No Resentment for Thirteen Years Was the Biggest Resentment of All – Loretta S.

Hi everyone, my name is Loretta and I am an alcoholic. And now I know what happens when I miss two of my home group meetings. Thanks Chuck. I wasn't prepared for this. But then I'm never prepared for this, so I'll do the best I can with what I have to work with. I know there's a whole section left over here. Andy made the announcement. No, just kidding. They came up and apologized to me. Like I said, my name is Loretta, I am an alcoholic. And my sobriety date is December 16th, 1994. And this is my home group. I got sober in Long Beach, California. And I have to tell you a little story. We just came back from a wonderful conference over on the East Coast. Wonderful! And one of the speakers happened to be Clancy, or one of the presenters, because it was mostly a step conference. And I have to tell you where I got sober, there was nothing but circuit speakers at all the meetings I went to. And I happened to have heard Clancy in person in my first 30 days of sobriety. And everybody was telling me, oh, and I worked, it was on a Tuesday night, and I worked late on Tuesday night. I closed the salon that I worked in. And my sponsor said, you've got to get here before the speaker, whatever you do. Because a lot of times I didn't get there until after 8.30, which is usually when the speaker got up. Whatever you do, you've got to get here before the speaker starts. It's Clancy. Well, I didn't know who Clancy was. I didn't know him from Adam. I had less than 30 days of sobriety. And so I got there. They were on the break, which is the same type of meeting that we have, our home group is. And I got there. We were on the break. I was still smoking at that time. And so I stopped long enough to have a cigarette. And then we all, we all went inside. And then they started the meeting again, like we do here. And then they introduced Clancy. Well, I hadn't gotten my coffee yet. Has anybody ever been in a meeting where Clancy was speaking? I'm a newcomer. I don't know the difference. I get up and go to get a cup of coffee. And Clancy stops talking in the middle of his sentence and goes, it must be nice to get up and get a cup of coffee whenever you want one. And I said, and I'm standing in the middle of the aisle right in front of him, oh, would you like me to bring you a cup? And he said, oh, no, that's okay. And he goes, oh, no, that's okay. I'll just wait and have mine with the enlisted. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. Thirteen years. Thirteen years. And I remember, I mean, everybody roared. Everybody roared. And I knew I was the butt of some kind of a joke. And my, and my first, I was a military wife. I was a Navy wife for 19 years. And I knew what enlisted were and I knew that he was saying, oh, that I thought I was better than he. And so for 13 years, for 19 years, for 19 years, every time Clancy has been part of a conference, at first I wouldn't even go hear him. And when people talk about, ooh, Clancy, Clancy, ooh, Clancy's coming, I go, so. And Chuck, he's a big admirer of Clancy. He knows Clancy's reputation. He knows how much work he does at the mission in Los Angeles. And I know that, too, kind of. I kind of knew that he did some good work. But still, I still care. And I kept saying, no, I don't have a resentment. No, I don't have a resentment. I just. So, but I was really forcing myself. So the last few times that I've been anywhere where he's speaking, I forced myself to go listen to him because I thought maybe if I listen real close, I'll hear something good. And I almost always did. And then I'd force myself to get in line and go thank him. Because that's what my sponsors taught me to do. Whether I agreed with him or not, I have to go thank him for coming and sharing his, you know, even though I really thought he was. I want to tell you that he did two presentations this weekend. The first one, I kind of still had that kind of that same feeling like somewhat, you know. And the second one, I don't know what happened. I don't know. I had this revelation of some kind. Yes, you have a resentment. Yes, you do. You do have a resentment. And you need to take care of it. And I did. I went up to him and I talked to him. I said, I have to tell you something. I have to tell you a story. I said, I'm sure you don't remember it. It's been 13 years. But I remember it word for word and I need to tell you about it. I had no intention of doing that. I don't know what happened. I had no intention of doing that. But I finally am free. I can, I mean, it sounds stupid, doesn't it? But I really, I really and truly felt free. And he just laughed. He said, well, thank you. He said, that's a good story. Thank you for telling me. He didn't say, he didn't apologize. Nothing like that. But he didn't put me down, you know. I think that was probably one of the reasons why I was so scared to approach him. To tell him. How I felt about it, you know. And the funniest thing about it was, some of you might know Catherine. She's from 2250 and I sponsored her for a few years. And she comes here occasionally. And just before that same night, no, it was the night before when he was sharing. Somebody, some lady got up and she probably had to go to the bathroom. I don't know. But it was right after he started talking. And he stopped. Of course. He does it all the time. And he said, gee, I usually get a little further into it before they start leaving. And then about five minutes later, Catherine was running late and she was meeting us up there. And about five minutes later, Catherine comes in and I'm saving a seat for her. And she comes in and sits down beside us. And he says, oh, are you her replacement? Catherine didn't have a clue what everybody was laughing at. But, you know, she'd missed the first part of it. So he said, when I told him the story, he said, well, were you here last night? I said, yeah. He said, I did the same thing. I said, I know you did. So anyway, it's a great ending to a story that I've carried with me for 13 years. And now I won't have quite the same resentment toward Clancy when I hear him. And actually, he did do a very good, it was an excellent talk. It really was. So anyway, I'm going to start again. They say you can start over any time. And try to tell you what it was like, what happened, and what I'm like today. And I was born in a little, I was born in, not little, I was born on a pretty good sized island. The island of Newfoundland in the country of Canada. It wasn't Canada when I was born. It became a province when I was nine years old. It was a very poor economy. The whole island was a very poor economy. The whole island was quite poor because we'd been a British commonwealth. And under British, not really British rule, we had our own government. But we were under British sovereignty. And we didn't get much help from them. But I didn't know. It wasn't until I was nine years old. I was a little girl. I was a little boy. I was a little girl. I was a little girl. And I didn't know until years later that I realized that we were poor. Everybody was poor. Everybody had the same, there were some people that had televisions and we didn't. There were some people that had cars and we didn't. But everybody seemed to take care of everybody else. You know, if somebody, if we were walking to school and somebody was driving, they'd stop and pick us up and it was nothing like, oh, you're a poor kid, you're a poor kid, you're a poor kid. You're poor, you know. So, you know, I didn't really, it really didn't have a profound effect on me that we were poor and didn't have a whole lot. And there wasn't even a whole lot of alcoholism in my home when I was growing up. Although my father probably was a periodic and the only reason he was periodic probably was because of the money. And so he only drank when he had a little bit of money. Or he had enough money to go out and buy the makings of moonshine or home brew. And that was my first, I remember, and I have to tell you this because I do believe that this is a family disease. I believe it's genetic for some people. Although I have two children and to my knowledge, neither one of them have this disease. But I have eight siblings. There's nine of us and every single one of us have problems with alcohol. And some of us have been in AA for many, many years. But I do, I have to tell you that when my father made moonshine, he would have the still. And I don't know, some of you probably don't even remember anything about moonshine and stills. But it would be sitting on the wood stove, which is what we had. And he would have the still. And I don't know, some of you probably don't even remember anything about moonshine and stills. But it would be sitting on the wood stove, which is what we had. And it had all these copper pipes and everything going through. There was a thing of water that the pipes went through. And then there was another thing that had the molasses and all that stuff. And I was fascinated by this whole thing. I was five years old. That's how far back I can remember. And I knew that eventually all that was going to start coming through that little pipe. And that it was going to start coming out and my father would have a bottle or something there for the moonshine to drip in. I was standing there with my finger out. I wanted the first drop that came out. Now I know that that's not what made me alcoholic. And I know that that's probably not what started me on the road because I didn't start drinking at a young age. I really didn't start drinking really young at all. And I'll tell you that later. But it was. I can still remember the taste of it. And I can still remember. I always loved moonshine. Always loved it. Just from any time I got a chance to drink moonshine, I would drink moonshine. I remember one time we were at a party with some people. This is after I got married. And we were in San Diego, I believe. And we had some friends, a couple who were a Mexican couple. And it was one of those days. One of these bring your own bottle things. And it had been years since I had tasted moonshine. And he had tequila. That's what he had brought. And everybody was tasting everybody else's. And I said, let me taste that. And I tasted it. And I said, wow, that tastes just like moonshine. It did to me. I don't know if it does today or not. But anyway. I grew up in that family. I grew up in that family. We were a family of 12. And today there's nine of us left. Two of my siblings died when they were very young infants. And I had a sister that died when she was 17 in a fire. And every one of us has at some time or another been in AA or has had problems with alcohol. I left the family. I left the island. I met a Navy American sailor when I was 19 years old or 18 years old. And got pregnant and got married in that order. And I've lived in the United States since 1961, which is the year we got married. He was just a year old. He was about 15. He was about 16. He was about 17. He was about 18. He was about 19. He was about 18 years older than me. And we were both pretty young. But we were married for 19 years. And we had two beautiful children. We have two beautiful children today. But the reason I believe that I was born with this disease was because I was always restless, irritable, and discontent. I never felt like I was good enough to be married to him, even though he never made me feel that way. And I was very, very happy. And I was very, very happy. And I was very happy. And I had a great mother. And I was amazed by the changes she made over the years because we always felt good enough to be in that family. And I went to an alcoholic, a reduced-fat family, and I was in a very, very happy, relaxed, very good state of mind. And I always felt like I was getting over it. And he had a beautiful family who always made me feel part of. But I always felt like I wasn't good enough to be in that family. And, you know, I didn't know these things until I, I didn't know what the problem was until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I didn't know, you know, I hadn't heard restless, irritable, and discontent until and discontent. No matter where we were, no matter what we had, no matter what we were doing, it was never right. I was never in the right place. I never had the right house. I was never happy. And he was a wonderful person. He worked hard and he took care of me and he took care of our kids. And he was a wonderful husband and father. And I just never felt that he loved me. And I wasn't faithful to him. After about 19 years of marriage, I couldn't stand it anymore. He couldn't stand it anymore. And we agreed, really and truly, we both agreed that the best thing to do was to get divorced. It was better for him and it was better for me because I would have killed him. I would have destroyed him. And we both kind of recognized that. And our kids by this time were 15 and 17. And so they were pretty well grown. But two years before that time, which was 1980 when we got divorced, two years before that time, I had started running with a group of people. And I had a group of people who liked to party. And that's when my drinking started. I had drank before that. I'm not going to say that I hadn't drank before because I had. But it was mainly when we had parties, New Year's Eve parties or we had people come over to the house. But never, I never ever recalled having a great desire to go out and drink. I never had that desire. And what I had a desire for was to be a part of and to be a part of these people that I worked with and a part of these people that liked to party and always seemed to be having a good time. And that's what I started doing. I started going out with these people that liked to party and liked to have a good time. And of course, the drinking just made it that much easier. And another thing I remember about my father's drinking. I remember when I was 18, I was only 18. And after my husband and I had been married and had been stationed in Maryland where our two children were born, we got transferred back up to Argentia, Newfoundland, which is where he had been stationed. And we were up there for three and a half years. And I remember I would go, we just lived about, I think it was about two hours from my parents. It's about an hour now because they paved the roads. But they lived about, I think it was two hours from my parents. It's about an hour now because they paved the roads. They weren't paved at that time. And I remember I would go up, and if my father wasn't home, I'd go looking for him. And I would get so angry because every time I'd find him, he'd be drunk. And I'd get so angry with him. And I remember now that every time my father drank, he got drunk, and somebody had to bring him home. And that's exactly how I drank. Every time I drank, I got drunk, and someone had to bring me home. My drinking didn't really get that bad until after my divorce. So for the two years before I divorced my first husband, I just partied and had a good time and thought I was just part of the fun crowd. And I remember I was so happy. And I remember I was so happy. But then after I got divorced, I moved to California, which is where I'd always wanted to live. We had been stationed there in San Diego, and I wanted to go back to San Diego. But I had a sister in Long Beach, so I ended up taking my daughter, who was 15 at the time, my son was 17, and chose to stay in Maine with his father. My daughter and I headed for California. And we ended up living in Long Beach. I lived there for 20 years until I moved here to Florida 11 years ago. But that's when I really started partying. And I'm a hairdresser. I worked in a department store for 17 years, JCPenney's. Give them a plug. It really wasn't bad. And, you know, when I got here, one of the difficult things for me to accept was the fact that I was alcoholic because I hadn't lost a job. I hadn't gotten a DUI. I hadn't lost my car. I hadn't, well, I'd lost my car. But it was usually over on the other side of the parking lot, and I'd just wait until everybody else left. And then I'd go find it. That happened a few times. But, you know, I hadn't really, really been in any major trouble. I hadn't really been in any major jackpots. I had gotten stopped once when I was driving, and my brother, I was following my brother, and I was drinking. And the cop pulled us over and pulled us both over. Or he pulled me over, and my brother saw that he had pulled me over, so he stopped too. And he promised the cop that he would take me home if he wouldn't, you know, if he'd let me go with him. And so the cop said, okay, but you leave her car here, and you take her home. And my brother said, okay, I promise I'll do that. So we drove around the block, pulled up next to my car. My brother said, get out, get in your car, and take it home. And so that was as bad as it got. And so really when I got here, and I'll tell you why I got here in a couple of minutes. I'm kind of getting ahead of my story here. But when I got here, I really thought I was 52 years old. And I figured I had another, at least a good 10 or 15 years left to drink and party. I really did. I mean, I'm only 52 years old. I really haven't, you know, nothing really bad has happened. Well, there was a few bad things. I didn't remember those until later. More will be revealed. One of the stories that Chuck likes me to tell, and we read Chapter 3, even though it's a little bit long, but it's a little bit long. It's a little bit long. It's a little bit long. It's a little bit long. It's a little bit long. It's a little bit long. It's a little bit long. It's a little bit long. It's a little bit long. It's a little bit long. So I love Chapter 3, and I love the part that we read. I just don't always love what we do to it. But I'm definitely in the minority there, I know. So I won't go into that. But one of the things, one of the stories that I told him, and the first thing that I identified with when I, because I didn't identify with Chapter 5. I didn't identify with the steps. I thought, you want me to do what? You know, I don't think so. I don't think so. And, but we read Chapter 3 at most of the meetings that I went to and where I got sober. And when they read, here are some of the methods we've tried. And I'd listen to those, and I thought, yeah, well, I tried some of those and others. And one of the things I tried was, my favorite drink, my drink of choice was White Russians, which if most of you know what that is, it's a drink that's called White Russians. You know it's made with half and half, Kahlua, and Kahlua is a pretty high-calorie drink, so it's half and half. And I didn't like it with milk. I drank that for many years, but until the half and half started bothering my stomach, so then I had to go to Black Russians. But I also like wine, and because the White Russians would, they're really good at that, they would have, you know, all kinds of drinks, I would put weight on really fast. I'd go to Weight Watchers. And this was kind of a ritual, you know, I'd drink White Russians, I'd put on a lot of weight, I'd go to Weight Watchers, and I'd start drinking wine. Well, I had it all figured out. A glass of wine. At that time, Weight Watchers was, they, they used exchanges, like fruit exchange, meat exchange, or protein exchange, vegetable exchange, and that kind of thing. was 100 calories. Well, so was a glass of wine. So, wine's made from grapes. And I was still drinking the kind of wine that had the cork in it. Later on, I got the box with the spigot. Chuck said he'd never seen a box of wine with a spigot. I've had some people in here, remember? Anybody in here remember? Yeah, I see hands. Yeah, they had them. It was real convenient. It was nice and cold. So what happened? I have to tell you what happened. I was single and partied hardy for seven years in Long Beach, California. And I was starting to get a little worried about my drinking. Not about my drinking, about my driving. Now, I was single, so I have no choice but to drive. But I'd had a couple little... I had one accident when I was drinking. And I don't know if anybody else does this kind of thing, but if you intimidate the other person before they get a chance to intimidate you, then you get away with a lot. And I was pretty intimidating. I had no qualms about jumping out of my car, running over to that other car, and accusing her of hitting me and running a red light. And she believed it. Because I was going to call the cops. Now, if I'd called the cops, we would have both been in deep trouble. But anyway, she admitted it, that she'd run a red light, and I said, okay, no problem. We'll just, you know, exchange insurance information and all that. And no cops were called, thank God. And then I had another little... kind of a little fender bender. But anyway, I was getting a little bit worried. And they had changed the law in California that the amount of alcohol you could have in your system, I don't know, went down to .08 or something. It had been .10 or something. And they also had... the new law was that the very first time you could stop for driving under the influence, you went to jail. And the women's prison, or the women's jail, was Sybil Brand in Los Angeles. And I heard bad things about Sybil Brand. Oh, my God. I was scared to death. I was absolutely terrified of Sybil Brand. So I met this guy. Who didn't drink. And who absolutely wanted to take care of me. And I didn't... wasn't even remotely attracted to him. But he was a teetotaler. He didn't drink. What more could an alcoholic ask for? And he was willing to take me to parties and drop me off and pick me up. And pick me up. And pick me up. And pick me up. And pick me up. It didn't matter that I was his fourth wife. That had nothing to do with anything. What's that got to do with anything? Our book... I love the big book. I absolutely love the big book. Everything I've... I have found me in just about every chapter in that book. And one of the things that I identified with when I read it was we made decisions based on self. That later put us in a position to be hurt. Man, that was like... Two by four. That decision that I made... I can't even begin to tell you what it cost me. But it cost a lot. After about... We had a beautiful wedding. I worked at Penny's. I had... I had saved quite a bit of money. Really, no, truly. I had saved money. I had my savings and profit sharing. And I didn't have... I didn't have a nice wedding, my first wedding. It was kind of a... It wasn't a shotgun wedding because my father was in Newfoundland and I was in Maryland. But it could have been. And... But I wanted a nice wedding. And so I took out all my savings and profit sharing and put it into this beautiful wedding. I flew my son and his girlfriend out from Maine and his two sons down from Sacramento. And... had a photographer and beautiful pictures. We had it at the country club. And it was a small wedding, but it was nice. And so they took pictures back, you know. And his ex-wife, who he'd been divorced from for 13 years, saw the pictures and decided that he must have married somebody with money. Now would be a good time to go after him for the last 13 years' child support. So she did. But she had to stand in line behind the IRS and the state of California because they wanted their money too. And that's when I found out that he hadn't paid taxes for 10 years and he hadn't paid child support for 14. So I'm going to really zip through this real fast, but for the next five years, all we did was go through bankruptcies and pay the state of California. A pretty large sum of money. Just to keep him, you know, just to get him out of hock. Just before the, we had a five year, it was five years that we were supposed to pay this. And just before the end of the five years, and our restitution would have been paid in full, he found somebody else he wanted to take care of more. After I had sacrificed for five years, gave up the house with the picket fence that I had dreamed about and all that, and he'd found somebody else. Then, you know, I really, if you had my problems, you really would have drank. It wasn't until I did my fourth step. Now, I'm telling you, this was a hard pill to swallow. It wasn't until I did my fourth step, which I didn't do for two and a half years after I got sober because I couldn't find anybody that would, you know, I really didn't drink that much or that long to where I killed a lot of brain cells, but I was really thick. I have to tell you. I was thick. And anything to do with inventory just totally overwhelmed me. I just, I couldn't even, I couldn't even think about it. No, you know, you're going to have to sit down with me and you're going to have to walk me through it word by word by word because I don't have a clue what you're talking about. And I had a stack of inventories this high when I got, when I had, when I met Chuck, I have to tell you, I have no secrets. He told me, he said, you know, you're going to have to work your way up. He took my fourth step. I did my fifth step with him. And it wasn't until I did my fourth step that I had to look at what my part was in that, in my husband's affair. And I had a part. I, it almost broke us up. He said, you have to look at it. You got a part in it. You know, what were you doing while your husband was in bed sleeping? Well, I couldn't go to sleep without, I had, by the time, I had a lot of work to do. I had to work. I had to work. I had to work. And by the time I got here, for the two and a half years before I got here, I wasn't going to sleep. I wasn't going to bed and I wasn't going to sleep. I was passing out. I was drinking and passing out and coming to. And I've heard other people talk about that too. So I know I'm not unique in that. But that's exactly what I was doing. I was passing out. I never made it to bed with him for two and a half years because I was so angry and because of this, this thing, this thing. That was between us. And I was so angry that I wasn't a wife to him. So anyway, I was still going to get even with him. I hadn't gotten to the point. I had a year and a half of sobriety and I decided to file a divorce, file for divorce because he was still back and forth. He'd come stay with me for a while and then he'd have to go find himself again. And he never, he never, he never, he never, he never, he never, he never, he never, he never, he never, he never, he never did admit that he had an affair. But she would call me and tell me where he was. So I don't want to spend any more time on this. But I'll tell you real quick and, and that I had filed for divorce on, on Wednesday. I went to an attorney and, and I got a call on Friday morning that he had had a heart attack and, and he died that night. And there was a lot of anger there too, you know, the SOB went and died before I got a chance to get even with him. Now I don't know, maybe. I was going, and I had it planned. I, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to go for spousal support for the same amount of money that we had paid the bankruptcy court for the same number of years. $550 a month for five years. That's what I wanted. I had it all planned. You know, we're not, we really aren't well when we get here. And I really wasn't well for a long time after I got here. But, you know, I can't, I have to get to what it's like today because I could stay on that. There was a lot, there was a lot. I have two beautiful children today. I have a son. I have a daughter. I have two beautiful grandchildren. And I have one gorgeous great grandson. And they were just here visiting me. I really feel fortunate that I really didn't do a lot of damage to my children because I really didn't start drinking until when they were older. And they don't remember any of the things that, that I did that could have affected them. I worked at Penny's for 17 years. The last, about the last year that I worked there, I worked as a manager of the styling salon. And I came here to Florida to visit my sister who has a little mobile in, in a little resident owned park here. And I absolutely loved California. I'm still, I'm still working on that. That's probably another resentment I have to work on. Because I really want to be in California most of the time. But, but I came here to visit my sister. And she talked me into looking at a mobile that was for sale in the park and it was really reasonable. And my husband had, had been dead about, probably about a year by this time. And, and my family, anytime I'm alone, they, they always think that I need to come back. They want me to come home, you know, so they can take care of me. They forget that I've been on my own for a long time. And so they, they always want to pull me back to where they can, they can take care of me, I guess. I don't know. Even though they don't, after a while they, they wish they left me where I was. But, but I, I said, okay, you know, go ahead. If you can get it, go ahead and get it. And, and by the time I got home to Los Angeles, there was a, a message on my, on my answering machine telling me that I owned a, a mobile in, in Florida. And I had no clue that, you know, this was going to be my destiny. But I went to a, I went, I had, I had been seeing somebody and, and it went kind of bad and, and we had plans to go to a, a little convention up in Laughlin, Nevada, which was the tri-state convention, California, Nevada and Arizona. And so my girlfriend and I decided that we'd go in and we were going to Los Angeles. Anyway, and, and somehow or another, my girlfriend hooked up with him and his buddy and, and I got to meet him. And, we've been together ever since. That's going to, that's coming up on 11 years this month. Actually this month, Memorial weekend we met. And, and he just, you know, we'd, we only knew each other about two months when, you know, I said I, I don't want to get into a relationship because he said, you know, can I call you? And I said, I don't really want to start a relationship. I just got out of one, and I don't know how long I'm going to be staying here. I might be moving to Florida. I just bought a place in Florida. And he said, well, I was born in Savannah, Georgia, and that's not very far from Florida, and I love Florida. So if you want to go to Florida. Yeah, so we had yard sales. I don't know how many yard sales we had, and he sold everything I owned for 25 cents. And it's a true story. Every time I'd hear it, he'd say, somebody would come up and say, how much is this? And he'd say, oh, it's a quarter. I said, you realize you're selling my life? You're selling my life for a quarter? But we've been together, and it's been, I'll tell you, the best thing that's ever happened to me is meeting Chuck and getting to Alcoholics Anonymous. I would never have dreamed. I mean, I was angry. I was very, very angry all the time, and I didn't know why. I was restless, irritable. I was discontent, and I didn't know why. I didn't know until I got here. I didn't know about the disease of alcoholism until you people told me what my problem was. But you didn't only tell me what my problem was. You told me what the solution was. And today I know the solution's in the book. The tools are there. I have tools today. I still get restless, irritable, and discontent. He can tell you, because every time I do, I run to California. And I haven't done that for a while. a while. That's good. And I keep telling him next time I go, I really like for him to go with me. So I know we'll be coming back if he goes. But I know I have tools today, and that's what keeps me going. And I just absolutely love my life today. I really do. Even though I don't always, he tells me I'm not grateful, and I'm not most of the time. But I absolutely love my life, and I wouldn't trade anything. And I love what Katrina says when she ends her talk. I wouldn't give anything for the journey now, and that's exactly the way I feel. I wouldn't give anything for the journey today. Thank you for listening, and thank you for my sobriety.