The Difference Between a Solution and Spreading the Disease – Deb H.

All right, my name is Deb. I'm a real alcoholic. I do this to give Gary hope. oh my gosh it's an honor and a privilege to be here with you guys this weekend it really is i am you know i didn't know a year ago when i met mike and nancy um and so many other folks in missouri that i was going to need to be in kansas this year i mean you know whoever knows that you need to be in Kansas. I had ridden my Harley across your great state a couple of times in the summer. And, you know, it's hot out there. And crossing your state from east to west is, wow. And so when Mike asked me, hey, can you come to Kansas State? And I was like, what month is it? september toward the end we're good um but i i needed i needed to be here this weekend i needed to be with the people that i met in missouri last year um i neededto be withthe people that i've met this you guys have a great conference you guyshaveagreatfellowship there's a lot of tenderness and there'sa lot of love in this room and there isalotofpeople who really really love of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And for all of your service, I say thank you. And not just thank you on the surface, but thank you from the bottom of my heart. You know, I stand here. My sobriety date is March 15th, 1987, so I have 22 1⁄2 years of sobriete, and I think seriously? And there's a story in the back of the book, and it's Women Suffer Too, and it'S Marty Mann's story. And when you read that, there's – will you hand me that book, please? When you read this in here, it's on page 202. I had to look it up because, you know, the new editions, they flip things around. You know, we were playing Big Book Jeopardy when I was in the Keys a couple of years ago, and I was on the old-timer because it's like, you Know, 20 years and up, you're on the Old Timers crew. And there was a category for Big BookJeopardy called Fourth Edition. and one of the gals in the old-timer, she goes, Fourth edition? When the hell did that happen? I thought that was great. But in Marty Mann's story, she said that that night I got very drunk, which was usual, but I remembered everything, which was very unusual. I could relate to Marty. She said, I remember going through what my sister assured me was my nightly procedure of trying to find Willie Seabrook's name in the telephone book. I remembered my loud resolution to find him and ask him to help me get into that asylum he had written about. You know, Willie Seabrook was a contemporary of Bill Wilson's. They were born in the same year. They both grew up in the sam areas of New York. Willie had money. Bill didn't. So Bill was on the outside of the circle. Willie was onthe inside of the circlethey were both terribly, terribly alcoholic. And they were both in and outof hospitals, and they were bot deemed of the hopeless variety. and in 1935 God used Bill Wilson to go and meet with Dr. Bob and to found Alcoholics Anonymous and Willie Seabrook shot himself because he couldn't deal with the torment of alcoholism anymore and there was no cure for him and these were two men who lived the same time they walked the same streets, they went the same places they drank the same, they Went to the same hospitals and one of them founded Alcoholics Anonymous and lived to give us what we have and the other one went to an alcoholic death. And so when I say thank you for your service, I mean thank you for your services. We have to have Alcoholics Anonymous. If we don't, we don' t have any other options that work and we know that. Like I said, it's an honor and it's a privilege to be here. It's an honour and a privilege to be asked to do anything in the service of Alcoholics Anonymous and the members of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not lost on me that there are several Alcoholics Anonymous, one is the book, one ist he message or the program inside the book and then the other is the fellowship. And I think all of those are very important and they all have to come together. Just don't drink and go to meetings, that'll kill you. Just read the first 164 pages and call me back well if I only read the first164 pages, I miss the doctor's opinion so I don't know what's wrong with me. We say things in AlcoholicsAnonymous and sometimes I think we need to stop and think about what we're saying. You know, we really do. It takes the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the power in that program and it takes the fellowship of Alcoholic Anonymous and the love of the fellowship and we've got to keep those two things together and we have to guard those things and I hope in some way I do my part just want to do my parte I'm a blue collar kid from the Midwest I was born and raised right outside of Akron, Ohio I came from a real small town the name of that town was Rittman unfortunately I was speaking in Pennsylvania last weekend and there was one guy who was from that little town and he hollered out from the middle of the crowd and he was mine the rest of the talk I made a comment about how many mistakes I made and you might have been one of them that poor guy I made amends to him promptly I was doing my 10th step while I was finishing my talk anyway I'm a blue-collar kid from the Midwest born and raised right outside of Akron Ohio in this little tiny town and and this was a town where um all of all of the families that lived in this little town they had they had moved to that town after the coal mine started shutting down in West Virginia so really I'm I'm hillbilly once removed and um and I was taught a lot of things growing up in that little town that I had that I have come to value today you know one of them is you know you live within your means if you can't afford it you don't buy it you know thank God that I learned that lesson. You know, the other one is you love your country. It doesn't matter what they do, you love it anyway and you never give up on the United States of America and you buy American when you can. And those are some of the things I was taught and trust me, when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and when I really got into doing a lot of the inventory work and taking a look at what my life had been, I had to sift through everything that I was taught. And I had to figure out what was of value and what wasn't of value. And those were some of the things that were of value, and those are some of things that defined some of my behavior today and I'm real grateful for those things. You know, some of other stuff that I was shown and taught were not quite so valuable. I grew up in an alcoholic home, and I am going to just say that out loud. My dad is terribly, terribly alcoholic. He has a physical allergy to alcohol. alcohol when that man puts alcohol in his body he cannot stop drinking it he just can't it's like when he swallows alcohol it flips the switches on the way down the throat and it just says more and i mean and that man can absolutely not stop drinking and i can guarantee you that when he's not drinking he's thinking about drinking and I can tell you that about my dad because that is that is alcoholism and that is what I have also I mean I get that in a couple of the speakers this week and by the way you guys have set the bar way too high but they've talked very very eloquently about about the phenomena of craving about the fact that that we are physically allergic to alcohol and that we have a mind that tries to convince us that our best idea is to drink more of it after we've just gotten in a jam from drinking it in the first place you know and it doesn't matter what our outcomes are you know my alcoholism is not defined on my outcomes I didn't have any DUIs I wasn't old enough to have a license I wasn'T old enough to get married, have children and neglect them I'm sure I would have gotten to it I didn'T go to jail I just didn'T get caught and then I would HAVE been a juvenile so I'D have gone to juvie jail I don'T know if that counts but seriously if you take a look at the list of outcomes and then you take A LOOK AT MY LIFE I WOULDN'T have qualified for Alcoholics Anonymous if it was based on our outcomes if it was based on the consequences, if it were based on how much alcohol we drank, if it's based on a number of people we offended or the number of laws we broke and how all that played out in our lives, I would not have qualified for Alcoholics Anonymous. But what I can tell you is this. I am a real alcoholic. In our book, it talks about real alcoholics. And if you read that, that is who I am. I have an allergy to alcohol. When I drink alcohol, it flips a switch on the way down my throat and it holds me hostage and I have to drink until I cannot physically consume alcohol any longer. That's just what I do when I start. And so it's really in my best interest to stay with you and not start drinking. It really is because I have that list of stuff left and I can go out and get those things in fairly short order, I'm certain, because I've got skills today and a driver's license and a job that I could give up and people in my life who trust me and rely on me. I have a lot of things today, and to drink would just be to offer all of them to alcoholism. You know, I started drinking when I was nine years old. I look at nine-year-olds today, and I'm thinking, seriously? Nine? Ooh, I was little. You know? But I started drink alcohol when Iwas nine years o, not because my dad was alcoholic, not because things in my house were crazy, not because I was any of the... I just started drinking alcoholwhen I was 9 years old because Iwas curious about what itwould do. You know, alcohol was incredibly important in my house. It was important to my father that he drink it every day and drink a lot of it. It was importante to my mother that he have none of it, and therein was the squabble, and it was the Squabble that just threw everything off as far as I was concerned, and I would ask questions about what is that stuff, and all I was ever told was that stuff's for adults. You don't have to worry about it, and you know what? I'm tenacious. I'm like a dog with a bone. If I ask you a question, give me an answer. Because if you don't, I'm going to go figure it out. And, you know, and I went to figure out what alcohol was because nobody would answer my questions. And, truth be told, they didn't know what to tell me. You know? I mean, they did not have the ability to live in the reality of what alcohol is. Alcohol was and wasn't in their lives any more than, you knows, some of us did before we got here. But the truth was this. I knew it was important. I didn't now why, but I knew that it was importan. And so I just wanted to know what this stuff was. And so when I was nine years old, I spent the night with one of my friends. Her parents had a full bar in the basement. We convinced her mom to let us sleep downstairs so that we could play our music all night and all that kind of stuff. And we started picking bottles off the bar and we picked the bottles based on their labels. And my first pick was Christian Brothers because it had pilgrims on the label. I'm nine, pilgrims, they're cute. Okay, so I picked, and for years I said, oh, you know, I picked Christian Brothers. It was whiskey and I'm telling that story And, you know, there's a Catholic nun who's been in recovery about 30 years. And Sister Maurice is sitting out there and she goes, honey, that's brandy. I was like, leave it to the clergy to let me know what I've been drinking. So brandy was the first thing I picked. And, yeah, we just worked our way down the bar and we took a slug off of every bottle. And none of it tasted good to me. I remember that night like it was yesterday. I'm alcoholic. I rememberthat night likeitwasyesterday. And I remember I have no idea how many bottles we took down off that shelf and how many drinks we took, but I remember that all of it was awful. But I also know that for me, that was a night of firsts. It was my first drink. It was mi first drunk. It was m first blackout. The next day was my f rst hangover. I mean, I hit the ground running. And I remember the moment that alcohol produced the effect on me that hooked me, that hooked my mind. Because I tell you what, I was terrified when I was a kid. I was scared of everything. I was afraid of you, I was scary of shadows, I was scared loud noises. I was scare of things that moved too fast. I was scarred of shouting voices. I was absolutely terrified of everything because I lived in a violent alcoholic home and nothing was for certain and nothing was on time. And there is a sound that still today will get me if I'm not expecting it and it's the sound of tires rolling down a gravel driveway. There are sounds that go with alcoholism and I was a little kid and sounds stuck. And that night when I picked those bottles off that shelf and I got enough in me to feel the effect produced by alcohol, for the first time in my little life, I was able to exhale. I don't know what happened to the fear but it left. I used to walk around with my hands balled up and little fists like this. I was the kid who would chase other kids home from school, and I was just praying that somebody would swing. Because I knew that being scared was not a good idea, but being angry was a position of control. I had that figured out at nine. I didn't have those words, but I had it figured out. I had to figure it out at 9. And so I'm walking around, and I got my hands balled up in fists, and I've got my shoulders up on my ears, and I'm just ready. I'm ready for whatever's going to happen. And there are some people that I can swing back on, and there are others that I cannot. And the ones that I could, they'd never swing. and that night when I got enough alcohol in me and that effect came over me for the first time, all of a sudden my shoulders came off my ears a little and my hands let loose a little and I exhaled and I thought oh my god my mom just needs a drink I mean seriously if she would just drink everything would be better I don't know what's wrong with her I mean this is some good stuff I immediately understood my dad I didn't know why he got so angry and why he had to beat us a lot but I understood why he drank this stuff and I knew that if my mom would just relax and have a freaking drink everybody would get along a lot easier and that was the beginning of me resenting my mother because when I had that effect produced by alcohol I thought man, I get it and I love this stuff and I made a decision that next day I was like, I'm going to drink as much of that stuff as often as I can, period I mean there was no oh I don't think this is a good idea I feel really bad about last night I mean what's not to like you know the shoulders were off the ears the hands let loose a little bit I exhaled, the effect produced by alcohol was freaking magic and I was going to get it again period and so from that point forward every decision I made and every relationship that I built was based on whether or not it got me closer to a bottle of alcohol. Because for me, it was about drinking. And I'm serious. There are little friends that I had, and I wouldn't spend the night at their house because I had friends whose parents had booze in their house, and I was going to make sure that they invited me to spend the nighttime. And so everything that I did revolved around my access to alcohol, period. I didn't know any of that. I looked back on that, and I was like, oh my gosh. That's why I did that. You know, I had one girlfriend left by the time I went into treatment my sophomore year. And she didn't drink much, and her parents didn't keep booze in their house. And she was the only girlfriend that I would spend any time with whatsoever. But I would never spend time with her unless she was willing to go out walking the streets with me. And she wasn't a good girl, and she wouldn't do that very often. but every now and then she'd go out and run the streets so that she could help me find some alcohol because it was living on the wild side for her, it was just daily life for me but everybody else was directly connected with alcohol and that's just what I did you know and when did I become physically addicted to alcohol I don't have a date for that. What I do know is that I crossed the line to where I physically didn't have choice whether I was going to drink or not the last six to eight months of my drinking, it's a little fuzzy i was drinking around the clock i was unable to draw a sober breath without shaking apart and being incredibly sick to my stomach and i just couldn't do it and so the only thing that would take it away the only things that would take the edge off was to choke down some alcohol and there were mornings when i woke up and i thought i do not want to drink today but an hour after i was awake i did not have the choice to not drink I just didn't have the choice and I don't know when that happened but I know that by the time I was 15 years old I was drinking the clock round for those of you who fell into that pattern of drinking and you hung in there for 30 or 40 years my hat is off to you I mean seriously I wimped out early there's no way I mean drinking theclock round that's a lot of freaking work and it's really a lot of work when you got no money I had no money All I had was my ability to manipulate. And so what I did was I made friends with people who scared me. I made friend with people I'd been warned about. I made out of people that I didn't like. But I made sure that I had them in position of primary relationship because these were the kind of people that knew how old I was and they didn't care. These are the kind people in the dark house on the wrong side of the tracks who would make sure that every afternoon at 4.30 that there was a fifth of vodka sitting on the table for me. And when I walked in that door, I could just take the bottle, take the cap off, throw it away, put my back against the wall, slide down that wall and sit there, close my eyes and drink the way I needed to drink and pray to God that they would just act like I wasn't there because I paid for my booze and I didn't have any money. And every single afternoon when I had to cross the tracks and go to that dark little house, I would think, I just don't want to do this. I just don't wanna do this, but I was so sick I had to. And I started to live a life that I never knew people in small towns in middle America lived. I mean, honestly, how do you, you know, how does that happen? How does that happen to a girl like me? Because here's the deal at school, that same period of time when I'm drinking the clock round, I have a 3.8 grade point average. I'm playing three varsity sports, I'm president of my class and I'm the girl that all the moms want their sons to date. And I'm that girl on the outside. I am checking my boxes because I know that if I don't check my boxes, they're going to try to figure out what's wrong because all of a sudden I'm falling off and my grades are slipping and my extracurriculars are going away and people are starting to talk. So I was working overtime keeping everything together on the outside and I am absolutely drinking the clock round. And I am freaking exhausted. I'm exhausted. I am not having any fun. Drinking alcohol for me was never about fun. Drinking alchohol for me, I believed kept me together long enough so that I didn't commit suicide when I was 10 or 12. Alcohol was the solution that I needed to stay the course until I could understand just a little bit what you people had to offer me. You know, I believe that God absolutely sought me every day that I breathed and that he was that shadow and that every single moment he was with me and he was keeping an eye on me and He was making sure that you were ready for me when it was finally time and when I was finally able to get here. He was preparing you, I was being prepared by alcoholism. And two days after Thanksgiving in 1986, I landed in a treatment center in downtown Cleveland. And I landed into that treatment center in hometown Cleveland very simply because I finally got caught. I got caught and people ask me all the time, how did your mom not know and I'm like look when I was 12 my sister and I who my sister was 14 at the time we went we found my mom and we had a conversation it went something like this look we're kids we can't leave you've got to get us out of here we could no longer stand to live with my father's alcoholism we couldno longer stand the physical abuse the fact that we were getting beaten every day because we were breathing too loud we just couldn't do it anymore and we you're like, we know that you're staying here for the kids, but for the love of God, we really want to go. And so she left. And what she understood, which we did not understand, which was the moment she walked out of that house, you see, he had a union job and hers was non-union, which meant that with his pay we could make it and without his pay, we couldn't because she worked just as hard, but she made less money. And so, she knew she was going to have to take on another job or maybe another two jobs just to make ends meet. And we didn't know that. I had no situational awareness on finances at all. I'm 12, but all I knew was I was tired of being beaten and I was tied to living with my dad's alcoholism and I no longer understood him. I just didn't understand him and I hated him and I hate him because he didn't want me to live with him. I hated her because she wouldn't stand up for us. I hated here because as far as I was concerned she offered us up because he did not beat her but he beat us And I just hated everything, and we're like, just get us out of here. Just change something. And so we left. So my mom was working two and three jobs just to pay the rent and keep food on the table. That's what she was doing. While I'm drinking the clock round, she's working her tail off, making sure that we've just got the basics. And so I finally get caught. and it was just a miscalculation on my part instead of crossing the tracks I figured we'd stay at my house instead because my mom had finally gotten a boyfriend who was nice to her and treated her very well and did things like would pick her up take her to dinner and pay our standards were very low so she was going out of town and my sister and I got together and said let's not go anywhere tonight let's just have them bring the stuff to us it was a wild miscalculation they came to us it was bad one of them you know they brought me instead I don't know you know I'm not sure why they started buying me bottles of vodka but they did and it agreed with me to a point um but for that that night they brought a bottle of Jack Daniels and one of them said a whole bottle of jack man she can't drink that much well you know i always had something to prove and so I drank the entire bottle it was the fifth of Jack Daniels and I just sat there and I just chugged the whole thing and I really didn't care and I just wanted oblivion and I got it because I drank the whole thing in under a couple of hours and just absolutely went into an alcohol stupor. I was curled up into the fetal position in the corner of the couch, was unable to move for several hours. And by the time my mom walked in because she had gotten in a fight with that boyfriend and came home early, she found her baby daughter, her straight A student, her class president, her three varsity sports a year kid sitting in all of her bodily fluids completely unable to move. So I got caught. The next day, somehow the cops end up there. There's a list of people who were at my house. There are warrants issued for the arrest of several of the people that were, you know, aiding and abetting minors. It's a bad scene because these people aren't nice. And so they're, you Know, everything is just falling apart and things are going crazy. And my only thought is I got to get out of town. I got to get outside because, you Now, I'm 15. So there's high drama. And, you And I think, oh, all of a sudden the TV shows kick in and I've got to get out of town. And one of the counselors at school, she calls me in on Monday and she said, what the heck happened at your house over the weekend? I'm like, well, you know my dad drinks. She said, well yes, he's the town drunk, sweetie, but what happened at your house? And I'm Like, well I've been drinking just a little here and there and we had these people. I didn't exercise good judgment and they came to the house and all of a sudden we didn't have choice. And I just built this elaborate story. And, I said, but you know, maybe I should go away for an evaluation for my drinking because every now and then I drink just a touch more than I probably ought to. And you know it's a family disease. And if I drink a little too much I could get it too. And she said, well that might not be a bad idea. Why don't you go away? They have a 10 day evaluation in Cleveland at this inpatient hospital. And i said, I think that sounds perfect. And she says, well, I'll call him right now. You can go in tomorrow. And I was like, wait, wait. I got a few things I need to take. I had some affairs to get in order. Now, I don't know what affairs a 15-year-old has to get in order, but I had affairs to getting in order and we didn't want to jump the gun. It was a good idea and all, but let's just get things set but let us not go too fast. So I had two weeks. I had 2 weeks to kill before I was to be put into Glen Bay Hospital which was scheduled for the Saturday after Thanksgiving of 1986. And so for those two weeks, I absolutely just did nothing but drink. Well, not like that was a huge deviation from what I had done prior. But I continued to drink the way I always drank. And what I did was I tried to drink more and faster so that I could just die. Because, you see, death didn't scare me. It was living the way it was living that I couldn't really stand any longer. I just couldn't. I just really wasn't interested in it. Dying? Hey, bring it on. I'm good with that. But living the way I was living, no thank you. No thank you, I've had enough. I really had had enough and so I tried to put together some scams so that it would work, so that I would quit passing out so I could drink more and none of it worked. I spent the last two days prior to checking into treatment, I didn't do drugs, I just didn't care for them much but I had gone to these people, I had great people in my life and I explained to them, I'm like, I need to not pass out because I pass out, You know, my body can only take about a fifth a day, and then I pass out. I know, it's a little wimpy. And I said, I've just got to figure out a way so that I don't pass out so I can drink more and I can just get this deal done. And so they had given me a baggie full of random colored things, and they were like, take this and that and then this and then that. I did that. I got confused because I got drunk. And I ended up, you know, ODing for a couple of days. And by the time I endedup in downtown Cleveland in Glen Bay Hospital in treatment, I was in a three-day blackout. And I came to, I got there, I guess, on Saturday morning. I came Monday evening at some point. And they didn't believe at the time that adolescents were real alcoholics. And so they didn' t believe that we really needed detox. They just believed that we needed to be locked up. And so, they locked me up in a room where everything was bolted down. The only thing that I had with strings on it was the pajama top that I had on. And they just left me laying in that room to shake, rattle, and roll. And by the time I came to on Monday afternoon or evening, whenever that was, I was incredibly sick. I was incredible sick. And they kept trying to convince me to eat something. I mean seriously? You guys remember shaking off a real bad drunk? You know, day three, here, have something to eat. Yeah, I'll get right to that. And so I was in there for this thing and I had answered some of their questions those first couple days when I was into blackout, like, how much do you drink? And I told them the truth. That was not the plan. You know, how often do you drank? And i told him the truth that was not the plan and i guess it so anyway so they decided after my 10 days they were keeping me i was going downstairs for treatment i thought that was you know they were overreacting a bit i mean honestly they were overeacting a bit but off i go down to treatment i don't have any choices i'm a kid and um and i get downstairs and all of a sudden all the counselors are rolling up their sleeves and loosening their ties and they're run into the stairwell, and I said, hey, I stopped one of them. I said what's going on? And they said your sister's here. I said my sister's here. Now we'll go back just a bit. My sister, she's two years older than me. I didn't do drugs. I drank. She did drugs and didn't drink. It was a great thing with no conflict of interest in our house. And while I was getting honest about how much and how often I was drinking, I was also getting honest About how much she used and with whom and where. And so they called my mom at home and they said you've got another live one. Why don't you bring her in after the other one finishes the assessment period? And so on day 10, I went downstairs because my assessment period was finished and they brought my sister in. They said, don't want to go visit Deb? Oh, sure. Took her up, you know, the door locks behind her. And they said, you now here put these on. And she freaked out. And she tore up everything she could get her hands on. So that's what the counselors were responding to is my sister absolutely losing it up there because I had gotten honest about her drug use. So ten days later she comes downstairs, because they're keeping her too. They overreacted to the entire thing. So she comes downstairs for treatment. I run up because I haven't seen her in 20 days now and I'm like, oh hey it's great to see you. And she looked at me and she said, don't go to sleep. I was like, wide awake. So I didn't sleep for the last 20 days of treatment. Honestly, I was in there for 40. I got out January 6th, 1987. I learned as little as I could in treatment. I listened very, very little. I mean, really, what's the point of all that? I had no intention of staying sober. I just thought with this time off, I'm good. Seriously, with this times off, I just got into a bad rut for a while. I mean bad things happen, but it was just a little bit of a rut for awhile. I'm out of it now so everything is fine. I'm really not alcoholic. I mean, seriously, I'm good. And so I was leaving treatment that day. My sister catches me when I'm getting on the elevator. She said, you don't relapse until I get out of here. Are you clear? Crystal. She said you go get my stuff and you go get a bottle and she said you put it in our place and you wait. You will not be out there drinking while I'm in this place because of you. Roger that? Now I don't know why I listened to her. I have no idea why I listen to her but I did. And I went home and I went to the people and I got her stuff, which I wasn't used to doing but you know, if you find a little money they'll give you pretty much anything you want. And so I got hers stuff and I bought my bottle and I stashed it and I waited for ten days. I was thirsty. I was thirst- I mean my head was screaming like what are you doing? This is nuts. You got a bottle under the floorboard. Let's go. How's she gonna know? And I'm thinking I don't know but she'll know. She'll know so I waited for her to get home from treatment she got home from treatment and it was like oh you know the sky's open and I thought oh here we go I can finally have something to drink and she walks in and I'm like come upstairs let me show you what I got and we walk upstairs and I lift the floorboard which is our stash place and I show her everything I got and she goes wait wait wait she said the last couple of days in treatment I had what they called a spiritual experience and I was like no no no no no And she said, yeah. She said, they seem to think that maybe we need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, AlcoholicsAnonymous? You don't even drink. She said. They said, NA sucks, so we have to go AA. And I was like, uh-uh. And I'm like, I'm not going to AA. And I just like, huh-uh, we're not going AA. I got nothing for it, uh uh. I mean, I had gotten all the way through treatment and had not attended a real AA meeting. 40 days in treatment and I had not attended a real AA meeting how sad is that my dad had good insurance on us though and my sister says we have to give this thing a try and I said I don't want to try this I just want to drink and she said I know that because you didn't have a spiritual experience but I did we're going to AA and so off we go to AA and this is how we did it my mom would drop us off 15 minutes before the meeting started we'd stand outside we'd bum cigarettes I didn't smoke, but I learned. And we'd stand out there and we'd smoke cigarettes long enough to be late getting inside to the meeting. So we would walk in late. We would make as much noise as possible. We would pull the chair out from the table and we would screech it across the floor. We had the metal folding ones a lot, and so we would screech it cross the floor We would sit as far away from the epicenter of the meeting as we could. We would write notes. We would try to get dates with sick men who think that newcomer adolescents are cute. I know who you are. And we would be utter disruptions to the meeting. I would get up, and I didn't even like coffee. I would go to the bathroom, and then I would say, I would sit up and get three cups of coffee during the course of the meeting, just up, down, up, done, up. I mean, we call it to-ing and fro-ing. I don't know what I was doing, but all of the focus was to be on me. I was an utter disruption to every meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that we walked into. Every single one. And I would leave. I figured out the whole thing that you guys pray at the end of everything. I don't know what that's about. I would always miss the beginning prayer. But the whole, you know, praying to close it down, I wasn't praying. I mean, seriously, you want me to pray? Do you know how many words there are in the Lord's Prayer? I mean who teaches you that? Seriously, who teaches? I don' t know the words to that and you're not pulling my punk card like that so I'm not standing in any circle. and so I am out of there before the prayer we do this for a couple of months and so one day I am scooting out of the meeting it's an early march I am scooping out the meeting just before the prayer happens and there is the president of Alcoholics Anonymous his name is Max Shadburn and Max sits in the back of the room I sit on the right for my crap and he sits on the left and he runs things from back there and he's been sober since Christ was a child and he sits back there and he runs things. And he has glasses that sit down on his nose and he's really old. I have no idea how old he really was. 70s I'm guessing. And, he had a really long finger and he used to wag it at people. And, they would do things. And, he would run things. And then, there was a woman who would sit in the front of the room and her name was Jane. And Jane had been sober maybe one click shorter than Mac. But, they were in there together. I'm sure they were walking the streets without shoes. And, she would sit up in the front of the meeting, and they would fight with one another. Back and forth, back and forth. And they would fight about things. I mean, who cares what page something's on in the book? I mean seriously why does that matter? But they would fighting about these things. And so I'm dashing out of the reading, and Mac is standing in front of door like this. And he looks at me over his glasses, and he said, get in the circle. So I went over, and I got in the circle. I don't know why I was listening to an old man. and I thought I could take him, but there I was in the circle. And I'm just standing there, and I'm looking around. Everybody else pretty much has their eyes closed, and of course I don't know the words to the Lord's Prayer, so I'm not joining in. And the prayer is done, and then I head back to the door again. Well, Mac hadn't moved. And he's standing there and he said, are you alcoholic? And I said, I don' t know. I mean, I was diagnosed with alcoholism. People called me an alcoholic. They told me I should introduce myself in meetings as an alcoholic. But nobody had ever really asked me if I was alcoholic, nor did I have a good working definition of what that meant. And I said, I don't know. He said, can you control your drinking? Well, why would you? I mean, seriously, what's the point of that? But I said I don' t know. I never tried. And he said, well, here's five bucks. Go find out. he said but if it works if you're able to control your drinking i never want to see you again if it doesn't work you get back here and get ready to do some things differently so i went and i found my sister and i'm like go get your five bucks we are out of here but i listened to what he had to say and i was like i don't know if i can control my drinking or not. You know, you guys had started to get in my head just a little bit, even though I was doing my best to completely shut all of you out. And so I'm thinking, well, let me go try this controlled drinking thing. I mean, maybe that's the deal. Maybe that's what I ought to be doing. And so, I was going to have three shots and two beers because based on the way I drank, that was moderate. And I was, and that was going give me a buzz and I was just going to ride it out. So, I had three shots in two beers. Well, I mean shot slugs out of the bottle, you know, I never eat glasses that weren't necessary. So I had three shots right out of the neck of the bottle and two beers, and I sat there, and the buzz came on, and I thought, this is good. This is good, I was getting a little of the relief, because since the day that I had woken up in treatment, my shoulders were back on my ears, and my hands were back in fists, and there wasn't anything I could do to get any relief from that, and I was waiting on somebody to swing. and what was worse was that now I didn't have any alcohol in my system and so I had developed over the years it's this merry-go-round of people, places things, situations and events that I never ever wanted to see but it wouldn't quit going around and around in my head because I didn' t have any I mean what are you supposed to do with that stuff what are your supposed to with that when you got no booze and you got not program him. But I got this miracle round going around in my head, my shoulders are on my ears and my hands are in fists and I just hate everything. And I have three shots and I have two beers and the shoulders are halfway down. And the hands are a little bit looser although they're not all the way out. And The Thought occurs to me, I wonder what one more shot would do. I mean I'm good, I'm sitting right here, I'm not in any trouble, I am not on the wrong side of the tracks, I'm not hanging out with those people anymore. Nothing bad is happening to me, I'm good. I'm just going to stay right here and just have one more and see how that works for me. And so I had one more and the shoulders came down a little bit further and the hands let loose just a littlebit more but I still didn't have that overwhelming feeling of relief that I needed from alcohol. I still didnt have that release. The merry-go-round was still rolling. And so i had another beer and I had another shot and I got back on the wrong side of the tracks because what I did not know was that I had an allergy to alcohol and when I put it in my system it would flip that switch and it would just demand more and that I was to get no relief any longer because I had progressed in my alcoholism to the point where alcohol just wasn't working like it used to and that the only way that the merry-go-round in my head was going to stop was that if I went back to drinking, absolutely around the clock. And I knew, I knew that. I knewthat my only option was to drink the way I drank before I went to treatment. And that was not working for me. That was notworking for me I was exhausted, I was sick, I was ashamed, and I had no choices. And I didn't want to do that any longer. And I heard Max Shadburn in my head say, If it works, I never want to see you again. But if it doesn't, you get back here and you get ready to do some things different. So March 15th, 1987, I walked back into Alcoholics Anonymous. I got there on time. I sat in the middle. I only got one cup of coffee. And I kept my mouth shut. And that was enough. I still tried to get out of the meeting. Or at least stand by the door so that I could get out of there pretty quick because all that praying stuff. but I stood in the circle and I turned to run out of that room and Max Shadburn was back at that door and he said, did you get a sponsor? I don't even know how he knew I was out drinking and I said, no and he says, you're not leaving this room until you get a sponsor well I'd heard enough that it was women with women men with men, I thought that was just silly, but whatever so I walked up to every woman in that room and I asked, will you sponsor me And every woman in that room said, no, mm-mm, no. It wasn't, no I can't, I have too many, no I can not, I just had a baby, no I cannot. None of the normal excuses people give to get out of service work. Nobody in this room knows anything about that, right? But I got none of the normal excuses. So I go to leave the room again and Mac is standing at the door and he said, did you get a sponsor? And I said, no one in here will sponsor me. He said, that's a lie. And I said, I'm not asking her. He said, oh yes you are. And I said mm-mm. You know who he was talking about? Yeah the one in the front of the room. And Jane like I said she was sober forever and she was alive longer than that. And she was and you know the car would pull up to the back of the church with her in it and newcomers would go and grab her high back chair and they would scurry out car side and open the car door and they Would gently load her into the high back chair. And then four newcomers Would carry her down into the basement to her proper place and positioning in the front of the room. And it was like the Pope moving through the mall, you know, and they Would place her in the Front of the Room and she got the only crystal ashtray in the joint. The rest of us reason those metal ones where the bottoms are a real wobbly, you Know, And she smoked cigarettes on extenders. And then somebody would run about and get her coffee and bring her coffee and make sure it was just so. And then everybody in the room, no matter how long they had been there and been in their chair, they got out of theirs to go greet her. And she would sit up there and she would smile and she'd say, oh, how are you today? It's so nice to see you. You're still sober. I'm so glad you're with us. And people would light her cigarettes and, oh, thank you. and everybody just loved her and I was like, eww. But Mac was standing at the door and he wouldn't let me leave and we had that exchange and I walked up to Jane and I said, will you sponsor me? She looked at me and she said, why should I? Okay, now I have an answer for that because I'm 15. I got an answer for everything. And it had something to do with where she could shove her cigarette extender. It did. I have a lot to say. But it was the first time in my life that I realized, not the first time that it happened, but the first time in life that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself. Because instead of telling her where to shove her cigarette extendoir, something that came out of my mouth that sounded like, because I need to stay sober and I don't know how. And then I'm like, who said that? I mean, duh, who said that? And she gave me the list. The list of things that some of us get from our first sponsors that tell us everything we're going to do in a 24-hour period and the fact that we're gonna redo that every single day. And so I get the list of stuff I'm going to have to do. You know, read so many pages, go to so many meetings, call so many people, all of that kind of stuff. And I'm like, oh, my life is over. I hate this woman. I hate my life. I go home and the next day at seven o'clock, there's a car sitting in my driveway and it's not just any car but it's an enormous 1970s Ford LTD it's the great big maroon kind that would float down the highway and if you thought that maybe possibly you might want to turn right up there at the end of the block you started turning real early and the car would sense that the corner was coming and it would glide around and then it would think about heading that direction. Do you guys remember those cars? I mean, they're a lot of work to drive. And one of these glided into my driveway and it gets in the driveway and it does this. And I'm standing on my porch looking at this thing going, what in the world is that? What in the word is that and there are two old guys sitting in the front seat smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and telling bad jokes, listening to country music. And I'm like, what in the world is going on? And I walk up to the car, and I was like... And they rolled down the window, and they said, Hi there, Jane Sennis, get in the car! And I went, what? No, no, no. Oh, people are going to see me. They're going to be like, They're getting in this car. I don't even know these men. And I get in The Car, and we go to meetings. And they're there every freaking night at 7 o'clock. They're there Every Freaking Night at 7 O'Clock. And my mom, she watches the car pull in, and her response is, honey, yay, he's here. And I'm thinking, oh, no. What I didn't know is that while they had had a group conscience about us to try to figure out what they were going to do to us or with us, and they had decided that Mac would throw us out, Jane would sponsor us if we resurfaced and we had this whole cadre of drivers who were going to show up every night at 7 o'clock to take us to a meeting. And I'm standing on my front porch and I've got my arms crossed and I'm thinking, I'm not getting in that car. They can't make me get in that card. I got in that cart yesterday and the day before that and the date before that and I don't understand what they're saying at meetings anyway. Why do I have to get in the freaking car? I don''t want to go to the donut shop because it's always the donut shops after the meeting here. We go to freaking donut shop, I gotta go to school tomorrow. They don't bring me home till midnight because I'm at the freaking donut shop. I don't even like donuts. And now I've got to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, and oh my God, all my friends are 65. It's a sad picture, isn't it? And I don't know when it happened or how it happened, but there was a day. It was shocking to me. But there was the day when I caught myself at 5 minutes till 7 standing at the front looking out the curtain and looking forward to them pulling in the driveway. I mean, how does that happen? But I'm looking forward of them pulling into the driveway, and I can't wait to get in the car to hear the same damn joke I heard last week. and when I get in the car and here's the deal you guys didn't snag me with sobriety because I still wasn't sure that I wanted a lot of that and you guys didn't snack me with God because that scared me to death and you guy certainly didn't snagged me with step work because God knows I had no intention of doing any of that and you didn't snagged me with all of the, you know, quick little one-liners. What you snagbed me with was consistency and love. You showed up every single night at 7 o'clock, and you sat there and waited on me to get in the car. And no matter what I acted like while I was in your care, you still took me to the freaking donut shop. And you didn't ask for gas money, and you didn't ask me to buy my own donut or my own cup of coffee because you knew we were poor. And you let me bum cigarettes by just pushing your pack in the middle of the table so I didn't have to ask every single time. You were consistent and you were loving to me. And when we sat at the donut shop, Jane made it really clear I was not allowed to talk in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. She said that's a place where we talk about solution. You don't know anything about the solution and you'll not be spreading your disease. So there was no talking in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. But what I was allowed to do was I was aloud to go to the doughnut shop and I was alowed to ask any question that I wanted. And so at the doughnuts shop, I would ask these old guys about everything that I heard in a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous that I didn't understand. And they would tell tell me the most incredible stories about how their lives came back together and how they made amends and how They got a relationship with a God that They never wanted. And what They did was They drew Me this stick figure, and They showed Me that the knee bone is really connected to the leg bone. What They did Was They showed me that step two comes before step three because it can't be any other way. And that once You get to step three and You start this prayerful movement between step three through step seven, there is no stopping because you've just made a deal with god in three that you were going to go all the way through and you are going to keep that commitment and they drew me that stick figure and they showed me what it could be like and i would ask these questions about about their journey and about what that looked like and they would say here's the way the program of alcoholics anonymous works for us here's your stick man now if you want to put meat on those bones take the steps yourself. And what they did was they baited me. They baited me with stories about how things come back together. They baited with stories of forgiveness. They bated me with stories of love. They Baited me with the promises of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm not talking about just page 83. I'm talking about the promises after the fifth step that says things like I can walk upright and look the world in the eye. Those are the promises that mattered to me and they baited me with those promises through just sitting and telling me about themselves and about their lives and about how the program of Alcoholics Anonymous works and I went to Jane and I said I want to work these steps because I knew I couldn't speak in a meeting of Alcoholics anonymous till I worked them and I'm and I winter and I said I'm ready to start these steps and I had I don't know six weeks of sobriety or something and um and she said nope she said you're not going to get to work steps until you figure out what the four absolutes are I was like the four absolutes and she said figure out what they are and their absolute love honesty purity and unselfishness they're the spiritual principles of the Oxford groups and in Akron we didn't let the Oxford groups go we covered them up and called them other things but we didnít let all that go for a long time and we still publish the four absolutes pamphlet at the Cleveland Intergroup and I still get stacks of them because the four absolutes, I looked those things up because Jane said tell me what those things are and then you'll be ready to work the steps. And so I would ask everybody I could find, tell me about the four absolutes. And we would have four absolutes discussion meetings and people would tell me everything that they knew about love, purity, honesty, and unselfishness. And I would take all of this information back to Jane and she'd say nope, that's not what I'm looking for. Nope, that'S not good enough. And Max Shadburn who had not talked to me since I came back, he said little one come here a minute. I walked up to him. Now, I knew he was still mad at me. And I said, yeah. And he says, I hear you're trying to figure out what the four absolutes are. And I say, I am. Jane won't let me work my steps until I figure those out. And he said, well, don't tell her that I told you. But the four absolutes, he said those are the goals of recovery. He said those were the things that you're going to put in the place of the character defects when you get to step seven and God takes those away. He said you've got to have something to put them in their place. And that's what you're gonna put. He said, but that's what we work for, is love, honesty, purity, and unselfishness. And I said, all right, Mac, thanks a lot. And I went and I called Jane. I said、Jane, those are the goals of recovery. That's what I'm going to be working for, and I'm gonna put those things in place of my character defects, and I get to step seven. She said, that damn Mac, I knew he'd tell you. She launched me on a course of vigorous action, And I'm a product of group sponsorship. You know, Jane couldn't do everything that I needed done, nor did she have the language for everything that I needed to understand. But what she did is she had a long history with all of the members of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And she knew which of us were the strongest in certain areas. And so she would randomly sign me out to people to be sponsored through various steps and to take a look at different things. And she had no spiritual language whatsoever. Her deal, when we got to step two, she said, God has good orderly direction. You'll be needing some of that. You haven't had much, and I'll be giving it to you. So in step three, I promptly placed my life in her care, and we moved forward. And I say that kind of tongue-in-cheek, but in reality, it was really true. In reality, It was really truth. I was introduced to the power of the group, and I was introduce to the recovery, and I was to the steps, and it made me curious about God. and it started me on this path but I walked through those the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous very quickly because what they also understood about me was they needed to knock the edge off they just needed to knock the age off so that I could sit in a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous and understand what you guys were talking about so that i could feel like i belonged here and so i wasn't always the fish out of water and so I got through all of those steps and you know it didn't do everything that I needed them to do but it took the edge often allowed me to sit still and sometimes it's just about sitting still and so I sat still and I tell you what I graduated from high school and I left sorry I left and went to college one of those but I left when I went to college and at three and a half years sober I couldn't sit still anymore three and half years over I was ready to crawl out of my skin again now I had been doing I had been, you know, holding service commitments at my groups and I had been sponsoring a few girls here and there. It was a little tragic. I had Been, you Know, doing the things in Alcoholics Anonymous that I was asked to do, but at three and a half years, I was fidgety. I was fidgeting. And there were some guys in my group and they were all, I don't know what they, well, I didn't know What they were doing, but they were, they were All taking the steps. There was this one day format of the steps and there was a guy, his name was Jeremiah in our area. When I left to go to college, I didn t leave the state of Ohio. So Jeremiah was taking guys through this tune-up, essentially. It's one-day step stuff. So he was taking them through this tune-op, and after this tune up, I mean, they were like walking lighter. They were making eye contact at meetings. They were smiling a little bit. They Were praying more freely. And I was, you know, I'm sitting in my home group on Wednesday nights, and all these guys go to the home group, and I'm just watching them. And i'm thinking there's something going on here, and i need to know something about it. Because they're getting well. And these are guys that are constantly in a bad mood. And they're not in a mad mood anymore, and there's somthing going on. And so I cornered them at coffee one night, and said what are you guys doing? What are you doing? And they said, well, we're not doing anything special. I said, yes, you are. And they says, well you know Jeremiah takes people through the steps. And I said take me through. And he said, you need to be taking them with a woman. And I say, show me the woman who does it. And they say, I don't know any. And I then said teach me. Teach me. And we went through the Steps in this very condensed format. and I was, during this day and a half that we spent I was able to see how the knee bone was connected to the leg bone I was about to touch it in my life I got it I established a covenant relationship in step 3 and I carried that all the way to step 7 because there is no amen after the prayer in step 2 the amen comes at the end of the 7th step prayer so it means that all of that activity is a prayer the entire thing and when I say amen I'm saying I stake my life on what I just did and said that's what the word amen means and so at the end of step 7 I say amen and I say to God okay I've just done the work I am in your care let's move forward let's get me in right relationship with the people around me so that you can use me more effectively that's what I do in the steps and all of a sudden I can sit still all of the sudden I can sit still. And the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is making more and more sense to me as I go, and I start to build a life that's worth living. And I graduated from college, and sorry, I've got a master's degree. If you weren't up for the talk last night, it's a little uncertain. But I built a life That's Worth Living, and, you know, and I'm working, and I'm paying taxes, and I'm going to meetings, and I'm sponsoring people, and I'm holding service commitments, and I'm doing the things that we're brought up here to do, and I'm tackling every single belief system that I have ever had is being challenged in the fellowship and through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, I honestly was taught that if you were rich, you got rich on the backs of poor people, and you were to be hated. Well, that doesn't serve you real well when you just spent a whole lot of money getting a lot of education so you can make some money, you know? So I'm supposed to hate everybody that i want to emulate so i mean every single thing that i believe to be true had to be challenged in alcoholics anonymous through this spiritual process i honestly believe today that i am a spiritual being having a human experience and that is why i'm so deeply connected to god and all of you are too and in alcoholix anonymous we develop a language that we all talk so that we can experience god together that's what we're doing here who knew who knew six years ago I meet this man and he is all of that. He's a major in the Marine Corps, he's six foot one, he has razor shaves his head, he has got shoulders out to here, he is a leader of Marines and he's funny and he' s handsome and I meet him and we're riding Harleys together and we are golfing together and we have a great time together and I fall head over heels in love with this guy. And he falls head over heals in love me. And God has been calling me into a deeper relationship with him and what I've been saying to God is hold on in a minute. I'll get right there, but did you see this guy? I mean, seriously, I'm a pretty good person. I'm doing the right thing most of the time, but have you seen him? And so God is calling me to a deeper relationship and I'm like, I hear you. I hear You. And I'll be there in a minute. But have you seen Him? So I have this relationship with this man, his name is Lee, and we are just absolutely all about it. And we are building this life together that's great. and so we're doing this deal and we date for a couple of years and he is absolutely by far my best friend and he loves what Alcoholics Anonymous has done in my life and we're just doing this thing and we are together for a few years and God continues to pursue me and bring me into deeper relationship with him and I continue to say through pure spiritual arrogance I hear you I'll be there in a minute and God finally says no I said now and so in eastern in 2005 god absolutely takes me to my knees i'm speaking at the louisiana state convention and um and i'm there and it's good friday morning it's and you know 5 a.m and the only place i can be comfortable is on my knees in prayer and meditation and one of my messengers is there there's a man from houston and he delivers messages straight from god directly to me and he walked up to me and she was speaking that weekend too and he said you know god said God sends me to these things because I have a message for someone. It's always someone very specific. And I'm thinking, okay, crazy guy. And he says, and I got a message this weekend, and I think that it's for you. And I said, well, what is it? He said, I don't know that yet. He said、 but you don't miss my talk on Sunday morning. And I am thinking, whatever. And he said, and sit beside my wife. And I was like, all right, all Right, All right. And so I am having this spiritual rearrangement. And what God says to me on Friday morning while I am on my knees in prayer and meditation He basically says this, I have perfect love to give you and you continue to block me. You have given me almost everything but you have held out and I've had it. Come to me all the way. I have work for you to do. And I couldn't fight it anymore and I just started to weep and I couldn'T stop. And I cried all theway through my talk on Saturday. and Walter walked up to me Saturday after my talk and he said, now I know for sure it's you. You sit next to Kay tomorrow morning and bring tissues. And I'm exhausted and I'm scared because what I know he's saying to me is get rid of the things of this world that blocks you from a relationship with me. That's what he's doing. And I know that what he is saying is go home and break up with this man and get him out of my way for a while. and i go and i hear walter talk on sunday morning and he absolutely delivers a message straight from god to me and there are really clear words and i got it and what god was saying is all the way now come to my church and come and be with me and i know that i gotta go home and i gotta break up with this beautiful man that i love dearly and i've got to start going to mass and I've got to raise my standards of behavior and I got to go the rest of the way because he's got work for me to do and he wants to use me more effectively and he can't do it in my current state. And so I go home and I break up with him and I explain to him what's going on and he said, you're leaving me for God? Really? And I said, yes, I'm leaving you for... He said, well, I love God and I said I don't know that. you don't pray you don' t ever talk about God you have no spiritual life whatsoever and what I know to be true is that I can' t do it all by myself in a relationship I have to have somebody who' s in that relationship with me doing the same thing and so we break up for a couple of months and it' s just absolutely awful and he comes back a couple months later and he' s been off doing some research of his own and he says so what' s the deal and I said I' m becoming a Catholic And he said, Catholic? Are you sure it's not Baptist or Methodist or something? And I said, I've been called to the Catholic faith. And he was like, all right, when's Mass? Then I said what do you mean? And he says, I'm going with you. And I say, why? You don't have to do anything for me. And he say, yes, I do. He said, because I'm not going to worship somewhere separate from my wife. so we spent a year in formation so that i could learn what it would mean if i were to actually join the catholic faith and he and i was baptized and we were brought into our faith together and um in in april of 2006 and june of 2006 he and I were married and in august of 2006 he left me in south carolina he went out to the desert in california he did work up workups and he went to war. And he went to Iraq and he did very, very well in Iraq. He was living in the streets of Fallujah with the Iraq Army. He and the Iraqi CO, they figured out that they were in opposing tanks in Kuwait in 1991. That wasn't great. They were sleeping in the same house. And he survived that and he ended up getting a bronze star out of that service. And we would talk. And when we would talk I was able to ask him things like, honey how would you like me to pray for you today? Is there any area where you're struggling where I could carry you? And we had a spiritual language between the two of us. Like, we have a spiritual language between all of us, I had a spiritual language with my husband. And we were able to do that thing and he came home and it was great. And then they moved his next deployment up and he turned right around and he was the XO of the battalion, which means he was kind of the vice president of a 1,200 man company and they went to Afghanistan. And while they were in Afghanistan they lost 20 and they lost 80 some from the field of 82 from the field of battle with significant life-changing injuries i mean loss of limbs being the internal organs burnt significant injuries and it was a very very difficult deployment for them and when i would talk to him and email him i would ask him how is it that i can pray for you today how can i support you and love you and i would sit and i Would just pray and I would just know that if he was going to come home he was gonna come home there wasn't a whole lot i could do about it one way or another and talk about sitting in the middle of powerlessness that's what I was doing and he came home right before Thanksgiving last year he came home and I was like oh thank God I really you know we didn't know they were launching mortar rounds into the CP and it was just ugly over there and he made it home and he and I we went through a really difficult transition period because all of them had survivors guilt it was just a bad scene and there was a lot going on and he walked home and we went through all of that together and at one point I looked at him and I said you know you just need to quit complaining at me because we're Catholic and you're not allowed to divorce me then he laughed and he's like I know I know it's not your fault anyway and we just kind of laughed about it and that was the thing that snapped him back and all of a sudden my husband was back and we were able to finally start planning for our future again finally start doing that thing and we hadn't been able to do that because everything was on hold because he was at war. And so we got into this place that my shoulders came off my ears, and we both exhaled, and we got our lives back together. And everything was moving forward, and everything was looking great, and I had started working for the Marine Corps, and everything Was really great. And on April 28th of this year, my husband was killed in a motorcycle accident about a mile and a half from our house on the way home from base and I'm standing in the kitchen because I went in to go to bed I knew that he was going to be late because he was always late and I was standing in the kitchen because I couldn't sit down and things weren't right and he was an hour and a half later than he was supposed to be and I picked up the phone and called into the battalion which I never did and I said have you guys seen Major Helton around there he's really late which I just never did that and the lieutenant says hold on a minute and he puts on one of the captains and instead of the captain introducing himself by captain in his last name he introduced himself by his first name and I said oh my god Ross what's going on and he said Deb Lieutenant Colonel Reed is on his way over and I say oh don't send him over because every time Lee was deployed I had always wondered if he dies over there what is my guy going to look like you know the guy who knocks on my door what's he going to looks like And I knew Lieutenant Colonel Reed because he's like the president of the 1,200-man company. So he's number one and Lee was number two. And he said, Deb, he said I'm so sorry, but Lee was killed. And I said how close to the house? And he says not very far at all. He said kind of at the bottom of the hill. And what I realized was I was standing there looking out my window and I could see, I live on the side of a mountain, and I can see at the top of the mountain and at the end of the bottom of my hill I could see the emergency lights. I said, Ross, am I looking at the accident scene where my husband was killed? And he said, in all likelihood you are, ma'am. Hang on, Lieutenant Colonel Reed will be there in a minute. And I didn't know how to breathe. And I did not know what I was supposed to do next. I did know how this worked. and John got there Lieutenant Colonel Reed got there and he walked in the house and he just grabbed me and he held me and I said John I don't know what to do and he said I don' t either but I'm going to figure it out for you just stand here and let me hold you and I went through the worst night of my entire life absolutely the worst talk about getting rearranged and we were sitting out front and we're drinking coffee and the sun was getting ready to pop up and I sent three text messages that night. One text message back to my group in South Carolina, one text message to the group there in California and one text messaged to the girl who runs the internet network and you all know that internet network if you're on the internet. You know, one text to the right person and everybody knows your business and so I sent it to her and she's in New Orleans and so i knew that everybody would know shortly and the sun was starting to come up and I looked at John and I said oh my god John I have to tell you something and he said okay and I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous I've been sober for 22 years and he says okay and I asked what that means for you is that there are going to be people who are goingto be arriving here the moment that sun comes up over the mountain and they don't look like your people They're a motley-looking crew, and they don't match. And they're not always going to behave right. But they're going to come because they love me, and they're gonna take over everything in this house. Everything. And he said, okay, does this crew have a leader? I said, she'll be easily identified the moment she gets here. And you guys swept into my house, and you took over my phones, and you started cooking and cleaning and making airport runs and scheduling airline tickets and sending out e-mails and walking through the numbers in my BlackBerry and calling people and letting people know what was going on. And I sat out on my front patio, and I drank coffee, and I stared off into space. And every now and then one of you would come, and you would lift me off my chair, andyou would hug me. And you would hugme in a way that would make me melt, And I would know that God was in you. And old-timers showed up who were with my group. Am I putting you right over the edge, Gary? Are we already there? Five minutes. Okay, five minutes. So anyway, so everybody's showing up at my house and they're telling me, you know, it's okay to be angry with God. He's big enough. He can handle it. It really is. You're okay. Just be angry avec God. You can make it up later. and I looked at them at one point I'm standing in the middle of my kitchen and I said why is everybody encouraging me to put anger between me and my only source of comfort and love God is working through you to tell me that I'm loved why in the world would I want to be angry with God that didn't make any sense to me and everybody was like well you know it'll be okay and they didn't have another answer for me and meanwhile my messenger the one from Louisiana he's trying desperately to get through my three lines of people who are protecting me from phone calls. And finally, Walter says, ask her if she wants to talk to Walter Hall now. And they said, do you want to talk to a guy named Walter Hall? He's a little insistent. And I said, oh, yes, for the love of God, yes. And he told them, he said, tell her I have a message for her from God. And i said, give me the phone. And Walter gets on the phone and he said darling, he He said, there are things that happen in this world that break God's heart. And you need to know that this is one of those things and God's heart is broken and it's going to heal alongside yours. You needn't be angry with him. And I said, thank you. Thank you. He said God didn't kill your husband, sweetheart, an 18 year old girl in a car killed your husband. And God's going to work overtime to make this all right. and i said i love you he said i know you do and i'll check on you later and at that point i put out the word i said look folks i understand that your fallback position is getting angry with god and you do what it is you need to do but for today i'm going to choose to stay in a loving relationship with a god i never wanted with a God who stopped me every single day that i didn't believe in him and demanded that i have a relationship with him and i'm going to hang in there with him. And that very first night john and i and the chaplain we prayed for that 18 year old girl and we prayed für her immediately because i know what happens when things go wrong in our lives when we're young and we don't forgive ourselves. I know what that produces later and i didn't want that for her and i sent john to find him and said just go tell her that she's forgiven just go tell her that I'm not angry with her because it was clearly her fault and I believe that those things and staying in a prayerful relationship with God and staying close to the people who are truly my spiritual mentors have allowed me to walk through this process with some dignity and with some knowledge that I would never have had otherwise What I know today is that God absolutely is good. Absolutely is good, nothing bad comes of God. And that God works in my life, he works overtime in my life to make things right for me moving forward. I had to redefine my entire purpose and I have not been able to do that yet. And there was an old timer who came to my house and I looked at him and he had lost, he's 75 and his wife had died of Alzheimer's and I said Joe what do I do now? And he said, sit still, make no decisions and listen for God because he's got work for you to do. But I don't know what it looks like and I don'T know where. So just sit still. Sit in the loving arms of God. And today when I get on my knees to pray, I can see God on his knees next to me with his arm around me. And tonight when I lay down to go to bed and my husband's not there to spoon me, I could feel God wrap himself around me and just hold me. And what he's saying is, well done, my good and faithful servant. We have more work to do. You'll not be going anywhere today. Stay here in my arms, and just let me hold you, and be still. Thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you.