The Co-anon meeting at the Cocaine Anonymous world convention in Chicago, IL

This woman, she, I remember when she came into these rooms

and I have watched her

just grow over the last three years, just going from someone that was just in a lot of pain, a lot of despair, to be just a beacon for newcomers coming into these rooms. So I love you Terry and look forward to hearing your experience, strength and help.

Hi, I'm Terry.

Shake it Out. Thank you so much for asking me to do this and thank you for all showing up. And so disclaimer, I'm just going to put it out there, Mccrier.

So I brought some tissues. If anybody needs any, let me know.

No, I, I'm, I'm a little nervous. You can probably hear my heart beating already. But I invited God to come in with me. So we'll see how he leads me. So anyway, So what I want to start out with is I'm not here because of my husband.

I needed this long before him, but that's what brought me here. But yeah, I, you know, I grew up in a small town in Indiana, 15,000 people maybe. And I had a normal childhood. You know, where Maggie and I on the way on the plane right here, we're talking about stuff we did in my neighborhood and, and just a just a normal childhood. And in my family, we drank to celebrate and my dad celebrated daily.

OK. And I never knew any different. I never thought there was anything wrong with that. But the only thing that I did notice in all that was that he was mean. You know, the my dad's nickname on where a kid was Hitler. We were called, all of our friends called him Hitler, you know, because he was just a mean guy and we were afraid of him. And we would see his truck coming down the street when he's coming home and everybody's scrambling like cockroaches to get their stuff done before he got in the house or you're in trouble, you know, And I'll share one story about

a little bit of what happened in our childhood. In Indiana, basketball is a huge thing. And so one year our our high school team made it to the regional finals. And so we get to the regional finals. Everybody goes to this city and they get hotel rooms and they go to the game and then they just have a big party. Well, we couldn't afford to stay at the hotel room, but we went for the party and we were there and my dad got pretty drunk and my mom didn't want him driving home and he

let my mom drive and she did get in the car with him with us kids and but she's just yapping at him the whole way about. So he pulls over on the side of the road on the country and kicked us all out of the car. And then he went off and left us and we start walking home and he came and he came back to get us but he he would not let my mom drive. So he let my 16 year old sister drive and when we got home that night,

I remember aligning us all up and setting us on the couch and they said, well, we're going to get a divorce. Who do you want to live with?

You know, and they start going down the couch and asking everybody. And I have an older sister and two brothers and, and nobody wanted to go with my dad because he's a mean guy, right? So everybody's like, I'm going with mom, I'm going with mom and I'm the last one on the couch. And I said, well, I guess I'll go with dad then. And that's just to show you a little bit about my people pleasing because I didn't want him to feel bad that nobody wanted to go with him, you know, and, and that's just how my life was, is I never, I always wanted to make everybody happy And I I didn't feel

I didn't feel love. I expressed that early on that I didn't feel like I was loved. I was shown love immensely by my parents, but I didn't feel love. I know today that that's because I had no self worth. I didn't think I was worthy. But you know, my mom is just an incredible woman and

bless her heart, she's a Conan. I think she's untreated going on, but

she held that plant house together, you know, she took care of four kids and she worked her butt off and he didn't work half the time. And I really admire my mom, you know, and what she went through and what she did because he he was physically abusive to her and verbally abusive to her. And anyway, growing up,

I became somewhere around my freshman year in high school, I wanted to go to college. And the counselor at school says, go home and ask your parents how much money there is for you to go to college. And I remember going home and asking my dad,

you know, how much money is there going to be for me to go to college? And he's like, there's no reason for a woman to ever go to college. You're just going to get pregnant and married, and there's no reason for you to go to college. And then from that point on, why try? You know, I'm just going to have fun. And so I had lots of fun. By the way, my two girlfriends from my high school came to visit tonight, and they know how much fun I had. Just ask them. But yeah, I was a little wild. I got a little crazy. And, and I was doing, you know,

drugs all the time and drinking all the time from I started drinking when I was 14.

Somewhere after I graduated from high school, we moved out. I moved out of my parents house the day after graduation because I couldn't wait to get away from my dad. And we got a house and it was just party central. That's all we did was party for the next three months and got into a lot of trouble. And the police came to my parents and said, if you want to save her life, you need to get her out of here.

So they, my parents said, well, you're going to live with your uncle in Arizona. And I had about two weeks before I was leaving. Then

I went on a date with them

as boy from my high school and I was day raped.

And I mean, I never told anybody because I had somehow in my mind I had come to the conclusion that if you want to have sex with me, you must love me now or I had to use sex for you to love me. And so I never told anybody. And I get to Arizona, and about two months after I'm here, I realize I was pregnant and I couldn't tell anybody what had happened.

So that's a secret that I kept for many, many years. But I had that baby and I had that baby and

I finally had somebody to love me.

And I remember calling my parents to see if I could come home, and they said you can come home in one condition. You don't hang out with any of the people you were hanging out with before. And if you start drinking and doing drugs again, we're going to take your baby away. So that was it. I was done. I really never did any drugs after that. I might have smoked pot a couple times, but I really never did any drugs after that. I drank as I got older, but nothing,

you know, not frequently, not on a daily basis and not not to access really someone once in a while sick to access, but

I don't I don't feel like I ever had a problem with it. But, you know, I had this child and I had grown up with these beliefs that

it needs to look a certain way. You know, I was a child of TV when I was a kid. I'm watching these. You know, I wanted to be June Cleaver and I wanted Ward to come home and I wanted to bring him his slippers in his newspaper. And that's what I wanted. And that's not the family that I had. I was just me and this little boy. But I wanted you to think that I was that woman that could do everything, you know, that I could be perfect, that I could raise this child and I could have a beautiful home and I could do all these things.

And and you know, I called it being strong. That's my mom. My mom was a strong woman that could hold everything together. And I needed to be that woman, too.

And because I was important to me, what you thought of me, you know,

so I'm raising this kid and somewhere, I guess he was probably about two or three years old. I'm just, I make a minimum wage, trying to support him, have a house and my bills are more than I'm making. And I'm just distraught. And I ended up checking myself up in into a mental health facility for depression. And there was an instance in that mental health facility and this came out just recently to me that I, I started to think about this again. But there was a practice or a little exercise that they had us doing,

write down the priorities in our life in order as to what was most important, what was least important. And the very first thing on my list was my job. The second thing was my son, God was at the very bottom because somewhere in my teenage years I'd had a bad experience at my local church. I went to church, I was in the youth group and all that, but I had a bad experience of some judgment and that was it for me. There was no more God in my life. I didn't want anything to do with it. And I did not believe in God anymore. And I never went back to church. So God was not important to me, was not in my

and I remember during this exercise, this counselor saying, well, why would your job be the most important thing, you know, And she just kept pounding me and pounding me and until I got to the point where I broke and I said, because if I don't have a job, I can't support my child. That's got to be the most important thing, you know. And so then she took me off one-on-one and I, you know, I just wasn't ready to hear anything that she had to say because I knew that this was how I had to do this, you know? So

life went on. It's just me and him and I'm working and doing the best that I can. And I've got an opportunity to go to school.

So I went to got to go to college and got a degree and we moved out to Arizona. And, you know, for the first time in my life, I really felt accomplished. I graduated the top of my class with the school and I was able to buy a house and, and now we're working towards that dream that I'd had all this time, this family and all this missing is a man. You know, I need a man to make me complete. So I'm searching, you know, and I'm, I get on the Internet looking at,

you know, how to meet guys and get on these chat sites or whatever. That's where I met my husband

anyway. I met him online and we met in a bar, of course, and had a couple drinks and, and he moved in that night

and in 11 days we were engaged.

So, and, and you know, if I, if truth be told that I love him after 11 days, probably not. It was less, but he asked and I, that's what I'd always wanted. I wanted to be in a relationship. And I told my mom that I got engaged to this guy and my mom says, Oh my God, he could be a serial killer. You know, nothing about this man. So we had about a year and a half engagement just to let everybody become comfortable with it. But, you know, I, I, I grew to love him very much and, and

still do to this day. You know, he's a great guy. But we, we got married and life was pretty good. He drank every day. I knew he drank every day. It never bothered me. The difference between him and my dad was night and day. He was a giggly, fun, happy guy. My dad is angry, you know, So I love the fact that he was happy and it never bothered me. I never paid any attention to how much he drank. Nothing.

About two years into our marriage now he had he had two kids and I have one son.

And about two years into our marriage, his daughter Sarah, had, she had been dating this boy

for a while. And we kind of always had this inkling that he might be abusive to her. And she always denied it. But she called us up and it was on Halloween. And she said, tells her dad, you know, he's been stalking me. And he slipped my tires and he slipped mom's tires. And I got a restraining order and I'm going to go stay at Grandma Grandpa's. And my husband says, that's all right, I'm coming out there and I'll take care of it. You know, and she and I both were like, no, you're not going to do that. You're just going to get yourself thrown in jail at the police

job. 12 days later, we get the phone call. And he had always makes me cry, so I apologize. But he had attacked her as she was getting out of her car to go to school. And he had stabbed her almost 30 times. He had cut her carotid artery, her femoral artery. She played dead. And he left and went and hung himself. And she was able to crawl out of that car

and someone found her laying on the ground

and she lived that. The paramedic told us that that it's a miracle that she didn't bleed out,

but she lived. And

my husband could never forgive himself for that

and he could never forgive me

because I didn't let him go.

And from that point on,

his drink and went to a whole new level.

So no, he's not. He's no longer Mr. Happy, funny, jokey guy, you know, And now he's angry, pissed off, excuse my language. And he, he just just this horrible guy. When we got married, I left this out. But when we got married,

the first month after we got married, I said we're going to go to marriage counseling because we have communication issues. So I married him knowing that I had communication issues, but we've been going to counseling all along. So once this happened to Sarah, then he started counseling a lot more frequently on his own. And I know I was going with him too. And, and this went on for nine years of

this, this angry guy. I just, I never knew what I was coming home to,

just depressed and just

just really in a lot of pain, you know, and he could never get past it. And the drinking escalated and escalated and escalated. And we after about nine years, I'd made us, you know, at this point in time, he's not able to when, when we first got married, he's like Gardner and taking care of the house and all that. He has stopped all of that stuff. He's not able to do anything anymore. And so I'm, I'm doing everything for him. And I made appointments for us to go get our physicals. And in his physical, the doctor told him that he needed to see a cardiologist right away, that

they'd done an EKG on him and there was a problem and she wanted him to write down his blood pressure every day.

And so he's writing down his blood pressure. And I don't know, the thought came to me that maybe I need to pay attention to how much he's drinking here, you know, so I started counting, see how much he's drinking. And then I would just write this little number out to the side of how much he had that day, you know, and this was at the first point in our whole relationship that I had ever paid any attention. I didn't, I never counted him. I there was times when I told him, I'm not buying your beer anymore. You use your own money to buy your beer. I'm done with that. But I never paid him at any attention

how much he was drinking. And there was one one day in particular that he had been home for three hours and then three hours he'd drink 16 beers.

And I was like, wow. So we go to the doctor, go to the cardiologist and she's looking at she's like, well, your, your blood pressure is really high and your cholesterol is high. And what are these little numbers over here? And I'm like, well, that's how many, how many drinks he had that day? And she's like, what do you mean drinks? And I'm like beers. And she's like, Oh my God, you can't drink that much. I can't give you the medication you need for your heart. If you're drinking that much, you got to cut it down to two or three a day or or none at all.

And so, you know, I'm like, OK, that's what the doctor said. That's what you have to do. And so he tried to cut back to two or three a day and that just didn't work. And

about three or four months after this happened, my, one of my siblings had got into

some gambling problems. She was $150,000 in debt. She had stolen money from her work. She was facing prison time and she just tried to commit suicide. She was going to kill herself because she couldn't face it. And when that happened, I went into full colonialism. You know, she's laying in the hospital on a respirator and I'm in her house going through all of her stuff trying to figure out how, why is it so bad that she felt the need to commit suicide? You know, and I'm, I'm managing her life. I'm telling her, well, we're going to

house, we're going to sell all your things and you're going to move in with Mama. We have to watch you and blah, blah. I'm just, I'm just crazy crazy. And I remember we're having this yard sale selling off on my sister stuff. And my husband is standing out on the corner with a sign, twirling a sign, just drunk as can be, you know, and I, I had a counseling appointment that day. So I come home and he comes home with me and

we get in this big fight, which we, we're fighting daily at this point, you know,

just just anger all the time and getting this big fight. And I, and I noticed because I'm counting still that he's had a case of beer. It's only 1:00 in the afternoon, you know, and I said, why don't you just come to the counseling appointment with me? So we get to this counseling appointment and I told the counselor or I told him in front of the counselor, I am done with a drink and I have had enough.

And he says, you're not going to tell me whether I can drink or I can't drink. And I'm like, I'm not telling you you can or can't. I'm telling you, I'm not going to be a part of it anymore.

And so that day he said, we come home and we talked a little bit and I said just go to an AA meeting.

And he said he would. And so we get up the next morning and I, of course, I got online, I find the a, a meeting for him

and tell you, this is the one you're going to go to. And this is what time it starts and get up the next morning. He's like, I don't think I can do it. And I said, you promised me you have to go and I'll go with you. If you're scared, I'll go with you. And so he's like, OK, you go with me. So we go to this a a meeting. And I had when my sister had started having her problems with the gambling addiction, I started going to 12 step program with her for that

because she needs somebody had a driver, right. And so I was going to Aga with her. And

so I thought I knew all about meetings, you know, two months of going to meetings. And so we get there and I'm high, bubbly and high and introducing him to everyone. This is my husband, Pat. He's an alcoholic, you know,

And we get inside the meeting and they said, are there any newcomers? And I said, he he just sit there. And so I just grabbed his hand and raised his hand

and we introduced ourselves and, and some old timer in the meeting says, Oh, you brought your enabler with you.

And I was totally offended. How could he say he wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me? You know, And anyway, from my, my perspective, the rest of the meeting was all about us, you know, was all directed at us. And, and it was very emotional for both of us. It really was. And we come out of that meeting and, and all these guys hover around my husband and they're talking to my husband in this. My little woman walks up to me and she's like, we got him now. You don't need to come back anymore.

Like, well, how dare they. He wouldn't be here without me, you know. I was totally offended. But anyway, she told me about Al Anon,

and so I went to an Al Anon meeting the next week and the only thing I heard in that meeting was God. That was the only thing I heard, you know. And I remember leaving that meeting and going home and telling him it's just a bunch of Bible thumpers and I'm not going back. And that he started from that point on. When we went to that meeting, he came home that day and he started pointing out liquor, liquor bottles out of our liquor cabinet that he had drained and filled up with

ice tea or something. I don't know what it was, but he started dumping them out and I had no idea, you know?

But I never went to Al Anon and he started going to one meeting a week and he went on the O'doul's plan, you know, and he's just drinking O'doul's. And I was fine with that because that's not liquor, that's not alcohol, you know. So about six months he did O'doul's and then he didn't need it anymore. And I thought, no, okay, you're good, you know, you're good. But he was still angry guy, Angry guy still there, you know, and things are still uneasy in our house and we're still fighting daily and, and I don't want, I don't want anybody knowing about it. Like we'll be outside and we'll be in this

argument and I'm just like, keep your voice down and go inside before the neighbors hear us. But yet I'm on the phone calling everybody. Do you know what he's doing? He's doing this and he's doing that. And I'm like becoming the town crier, telling everybody all of his business. And I'm not proud of that, but that's what I did. And

you know it, it got to the point where he's I'm fine and hidden bottles. He's he's now switched from beer to liquor and he's got bottles hidden all over the house. And

I'm just, I'm just beside myself. My life has become unmanageable. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm searching the house. I'm going through his car. I'm, you know, anything I can do to try and control him, I'm doing. And I don't see anything wrong with it. That's what, that's what I'm supposed to do. I have to help him, you know, and I caught myself in the middle of the night,

it's like midnight and I'm, I'm in our front yard in my pajamas going through a dumpster looking for empties because he's telling me he wasn't drinking. And I know he was. And I have to find proof and who I'm proving it to, I have no idea because he knew he was drinking. I knew he was drinking, but I had to prove him, prove that he was. And this goes on, you know, for another nine months probably. And

anyway, he, he lost his job, he got fired. And now he's sitting at home, he's drinking every day. And I, I don't want to come home because I know I don't know when I'm coming home to, but I got to come home because I got to watch him. I got to see what he's doing, you know,

And I come home one day and,

well, actually,

yeah, come home one day and he's got a loaded gun and he wants to blow his head off.

And I took that load again because I didn't know how to unload it, and I stuck it down my pants. So he can't get it right because he ain't loaded my pants for a long time, right?

But I'm hiding this gun in my pants and I don't know what to do and I don't know how to unload it. So I call one of his buddies to come and get his gun, you know, and, and he tells me I, I don't know what to do. I'm, I don't know how to stop. I can't stop. I need help. And I said, we'll call the insurance company and find out where you can go. And so he waited till Monday morning. I went to work. He calls the insurance company and when I get home that night, he's just beside himself because he called the insurance company and told him he wanted to kill himself. And they said call 911. And when he heard 911, he

they wanted to take him to jail. So he doesn't, you know, I'm not going. I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to go to jail. And so my boss had had a couple kids that have been recovery. And so I went to work the next day and I just spilled my guts to my boss and told my boss I need help.

And so he told me about where his kids have went.

So the next day my husband says, well, will you call him for me and see if I can get in there? And so I called him and they're like, we don't want to talk to you. He needs to call us. I'm like, he won't do anything. He won't do anything for himself. He wants me to do it and I'm sorry, he needs to call us. So I called him and I'm like, I can't do this for you. You got to do it yourself. So he calls this place and

he went over and met with them and he really just came home. He's really excited. I loved it, it's great. I start tomorrow and he goes to his first meeting, you know, or first he wanted to do outpatient things. So he went to his IOP thing and the next day he said, he left me a message that he was going to a,

an alumni meeting that night. And I thought, oh, great, he's in it, you know, and the next day was Family Day and I got to go to Family Day with him. And so we're, we go to the class and then we, you know, there's rainbows and butterflies flying out my butt. I'm just thinking, oh, this is wonderful. And they cut, they go around the group and they come to me first. And I'm just like, I'm so happy that he's here and I'm so excited for him to get some help. And this is just such a wonderful place, blah, blah, blah. And then I pass and they go to him and that counselor says how many days you got sober?

Sits there and he just doesn't say anything. I almost answered for him. I am thinking in my head, oh, it's got to be like 11-12 days, I think, you know, And I almost answered for him. And he says I don't have 24 hours. And the counselor says you came to that meeting last night drunk. I smelled it on you. And he's like, yeah, I did. And I mean, my jaw hit the floor. I had no idea. I don't smell it on him. I don't know why that. I guess I don't kiss him enough. But I do not smell alcohol on him. But

he looked at the counselor, looked at me, and he said you had no idea. And I said no, none. And he's like,

you need to quit doing everything for him and you need to go down on. And there's a meeting across the parking lot on Tuesday.

So we left that meeting and I'm just, my life is I'm powerless and it's unmanageable and left that meeting and I went home. Why? Before we even got home, we got on the freeway and I said, listen, I'm, I'm done at this point. I had been filing his unemployment for him. I have been playing for jobs for him. I'm doing everything around the house. I'm paying all the bills. I am just like managing everything, you know? And I said, I'm not doing anything for you anymore. You have to be responsible for your own things, you know.

And so we get home and I get online and I found it now and I'm meeting and it was a beginners meeting. It was that night. And I told him, I said I'm going to a meeting tonight. And he's like, well, honey, this isn't about you. You don't have to do that. And I said, oh wait, this quit being about you about two hours ago. Now it's about me.

So I went to my first meeting

and

I had to take my mom with me because I couldn't do it myself, you know, and I didn't talk to anybody. We just went in. We sat down and I heard three things in that meeting. I only heard three. It was a, it was a birthday meeting, so there was 3 speakers, but I heard three things. I heard I deserve to be happy and God did I know I deserve to be happy.

I heard the three C's. I didn't 'cause it. I can't control it and I can't cure it. And I heard zip it, which had never occurred to me to shut my mouth because I am like a yappy dog on him all the time. I am cutting him down, I am using sarcasm, I'm degrading him. I completely broke his spirit with my mouth and that, and I'm ashamed of that today,

but that's what it was. That's the truth,

Anna. Anyway, I remember leaving that meeting and I remember saying to my mom, I guess I need to get right with God.

So I went to that Tuesday meeting that that counselor had recommended me to go into,

and it was a Conan meeting, you know, and I saw people in there that were happy, that smiles on their faces. They had said things that I could relate to, that

understood my paint,

and I had become just a little bit willing to try something different.

And I, you know, for the first three months that I went to meetings, I did nothing but cry. I never said anything. I just cried,

but I listened and I heard a lot of stuff

and I heard how you were getting through worse situations in mind, you know?

And I found some hope, you know, And then I got a sponsor

and I didn't get a sponsor really because I wanted to. I wanted to work the steps because I needed a distraction from him. But I actually wanted somebody to tell me how to get rid of him. That's why I went because I was done. I didn't want to do it anymore. And that people pleaser in me, he doesn't have a job, he doesn't have any money. I can't kick him out. You know, what's going to happen to him? He's who's going to take care of him, right? So I was waiting for somebody to and I wore her out the first six months on the old. When can I kick him out? When can I, how can I get out of this? You know, and she's like,

just pray about it. Don't begin any decisions for the first year and just pray about it. And I started doing the steps, you know, and

you know, my husband, he, his roads been a rough Rd. He's a chronic relapser. He, he ended up getting out of that IOP and within two weeks he's drinking again. Then he went inpatient and I remember dropping him off at the inpatient. Well, he's telling me before we went there. Well, the reason it didn't work is because I didn't do it for me. I did it for you. And then I'm like, OK, I am not getting involved in this. Call your sponsor, you know, and I, I, I stepped back and I didn't get involved. And and it was so hard for me to do that, but I didn't.

And we, you know, sponsors meeting with him at a meeting and I'm there and the sponsor, he's getting ready to take him over and showing the place. And Pat's like, well, I'm a ride with Terry. And I'm like, no, no, no, you ride with him. I don't want you riding with me. And I let the sponsor take care of it. You know, I turned him over to them. And when I'm leaving that place, he's he's on me. Like bring my car over here. I need you. And I said, I just kept saying I can't drive two cars. I'm not bringing your car over here. And I said, I don't know you know where you're at or what's going on with you, but I'm going to get healthy with or without you.

So I started working the steps and little by little I started to change. Little by little I started to see

my part. You know that I had a part.

The God thing was huge for me. I didn't believe in God. And

I think one of the greatest gifts that I've got from this program is that it could be a God of my own understanding. I did not have to be what I learned in in grade school or in Sunday school. It could be what I wanted it to be. And I've come to believe today that it's a feeling when I bring God into me, I have a feeling, you know, and I trust that he's got me, you know, and that he's going to watch my back. And I, I feel him within me.

What? I can't tell you what it looks like.

I can't give you any of that, but I feel it, you know, so I've developed a relationship with this God of my understanding. I work the four step now, my first four step. I look at it now and I'm actually working on another four step right now because I left a lot of stuff out. I still thought at that point in time that he was the problem, you know, that I didn't have anything in it. He was the problem. I left a lot of stuff out. So I'm working on that now, but

it was an uncovering, discovering and discarding, like the big book says, finding what's going on inside of me

and seeing that, that unworthiness, that me feeling like I'm not good enough, that I'm not worthy of anything was what drove my life. Fear. I was fear driven and you, I would not have admitted to anyone that I was afraid of anything. I'm a strong woman and I can handle myself. And I I had a hard time recognizing that all of this stuff was based on fear.

My six step for me

was huge. It was my first spiritual experience on my six step because I'm going, she gave me this list, 194 character defects, and I circled probably 3/4 of that list of 194. And I remember I'm sitting on my bed on a Sunday afternoon and I'm looking at this and I just start weeping hysterically. And my husband comes and he's like, what's wrong? And I'm like, Oh my God, I'm a horrible person. And he's like, dude, you're not that bad, you know?

But I would just felt horrible. I'd done all these things, you know, And this is the person that I wasn't. It was not who I wanted to be.

And so there was a meeting that was starting in like 1/2 an hour and I'm in, you know, I don't know about you, but I have Sunday house clean and closed and they're not very pretty. And I'm in these clothes and I'm like, God's telling me I need to go to that meeting. I got to go right now. And I just like left and went to the meeting And, and in that meeting, the reading was about the storm that's created in your household. And I was just like, I'm the tornado. I'm the one that got everything stirred up. He just wanted to sit there and be drunk.

I kept things stirred up. I kept everybody in a, in a tizzy, you know, I was the storm.

And so I had to start looking at that and realizing that that's not who I want to be. I don't want to be that person. So I, I was able to, you know, let go of some of those or ask God to relieve me of those character defects. And I have to do that on a daily basis because they come back easily. You know, today, whether he's drinking or he's not drinking, it's doesn't affect me. It's not about him, it's about me. It's about finding my piece of my inner serenity and finding how I can be comfortable with the woman that I am,

whether he's wants to drink or he doesn't want to drink.

I remember the last fight that we had, you know, we used to fight every day and we haven't, we didn't have fought a lot since we've been in recovery, but the last fight we had was last fall and, and I came home from working within 10 minutes. It was just this horrible, nasty. He's just berating me and, and verbally abusing me. And,

you know, I learned some tools. I had some tools not don't pick up the rope. Don't engage. Call your sponsor. And I used them all and, and tried to get away from him. But he's not one that if I walk away, he won't leave me alone. He follows me and he wants to keep it going, you know, and it was three hours of this and I, I kept my cool most of the time. I did yell at him once, but most of the time

I kept my cool and let it go. And the next morning I woke up and he apologizes and I said, you know, I know that wasn't you last night. I was alcoholism.

That's not you.

But what I also know is that for the first time in my life I felt abused, and that's not OK with me anymore.

I'm worthy of more.

That's growth

because I never thought I was worthy before, you know.

And shortly after that, he ends up in the hospital and he has pancreatitis, you know, and the doctors told him then two things cause pancreatitis, gallbladder or alcoholism in your gallbladder spine, you know, and the doctor just came right out and told him, you know, if you drink again, you're going to die. And

as far as I know, he hasn't drank since or actually before that. I don't know that, you know, there's no way for me to know if he's drinking or he's not drinking. That's on him. But I think he's working on this program right now. It's, it's different. It's different than it's been all along. That's all I can say. He's different and I like that Angry guys gone right now. And I'm glad he's gone. I don't want to see him come back, you know, but I, I can't, that's out of my control. I have no control over whether that happens or not.

When I have control about is how I react to it and what I do for me and my sponsor got me very active in service

from the get go, you know, and I never felt worthy. Well, I'm not good enough to do this. I've been in here long enough, but she made me get active right away and getting it's what a blessing, what a blessing it's been. I've met so many people. I've helped some people, you know, and it's been the greatest gift that I've ever gotten. And and you know, I got to be the chair for our area convention and I've gotten to be on the World Service board now and then. You know, you asked me to do this and

anything that I can do to help somebody else, I'm ready to do today because that keeps me connected and that keeps me in touch with God and that's what I need. You know,

there's always going to be chaos in life. I understand that and,

you know, I've had issues with my job and I've been able to use the 12 steps to help me get through that situation and, and learn that I have a huge ego who knew, right? And I try to control everything around me. And I've had to back away from that and realize it's not my business. I have to mind my own business. And that's been a blessing too, because I can go to a job that I don't like today and, and

be friendly and be kind and be tolerant and walk away at the end of the day, you know, sooner or later I hope that God will put something else in my position. But if he doesn't, I can deal with what I have for now. You know,

I am so grateful for this program, for the people that came before me and the people that have shown me the way. And I wanted to end with today's reading. This is one of my favorite readings and I share this with some of my sponsees