The CALA Convention in Palm Springs, CA

We we welcome you to the CLA and Cohen on convention. This is our Saturday 2:00 speaker meeting and it's my privilege and my honor to present to you someone with 20 years experience and recovery, strength and help and just a guiding, leading force. Her love is just so amazing and I know she'll have something wonderful for you out of here too. It's my pleasure to introduce Corinne. Thank you.

Hi everybody. How wonderful to see you here. And my name is Corinne Kemp, and I'm a grateful member of Cohen on

Hi. And like Shelly said, I can't believe it's been 20 years, but every year that I've been in, I have learned something, grown and, you know, been guided to more joy and happiness in my life, better able to handle crises as they came up and

closer contact, I would say to my higher power, too, to my, which I call God

to start with as

a child. I'm the oldest of five children.

There were four daughters and then a boy and our brother. And because I was the oldest, my mom herself was not an alcoholic, but she was an adult child of an alcoholic. So she had a lot of the same behaviors, a lot of the same problems, and never had the treatment or the help that she could have used. And so she was not really able to cope

with my younger sisters. And

by the at age 10, I was put in the position of caring for them a lot of the time and of course not able to do it in a lot of mishaps happened and covering up. And so I feel that I was put into that caretaker role at a very early age,

and I didn't like it because if anything bad happened that she found out about, then of course I was the one who got in trouble. You know, if the younger ones got in trouble,

did things they shouldn't, then of course, it was my fault. And so that was very difficult for me. I can remember times where, you know, with my baby sister that heating the bottle too hot, you know, and then burning her mouth and she'd be screaming. I can remember another time when she was really tiny, I had her on a twin bed. She rolled off the bed and fell on a concrete floor. Luckily, no permanent damage from any of these things. And today we're very close,

my sisters and I, So it, that part turned out well, but because, and then also we had sexual abuse in our family from our dad, which was very painful, another very painful area that I had to deal with. And so I was very anxious.

Wasn't a pleasant, real pleasant place. And so I did. I was a good student. I loved school. And that was, you know, one way where I got a lot of

attention and recognition was for getting good grades and for studying hard. And I love to read. To this day, I love to read. I belong to book clubs. I, you know, have books sent to me every month. And I, I love reading. It's a wonderful hobby

and a program reading I do every day also.

And anyway, so as a consequence of being a good student, I did skip a couple grades. And by the time I was 16, I graduated from high school and I was very anxious to go away to college, to get away from home. So with one of my girlfriends, my best girlfriends in high school, we hopped on the train, the Amtrak, and we went up to San Jose. And I can remember

being in the club car and playing cards in there. And of course, we couldn't get served drinks or anything because we were, well, she was 17, I think, but I was 16.

And but it seemed like so grown up and so mature and like I was just going to be on that train, get off and start a whole new life. And it felt like that to me at the time. So we got situated in a boarding house and that's where we lived, she and I, with quite a few other young women. And that was a fun thing, too.

And what happened at that boarding house was one of the local fraternities

π Ka sent their young man over to act as our hashers, they called them. And then what they would do was serve the meals and do the dishes and things like that. She would hire our house. Mother would hire them to do this. And so one morning at breakfast, I was there in my rollers and pajamas, eating breakfast. And who should come in but Don

sitting right next to me here? And anyway, he called later and asked me out for a coffee date and

he had no idea how young I was, number one, but at that time. And we did gradually get to know each other and become friends and go out for coffee. And as by the time I was 17 and turned 17 and we had been going together, we got pinned and I received his fraternity pin. And I remember I wore it on on my bra underneath my clothing for a while because we didn't want to announce it right away.

And then I I brought him home to meet my family.

And this went pretty well. And then we got engaged and by the time I was 18, we were married

and we Don finished college and we moved down to Southern California. I only went attended for a little less than one year at that time. And then I, we were managing apartment houses.

But at any rate, we came down here and

we rapidly started having our family and I had our four sons

one after the other. I mean, not they weren't that close, but and so I was a full time homemaker or, you know, and mother for about 10 years. And this was a difficult time, but it was also it had its, you know, many joys of that time too, when, you know, the boys were young and you know how how much I love them. I I really didn't feel that I was ready

to be a mother and it put me back into that same role of caretaking that I had never really recovered from with my own sisters. And so it was also a very difficult time for me,

but I loved each one of them as they came along. And especially, it seemed when our fourth son was born,

something in my heart just opened up in a new way, and I loved him

more.

Really much more than any of the others. I don't know why that was, but

I just, I guess I felt I was ready at that time myself, you know, to be a mother in every sense of the word and, and to really give, give my heart to my children. And it reflected on all of them where I felt closer to each one of them at that time in my life. And so we had just a lot of wonderful times and family vacations and things, you know, went on.

But in the meantime, I had never really looked at the family disease of alcoholism and addiction. And it was swirling all around me with my grandmother and grandfather both being Alcoholics and my momma's people. And my grandmother committed suicide. She was an alcoholic, and she committed suicide when she was only 50 years old. And that was very devastating to my mom and to the family.

She took or did an overdose of sleeping pills.

And then a few years after that, it seemed when we were married, I had an aunt who was an alcoholic and she was in and out of the hospital a couple of times. And, and Violet was one who was very fond of me and very nice to me when I was growing up and gave me, you know, extra attention. And so I had a special feeling for her.

And she died of her alcoholism when she was 42 years old.

And so this was, you know,

very serious indicator of how much the family disease of alcoholism was swirling through, you know, our family.

And so as we went on with our sons, also my youngest with my sisters, all three of them, all three of my sisters did use drugs and alcohol at one time. But my youngest sister was the one that really became an alcoholic. And

just she, from the time she was a teenager, she never

had any real periods of sobriety. At one time

my dad, mother and dad put her in a recovery home for a month long treatment program. But when she came out, she was only sober, you know, maybe a couple of weeks and went right back to drinking and using drugs.

And so. But I never really felt that it had affected me or that I had a problem with it until our own sons became addicts and Alcoholics. And the three of our four sons became addicts and Alcoholics. And it all. It happened when they were teenagers, of course, you know, probably

131415 years old. They started experimenting with marijuana and

pills and, you know, whatever was available at the time, I think LSD and, you know, all of these types of things that were, you know, going around at that time. And as I felt really bewildered as to what to do, I didn't know what to do about it. I, I would get mad at them. I would do a lot of the do's and don'ts. I'd yell at them, you know, I would threaten them. I would get mad at them. I would bargain with them, plead with them,

you know, have them make me promises that they didn't keep. And, you know, it was just really a merry ground. And I can remember one time when our second son took an like an overdose or took sleeping pills. But I, you know, I wasn't really an overdose where he was out, but he took enough where he was sound asleep. And we didn't dare leave him alone. And Don and I were going to the drive in movies and we just loaded him into the back seat of the car and just kept watching him to make sure he was breathing

throughout the movie.

And and he was a teenager at that time. So, you know, I did a lot of crazy things. Just like this morning, some of you heard Don speak and as he shared some of the crazy things he did, I did a lot of crazy things too. And so as time went on,

the older brothers,

you know, started their younger brother

on drugs, too. You know, they thought it would be fun to see, you know, young

boy, experiment with it. And when so the youngest one, when he was only about nine, they got him high on marijuana. And, you know, one thing led to another. And so as as time went on, things worsened more and more. And there was trouble, you know, there was trouble with school grades. There was trouble with cutting school. There was trouble with

all kinds of things,

and in fact, one time we had a complete drug bust at our house. Our second son was selling marijuana out of the house, unbeknownst to us, and he had a full scale in his room, locked in his closet and quite a stash of pot. And I guess someone had turned him in and they came. The police came with guns drawn back door and front door and burst into the house,

searched the house and, you know, confiscated all the stuff. And he was, of course, arrested and

everybody was taken into custody. But then they were all released except for this one son who was selling.

That was, you know, the type of life that went on at that time. And it was very painful to me. And it was very, it felt so out of control. I had no idea, you know, what to do or which way to turn. And, you know, I, I would talk to different people and try to find, you know, what to do,

which way to turn. And eventually, as time went on, our when our youngest son was finally in high school, his addiction became, you know, very obvious and very terrible. And where he was losing tremendous weight, he had open sores on his hands that wouldn't heal.

And

you know it, it was stealing from us. He was, you know,

being gone all hours of the day and night. There were people, you know, calling for him. A lot of lower companions would come to the door. I remember I had one time a knock on the door late at night and I went to the door and there was this black man at the door that had my son's ring, school ring. And he said, you know, your son owes me this much money and he, you know, better pay it and

or else kind of thing. And if you want, you know, to get his ring back, you have to give me, you know, $100 right now.

And I said, no, you know, I'm not. And I just closed the door and locked it. And so that was very difficult. But I knew that it wouldn't be right for me to, to do, you know, those types of things to try to, to buy off, you know, his problems. But I was very frightened because I knew that, you know, the violence could be carried out against him.

And so it was a very scary time.

And at that point I think I became very desperate along with Dawn. We both became very desperate and I didn't know exactly where to turn. But we went to an Al Anon meeting and being that we were still in so much denial at that time, there were people there that told very sad stories and they were in a lot of pain. And we just listened at the meeting and

left, and

then we talked about it afterwards. And I said, you know, I don't think that this meeting is for us because these people are really in pain and really in trouble.

And so that's, you know, denial. That's called denial.

And but anyway, a short time later, things kept going from bad to worse. So we went to ACA meeting. We didn't know where else to go. So we went to ACA meeting and the people there were very open and, you know, very kind to tell us, you know, you should go to Koh Anon. The one young man that was there that was recovering addict said, you know, my mom goes to Conan and

you know, it's really helped our whole family. And

you know, she's learned a lot of things to take care of herself. So that's what we did. We started started in at that time

and from the beginning, I just having the tools of the program meant so much to me that our daily readers, the One Day at a Time and the Courage to Change were so wonderful to have those readings every morning and

to

redirect my mind to a more positive place.

It it was just, you know, so helpful and getting a sponsor and being being able to have somewhat have someone to talk to that understood this disease was very helpful. And my first sponsor was really good because I would call her and want to tell her these long tails of whoa, that, you know, he's stolen all my gold jewelry and he's stolen Don's compressor. And he's done this and, you know, he's

this and that, whatever it was. And she would say, well, what I want you to do is make a gratitude list and sit down and you write at least five to 10 things that you're really grateful for. Call me back and read me the gratitude list. And then you can tell me the bad things that happen.

And so it was a beautiful way of switching someone's thinking, you know, from from negative to positive. And so that's what I did, you know, And, and the, so the gratitude list became part of my life. This is something that I still do to this day. I don't always write it down, but I, I go through the things and I'll always say, you know, thank you God for this wonderful day, you know, and thank you, God for a good night's rest.

And thank you, God, for letting me,

you know, feel young and strong and healthy and able to do what I want to do.

And thank you, God, for, you know, having food to eat and A and a, you know, warm and cozy place to stay.

And I realized more and more that I needed to

take care of myself in the relations with my sons, the the addict sons, and also that I just needed to learn more and, and put them in God's loving arms, knowing that he loves them even more than I do. And so that these were things that, you know, really did help me.

And as time went on,

it seemed that

our youngest son, who was the most severe addict and the most out of control,

gained some sobriety. I mean, he went through

a detox voluntarily and then he had a short period of sobriety, maybe three months. And he was going to meetings every night and then, you know, he went back out and then maybe he had six months. He would go back and him six months and then he'd go back out and then he had a year. And he felt so bad, though still about himself, that even when he had a year,

he wouldn't take a cake for that year because he just didn't feel like he deserved it. And we had come to a convention at that time. He came to a convention, and so did we. And, you know, we were hoping to be there when he took his cake because they usually have a birthday meeting. And he he just didn't feel that he could do it.

So he didn't take a cake,

but anyway, he continued in the program. He had relapses. He ended up going through American Hospital three times for detox and then coming out and going to meetings and gaining various periods of sobriety.

At

the best point in his life, he had nine years of sobriety and he at that time really put his life back together and it was so wonderful for

it was like he was the person again that I loved so much when he was a little boy. And when he was a little boy, he was always a sunny natured, open hearted, loving person. And that's the person he always was.

As we know, addiction is a disease and it's a terrible disease. It's a deadly disease. In many cases it's a life threatening disease. And so during these years of sobriety, he made so many amends to us. He became an electrical contractor and took the test for that. And he, we have all kinds of special lighting all over our house

that he put in as one of his ways of making amends.

And one of the things he had done when he was in his addiction was he had stolen a Don's coin collection that he had had since he was a little boy. And so one Christmas he presented Don with this beautiful coin collection. It's a big book full of all kinds of coins that he had paid several $100 for to try and replace that. And at the same time, he

presented me with diamond and gold earrings because he had stolen my gold jewelry at an earlier time. And so and we just had so much fun with him during these, the time of sobriety. He and his girlfriend lived together and

she got pregnant and she had twin daughters. And so we have twin granddaughters that were so thankful for that. They're here and they're actually 14 years old. They're going to be 15 this next month. And they have been just a great joy to us beautiful, open hearted girls just like he was. And I can see so much of him, you know, in them

with our other sons. They they were in, you know, in and out of trouble. The one that where we had the big drug bust,

he was able to be placed on probation because he hadn't had any previous arrests and that scared him into going underground with his addiction. He didn't stop, but he didn't sell anymore and he didn't, you know, he was very

protective, you know, to not let people know what he was doing. A lot of times I had no idea that he was still using and, and he was

so

as, as time went on,

when he, when our youngest son had the nine years of sobriety, he went back out and we really felt that he would, you know, gain his sobriety again because he had done, you know, done it so many times. And we always told him, you know, I know that you're going to get sober again. And, and he stated he really wanted to

and I might you go back just a little bit. When,

when the boys were in their addiction. The one thing that I always practiced, and I've said this before, but it to me, it was very important as I learned more and more program was whenever I would see them, I would give them a hug. I would tell them I love them. I would not give them any advice and I would not ask them any questions. And that was really important because if I gave them advice, they wouldn't take it. If I asked them questions, I would hear things that I didn't want to hear.

And so it's better just for me, it was better just to

do that. And I think one of the lessons of the program that I've learned over the years too, is that acceptance is the key, you know, And that means accepting what is because we're powerless over any other person, place or condition. The only person that I'm not powerless over with God's help is myself.

And so in order to accept what is,

I can gain my own serenity and Peace of Mind. I can have joy in my life. And I also came to learn that even though I might have sadness or sorrow at the direction my sons were taking, I could also feel joy for the, you know, happy things that were happening in my life. And so it was always both. And it wasn't either or. It was both and

and when

my youngest son had started school when he was in first grade, I had gone back to college at that time myself and I became a registered nurse. And so when they were all in school, then I went to work full time and I became

a cancer oncology nurse at City of Hope in Pediatrics. So I took care of children with cancer and I did that job. I went along well with my caretaking nature anyway,

and so I see that now that

each of our gifts can also be a defect of character, you know, depending on which way it's taken in our life. And so with my,

you know, having a loving heart and, and being willing to take care of people is a good thing, but

flipping it over into codependency or enabling people, addicts and Alcoholics is not a good thing.

And so working to gain a balance on this in my life has been my biggest struggle. I think I'm in the process right now with five of the women that I sponsor in doing step work. And we're using the Blueprint for Progress for the 4th step, which is the Al Anon book for doing your 4th step. And so I do it along with them. And then we share back and forth,

and this has been so helpful because we're always learning and growing. And at every level, you know, no matter how old you are, no matter how long or how short you've been in program, you know God is giving you a chance to start fresh, to have a new way of handling things

to and to be in that new person that you always wanted to be. And so,

you know, just thinking of, of the other things that

were so important to me about being in the program

with, with other members,

the openness and the honesty, the moving more and more towards rigorous honesty in my life and my affairs was, was wonderful because I wasn't,

you know, raised in the way that I was raised in the way that I was a caretaker. I wasn't honest because I was always feeling like I had to cover things up and mistakes that I made. Especially so this the carried over into my new married life and my adult life. And it was wonderful to be moving more and more towards rigorous honesty in all my affairs. And

anyway, so when he went back out after nine years and he

right along, I had wanted to get his sobriety. He talked about wanting to get back into his sobriety. And this time he he started using cocaine and then he switched to the crystal meth. And it seemed as though that had a very, very bad effect on him.

And again, he really went downhill. His girlfriend was also using with him. I can remember one time and they had the little girls and they were at that time about

a five years old that he came and he said, you know, they had they had no food in the house and they had nothing for the girls to eat. And you know, things were just filthy in the house. If you go over there was just a horrible mess. And I said, well, you know,

I would do this for the girls anyway. And I said, I will take you to the store and you can come with me and I will buy groceries and you can take them home to the girls. And he said, why? You know, why won't you just give me the money? Why won't you just give me the money I need to buy food for my children, you know? And I said the reason I won't give you the money is because you're an addict. And an addict, if they have money,

chances are they're going to use it to buy drugs. And I don't want you using one minute longer than you have to.

And he heard that. And he said, oh,

and he wasn't angry any longer and he went shopping with me and we bought the groceries for the kids, the milk and the bread and the eggs and peanut butter and all the usual. And, you know, took that home to them. So they did, you know, did have food, but things were just were not going well. And his girlfriend actually went into the hospital.

She's bipolar and she had a breakdown and had to go into the hospital

and the other grandmother of the girls was taking care of the girls and during this time he was using while he was home alone and he a fire started in his house and he was killed in the fire. So he died of his disease

secondary, you know, to the fire and he was 34 years old when he died and he left little 7 year old daughters. And

so he's been gone now for seven years. And that very same year, that was 2001 when he died. That very same year, he died in February. And in December my youngest sister

also died suddenly of the disease. She was at home with her partner and her little boy, and she had been having pain in her side all day. And we don't know, you know, what it was.

They had called, I guess, 911 the day before because the pain was so severe. And they said, well, you know, you really should go to the hospital and we'll get you checked out further. But she refused to go. And the next day in the evening, she again was having this pain and she, of course, was drinking. And her partner was there with her in bed,

and she just stopped breathing. And she just turned duskier and duskier, you know, really blue and then purple.

And he tried to resuscitate her and he wasn't able to. And so she only had one child. When she was 42 years old, she had her one and only son. And when she was 47, she died. So he was another little child, five years old without a mom, and

he's doing OK today. He's, they live up in the high desert and we do see him.

But the good part that came out of this, I know that God took him home and that he has complete sobriety. Our son and my sister and all the other relatives that died in this disease that they're at peace. They have sobriety and they have complete recovery. And I also know that I will see them again.

That's a very deep belief that I have and that gives me a lot of comfort. And from this time that these,

this very, very bad year of 2001 happened,

our other two sons were shocked, you know, and so saddened by losing their little brother. And they both became sober and they have have been sober to this day. So seven years now, I guess both of them have been sober

and they are really, you know, living

happy, joyful lives and, and I am living a very happy and joyful life.

I'm thankful for every day that God is giving me. I'm thankful

for the women that I have sponsored, the ones that have come and gone and the ones that I currently have. I'm thankful for being in the meetings and being able to be of service to lead meetings from time to time and the set up meetings and speak at meetings. And

it's it's a wonderful life to have the 12 steps and 12 traditions. I encourage all of you to

to use the tools of the program, you know, find people you can call. You can get a meeting, you can get phone lists at all the meetings, Al Anon and and the Conan and, you know, call people have five people that you can call when you're having a rough time.

That is very helpful. Get the books and do the daily readings. And there's many other Al Anon books that, you know, are wonderful reading too, besides the daily readers. And I really think that,

you know, it's such a blessing to have the 12 steps, to have the meetings, to have the loving people that you find here,

to have the compassion

and the joy, the sorrow. Today I'm thankful for all the joy that God has brought me and all the sorrows, because I know it's made me a deeper and a more compassionate person. And it's opened my heart to be more loving and realize how very, very important each and every person in your life is. And you don't know how long they're going to be here.

So, you know, my encouragement is to when you see them, if there are those that are in their addiction, just tell them you love them. Give them a hug. Don't ask them any questions and don't give them any advice.

And I think that's about all I have for today. I want to thank you all so much for being here. Thank you for letting me share.