The Difference Between Going to Meetings and Working a Program – Karen L.

Hi, my name is Karen, and I'm a very grateful and happy member of Al-Anon. I'm also extremely terrified, but I know that God has a plan for me and that everything's going to work out exactly how it's supposed to. There's a lot of people here who love me. I got an email earlier, and this fellow said to me, just look out there and know there are people here who love you and you're going to be okay, and I'm grateful for that. I want to thank the committee for allowing Al-Anon participation in their AA convention because, see, alcoholism is a family disease, and it affects every one of us. The alcoholic drinks and the Al-Al-Anons becomes affected by that, And I want to thank this Footprints in the Winter Sand for letting us participate, because it's important to me. A couple of years past, I've been the liaison to this convention. I have to tell you, being the liaison, which is what Bev is, is a whole lot easier than standing here in front of you talking. I'd much rather be the liaison. And I learned a long time ago that if you don't want to speak, then you need to be available when they're looking for a speaker. You just say, yeah, I'll help you find a speaker, and you're never going to be the speaker. It's not going to happen. But I have to tell you about an experience that I had today. I'm one of those Al-Anons that needs to be perfect. I need to share with you that I struggle with what I'm supposed to say up here and how I'm suppose to say it, and I want to be best Al-Anon you've ever heard, so I practice talking. and I've been doing that for a period of time just kind of getting in my head what it is I'm going to say this morning or this afternoon or whatever the heck time of day it is and so in the car I drove over here alone my husband was at work and he couldn't ride with me and I drove here alone and you leave our home and you get out on a bypass and then you kind of go off a ramp and you're onto another highway and I'm driving down the bypass and I am focused on what it ist I'm gonna say And I'm thinking about it, and everything that's inside of me, I'm just thinking about what it is I'm going to say here this afternoon. And I pass the ramp, and I get onto the next highway, and I'm driving along, and I get about to the turnoff where my husband's home group is in Parsonsburg. And I hear this little whoop, whoop. And I think, uh-oh. And I look to my left, and there's a Maryland State Trooper, and he's got his lights lit. And I looked in my rear view mirror, and there's a Maryland State Trooper, and he's got his lights lit. And I'm thinking, oh, crap. So I pull off easily to the side of the road, and I lean over to get my registration, and I leaned down. And as I'm doing this, I see in my rearview mirror that there's a Maryland state trooper walking up this side of my car, and there's a Maryland stay trooper walking up this side of my car. And I reach down in the floor of my car, because that's where my purse is, to get my license. And this state trooper goes, put your hands on the steering wheel! And I'm like, oh shoot! And I look and all this happens in a split second and this Maryland state troopers now drawn his gun. And he's coming up beside my car and this Maryland state Trooper squatted down beside my car and he's got his gun drawn and I'm thinking oh my god and I start talking because that's what I do when I'm nervous, I talk. And I'm going no you don't understand I'm just getting my license and this guy is going put your hands on the steering wheel and I am like okay so I'm up here with my hands on the steering wheel and this guy by now is, I had put my window down when I saw that, you know, when I was stopped. And this guy's now at this window and he's standing there with his revolver pointed at me. And, this guy is up here now, he's up to my window and he's got his revolve pointed at him. And I'm thinking, how did I get here? God! So, I'm still talking. I don't ever stop talking. And yet to stop talking and I'm going, no you don't understand. And the guy says, ma'am, I want you to keep your hands up and I want you to get out of the car. And I'm thinking, oh my God. And so I keep my hands up. He opens my car door. I get out Of my car and he said, could you face your car and put your hands on the roof? I'm like, you know, and I'm still talking. I want, you understand. I'm still talking and I was like, if you don t understand, I'm just getting my license. I'm not doing anything wrong now. I m sure this guy probably thought I was reaching under the seat for some weapon, but all I had under the seat was cake. So as I get out of the car and he sort of feels me, and you can tell by now they're starting to relax because they've seen in my car and they see that my purse is there and this guy's put his gun away and this guys put his gun away. And I'm wondering why they stopped me, of course. And he says to me, man, we clocked you going 82 when you went through our radar. And i'm like, boy, was I focused because I sure didn't even see those state troopers. Not one time did I see them, and they had clocked me on a bypass, and I had driven maybe five or six miles with that guy behind me. I didn't see him. I wasn't going there, and he had called for help because they thought I was running. They thought I was trying to escape. I'm going 82. So we got all that cleared up, and he said, would you get your license? And I said, can I? And he said yeah. And I got my license and my registration and I handed it to him. And he went back to his car. And he came back in a little while and he said I'm not going to give you a ticket. And that's exactly what I said. Oh my God. And he says, I had in the interim when I got talking to him I said to him, see you know, I'm sorry. I'm a speaker this afternoon at a convention and I've never done that before, and I'm like really nervous, and I're talking about it, and I'm thinking about it and I didn't even see you and I certainly had no idea how fast I was going. After he came back up, he said I'm not going to give you a ticket. I did tell him it was an Alcoholics Anonymous convention. He wanted to know if I was drinking. I told him no. So he said please ma'am, would you just focus on the road for the rest of your trip to Ocean City, and I did that. And I also put the car on cruise control and called my sponsor immediately. But let me tell you a little bit about me. I came to Al-Anon on July the 8th, 1981. I have a home group. It's the Monday night step group, and we meet in Salisbury, Maryland every Monday night at St. Albans Church, and that's an open invitation we study the steps there we usually go through 12 steps except the first Monday of every month when we talk about the tradition corresponding to that month I also have a sponsor his name is Dick and he's not here today because he lives in Florida and they didn't get up here but the very first First thing I want to do is tell you a little Dick story. Not prick, Harold. Dick was in the very first meeting I ever went to. Dick was there in that room and he was there as were some other people that are in this room this morning. Dick saw me when I came in and he became a very important part of my life. One of the best things that ever happened to me came from Dick. See, I came to Al-Anon's in 1981 and I sat around those rooms for a long time and I did absolutely nothing. I wasn't going to share with you. I wasn�t going to tell you my name. I wasn �t going read. I wasn t going to do anything. And you know what? You let me. You allowed me to sit in those rooms as long as I needed to sit there without saying even my name! But Dick is a tough guy, and after I'd been sitting there probably two years, Dick said to me one night at a meeting, and I don't remember today what step we were on or any of those things. But he asked me one if I would be willing to read because that's kind of what we did. We'd take our 12-in-12 and we'd read a paragraph and we talked about it. And he asked if I'd be willing read. And I said to myself, sure, anybody can read. Anybody can read, and so I read my little paragraph. Now Dick is tough, and he said to me, could you share a little bit about what you read? Did it mean anything to you? Could you just share a Little bit? And I thought, I don't know what I said. I still today don't Know what I read. I still today have absolutely no idea what I said but I can tell you exactly what Dick said to me What Dick said that night was, Heron I really appreciated what you shared because I remember when I felt that way. I remember when that happened to me or that's exactly how I feel and for the very first time, for the first time in a very long time I was not alone. Somebody else felt like I felt. Somebody else thought what I thought. And for the very first time, there was a little chink in the wall that I had put up in front of everybody. And Dick did that for me, and I'm grateful. Now, I was certainly never, ever, ever going to stand here at this podium and share. I can tell you that. Harold spoke a little earlier, and thank you, Harold. I appreciate that. And Harold and his wife Lorraine and Vic and I spent a lot of time traveling around together. We did a lot of things together. We used to go to conventions and we'd sit out there where you guys are sitting and I have to tell you first thing, everybody in this room, it's the very first time I've ever been to a convention that everybody in the room has something I want. And that's a chair out there. But we went to this, we used to get a lot of conventions and, and we, we'd set out there and,and we'd say, mm-mm, we're never going to do that. No way am I ever going to be up there talking and here I am. See, God has a plan that I don't always get to know. And the other thing that I've learned this year after being asked to do this is we used to sit out there and critique speakers. In your packet, there's a survey or some kind of little thing, and it asks you to please critique the speakers. Be kind. You never know when you're going to be standing here. Let me remind you of that. I've earned this year that every speaker I've heard in at least this past year has been wonderful. But I was never, ever going to stand here. And I have a couple of friends in the other program, in the AA program, and they didn't understand why I wouldn't come here and speak. They said, you know, you've been in Al-Anon a long time, and why won't you speak? And I had a sponsor, and I talked to her about it, and I said, You know, Julia, why do I? They keep giving me a hard time about not speaking. And she said, Karen, when you're ready to speak, you'll speak. And when you'RE not ready. You've said yes to a lot of things all your life that you really didn't want to do. And when YOU'RE ready, you'LL know, and you'ILL speak. and I guess I'm ready. I hope you are. But Evelyn, who is my friend, and I went out to dinner one afternoon and she's one of those people that used to give me a really hard time and I said, I can't speak. There's no way. You know, what if I, I don't know what to say. And so while we're out to diner, she said to me, she started asking me questions. She'd say things like, when did you go to Al-Anon? Then I'd answer her. And she'd say, well, why'd you go there? Why'd you come to Al Anon? And I'd ask her. And she'd say, well, what happened when you were at Al-Anon? And I'd answer her. And after about 45 minutes, Evelyn had gotten to eat her dinner and I had spent 45 minutes talking. And Evelyn smiled her sly little smile and she said to me, and you tell me you can't speak. And so I made Evelyn promise me that if I ever decided to speak, she'd be in the room. And if I got stuck and didn't know where I was, she'd hold up a sign with the very next question. Evelyn is in some Bahama Island today, I want you to understand. Her husband, Kenny, used to give me the worst time. He had spoken somewhere, I think in Virginia, down in Virginia. And he had given, I don't know if it was him, but he had spoken to me. I think it was Tom, my name. And Tom called me and asked me if I'd be the speaker, and I said no. And Kenny called me, and he said, why did you tell him no? And I said, Kenny I can't do that. Well I had dinner with Kenny and Evelyn one night, And Kenny and I got talking about this. It seemed every time I got around them, they wanted to talk to me about speaking. I don't eat with them anymore. And Kenny said to me, why won't you speak? And I said, do you know how nervous it makes me to get up there in front of all those people and tell them about me? And he said, you know, it isn't about you, Karen. It isn't About What You Do. It's about sharing your experience, strength, and hope. And I Said, yeah, but what if I get up There and forget where I am? What if I can't remember my name? And he said, what if you don't? He said, what if I don't know your name? What if you get up there and you share something and somebody hears something? And I said, I don' t think I can do it. And he says to me, sly person that he is, have you done your third step? Now, I've been in Al-Anon quite a while by then and I said with all my haughtiness, yes. And he said, well then Karen, either God is or he isn't. And your job is to suit up and show off. And see, I understood that. So this afternoon him before I got up here, I decided that I needed to go have a talk with my God. And it's very important. This Footprints Convention is real important to me because the ocean is an extremely large part of my story. And I went outside and I stood by the ocean and I talked to my God and I asked him to put the words, whatever it is I'm supposed to say, in my mouth. I'm going to take my watch off so I can see what time it is and then I'm not going to pay attention to it. I never do. my job this morning is to tell you what i was like what happened to me and what i'm like today and i hear so many people share what it was like my sponsor told me that i didn't know a thing about it that i should share about me and so that's what i am going to try to do thanks susan the second step of this uh the second step tells my entire story. See, it talks about coming here, and that's what I did. I came here. I didn't come here willingly. I guess it was kind of willingly. I didn'T come here happily. Let's put it that way. I came here for all the wrong reasons. I DIDN'T come here looking for help for an alcoholic. The alcoholic in my life by the time I got here had gotten sober, and I was not happy. And I thought that everything surrounded, if he quit drinking, everything in our life would be okay, only it wasn't. And one night he made me angry enough that I showed up at your doorstep. And while I was here, I came too. I began to believe that there was something here for me. And let me tell you how that happened. Let me go back to when I grew up in a happy family. I'm the oldest of three children. I have two younger brothers and I grew up in a happy home. There was nothing wrong in our home. Now, my mother thought my father was an alcoholic if he drank before noon on Saturday. But as long as he didn't do that, she didn't tell him he was an alcoholic. My dad did drink. But I never saw him drunk not one time until after my mother died and then he stayed drunk pretty much most of the time. But, I didn't grow up in one of those households you hear a lot of speakers speak about where there's a lot abuse and a lot craft that goes on. Not in my house. In my In my house we played games and we did things as families, we went on family vacations. So I want you to understand this morning that all the things I'm going to tell you I did did not come from my parents. It was not their fault. I like to tell people I'm the oldest of three and I'm absolutely nuts most of the time. I have a middle brother and he is perfect and he has no problem letting you know just exactly how perfect he is. And I have younger brother and um he has admitted that he has a problem with alcohol. And I got to be a part of helping him find sobriety, and I'm grateful for that. But I grew up in this household relatively unscathed. I went all the way through high school. And I'll tell you that I had the very same boyfriend all the way through school. I started liking him on a merry-go-round in the sixth grade, and he dumped me in our senior year of high school, and he was my only boyfriend all through high school. And that was to become a pattern. The men in my life continued to dump me, and I didn't understand why. I thought I was wonderful. I mean, I just catered to everything they ever wanted. I didn't want anything. I just wanted to make them happy. That was my job. And it continued, and that pattern continued all the way through my life. The men that I cared the most about dumped me, and I just couldn't figure that out. After that relationship was over, I started dating my best friend. He was the guy I'd always talked to all my life, and we decided maybe we should get married. We seemed to get along well, and I guess we thought we were in love. And we decided we were going to get married. And we went to my mom, who was the reason I thought I needed to get married because I was 18. I had my own job, my own car, and she made me be home at 11. And I hated that. I thought if I get out of my mother's house, I can do what I want, when I want how I want. And so the idea for me at that point was to get marry. And we want to my mother and we said in like August and we say we want to get marriage and he was going to boot camp and she said no, no, I don't think you do. And I said, no, I think we want to get married. And she said, No, why don't you wait until after boot camp? And I thought, Okay, I can do that. And the next month we went to her again and we said, No, we've changed our mind. We want to getting married before he goes to boot camp. She said, Now, I don't think you do. And I say, Yeah, I thing we do. And she says, No I don' t think so. So we changed our minds one more time. And the nex month I went to my mother and I said Mother, I'm pregnant. I think I want to got married. And she say, You're getting married November 14th. and that's what we did. We got married in November and he went boot camp in January and he came home for one or two days after boot camp and he then went to California and I had our child, he came for one day and he way back to California and I moved out to California in September of that year. I was out there long enough to get pregnant with our second child He went out to sea, and I came home. And six weeks before the second child was born, we were separated. He had been dishonorably discharged from the military. And actually the only good thing that came out of that marriage were those two children. And I'm very grateful today that I had that marriage and that I have those two sons because they are the absolute joy of my life. there was a period of time for about the next seven years when I did a lot of things I'm not real proud of because see, I was one of those Al-Anons that had to have a man in her life to be able to identify. I didn't have a clue who I was if there wasn't a man in my life and if I didn' t have a man I did not know who I was so there had to be a man it didn't matter if he was married it didn' matter any of those things as long as he was there. And I could say, I'm so-and-so's girlfriend, so-an-so his wife, Barbara and Vernon's daughter, Dave and Doug's sister, Ricky and Heath's mother. As long as I could identify with you, I was okay. But I never, ever, ever introduced myself to anyone as Karen, ever. It was always, depending on where I was, how I introduced myself. And so there had to be a man in my life. There absolutely had to been a man. And so for that seven years, there was a lot of different men in my life. And I'm not proud of that. It's what happened. At the end of that seven years I was dating a guy who was a fireman and that relationship was one of those relationships that was falling apart again because see I suffocated the men that I lived with. You, those men, those people were responsible for my happiness. I depended upon them for everything about me. And it was another one of those relationships where he was seeking other women, and I knew it, and I was trying to pull him in and manipulate and do whatever I needed to do to get him back to me. He was a fireman, andI called the firehouse one night, and I like to tell people I called thefirehouse looking for the old boyfriend, and by God, I found the new husband, and that's how it happened. The fellow who answered the telephone talked to me for a while, and he told me that this guy was seeing another girl and why was I putting up with this and I deserve better than this and I was a good looking woman and why did I put up with this crap and God, hmm, I like that. I like the sound of that. That was pretty cool. And he asked me maybe we should talk. We should meet for coffee and so we made a time to meet for coffee and that's what we did. And that was in January of another year and I don't do years because if I do years I get all mixed up and we went to have coffee and four months later we got married. I made a mistake, I'll tell you that. I knew this fellow drank. I knew that he drank but I was sure if he married me he wouldn't be doing that. You know, I could fix that. It was just because he lived with his parents and he didn't have his own house and his first wife had left him for all the wrong reasons and I was going to take care of those things. When we got marriage I'm not going to tell you a lot about that. I'm going to Tell you a little bit when during the first year of our marriage. I had that man arrested 17 times and 16 of those times because this is my story and it's what I did 16 of Those times I'd have him arrested and the cops would come and get him and it was for some type of heat hit me and let me just tell you that most of the time I got hit, it was my fault. If I had shut my mouth, he'd say to me, we'd get in an argument and he'd says something and I'd say something and he would say, Karen, shut up. And I'd say one more thing. And see, I knew. And Sue Drum talks about this. It's important, what was important about that is I didn't shut up because for that time he was hitting me, I had every second of his attention. Every minute his focus was on me when I made him angry enough. And so I continued to do that. That's insanity, doing the same thing over and over again. But I did that. And 16 of those times, I would call the cops. They would come and get him. They Would take him away. And either he'd stay there overnight or they released him on his own recognizance. And he called me and I'd go get him, that's insanity. Doing the same things over and over expecting it to be different because when he called me to come and get me, he'd say it won't happen again. I know it's going to be different this time and we're going to be different this time and it's going to different and I believed him. On the 17th time that I had him arrested, he had thrown me through the front window of our home. And as I'm laying on the sidewalk half in the bush and half on the side walk outside our window, outside our door, I looked up and I looked into the eyes of my two sons who were standing at that door crying. They didn't know why their mom was doing this. They didn't understand. They're little boys. They had no clue why things that were happening in our house were happening. And I picked myself up off that sidewalk and I went inside and I was angry. I was very angry. And, I picked my self up and I called the Fruitland we lived in a small town and I said George you need to come get him. And he said Karen we're not coming and I said yeah this he said no we'll come and get him we'll take him in you'll come and pick him up and you won't go to court we're now doing it anymore and I said please George just come get him and so he came one more time and they took him away to jail now let me tell you what happened different that time what happened different at that time is that when he got released from jail he didn't call I thought well that's awful strange why didn't he call and it was about two weeks before he finally called me, and by this time that fear that I told you about where I don't know who I am unless I have a man in my life had come back. And he called me and I was becoming fearful. But I have to tell you that the minute I heard his voice, the very minute I hurt his voice, all that fear left and anger replaced it. And He said, Karen, don't hang up. And I said, what do you want? And he said, I just want to ask you if there's a chance for you and I. He said, i'm an alcoholic and i've been to Alcoholics Anonymous before and i got sober there and i know that there's helps in the rooms of AlcoholicsAnonymous for me and i'm going to go back there. What i want you to tell me is that there'S A CHANCE FOR YOU AND I. And i said in my most unladylike way that I won't say from the podium, no. There's no chance for us. I don't want to ever see you again. And we hung, I actually hung up on him. And we went on with another couple of weeks and by this time it's now been a month and I'm terrified. I'm horrified because I don' t know how I'm going to pay the bills and I don''t know how to take care of things and I dont know what's going to happen and I don't have anybody to say who I am, and, you know, I'm scared. And a couple of weeks went by, and he called me again, and he said, I am going to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting tonight, and I would like you to go with me. And I said, all right, I will go with you. And I went to my first AlcoholicsAnonymous meeting. And I loved Alcoholics Анonymous. I love those rooms. I love the people in those rooms, I love them because they shook my hand and they hugged me and they told me that I was going to be okay, and I got to hear the alcoholic share about things that had happened in their homes and those things that happened in my home, and they laughed about it. And I loved Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and I kept going when he would invite me. What happened in our home is that he began to get better in the rooms of AlcoholicsAnonymous. He began to work the steps, get a sponsor, get-a-home group, Do all those things that they tell him to do. And he would leave early for meetings. He would go, you know, the meeting would be from 8 to 9 and he'd leave at 7. And he'd get home at 10, 11, 12, 1. And the more he went to meetings, he'd gets all prettied up before it was time to go. He'd get all dressed up and prettied-up, smell good, off he'd go. And the better he got, the worse I got, and the more resentful I got and the angry I got. See, this is a family disease, and even if the alcoholic recovers, The family doesn't get better unless the family recovers. Unless the family gets in a program, it doesn't get better. The alcoholic stops drinking, absolutely. But I believe that the alcoholic is obsessed with alcohol and I'm obsessed with the alcoholic. And my alcoholic still wasn't doing what I wanted him to do because, see, I believed if he got sober, then things would be okay. If he got sober, dann he would stay home and we would have the Ozzie and Harriet life I'd always wanted. And that wasn't happening that way. He was going out every night to meetings. Well, God, for me, he might as well be drunk. At least I knew where he was. He was home asleep on the couch, and I didn't like it. And I kept going to AA meetings with him when I was invited. And one night at his home group, his sponsor at that time was Donald W., and there was a fellow there whose name was Blackjack who is dead now. And at that meeting, Donald W. came over and shook my hand, hugged me, whatever, and he said to me, you know, you ought to go to Al-Anon. And I said, Al-Anon, I'd been a fireman's girlfriend. I'm now a firewoman's wife, and I know what the ladies' auxiliary of the fire department was, and I was sure that's what Al-A-Non was. I did not want to bake cakes and make dinners. That wasn't what I wanted to do. And so I thought, I don't think I need to go to Al-А-Nan. And Donald told me a little bit about it, and we left the meeting that night, and we're in the car and we'RE riding home, andI said to him, Donald thinks I ought to go to Al-Anon and dear God you would have thought the air had been sucked clean out of that car he sucked in his air and said no, you should not go to Al Anon no way, no shape, no how, no form Al Anan is a group of bitchy women they get together, they talk about the alcoholic and why you should leave them and I don't want you to go there okay but see I knew that he didn't like that and I stored that little bit of information And the very next time he left too early for a meeting, I had done a little research and found out where there's an Al-Anon meeting. And the first time he went to a meeting too early or came home too late or any of those things, I had found an Al Anon meeting where there was AA in the same place that happened to be a closed AA meeting, so I'd never gotten to go there. So I'll show you. I'll go up at the Al Anan meeting. And that's how I got to my first Al Anin meeting. And I showed up at the Monday night step group and I walked in that room and there were people there who were laughing and they were happy. And I thought, can't be the right room. This certainly isn't a group of bitchy women. And actually there was a guy there because Dick was there. I don't remember much about that first meeting. I do remember, I hear a lot of people say they don't remember anything about or what the topic was. I remember, I remember that that first meeting was on the fifth step. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being, the exact natures of our wrong. I thought, I don't think so. I am not the wrong er, I am the wrong e. You don't understand. And so I went there and I listened and I liked it. I liked It for that hour. I felt pretty good in those rooms. You know, I remember sitting there thinking, yeah, this isn't so bad. You know, I felt something there. I didn't know what it was. I just knew that I felt Something, and I continued to go back. And I can't tell you today why I continued To go back, because I did absolutely nothing. If I have a message to you here today, if you're going to Al-Anon and you're not doing anything, if You're not getting a sponsor, reading the book, working The steps, you're Not going to get anything. At least that's my experience. But I did go to Al-Anon meetings, and I continued to go to that Monday night step group. And what was happening in our home was that he was getting better and I was getting worse. And even though I went to Al Anon meetings I wasn't doing anything, therefore I wasn' t getting better. And things in our life progressively got worse. And I began to have to do things to get that man's attention back on me. And I begin to manipulate and connive and scheme and to do anything to get him to stay home from AA and pay attention to me. And I had to continually do worse and worse things. I had continually make things happen that were worse. And the more I did, the worse I felt inside. And the, and the more horrible I began to feel about Karen. Until I had done so many things that there was nothing left to do. And the pain inside of me was horrible. The pain inside me hurt so much and I didn't know what to do with it. And I wasn't working a program. I was just going to meetings. And I was filled with a hurt that I didn't know what to do with until I had reached a point where I didn' t want to live. I had reach ed a point in my life where there was nothing to look forward to. The alcoholic in my li e by that time, and this is his story, but he had found other women and he was still living in our home and that's his story and I'm not going to go there. But that's what was happening. And the more he did that, the more I needed him to be a part of my life. And the More I Needed Him to Be a Part of My Life, The Further He Got Away from Me. And I Began to Hate Me. And I began to hate me enough that I didn't want to live. And I made my first attempt at suicide. And I don't believe today that I wanted to die. I believe today That I Didn't Know How to Live. And I wasn't sharing with people and wasn't talking about anything that had anything to do with me except one lady and she wasn't in a program. She was just a really good friend and she knew me very well and knew what was going on. And that morning I was supposed to show up for work and I didn't show up and she new something was wrong and she called that man, that alcoholic that I lived with and she said, she's not at work. And he said, I'll go. I still have a key. I'll check on her and he came into our home and he found me in a bathtub full of water, non-breathing and non-responsive. And I have to tell you, I'm grateful to that man today for showing up because you'd have a different speaker, obviously. He called 911 and he yanked me out of the bathtub. And i tell people that if you don't believe you can drown yourself, it's not true. If you take enough pills and you fall asleep in a bathtub full of water and you're able to sink down under that water, you will suck in enough water and I had taken enough pills that I was not really coherent. And I had sunk down in that water and sucked in enough air and I was non-breathing and non-responsive. And he began to do CPR. And, um, he got me back and I remember coming to, and now I'm a fireman's wife and in my home, I've been in a bathtub full of water and i'm naked and I wake up to it seemed like 50 people standing around me looking down at me and they were all men oh that's nice and um and they carried me out and i had my first experience with a psychiatrist and i tell people today that psychiatrist did everything he could to help me he talked to me he he tried to get me to talk to him he did everything you could to me but if you're seeing a psychiatrist today and you're not being honest with them they can't help you it's just how it is they just can't you but i did did tell him as much as I knew to tell him at that time the best I knew how to tell it to lie, and I saw him, and that's what happened. But see, things in my life weren't getting any better, and I was still going to Al-Anon meetings. Please let me make sure I tell you that. I was going to Al Anon meetings on a regular basis all through this. I never stopped going to Al-Alan. However, I still wasn't doing anything. I hadn't gotten a sponsor. I hadn't got homebrew. And see, I knew I was gonna try suicide again because I wasn't happy with Karen happiness is an inside job I've learned that here it doesn't come from outside it comes from inside but I wasn't working on Karen and so I knew I'd do it again and my next great feat and you know was I wanted attention I don't believe I wanted to die I knew, I wanted the attention of the alcoholic and I, my next great feat was to in the city of Salisbury there's a parking garage and it's right next to the fire department and he's a fireman so I went through the fire department and told him I was going to jump from the top of the parking garage. Now, that's funny today. It wasn't funny that day. And I climbed to the top of the park garage and I'm standing there screaming at the top of my lungs, I'm going to jump! And if you want attention, you climb to the top of a tall building in your town and you threaten to jump and you'll get attention. I guarantee it. And when I looked down through the side of that parking garage, there were red and blue lights everywhere. Tons of them. But the one person that I wanted to be there wasn't there. The one person I wanted was the alcoholic, and I wanted him to ride upstairs and save me and tell me everything was going to be okay. And he didn't. He wasn't there. That Fruitland cop was there. He carried me home one more time. But see, I knew I'd do it again. I knew that I was unhappy enough inside, and I knew when I left there, I was going to try it again because, again, I just did not know how to live. It hurt. That pain that I felt, I believe is what an alcoholic, it's just my belief. This is my story. I believe that's the pain an alcoholic feels when they pick up a drink. I believed that I've felt that horrible fear that I didn't know what to do with, and so I had to act out. And I believe that's what Al-Anons do. We act out or we hide. That's the other thing. So my next, um, you know, I knew I'd do it again. And I, by this time I knew, I didn't want to die. I just didn't know how to live and I knew needed help, but I didn' t know where to get it. And I worked for attorneys at that time and we didn't have health insurance and I didn t know what to do. And so I started calling around trying to find out what I could do And the only thing that I could find was that I could go to the Cambridge State Mental Hospital and they would admit me. And so that's what I did. And it was a Friday night, and I drove over to the Cambridge State Mental hospital, and I do not tell you any of this to be funny. But it sometimes sounds funny when I say it. I don't say it to be cruel. I had a friend drive me over, and we got over there. And I went in, and the doctor did not want to admit me, He said, you know, Karen, you don't need to be here. I said, You don't understand. If you don' t let me be here, I'm going to kill myself. And so with that, he let me admitted, and I signed a paper saying I'd stay three days. And I went inside, and this friend was still with me, and we went to my room, and then we walked out to where they told me we could go, which was the day room. And I walked out there, and the only person in that room that looked like they had any sanity whatsoever was a girl, and she had a nurse following her around, writing everything down that she did. And I looked at my friend and I said, if I stay here, I will be nuts. And I went back out to the nurse's station and I said, I can't stay here. And she said, honey, you have to. You signed the paper. And I said no, you don't understand. If I stay hier, I'm going to be nuts and she said you have too and I threw enough tantrum that she called the doctor and the doctor allowed me to go home and I went home that Friday night and of course I had to stop by where that alcoholic was then living and let him know what I'd done because I still wanted his attention. And I stopped by there, and I shared with him what I had done. And he said, I said, you know, I don't want to die, but I'm scared. And He said, go home. Go home, and I'll see what I can do. And see, that's all I ever wanted was for Him to take care of me. And I went home, and the next morning He called me, And he said, there's a bed for you at Dorchester General Hospital at the Waterside program, and they're waiting for you. Jeannie's going to pick you up, and she's going to take you there. And I said, OK. He said, I'll take care of everything. And that's what I did. I drove over to Waterside with Jeannie and admitted myself, went upstairs to my room. And when I went into the room, the nurse came in, You know, they do all that vital stuff where they have to take your blood pressure and all that. And she says to me, now sign this paper. It's December the 9th when I did this. And I'm still going to Al-Anon on a regular basis. And she said to me here you need to sign this paper. It says you'll stay 30 days. It's December 9th. I have two children. 30 days is way past Christmas. I said no. I can't stay here 30 days, no way. I can do it. And she said, Karen, you have to sign the paper saying you'll stay 30 days. I said, I can't do it. And I always want to add a little da-da-da right here. I always wanna sing right there. I don't know why. It just comes to me every time I get to that part of my story, the alcoholic comes in and he says to me, just stay for the 30 days, I'll take care of everything. Don't worry about Christmas. You're not really that sick. They're probably not gonna keep you 30 days anyhow. Don't worry about it. I'll take care of everything. It's all I ever wanted, all I every wanted. Give me that paper, I'll sign it. And I signed it, and I admitted myself for 30 days. That was on a Saturday morning. And on Sunday morning, I'm sitting in my room, and the nurse comes in, and she says, you have a visitor. And I said, okay. And she said, it's your husband. And I'm happy now. I'm so happy. I'm now in my second day in this place, and that guy is back, and that's all I ever wanted. And he comes in, and they said you have to meet him out in the public room, I believe is what they called it. And I went outside, and I was so excited. I could hardly wait to get over there. I was on a run. You know, I need to be there. There he is. I want to see him. And I hope I never forget what happened that day. Because when I walked into that room, this fellow was standing there who was my husband and he looked at me with all the hate I've ever been looked at in my life he looked at me with the most awful look I've never seen and he said to me words I hope no one ever says to me again and he told me he said I hate your guts I never ever want to see you again and tomorrow is Monday and I'm going to file for divorce. And with that, he turned and left the room. I'm in a locked unit. I can't leave. And I remember feeling that awfulness, that fear came running back. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which my sponsor brought me up on, talks about the four horsemen and I believe that's exactly what I felt. And he turned and he left the group and it seemed like it was all happening in slow motion. and I ran to get a hold of that door before it could shut. And I tell people, it's kind of like the Roadrunner cartoons. You know where the Road runner and the coyote are always fighting, and the Road runner gets away and the Coyote hits the wall? Well, that's kind what happened to me. And I hit that wall as hard as I could, and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, God, help me. I can't do this anymore. more. God, please help me. And I hit that door as the door shut and I remember sliding down the side of that door and sitting on the floor and I cried as hard as I've ever cried in my life. And I was scared and I was alone. And i had a counselor there her name was Mrs. Firth and she came over and she sat on the Floor with me and she said Karen, you're going to be okay. She didn't tell me things were going to be okay, but she said, you'll be okay and she held me in that floor, I don't know how long and she rocked with me and she helped me close to her and that's how I began my program. I stayed in that program 32 days because I was very sick and I spent Christmas there, although I did get to come home for a period of time Christmas Day to spend a little bit of time with my sons. If any of you have participated in that kind of an atmosphere, you know that they have group and I have to tell you I'm the only person that was in that place for those 30 days that didn't have a family member come visit them. See, my family was embarrassed and ashamed. My family was devastated by some of the things I had put them through. I had done so many things and my family were just tired of it and they were happy. I was in a safe place. I was controlled and I wasn't causing any more trouble. And nobody came from my family until the very last day. And my counselor had called my two sons and invited them to come there. And, my oldest son wasn't coming. He said, no, I'm not interested. And ,my younger son who was about, I know I'm not going to say age because I'm sure, came. And she promised him that he wouldn't have to say anything that day. She promised him that she wouldn't make him say anything if he would just come and he did come and she had been all the way around the circle with all the rest of the other families and we were the last two and she said to him, Heath, I told you you didn't have to say anything and I'm going to hold to that but I have something I want to share with you. The mom that came here is not the mom that's going home with you, I hope you can live with her Because, see, while I was there that 30 days, they took us out to Al-Anon meetings. And I began to listen in Al-A-Non meetings, and I began to do some of the things that you suggested to me. And in that program, they had me begin to write, and they talked to me about what was going on with me, and they taught me about my part. And I became to learn a little bit about the disease of alcoholism in that place. I left that place, I was scared to death. I was afraid to death because I was coming back to the town where he lived, and I didn't want to do that anymore. We were separated, and I was so obsessed with what he was doing, I was scared to death. And I knew I would run into him again, and I didn't want to do that. So I began to go to meetings in the Delaware area. I began attend Al-Anon meetings in Delaware, and I began go back, I went as much as there was a meeting, I was there because I was scary. And I showed up at a lot of Al-A-Non meetings during that period of time. And there was lady that was in these Al-anon meetings. she's one of you probably have one in your group if you have if you attend many meetings and it was this little lady and she had a lot to say about everything and she was tough and i liked this lady but i didn't want her talking to me i like to listen to her talk to others i like to listen when she shared but i wasn't didn't Want her talking To Me Ever as I began to go to meetings I began to do a little bit of talking in these rooms I began to share a little bit about what was going on with me but mostly I shared about what was going on with about him and after a meeting one night this little lady followed me outside and she said as she came outside she followed me out to my car and she said honey you need a sponsor and I'm it and I want you to go home this afternoon and I want you to get the ODAT out and I want you to read all the pages in the ODAC on the first step here's my phone number and I want you to call me tomorrow and I backed up three steps I thought this woman has lost her mind there is no way I'm doing that but see I wanted to go to meetings in Delaware and this woman was at every meeting I'd ever been to so that night I got out my ODAT and I read a few pages on the first step. And the next day at noon, I called her. And Julia said, I said, hi, this is Karen Julia. You asked me to give you a call. And she said, ah, yes. She said, did you read all the pages in the ODAT on the first step? And I said yes. And he said, what's the last page in the ODAT, on the 1st step? I'm thinking, I don't know. And I thought, I'll be crafty here. 1st step, got to be the first 30 pages. I said, and I don't remember what I said. I know it was the number 30 of some kind. And I said 32. And she said, I told you to read all the pages on the first step. Now read all The Pages on the First Step. Call me tomorrow at noon. And she hung up on me. And I thought, wow. Julia taught me so many things. See, she knew me. She knew me I would do the bare minimum that I had to do. She knew that I needed direction in every way, and she knew that she was going to have to stay on my butt the entire time, and I'm grateful for her. She gave me a lot of tools of this program. One of the things that she gave me and asked me to do was she told me to get a journal, and i didn't understand that. She said, I want you to get journal,and I want you write down each day three things you are grateful for in the morning, and I want you to write down each afternoon three things that you do well. And I said, why? And she said, just do it. And so I began to—and I had to call her each day and tell her the things I was grateful for and the things i did well. And, so, I began to do that. I would, you know, say, think of three things I was grateful and I'd call her and I tell her what they were. And I've been doing that about a week. And Julia said to me, what were you grateful for last Thursday? And I said, I don't know. And she said, well, go get your book. If you wrote them down, then you'll know what you were grateful for. And I said,I didn't write them down. And she said,"I told you to write them now. Now write them and call me tomorrow." And she hung up on me. Julia did a lot of things. She taught me a lot about this program. I'm very grateful for that. I have to tell you one thing because it's an important part of my story because we're here at Footprints, and one of the things that Julia gave me, I had a real hard time with the God thing when I got here. I had real hard times with understanding the concept of God because see, my mother died and my little baby sister died and I thought God did that. And I was angry. And Julia said to me, after I had been to a meeting one night and talked as best I could about not, I didn't want to believe in God and I wasn't going to go there. She followed me outside and she said, get in the truck because she's a little teeny woman. She drove a great big truck. And she said get in a truck. I said where are we going? My husband will tell you today when we get in car I need to know where we're going, why we're going there and when we might be back. And all she said to was get in truck. We drove over here to the ocean. And as we got to the end of the dune, she said, get out of the truck. Those were her next words. And I got out of the truck and we walked across the dume and she said okay Miss Powerful, if you're so powerful then stop that ocean from rolling in. I thought she'd lost her mind and I said Julia, I can't do that. She said then are you willing to believe that the ocean is a power greater than yourself? And I said, yeah, but that is not what it means. I was the butt queen of the world. Yeah, butt, no butt, yeah butt, listen butt. And she said, can you stop the ocean? And I says, no, I cannot. She said, then use that for your power today. And I understood that. Julie gave me a lot of things. One of the most important things she ever gave me was a toolbox. And in that toolbox we put lots of tools. One of those tools was the transformer. Because see when I came here I believed I couldn't change. I believed that there was nothing That I was who I was, who I Was who I wasn't, and I couldn't change And she gave me a little toy She gave me the little toy And I don't know if any of you remember them or not But they were called Transformers And I believe it was a little spaceship And she Gave it to me one night and she said I want you to take that little toy and take it out of the box And I want your to turn it over And follow the directions on the back of the Box. And I said, why? She never answered me when I asked why. And so I turned it over, and I took the little spaceship, and I began to do, follow the things on the back of that thing that it told me to do. And what happened was, that little spaceship turned into a man. And see, I understood that if I was willing to follow the directions, the steps of this program, my life could change. I didn't understand that. But by giving me that piece of toy and telling me that I could change if I was willing to follow the directions. And the other important piece of that story is those directions, there were 12 of them, and that was important. I still have that little toy today. Life today, life today. I am a grateful member of Al-Anon, I told you that. I'm also a very happy member of Al-Anon. I'm married to a, gosh, I don't want that on the tape. Darn, now he's going to have ammunition when I tell him he's not such a wonderful husband. I am married to a very wonderful man today and he's a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in good standing. I do like to remind him that I have been in Al-Alan one year longer than he's been in AA. And I use that as the upper hand sometimes. It doesn't usually work. But I am married to a wonderful man. We got married in this fellowship. The man that I married today, I told you at the very beginning of my story, I was dated the same guy from the sixth grade to my senior in high school and in the 11th grade that guy gave me an engagement ring and my mother made me give it back. My mother knew him better than I did obviously. Today I'm married to that man. It's an absolutely amazing that I'm buried to that man because I believe if I'd married him in high school, we wouldn't be together today. But today we have a life beyond my wildest dreams. And I am very grateful for that man. And he's here today. He wasn't here earlier, but he did get here to hear me speak and I'm grateful. But we got married in this fellowship. We had AA and Al-Anon friends everywhere when we got buried. There were lots of people. In fact, the guy who married us was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was tickled to death when he said he'd marry us. He asked us if he could incorporate some of this program into our wedding vows. Harold actually was the best man at our wedding. And this fellow said to me, can we incorporate some of the AA program and the Al-Anon program into your wedding vows? And we were like, sure, why not? I have to be careful when I say yes today. Because see, I was the first person that got asked the questions that he incorporated into our wedding vrows. And we got through the first three and I answered them. He had told us at the rehearsal that the answer was I will. He didn't tell us the questions. And as we're standing there At our wedding, Gary asked me the first three questions and I made it through them in a breeze. The fourth question was, do you promise to take your own inventory for the rest of your life? Well, in the tape of our wedding you can visibly see me hesitate. You can hear everybody do what you just did. And I finally got I will out. we've got to do a lot of things together my two sons have grown up my two sons are a very important part of my life and they live through hell and it was not I had when I did the eighth step of this program I struggled with that I thought how am I ever going to make amends to those children because they were on the list and I thought I can't do it and my sponsor said to me did you do any of the things you did maliciously and I said no I didn't. She said, then Karen, why don't you give yourself a break today? Why don't you give your self a break and realize that you did the best you could with what you had at the time. And that was important to me. Why don t you go home and be the very best mother you know how to be today? And that s what I try to do today. My youngest son was in the Marine Corps. He was stationed in Washington, D.C. He did not have a car and every Friday night I would drive to Washington, DC and I d pick that kid up and I take him back on Sunday night and my husband wasn't real happy with the fact that I did that. He thought I should be spending my Friday and Sunday nights with him but it was important to me because see what happened was I drive to Washington and I picked that kid up and we drive home together and we began to talk and we begin to be a mother and son again and I got to say the things that I've always wanted to say to my son and we got to talk about the times that happened in our family when they weren't so nice because see my kids weren't mad with the alcoholic. They were mad at me. They knew why he did what he did, he drank. They understood that. They had no clue why their mother was doing what she was doing and I got to share with that kid what I was doing and why I did it and what was going on. That the disease of alcoholism was rampant in our family and I had to get recovery and learn about that here. My older son wasn't quite such an easy prospect. He didn't want to talk about it, he didn't wanna share, wasn't willing to talk. And he was away. He was in the Navy and he was away most of the time. However, luckily, he got stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, and we got to be a little closer and we got to go visit with him. And it was his birthday on a Wednesday night and Vic and I had planned to go over and have dinner with him and Vic for some reason or another didn't get to go and now I'm the Wicked Witch of the West driving to Norfolk because I'm mad. I still want the Ozzie and Harriet White picket fence deal And Vic's not going with me, so therefore it won't work. He's not their dad, but I think he should be. And I drove over to Norfolk alone. And as I'm driving over, you know, I'm just angry. And I get over there and we go out to dinner and we have dinner. And my son, out of the clear blue, says to me, Mom, I don't think I'm an alcoholic. Do you think I'M an alcoholic? And I said, No, honey, I DON'T think you're an alcoholic, but it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what you think. Do you think you're an alcoholic? And he said, I don't think I'm an alcoholic, but I think my life is unmanageable sometimes. And I'm thinking, unmanangeable? I wonder where he got that word. And he says, you know, Mom, you went to those meetings. Do you thing if I went to these meetings, my life might be different too? See, I always don't know what you're going to see. I am sometimes the only picture people get of Al-Anon, and I want to be a good picture. And my son saw that my life changed because I came to you and because you shared with me your experience, strength, and hope. And my sons saw that, and he thought it might help him too. I'm in Norfolk, Virginia. I have no idea where there's a meeting at 8 o'clock on a Wednesday night. And God takes over sometimes for me even when I don't know it. And I went back to his apartment, and I pulled out the phone book, and I looked up Al-Anon. And I wrote the number down on a piece of paper, and I gave it to my son. And I said, if you think you might want to go to a meeting, call this number, they'll tell you where there's a meeting. And I going home, and I'd like to tell you, I never thought about it again, it would be a lie. I thought about for the next until Sunday, because on Sunday, that's when I talk to my children even today. One is now in Honolulu, Hawaii, and one is in Phoenix, Arizona. Yes, that's so cool, good places to visit. but that day he was in Norfolk, and on Sunday night when I called him, I said, honey, or he said to me, hey, Mom, guess what? And I said what? He said, I went to one of those meetings. And I says, you did? And he said, yeah, I said. I went into one of these meetings, and Mom, how can they possibly have stuff that happened that I feel, and it's in a book? How can that be? And so my son began to go to Al-Anon, and I'm grateful, and I don't know if he's still going today. It doesn't matter. I know the seed was planted, and that's all I care about. My son that lives in Phoenix has now given us a grandchild. I am a happy grandmother. He is the love of my life. My son went to Russia to adopt this little boy, and the mother that he hated, that my son hated and he didn't want any part of, and he walked out of my house one day and told me he hated my guts. When they brought this little Boy home from Russia, they didn't have anyone to stay with him for the first few weeks, and they wanted to have a person with him. My son called me. My son invited me to come and stay a week with he and his son and his wife and to babysit with that little boy during the day while they went to work. You gave me that. Of myself, I would not have that. I have that because you guys gave that to me. You taught me how to be the best mother I knew how to being and I'm grateful. Vic and I get to go to a lot of conventions, Harold talked about it quite a bit, we get to go up to a lotta conventions and I am grateful. I was at a convention, I was the liaison for Hagerstown this year and see we don't always get to know what people are gonna see or how they're gonna see it and one of the things we did at the convention this year was we had a workshop on the family afterwards and relationships and Bo and Shirley who were in AA and Al-Anon participated in that workshop and they talked a lot about the family. And after that meeting, this fellow comes up to me and he says, are you the Karen that is the liaison that did that Al-Anon workshop? And I said, yes. And he said, I have to tell you, I had no idea I should be inviting my wife to come to these things. Nobody's ever told me that. I've been in AA a year and nobody ever told me that I should invite my family to come here. And I said, well, you should. And he said, we never know. where the message is going to come from. My job is to suit up and show up. That night we went to the banquet, and this little lady came up to me after the banquet. And she said, are you Karen? And I said, yes. And with tears rolling down her face, she said thank you. She said thank you for telling my husband that he could invite me here. Because see, I'm angry because all he ever does is go to AA meetings. All he ever does leave early and come home late. And he goes to AA all the time. And now that he's not drunk, I thought life would be different. And he invited me here and thank you. And I said, you know, it had nothing to do with me, but thank you for coming and sharing that with me. I told you an awful lot about Julia. I went away, Vic and I went away to a convention on a Thursday night. And before I used to go to conventions, I would call my sponsor and I'd say, I'm going away to A convention. And she'd say bring me some tapes and I'd say okay and on Sunday night when we came back I'd bring her some tapes and um we went away to a convention in Hagerstown a couple of years ago and um I called her and I told her that I was gonna go and that um I'd call it bring her some tapes and she said great and Vic and I went awayto that convention and on Sunday when I got home I called my sponsor and her daughter answered the telephone And her daughter said to me, Karen, I am so sorry to have to tell you this, but Julia died in her sleep on Saturday night. And everything inside of me died. Everything inside of my became fearful again. All that fear came rushing right back and I thought, what's going to happen to me? Who am I going to talk to? What's going happen to be? I don't know what's gonna happen to m. and I went to my home group on Monday night and I shared that information and I was so upset and my friend Carol who is here today looks up at me and says don't you know how lucky you are? And I thought this woman is crazy. Lucky I said. Lucky? How can you call me lucky? My sponsor has just died and you're telling me I'm lucky? And she said sure. She said you know you don't even have to pick up the phone to talk to Julia anymore. You just talk. She'll hear you. See, I get what I need here, and I'm very grateful. Last year, I believe it was, Carol's husband Al died, and we got to spend some time with Carol and Al during that. And the day Al died I got to sit beside his bed with Carol and Al and I got share with him or with her, and I got to hold Al's hand and I got to put compresses on his head and I get to be there all day long. And I'm very grateful for Carol to allow us to do that. And Carol left because she couldn't take it anymore and she went home and I said we're going to stay a little while and she left and we stayed about another half an hour or so and at midnight we left and we went back home and we hadn't been home 15 minutes and the phone rang and it was Carol and she said Al passed away and I asked her what she wanted to do and she told me she was going to go back up to the hospital. I said, we'll meet you there. And we walked down the hall at the hospital and Carol says to me, Karen, I don't know what I'm going to do. What's going to happen to me? And I said, Carol, don't you know how lucky you are? All you have to do is think about Al now and you can talk to him. And I'm very grateful for that. See, I, I Don't know anything. I know nothing. I know that I came here and that you people shared with me what you learned here. And because I was available and willing to listen, I learned how to have a life beyond my wildest dreams. I am very grateful for this fellowship. One of the things that Julia left me...the whole time I've been standing up here, I've been holding three bells and I do that every time I share because it's important to me, because Julia gave these bells to me and she left me with a story. The story that Julia left me is called the bells and it's something that she gave to me. And I always like to close with the story of the bells. It says, I am passing on to you three bells that were given to me and the story goes. Here are three bells. The one in the middle is me, and the two on the outside are the Al-Anon Fellowship and my sponsor and friends in Al- Anon who are always there for me and always surround me with love and caring so that I am never ever alone again. When I came to Al-Aanon it was hard for me to reach out to others and very hard for me to believe that there was anything in Al-anon for me. I was scared and so very alone. My sponsor shared the bells with me so that I could have something in my hand to show that I was never alone just telling me wasn't enough I had to be shown she suggested that when someone near to me that I cared about needed the same thing I should pass along to them one of the bells off my grouping and they had two more to it and passed it on to that person with this story she also suggested that I add a new one to my original groupings still allowing me to to have free and continuing to show me that I am still surrounded and not alone, but showing others that it can work for them also. So I am passing on one of my bells to you. So no matter where you go or how far you move away, you are never alone and you never have to be afraid again. You can pick up the telephone or go to a meeting or just shake these bells and you will know that we are with you. If not in body, most definitely we are with you in spirit and trudging the same road that you trudge one day at a time. I am grateful for this fellowship and for our friendship, Kieran, and hope you continue to be just who you are because you are a very special person. And I know today that God has a plan for me and for you and that we never have to be alone again. Thanks. My name is Kieran. Thank you.