The Fellowship of the Spirit in Queens, NY

Hi, I'm Jenny and I am a grateful member of Allen on Family Groups.

Can you hear me now?

You know, I just was out to Colorado to the fellowship of the Spirit and I said I had, I had discovered another fear and that was of microphones and God just keeps putting them in my face. So

thank you.

And with that, where do I begin? I, I came into Al Anon. I, I was married three months and that was in 1974. I just celebrated 30 years in Al Anon. One day at a time. Don't clap.

And I have to say it's been one hell of a ride. Just before speaking, you know, I got familiar again with my Al Anon disease, which is the bathroom running to the bathroom and brought back a lot of memories to me. And when I finally got here, I have to say that I was just dead.

I have to say that I was spiritually dead.

I met my husband. I'll give you a little background. I'm the oldest of six children. My father is an alcoholic, still active.

I I was the oldest and I didn't know that there was alcoholism in my family. I, I remember my father not being home and what my memories were of my mother always crying and all of us kids consoling her. So that was like my memories of my childhood,

unbeknownst to me that we were living with alcoholism. Because I never saw my father on the floor. I, I didn't know what the problem was, but there was a big problem in my house. So I went off from in merry way and I went through my teens. I'm a child of the 60s.

Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. And

I went out and I partied and I partied a lot and I drank and I did drugs

and I did all those things. But I was able to put those things down

in my travels. I decided to get married. And after being married for about 5 months, I decided I woke up. I looked at him and I said I don't want to be married anymore. Why did I ever get married? And I remember looking back and I remember I had this huge resentment against my mother when I did my inventory.

And I blame my mother for my decisions because my family thought, coming from an Italian family,

that you get married, you know, we didn't go to college because we were just going to get married and somebody was going to take care of us. And so it was her fault that I got married. And and then I decided that I was going to get out of this marriage, and I did. And, you know, not to get ahead of myself, but I remember always, always thinking

how unimportant I was, how I didn't matter. And I don't really know where that came from,

but as my memories go back, that's the way I thought about myself always A0A nothing. And I carry that belief system into relationships that I had and

I met my current husband that I have been with for 30 years and we work together. And this is a really a true story. I was celebrating my birthday and we were in a bar

and our eyes connected across the room and literally and I just, I just thought that he looked so sad and and so alone and

I moseyed over to him

and what a journey.

Watch what you pray for. So you know, there was no, there was no lies, there was no deceit. My husband drank. He didn't hide it from me. I, I, when I went into Alanon and I would hear people share. I didn't know my husband drank. Well, I did. I always knew he drank. He drank because when we would go to the bar, I'd be someone mentioned it last night. I ordered this morning, Jerry,

good friend of mine, how his wife sips it and stirs it and and that's me. I'm that person. I have a drink and I sip it and I starve it and then I leave it. And he, he never left it. I would say, I think it's time that we have to go. And he would say after this one. And then I'd be waiting, you know, and waiting and waiting and I would be getting angrier and angrier. And this was from the

this wasn't that we had a six month relationship, a year relationship. This was from day one. It was a problem for me. It was never a problem for him. He knew where he was going

and I remember and I would think that there must be like some glue on this bar stool. There's something he can't get off of it. And from the get go we fought. It was like I wanted to leave and he wanted to stay, and that's the way it went. And I remember

this terrible, hopeless feeling, this doom, this cloud. I can't even describe it.

It was this depression of I couldn't get away from it. I couldn't live, I couldn't die. I couldn't stay. I couldn't go. I couldn't do anything but go along with this insanity. And I remember

that I'm not going to get into too much drama, but I think I like to share that for anybody who's new because it's great to stand up here and talk about how wonderful this program is and

all the miracles. But you know, there was someone else before and I need to share that. And what was happening to me was that I was becoming another person. I was becoming isolated. I was, I was becoming depressed and isolated. I couldn't eat. I, I sometimes I think I like some of that back now so I can lose a little weight, but

I literally could not get the food down my throat. I would

start to gag. You talk about the physical part of this disease

for now and on it was the stomach pains, it was the nausea, it was the headaches, it was all that the physical part of the Al Anon person. And I remember

this is this was a typical day for us and this is me, the non alcoholic who don't drink. Right after meeting him, we needed license plates and we were down in Brooklyn and he said to me, I need to get some license plates,

plates. Could you watch out for the cops? So,

so I'm sitting in, I'm sitting in the car and I want keeping Chicky as he's unscrewing somebody's license plate.

OK, This is this is the person who doesn't drink. And then I think that that's OK. All right, another chime. We're going through the tunnel and we're both working in the World Trade Center and we get dressed up for work and my husband has a broken windshield. No registration, no license,

and we're going through the tunnel and there are police there waving us down

and he screw this. He's going through the tunnel and they're chasing after us, right? We get out the other side, they're waiting for us. This is going to work in the morning.

So I'm screaming, I'm crying, and I'm like, Oh my God, they're gonna kill us. They're taking their guns out. OK. We we escape from them, we pull into a garage and we get out. And I say, OK, what time are you going to pick me up tonight?

OK.

And then I say, let's not take the tunnel, let's take the bridge,

OK?

This is a true story, OK? And I go off to work and then we meet, we take the bridge home.

I mean, you know, and, and it is funny right now and, and, and, and, you know, looking back, it wasn't funny then. It really, really wasn't funny. But I remember that a lot of those episodes and there was so much more drama. But that those are two that really stick out in my mind. And maybe one more and then I'm going to move on.

There was a time that I was a few months pregnant and

we're driving and my husband is in a blackout and my mother-in-law is in the car with us and he's going down the one way St. and here comes a poor guy pulling out of car wash crashed into him and then he's speeding with us, me and his mother down on one way St. trying to get away and we just jump out of the car. We're screaming like crazy people. He puts the car in the garage, puts the door down and says to the guy fix it.

Me and her go home,

he brings the car back, he gets it all painted, fixed. Nobody knows anything. And then we had this little cat, remember those heads that used to go up and down in the back seat. And I, and I'd say to him, when the cars fixed, you know what, you better take that head thing off the back in case they remember that, you know, I mean these, this was, this was my thinking. This is, you know, my best thinking

at that time. And OK, enough for the

stories, but I'll tell you something. Looking back at my life, I realized how how sick I was. And for so many, for so many years that I had blamed people for my circumstances and because I had a father who was a drunk and because we didn't have money and because we lived in an apartment building and we didn't have our own house and yadda, yadda, yadda. And I remember that I was sitting in my kitchen

actually thinking about taking my life one day. And actually, it was the day of my birthday,

and I couldn't believe. And I thought, how did I get from here to there? What had happened to me? I thought I was an outgoing person. I always had a lot of friends. And I became this lone wolf. Believe me when I tell you a lone wolf. I stopped making phone calls. I stopped family visits. I stopped everything. And as I sat in my kitchen, I saw this commercial on TV.

And the commercial said,

do you know someone who has a drinking problem? Do you see what it's doing to them? But can you see what it's doing to you? And I'll tell you something. I looked at that woman in the commercial, and that was me. She was haggard. She was tired, she was crying. And I identified with that person. And there was a phone number. And I called the phone number

and I went to Alnon and I went to my first meeting and I don't even remember how I got there, but I know it was in Brooklyn

on Tuesday afternoon at Saint Jacoby. And I walked in and all I could do was cry. And all I could think about is I can't live and I can't die and I don't even drink, but I can't live and I can't die. And what a terrible place to be when you can't live and you can't die. I couldn't leave and I couldn't stay. And it's so they sat me, I, I was crying and I said,

yeah, you know, all the drama. And I said, you know, I'm not here from anybody but myself

because I'm one Allen on that went into Allen on for myself not to get the Alcoholics sober. And actually I really didn't. There was nowhere else to go because I had gone to a priest. I had gone to therapy, I had taken medications. So I go and I and I go to my own on meeting and I say, I I just want to know how to get a divorce. I don't want to be with him anymore.

And an old timer says, you know, you need to sit down and you need to listen.

And from that moment on, what had happened to me was that I was one of these outlines that you said, you know, get a sponsor, OK, Get a sponsor, use the phone. OK, Go to meetings. Back then, we could smoke at the meetings, clean ashtrays. I did all that. And I remember after, you know, I was going to aun on for a while, I I ran home to my husband and I said, I know what your problem is.

You're an alcoholic.

Needless to say, he wasn't very happy about hearing that.

So he said, I had a friend of mine and you know, cuz out on people think they're going crazy. They think that they think one way. And then by the time they talk to an alcoholic, they're like, Oh God, maybe I could be wrong. So I got I got this calendar that I used to put every day D each day was AD on the day and that was for drunk. So I would remember

that I wrote it, that he was drunk on those days

so I could prove it to him.

So I remember I had opened the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and my husband was drunk on the bed and I sat next to him and I said, I, I opened it to how it works 30 years ago. I didn't even know about the book. I just saw the book and I opened it and I started reading him the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous at the edge of the bed and saying you can do this. I know you can do this,

you know, again, not even thinking about what was happening to me because

it was still all about if he gets better then I will be OK.

That's the way I lived. If he gets better than my whole life is going to be OK. I'm going to have the family that I never had.

So I go to Al Anon and and I'm hearing about, you know, steps and slogans and forget the steps. I'm like, oh, no, I forget them. They're for other people. I'll just do the slogan. So I got these big signs. I put them all over my kitchen. Live and let live. Let go and let God, you know, when he was out there drinking, he'd come home. What's all this stuff?

And because I was so sick that I had to be reminded every second of the day,

every second of the day to haul, to stop, to think, that's how much I had been affected. And

I remember,

I remember

my sponsor telling me I had asked her this question. I said, can when am I going to get better? And she says when you stop talking about him and when you start talking about you.

And you know what?

If you are now and on in your disease, you don't want to talk about you. You want to talk about anything else but you

and I remember that I had stayed in now Anon for 21 years and I had never done a fourth step.

I had stayed in now and on for 21 years and stayed in step one

because there was number one more powerful than me.

I didn't have a vehicle to get there. I looked at the steps off the wall and I said, OK, I can do that.

OK, turn my will in my life over to the care of God. I could do that inventory. Well, I don't know if I can do that. And I never did the steps of the program because I didn't know how.

And I stayed that way for 21 years. And now Anon and I sponsored people in Al Anon. And you know what, when they came up to me and they said to me, you know, Jenny, I think it's time I do a fourth step. And I'd say to them, you're not ready.

You're not ready. You know why? Because I really didn't have a real answer for them. I had no answer, no vehicle. I had to interpret the steps. And you know what? Please don't misunderstand me. This is not anything about people who came before me, because I know today they absolutely did the very best with what they had. But then what happened? I did that

and I didn't know what I didn't know.

So after

21 years, I'll speed this up

of Maine, sitting at meetings, looking good, trying to sound good, trying to say what I think that you needed to hear. Okay, yes, God, you know I have God, yes, I admit my wrongs, yadda, yadda, yadda. And I was this guru. I was the guru I had all this time and people looked up to me.

How am I going to tell them

that I don't know?

I can't tell them I don't know because my pride and my ego won't let me tell them I don't know.

So my husband,

I put him in jail, this hound on and

while he was in the jail cell, I was attending an hour on Sunday afternoon meeting and this double winner, a very good friend of mine, NAA and Al Anon, she was chasing me around this meeting. She said, Ginny, you got to give Tom this number. I said, Oh no, this is Alan on. We don't get involved with Alcoholics. I am not giving. He's on his own 21 years.

You know, I'm detached.

So she's following me in the kitchen. She's following me around the rooms. You got. I know this guy Larry. He's going to help Tom. And I said, so she drives me home, to make a Long story short. And she said I'm going up my house. And she said, Jenny, you forgot the phone number. I said, oh, let me just shut her up. OK, I'll give it to him. He had gotten out of jail

so I didn't give it to him. So the next day

she picks me up again cuz I've taken her in to meetings. She said did you ever give him that number? I said oh I better do it. I went up. I said here it's your choice if you want to use a fine. If not, I really don't give a shit

tell how treated untreated I was.

So what happened next is all of a sudden now my husband is doing really well in a a. He's carrying this book around with him and I'm looking at him very strangely. Because you see, my husband had nearly ten years and picked up,

he was an untreated alcoholic and he was just white knuckling it and he was worse than ever. And I was going out on saying, Gee, how am I going to complain? He's not drinking.

Oh God forbid I should complain about someone who's not drinking. And here's some poor Alan on women sitting there just waiting for that happy day to arrive. And I don't want to break their bubble.

So I'm like, this is too good to be true. I'm waiting for that shoe to fall because I've had a history with this man for years that I in and out, in and out. And I just didn't believe any of it. But all of a sudden he was nice to me. He was concerned. He would call me up in the day and ask me how my day was going. I'm like, don't believe it. Just don't believe it. If you are a family member,

it takes a long time for you to believe it.

And he said,

Jenny, one night, he's doing this work about six months. You got to look at this book. I said, Oh no, it's not conference approved literature.

I'm an hour and on 21 years. I'm not to screw up here. Now all of a sudden you found this book and now you're going to tell me? I don't think so.

That's the truth.

But you know what had started to happen? It started to pique my interest because one month went to 2:00 to 3:00 to 6:00 to 8:00, and I'm thinking, Gee, he's still nice, this stuff. There must be something to what he's doing that it piqued my interest,

but I was still, you know what, my God up and my attitude and the 21 years and I am the Al Anon and I am the great one and you are the screw up all in my head, you see, because I never gave my husband credit,

you know, for what he did. I still treated my husband like an act of alcoholic when he was doing the right thing because I was an untreated Al Anon.

So all of a sudden now I, I say, you know, I think, I think I want to look at that book.

So he said there's really good stuff in here. I said, well, it's not out and on approved literature, but I'll look at it.

And I have to tell you, it's been one hell of a journey. And that was nine years ago. And I go to conference in Colorado and I'll tell you I met a bunch of other Al Anon's out there that are doing the deal.

And

it just goes to show you got to tell you a little story about how it would happen to me with this doing the deal stuff is that there was a a young girl in Allen on OK who had the courage

to share this with me. And she was 20 something years old. And here I am again, 40 something years old in Al Anon, 21 years sitting across from this kid.

Last three years of Al Anon and she's helping me through the steps

because you know what? I didn't care. Time don't matter. It doesn't matter. And guess what? Then I had the book. I had, I had it. And I'm like, OK, I think I'm just going to keep this to myself

because how am I gonna go and talk down on people about this stuff? You know, it's like, don't drink and go to meetings. Now It's like, oh, this is Alan on. I can't do this. Oh no, what are people going to think about me?

So 1 by 1 my higher power sent me people

and a fellowship. Grew up

on Staten Island, NY

and we went to each other's homes and we did it. We did the deal and you know, it was

21 years. I used to sit in meetings and say, you know what,

I wish I had what that man had. I wish I could believe as he believed

and you know, everybody says, Gee, I don't exactly know what did this in me, but I do When I got to the chapter and we agnostics, I cannot begin to tell you how my life changed 21 years sitting in Allen on with no higher power. Don't get me wrong, the 21 years,

there were good moments. I did have relief. It wasn't all bad, but there was still something deep down within

that I couldn't say at a meeting. It's like I'm sitting here and I don't believe it,

but I am the guru.

How can I? What am? Who am I going to tell?

And so I gave, I got this group together and I, I thought, I'm going to keep this to myself, my image and,

and God sent them. And out of that group of people who, who, who went through the steps as it's outlined in the big book, I got a sponsor who is very good friend of mine before then. And she got to such a level. And I said, so you know, I need a sponsor. Forget about the 30 years and all that

to be accountable.

I cannot give this work away and take people through the work and not have a sponsor myself and tell them to have a sponsor.

And I went through and it was amazing because you see in all Anon I would say this to myself, OK, they told me to turn my will on my life over to the care of God of my understanding. Oh well, the God of my understanding was a terrorizer to me,

and it was such a breath of fresh air to find out that I could begin

at a simple level, that I could get my own conception

and I could work from that point on. And that's what I did.

And then I was just doing the thing like the yo-yo thing here, God take it back and forth, take it. And then 5 minutes later, here I am again. What happened? I don't, I'm not getting it. I'm not getting it. What's wrong with me? I'm sitting in the rooms for 21 years and I don't get this. There must be something defective about me.

So then I go into four.

Oh boy. And here I am 21 years and now and on with 75 people on my list.

I'm like, oh, 75 people and then forget each one of them what they had.

And I really did follow the directions I did the 4th and and it was a wonderful experience for me. 5th,

I think that I really went in. I had a lot of fear in five because you see, I could admit to myself,

to God,

but it was that other thing to another human being that was what, you know, what are they going to think about me? What the heck? Oh, I'm on this awful person. Well, I got through that one and I was still loved unconditionally and, and what a blessing that was. And then in the sixth step, you know, I made two lists, things that were objectionable to me and things that I still cling to.

I said, I can't believe I did all this work and I'm still clinging to stuff,

you know,

And then I did that and then I did the seven step prayer and then I went on to do my eight step list

and you want this is a real kicker. You know, I did when I did, I'm sorry, let me back up in the fourth step, when I did my initial list, guess who I left off the list? My husband,

I wrote the list and I'm like, Oh my God, I forgot Tom,

I'll tell you. I had to squeeze them in.

But I tell you something, it really, really showed me something. It really showed me how much pain I was in. And not all of it was about him. It was really about me.

And then guess what happened? I went into nine and then I bought, you say, because when I was 18 years old, I'm a famous bank robber.

When I was 18 years old, I worked as a bank teller. And I had this friend of mine who would come in and she would give me $10 and I would give her change for 20.

And I'm like, I don't know how I'm ever going to do this. I can't go to the bank. You know, what am I going to say after all these years? You know, they may lock me up. Then I started, well, it may affect my husband.

You look for the, you look for the loopholes. You look for those little loopholes

and you know, I started to balk, you know, and here I am taking people through and I'm doing, I did a lot of knowing, but I, I really believe those promises do not materialize for me if I do not work for them. And I rested on my laurels. And this year particularly I rested on my laurels because I have a 25 year old son who's a juvenile diabetic

who is losing his sight.

And so me and my husband just took like a little sabbatical,

you know, and our whole focus went on this one child of ours and, and, and we plunged.

Well, I'll speak for myself. I plunged Into Darkness. But what I didn't do was that I didn't stop working with others

and I didn't stop going to meetings. But you know what? I didn't do any nightly review and I didn't do what I what works for me the way it's outlined because this Al Anon is either all right or or I'm all wrong. I'm either never going to apologize to you or I'm always apologizing to you.

You know, I'm either leaving,

I'm either staying. I, I, I can never get to that middle ground. So for me, what works is that I need to put it on the paper,

and I said it in Colorado last week. If I step on your foot I will apologize right here and right now,

but anything else when it comes to relationships or children or family matters this al Anon. I need to file the directions because I can justify and rationalize every single thing I do, even today, left to my own devices.

I don't know. I think my time is. Is my time up OK? I'd like to say that

I love this program.

Yesterday we buried my mother-in-law and you know, we have family at home, they said. Where you going?

He says. We got to go to a conference, you know, because this is where I need to do the deal. This is where I need to share my experience, strength and help.

I know today for me, I'm back on track. Thank God I am in a fourth step again. I am one of the Allen ones who who for me, going through the steps one time does not work for me, does not work for me because I realize for me, there's been layers upon layers

of my life that and and believe me, a lot of that past stuff is gone. I was amazed before I was halfway through and you know, I was the tornado roaring through the lives of others. I was the person playing God. I was telling you, you see that powerlessness over alcohol. See, I was powerless over what someone else did with alcohol,

but I didn't know that I really believed until I looked at my footsteps. You know,

where it says in the book, you know, even when trying to be kind, am I still not a self seeker, you know? Oh, I only just want the best for us, you know, I want us to be a family, you know, whatever you say and whatever you do, you know? And I, I really believe that at the time, you know, until I saw my truth

and my belief system today is so different. It is so, so different. I know I've rambled on for quite a bit. I have to say that I always ask God to help me, you know, speak the words that I'm supposed to. I always do this thing in my head. I still can't help it. What I'm going to say, I'm going to say it and how I'm going to look, you know, when none of it ever really works out that way,

you know, you just come up and and you really ask God to to let it whatever his will is for me today, you know, and you know, when I came in and I thought really I was an atheist, but I really found out that I was an agnostic. And

when I got into that chapter Reagnostics, here I go again with that chapter.

I have never ever been the same,

even when my son got diagnosed,

you know, and that was pretty tough go, you know, my first thing would be God, why are you doing this to me? And you want to know something? I didn't do that.

I didn't do that. Everything was God's fault or my mother's fault or my father's fault, everybody's fault. And all it was was disease. And the family is very, very affected by the disease and they need treatment and they need steps in their lives. And I may not, you know, I had a few Allen on friends that died and they didn't drink and they leaped out a window.

You know why? Because the pain got so great

today, I have a solution.

I don't do it perfectly.

I want to leave all of you with this. I I always say

that I found that when I got that little vague voice in the back of my head to go to that phone and to dial that number.

So it has given me a life

that I couldn't have never imagined.

And it's not pain free,

you know. And I like to end with this, that I always say that God brought me to Al Anon and then Al Anon brought me back to God. Thank you.