The Northern Virginia Intergroup Retreat

Take it away. My name is Dawn and I am slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly recovering. Compulsive over here,

but I'm recovering. That's the good news. Yeah, that's the good news.

And, you know, it is such a privilege. I shouldn't have seen tactics before I got married talk because too many memories flooded in and I I think I don't, you know, I'm, I'm not very emotional, but it just kind of hit some places. But I'm grateful these places, you know,

I came to this program

in

July, the 6th of 1976.

We were living in upstate New York.

My husband and I were at odds with one another.

He was directing one of the first Hmos in the country and he was not going to meetings and I was going to al Anon and I was feeding myself to death.

Um, my children were totally confused.

My youngest child used to say, Mama, you're so angry sometimes I think you're going to take me up in that vacuum. I was weighing £100 more than I weighed a day.

I have been asked not to come back to Weight Watchers because I kept raising my hands saying you don't understand, I can't stop eating. And they would give me the recipe. And I, you don't understand, I can't stop eating.

A

We had gone to a church one Sunday, and my middle child, who was always my nemesis, I'll talk about her later,

had asked us to go to this Episcopal Church. And it was a white Episcopal Church in, in Syracuse, NY. And this woman got up on a Sunday morning and testified about being a compulsive overeater. This does not happen in a white Episcopal Church.

And she just stood up, you know, and, and said she had to say something to the congregation and, and she,

he gave a bit of her story of what life has been like for her, would it happen, and what she was like now. And she was beautiful. And I sat there with my mouth open like,

and when the service was over, I kind of waddled over to her and I said, you know, I have a friend

desperately needs your program. And I got all the information, you know, and, and then I, I went home. Well, I couldn't say anything because,

well, certainly before then I had been in tops in the piggy had been on my lungs, you know, because that's what they did then.

And and my kids had been totally embarrassed. And

then I did a diet workshop and

that had been another embarrassment. And then my husband had at the Health Center, they had a mental ward, which they,

they

gave training in hypnosis for people who eat too much. And I went to the classes and I would sit in a class and they taught you how to hypnotize yourself. You know, let me tell you. And then you said to yourself, you know, food is this and that, how nasty it is and so forth. And then I would get up and I would go home and go directly to the refrigerator

and say, forget what they said, you know, and the man had gone to my husband and said, your wife's an embarrassment. I wish you please, because you are the director. You know, it's just is embarrassing to having her sit in this class. And then every week she's the one who say, I'm still eating, you know, I'm not losing anything. And so

I, I didn't know, I just couldn't tell him I was going to another, to another meeting.

But by the following Tuesday, which was right after we had had the big cookout and I had eaten myself into a well, we hate ourselves. You know, I made a decision that I was going to go to Gracie Fiscal Church and I prayed all the way there. God, please,

please, please let there be somebody that looks like me in that meeting,

because we were living in upstate New York and every place I went, every meeting I went to, everything I belonged to. I was the only black woman and I just couldn't deal with it that day. I wanted somebody that looked like me. And I got to the door and I looked in the door and there was one young black man in that room and he was a friend of Alma's. And I went in and sat next to him. His name was Mark

and Mark was

bigger than me and blacker than me. I was so grateful. I didn't know what to do, you know? Mark was my my savior for that date. Mark never came back. Afraid for Mark daily. He's still in my prayers these days, you know, and I hope that God has found him in his despair

and brought to him the joy that this program has brought to me. And I went there and I had this notebook and I was ready to takedown all the all the recipes, you know, because I knew that you were going to give me some good stuff and I was going to cook it as you told me to cook it without this or without that. I was ready for the I was ready for the dice, you know,

And instead they had 12 steps upon them, you know, in the room and, and, and instead the people who were sharing were talking about hope, you know, and they were talking about living life without

food.

They were talking about

being a piece in times of conflict. They were talking about life beginning again. And I sat there with tears lying down my eyes because I knew that there was someone in that room that I wasn't going to find any place else. And a lot of people laugh at that when they say that they come to a place and they know their home. But I knew because I'd been in 12 step programs before and I'd seen people get well.

I was just one of those who wasn't getting well 'cause I was eating compulsory. And so I knew that in that room there was some kind of something that was for me,

and I couldn't wait to get home. And I pushed my husband and woke him up. And I said, honey, I found it. And he said, yeah, it turned over and went back to sleep.

But I couldn't blame him because I'd taken him down so many roads, you know? And I was given a gift of abstinence that first night. I mean, I woke up that next morning, and there was nothing that tempted me. You know, I was eating three meals a day. I immediately called the sponsor,

woman said no. And at first I said, Oh my God, she doesn't want me because I'm blocked. So I'm, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do and I'm dealing with all these issues and things and then something inside to call somebody else.

And I call this other woman and her name is Arden. You know, this is emotional for me because I don't tell my old story for a while. I'm always telling my own stupid. Most of the time I make myself look pretty good now,

but I called this woman. Her name was Pardon

and Arden was the woman who was to be my sponsor

and she was so gracious and so loving and and she just said, you know, like I've been waiting at this telephone for you all day long, you know, and and she began to talk to me and she could talk like I've never heard anybody else talk this program. She kind of mind me of every of the big book because she finally lost her ass and it's

and and never came back. But she had the gift and once again, I don't know why, but God put her there for me

and and she helped me begin the process of getting asked in it. Well, I had 21 weeks of abstinence and I was the most obnoxious person you have ever seen in your life. It was a gift, you know, and I thought I was doing it, you know, I mean, I was something people would say and I'm having a hard time. Do whatever, do what I'm doing.

You must not be working this program. You know,

is this here? Said that we were going to move to the Washington area and and I wasn't working any steps.

I was just asking

and I was, I, I guess my sponsors said I was on a diet that had just kicked here, you know, and she knew it wasn't going to last long. You know, she was just kind of waiting me out because I was so self-righteous in my attitude. And you just patiently waiting for the fall. And so she, she called me one morning and she said, Don, are you abstinent? And I said yes. And she said I'm not.

And I just blew me away because your sponsors are not supposed to ever lose their accidents. It's just an unheard of thing, you know? And she said, can you hold out for the day? And I said, I don't, I don't know, 'cause

how might plan my stash from night, you know, gonna have a really big one. And she said, can you hold out until tomorrow morning? And I said, I don't know. I said, wait a minute. And I said, Elma, that's my middle child once again, my nemesis. Would you come down the stairs? Who really is a blessing to me, not a mimic.

And so the stuff out that I have ready for tonight's feast. And my daughter was looking at me like, you can't do that, you know, But what is your problem? You're the Mama, you know, you can't throw that stuff down the garbage disposal. And I said, I can't do it, Alma. And almost throwing that down. She was throwing down and I was crying.

She was throwing that down. You would have thought

my life. She was on it down and it was like my best friend was dying right there in a kitchen and I remember getting on my niece and he got up. I can't do anything

where this food is concerned. And my sponsor is still on the phone. And she said we'll go upstairs and I'm going to hold on. And Elmo, you hold this line. You didn't have the other phones. And I ran upstairs. I got on the phone and she said I'll get on your knees. And I got on my knees. And she said let's pray together. And we prayed together. And she said, not anytime you're tempted, you call me during the night,

but hold on. And I held on through that night and the next day I got to the meeting

and I was absent.

And I've been asking it since. Through the grace of God.

So my story began in apartment. I was born in apartment. I was born in a person's greatest place to be. I mean, if your precious kid, we got our problems, we got our excuses. But I love being a preacher's kid. My father was most eloquent preacher I've ever heard in my life. I still say that I think my daughters know a preacher, but I don't think she's nearly as good as a grandpa.

But she's close and she's only

47, so she's got some time to grow. But

my dad could preach in, in my dad at Church of 300 members

and and by the time I was six to seven, my father had a Church of 6000 members. It was the largest black church in the country. When those first mega churches, This was in the 30s and my mother and father were extremely busy doing God's work. My father, my mother was his health mate. Now they have, you know, the Co pastor and that kind of thing. Well, they didn't have that in those days. My mother was just an unbolo woman

who loved God with all her heart and loved her husband with all her heart and worked by his side for his growth. My father was dream was to be a Bishop in the church, but he was building a congregation before and my mother had eight babies now my father and mother's

every time my father would

build a church, my mother would have a baby. So by the time they moved to Detroit, I was born in Flint. They stopped building and I think that was it. I think they had me and they looked and they said we finally reached professionally.

He said it's over. So anyway, they, they, they just, I think they got too busy building the church. They didn't have time to do the things to do to get all these babies.

So they had these eight babies and then Mama lost three babies so

way and along the way and and we never dealt with the pain that that must have been like for her.

I understand now why my mother was kind of distant. She never was someone who would hold you or do things like that, you know, just spend much time with you because she she felt there was a something about her that that just the loss was present in her life, you know, And so she turned my care over to my grandfather, who I adored,

I adored. I worship that old man. And he took care of me from the time I was a little baby until I was seven years old.

Any sexual abuse me. And I grew up with this feeling of being different. Some dirty every Sunday morning. I joined church every Sunday morning. I asked God to clean me up every Sunday morning. My father would say to the ushers, hold her back. You know, it's like in the circus where they need a shell or somebody to come out. We don't need that. Hold her back. And I find a way and I come down there with tears coming down my eyes and I say, God clean me up and little children.

But that was the way I felt because I felt dirty on the inside and there was nobody I could go to and tell

because everybody was busy doing God's work. And my brothers and sisters were busy growing up, and I was a baby. And I'm looking at them and trying to get some help somewhere and then grab a diet. And you would think that that would be a relief. But the truth of the matter is, I missed that old man because as sick as that relationship was, that was my nursing relationship. But it also gave me a warped sense of who I was, and what I did

was put fat around me as a protection from the world. And so that was my role in the family. I was the fat one. I became the fat kid. My father called me floating groceries. My brothers used to say

you can't ride in the front seat with me because somebody might think you're my girlfriend, but you're OK. But you sit in the back, you know. So I grew up with this little self esteem of how I looked anyway. And and then I wore glasses and you know, boys don't make glasses and girls wore glasses.

And I, I was those ill dressed child. My mother dressed her daughters like they were queen. My mother made everybody's clothes and they were made to perfection. But I wanted clothes with ruffles of well, if you're big, you don't need rumble,

you know. So I never looked. And by the time she finished something, you know, my, my, my, I was growing up here, you know, and things were hanging out. I just never looked like I have a couple of pictures when I bring my pictures. And I didn't bring them this time where buttons are missing, you know. And my mother and father always looked good. They dressed well. They just night. They were just a dapper people, you know. And then they had me, you know, and I'm the last one who was with them most of the time.

And I grew up in this just. And we ate. We ate from the time we got up until the time we went to bed. You know, my mother used to say she one of her dreams was that one day they would be wealthy enough so they could all have a chicken of peace. I said, wow, that's a real dream.

I didn't get really as good, you know, and that was surgery. She said that by the time they got wealthy enough, she couldn't eat that much, You know, she was so disappointed. But I said I don't help him out.

I'll be the, I was the one that was a clean plate kid, you know, and also was the one I had dyslexia, which they didn't know then. And so in school, I was always having a hard time and people were laughing at me, you know, and, and it was just, I just had a weird kind. But at the same time,

I love my childhood in that I had all these people at this church who adored me. You know, I went to church on Sunday morning and I was the baby of the pastor, you know, And I would carry a purse with me. And a purse was just a little smaller than this one. And I'm a little tight. And I was standing at the door of the church and people would go out and they put money in it. You know, I asked for no less than I didn't like pennies.

I like bigger coins. And I would leave that church. I've got 3000 members and people are putting nickels and quarters in their nipples and depression. I was a wealthy kid

and then I bought my friends, you know, because I didn't have a very nice disposition, because I had too many things going on inside. So I was, I was fearful, I was angry, I was hurt. I was, I was jealous of everybody. My everybody looked better than me. I wanted, it was just, I was just a bundle of this and I'm I'm only a kid.

You know, so

years later, I wanted to blame all that on the Alcoholics. You know, if it happens for him, I'd have been a St.

that went wrong there. You know, the fact that I kept getting fatter and fatter. But what happened was I discovered I could sing. And when I discovered I sing, everybody in my family could sing. So this was my way out. I I sang and people just, you know, they thought I was great. Can't Sing anymore. It's surgery. I'm a vocal cords and I the miracles. I can still talk

those those

sometimes, Jamie says. I wish you couldn't fall

anyway. Your other daughter,

but I was singing and I just felt so good about me, you know, and people would say to my mother, have you heard John say and my mother said no, but have you heard sister? You know, it's because Mama just couldn't get it crossed this child

anyhow, I was just I was just a love, you know but and yes, they were yet they loved me. They were just busy doing God's work Ministry will do that too. Sometimes you got to be real careful. And I noticed that younger ministers in this day and age are a little more

losing or worse today, a little more cognizant of their of their families. And you know, the fact that you don't lose your children along the way. But anyway, so this choir director were giving me,

giving me lessons and oh, I was so happy. He gave me solos every Sunday, and on the way home from choir rehearsal one night,

he took advantage of me and I went in the house and I couldn't tell my mother and I couldn't tell anybody. And we went to Europe that summer, my mother and my father and my sister and I.

And on the ship I, I was sick the whole way and I couldn't tell anybody. And so I remember coming back, realizing that there was something wrong with me, but I couldn't tell anybody. And so

nine months later, I was standing at the admission's desk at Women's Hospital and I told them I had been in labor for two days and I didn't know what to do.

And this man said to me, I don't know who she is, He said, but I'll be your doctor. And I delivered a 10 LB, four ounce baby boy. And he had all his fingers and all his toes and heels. Just beautiful.

And they had to call my parents from the hospital. And I can imagine now it's a parent, what that must have been like for them because I was so fat. They never had any inkling that there was anything wrong with me. And so my dad came home. My dad had been in Chicago on a conference, and by this time he was a Bishop in the church. And he came home and he and mom came to the hospital

and they said it's all right, don't worry about it, Your life is going to be OK.

You just get your life together and things will be fine.

And I believe them. And we left the hospital that next day and I had a baby in my arms. And we got to the stop sign or the stop light in this woman opened the door of the car and she took the baby out of my arms and she closed the door of the car and we drove off. And my dad said, I'm a Bishop in the church. My dad said I've lived in centrally life before you young lady.

My dad said I'm giving you an opportunity to go back to school. I'm giving you an opportunity to make your life whole. And he said, you forget about this and put this behind you.

Then I got sadder and sadder and I screamed and I wailed and I woke up in the middle of the night. And I would go from church to church and I would go any place I saw people with a baby. And I would call, pull the blanket back to see if this looked like my side

and I couldn't find him. And then one day I looked in the mirror and I said, you know, the only thing wrong with me is the outside. If I fix the outside of me, then everything is going to be OK. Because I hurt so bad on the inside that I didn't know what to do with that. But I knew that if I could get the outside straight, that my life would, would, would fall into place. And what happened

was I found a diet doctor, Doctor Weinstein,

and he had his office in Grand River in Detroit, kind of over a junkyard. And I remember taking a cab there. And I said to the cab driver, I'm, I'm going to Doctor Weinsteins often. He said, I wouldn't take my dog to that doctor. And I said neither would I. I'm going. And Doctor Weinstein gave me shots and died itself. And, and I would I would take those. Well, I would kind of rush across the street to the White Tower first

after having a shot before taking the pills and eat. Then I would, you know, follow the eating plan or whatever it was. But I I for a year I ate nothing black coffee and I I, I had watermelon and I was have other fruit. Just

this was my regime for a solid year. And one day I passed the mirror and I just stop and look back because it's grossly overweight girl had turned into a stone. Fuck

that's looking good. I mean, I look so good that summer. I'd rather take you to ride the front seat.

I said I have a visit. Here's a visit. The mission is I'm going to find a husband, you know, and when I find a husband, I'm going to create a family

and everything is going to be all right. No more pain, no more anything. I'm not going to deal with any little stuff. That's it. I won't find a husband. So all these young men were calling because everybody falls in love with the outside and they know somebody is a fruitcake on the other side.

Facts were going off in my head. I was really sick. I looked, I look good. And Mama was dressing me then because I was, she could dress me. And I mean I was. It was a summer to behold.

The first young man was working at the post office and he had a nice job and he was doing very well. And he said, I've fallen in love with you. And he said, will you marry me? And I said, yes,

well, little did I know this better prospect was going to come along who was pastoring this Baptist Church in Pontiac, MI And he had a good congregation and and was a substantial young man who was doing a good job. And he said, I've fallen in love with you. He said, will you marry me? And I said, of course,

well, this other man had just come home from the

is this guy. This guy was a true loser. This guy had been asked, They told him that his military service was interfering with his drinking.

And we were standing at the bus stop because he didn't have cops, didn't have a job.

But he said to me, it's worth. He said, he said, you know, Don, He said I am an alcoholic. And I said, that is so romantic

Alcoholics. And then he said, he said, you know, he said I need you. And it was like, I need you. I need you. I need you. It was like magic. At least me, you know, I got a mission here. You know, I got a job here. These other guys are fit. They're doing well. You know, they don't need but this one needs me.

I got something to do and he said with you very big. And I said what? Yes. Well, we looked. Oh my God,

we the best were would last six months.

We eloped and whole downtown of Cleveland. Not Cleveland. Toledo blew up that day. I always thought there was some correlation.

The first time I saw him though,

he was at his mother's house. And that's on my way to church. And I stopped by and his mother brought this platter out and she said it in front of him.

And I thought it was for the family. And she put this in front of him and it was his meal and he ate it. And I haven't been able to eat for a year, right. So it was love at first bite, you know. I said Oh my God, this is, this is, you know, this man finished this whole ladder and I was so hungry

I had to hold off now till the wedding before I could eat again. Little did I know he was holding on drinking

because he didn't want me to really see what an alcoholic his life. Meanwhile, he had found a job at Burroughs which was kind of like a janitor,

he said. It had it had management potential.

My guy.

We that was we, we looked on our honeymoon night. It was the most beautiful honeymoon night. I had a bag of pastrami sandwiches

and he has a bag of German beer.

I didn't know what to do. So what? Have you ever had kids? Just forget the sex. Give me another family.

You know, that was a dysfunctional. Can you imagine a couple? Like seriously,

I called home and another woman answered the phone.

And I felt that sense of Oh, well, that's about what I deserve.

And if I had had any self-esteem whatsoever, I would have said never, that's enough. But I said, Oh well. And I went home. And

so time later he called a program called Alcoholic Synonymous and he went to his first meeting

and his life changed. But he only worked the 1st and 12 steps. So he said the other steps for lesser men. And he and so we had one of the most dysfunctional marriages you have ever seen in your life. I went to a program called Al Anon and I went to the program because I wanted to know why he stayed so late at meetings. And this woman said to me, who was a very good friend of mine, she said, why don't we go to the meeting And you lay on the floor

of a car and I'll put a blanket over you. And then when Peter comes home, you can see who he's fooling around with. And I said, will you be my sponsor? You're a wonderful person. So that's where my recovery began in that program. And you can see why it took a little while for me to get and see my father heard she spotted me. And I don't know. I was young. We didn't have the books you have now. He just said, you know that this year would be my 49th year now. And this is a long journey

with which I'm totally grateful and would save my marriage and transform my life too. But it wasn't until I came in these rules and I stopped eating the sugar and white flour that the miracles began to happen for me. So Peter and I had this dysfunctional, angry relationship. I mean, it was just. And we brought into this family these children, you know, and these children saw us at our wits end. They saw us battling one another, and they would see us ready to kill one another.

The phone would ring and we'd say, oh, hello, is there anything we can do to be of service? You know, and these kids were totally confused. Or they come down the next morning and say, Mama, what was happening last night? And I feel nothing, nothing. They said we heard you and daddy. Oh, you didn't hear anything. They were totally confused. They didn't know what was going on. And, you know, these children still suffer from some of the repercussions of the anger that went on in our home.

And every once in a while, some little memory will come back to them. And I have to deal with it and I have to listen to it and we work it through. Thank God for these recovery. You know, thank God for these rooms. But it took a long time for the healing to take place and for me to see the results of what this program has done for my life. We were living. That's when we got to the upstate New York. And by this time,

our middle child, our oldest child,

was having a problem with her. I thought that because I was an Al Anon, I was working this program, their program, and I was I was doing all the right things that when my children got of the age where they were going to need some support, that I would be there for her, you know, and and she came to me and said, I need to tell you something. And in the back of my mind was this thought, Oh, she's going to tell me she's pregnant, you know, and I'm going to be like the boy you got to see. This is I want to sit there and I'm going to say, oh, wonderful. Lisa, I know. I'm sorry it happened this way, but

I will wear the child I'll do all these things for at least. I said mom, I'm gay. I said no, you're not.

It was shortly after that that

I came through away and

my sponsor would say to me every day dawn you get the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and you read page 448 and you read it until it makes sense to you. You read it until you realize if you can accept somebody, you need to look at your own self and your own behavior. You need to change and don't worry about your daughter. And I have a call that comes from California, come from New York, come from Philadelphia, come from someplace Boise, ID,

requiring on one end and crying on my end. And I said, where are you, Lisa? And there wouldn't be any sound, you know, And I didn't know where Lisa was. And it was just an awful time in our life, you know. And then one day she came, she called, she said mom and me to come home and I'm suffering from the disease of alcoholism and can I bring my friend? And I have been asked for a long time by then. And I said,

come on home, Lisa. You know,

she brought her friend and I watched. My daughter has 30 years. So she was 29 years of sobriety and the program of alcohol

and a transformation of chains, and I saw her grow into a woman I wish I could be, she said. The light to my soul. And I, because of people like you in these rooms, were able to open my arms and say to my daughter, let me know

and I could make the changes immediately necessary for us to have a wonderful relationship. I want to thank you for that. You know, I want to thank you for that because I was so broken and so self-centered and so full of fear and so fearful of what those church people would say or what that world would say or what she would experience out there. That I was willing to hurt her before they did.

That's not right. But you helped me so that I could change enough so that I could accept my daughter as my daughter is.

And about six years ago she called me and she said, could you come to Washington? And I said sure. And I came to visit her. And she said, you know, she and Nancy been together for 20 years. And she said, I'm getting married. And I said, that's okay because you and Nancy been together for a long time, you know, And she said, no, I'm marrying a man. I said you can't marry a man

that's the same mother of the year

and all of them carrying the manners. You know what? You make an affair, you know,

and she married this guy, came with Stephen, and she loved him very much and he loved her. And six months later, he died, you know, and, but she had the experience she wanted.

And I'm just grateful for this program because it helped me not to get in her way, but to just go there and love my daughter and to love the man she chose to marry, you know, and to be a part of their life, you know,

and I had that privilege, you know, and if it wasn't for you and it wasn't for these steps, which it so transformed me on the inside that I didn't have to. I, it, it no longer concerned me what you thought. It concerned me how God felt. And I felt that God wanted me to be a person of love and an unconditional love. And I'm kind of skipping around because I know it's, I'm not going to talk that I'm not going to wear you out. But my life has been so

interesting with these. The children have been my my biggest challenge because Peter and I in our insanity

caused so much confusion in their life.

Peter

when, when I was working the steps and, and I began to realize that my relationship with Peter, I didn't know whether it was going to make it. I really didn't know. And when I came to OA, one of the things I decided was that if I ever got my life together,

that I was going to be out of that marriage, that it wasn't healthy and that it really wasn't going anywhere. And that he deserved better than I did too. And so one of the things we decided was that I was going to work on myself and he was going to work on his self. He had this feeling that by the time the last child was 19, that he was going to be ready to go. Peter was not a nice. He was, he had a way of cutting, saying things that would cut me to pieces, you know, and

gave him the pound. See, it wasn't here. I gave him the power. And so we had a lot of, there were a lot of things and he knew how to hit on my fat stuff, you know, which would diminish me and make me feel less than. And I gave him the power to do that. And so I made this decision that I was going to be out of there. But I was working the steps, you see, and I thought that the steps

after I lost this weight and I once again became a sex symbol,

I realized I was a 444546 step simple. No longer

that that I wasn't that I didn't know that I wasn't going to be the same person. I didn't know that the steps were going to change me on the inside as well as on the outside. Well, anyway, Peter was by this time directing this Health Center and he said to me one day, he said, you know, Don, I've hired a new secretary. He said she's an older woman. And I said, well, I'm glad I wanted to be older. He said. I said you could give. She's, she's.

Old and one very stayed in her race and so forth.

And I said, that's good. And we were having a party for a staff that night. And so we were at this big hall and everybody was, you know, mingling and so forth. And here comes this young woman in this miniskirt and she's coming down the aisle and she comes up to me and she says, Missus Crawford, I'm your husband's new secretary. And I said, no, you're not.

And Peter was over there at the courtyard he used to see. Peter rushed across, you know, and he's taken me out of that building because he did the

I have begun to lose weight. But he said I was jumping back up like this. And all the way in the car, you know, he was saying she didn't look like that when I hired her. She didn't look like that when I hired Joy hired yesterday, you know,

taking place. And then he said to me, he said we just have anything to do with yourself esteem

and us. What did you say? That I could. I got home and I called my sponsor and I said let me tell you what he said to me. He said does this have anything to do with your self esteem? And she said doesn't. And I hung up on her.

My gosh, you know,

I'm working the 7th step and I'm saying God here, let me tell you something. You know, I have, I have wrestled with this character defect. I have, I have wrestled with this all my life. Here was a handsome young man. He was a handsome older man. He was just handsome and he was charming and people liked him. And I said, I can't do anything about this. And I just, I just blow up from down here all the way to the South. I don't know what I can't do anything about this. And I said, would you please? This is killing me.

It's just killing me. Forget about the relationship, it's killing me. And about a month later we were at a retreat and Peter was standing over in the corner talking to some young ladies. And I looked over

and I didn't steal anything but love for that man. And I didn't feel anything but love for the young women he was talking to.

And I realized that if God could do that,

if God could lift that character these days,

God stopped me from earth self-destructive behavior, God could make me realize that I was a woman of worth and dignity and that that man was fortunate to have me in his life. And our trance set that that relationship just shifted and transformed. And before he knew it, we were both deeply in love with one another

and for the last 30 years of our life, you know, together.

It was a privilege to be his wife

and he adored me. He used to say someone in a relationship always loves more than the other one. And he said I happen to be that one.

And he said, why are you so nice to me? You know, why are you so kind?

And and and and I always wanted to make a joke, but I really said it's because you become

you become all I've ever flaunt it in a make and in a husband and then a friend and then a lover.

And I'm so grateful to the God of your understanding and the steps that you have worked daily in your life that has so transformed you

that we've been able to build on this relationship. And we went all over the country and in different parts of the world carrying the message, you know, these two broken people. Can you imagine that? I mean, Can you imagine that that God would take this couple, that the janitor who couldn't hold a job, who, who, who, who was drifting, you know, who was under the bridge, you know,