept thinking, boy, that's so sick. And and, you know, sponsorship whining to her about what was going on and that I was feeling better, but, you know, not a 100% blah blah blah. And the trouble that Judy been through and what was going on. And she gets real quiet as she can do from time to time. I knew she was thinking and and she said, well, if I was you, maybe I'd just try to kinda push myself a little and see if you can't go home because if you stay at home, you'll probably get to feeling better tomorrow and you go have fun, then you'll feel guilty.

So I pushed myself on the plane at midnight last night. I took the ride out here, so I haven't had much sleep. Now this is sad story. I want y'all to know. I ain't slept in 3 or 4 days because of the Green Apple Quick Steps and, no sleep last night.

I think I'm really pitiful. I did a a great job staying awake for everybody today. I mean, y'all were so interesting that I really wanted to see how sick y'all were and how it was gonna turn out. But I do thank you for having me. I think it's a I really and truly consider it an honor.

I mean, really and truly. It's an honor. And it's a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, and I'm a student of it, it is a privilege to stand at this podium. I consider it holy ground. I truly do.

I think what goes on up here has nothing to do with me or any of these other speakers. I know some of them very well, and they're just not that smart. You know? Sorry. And something happens up here that just is really incredible.

So as myself, personally, I really wanna thank you for inviting me. And as an alanon, I really wanna thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous, for sharing your podium with us. It's mighty important to me. If you have trouble remembering my name, my husband said, if you'll take the v away and remember a noi, And I remind those who think that's so cute that he's dead now. He better hide out.

I came into this magnificent fellowship of ours February 7, 1969 in Lubbock, Texas. My home group for many, many years was the central group. My home group now is the stepped up group. Mondays Thursday nights, we're right by LAX. So if you're ever flying to Los Angeles, let me know, and I'll scoop you up and take you to our meeting.

My committed open AA meeting is on Wednesday nights at Pacific Group, and I'm at those 3 nights all the time. You can catch me there. And I another old Texas saying, probably don't know this, maybe 1 or 2, you know, I feel right now just like as important as tits on a boar hog. I mean, would any of y'all like to trade places with me after you've heard all these magnificent speakers all day? I mean, what am I gonna say?

I mean, it's all been said. I feel very lame up against most of them. I mean and and Jennifer. Yeah. You didn't hear hear that alatine speaker if you ever get a take from those losers over there.

She was magnificent. I mean, she just made my pitiful trip worth it just to hear that young lady. What a what a message she had. And I know all these speakers may just they outdid themselves. I, I'm part Indian.

My dad is from Oklahoma, Choctaw Indians, and, he was uneducated. A wonderful, quiet, quiet man. He just held his head down and just walked. He was just a he just walked life. He married my mother, who came from, the Southern Baptist.

My grandmother was a Methodist dropout, so she was even, you know, she was just her whole family just turned their back on my grandmother because she quit on the Methodist and went to them. And, plus she had a habit of marrying alcoholics, And I did not know this until just a few years ago. I finally put it together, you know, it's like, duh. She was married 3 times when they were all alcoholics. And if you know I mean, way back then, they did not get divorces.

I mean, it just wasn't done. So my mother came, from a divorced family, and she was full of shame and never held her head up either. And they met, married, and I had, 3 brothers and myself, myself, and they were just good, hardworking Texas people. You know, they're just good people. When I was a little girl, my oldest brother broke his neck.

We were in Oklahoma on a vacation and left him paralyzed, and it broke my father. And, I remember when I was a kid, the Lubbock Avalanche Journal had a on the front of it, bottom of the page, a picture of my brother in his hospital bed and it says my dad was standing in the foot of the bed and it said, father swallows pride and asks for help. And so we were getting donations from people all over Lubbock County that we didn't have insurance. I don't even know if there's insurance back there. I guess it was, but I sound like I'm really old, don't I?

And we were getting all this money from just good people. And then I put my head down because it was like, we're different and and we're charity people and we have to take from other people and and we were all kind everybody in my family was uneducated, and, it was it was just you were just different. And I have a full shame and and, low low self worth as they say. And I just kept to myself and kept real quiet, and my house was not a fun place. My my brother, god love his heart, he just smelled back.

He had rotting flesh. There wasn't these striker frames, and and he lay there and just had rotting flesh. And the medicine that they put on that smelled worse than the rotting flesh. And the things that he had to do, his other body functions just smelled really bad. The house just reeked of it.

And so I never had anybody at my house. I stayed out in the streets all the time, never came home unless it was absolutely necessary. And I started running around with the older crowd, probably 10, 11, 12, something like that. They had magazines and stuff, and they'd show me things that was really life was really exciting out there. And, there was a Life Magazine.

It had a picture of dances and stuff and and I was just enthralled with it. I just I just wanna go where that was. It just looked magical to me. And then when I got up a little older, one of the older girls, I think she was 17 or 18, took me to, my first honky tonk. It was a Cotton Club.

I met a guy, Jim, Mary's husband, has been to the Cotton Club, in Lubbock, Texas. And one of the first people I saw out there was Elvis Presley, and my friend's name was Sandra. And, I don't know why I'm telling you this. It doesn't have anything to do with anything, but, Sandra went up to Elvis and I was standing beside her. And, I mean, she was a pretty snobbered, I imagine, because she just, and I don't mean to be disrespectful of the crowd or anything, but she just pulled out her her breast and had him sign his name on the breast.

And I thought that was the coolest thing. I mean, just yanked that thing out and say, here. Just stuck up there and say, here, sign it. And, she's still written up. If there's anything about Elvis, it's I was in Graceland just a while back and they had a little article paper about Sandra.

And I was there. It was just just very touching. One of the things that I learned out those honky toms, you know, I'm a fast learner, and I watch and see what happens. And I don't make a move till I know what you're supposed to be doing. I'm a manipulator, and I'm a controller, and I I have to know best.

I had this strong need to to know best and and change things. If you'll notice, I moved the table. It just drove me crazy all day long. The the table was way over there and, you know, you couldn't get your water. And I just couldn't wait to get up here to change the whole podium.

You know? I do. I said she always does that. I do. I mean, I want it convenient for me.

And y'all, most of the time, don't know how to do it. And Polly referred to alcoholism today, and the isms, is what make up an alcoholic, I understand. And I've been a student of Clancy for ever since I walked in. He was my husband's sponsor. And, he and I have gotten to arguments about alamo isms and alcohol isms.

And my great great grand sponsor made a list one time of alanon isms, if you will. And part of that is control and manipulation and the need to be right and the blame and the complain and the martyr. Don't cover his ears up. Look at her. What are you doing, girl?

And I just eat up with all of them. I truly am. And and I get out of this honky tonk, and I was watching what happens. And this is this will describe every honky tonk I ever been in. All the gals stay on this side of the room, and all the guys stay on this side of the room at the bar.

And the music's going it's pretty lame, you know, it's about lemonish. And at lemonish, the guys over here are getting pretty happy and kinda loose, and, they'll start swaggering. I love alcoholic swaggers. I mean, they just can swagger. You know?

Just you know, dance babe. You know? Jim Williams used to say that if you lined up 10 pretty girls against the wall, that he would pick the sickest one every time. And I told Jim one time, you haven't figured out yet, son. The sickest of that 10 takes one step forward.

You never picked them at all. We just let you think that you picked them. Because I'm studying the bar, and, you know, I love bars. I love AA meetings. My AA meeting committed AA meeting, there's 1200 people there Wednesday night.

Many of you have been there. And they'll say, are there any alcoholics in the room? And every time they do that, I'm just, oh, I was just like, oh. I mean, I love alcoholics. I just love them.

I mean, just man, there's just nothing about them. And so I've already picked up the one that I think is the cutest and the most swagger the best and the best dancer, and so I've already picked him up. So about 11ish, as he comes over with his little swagger, I'm moving a little bit forward, giving that look. But it's who was it that's saying snagger? Snagging?

Oh, honey. I'm a snagger from way back. And then you dance a little while, and then you gotta be really quick at closing time. I mean, that last dance. God, that last dance.

In Texas, they play, and especially ones I went to, I wound up in a place called the Bloody Bucket. And it's, Jim was there and he said, I remember going this one place that they they pad you down before you come in. And I said, yeah. That's the bloody bucket. And they would play Sleepwalk, and it's a musical.

It's a guitar musical, steel guitar, and it just vibrates your whole soul. I mean, it is just so magnificent. I just get cold chills thinking about it. It just oh, man. It goes, if I can do this.

I've been sick, you know. And I got my hymn of the night picked out and I'm really quick at that last song and I got it. And we're out there dancing. And, I mean, you couldn't put a human hair in between our bodies. I mean, we are clutched up, you know.

And and that song's going on, and all of a sudden he gets right here, just right here in this ear, and he's saying the magic words to me. I mean, they're magic. They fix me. I fill up. I'm a different human being.

I heard a speaker from, AA say this AA party one time and I knew exactly what he was talking about. He's talking about what filled him up was a drink that he felt useless and worthless. He had no self worth. He took his drink and it came down and it went boom. And then it comes back up and it feels his shoulder up with muscles and his arms pop out.

Just feel like a man. He just go do anything and he just swelled up and he was saying it. And I thought, I identify with that. I know exactly what he's talking about. I know exactly the first time I ever felt it and how I felt many years after that.

It's at that magical moment when they arrive here and they're nibbling, And he says, sugar, I need you. Yes. Yes. Oh, man. I'm full.

I'm whole. I am beauty. I am woman. I am everything that you can dream of at that moment. He is mine, and I'm gonna give him the wonders of the world.

He is gonna be so happy. And I'll take him to my house, and I'll do everything I heard the big girls do. You see, he's gonna be it. He's gonna fix me. And there's nothing as slippery as an alcoholic the morning after.

I mean, they're so slippery. And I know, Marty, man, I am on my way, just getting down to hell because I sat in that same church that Polly did and that same preacher banging on that table, screaming, these veins popping his red stain, thin, thin, thin. And and I knew I was I was doomed. But it you know what? This this seem that darn bad.

So I go back out the honky tonk again, And I know exactly what an alcoholic means when they say, tonight, I'm just gonna go out to the bar and have a couple of drinks, and then I'm gonna go home to my family. I'm just gonna have a couple of beers. I know exactly what they're talking about, and then they wind up, you know, going for days. Because I said the same thing to myself. Tonight, I'm just gonna go out there and dance.

That's all I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna do anything else. I'm not gonna pick up anybody. Nobody's coming home with me. I'm not going home with anybody.

I have got to straighten my life out. This is bad. I am going to hell, and I gotta stop this. And it would come, and I just couldn't leave. I mean, I just couldn't leave.

There was this big giant hole in my soul and in my gut, and it become closing time, and then I'd be filled up and round round round. What I just turned out to be a slutpucky ho. I tore my dignity little strip at a time and, you know, just gave it away. I used to think I was such a victim until I got here and heard that there are no victims or volunteers. And I I did it to myself.

There's a line in the big book that just popped in there not too long ago. I don't know when they stuck it in there, but it said that we are self imposed our own self imposed prices. And I thought, you know, that's right. Everything I ever did was self imposed. There is no blame.

There is just no blame. I was as goofy and as sick as you can possibly make them. And my sponsor said, you know, you can't blame any alcoholic. You were a squirrel always looking for a tree to climb up. You just were.

And I've had, 3 major alcoholics and a bunch of minor ones in between. And I just they just do something for me. I mean, I can't I dated this one time, this guy, He was normal. And I'm telling you, it was the most boring couple of dates I've ever had in my life. When they came on time, had a rose, took me out to eat, they paid for it.

We went to a movie. He held my hand, took me home, walked me to the door, kissed me on the cheek, said he'd call me, and he did. Now what's the fun in that? I mean, there's no challenge whatsoever. My first major alcoholic, I found out the bloody bucket and and he was a gangster, gambler.

He was a professional gambler and a bootlegger. That's how he made his living. And I didn't realize I truly didn't realize how I had slowly slipped and slipped and slipped and slipped till the people that I was around, most people would not be around. Most, I don't wanna say decent people. That's what they called them back then.

Most decent people wouldn't be with these people. And that's where I I wound up and felt very comfortable with these people. They were, shot they call them boosters. They were shoplifters and pimps and prostitutes, gamblers, bootleggers, just whatever you can imagine they were there. And then there was me, and I just always thought I was so much better than they were.

God love them. And I had, you know, I could share with them from time to time. And I I just I just fit there. I just fit there for some reason or other. Now I drank.

I'm like Mary. I drank too, but I do not have the allergy to the body. A lot of the isms I have that are like alcoholics as far as I can tell, except the depth of them. My daughter says, it's like this, mom. When you have a flat tire, you call triple a.

When I have a flat tire, I have to call suicide prevention. And that's that makes sense to me because that's what I do, and she just goes bonkers. When I say I'm fear, an alcoholic, as far as I can tell, is in stark terror. So we have the same emotions, but it's like, again, just my observation from the crazy kids I've got. Their, their nerves are like they lay on top of the skin.

Mine are buried with this cable about 4 inches deep inside my body so that you can't touch my nerves, my emotions, my feelings, and theirs are out here. So I think that's the the difference along with the allergy. So I drank for a long time and and this guy was just nuts. I mean, he was crazy. There was guns around the house and shot off, shot at people.

He shot at me. He pistol whipped me. He threw me in and out of moving cars. I mean, we just fought all the time and it was just it was pitiful. I learned after I got here maybe to try to keep my mouth shut.

That was what a concept. I never even thought about it. You had to get their attention and you have to explain things when they're not doing right, you know, and they explain to you. And, I moved in with this man. I became pregnant by this man, unmarried.

It never occurred to me to say to him, let's get married and give this child a decent start in life. It never even occurred to me to do that because at this time in my life, I knew I was a piece of garbage and not anybody was gonna, you know, put up with that. And so I I never even considered asking him. I had he took care of me until I had my daughter. And then he told me in the hospital that he had done all he was gonna do and that, I would have to make my own way now, and he'd give me a couple of $100 to get started, and he walked out.

And one of the other isms of an Al Anon is called vindictiveness. I don't particularly like that word. I think it a better way to explain that is if you've hurt me, I need to show you the weight and the depth of this pain by showing you some pain. That's what I call him. So I was going to show him what he had lost and how bad he was gonna feel when he saw me with this one particular man that he absolutely hated.

Just hated him. They were just enemies. So I manipulated and maneuvered and, got with this other guy and and, saw that he had plenty to drink. You know, I always did that. I always gripe when they were drunk at the wrong time.

But when I needed them to do something, then I would pour them a little bit stronger drink. I'd pour them a couple of drinks quicker than what they normally do. It took me a long time in inventories to to see my part, that I was giving them the poison when it suited me. And I am not proud to say that at all. But I manipulate this and got him drunk one night quicker than normal and took him out to, the bloody bucket, Flowing myself in front of, my daughter's daddy, left, quickly.

And a couple of days later, he took a shotgun and blew this man's head off. Now I never ever expected that to happen. Not ever. It just that happens in movies. It doesn't happen in real life.

And I was just, blown away by it. My friend came. It was real early in the morning. The sun was coming up, and she came and knocked on the door, and she told me what just happened. And I remember standing there thinking because my chest started getting very tight, my throat started closing, I was having a tough time breathing, and it seemed like the sun was going back down.

I was thinking, now how can the sun be going back down? Where is it going? And this pain was filling me up. And I thought, oh my god. This pain.

And I I can't stand this. I'm not gonna have this uncomfortableness in me. And I just decided at that point to stuff that feeling. It was too tough. And that was my first encounter that I brought up in inventories of me stuffing a feeling.

And it went down deep and buried very deep. And I put my shoulders back and said, that's too bad. And it came out in newspapers and everything, and they were making a big deal out of it. And my parents well, they were so fed up with me at this point. I I had a child out of wedlock and then this happened.

And I went over to my mother's house and she said to me she met me at the door, and she said, I would like for you to leave. I don't want you coming in and out here anymore. I just don't want our neighbors to see you here. And if anybody asks if you're our daughter, please tell them that you're not. She was a big member of the Rebecca Lodge and they had just, she had been voted this high mucky mucky state.

And when all this happened, they asked her to step down, because of what I had done. And I felt real bad about that and I knew she was right and I said, you're right, mama. I I won't. I'll leave. And, my dad used to come get my daughter and take her back over there, but my mother, she never laid eyes on me for quite some time, a couple of years.

When I decided that what was going on with me was just awful, and I had to change. I just actually had changed my lifestyle. Now I I knew my grandmother believed in god. I did not. I've seen an article in a in a magazine.

It said, god is dead. 1 of the girls just a side note here. 1 of the girls, my grand sponsherese, 4 or 5 months ago, slipped this magazine under my chair at the meeting. She said, lift give me a little note. She said, you talked about this first time I ever heard an Allen on speaker and I wanted you to have this magazine.

So she got on the Internet and dug out this magazine. It was back in the forties. It was incredible. I was so thrilled to to read it. And I just figured that, you know, and the Bible said they lived a long time back then, so maybe there was somebody and he lived a long time and was really good and that's kinda way I thought it really may have gone down.

So I had nothing to turn to. So I I knew I had to change my lifestyle. So what I did was go with the rodeo grounds. Now at that time, cowboys weren't burning their the flags and tearing up the draft cards and all that. They'd say these are, you know, these are real men and they're real citizens, and I I thought that made me feel good when they were saying that.

So I just thought I'd get a cowboy that would fix me, and I did. And, you know, the difference in the honky tonk and cowboy land is after the rodeo, there's a slab of concrete with fence around it. And all the girls lean up against this fence, and all the cowboys lean against that fence. It's the only difference. And they they played sweetheart.

And, I picked out the bull rider, the best bull rider of the bunch, and positioned myself where he would see me. I I heard this girl say I'll call a woman speak just not too long ago. It just absolutely tickled me to death. She said and I never had it's such a good idea. I'm sorry I didn't think about it.

When she was at the bars, she would see where the men's restroom was and she would find the table and set herself right in front of the door. So when they opened the door, the light from the bathroom would fall on her. She'd be sitting there. That is such a great idea. So we went round and round and did the deal, and, one night he was drinking and was out that honky tonk, and he was poking me in the chest.

And I picked up a quart beer bottle. It was empty and broke it up side of his head. Just busted up. I've done that several times. I I don't know why I did things like that.

You made me mad. I just busted the head with a chair or something. And he just went to his knees and I thought it'd be a good time to exit. And I did, and he chased me out the car and he spun me around. And he got me by the shoulder and I thought, boy, he is fixing to knock me colder.

And he said, I think you just knocked some sense in me. I think we should get married. Well, he had a quart bottle of salted no. A gallon jug that he mixed salted off. I filled it up that night and he stayed full till we was married.

2, 3 days later, it seems like I'm getting married, and he didn't draw a sober breath. I was afraid he changed his mind. And then do you understand I was married? Now this was something that was not a dream that I even entertained at all because good girls get married, and I was not a good girl, and I was married. Now this is gonna be it.

Life's gonna be done. This is it. And I I did all the things that what I'm supposed to do. I cooked him, you know, breakfast and made him little sandwiches, put little love notes in the sandwich. And so when he took a bite of it, the boys would say, oh, you've got such a good wife.

And I had his supper ready, his bath drawn, and I mean, it was I was just I was an excellent wife, and we had an excellent marriage for 6 days. And And then he was off and running. He didn't come home for a couple of days and then it started. You know, it was all back. It was all back.

I had, you know, loser up here, loser, loser. And and I I took my position at the window and and watching, you know, You were talking about loneliness, Don. You know, loneliness just I think it's all over alcoholism, whether it be the alcoholic or whether it be the family. It's just a nasty time. And I'd be saying that that one to 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning listening because his his pickup had a certain ding ding ding.

You know, I could hear it 5 miles down the road. And I I'd watch for that pickup and and listen for that pickup and and just my life was waiting on pickup most of the time. I look up down the street and everybody else's lights were off. The cars were in the driveway. The pickup was out front.

And standing there thinking, what in the world is wrong with me? Why am I unlovable? What is it? I don't understand. Everybody else can seem to do it, and I just can't.

I don't know what the deal is. And he'd come in, and, of course, I'd run, jump in bed, and clean to the side of the bed like I sleep. Learn how to breathe just like you're sleeping. He'd say, you sleep? It wouldn't say anything.

Are you mad? No. You know, just hurt. And then then we'd go. Yeah.

Then we'd go at it. It was the same I mean, the same thing all the time. We'd either fight a little bit or fight large or you'd start breaking windows, throwing furniture, screaming, yelling, throwing me out the door, throwing him out the door. And my children, you know, god love them. I think Jennifer touched me so much because she was thrown out of the house.

My kids were thrown out of the house, and and daddy screamed and yelled and broke things of theirs and broke things of mine. And it's just it's a nasty disease. I love alcoholics, but I absolutely detest alcoholism. I hate it. And that's why I stay here and work as hard as I do to separate the 2 because I love the alcoholic, and I hate the disease.

And I did that just as long as I could possibly do it. And the beatings were going, you know, if he didn't start a fight, I did. And I I was beat up all the time. Children had to watch that. And he was just he was he was very, very sick as you can well imagine.

1 Thursday, I woke up and I had 2 black eyes and a busted lip, and he was gonna come in the next day. He was working out of town. He was gonna come in the next day, and I knew I just couldn't do it. I could not do it one more time. I those kids were in the back room, and I would just think about those kids.

You know, they both got different daddies. And by this time time my daughter's father, he was in prison for that murder. My son had this drunk for daddy that beat us all up, and they were back there hiding. And they weren't particularly hiding from the alcoholic either. They had to hide a lot from me because I would go absolutely crazy.

And you can't you can't grab the disease. You can't grab the alcoholic when he's out of the honk a tonk, but you can grab those kids and you can scream for those kids. My kids suck a lot under my hand, I'll tell you. And I just knew I couldn't do it anymore. And so I I picked up the yellow pages and the reason I did that in the fall of 68, I think it was October, November, Anne Landers had a letter in there from a woman who was asking what to do about a drunk husband.

And I could've written that letter. She told her, I thought, she said to, call out Colleagues Mamas, and so that's what I did. And, this man gave me another number. I called it, went over to this woman's house, and she and her husband sat and talked to me for a long, long time. And then they took me they made arrangements to and picked me up and took me to my first meeting.

My very first impression of Alcoholics Anonymous in Illinois, he opened the door to the clubhouse and he opened it and and stepped back and and looked at me. And I was looking at him because I really didn't know what he was doing. I wonder why he didn't go on in, And he was being a gentleman. Now I had not occurred encountered a gentleman in my whole life. Nobody had ever opened the door for me, so I wasn't quite sure, other than seeing it in movies, what was going on.

Then he finally said, please, and just kinda bowed. And it dawned on me, he's opened this door for me. And I walked in the door and it was a long coffee room. And at the end of the coffee room was a cigarette machine. Y'all remember those old machines where you put the money in and pull the thing and it'd fall out?

Each little company had their advertising on on there. It's all different kinda lights and colors, and it was really a pretty glow. And the guys were leaning against that machine, that glow was coming up in their face, and they were laughing. And I can still see it and hear it right this moment. They were laughing a real, real belly laugh, and it was real.

And I just stopped because I hadn't heard that in so long. You know, laughter leaves the alcoholic home. I love what Albert used to say. This little he was an Altine sponsoring. When the Altine's got in the car 1 9, Albert says, well, son, how's it going?

He said, well, the house sounds okay. He said, sounds? What do you mean? He started talking about the sounds of alcoholism. If it's quiet, it's a it's a okay time.

But if it's noisy, then it's not a good old time. And how is dad's voice? And I thought, yeah, that's right. The sounds of alcoholism is a strange sound. I went into that Al Anon meeting, and I I can't tell you what they said.

I have no idea what they said. I get so tickled at people who who say from time to time, I just talked to a girl all day. So I said, oh, crap. You don't remember what it was like when you just knew. She'd say, well, if that was going on when I was a newcomer, I would have slept.

No. You wouldn't. You don't even remember what was going on when you was a newcomer. Quit saying that. You know what I mean?

Nobody knows what's going on when they first get here. But if I just knew, I'd leave. I just remember how I felt when I left there. That's what caught me. And whatever I felt, I knew I wanted some more of it.

And I kept going back. And sometime later, I was given this book, from, called The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. And it's there's a line there that says, say not that God is in your heart, but that you are in the heart of God. And I thought, that's it. That describes what happened to me.

I stepped into that room and there's a spirit that's in every meeting that I've ever been to. Sometimes I'm too tired to really experience it, but it's always there. Ramona, one of the old time Al Anon speakers from Oklahoma, she used to say it all the time, if you'll just be still in a in a meeting sometime, just just just be still. You will feel the spirit. She was an Indian too, and she talked about God's spirit, the creator's spirit going from one heart to the other and how it just pulled everybody together.

And and I believe that's true. And like I said, the only time I don't see this is when I'm tired of blaming somebody. And I knew I want to come back, and I did. I I would go in there real quick and and leave real quick and what time do we start? I have no idea.

See if I know. Thank you. What? Oh, yeah. Spirit.

And somebody's listening. Thank you. I figured most of you sleep. I'm just having a good time up here all by myself. And I I would listen to what they were saying and I figured out pretty soon that they were getting too intimate for me.

I figured out that they talk about God, and I didn't want any part of God. And then I started I heard, just take what you like and leave the rest. And so I would slip in just the minute the meeting started. I mean, it just they just said, let's start. And I'd slip in that back door and set the back seat.

And as soon as amen, I was out of there. Mainly because everybody looked like y'all did tonight. Clear eyes. You know, those that eyes of recovery and the and the laughter and the joy was there, and and I just knew that I didn't fit there. But I wanted to be back there and just observe you.

If I could just sit back there and observe you, that would be enough for me. So I would just slip it in and out and they were watching me. They knew I was new and I never could figure out how they knew I was new for quite some time. And there's 2 doors to that room and one got it one door and one got the other door before they started the Lord's Prayer so they could catch me because I've been there long enough now that they need to set the hook. And the door that I chose that night, my soon to be sponsor was standing there and she caught me.

And she said she was telling me a few little things about herself that she said she was surprised that she was telling them as they were coming out of her mouth because it was stuff that she didn't share. And now I know why she did that. It was a divine appointment. I believe in divine appointments here. I believe God's timing is perfect.

It's never a minute because because I she looked so sweet. I'm pretty sure she never had said shit in her whole life. And she said some things to me that I knew it would be safe to talk to her. And the next day, she showed up where I worked, I worked in a drugstore and she come out there and she slipped a $10 bill in my hand. Now that was a lot of money back then.

A lot of money. And I hadn't told anybody anything about my finances. There was no money, and there was no food at home. And the alcoholic had been gone for a while, and I didn't know where he was. And I tapped out my boss just as mad as much as I could.

You know how people start looking at you after a while when you borrow money and you come in with black eyes and you've got all this makeup on and they say, why do you stay there? And I've always said, well, I'm leaving as soon as as soon as those kids are gone. As soon as the car is paid, I'm out of here. As soon as I get some money saved up. As soon as as soon as as soon as now I do not have any more idea than they did why I stayed.

I had no idea. So I didn't want to ask my boss, and I was really worried about actually having supper that night for my children and gas to get back and forth to work. There was just nobody to ask anymore. My friends were gone. I had 2 friends left and they were really shaking.

No family left. I mean, I was literally by myself with this disease. And when she handed me that $10 bill, I mean, I was just shocked. And I said, oh, I'll pay you back my mom. She said, no, no, you don't.

Why we do it here is that you pass that on, and God will bless you, and he will pay he will multiply it. And that was 32 years ago. And I've been passing that $10 because, I mean, I just worried about it. And there was pretty soon that I had some money, and there was a gal who needs some money. I just gave her some $10.