The Lethbridge & Southern Alberta Roundup in Lethbridge, Alberta

I remember seeing Aaron there, and I don't think she probably even remembers me, but we were both extremely raw. And so memories like that stay in your mind. And many years later, when I continued to stand on and on, I went to some assemblies and read there, and lo and behold, there was Aaron. And I wanted her to come and speak because she's nice and young and because she has tremendous enthusiasm. And I really like that. So thank you.

Thank you. I love that writing. I'm done. Yeah,

I hi, everybody. My name is Aaron and I'm a grateful member of the Worldwide Fellowship of Al Anon.

It always takes me a few minutes to surrender my own will and let God take over. I'm just as stubborn as most of you Alcoholics. I wanted to be my way. And when I get in front of the microphone, I can hear myself and I really like it.

But I've learned through this program that it's God's will, not mine. And I love step 11, and I need to pray for knowledge of his will for us, not just me, but us in this whole room. So for those of you a a people who have never heard an Al anoner before, I hope that I can

give you a piece of the program and show you that we're not crazy black belts.

They're actually really loving, kind people. And that we really love you, Alcoholics. And that although you've done some shit that really hurts, we can forgive you and we can love you.

So the way for me to surrender my will is to always get into literature. So I'm going to read you today's reading from Hope for Today, which is a daily reader for adult children of Alcoholics.

Ah, and God's perfect all the time willingness to grow. And today's reading is about willingness.

Miracles happen in al Anon, but they didn't happen by magic. Individual participation. The key to harmony, according to concept 4, is the behavior that makes the miracles happen. The God of my understanding wants me for my availability as well As for my abilities. When I become willing to act on faith, God helps me create miracles for myself and assist others in creating their own. I was an al Anon for a while before I started to think of doing service. I knew it would help me, as so many other members had attested. But my biggest fear is that I

do my job perfectly. Easy does it, my sponsor told me. Keep it simple. With her support, I began slowly. I chaired meetings, greeted new comers, and answered the district telephone line. The simple acts connected me with the Al Anon program and with the recovery to be found there. After a few months, I was ready for more. I began attending district and area meetings with my sponsor. We would have lunch afterwards. And these Saturdays have become our special time together.

When my home meeting needed a group representative, I volunteered. Recently, I was asked to serve as the Area Literature Coordinator. Along this path, I discovered that the secret to successful service is to perform it according to the suggestions set forth in our 12 Traditions and 12 Concepts of Service.

There's no guesswork when I read the Al Anon Alateen Service manual. The biggest gift of service is that it helps me. Helps me too, giving the program away as an affirmation that I have some program to give thought for the day. This is a thought that I use with me a lot. God doesn't call the qualified. God qualifies those who are called Am I listening? Al Anon believes that our benefits are measured by our willingness to share them with others, for we know we can never give as much as we receive.

So with that, I'll begin my story

because I'm willing to share it and it's my story. And when I'm up here for an hour, it's mine and I get to tell you what I want. And nobody around here is going to say no, no, no, no, that's not how it happened. And one time I shared in my hometown and rumors happened and it got back to my grandma. My grandma was so upset. She says, Aaron, that's not the way it happened. And I was really hurt. And for a while I didn't want to share after that because I didn't want to hurt my grandma. And then I realized it's my story,

it's how it happened to me and what I see. And when I took out of it, and it's mine. It's not yours. I'm going to share it with you. And you're going to take what you like and you're going to leave the rest. And some of you are going to leave this and not get a thing out of it. And some of you are, and it doesn't matter

to me because when I leave, I'm validating myself up here and seeing all of these little blinky eyes looking at me validates me that there's a wee in here. And I'm not the only one that has gone through some of the stuff.

So I'm yours, God. OK, so I was born in the Crow's Nest past. I'm sure that many of you have drank there before since there is a population of, I think 7000. And there's like 15 bars in liquor stores. There's one in every town.

I didn't think that I was affected by alcoholism until I married an alcoholic. But once I got on the doors of A, A A and Al Anon, I realized that it's a family disease and it's a disease of relationships. So I was born in the Curls Nest past and when I was six months old, my mom decided that it was too hard to be a mom. So she went to The Cause, which is a bar in Blairmore, and followed the band to Australia

and left me with my dad. And she literally left me in a bucket seat because at the time there was no car seats. It was like a bucket seat. And she left me on the table and my dad was working that shift at the mine. And she left just before my dad came home. And my dad came home and I'm sitting on the table in the seat and he's wondering what, OK, whatever. And he dealt with it. And she never came home and she never came home. And

the Long story short is he had to find, hire private investigator to find her. How crazy is that? So my dad's a coal miner and he's working shift work and it's impossible to find daycare for when you're working night shift and day shift. And you know, it's a small crazy town. So he shipped me out to all the family. My grandma took me, my aunt took me and they sent me to Fort McLeod where my mom's family was and I'd stay with them. And

he decided that was crazy. He couldn't raise his daughter and have her everywhere. So he called his sister and said, I don't know what I'm going to do. And, and his sister, my aunt said, well, I, I'm, they were living at the Y, my aunt and this lady, and she says, I know this lady and she's really good with kids. Maybe she'd come babysit for you. So she shipped this blonde busty girl down to the mountains and I now call her mom.

She, she tells me all the time that she got one paycheck and she spent it all on clothes. And so my dad owes her a pretty penny, but

I thought I was a pretty good payment for her. So my dad gets this lady and she comes and she babysits and they fall in love and they start having children and they, they get pregnant right away. Actually not right away. I was about three, they got pregnant and they had a baby and she died two days after she was born. She was born with a whole of her hole in her heart. And looking back now, I can have a lot of compassion and empathy. When I was a child, I was very angry and resentful

because I didn't have a mom. And then when I was really young,

my new mom was heartbroken. And I can't imagine the heartbreak now that I'm a mom. I can not imagine it either. So, you know, they were kind of absent. I'm sure it was is tough. And here I am a little 3 year old. Hello. Love me, love me. And they're grieving. They're grieving. They're grieving the loss of this baby. And then they got pregnant again and they had my sister on my 4th birthday. I'm four years old. I'm really selfish. And you had this baby on my birthday.

Hello. I hated her until she turned 18, and it wasn't so bad to have somebody to celebrate with.

So when my sister was born when I was four, they had two other kids between the time I was four and six. So here I am at six years old and my new mom, my mom, has abandoned me and my new mom has all these little tiny babies and my dad is a coal miner and I'm here desperate for somebody loves me and give me attention.

But my mom was busy. She couldn't. She had all these little people and she expected me to be independent and take care of myself and help her out and do all this stuff, and I did. So my first exposure to Alcoholics was a fantastic thing in my life. My grandpa had a heart attack when I was six years old and drinking and smoking. And so he was working at the mine and he wasn't allowed to work anymore. And my family decided that for the summer, let's get Aaron to babysit Grandpa for the summer.

I don't know. This is the family disease of alcoholism. I don't know what kind of crazy idea it was, but God's timing is perfect, and this was perfect for me

for the summer that I was six. I spent the whole summer with my grandpa. My job was to make sure that he didn't drink and didn't smoke.

I'm six, come on. So we go to the Bellevue Legion and we have he has a beer and juice and a cigarettes and I have barbecued peanuts and Orange Crush into this day. I still love barbecued peanuts and Orange Crush. Then we go to the Blamore Legion and we have a beer and juice and I have peanuts and crash and then we go to the Coleman Legion and then we go all the way back to Hillcrest. And I learned that it's not a bad thing. Like everybody wanted me to make sure my grandpa didn't drink and didn't smoke because he'd have another heart attack. But he

have an heart attack. I get to hang out with this guy and he was mine. Me and grandpa all summer long went everywhere and he talked to everybody and everybody knew pops, Everybody knew who he was and and he everybody loved to talk to him. And I love to spend the time with him. At the end of that summer, he took me to a store in Coleman, which no longer exists. And he let me go in and pick out a dress and I'd never had brand new dresses that I remember. Maybe I did, but it's my memory and it doesn't matter.

And I picked out this dress and it was a white dress and it had pink bows on the bottom. And when I spun around it would go up like a Princess. And I just felt like $1,000,000 a million million dollars.

Later on in my youth, I was introduced to my mother's family in Fort McLeod, who were also a bunch of drinkers and who also were frequenters of the Legion. And we would go to the Legion and, and we would hang out and everybody would visit. And I got to play pool and I got to eat chips and my family would get drinking and stay for the meat draw and they would fill my pockets full of money and send me to the corner store. So drinking was not a bad thing. It was wonderful. I got money and I got time and I got to hang out with all these people. And there was lots of laughter and joy.

We would dance and stay up all night and we'd go back to my grandma's house and they would give me chips and put me in front of the TV and pass out. And, you know, I got the house to myself. This was not a bad thing for me. So my early exposure to alcoholism was not bad. So when I was 19 and I I met the man that I married,

we decided that we were going to get married. No, it was before we decided we're going to get married.

Yeah, it's fun. We were sitting at the table earlier. We're talking about how the early days kind of become

staggered. You know, there's no chronological order anymore in the beginning. And I remember in the beginning I met him and I, I moved to Calgary because I was going to join the military. I was very active in the air cadets in the past and loved it there. I loved the black and white. I loved the rules. I loved that they could tell me what to do and I would do it and I would get kudos and I could

be promoted and move up. And I love the community involvement that I had. And because of my grandpa's activity with the legions, I knew all of the legion people and the legion sponsored the air cadet. So I learned I had so much exposure to Alcoholics. And in hindsight, it's interesting. But so I I moved to Calgary to join the military and I was chicken. And I worked at a gas station right next to the base and, and I'd see the guys running up and down the road and I loved it.

But I was chicken. I was so chicken. I couldn't go and make that phone call to the recruiting office. And that's what I wanted to do more than anything in the world.

And there was this guy that I worked with who had a friend. And this friend was hot. Oh my God, he was so yummy. He'd come to the gas station every night and buy pop and chips and chocolate bars and devour them all. And I found out later it was munchies, but it doesn't matter.

So there was a parking lot fair at the mall and I'm a small town girl. South parking lot fairs are cool and I'm so excited. The parking lot fair is coming to town. And I said to this guy that I work with, you should bring your friend to the parking lot fair and we'll hook up and it'll be all fun. And he's like,

you're crazy. Parking lot there. And I'm like, I'm going, it'll be fun. So we go to the parking lot fair and there's nobody there.

There's me and this girl that I work with and nobody else, but I'm a small town girl. I think it's cool. Like it's to do the salt and pepper ride for two minutes. Woo. So I'm on the salt and pepper ride and I'm thinking, this is really groovy. I'm a small town girl in the big city and there's nobody there. And I'm stuck upside down and I look down and I see this good looking guy, but something's different about him and he's eating an ice cream and thinking, Oh my friend came and he brought the good looking friend. And I'm all excited and but then I feel kind of embarrassed because I'm on the ride

and I get off the ride and I see this guy and he's not the good looking friend that I was hoping to see what I thought he'll do.

Where did that come from? I don't know. So he was eating an ice cream and he devoured it all in one thing. And then there was this crazy ruckus and there was these kids that were causing trouble. So these guys all whip off their belts and they're going to have a big bite. And I'm like, oh, they're so cool. So we went off to this bar after we met and we're playing pool and I kicked his ass in nine ball. So I married him

and I still let him know that I kicked your ass. Remember I beat you. I beat you. Anyway, so after we met, my Co dependent behavior began immediately after we met. He I wanted to date him. He was kind of whatever, whatever, whatever. He was a workaholic and a drinkaholic. And so he was making these armor stands and he didn't have time to date because he needed to work. So I decided, well, I'll come work with you.

So I went and hung out in the shop with him and built all these armor stands and really got to know this guy and I like to work and he was a good teacher and he would teach me what he was doing is really passionate about what he did. And he was really good at what he did. And we'd have the shot fall to ourselves. And one time we were supposed to go to a movie. It was our first date outside of the shop and we were supposed to go to a movie and it was like 7:00. And he phoned me at 6:30 and he's like, I'm going to be late. I have to

wash my laundry. And I'm like,

in my head, I was like, what you should, you should have. Oh, but you work. I get it. I, you know, I talk that away, tuck that anger in my back pocket and didn't even think about it. And so I'm expecting we're going to go to the Late Show at 9:00 instead of seven. He shows up at the house at 8:50. Higher than a kite, drunker than a skunk, wearing wet pants. So he obviously washed his pants. He's like,

you sure you want to go to the movie? And I'm like, yeah, so we go to the movie. And he slept through the whole thing and. And I was angry,

but I tucked it away 'cause he came to the movie, he showed up, he came, he likes me.

I phoned my dad at one time and I said, dad, you know what I'm concerned about this guy. I'd heard about Alcoholics before, but Alcoholics were the guys that drank the bottles with the paper bags over them and they were under the bridges and they were dirty and stuff. And this guy worked. He couldn't have been an alcoholic. And I didn't really see him drinking too much. I saw him smoke a lot of pot, but I didn't see him drink. Well, I saw him drink, but it was only because he was thirsty. He like he'd excuses and the stupid, crazy stuff he put through your head.

So I phoned my dad and I said, yeah, I'm not sure about this guy. You know, he smokes a lot of pot and he's never on time. But my dad like then what are you doing with them? And I said, well, I like his family and that's the God truth. God works crazy ways. I fell in love with his family and so I hang on to this guy.

His family was a lot like me. He had siblings that were the same age as my siblings. So I'm the oldest and when I moved to Calgary, I left my little 12 and 13 and 14 year old siblings in the past and I adopted his 12 and 13 year old siblings. So I totally disregarded what my dad said and my dad knows don't ever try to tell this stubborn girl what to do because she's going to do what she wants. So

I'm dating this guy and I'm kind of feeling icky and oofy about it. But I really like his family, and they're super great codependents.

But his dad had been sober. He had hit sobriety on his 40th birthday. And then their kitchen, they had, you know, the 12 steps and the courage to change with the big fancy writing and the big bookmark thing. And it was this big, huge, gigantic frame. And we decide we're going to get married. And they sit down and they said, Aaron, there's something we need to tell you. And I'll always remember this. We're sitting at the table and my mother and father-in-law to be here sitting with their back to the 12 steps. And this was for alcohol. It says 12 step stuff. It wasn't for

anybody but Alcoholics, and he said, Aaron, we need you to know that you're marrying an alcoholic.

Whatever

you old people don't know nothing. This is a nice guy. He's not an alcoholic and but you know, you do your polite. OK, thank you. Thank you. Wasn't even a couple weeks later I was staying at their house for some reason and he didn't come home from work. And

this is pure Al Anon behavior. We lived on Richmond Road, which is just down the street from the Children's Hospital, and it's a really busy road and they had a couch that faced the window.

So I sat like this and I watched

all the cards

for hours and hours and hours. He never called. We didn't have cell phones. That was still in the deeper time. We didn't have cell phones. And I didn't know where it was. And I started to get this crazy thoughts on my head. Oh my God, he's dead. Oh my God, he's dead in the ditch. Oh, and I'm going crazy and everybody's gone to bed and it's 3:00 in the morning and I'm still

watching up and down the streets, up and down. And I'd heard an Allen on speaker one time talk about wrinkles. And for us, Allen honors. They're not wrinkles, they're Venetian blind marks.

It's so true.

So my mother-in-law's name is Lois W See, this is how God works. She comes upstairs and and she sees me

like a cat. And

she says, honey, girl, you have got to learn to detach.

I was really not happy with that Lady. I'm like detached. He could be dead on the ditch. What do you do when it's snowing? Oh, my God. And she says if he's dead, the cops are going to come and tell us he's dead.

That thought did not even occur to me. I thought that by looking out the window I could make it so that he wasn't going to be dead.

So anyways, we got married on our wedding day. We went to the liquor store and me and my wedding dress and him as tuxedo. And I remember being really pissed off because the guys wouldn't give us a bottle of wine for free. Like hello, we got married and I don't know, crazy, crazy thinking. And so we got married and got pregnant right away and I had my son on New Year's Eve.

This is when I knew the craziness was. This is when I started to be like

detach, what's this detached thing? And my mother-in-law had said, you know, Aaron, you might want to try Al Anon because it's really tough to be married to an alcoholic. But I'm from the mountains, nothings tough. And you know, besides everybody said my grandpa was an alcoholic and he was a nice guy and all these people were nice guys. I could do this. I could totally do this. So I'm pregnant and Travis, you made me cry yesterday when you said that your wife is the most beautiful woman you ever saw.

My husband wouldn't touch my belly. He was never home. He told me I was gorgeous over the phone,

but he wouldn't come home. He was not ever home. I found out later he was scared and he fear motivated and that's what he does. But there was so many times to be at home and I'm excited to be pregnant. I'm excited to be giving this man a a child and start a family and he's not coming home. So I worked for a company and I, I had a pager and I had given him this pager and

I had seen the doctor and there was something not right with the belly. And I phoned the doctor and I said, I haven't felt the baby move

all day. And the doctor says, well, I think you better come into the hospital. We better check it out. So I paged my husband with a 911 come home. And he comes home and he walks into the kitchen. He's going to make himself a snack. And he cracks a beer. And I was like, right, the baby's not moving. He's like, Oh, yeah,

So we do it. I'm like, Ryan, we gotta go to the hospital because there's something wrong. He's like, oh, can I eat 1st? And I'm like, so we go to the hospital and it turns out that there's something wrong. And so they need to induce labor. And he slept. There's a couch in the labor room, and he slept the whole entire time. I was so upset. So we had the baby on the morning of New Year's Eve, and I was sure that now we had a baby, things were gonna turn around. Things were going to turn around. We had a baby.

He would have to care for this baby. He would, he would get it. He would get it together. God would not bring a baby into a family without a dad. It just wouldn't happen. So I said to him, he was going to go. It was his grandmother's 85th birthday that day also. So he was going to go and he was really excited and he's going to give everybody cigars and he would be back, be back at midnight. So this is some more evidence of the craziness that us Allen honors do before we find the program. I'm looking at the clock and it's 11:50 and he's not here yet, you know, not the baby's, you know, almost

18 hours old by now. And I've been by myself in the hospital today. It's New Year's Eve. Everybody's out and about. And I'm looking at the clock and he's not there. It's 12:00 and he's not there. It's 12:15 and he's not there. And I'm thinking surely he'll come. He'll come. 1:00 he comes in

and I look at the clock and it's like, you're late and I'm livid. I'm livid. I'm bringing in the new year with this new baby by myself. He's like, Oh no, my clock says it's only 1130. It's like, oh, silly me. Oh, put that anger in my back pocket and completely forgave him and let it go. He showed up, he was there. That's all I wanted. So somewhere along there I had somebody led me to an Al Anon meeting. I don't remember how it happened. It was somewhere

in there and I went to an Al Anon meeting and there was a guy at this meeting and he shared his story and he said that

his wife drank for 20 years and he didn't know because she was a closet drinker and she would drink in the basement. And he had no clue until one time he found her passed out literally in the closet. And I was like, come on, how can you not know? But you know God puts mirrors in front of you all the time and and I am in the world as the world is in me. And when I saw that it stuck. How could you not know for 20 years?

So I went to this meeting and I didn't get what I wanted. And I, like many of you a A people would go back out in the world and deal with the insanity.

We had this baby and he was really colicky and crying. And I'm miserable because I've got a husband that doesn't come home and he loves to work and he loves to drink and he loves to party. And I have this little baby in a car seat one time and he did the 3:00 in The Morning Call, come and get, I don't know what it was. And it was 8:00 at night call and come get me. And I'm pissed off. So I put the baby in the car seat and we go over to this place and get him and he's so drunk. He's falling into the closet and he's picking up the shoes and he's just

let me carry the baby.

I'm like, no, you get your shoes. He's got two different shoes and they're both the same foot. And he's holding up the elevator and let me carry the baby. And I'm livid. And this time I didn't put it in my pocket. I thought, I'm not accepting this craziness. And we go home and there was physical abuse in our relationship with the physical abuse was started by me. I was the first one to do the first physical abuse.

I was so angry with him. I pushed him, I slapped him and I didn't kick him. But damn it, did I ever want to. I wanted to kick some sense into him.

He has his wife and his baby and he's just not getting it. But I would not share this stuff with anybody. None of my friends knew. God forbid I share this with my family because they'll judge him. And I loved him. I didn't want my family to hate him. I didn't want them to tell me to leave him. I didn't want them to tell me he was a bad man because he wasn't. He did dumb things and he got drunk. But

I really, really loved him and I had faith that it would be OK.

So I had an inkling that I was pregnant again and I got down on my knees and I said please, God, give me stomach cancer instead.

Twisted bowel, anything, I don't care. But I don't want to be pregnant. And I took that pregnancy test and I wept and I phoned my dad and I said, dad, I'm pregnant and my son isn't even a year old at this time. And my dad said, oh, air.

And it broke my heart that my dad thought that way, that I was bringing another child. And my dad knew, even though I didn't say anything, my dad knew how crazy it was. And I didn't say anything, but he knew. So we had this baby

and she was the most beautiful, beautiful thing ever. And Bryan came home. He was home while I was pregnant. He was home when she was born. He fed her, he carried her, he bathed her, he sang to her.

He was everything that I knew he would be and I knew that it was OK. It was OK that he drinks because he's home. And Katy was this beaming smile and she had this these locks of hair and she was just this walking smile.

And she's still a walking smile and she's just so happy. And Brian was happy and I knew it was OK. I knew it was OK. I could do this. And then he went to work and he didn't come home for a week.

And then that phone came to me and it dialed itself.

And on the other end was Al Anon. How I made that phone call, I have no idea. And I wept and I wept and this lady said, well, maybe you'd like to come to a meeting. So I have this brand new beautiful smiling girl and I go to a meeting and I love Al Anon. It's so full of caretakers. I am completely exhaust and bankrupt. And all of these women pick up my baby and they pass her around and they cuddle her and, and I shared and I shared and I wept and I wept and I shared and I shared and I wept and I,

and the whole time I was on that leave, I just did meeting after meeting after meeting. And I never read any books. I read the pamphlets that they gave me and I didn't take any books. I didn't need the books. I just needed to share. And you guys just needed to hold my baby for me and help me feel sorry for myself. And somewhere in the opening, it says changed attitudes can aid recovery. Cool. I'm gonna change my attitude so that he'll recover.

Nice. So we went to the pass for a wedding and at the time they were renovating the mall and and my husband decided that, you know what,

we'll move to the past. You can be closer to your family, and I'll be away from all those guys that drink and drug and we'll move to the past. And somewhere in there, he had done the 90 meetings in 90 days and God put people in his life. But that's his story, not mine. So we'd had a little taste of of program in its dysfunctional early beginning somewhere. So I knew that, yeah, we just need to get away from all those people.

And we moved to the past and

something still wasn't right. And I, I went to a counselor there and God works in crazy ways. His counselor was loopy. She told me I had anger issues.

The whole professionals and al Anon, they told me that I was just affected by the family disease of alcoholism. So I was really not cool when I didn't find a group. I was afraid to go to Ellen on in the past 'cause that's where I was from. I was afraid of the people that were going to be in the group and and in the meetings. And I didn't want them to know that I grew up to marry an alcoholic and I didn't want them to know that Pops's granddaughter couldn't handle life. So I I didn't go to a meeting,

but when this counselor told me that I had anger issues, I was cheesed off at her and I'm like, I'll show you. I'm going to go to Al Anon and prove I don't have anger issues.

Thank God I did. I walked into that room and I didn't know a soul. Not a soul. But you know why 'cause I knew all the Alcoholics. I didn't know their wives. They were the ones at home looking out the window.

So I was so pleased that I didn't know them. And

but, you know, changed attitudes can aid recover recovery. So I was going to change my attitude so that he would get sober. This program wasn't for me. This program was for him. So I'm just going to go and I'm going to admit that he's powerless over alcohol. And I'm going to come to believe that a power greater than himself will help him. And I'm going to turn his will in his life over. It was ridiculous. But you know what? It doesn't matter what gets us through the door.

It does not matter. I got through the doors and I kept going and I got little, little little pieces. Somebody told me I needed a sponsor.

How do you ask somebody to help you when you are stubborn? I couldn't do it. I knew somebody that I thought I would love to have my sponsor. God works. God works in great ways. She phones me one day and she says, hi Aaron, it's Mrs. Sponsor lady. I'm just wondering, do you have a sponsor?

What do I say? Do I say yes and lie or do I say no and admit I don't have a sponsor?

I said I have to program of honesty, whatever, I'll take a risk. I said no. She said, well, would you be willing to let me stand in until you find one? Thank you, thank you, God, yes, yes, yes I would. So she said, OK, so I don't remember how the conversation went, but the end result was let's talk about detachment. Now remember when I was looking out the window and my lowest W said, honey girl, you've got to detach. Well, I thought my sponsor was brilliant. She is going to teach me about the attachment.

I'm going to practice it. He's going to get sober. I can do this. Let's talk detachments. And I'm really excited now that I get to talk with a sponsor about this. And so we talked about detachment. And now that I've been in the program a couple of 24 hours, I have a great acronym for detachment. Don't even think about changing him or her. I didn't know that at the time. Detachment at the time meant I'm not going to do what you want me to do. So he was working late shifts and he comes home one night and he's like, my truck run out of gas and we need to go get it.

And we have two little babies. And I'm like, detach. No, we'll go in the morning. And he's livid. He's like, no, we gotta go. Now my truck's on the side of the road. Not too long before that, he had gotten a new truck and I was learning detachment. So I didn't do his registration for him and I didn't do his insurance for him. I neglected to tell him that I wasn't doing that for him. But anyways, that's how God works. So his truck's on the side of the road, it's run out of gas. It's 3:00 in the morning and I'm detaching. We're not getting these kids out of bed. We'll go in the morning,

so we wake up and we have pancakes. So we go and we pull up to his truck and there's a cup behind his truck.

Whoa, what's God got in store for us today? I'm detaching and God's going to make him so over. I'm so excited. This is an exciting day and I can't like the smile off my face. And he's cheese off. The cop's there and he's sure he's going to jail. So he gets out of the car and he goes over to his truck and cops like, is this your truck? Yep, Yep. License and registration. And what happened between him and the cop is his story, not mine. I'm sitting in the car and my kids are so excited. Look at the cop with daddy and look at his cool car and the lights

cool. It's wonderful. So my husband comes and he's black. Not black is the color, but black and blank and angry and insane. And I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm going to detach. It's not my problem. He says the cop's going to give me a $7000 fine because there's no insurance and I don't have registration and he's going to take me to jail and blah blah blah. Like, oh, that's nice.

I'm going to detach. I'm going to get detached. You're going to get silver. I'm not. I don't even care that he's not in a good place.

So to make a Long story short, he ended up in the psycho to the Lethbridge Regional Hospital that night. He decided that he wasn't going to go to or no, he wasn't going to pay the fine. He was going to go to jail. So I might as well drop him off at the cop shop. Actually, he had left. He started walking up the street and the kids and I decided we're going to wait for the tow truck to come and get Daddy's truck 'cause we're crazy. Yes. Allen Honors. And so I did, and the cop came over to my car and he says, Mrs. Walsh,

your husband's walking up the road. Are you OK with that? I'm like, Oh, yeah, he'll be fine.

It's like, you're just going to let them walk. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, he'll call. So I left the tow truck came and I went back to my dad's and had lunch. And he calls me from Coleman. He says, you can come and get me. I'm not mad anymore. But I knew my higher power was guiding me where I couldn't guide myself. And the higher power said, leave your children with your dad and go see your husband. So when I picked him up and he's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And we're driving through it and the cop shops in Blairmore and we're just getting ready by that center access. And he says, you know what,

you might as well take me to the police station because I know I'm going to jail. And I'm like, okay, turn into the cop shop because I'm going to detach and he's going to get sober. So we get into the parking lot and he says, tell my kids I love them. I'm like, I love you too. Have fun getting silver. And he goes into the cop shop and I went home and I'm literally on cloud 9 because I'm detaching and he's going to get sober. So a couple hours later, the cop calls me and he says, Missus, I just want to inform you that we've transported your husband to the psych ward and Lethbridge. He came into the cop shop

to hurt himself or others.

Oh

that sucks, that sucked. My husband was now crazy and he was in the psycho. I was working in long term care at the time and and my sponsor was also teaching a nursing course. This is how beautifully God works in my life. She was teaching a nursing course and she was my sponsor and I was a little bit late from all the other people. So I had her all to myself and I would show up for my course and she would teach me something about nursing and then we would talk

and thank God. So I would say, Oh my God, the doctor wants to put him on these antipsychotic drugs and he's a drug addict. What are they doing? It's crazy. And she's like, that's not your business.

You have to trust God. You have to trust that your husband has a higher power too. So the condition of his release was to go to a treatment center and he went to the treatment center. And part of that treatment meant that I had to go to the family program too. And I was sharing with Betty and Al today. I forgot about that. Going to the treatment center. I was mad. I go to the treatment center and I'm validated. I'm going to be mad for a week because he's not coming home and he's not being a dad. He got himself in this psych ward. He's the addict. And I have a right to be mad. And the counselors

there were like, you got to get over this, like you have a part to play in this too. I'm like, whatever, whatever. So anyways, I'm going to Fast forward a million years because I didn't get it. I kept going to Al Anon. Thank God. A A opens their doors for Alan honors for open meetings. My sponsor suggested that I go to a a meetings and I did. My meeting was at 6:30 till 7:30 and then the a A meeting was at 8:00. So we would have our meeting and we'd walk across the parking lot to the a, a meeting.