The Grand Prairie Alberta Roundup

In in my program that if someone asks you to serve, then you should say yes. So I said yes, and then, of course, as it gets closer to it, your butterflies keep going. You think, why am I doing this? So I am nervous. But, nevertheless, I really feel that, I meant to to share something.

And hopefully, somebody will leave here with a little bit, hopefully, my story will have shared a little bit in their in their journey as well. I'd like to thank Ed for coming up again. Your message last night was awesome. And, I heard you speak before and it just really touched my heart and I just feel like you're my little US angel that came up here this weekend. So thank you.

It's interesting Bill talked about, our love of cats. We raise and breed Himalayans and Persians. And, I'm a nurse and my background is labor and delivery, so it's kind of apropos that we do that. My husband loves them too because he likes them at the stage where they get the little tails in the air and they're running around, you know. And, so it really has become a labor of love for us.

So But But also, another part of my interest that I like to do is I like to refinish furniture, antique furniture. And Len likes to build furniture. So it's kind of interesting when he introduces me to people, he said, this is my wife Linda. She's, a nurse and a stripper and runs a cat house, so that really gets gets people thinking, so So that's kind of what I do. When we were leaving to come up, we stopped at friends of ours who happens to be a land sponsor and very, very dear friends of ours who are in program.

And, they shared this with us that was, came on the email, and I thought, I would share it with you because it really does kinda depict where my head space was at before I got to Al Anon, and even in my early years with Al Anon. So it's called His and Hers Diaries. I don't know if anybody heard it. Her diary. Don't mind my hands shaking here.

Tonight, I thought he was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a bar to have a drink. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, But he made no comment. Conversation wasn't flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed, But he kept quiet and absent, and I asked him what was wrong, and he said nothing.

I asked him if it was my fault, that he was upset, and he said it had nothing to do with me and not to worry. On the way home, I told him that I loved him, and he simply smiled and just kept driving. I can't explain his behavior. I don't know why he didn't say, I love you too. When we got home, I felt as if I had lost him, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore.

He just sat there and he watched TV, and he seemed distant and absent. And finally, I decided to go to bed. About 10 minutes later, he came to bed, and to my surprise, he responded to my caresses. And we made love. But I still felt that he was distracted and his thoughts were somewhere else.

He fell asleep and I cried. I don't know what to do. I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster. His diary.

I shot the worst round of golf in my life today, but at least I got laid. Now, when I first went down on it, I wouldn't have heard any humor in that, but now I can see a lot of humor and a lot of similarity in my life. Because when I finally crawled to the rooms of Al Anon, I really thought that everything that was going on was all about me. Everything, the insanity in our home was about me. And what I really came to learn is that it's a disease.

Alcoholism is a disease and had nothing to do with me and everything to do with him. But at the time when I got here, it wasn't like that. So that's kind of the kickoff. Just to give you a little bit of, who I am and where I'm from. I, I grew up in a small town called Sutton, Ontario.

It's on the south side of Lake Simcoe, about 50 miles north of Toronto. Some of you might know Barry. Everybody seems to know Barry. Well, we're on the south side of Barry. But I'm the youngest of 4 kids, so this kind of 8 years between myself and my oldest brother.

And there was an act of drinking in my home, but there was a lot of -isms in my home. When I kind of look back and reflect to see if there was any act of drinking, my uncle, who I was quite close with, you know, liked to drink, but he always seemed to be a fun drunk. Like, I never really seemed to see that it was an adverse effect on my life. But in our home, there was a lot of physical abuse, there was some sexual abuse, and there was a lot of anger and yelling going on in our home. And one of the things I learned very on is that, being the youngest, there's like my oldest brother is 8 years older, and then there's like 18 months, and then 2 years, and then there was a 4 year gap.

So I was kinda like the little baby around. And I quickly learned that, I didn't like the chaos and the yelling that went on in the home, so I became the peacekeeper, and I was really good at it. So, you know, I started out from being very cute and hopping on people's lap and to, really trying to just make the peace. So I I really carried that right through my life and until I got down on. In our home, it was kind of I learned we went to church, and I had a god, but the god was kind of a punishing god that I remembered.

So, you know, one of those, like, you know, you misbehave, God will get you for that, or you're gonna go to hell, or something like that. And so I knew there was God, but I I had a fear of God. But we went to church, and really, what I learned is that as long as you look good on the outside, and what everybody saw on the outside really mattered. And, I carried that right through into to my marriage and other relationships. My dad was very active in the church.

He was one of the elders of the church. And, and and I didn't like that because I thought it was really hypocritical, because what he was doing in his life didn't really match but what the, you know, Ed talked about the hypocrites there. And I saw a lot there. And, you know, Ed talked about the hypocrites there. And I saw a lot there.

And in actual fact, I was probably one of them too. So who knows? But, anyway, I just learned that, as long as I looked good on the outside. And my mom, she kind of modeled the kind of put up and shut up kind of things. So, when I got into high school, I By the time I hit grade 9, my brothers and sisters had all moved out, and they'd gone to Toronto way to school, and they couldn't wait to get out of Sutton.

Sutton was about 1500 people. My dad was a prominent business, businessman in the community. And so everybody knew us. He went from hardware to buses, and everybody knew us. And, we were, you know, a small town, and people talked and gossiped.

And we were off in the topic of gossip. And I learned to kind of have a stiff upper lip to that kind of stuff. But when I got into grade 9, I became a very angry girl, and I learned that my father was screwing around with other women and having affairs. And that really rebounded onto me, because guys would approach me at school and say, Oh, your dad kind of sleeps around. Are you as good in bed as I hear your dad is?

And I would just I was angry. I'd push guys up against the lockers. I I was angry. And I was also because I confronted him with it and he lied about it, I really didn't know what was real anymore. And so as a result, I was very angry.

And I did some drugs to kind of numb the pain. And in hindsight, I look back, and I'm sure I suffered some depression back then, because it was just like I I just didn't wanna be there, I didn't wanna live, I just felt very numb. And, but my siblings kept saying, get your education, get your education, get out of town. You know, that's your ticket out of there. And and so I did.

I moved to Toronto, and I I went to nursing school, and I thought everything was gonna be perfect. I became a nurse. And it's interesting that a lot of times, I I've met many people in in, Al Anon that are actually in the health care field or they helping, end of health care. And it's not it's not a coincidence that we end up there, because we're people pleasers, and we end up wanting to go and take care and fix other people. So we just go to the health care system and try to fix everybody there.

But I I I just quickly learned that when I got into working. I just got busy. And if you get busy and you look good on the outside, then you don't really have to feel on the inside. So I worked for about a year and a half in Toronto. And I I knew very early that Toronto wasn't the city for me.

It was too many too many people. I liked a lot of the stuff about Toronto, but I really wanted to get away from my family. And, I blamed my dad for everything. In relationship My dad and I were not very close, and I really did blame him for everything. And I wanted my dad to be a loving dad.

I wanted him to tell me that he loved me. I wanted him to put his arm around me. And he never did. He was actually a very cold man, and he would come home from dinner and eat. And everything was very quiet, and he'd have to fall asleep in the chair and have his 40 wings, as he called it.

And and he really much, very much emotionally and physically detached from us. And you know, thanksgivings and Christmases were very route. You know, we'd get together because it was the thing to do. But I don't remember a lot of laughter. It was always very stiff.

We had to listen to band music playing over the stereo system. And, you know, I it's it was very stiff. And my mother was busily running around trying to fix fix everything and make everybody happy. And, again, modeling put up and shut up. And and she knew that he was screwing around, but she just kind of got busy.

And, and so it's not it's not so strange that I would end up following doing the same, because that's kind of what was modeled to me. But I really thought that if I moved away from Toronto, that things would get better. And I actually, jobs weren't great in 78 and eighties, early eighties for nursing jobs. So I went to, I went to Vancouver. I had a job waiting for me.

I packed my U Haul trailer and my car and out I went. I was heading out to Vancouver. And I was excited about that. I was doing the geographical fix. And so off I went.

Got to Vancouver, and I stayed at my brother in law's place, my sister's brother in law's place, and could not find a place to live. And believe me, my car broke down in Edmonton. I had to buy another car. Nothing worked by the time I got to Vancouver. I had an in transit sticker.

I couldn't get regular registration, because I was considered a transient. I thought, oh, great. And I'm all the ripe age of 24. So I ran around in the rain, could not find an affordable place to live, so I kind of had a little prayer with God, and he kind of kept directing me to come back to Edmonton. I had a cousin there.

She was on a vacation at that time. And so I ended up making the decision of not staying at Vancouver and coming back to Edmonton, which was a very positive move. In a sense now, in hindsight, I'm sure I'd have been totally depressed living in Vancouver with all the rain. But in Edmonton, I wasn't there barely a week. And lo and behold, I go into a restaurant.

I'd moved into my apartment. It was a Sunday night. I was starving. I just moved in. And there in this little flamingo restaurant, 8 o'clock at night, I looked across and there was this handsome guy sitting across there eating saprol by himself.

And I immediately was physically attracted to him. But, you know, in hindsight, I thought, yeah, if there's gonna be a drunk in the room, I'm gonna find it, you know. And he was just sitting right over there. So he looked at me, I looked at him, we laughed, and he ended up coming up and going, hey, lady, do you wanna go for coffee? And I fell for it, you know, oh, sure, you know.

His charm, his tenderness, his smile, his, you know, sexy eyes, all of that stuff, I fell for it. And, we started dating and kind of never looked back after that. In hindsight, when I looked back and I left the fiance in Northern Ontario, I found out he was an adult child. So I thought, you know, wow. So we got within 6 months, we lived together and got married.

So we were together we got married a year after we met. And everything that Len and I did was very quick. You know, we we got together. We got intimate really quick. And we got, you know, moved in really fast and got married.

And 6 months later, I was pregnant, and we had a baby. And the next year, I got pregnant, another baby. And it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you know. And no time to think. You just gotta do, you know?

Gotta be busy. So here we are. And before we had our first child, like, I remember, we had dated about 3 or 4 months. And and his sister had phoned and said, you know, Len's at his house, and, you know, he's hammered, he's in the chair. And I went, you know, and I didn't know what an alcoholic was, but I knew that, you know, on occasion, he liked to drink.

But when he did drink, he kinda drank to excess. But I kinda didn't think anything of it. I learned that I didn't like baseball season, because he'd go and play baseball, and then he'd have a few beers with the guys afterwards, which would turn into a case or something. Oh, Mary Lou. And so I didn't look at Len having a problem drinking.

I just blamed it on the baseball guys. So I quickly learned to hate hockey season, and I hated baseball season, because he always stayed for a drink afterwards, and would have 2 beers, would turn in to come home loaded. But again, I didn't really I didn't know anything about an alcoholic. I had no clue what an alcoholic was. I was like many that thought that, you know, you had to be on skid row, brown paper bag, you know, kind of at the end of your luck.

And I had no clue that an alcoholic could actually be somebody that, you know, is in my neighbourhood and that is working and has a family. And I mean, I was very naive about the disease. As time went on, when the kids were little, Len was working out of town, and we worked around my shift work. I worked 12 hour days and night, rotating shifts, and I was working full time at the time. And so, there's a few times that he did get loaded.

I would say to him, I don't like this. I don't like the way you get drinking like this, so either slow down on your drinking or just stop or something. So he very quickly learned and proceeded to just drink away from home. So when we would go out for dinner, I would notice that he would order a glass of wine with me, but he would just have one. But I didn't know that he was kind of white knuckling it and just, you know, it's all he could do to have one.

I was just was grateful that he just had one. I thought that, you know, I had no knowledge of it being a disease. What ended up happening, though, is that the insanity would start to come into our home. And I one thing I noticed from my dad is that he had a temper. And I hated raised voices.

I would cringe when the raised voice happened. And I didn't like, I was noticing, like, really unpredictable behavior with Len. Like one time, he could be really happy, and the next day, he would, he wasn't a huge yell and screamer, but he has a tone to his voice that just kind of brought me to attention and made me cringe. And And of course, my way of coping as a kid a lot of times was to withdraw and to retreat. And I would just kind of get into my own world.

And I found myself doing that when you know, with Lennon. I found that the behavior became more unpredictable. You know, you could talk to him about something one time, and the next time, he'd be angry. Angry. One time, he'd be very calm dating.

One time, he could be lying on the couch, and you'd ask him something, and he would, you know, have an abrupt tone of voice and very condescending. And one thing I noticed was the ability to be manipulative. And he was a master at that, and and that drove me nuts because I would go with a legitimate concern and say, I'm really I don't like the way you say this or what what you you know, I don't like the way you're talking to me or something. Trying to keep things into the eye messages. And invariably, he could flip the table so that he looked like the rose and I looked like the shit.

And I didn't know how he did it. And I It got to the point that it repeatedly was happening, and I was just gradually retreating, retreating, withdrawing, withdrawing. And he was a master of manipulation and control. And so as a result, I just kind of backed off of him. I kind of tried to just run my own show.

I got the kids ready for, you know, for babysitter. I got work. I was paying the bills. I was cleaning the house. I was doing the laundry.

I was doing the grocery shopping. I was running the show. And of course, as I'm doing this, I'm gradually building up a resentment. But what I just kept doing for myself is that if I got busy, then I didn't have to feel. And I did that.

And so as a result, I would pick up a few more extra shifts or I volunteer for things, anything to get me out of the house. I always noticed I had this pit in my stomach, this knot in my stomach, and it was there all the time. And I had that since I was a kid. I can never remember not having that knot in my stomach, not having to feel like I had to be on guard. That was familiar to me, and I just, you know, I just thought that that was just a part of I just thought everybody had it.

I didn't know it was just something exclusive for me. So as a result, by the time I remember very distinctly that when the kids were little, Jonathan was about a year and a half, and Laura, I guess, would have been 3 and a half, because they're about 2 years apart. And I couldn't wait for them to to lie down and have a nap. I put them down to have a nap, because I just thought, Oh, I just want them to have sleep, so I can have some time myself. And then I would have some time to myself, and I didn't know what to do with it.

I oftentimes would end up just kind of sitting on my knees in the middle of the living room, just bawling my face off, or I just get busy doing laundry or something. I always had to have either the radio going or the TV going. I didn't like to spend time with myself. I was not comfortable in my own skin. And I just knew that I was getting more irritable and more irritable.

And I didn't like the person I became. I smoked more cigarettes. I ate less. I got down to about £125. I was really, just physically, emotionally, spiritually becoming a wreck, but calling it something else.

I mean, for me, my preserver was denial. Denial kind of kept me, kept me going. It really just kept me going. I got a little bit of soles too, meeting with the neighbors. We'd often get together with our kids, and they'd play, and it was just to kinda get the kids out of my hair.

And for an hour or so, they would we'd get together, and Maureen would bitch about her husband, and Irene would bitch about her husband. And it was really great to hear that someone else had problems too. And, it gave me some moments of peace and solace to just kinda get out of my stuff and listen to someone else's stuff. And, and and sometimes I would hear that someone had it worse than me or else they had something similar. And then I just thought, well, everybody had to deal with it.

So buck up. And as my mother did, put up and shut up. And I just carried on. One day, I felt like I wanted to pick my son up and just fire him up against the wall. I was just so angry, and there wasn't really anything that he did.

It was just it was me. But he was being 18 months. He wanted some attention. He wanted to be snuggled or whatever. And I just I really visualized, I just wanted to pick him up and fire him.

I just and this anger was bubbling up inside of me. And I knew that that something was really wrong, because that's just not how a mother is supposed to be. And I love my kids, and my kids actually are really good kids. I mean but the bottom line is is that when you have a a 3 year old and an 18 month old, they're gonna do what that age group does. And I wanted them to be I wanted them to play away from me.

I just wanted time to just kind of cocoon and just fade away. Some mornings, I didn't want to get out of bed. Some mornings, I just felt like it would just be better off if I just didn't wake up. And I did go for some counseling, because I thought, you know, a friend of mine at work said, well, you know, try counseling. So I went for some counseling.

And I went church shopping, and I watched Oprah, and I read books. I knew there was a void inside of me. I knew there was something going on that shouldn't be going on. But I didn't know what it was. And, you know, I joined the church, and I got baptized, and I got active in singing in the choir.

And I I had some moments of peace doing that. However, when I came home, the craziness carried on. And, I honestly didn't know what it was. I just knew that part of me wanted to leave, part of me wanted to die, part of me wanted these kids to just go away. I used to dream about Len, you know, being on the road and maybe a truck would hit him, and it would be easier to be a widow, you know?

And then I wouldn't have to deal with that. He kept coming home. And I mean, I'm grateful now that he did keep coming home. But at the time, it it just hurt. There was just so much hurt going on.

And I I course, kept losing Linda. I had no clue who Linda was. Jonathan, I think, I very remembered, December 8, 1989, Len came home and walked through the door Friday night, 4 in the afternoon. And he just had these tears in his eyes, pouring down his face. And he just kind of stood there and said, I can't do this anymore.

And I went, I don't know what you're talking about. And he goes, I can't live like this anymore. I'm an alcoholic, and I need some help. And immediately, my nurse head came on. My feelings went down, my nurse head came on, and I just went, Okay, what do you gotta do?

You know, and I just immediately thought, What do you gotta do? You know, and I just, I got into the fix it mode. But I did remember friends of ours, that God very well placed in our life. No coincidence that we met Rick and Joanne. I've been working with Joanne for about 4 years.

And I remember very well that, when I was pregnant with Laura, actually, she said, her and her husband split up for a while, and she said, Rick's an alcoholic, and he joined AA and all this stuff. And I remember saying, That poor girl, married to an alcoholic. Oh, God. How awful is that? And I had such pity for her.

And I was being so judgmental, me sitting up there on my high horse. But that day, the Len came through that door. I just remember saying, well, maybe you better give Rick a call. And he did. And I did have enough sense at that only moment to just back off and shut up.

And he did. I was in a tailspin, because at that moment, my world of denial came to an end. And I had to really be real about what was going on here. Well, Rick came over. He always tells the story about being in the bathtub, and he knew that that's what that phone call was all about.

So he came flying over, got Len, took Len to a meeting. And I proceeded to put the kids to bed. And I went outside for a walk. It was snowing outside. And I walked around the block numb, had no clue what I was supposed to do, Just numb to think, Oh shit, my husband's an alcoholic.

My world just got worse. And I thought, you know And again, I'm blaming all my problems on land. I thought everything that I was feeling was because of him. All the misery I felt as a kid was because of my dad. And I always looked and blamed other people for how I was feeling.

But they came back from the meeting. And just before we came to Grand Prairie, I talked to Rick and he goes, Oh, Linda, I remember you that day. I remember very well. And I said, Rick, I don't remember you guys coming back from that meeting. And he goes, Oh, I do.

I came in and you came up to me all eager and said to me, Rick, Rick, what can I do for Len? How can I fix him? And he just said, Linda, go to Al Anon. You know, I just thought maybe I could fix him. And he just laughed at me and said, go to Al Anon.

And his wife took me to my first meeting on December 11th, at the Crestwood in in West Edmonton. And I remember that first meeting only to the fact that when they read that preamble, I thought they wrote that just about me and towards me, because I thought, how did they know all those things that I was feeling? And people were very welcoming. I don't remember a lot of what was said, other than the fact is that they kept saying, keep coming back, keep coming back. But one thing I do remember going there into the next meeting is that everyone sharing around the table.

I didn't really share the first couple of times. I just sat and absorbed and numbed out. But I just remember hearing some laughter. And I could never understand what there was to be laughing about. I thought this was a pretty serious disease, or a pretty serious situation.

At that time, I didn't even quite comprehend the disease part. But there was a warmth there. There was a welcoming there. And it was the first time ever that I felt like I fit in somewhere. I never felt like I fit in, ever.

And I got some peace by going there. So at the meeting, it was suggested that I come to at least 6 meetings. It was suggested that I, you know, do some reading, much like you do in AA. I picked up one of those, so one day at a time books, and I started just to read that every day. And it was amazing how the daily reading seemed to be appropriate for what I, you know, what I was feeling.

And I've learned very quickly in this program that there was no such thing as coincidence. It wasn't a coincidence that, I was put in that room. I just think it's a miracle that I and a blessing that I ended up there, because by the time I kinda crawled to my first meeting, I had tried everything else. It was my last ditch effort. I had contemplated suicide several times.

I had a plan, and I didn't really have a lot of reason to wanna live. And, so I didn't have a lot of love for myself. I didn't know who Linda was, and you loved me until I can learn to love myself. And for that, I'm very grateful. You also taught me that I needed to have a sponsor.

And I didn't really know what the hell a sponsor was, but I figured I met a couple of people there, and I would just talk to them and talk to them. And really, I learned that a sponsor was just someone that I could share everything with. Because I learned that you can't there's not enough time in an hour meeting to get into the deep stuff, so you share that with one other person. And it felt good to kind of to talk with someone. My sponsor initially had told me that you're as sick as you the secrets that you keep.

And I I felt a lot of shame saying some of this stuff to them. And, she would just laugh and say, is that it? Is that all? You know, and I just I I thought that some of the thoughts and feelings I had and, you know, made me an awful person, and they weren't. I was just, I was just hurting.

I was emotionally, spiritually, physically bankrupt when I got there. In the program, should I say, I learned my life skills when I got to Al Anon. I didn't know anything about boundaries. I didn't know that other people couldn't yell and hit at you. I Lynn never hit me, but I do remember one time when the kids were really little, my sister-in-law said to me, Linda, you're a battered woman.

And I went, How dare you? I said, What do you mean I'm a battered woman? And she said, The verbal crap that you put up with from him. And I didn't know that abuse came in other forms, other than being hit. I thought, well, my husband's not hitting me.

But the emotional and the verbal abuse does just as much damage, if not more, because it doesn't leave marks on the outside. And those marks are on the inside that you carry for a long time. And interestingly enough, in my job that I do now, I deal a lot with women with postpartum depression. And believe me, after screening and meeting with these women and helping them and offering them a sense of hope, when I do an assessment on some of these women, about 75 to 80% of them come from an alcoholic environment and have been physically and sexually abused. I thought that was huge statistic.

But but for the grace of God, I got to Al Anon, and I learned some other skills that I could help some other people. But I learned my life skills in Al Anon. I didn't know about boundaries. I didn't know that I had choices. I didn't know that, no was a complete sentence, that I didn't have to justify myself to other people.

And initially, it was the serenity prayer that I held on to, the slogans, One day at a time, keep it simple, think. Think. That was a concept, you know? I used to just react, you know? And just And even now, I sometimes Len will ask me something, and I'll pause for a minute, and he'll say, well?

And okay, I have to think about that. And he thinks that I should just immediately respond to something, and not realizing that maybe his brain works that way, but mine doesn't. And so I can stop and say, I have to think about that. And that still is it's interesting that, that'll come up. And and we can laugh about that.

But at that time, there was no laughter in our home, believe me. I had no idea who I was. And what I did learn there was that, I found my God at Al Anon. And I learned the difference between religion and spirituality, and there was a huge difference. And I learned spirituality actually from a Catholic nun.

Sister b, you've heard mentioned about sister b from I think Len mentioned. We went to Len and I were about ready to separate. We couldn't stand each other at this point. And, Wade and Ellen, who we stopped and they gave us, gave me this little readout here, they phoned and phoned and phoned and phoned to invite us to this retreat, because he knew that we, as a couple, were just hanging by our fingernails. And I met sister b, and it's interesting that she said, I had master's and PhD in theology, and I knew lots about religion, and I knew nothing about spirituality.

And I was stunned. I couldn't believe that a nun knew nothing about spirituality. And I learned a lot from her. And of course, she was funny because she talked about going to this her first AA meeting down in a really rough part of LA, and she learned the fa word there. And hearing a Catholic nun use the f word was really quite not what I had expected at all, but it was kind of funny.

But, I really, I met my God of my understanding in Al Anon. And to this day, God is the anchor to my world. I choose to call him God. I say my prayers every day. I'm very spiritual.

I like to attend church only because it gives me a moment to pause. I like to sing. And when I go and I sing at worship at church, it makes me feel, spiritually uplifted and filled. And but I I learned my god at Al Anon. And I was grateful to to I My my god, Juliet, is loving and kind and forgiving, not judgemental.

And, it's interesting that when I meditate, people talk to me about meditating. And I didn't know how to do that, because I I couldn't stand to be still in my own skin. And I had to learn that. And interestingly enough, about a little over 2 years ago, I suffered from depression. And 2 years ago, I'd lost Well, actually 4 years ago, I lost my dad, September 6th.

So that following summer, I had a big crash. My dad died in September. My stepdad died in March. We had massive chaos and a toxic environment going on at work. And God brought me to my knees in June.

I came to the point that I could not physically and emotionally function. And I had to take a 3 month leave. And it was hard for me, because for me to have to be still was not something I did well. I had to be in motion. And God kept saying to me, Be still and know that I'm God.

I kept hearing that. And he literally, physically brought me to the point that I would sleep. I'd get up in the morning. I'd sit in a chair. And I had no choice but to be still, because I was physically and emotionally kind of bankrupt at that moment.

And I needed, God said, Linda, you have burnt yourself out emotionally, spiritually, you know, physically, everything. And he literally brought me to my knees. I had to be still. And I've learned since then how to spend some time quietly in my own skin. I don't need the radio going anymore.

I can actually sit and close my eyes and be quiet and light that. I can read a book and not feel guilty. I can read my my, Al Anon literature or whatever and be still. And to me, that was that was a revelation for me, because I did not like to be in my own skin. And, and so for that, I'm grateful.

Like I don't believe as I said, I don't believe in coincidences. And so that's how God worked in my life at that time. And that was another element of my recovery, my healing. Al Anon also gave me a huge amount of hope. And that is why after almost 17 years that I still go to my weekly meetings, There was a period there where I kinda wasn't going as regularly, but I would find that my life would unravel if I didn't go.

I needed to be there. I needed to be there to hear your stories. And I never cease to amaze me that something is said that I needed to hear and take away for that week. But also, I need to be there to share my story, because I was so grateful, when I was desperate and at the last road, that you were and you opened your arms, you invited me in, you shared your stories with me. And I want that program to be still there today.

So for other people, or maybe for my children or my children's, you know, kids or whatever. So that I have a real commitment that Al Anon has become a lifestyle for me, that I go there weekly. I share. I participate. I chair.

I'm currently the group rep. Nobody stepped forward to be a group rep again, so I chose to take it on, because I thought, you know, we need that viability, we need our group active and going. And I get a lot out of it. I really do. But my Al Anon journey has really been like an onion.

It has unraveled. And God that I knew at the beginning, it's a different relationship over the years. And my my healing, I wanted to get in there. And when Len admitted he was an alcoholic, I thought, well, I just wanna get in there and get him fixed, so that, you know, I can get on with my life. And I was about 18 months in the program before I really hit the wall.

And, Len started getting better. I noticed some changes with him, but I wasn't putting the focus on me. I was putting the focus on him still. I was just attending, reading the stuff and going through the motions. But it wasn't until I actually started to work the steps, as you told me to, that changes started to happen.

I I was a good 2 years before I did my first 4th step, and I looked at it as a fearful moral inventory, not a fearless moral inventory. And And I learned that I didn't have to be perfect. Although, it's hard when you go into to this, because I always felt that I had to do everything perfect. Because I thought that the reason Len drank was because maybe the food wasn't good on the table, or maybe the house wasn't clean enough, or maybe it wasn't as good enough a wife and then stuff. And what I really eventually learned is that it had nothing to do with me.

And it was his stuff. It was everything to do with him. So it was a relief to learn it was a disease. You know, at first, I thought, Oh, great. It gets to hide behind a label of a disease.

Now, that just gives him more excuse. And I But I quickly realized what the depth of disease meant and the ripple effect on the family. And and I went to some open AA meetings too. And I I had to hear the other side of the story. And I loved going to open AA meetings because I had no idea the despair that he was feeling.

I had no idea that he felt like he wanted to drive in front of a truck and die, that the pain inside of him was so bad. I thought it was all about me. And so I really had to work on Linda, and for the first time, you know, look at the inside stuff and not about what what size of clothes I was wearing and if my makeup looked good. It wasn't about that. And I I have and still sometimes catch myself because if I'm stressed about something, I might go and buy shoes or buy an outfit or something.

But then God quickly screeches me to a halt and goes, Linda, you know. And it might be, you know, I I think the depression was his way of saying, hey, don't buy another pair of shoes. You've got 30 in your closet. You really need to be still. You need to work on you.

And I need to do that, and I still need to do that. Because I can get caught up in the crazies so easily, so easily. And, so I need to really work on me. Interestingly enough, about 1990 7, I always remember that. That was the year I finished my nursing degree.

About a couple of years before that, I knew things were really getting quite bad between Len and I. And, I was working the program, but there was still a lot of unhappiness going on in my life. And, I wasn't putting as much of the focus on me. I was still looking to the outside stuff. I did some stuff on me, but in all honesty, you know, it's a it's a work in progress.

It's not like you can arrive there, you know, in you know, next May, I'm gonna be all fixed. Like, I'm a lifer. I've realized I'm a lifer. I have to keep coming, that this is a process, that I'm not gonna graduate, that I'm not gonna be perfect, that it's a progress. And it's not perfection, it's just progress.