Vannoy S. from Marina Del Ray, CA speaking in Eugene, OR

Hi, everybody. My name is Benoit and I'm a member of Al Anon. Hi, y'all. I have been in this awesome, magnificent fellowship of ours since February 7, 1969. I came into the central group in Lubbock, Texas, which was my home group for many years.

I now am at Los Angeles. It says Marina. Alright. But, you know, it's all one big old glob of cars and people. And, my home group is the stepped up group.

We meet on Monday nights Thursday nights. We're right by the airport. So if you're ever in LA, and I mean this sincerely, give us a call and we'll come get you and take you to the best meeting that you will ever attend, of Al Anon anywhere. I have a committed open AA meeting that I go to every Wednesday night. It's called the Pacific Group.

It's over in Bel Air, and we will take you there. My sponsor is Pat Claytor from Austin, Texas. She's been in the program for 41 years. She's still doing the things that she taught me to do and expects me to still do them. So that's my credentials, and plus I have a plethora of alcoholics in my life and, 3 major ones and a bunch of minor ones in between and just so I won't get lonesome, I birth some of my own.

So, I love alcoholics. I love alcoholics. Prefer I'm sober. I learned a long time ago that there was no blame here. My sponsor said that I was like a, a I always was a squirrel looking for a tree to climb up, and, alcoholism just fits me.

I want to thank the committee, for inviting me, truly, for inviting me. I I don't take it lightly standing behind these podiums. When I first started doing it, I thought it was cute. My head blew up, you know, and all that kind of stuff. But as the years have passed, I realized that this is, this is holy ground for me, and I treat it as such.

I think my even arriving here was a divine appointment, and I try to keep it just that way. So, committee, thank you very much. Thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous, for saving my family's life, and I got a bunch of them that y'all are saving. And thank you, Al Anon, for my own. Those of you who showed up, I just thank you.

I really mean that. Not just for me, Benoit, but I'm sure glad you're here. But as to come here now on speaker. Merck mentioned it yesterday and and, I find it true too. There seems to be from time to time across the country this, you know, yang yang between AA and Almonds and, not getting along.

And I think it's contempt prior to investigation, my own self. Yeah. Because right this moment, I represent your grandma, your mother, your sister, your wife, maybe your daughter, maybe your granddaughters, maybe your nieces, maybe your girlfriend, significant other, whatever. I represent them right at this moment, because I can tell you why they're so nuts. You know, one of our books and they I I don't wanna get into that, but one of our books that we used to have, had a line in there that I just love.

And it said, alcoholics are known to marry some of the meanest women in the world. For some reason or other, they those that have the power took that out and, I've had a great time here. I truly have. Have. The trip here is one of those trips that I would really bore you with because it's long, dreary, you know, one of those trips.

And I got here and these three people have picked me up, man Carol and Madeline and Karen and I mean, they grabbed meeting. We gotta go this meeting. We gotta go this meeting. Y'all grind it out here, don't you? Lord, you're getting every penny of my money.

I mean, I'm not gonna out here, don't you? Lord, you're getting every penny of my plane ticket. I'll tell you that. Trying to get in my room has been a challenge. I've had to go down the front twice with my key and and have it re I mean, it's just hysterical.

I've learned kinda learned it. You gotta put it in the little slot, and when the green light comes on, you gotta pull, shrug, shove. And about the 4th or 5th time, I make it in that booger. I mean, it's hysterical. I never come across anything like it.

I guess I'm gonna tell you about the ketchup story. We were having lunch in this magnificent restaurant here attached to the hotel and, some of you been there. And Shay ordered a hamburger and they brought out some she had to go back, get some ketchup, and this speedy waitress gave her the the ketchup. But she came back and she sat down, and she opened the ketchup. And she didn't get it all the way open even, and it exploded all over me.

I mean, all over me and all over her. She put the top on really quick, and she set it out front, and we just wash me off. And this one, she starts staring that ketchup bottle. And I thought, you know what? She's gonna pull that because she knows best.

She's gonna look at that ketchup bottle. And I just watched her and she meant she in just a second, she pulled it over in front of her and she just kept looking at it. Now, Shay and I are still wiping off the ketchup from us, but she's looking at that ketchup bottle. In a minute, here she goes. Splattered all over her, all over her, And then it started erupting like a volcano.

I've never really seen anything like it. I mean, it just I'm telling you the truth. It oozed up and all over the table and she just she was just looking at it. Such a classic Algon thing. I just want to get up.

She could fix that ketchup bottle. She knew what her purpose was. She said was to smell it to see if it was bad. We call that dummies a rock in my home. So I shall have tales of Maryland to take back home to the good folks, I'll tell you.

And so my dear friends are here, that have helped me along the way. And, I love them a lot. And, it's it's really good, totally good to be here. Oh, and I changed the podium. I guess, y'all noticed that.

I gave him a heart attack. We don't ever put the table over there. And I said, well, it's my turn and you're gonna. We'll move it back for those of you who get nervous about things like that. Well, I had a mama and a daddy.

My daddy was a party Indian from, Oklahoma. My mama was from a divorced family when that absolutely did not happen, plus they were Baptist and, from the Bible Belt. And they met and married and had me and 3 brothers. And, daddy got all the used furniture business and and was going along good. And then my they take a vacation.

My brother broke his neck, my oldest brother, and it it just wrecked our lives from that time to this day. Our lives were never the same. My daddy went broke. People helped us from the community. We had to take a lot of charity.

That affected me deeply because I was young enough to see that people were having to give us stuff. The church came and tried to help us and I got a lot of misconceptions about the church because of what was going on. They brought in food and money and my mother sat down and started just bawling her eyes out. And my daddy took this gray looking face, and he went out in the backyard. And and to me and some woman almost smothered me, you know, hugging me, telling me Jesus love me.

It was like, this is not a good thing. These people aren't good things. They're bringing tears and sadness and smothering me, and I, didn't want any part of that. And shortly thereafter, some other people came and they put my brother, who was totally paralyzed, on a mattress and put him in the floor, and they all got around him and started praying over him and hollering and screaming and hands up in the air and just moaning and falling over. It was just terrifying to me as this little kid.

And when they left, I went in to see if my brother's alright, and I can remember this so just so clearly. My brother said, they just did a prayer thing for me, and I I'm gonna be healed. And the first thing I'm gonna do is chase you around the backyard. Well, I was just thrilled to death. So I went in the living room, sat down on the couch and waited, you know, waited.

And, of course, nothing ever happened. So I it was to me, there was no God, there was no Jesus, and whatever they were talking about certainly didn't work. So I just marked that off as something that's not for my life. I was tall and skinny and, used to be hottie. I used to be a hottie.

Let me tell you. Sure slipped away. But I, the older girls, I think she there was like they were like 17 maybe. They took me out to, my first honky tonk. It was called the Cotton Club.

And I heard about those places, and I was kind of frightened at first. I I didn't know for sure if I should go or not. And I went in and the minute I went in, I was it was absolutely positively okay. The minute that I went into my first honky tonk, my life changed again. You know, those moments, that guy that's on TV, the what's his name?

Doctor Phil. He says there's 10 defining moments in your life. Well, let me tell you, that was the biggest of the 10. I walked in there and the music was loud and the smells were very familiar and, you know, it stunk. You know, how you know how they smell, old urine and old puke and old cigarette smoke.

And it was just like my house because my brother, you know. And I just fell in love with it. I just did. And it was just exciting. You know, the first time I ever went to a convention, it was the Midwinter Convention in in Midland, Texas.

And I walked into a room much like this, and they had crystals like that, which I had I'd never seen. And it was just like it is here, except they didn't kill you with the smoke when you came in. I love smoke free environments and everybody stands out and you have to walk through the smoke to get to the smoke free environment but and it was just exciting. People were up and they were talking and, you know, there was clicking and clacking. There was something going on and I remember that distinctly too.

That was another life changing time for me, I suppose. But it's the excitement. I craved excitement. There's there's a man in Dallas that, he had this meeting. I always this always just reminds me of us.

He had this meeting, and it was a AA meeting, a round table discussion. And he the topic was, what do you think makes up the disease of alcoholism? And they all went around the the table and said all sorts of different things, what we call the isms of alcoholism. And when he got back to him, he said, isn't it strange nobody mentioned alcohol? And if you talk about alanonisms, all the things that make us up, one of them being addicted to excitement, ain't it strange that most of the time, we never mentioned alcohol either.

We're talking about him. It's a him that's gonna fix us, and that's what I discovered out there. There was excitement out there. It was a land of this ain't real, and I loved it. The alcoholics would sit over on the bar and the Al Anon's the untreated Al Anon's us would be on the other side of the room watching them.

And, it was just for me, it was like a smorgasbord. I mean, they were just over there on those stools. And about 11 ish, they start coming off the stools, you know, and you start dancing and you start picking them up and you start these dreams. Oh, man. I had a lot of dreams.

My dreams were I was gonna get married. I was gonna have 2 Children. I was gonna have a station wagon with wood on the side of it because Rock Hudson always bought his wife a station wagon with wood on the sides. I'm so glad to see some people who know who Rob Hudson is. Doris Day always looked beautiful.

In the morning, she woke up and the only thing that was must was this little piece of hair and everything else was just just gorgeous. She was beautiful. She'd get up and run down in this real frothy looking house coat, and fix orange juice for the children. And then the biggest huge white dog with all this fur, he come running in and she'd pat him and go get the, you know, the paper for her husband. And it was just it was a dream and I had that.

I sat in those old dark movies, theaters for years, dreaming the dreams. This is what's gonna happen to me. So I go out honky tonk, and I'm looking for rock. Thank God I never found him. And I lost my dreams at that same exciting place.

I lost every dream that I had because I discovered there's some prices that, as a female, that you have to pay to get the hem. And and I paid those prices over and over and over and over. As I lovingly call myself, I just became a good old slut puppy ho, you know. Just I would help you if you would help me, you know. And then, you know, when you wake up in the morning, there's nothing slippery as a sober alcoholic who put the hangover.

I mean, they are so slippery. They're gone before you can make any excuses to keep them. And, one more sliver of self worth went, one more sliver of my dignity went, one more sliver of hope, one more sliver of those dreams. They were just all dashed out there in those places, and and I began feeling like a piece of garbage. I knew I was.

I allowed myself to be treated that way, treated my own self that way, started being around people who fit that level that I had my own self taken me to. Nobody else took me there. And that's where I met my first major alcoholic. He was a professional gambler and a bootlegger amongst other things. And the people that he was associated with were, they called them boosters.

I don't know if they still call them that, but they called them boosters, which is a professional thief. You could order something and they would go get it and bring it to you for a price. And they, stole things and shipped them out to California or shipped them here to Maryland. I mean, it was just a little underground world that would come through, and these are the people he knew, actually introduced me to, and I believe that this guy was a professional hitman. We had a house out in the country and with all the the booze hid out in the cotton patch.

And all during the night, there'd be people coming in in and out. And and unbeknownst to me, they were just some of the most, you know, what do you say? The scourge of society came in and out of that old house. We came in 1 night and there was blood all over everywhere. I mean, everywhere.

Down the hall in the bathroom, and then I noticed little holes in the wall. There was a couple staying with us and she was, a prostitute and he was her pimp. And they were in the other bedroom and he'd gotten really drunk and started shooting at her and missed her all the time, then he caught her and evidently pistol whipped her. And and I I was just absolutely terrified. And this man that my first major alcoholic looked at me and he said, it's no big deal.

He's just drunk drunk. And he went in and got the pistol out from under his pillow and he went to bed. And I sat up on the side of the bed rest of the night wondering what in the world am I doing here? How did I get to this? What it was what's happened to me?

And I sat there all night till dawn. And I decided that I'd leave, and it was just days later that I discovered I was pregnant with this man. And then there was no place to leave. My folks, when I had to tell them, were most disappointed. In fact, Murph talked a lot about mama's last night, I'll tell you, or yesterday.

My mama, her disdain for me for many years was just unbelievable. And I remember the look that she had as she walked out of the living room. He kept me until I had my daughter, Tracy. And when I had her, he said, I've done all I can do for you and it's time for y'all to leave. And and so I had to leave and went to stay with a friend, and it was so overwhelming to me.

Some of the stuff that comes in pops into your life popped in at that time. Al Anonism, one of the things is vindictiveness. Now I didn't know that. I didn't know it was vindictiveness. I thought it was explaining to you how bad you've hurt me.

Let me do something to you that you're not gonna like so that you will see how much pain I'm in. So I went to the other side of town to some other great friends, and picked a guy that he absolutely hated, who was also an alcoholic I know today, and who was easily manipulated, another alanism, by me. He had, he'd been my friend and wanna be more for many, many years, and so I used that to manipulate him. I took him to a place called the Bloody Bucket. That's a place that opens up at 2, And that's where Donnie hung out.

That's where that was his his his hood, I think they call it today. And so I took this young man and helped him get drunk. This is something I did for years years. Didn't really even dawn on me till I've been in the program many years. I would mix their drinks for them.

Instead of an ounce of whiskey and sticks of water, I would switch it to get them after they've had a few drinks to get it going. Because once they were really drunk, I could manipulate them much easier. So I did that and got him to go to the buddy bucket, which he never went. And it was to show, Donnie that I had this man and see what you have lost and make him jealous. That's the only reason I did it.

And a couple days later, he took a shotgun and blew that man's head off. I never ever ever expected that to happen. Not ever. That stuff happens in the movies. It doesn't happen in real life and especially in Lubbock County for pity's sakes, you know, but it happened.

My friend, Juanita, came and she told me about it. And it was early in the morning and she knocked on the door. The sun was just coming up, and she told me what happened. And there was something that happened to me. My my chest started just absolutely closing down.

My throat, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't swallow. The pain was just absolutely engulfing me at that moment. And everything started turning, kinda, dark and black, and I remember thinking, probably the sun's going back down. How strange.

And then this pain was so terrible that I instantly made a decision, I shall not feel this. Another little Al Anon trick. Denial, I think we call it. And I just boom. That pain went away.

I put my shoulders back. I said, well, that's too bad. And I buried that so deep in me that it was many, many years in fellowship and program and with a sponsor that I could ever pull that back up. I went to my mother's a few days later on my parents' house and my mother said to me, we don't want you coming in and out here anymore. Don't want the neighbors seeing you.

Because this was splashed all over the radio and the newspapers, and everybody knew that I was involved. And it was just it was awful. And she said, if anybody asks for our daughter if you're our daughter, just please tell them that you're not. And I said, of course, mama. And I understood that.

It didn't really hurt my feelings. I just knew that was a fact. That's what I should do. I should not go to these decent people, and I shouldn't be associated with them. And and I had to hurt them and disappoint them over and over and over, and this was just the classic.

To discover later that my mother's the only thing that she really loved and got to do was go to a place called the Rebecca Lodge. It was her only outlet for my brother. She had to tend to him all the time. And she had been elected to state office in this lodge. It was really a big deal for her.

And after my shenanigans, they asked her to step down, and she did. And she just it just did her in. So I'm thinking, I've got to find a better way to live. This is not it. This is terrible.

This is horrible. And I as I said, I had no god to turn to. I just need to change. I just need to turn to. I just need to change.

I just need to feel decent. I just I had to do something. So what I decided to do was go for the rodeo grounds. It was in the, I, you know, it was in that time when people were burning the flags, and I guess that was that Vietnam or when it was? But, cowboys did not burn the flag.

And everybody in my part of the country, which was cowboy country, knew that and they were respectable decent people. And I went to the rodeos and the announcer would say, we honor this flag. And everybody would stand up and the cowboys would put their hats on their, you know, their hearts. And it was just very touching. Now I thought, this is it.

This is this is this is it. I'll get one of these cowboys, and it it'll work for me. So I went to where they go, which is, a piece of concrete beside the rodeo grounds with fence around it and a band at the end. And all the cowboys lean up against this fence, and all the cowgirls lean up this fence at about 11ish. They start staggering over here, and I'd get a cowboy.

My friend Jim Williams used to say, if you lined up 10 pretty girls against the wall, he would choose the sickest one every time. And I said to him one time, Jim, you have never figured out. You don't choose them. The sickest one takes one step forward. And I believe that's what we do.

There's not one alcoholic that chose me. I chose them. I looked them over to see what kind of potential they had, to see what they could do for me. I want the one that was the most exciting. I want the one that most people were around.

I want the one that would fix me the most, the quickest, and that's what I chose. So I got this cowboy. And we started swinging around that dance floor. And one night, he was really drunk. He was poking me in the chest about something.

I picked up a beer bottle, one of those. It was a quart brown beer bottle, almost empty, and just laid upside his head. And he fell to his knees and I started running. Now that was a way of life for me. Fighting and scratching and cussing and yelling.

I had the mouth of a woman that you can imagine that hung around the bars. I wore the clothes of a woman who was hanging around the boys bars looking for a man, and I was beat up. If you didn't hear the Aladdin speaker yesterday, I I hurt for you. She was absolutely magnificent. I always think that the outing speakers usually make the best talk of the whole convention, and I think it was that way this weekend.

This young girl is talking about turning her life over to the man as she understands him, and he winds up nearly choking her to death and somebody having to rescue her. Boy, that was me. You know, when you have no self worth, when you feel like garbage, when you don't know where you're going in this life, and you have no heroes in your life, this is what you do to yourself. You just let yourself be beat up. If you're like, Shay and I, we just feel guilty.

So, you know, you can't say anything because you're guilty. Now I never knew exactly what I was guilty of. I'm just guilty. So the beatings and all that never never bothered me. And taking a pork bottle and popping up somebody behind side of the head is just a natural thing for me to do.

I ran out the door and he caught me, slung me around. He said, you know what? I think you just knocked some sense into me. I think we should get married. Now don't think that idea just popped into his head.

You know? I don't know who he was talking to or where that came from because he was not the Marion type. I don't know how that happened. But I heard those words. Do you hear what I heard?

Married. Now married, that means you're a decent person because somebody's gonna marry you. I never thought that. I never expected that the gangster to marry me. Why should he?

It never occurred to me to say to him, we need to get married so this child will have a good start in life so she won't be branded for the rest of her life. We need to take care of this child no matter what you and I do. Let's do the decent and the right thing. Never occurred to me to say that to him because I knew he wouldn't. What would I even ask for?

So when this cowboy said married, man, married. I could not hardly stand it. He loves salty dogs. And I kept a big gallon of salty dogs mixed for him for the next 3 days until we were married at my friend's yard. And the dream came.

Here comes the dream. Here it comes back. I am going to be married. Now he's gonna mow the yard. I'm gonna bake some cookies, and I will make some kitchen curtains for the window.

That was my dream. We didn't have a yard. I don't like to bake, and I don't know how to sew, but this is my dream. This is a dream that I think is gonna make life well. And we had a great marriage for the first 6 days, you know.

I was just the cutest thing. I had all these great ideas and and I would really make life wonderful. Him, I'd make him a sandwich and put a little note in there about the dreams, his dreams are gonna come true when he come home at night. And I would, you know, have a bubble bath for him, scrub his back. I mean, I bake and cook.

Oh, man. I I cooked chicken fried steak and gravy and mashed taters and green beans and pecan pie. You noticed I said it correctly. Yankees. And I fixed him his breakfast.

It would be pork chops and eggs and biscuits and gravy and homemade jelly, you know, just the whole thing. And I just I just wanted to wrap him up and make him so okay. And then then it was great for those first 6 days. And then he went out with Charlie, and I got my position at the window. And here we go.

I would go hunting down. I remember going in and kicking tables over, you know, in a in a bar. Just kicking a table over, screaming, yelling, walking, catching him on the dance floor. Poor some unexpected young girl didn't know what was happening. All of a sudden, I grab some of her hair and sling her off and take a chair and knock him down.

You know, don't I look cute? You know? This was my madness. This was my madness. Had nothing to do with him.

I was just sitting and waiting. My life was slipping away. That dream was slipping away. My life was going. I had to do something.

I had to do do you hear me? I have to make this work. Because if this doesn't work, I will disintegrate. I will fall into some imaginary hole and never come back out, and I don't know where I got all that, except it was my sickness. I decided that we needed a son.

If he had a son, life would be wonderful. So I arranged that and I I have the most handsome young man. He's telling he's got blonde curly hair. Well, some of it's he's losing some of it, but he is the most handsome young man. He needs a cowboy.

He lives in Indiana. He's a grown man today. And I had this cute little blonde boy, and, I thought this will do it. And it it did keep him for a little while, not long. Pretty soon, he was putting him on little calves that they call bulls, you know.

And I'm setting up the grandstand, and all of a sudden, I recognize my son out on a bull. I'm down, down over the chutes into the arena, grabbing my son, chasing him. Can you imagine the madness that I must look like? He's on a ball just right. He's having time in his life and I injured his mother.

Get off the ball. Get off the ball. Madness. And then people grabbing me and pulling me out of the arena. It was just it was crazy.

I saw nothing wrong with that. I was trying to get my kid. And then the drinking, you know, the the drinking progressed and I progressed and, you know, the hideousness of this disease, it just takes over. I got sicker and sicker. I do not know why I am the way I am.

I don't wanna be. I don't wanna criticize you all the time. I don't wanna tell you how to do everything that you already know what to do. I don't wanna be at your just nanny nanny nanny nanny. I don't wanna do that.

I would give anything in this world if for a few minutes I'm not sure I'd want it all the time. But just for a few minutes, I would have the sensitivity that I see my kids and my husband and many of you for one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic. That sensitivity and that love between 2 drunks is the most incredible thing I've ever seen. There's one of my favorite things at the Pacific Group on Wednesday night Pacific Group has usually a 1,000 to 1200 people every Wednesday night. And there'll be someone new get up behind the podium to read and they can't read.

And they're stumbling and they're, you know and everybody in the room, I can just feel it. They just lean forward in their chairs, and they're just wishing them and loving them and helping them get through that reading. And when they finally do, they're just so embarrassed. They're just humiliated. And they finally you know, you can just see the, oh, god.

I got through that. And then the room just erupts. And they come down from that podium grinning and their eyes twinkling. And it's one of my favorite times in AA meeting is to watch the alcoholics love and support each other. And to see my son, these folks here on the front row, they all know my son, Jim Junior, and he's helping their son and and is is so incredible.

He brought me this young man a couple weeks ago and introduced me to him. Not their son, but the other guy. He picked him up in front of a bar, and he would just stand no. It was a liquor store. He was standing in front of the liquor store trying to decide whether to go in or or not.

And Jimmy saw him, and he knew this guy because he used to drink with him. And he just pulled up, said, Gideon. And he and he brought him to the to the meeting that night and he just looked pitiful. And one of the things that he wanted to do was introduce him to his mom. You know, what a treasure.

And the look that I looked up and I saw the look that Jimmy had for this stinking drunk. And it just amazed me. I thought, man, I wish I could do that. Now, don't take me wrong. I love Al Anon's and new ones, you know, I just love them.

But not to the depth that I see that there is in this world. I don't have it. I wish I did. I wish I could get there, but I can't. There's something in my heart that protects me.

It's always been there and I assume it's always gonna be there. I am protected from whatever. Every now and then, I chip away at it, you know, just chip away at it, chip away at it. One of my friends, he was a sober alcoholic and I was balling over some man who knows who, long time ago. And he said the sweetest thing to me that really I I love what he said to me.

He said, you know, I just I'm just so grateful for every man that you have ever had in your life. That's oh, what do you mean by that? You know, I'm just looking at him just sobbing. I thought, well, that's crazy. What do you mean?

There's been so many men. He said, oh, no. Every man made you exactly what you are today. He said, your heart's been broken a lot of times and it's got a lot of scars. He says, you know, when you go to an antique store, those hearts are the ones that are really valuable.

A new heart with nothing, hadn't been worn, hadn't been touched, just old, cold heart, silver heart is not worth anything. But heart that's been broken and has scarred all over it is valuable, and people pay lots and lots of money for it. And I'm telling you, I stopped crying. I thought, what's he was just such a silver tongue devil, I'll tell you. And I have not forgotten that.

It changed me. One of those little moments in time that changed me. I have these 2 kids. They're hurting more from me than they are the drunk. My daughter was 3 when I married that cowboy, and he was the only daddy ever knew.

And they would just hide from me. And I don't blame them because my madness, if they said the wrong thing or looked the wrong way, my back hand would come up. There was a rage in here that I could not control for many, many years. Just a rage. And it would shine at the oddest moments, at the oddest times.

I never knew exactly when, where, or how. So I had 2 frightened kids. I had neighbors that didn't speak to us. Everybody. I had 2 little friends left.

1 was an alcoholic and the other was just a friend who also needed places to stay if she ran away from her husband because I'd run and stay at her house. That's those two people were the only people left in my life. Everybody else you know, after a while, nobody wants to talk to somebody like me with black eyes on a constant basis, with just negativity coming out of their mouth, with hatred on their face, with black eyes just shooting. Hate, my sponsor said, when I walked in this program. So people stayed away from me.

My father would come by from time to time because he loved that little girl and he would check on her, but nobody else would. I was sitting in a rocking chair one morning, and I thought, man, I wish I could commit suicide just for a little while, you know. Just get out of this. Just get out of it. I I couldn't handle it anymore.

It was the deepest and the darkest of the darkest days. And I had read in Ann Landers, a few weeks prior to that about some woman talking about her drunk husband. And Ann Landers, what I remembered, said to call Alcoholics Anonymous. So at moment, I got up and looked in the yellow pages and called Alcoholics Anonymous. And I got a name and a number and a call, and they said come over.

It was this woman. So I went over to her house. She was a sober member of AA, invited me into her home. And this so silly, some of the things that you remember. We walked through the living room, the kitchen back to a den, and I looked through his kitchen as was going through, and it was sparkling clean.

The sink was white and just sparkling, and there was, this table cloth and little flowers on the table. And I looked around, and I was thinking, I wonder where all our dishes are because there was nothing in the sink. That thought went to because at my house, anytime you need a dish, you went to the sink. I didn't have time to wash dishes. She talked to me for the longest time.

I don't know why god chose this route for me to get here. I don't know, But I'm forever grateful. And a little while her husband came in sober, member of AA, and he sat and talked to me for a long time. And as they were talking, this little thing happens, you know, this little spark. I think it's the music.

You start to hear the music of AA. It's just this little spark that thought, well, maybe, just maybe. And they invited me to a meeting, and they would pick me up, and they they came and they got me and took me into my first meeting. 2 sober alcoholics, not alanines, 2 sober alcoholics. And I opened the or he opened the door for me, and I walked in, and I saw 2 drunks at the end of this little long room with a a cigarette machine, the kind that you used to put 25¢ in, and, pull and, you know, the it would slide out.

And all the little different kinds of cigarettes had their advertisement on there, and they were lights and they were colored. And these beautiful lights were coming out by the cigarette machine. It was hitting their face, and they were both laughing. And I had not heard laughter in so long that I would just kinda stunned. And I just stood there in that door.

You do not hear laughter in an alcoholic home. It's just not there. If a alcoholic tries to laugh, the Al Anon's gonna, you know, shock him up the jar or something. I mean, there's just no laughter. And I remember hearing it, and it was crystal clear, and it it just again, that little sparkle, the music got a little louder, if you will.

I went into the Al Anon room and sat and listened to what they had to say, and I don't remember anything that's like I don't have a clue what they said. I get so tickled in a meeting when somebody says, and they always do. I know you've heard it too. Well, if they had done so and so when I was new, I woulda left. Well, when you're you, you don't know nothing.

When you're new, you don't hear nothing. When you're new, you're just sitting there like a bump on a log. You can't feel nothing, see nothing. You just sat there and look. I mean, if it was like that when I came, I would have left, go where?

Where are you gonna go? Nobody wants us. I mean, nobody wanted me. And I left And I left that meeting and there was a little bit of hope that maybe there's some hope. I don't know what I heard.

I couldn't tell you what I heard. I just knew it felt good to me inside my chest that hurt all the time for that hour. I just knew that, and I and I did want to come back. And so I started coming back and back and back and back. I like to describe it this way.

There's a book called The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, and he says, say not that God is in your heart, but that you are in the heart of god. And I think that describes my Al Anon meeting that day and to this day. I walked in and and started going to those meetings and heard them saying words like sponsor and steps, and the steps are up on the wall like they are here, and they would read them and which reminds me, at this convention and actually 2 other conventions I've been in the last few weeks, the people who get up here and read the 12 steps, 3 different times, the reader has chosen to change the words in the 12 steps. Please don't do that. Please please don't do that.

Please don't do that. Don't make this program to fit you. In your mind, sure, but don't share it because let me tell you, I got family members still out there that need this thing desperately. Please don't change it. It worked just fine for me when you walked in.

I get off my van stand there. And I saw these steps and I you know, it was all confusing to me and I would slip out just like Shay was saying. I think it was you. You know, you go right at the beginning of the meeting, you slip in. You sit in the back to who I was and what I was and they would ask me to leave their meeting.

And I wanted to be there worse than any place I'd ever been in my life. So I'd slip in and out. They caught me. There was 2 doors. 1 got it one door and one got the other door.

They got out there before they said the lord's prayer and and, this woman named Pat stood there and caught me. And she's this little tiny lady, and she has this she had this disease. I still can't say it, but it's a bone disease. They had to take some of her bone out of her eyebrow. And so it it leaves like a point now, and she can cock her head and look at you in that point.