(0:11 – 0:21)
Hi everybody, my name is Benoit Shaw and I am a member of Al-Anon. Hi y’all. I want to
thank the committee also for asking me to come.
(0:21 – 0:54)
I have been so excited about coming here. It’s rare that you get, I think, this many
caliber AA speakers together in one weekend and I just ask them, how did y’all manage
to do this? I mean these, everybody that’s speaking, it’s just my heroes, they really are.
And it seems to be that heroes, I like, and my girls and I, we always, what word keeps
popping up at you from the whole weekend? And we think about that and when we get
back home we all kind of talk about it and my word is heroes.
(0:54 – 1:07)
And my heroes are here. And the shine has not come off of this thing for me. I mean the
shine has not come off.
(1:07 – 1:24)
I still love them to come to conventions. I still get so excited when I see certain people
and I still am in awe of them and I’m still in awe of the fact that I’m even invited
anywhere. I truly am and it is a privilege.
(1:25 – 2:07)
It’s a privilege to be up here and I don’t ever want to take advantage of that. Just a while
back my sponsor gave me this little assignment and the assignment was to write down
five broken relationships in my life and then to write out five heroes in my life and why
they were my heroes. And I wrote down the name of every AA speaker plus Dick that’s at
this convention on this paper plus some other people and I had to, you know, cross off
some of them.
(2:07 – 2:27)
I had to really think about it and really pray about it and just come up with five off of that
list. And it was extremely difficult because there’s so many. But the ones that made the
cut is Clancy.
(2:30 – 2:45)
In my very first convention ever, Clancy was there and he spoke. I remember he on a
dark navy blue suit, he on a white shirt and a red tie that had blue stripes on it. I think
you can still see that tie.
(2:46 – 2:55)
And I remember exactly what he looked like. I remember every gesture that he had. I
remember everything about that day, everything.
(2:58 – 3:30)
And like a few months later I went to a place called City Glen and Johnny was the
speaker there and I remember he had on this dark brown suit and he had on a beigey
looking shirt and a tie that matched and I remember every single thing about that. I
smoked back then and I had this cigarette pouch and it had little beads and Johnny was
getting so much into his feelings and his emotions that I remember I started counting the
beads. I had to get out of the room and I started counting the beads because I was just
going to start sobbing.
(3:30 – 3:49)
I mean, I was crying, but any minute I was just fixing to go, you know, and I had to get
out of the room. And Tom Ivester, Tom, he’s up in the wussy room. Like he’s never been
in a hot bar or anything.
(3:50 – 3:59)
He said he’s got to go up to the wussy room. Hi, Tom. And I’m sure they had air
conditioned sails where he was.
(4:04 – 4:24)
And the reason that I had to cut it down to this, and Peg sponsors my daughter, one of
my daughters, and Dick, he pulled me out of one of the deepest places I ever was one
time. My brother, an alcoholic, drunk, committed suicide. It was just an awful thing.
(4:25 – 4:32)
My brother hadn’t spoken to me in 26 years when he killed himself. He had not even
spoken to me. If he saw me in a room, he would turn his head and walk past me like I
didn’t even exist.
(4:33 – 4:42)
And Dick said that one little thing. He said, you know, he didn’t make amends to you. He
took his self out because he knew he was hurting people.
(4:43 – 5:09)
And, I mean, these people changed my life. I mean, totally changed my life. And the
reason that they were my heroes, Clancy and Tom were on there, and Jack Claytor was
on there, and my sponsor, Pat Claytor, was on that list finally, is because they still do
everything that they said they were doing 32 years ago when I came into this program.
(5:10 – 5:22)
And they are committed to helping other people. I mean, their whole life is helping other
people. Tom Ivester right now knows some newcomer.
(5:22 – 5:31)
He has just met a newcomer over the weekend, and he will tell you his name, and he will
tell you all about it because he seeks those people out. And Clancy has probably
screamed at somebody already. If he hadn’t, he will.
(5:35 – 5:46)
And Johnny’s got somebody gathered up with him. And Peg, I saw five or six people. I
mean, it’s just they still do what they said they’d do years and years ago.
(5:46 – 5:59)
I mean, years ago, no matter what’s going on in their life. And I was having breakfast
with a bunch of my girls this morning, and we all went around and just gave one sense
about where we were in our program. And some of the oldest members, myself included,
were at a place.
(5:59 – 6:05)
You know, it’s not just the happiest place. And so I keep coming. I’m like, Peg, man, I’ve
got to stay here.
(6:05 – 6:23)
I don’t get on no horse. I’m too old for horses, but I used to ride them. So I’m just having
the best time in the world.
(6:23 – 6:32)
I’m just looking at these guys and Peg and Dick, and I’m just happy. I am happy this day.
And I’m thrilled to be here.
(6:32 – 6:50)
And I want to thank the committee for allowing me to be in the company of these people
I mean, I’m just thrilled to be in their company. And she mentioned the doodling
limousines. I’m telling you, it’s why I stay around here.
(6:50 – 6:57)
One of these days I’m going to get it over an alcoholic. I mean, I just am. If I have to stay
here 70 years, one of these days I’m going to make it.
(6:58 – 7:13)
My sweet friend Belinda, she and I just had a lot of fun. She got a limousine to pick me
up, and she said, when you’re there, Johnny and Clancy are going to come in about the
same time. Just offer them a ride in your limo.
(7:14 – 7:19)
The Al-Aman has a limo, and they don’t have one. Just give them a little lift. I was just
very excited about it.
(7:19 – 7:27)
I had a lot of fun sneaking around and hiding and carrying on. So we get there, and
Clancy hadn’t gotten there yet. He was a little bit later.
(7:28 – 7:51)
I mean, I was in one of those, I’m not going to go into that. Anyway, we were going to
come on up to the hotel, and so our limo guy brought the limo out front, and we were
just smirking cute. Here come Bob and Johnny out to the edge, and I said, would you like
for my man Johnny to take your luggage and put it in my limo, and I’ll take you to the
airport? He said, no.
(7:52 – 8:04)
I said, alcoholics can always do a little bit better than Al-Aman. He turned around and
goes, and here came the biggest limousine I have ever seen in my life. It was a block
long.
(8:04 – 8:11)
We had this little limousine, and he came up with a limo. That’s all right. I’m still
thinking.
(8:15 – 8:24)
I want to thank Brenda and Monica for coming with me and having fun. I’ve got several
sponsories here, and I’m just having a good time. I just want to thank you all.
(8:24 – 8:30)
I just want to thank you. I just love being here, and it’s fun to me. I certainly need to be
here.
(8:30 – 8:43)
I am from Lubbock, Texas, and West Texas. There’s not much in Lubbock. There’s some
cattle and some cotton and lots and lots of just flat land, and that’s kind of it, and not
much happens in Lubbock.
(8:45 – 8:54)
I was always looking for excitement. I like excitement. I like to be around exciting people
and do exciting things because I’m not.
(8:54 – 9:06)
So I’ll hook on with you. If I had to use the analogy of her, you know, an alcoholic on a
horse, I would just grab on the tail and just hope that I could hang on long enough, just
screaming, you know, slow down, let me get on with you. Slow down, get on with you.
(9:06 – 9:18)
And the hooves are beating me to death, but I don’t care. You see, I’m hanging on. So
when I was a teenager, I discovered the bars in the honky tonks.
(9:18 – 9:28)
They called them honky tonks. They’re called different things around the country, but we
call them, I think, which is correct, a honky tonk. I mean, they’re just stuff that happens
at a honky tonk that doesn’t happen anywhere else.
(9:29 – 9:40)
It’s dark. It’s quiet. It stinks, and it’s crowded, and it’s hot, Tom, and you get sweaty, and,
you know, you just have a good time, and the music’s too loud for anybody to talk
particularly, and it’s just fun.
(9:41 – 10:11)
And I learned real quick, you know, the rules out there and what you do and how you do
it, and it’s just great. And I learned how to fill this hole right here. The first time I ever
heard Clancy, that must be 32 years ago, in Midland, Texas, he was talking behind the
podium, and he was talking about when he took his drink, and he said he took the drink
because he always felt pretty, you know, nothing, wussy, not much of a life.
(10:12 – 10:30)
And this drink came down and goes boom, and it comes back up, and it just filled his
shoulders, his arms got big, and boom, he just felt like a man, and he could just go
conquer anything. And as he was saying that, I knew exactly the feeling and the emotion
that he was talking about. I knew exactly what it was.
(10:31 – 10:51)
And for me, it was not that drink. For me, it was when I was at those bars, and I found a
hymn, and it was important to get the right hymn, the right night, the right, you know,
everything. Those were really, it really took a lot of work, Peg, to get the right hymn at
the right time, doing the right thing.
(10:51 – 10:54)
It’s the last dance. It’s closing time. You have got to move quick.
(10:55 – 11:08)
You’ve got him picked out, and you’ve got, I mean, it’s intense. It’s intense, and there’s
always some blonde bitch, you know, standing right there. So you’ve got to maneuver
yourself and get there.
(11:09 – 11:16)
I mean, it’s hard work. It’s really hard work. And you’ve got him, and it’s closing time.
(11:16 – 11:30)
It’s the last dance. And the music they always played was this slow guitar. It’s called
Sleepwalk, the most glorious song today.
(11:30 – 12:08)
I mean, I’m getting cold chills right now just thinking about that song. It goes, and it just
gets into your soul and into your bones and to your muscles, and it’s just, I mean, it just
sends you someplace that I can’t even describe. And I’m dancing with my hymn of the
night, and he’s right here in this ear, and he’s whispering, and we’re just cheek to cheek,
you know, and we’re just, you couldn’t put a human hair between our bodies, let me tell
you.
(12:08 – 12:28)
And we’re just giving it this and just hugging and carrying on, and he whispers right
here, Sugar, I need you. Boom! Boom! I am woman! I can do anything. I’m full now.
(12:28 – 12:45)
This is it. And I take him home and show him the delights that he never even thought
was around, you know. Are you all familiar with a term called Coyote Ugly? In Texas,
they talk about it a lot.
(12:45 – 13:10)
A coyote, if his leg gets caught in a trap, he will chew, I mean, literally chew his leg off to
save his life and get out there. And Coyote Ugly is when an alcoholic wakes up in the
morning and a little honey like me is laying on his arm, and he looks at her, and you’re
Coyote Ugly, he’d rather chew his arm off than wake you up. And they can just slip out.
(13:10 – 13:19)
I mean, alcoholics can just slip out. I never figured out how they did that. Because, see, I
thought this was the hymn of my choice, this was going to be a hymn that takes me out
of all this stuff.
(13:19 – 13:53)
And he’s going to change my life, because my stuff was, I’m tall, I’m skinny, I can’t say
three words, I’m uneducated, my parents don’t hardly speak to me, it’s quiet in my
house, my brother broke his neck, and he’s physically just a mess, and it stinks, it smells
like rotting flesh and fluids and medicine over the rotting flesh, and they fight and they
scream, and it’s just a terrible place. And I stay away from it all the time, and I don’t
want to be there, and I want to be someplace where it’s fun. And my folks are Southern
Baptists, and Southern Baptists, you can’t do anything.
(13:53 – 14:05)
I mean, you cannot do anything but read the prayer book and go to preaching on
Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and that’s it. And if I wore lipstick on
Sunday, I was just damned. And it was just a terrible place.
(14:05 – 14:17)
I just wanted to go where the fun was, and I thought it was there. Something else that I
found out when they hugged me and talked to me and told me sweet things, and they
always did it when they were drunk. When they were sober, they didn’t particularly do it.
(14:17 – 14:40)
It was when they were drunk, and so I liked them drunk versus sober, because they were
a lot more fun when they were drunk. So it didn’t bother me for anybody to be drunk. I
enjoyed it.
I drank along with them for the longest time. And I allowed things to happen to me that
shouldn’t happen to anybody, but I allowed it because I needed that hymn. I needed that
fix.
(14:41 – 14:56)
And when this one would escape the next day, I would make excuses to myself why he
escaped, why he wasn’t there, and go out to the bar and pick another hymn. And it was
just like I heard so many alcoholics say. They’re going to the bar.
(14:56 – 15:08)
They’re just going to have a couple of beers, and they’re going to go home. They’re not
going to stay out and ruin their wives’ and children’s lives and all that. And I heard that
and say, I was going to go out to the bar and just have a couple of dances and dance a
little while, and then I was going home.
(15:08 – 15:24)
I was not going to take one home with me this time. But I always did. And my dream was
to be married and have a little house, 2.4 children, picket fence, and a station wagon
with the wood on the side of it, like Doris Day and Rock Hudson.
(15:25 – 15:40)
Who knew? And I knew that that dream was lost, and so I was just going for the gusto. I
was just going for whatever. And I turned out to be, and I lovingly say, and it’s true, I was
just a slut puppy hoe.
(15:41 – 15:48)
That’s what I was. And I just was going for the fix, going for the fix, going for the fix. And
I never thought anything good would happen to me.
(15:49 – 15:56)
I was just out there doing one bar at a time. And I met my first major alcoholic out there.
He had a lot of money.
(15:56 – 16:06)
My folks were broke because of my brother’s condition. He had a lot of money, and he
flashed it on me all the time, and he gave me money, and I loved it. And we started
having a meaningful relationship, I think.
(16:06 – 16:14)
That’s what they call it nowadays. We used to call it shacked up. We were shacked up,
and I became pregnant with my daughter.
(16:16 – 16:23)
And he just didn’t want any part of that. He was busy. He had things to do, and he did
not want a part of a child in me.
(16:24 – 16:51)
And so when the child was born, he told me, you know, I’ve done as much as I’m going to
do for you, and I’m out of here. Now, alcoholics talk about, and Jack, what is your name?
Nancy Clancy says it all the time, the isms of alcoholism. And my great-greatgrandsponsor, Marcy White, talked about one time the isms of Al-Anon isms, and that we
also have some isms.
(16:51 – 17:05)
And one of those is the need to be needed, the control, the manipulation, the caretaker,
all this stuff. And one of them was the fear of abandonment. You know, you can treat me
any way you want to.
(17:05 – 17:09)
You can say anything about me. You can beat me up, which they did. Or if they didn’t
beat me up, I was beating them up.
(17:10 – 17:15)
You can humiliate me. You can do anything. Just don’t leave me.
(17:16 – 17:33)
I cannot stand to be left. I cannot stand to be alone. The worst time in my life ever seems
to be, and it is today a lot of times, is at night, you know, when you turn off the light and
roll over, and it’s dark, and there’s nobody between you and you.
(17:33 – 17:40)
You’re just laying there in the dark, and it’s you and your head. I saw that now. Since
they come out with TVs that have timers, you know, I just time it off.
(17:41 – 17:49)
But it’s like I could not stand that time. I could not stand to be there by myself. I had to
have somebody over here to take that away from me.
(17:50 – 18:01)
It was like alcoholics. My drunk cowboy husband, he used to have the whiskey right by
the bed so that he could grab it first thing in the morning. He could not go to sleep
unless there was a drink there.
(18:01 – 18:05)
I couldn’t go to sleep unless there was a hem there. I had to grab it. I had to hold on to it.
(18:05 – 18:14)
I had to have something that was going to take my pain away that was going to help me
when I woke up in the morning. And when they slipped out, it was just awful. I’d have to
go back and back and back.
(18:16 – 18:25)
So he was going to throw me and this little girl away. So part of my isms is I’m vindictive.
Now, I did not, and to this day I don’t like that word.
(18:25 – 18:55)
I think it’s splaining to you how much you’ve hurt me, and sometimes you can’t hear it,
so I will show you in certain actions so that you can really understand how you’ve hurt
me. So one of my ways to show this guy how he hurt me was to flaunt myself in front of
another guy who was across town that he was in his hood and this one was in his hood.
They were just gangsters is what they were, and they carried guns, and they were just,
he was a bootlegger, he was a pimp.
(18:56 – 19:12)
He was not one of the nicest guys in the world. So I got this guy and was flaunting myself
in front of him, and he took a shotgun one night and blew his head off. And I swear to
you, I never thought that would happen.
(19:14 – 19:26)
I’m talking to a girl now that’s, she’s living in this awful situation. She’s been in the
program seven years. She’s separated from her husband, seven years across the house,
and they’re living together.
(19:26 – 19:29)
She’s got him on the side. She’s sneaking in and out. The guy’s calling.
(19:30 – 19:37)
I said, you know, that could blow up in your face. He could, and this guy, her husband’s
known to be very violent and known to carry a gun. I said, he’ll kill this man.
(19:37 – 19:41)
You think that won’t happen. It happens. It happened to me.
(19:42 – 19:53)
Of course, I’m just humiliated, and I’m embarrassed, and I’m just destroyed. And my
parents, they had just about all they’d had of me. You know, you just don’t have a child
out of wedlock in Lubbock, Texas, in the 60s.
(19:54 – 19:59)
You just don’t do that. And so when this happened, and they made a big deal of it. It was
on newspapers and radios.
(19:59 – 20:04)
It was everywhere. And my mother came to me, and she said, we do not want you
coming in and out of the house. Just stay away.
(20:04 – 20:09)
We don’t want the neighbors seeing you. And if anybody asks if you’re our kid, just don’t
tell them. And I said, I won’t, Mom.
(20:09 – 20:24)
I understand. She was a member of the Rebecca Lodge, and she had just got voted into
this big state office. It was a big deal to my mother, and they had asked her to step down
because of my actions, and she was very embarrassed, and it hurt her a great deal.
(20:24 – 20:33)
And I knew that, and I felt, I just felt all the guilt that you can have. So I knew that I
needed to change my life. So I did not believe in God, did not want to believe in God.
(20:34 – 20:40)
I mean, that was their stuff, and it was just not a part of my life. So I wasn’t a praying
person. So what am I going to do? I’ve got this heaviness.
(20:40 – 20:55)
I’ve got this stuff. What am I going to do? Well, I’m from Texas, and everybody knows
that in Texas, there are these all-American, red-blooded guys who do not burn their flag.
It was, I guess, the Vietnam thing where people were burning their flags and stuff, and
cowboys don’t do that.
(20:56 – 21:01)
And draft card, that’s what it was, tearing up their draft. Oh, they didn’t do that. So I
thought, that’s what I need.
(21:01 – 21:14)
I need somebody decent. I need somebody clean and decent who loves the flag, who will
make me feel good, and I’ll go over to the rodeo grounds. So I did.
(21:14 – 21:28)
I went over to the rodeo grounds, and the same thing happens there that happens in the
bar. It just happens outside. You know, after a rodeo, they have a slab and some wire
fence around it, and everybody goes out there after the rodeo for the dance there and sit
in the honky-donk.
(21:28 – 21:34)
It was just the same thing. And I got the cowboy. I got the cowboy who was the bull rider
and the biggest drinker and the cutest one, I thought.
(21:36 – 21:57)
And I thought, if I can just get him, I’ll be all right. And so one night, he was punching me
in the chest, and I took a big port brown beer bottle. Back then, Lubbock County was dry,
so you had to get bootleg beer, bust up beside his head and knock him to his knees, and
I ran.
(21:58 – 22:15)
And he came and caught me, and he said, I think you just knocked some sense in me. I
think we should get married. And I’m telling you, the word married was like heaven
opened up.
(22:16 – 22:28)
Because they’re, excuse me, can you get me a man or something? I’ve got throat. And to
be married was a dream. It was something that was so totally out of my reach.
(22:29 – 22:43)
Thank you, Peggy. Thank you. It was so much out of my dream to be a married person,
because of my background, that when he said that, I literally kept him drunk.
(22:46 – 23:04)
He would like whiskey in a glass, and I would pour a jigger of whiskey in the rest water,
and I reversed it. I could have killed, I mean, I literally, after I got to AA, found out that I
could have killed this man. I could have given him toxic poison that way.
(23:04 – 23:13)
But see, in my head, my ism came out. I’ve got to keep him drunk so I can manipulate
him, because he asked me to marry him. And I’ve got to keep him drunk so he will do
this.
(23:13 – 23:20)
And we did. I don’t know how he passed the blood test, because he was so drunk when
he staggered in there. But we got blood tested, and we got married.
(23:21 – 23:26)
And it was absolutely glorious. I mean, it was just, it was glorious. I just, I couldn’t believe
it.
(23:26 – 23:31)
It happened to me. Now, I’m going to be decent. You see, I wanted to be decent so
desperately.
(23:31 – 23:44)
I just felt like a piece of garbage, and I just wanted to be a decent woman and not hate
Sunday mornings so bad. I hated Sunday mornings. It was, y’all remember Johnny Cash
singing Sunday morning coming down? I mean, that was my thing.
(23:45 – 23:50)
Some of you don’t. You’re too young. If you haven’t ever heard it, go hear it.
(23:50 – 24:01)
It’s just an all-along song, truly. It just makes your heart kind of swell. And married was
going to fix everything, I thought, and it did.
(24:01 – 24:07)
It really did for the first six days. It was great. I mean, it was just a great, I was a great
wife.
(24:07 – 24:17)
He was, you know, just great for six days, and then he was off and running. And the
same thing kept happening, just over and over and over. I’d go to the bars and fight and
would throw over chairs.
(24:18 – 24:23)
I got thrown out of the bars. He didn’t. They would throw me out because I’d come in
there, and I was raising cane, and he was a good customer.
(24:23 – 24:29)
They threw me out. That still kind of pisses me off. There’s something kind of unfair
about that.
(24:31 – 24:51)
And one Thursday, I was sitting in an old green rocking chair, and the cowboy was going
to come home on Friday. And this is why I love these guys, because they both knew the
cowboy, and they both saw that stuff. You know, when you’ve got a history with
somebody, it makes such a difference.
(24:51 – 25:03)
It’s like somebody in the room knows what I’m talking about. And I had two black eyes
and a busted lip, and he was going to come in on Friday, and I thought, I just can’t do
this. Not one more time.
(25:03 – 25:09)
I just simply cannot live this way, and I don’t know what to do. I would have killed myself.
I thought about it.
(25:10 – 25:18)
But I had two kids that I kept nearly locked up in the back room. I kept them back there
just out of my way. I just didn’t want them in my way.
(25:18 – 25:29)
And I didn’t want anybody to take those kids. So I picked up the phone, and I called
Alcoholics Anonymous in the Yellow Pages, because I had read from Ann Landers. It was
October of 1968.
(25:29 – 25:33)
I still remember it. I read in her. She was new then.
(25:34 – 25:45)
Someone had written in about a drinking husband, and she said to call Alcoholics
Anonymous, and so I did. And they told me who to call and what to do, and I went over
and saw this lady. She was a sober member of AA.
(25:46 – 25:49)
Her husband came in. He was a sober member of AA. I think this is really funny.
(25:49 – 26:05)
When he came in, I immediately got up to leave because the man had come in the
house, and I didn’t think I was supposed to be there. And they said, no, shh, shh, shh. I
still remember how impressed I was that he sat down and he talked with me too, and
they told me about their drinking and agreed to pick me up.
(26:06 – 26:20)
So they did. They brought me to my first meeting. And he opened the door for me, and I
was just standing there looking at him because I had never, up until coming to Alcoholics
Anonymous, I did not know how gentlemen treated ladies.
(26:21 – 26:31)
I had no earthly idea because I’d never been treated that way. I’d seen it in movies and
stuff, but, you know, that’s kind of it. And he had opened the door, and he was standing
there, and I was just looking at him because I didn’t know what he was doing.
(26:31 – 26:43)
He was literally opening the door for me so that I could go in. And I still, to this day,
remember when it snapped in my head, he’s opened the door for me. I mean, it was
such an incredible thing.
(26:43 – 27:11)
Anyway, what I saw when I went through that door, they had an old-timey cigarette
machine, the type that you put money in, you pull, and it, pow, and it had different lights
on it everywhere, and each one was, you know, advertising their particular brand. And
they were kind of green and yellow and blue, and it was glowing, and it was kind of dusk
outside. As I walked in and looked down this narrow coffee room, there was two AA guys,
and they were leaning against that, facing each other, and this glow was in the middle,
coming up and hitting their faces.
(27:11 – 27:20)
And they were laughing. I mean, it was the kind of laughter that was real, you know, just
like I’ve heard all weekend. I mean, it was a laughter, and it was just incredible.
(27:21 – 27:40)
And I stopped because I hadn’t heard laughter in so long. My friend Albert Myers used to
say, you know, the sounds of an alcoholic home, you can tell what’s going on because
now a teen got in his car one night, and Albert said, well, how’s it at home? He said, well,
sounds okay. He said, what? He said, well, the house sounds okay.
(27:40 – 27:53)
And the sounds, if they’re screaming and yelling, or if it’s quiet, or if Johnny says, flesh
hitting flesh, you know, you just know the sounds of alcoholism. And it was like I hadn’t
heard that in so long. It was just very inviting.
(27:54 – 28:04)
One of the things that hooked me, and I went into my first meeting, and I don’t
remember anything they said, not at all. I remember what they looked like. I remember
the feeling of the room.
(28:04 – 28:23)
And my sponsor, my sponsor is Pat Claytor, and she’s been the only sponsor I’ve ever
had, and she still does all those things that everybody here is doing, like Peg was talking
about. You know, she’s still doing the things. And she told me, after I’d been in for a
while, she said, you know, new people can’t always hear what we say, but they can see
what we are.
(28:23 – 28:37)
So anytime you’re behind the desk or behind the podium, anytime you’re a part of a
meeting, you make sure you’re dressed. You make sure you’re dressed up the best you
can be because we can’t always see. I mean, hear, but we can see.
(28:37 – 28:42)
And so I’ve taken that to heart because they looked good. They were cleaned up.
Nobody was in their husband’s shirts.
(28:42 – 28:46)
I wore my husband’s shirts. Everybody had on makeup. I didn’t wear makeup.
(28:46 – 28:48)
Their hair was combed. I didn’t wear it. You know, I didn’t do that stuff.
(28:48 – 29:04)
I was too busy sitting in the chair thinking and suffering and, you know, looking and
hunting and watching. You know, they say alcoholism is a lonely disease, and it is. It is
very lonesome for the alcoholic, something that I don’t know.
(29:05 – 29:24)
A couple weekends ago, no, last weekend, the first time I was out, last weekend I was at
a book study. We do a step study, and I was in Oklahoma. We were looking at the AAs 12
and 12, and over and over and over in that book they talk about, they use the word the
sufferer, the sufferer, the suffering.
(29:24 – 29:33)
And, you know, that was my word for the weekend, as I say. It was like, I don’t suffer. I
hurt, but I don’t suffer.
(29:33 – 29:42)
And there’s the difference. I mean, I don’t understand the alcoholic suffering. I
understand my stuff.
(29:44 – 30:04)
But when I look at that stuff and see the pain in their eyes sometimes, I’m thinking, I was
just teasing. Why is the pain there? When I look and see this blank look, what’s your
problem? I don’t understand what’s going on here. And I’ve had to stick here and listen
to all that stuff all this time.
(30:04 – 30:22)
But anyway, I’m in this meeting, and I’m learning what you’re doing and how you’re
doing it, and clean and clear-cut, and I started dressing like you’re doing, doing what
you’re doing. I hadn’t been there very long until I got my sponsor. Like I said, she’s been
my sponsor now for 32 years, and she’s still doing things.
(30:23 – 30:39)
And she caught me after a meeting one night because I always slid out real quick, and
she caught me, and she told me some things that only she could say and only I could
hear. And I asked her somehow to be my sponsor. And I’m terrified to do that because,
number one, she’s going to be way, way too busy to sponsor me.
(30:39 – 30:47)
There’s too many people around her. I won’t be in her way, you know, all that stuff that
newcomers think. And she thanked me for the privilege.
(30:48 – 31:00)
She bought me a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I went over to her house, and
we studied it. When I came in, we had the one day at a time had just come out, the fall
before. We had it.
(31:00 – 31:14)
We had the big book, and we had the age 12 and 12, and that’s the literature that we
literally had some pamphlets that’s no longer conference approved. But that’s what we
had to study. And she said to me that we would read that book and understand about
the disease of alcoholism.
(31:14 – 31:29)
Until I could understand that, I would never understand what was going on in my life,
and I could never get into my own stuff. So we studied that, and then we got into
working the steps. She also told me, I go to three committed meetings a week.
(31:29 – 31:43)
Two of them are Al-Anon, one is AA. My home group is the stepped-up group in L.A., and
my committed AA meeting is the Pacific group on Wednesday nights. And I’m like, Peg, if
I’m not there, I’m either sick or out of town.
(31:44 – 32:09)
And I’ve gone for all these years to both meetings, and it gives me the understanding of
what’s going on. And so she started me on the steps, and I did go through the steps, and
I found the God of my understanding, and I was able to understand the disease of
alcoholism and let the cowboy go as much as I possibly could. And all of a sudden, my
daughter was a teenager, and she became a problem.
(32:10 – 32:14)
One morning. I mean, it just seemed like it was one morning. She woke up, and she was
a problem.
(32:16 – 32:37)
And, of course, the more that I told, and the more that I told Jack and Pat, the next thing,
I really started knowing in my innermost self that my daughter was probably on this path
of alcoholism. And I really wanted her to do something different. I truly did, because I’d
heard so many people, women from the podium, talk about their disease and where it
took them.
(32:37 – 32:45)
I did not want my daughter to go there. I would have done anything to keep her, and I
tried to. I tried to manipulate, control, beat her up.
(32:45 – 33:11)
I mean, there’s pictures of her when I beat her up once, some of her shenanigans and
some of my illness. And today, they would have put her in, what is it, child protective
service? And I’d be under a jail somewhere. And I had to release her one day at a time
and stay in these meetings, and I still have to, because she’s still an alcoholic.
(33:12 – 33:26)
My son, when he was 11, they called me from school, and he was sniffing Pam. For God’s
sake, you know that stuff that you spray to cook with? He was sniffing it through a paper
towel holder. Well, I never heard of that.
(33:26 – 33:34)
I knew he was weird from time to time, but, I mean, people that I knew drank whiskey.
And I know whiskey. I don’t know Pam.
(33:34 – 33:47)
I mean, I still don’t understand that. And I was going to put him in a boy’s ranch down in
San Angelo, Texas, and I was going to move down there. Some of the guys were going to
help me, and I got a lot of people to help me do all this stuff.
(33:49 – 34:06)
And his still-drunk dad, we had divorced by this time, and his still-drunk dad found out
about it and came and kidnapped him one night and took him off. And my son’s 36 years
old now, and he’s not lived with me since he was 11. We do have a relationship today,
thank God, because of this program, but at the time, we did not.
(34:06 – 34:17)
And I didn’t know where he was for a few days. We had the sheriff out, and they were
fixing to put his face on a milk carton, for God’s sake, and it was awful. It was a terrible,
terrible, terrible time.
(34:19 – 34:28)
I was sick. I was so sick all over because, number one, I knew that he was with his dad. I
pretty well knew he was with his dad, and his dad was lying to me.
(34:28 – 34:52)
And the fact that my son had gone with his dad and was not letting me know where he
was at, and they knew that I was suffering this torture, and not calling me and telling
me, it was a very hard thing. Finally, he called me, and he said, I’m all right, and I want
to stay with my dad. And I was instructed by my sponsor at that time to take an
inventory on my children, and I did, and my motherhood.
(34:53 – 34:57)
You know, I did a lot of things that were wrong. I was a lousy mother. I really was.
(34:57 – 35:10)
I also did a lot of things, I found out in this inventory, that were right. My kids lived in a
really bad situation. Johnny described what my kids went through, other than my
drinking.
(35:10 – 35:23)
Well, I did drink, but I quit after a while. Because when they would go to bed, they never
knew what was going to happen. They never knew how they were going to be woke up
at 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning by us.
(35:24 – 35:34)
It is sad. It’s a sad way to grow up, and I hate that my kids have to do that. On the other
flip side, they’ve learned how to be survivors.
(35:34 – 35:44)
They’ve learned how to be strong human beings. God just didn’t drop them in all that
mess. They’ve taken what happened to them and turned it around, and they’re both
survivors at least.
(35:44 – 36:04)
They’re doing well today, Saturday. I had to step out of myself to forgive myself and to
learn exactly what I was doing. Because as a mother, I wanted my kids to be okay.
(36:05 – 36:17)
Not because I’m such a good mother, but because I didn’t want my kids to cause me
pain. If they behaved, then I didn’t have any pain. That was the worst thing I had to
admit, that it was selfish.
(36:17 – 36:31)
The whole thing was so selfish. I just wanted to act right and be okay so I didn’t have
pain. I was told that God has no grandchildren and that God had them on a path like I
was on a path and that pain is what got me here and pain would get them here.
(36:31 – 36:44)
I was able to release my kids as much as I ever have during that time and let them have
their own path. This cowboy and I divorced. I was single and trying to do the right thing.
(36:45 – 36:48)
It’s hard. If you’re single, I understand. It’s hard.
(36:49 – 37:10)
Because I did not want to go back to old ideas and be a slot puppy hoe. I wanted to have
my head up and have some dignity. It was hard because there’s a couple of times that
there was… I would have done slips because I cared so much about… I would have done
things I shouldn’t have done.
(37:12 – 37:26)
I met this man, his name was Jim Shaw, at a convention. Clancy was his sponsor and he
was with Clancy. I’ve always adored Clancy, still do, and just wanted to be in his
presence.
(37:27 – 37:31)
Whatever it took, I’d do it. I’d just hung around. Everybody he was with and whoever he
was with, I’d do that.
(37:34 – 37:43)
This guy was sitting over there with Clancy so I just went for him like radar. Besides, he
had blue eyes and this big deep voice and a lot of diamonds. The diamonds got my
attention too.
(37:46 – 38:05)
We had this little long-distance fling for a while and I was going to quit my job and move
out to California to see if we could put something together and then eventually get
married is what we’re talking about. I’d packed everything up. I’d quit my job, everything
was in a trailer and I was going to go out Monday morning.
(38:06 – 38:19)
I’d flown off somewhere and I flew back in Sunday. When I got into Lubbock, there stood
Jim at the foot of the… I thought, isn’t this sweet? He came to drive me out because
somebody else was going to drive me out there. He came out to die.
(38:20 – 38:29)
He changed his mind. This is what he said, I have gotten in touch with my feelings. Fact
was, he was a coward.
(38:29 – 38:41)
He was just a coward. So I’d gone to Clancy and Clancy told him that he had to come and
face me and make amends and give me some money. Thank you very much.
(38:41 – 39:00)
He gave me a lot of money to get me back, put back together. So I took the money and
got back in my apartment and bought a new TV and hated him and quit Al-Anon forever
and told everybody that I wasn’t going to sponsor him anymore. I called them up.
(39:00 – 39:04)
I got the list and called them all. I’m not going to Al-Anon anymore. Don’t come and blah,
blah, blah.
(39:06 – 39:16)
About two hours later, my door was banging and I opened the door and there was
everybody out sponsored plus a few people. They came in and they brought stuff. They
brought coffee and cups and cookies.
(39:17 – 39:20)
They said, we’re going to have a meeting. I said, no, you’re not. I don’t want you here.
(39:20 – 39:22)
They said, well, we don’t care. We’re going to have a meeting. Go in the bedroom.
(39:26 – 39:29)
So I did. I went to the bedroom. I went to slam the door just real hard.
(39:30 – 39:44)
Then I stuck my ear up to see what they were saying. They said, what did she tell you to
do when you’d been hit in the stomach by a hammer? They all went around the room
and they were saying these things. Pretty soon I opened the door and slid in and sat
down.
(39:44 – 40:01)
It was a hard time because I was embarrassed, number one, because they’d give me a
big going away party. Then I thought, who do you think you are? What do you think
you’re doing? That old stuff came back. Going to California was a dream of mine since I
was a little kid.
(40:01 – 40:13)
When I got into AA and Al-Anon and saw all the glories that seemed to come out of
California, boy, I got close to that. It was like, that’s where I want to be. That’s what I’m
doing.
(40:13 – 40:29)
This was going to be a dream of mine, going to California and being out there and doing
stuff and seeing all this stuff. He had dumped me, and the dream was gone. I thought,
who do you think you are? What do you think is happening here? I just went to that place
of nothing.
(40:30 – 40:38)
I took it out on some, I mean, I literally was taking it out on men. I just hated men. I just
hated them, so I started taking it out on them.
(40:38 – 40:51)
I started messing around with some newcomers, and that got, you know, one of them
left, and I don’t know if it’s my fault, but anyway, he left. He never came back, and I felt
really bad. My sponsor got wind of what I was doing because somebody snitched on me.
(40:52 – 41:00)
She sat me down, and boy, she just ripped me a new one. Then she made me tell Jack,
and I had to go tell Jack what I was doing. I’d just rather have done anything than tell
Jack.
(41:02 – 41:18)
I had to realize that I have bad actions. I want to blame it on the alcoholic, but it’s not.
It’s my actions, and I finally saw that, that I try to blame.
(41:18 – 41:24)
I mean, I need another alcoholic in my life, let me tell you. I don’t have anybody to blame
right now. It’s just very tedious, you know.
(41:25 – 41:46)
Oh, yeah. So I had to clean up my act, and I had to go back to God and ask for
forgiveness and look at myself in a new way I’d never looked at myself before and then
realize that that’s when I really truly realized that being here is not a right of mine. It is a
privilege, as Peg said, you know, because a lot of people should have asked me to leave.
(41:46 – 42:01)
I should have been asked to leave because I had some terrible actions, but they didn’t.
So I went back and started doing the things that I had been taught to do and just trying
to clean my act up. Two years later, Jim came back in my life, and this time I caught him.
(42:01 – 42:11)
He didn’t get loose. We got married, and we moved up to Oma. He was rich for about 30
minutes and got into all bust of 82.
(42:11 – 42:18)
He lost everything and moved back to Dallas, and eventually we moved back to
California. Clancy told me to come out there. That’s where he did the best, so that’s
where we went.
(42:18 – 43:03)
In the meantime, my daughter tried to commit suicide drunk, and they gathered her up,
and I visted with her a little bit, and I just had to let her go and just let her do what she
needed to do, and then I would go back to Lubbock for the reunions, really, of AA, and
she met me one night at a convention, and when they asked for newcomers, she raised
her hand, and she got sober, and it was glorious. I mean, just really glorious. It was a
dream that I just did not dream would happen, and she stayed in Lubbock and was
getting sober and doing well, and Jim and I, in the meantime, moved to California, and
she met a man on AA campus, and they got pregnant.
(43:03 – 43:12)
Then they got married. They had a baby. Then they got divorced, and Jim and I got them,
and we were helping raise my little granddaughter, and I don’t know.
(43:12 – 43:23)
I just thought AA and Al-Anons never had buses. I just thought when he was in AA and
you’re in Al-Anon, and you all just said this rainy prayer, and you never had fuss. Jim and
I fought all the time.
(43:23 – 43:32)
I mean, we just hated each other, and then we’d like each other, and then we’d hate
each other, and then we’d like each other. I mean, it was just awful. It was awful.
(43:33 – 43:50)
I was so shocked. I thought he never told a lie. I thought he was always sweet and
always happy, and he thought I was cute and never told a lie and was always sweet and
happy, and I just woke up one day and thought, what are you thinking? I mean, I love
this.
(43:50 – 45:11)
He was in the kitchen one time cooking, and I was in the movie, and all of a sudden, he’d
come out of the kitchen, and I looked to clear blue sky, and he walked in there, and he
said, listen, Missy, you say from that podium that from time to time alcoholism rears its
ugly head in our family. Well, I want you to know that from time to time alcoholism rears
its ugly head, and he turned around and walked back out. I was like, what was he
thinking? I mean, I was watching a movie.
It was an hour into the movie. I hadn’t spoken to him, hadn’t said nothing, and he’d come
in there. He was thinking.
It’s what we do. I think and he thinks, and we got, it was just really funny. Anyway, we
finally, the last few years of our lives, we, his life rather, we finally started hammering it
out that I had my character defects, he had his, was both trying to change the other one,
and it was a mess, and we let it go, and we were asked to go do this couples retreat,
which was just hysterical to me because we were barely speaking to each other, and we
got the 10th step out of the A’s, 12 and 12, and we read that line for line, sentence for
sentence, and went to this place, did a whole weekend on the 10th step, and it changed
our marriage.
It saved our marriage. In the last two years of his life, we got along just really, really well.
I mean, it was like we really liked each other, and we were doing things, and it seemed
to be okay.
(45:12 – 45:25)
Anyway, we had this daughter. We gave her a big 10-year. She got 10 years sobriety.
We gave her a big party. Two weeks later, she tried to commit herself, kill herself sober.
Now, she seemingly was doing all the things.
(45:26 – 45:37)
She was going to meetings. She was sponsoring people, on committees, you know, just
active, but the disease of alcoholism, I discovered, is a disease of alcoholism, whether
you’re drunk or sober. It’s the disease of alcoholism.
(45:37 – 45:47)
They told me at the hospital that she had another illness, and it was a mental illness.
They wanted to treat her with drugs. We talked about drugs.
(45:48 – 45:55)
Some of us were talking about drugs the other day. They wanted to put her on drugs,
and she asked me to ask Clancy, and I did. I said, you know, they’re wanting to put her
on drugs.
(45:55 – 46:01)
What do you think? I didn’t want her to. He said, well, she has nothing to lose now. Let
her stay on it for three months and see what it does.
(46:01 – 46:04)
Well, that’s what she did. She stayed on them three months. She got off of them.
(46:04 – 46:11)
She got back in AA and seemingly doing well. She had two and a half years sobriety. She
moved over to Phoenix.
(46:11 – 46:25)
She was seemingly doing great over there, very active. She called me one night. She
said, are you sitting down? Now, when an alcoholic says to you, are you sitting down,
you know, you know the next sentence ain’t going to be good.
(46:26 – 46:44)
I said, what? She said, well, I ran off last night and got married. I said, to who? Well, she
told me who it was. It was a young man that I knew of him because me and my cowboy
husband and his parents, we all ran around together, and his son, their son, and my son
were born at the same time.
(46:44 – 47:00)
And this young man’s name was Shane, and so she had met him when we were home for
Christmas, and they had been sneaking around seeing each other, so they ran off and
got married. And he lived in Texas. I said, well, are you going to stay in Arizona? Are you
going to move back to Texas? And she said, well, we’ve got to get back to Texas before
his parole officer finds out he’s gone.
(47:07 – 47:26)
I said, I think I’d better get off the phone with you. And, of course, it was a matter of
months until she called me, and I was going back to Dallas to talk at a conference, and
she called me and she said, I need to tell you, I’ve been drinking, and I’ve got black eyes
and some stitches across my face. I just got out of the emergency room.
(47:26 – 47:37)
I’ve been there all night, and I’m going to see you this weekend. I said, okay. So she saw
me, and one more time, I just had to release her and absolutely stay away from her.
(47:38 – 47:42)
Just stay away from her. She left this young man. She’s got two years of sobriety again.
(47:44 – 47:50)
And, you know, alcoholism is just alcoholism. You know, I know a lot of people. My life
has gotten bigger, and so I hear a lot of tragedies.
(47:50 – 48:11)
I also have a lot of good stuff, but, I mean, there’s just tragedies that happen to us. Two
weeks ago, she called me, and she’s separated from Shane, and she just filed for
divorce, and she got a call two weeks ago. Shane was drunk and in Fort Worth and had a
wreck in his truck, went through the windshield.
(48:12 – 48:19)
The truck exploded. He was found 70 feet away from the truck. He’s in a coma.
(48:20 – 48:32)
He had brain shearing. He has survived up to this point. There’s a 30% chance that he
can come out of this coma, and if he does, he’s a vegetable.
(48:33 – 48:50)
And she’s in Fort Worth, and she’s signing a bunch of papers to turn over his care to the
mother. And he’s 37 years old, and he’s gone. He’s in a coma, and this is the result of
last week.
(48:50 – 48:56)
I won’t go into all the jury details, but he’s laying there in a coma. He doesn’t know
anything going on. My daughter and I are not speaking.
(48:57 – 49:02)
My daughter and her brother aren’t speaking. The mother-in-law and Tracy aren’t
speaking. The in-laws aren’t speaking.
(49:03 – 49:15)
My brother and them are mad at her, and she’s mad at him, and he’s there laying
asleep. Isn’t that the way it is? I mean, I had to giggle. So there she is.
(49:15 – 49:22)
And I hope she’s sober today. I hope she’s staying in touch with who she needs to do and
what she needs to do. I just have to let her go.
(49:23 – 49:33)
And let me tell you, it’s a painful process. There’s a lot of people in this room that has
really tried to help my daughter. And it gets embarrassing.
(49:34 – 49:46)
I mean, I know it’s a disease. I know that’s a disease. But, you know, when you stand
here, and this is your family, and this is where you walk all the time, and this stuff keeps
happening, it gets really tough sometimes.
(49:46 – 49:54)
And I love my daughter. I know she’s nuttier than a fruitcake, but I love her. And I still
carry some of that shame and some of that guilt.
(49:54 – 50:03)
You know, if I had done this, maybe she wouldn’t be so nuts. If I had done that, maybe
she wouldn’t be so nuts. And I still carry that stuff, and that’s why I have to stay so close.
(50:03 – 50:14)
And it’s just Saturday, and know that I’m all right today, and that she’s in the hands of
who she needs to be, and I’m in the hands of who I need to be. We were back in
California doing great. It seemed like we were doing fine.
(50:14 – 50:25)
And Jim got sick, and we went to the doctor. And he had cancer, and he was dead in
three months. And it was such a shock.
(50:25 – 50:41)
So I went to get some things, his paperwork, and get some stuff put together. And we
had a little business manager, and she refused to turn things over. And, in fact, Clancy
had to get all the, I don’t know how he did it, but he got all the stuff finally.
(50:41 – 50:46)
We called the police. We couldn’t get my books. I couldn’t get the computer.
(50:46 – 50:53)
I couldn’t get the check. I couldn’t get anything. And Clancy got it for me and sent it
down to Palm Springs where we were, and I got to digging and looking.
(50:53 – 50:59)
And apparently we had been embezzled, and there was nothing. There was nothing.
There was no money.
(50:59 – 51:04)
It was gone. She had taken equipment and hid it. I finally found where the equipment
was.
(51:04 – 51:11)
It was just the most hideous time. And Jim died, and I was getting through all that. And it
was just, I mean, walking was hard.
(51:11 – 51:22)
Walking through the air was hard. And a few months later, my nephew was killed. He
was drunk on an oil well off the coast of Houston, and he got crushed because he was
drunk, fell into the pump.
(51:22 – 51:31)
And a couple of months after that, my stepdad of 25 years died. And a few months after
that, my mother died. And in 11 months, I had four major deaths.
(51:31 – 51:51)
And we shut my mother’s house down and cleared it out. And I was standing there after
about a year thinking, what happened? What has just happened here? And as I started
breathing in and out and looking, this is what happened after I got away from it. I was so
zoned out, and I was just doing what I had been taught to do for years.
(51:51 – 52:03)
I’d just answer the phone and talk, and I’d just get on a plane. I would just go to my
meetings and most of the time not even knowing my surroundings, but I just kept doing
what I was supposed to do. I need that structure.
(52:03 – 52:08)
I’m not a person who can call my sponsor when I need them. I just can’t. I’m too quacko.
(52:08 – 52:27)
I’ll just go out there and get crazy. So I just kept doing what I was supposed to be doing,
and a year and a half passed, two years passed, three years passed, and I got better and
better and better. And the only thing I know is that other people were praying for me and
caring for me and coming to my house, and they tore my house down in Palm Springs
and fixed it for me, and they brought it up here, and the people have just helped me.
(52:27 – 52:38)
And I say this all the time. I think when one of us is wounded, when we’re wounded, we
can’t think or breathe sometimes, and that’s when AA and Al-Non come and pick us up
and carry us. And it’s so incredible to me.
(52:38 – 52:52)
I can’t believe how we take care of each other. I wish I could love like the alcoholic loves
the other alcoholic. I would look at Jim sometimes talking to those guys, and I was always
impressed how he loved them, and how he talked to them.
(52:52 – 53:00)
And I wish I could get there. I wish I had the love that alcoholics have. And Sue and I
were talking one time, and it’s like she said, well, it’s like this.
(53:00 – 53:16)
If you have a flat tire, you just call AAA. If I have a flat tire, I have to call suicide
prevention. And it’s like the alcoholic’s nerves lay on top of their skin, and they have
these emotions, and they can feel them.
(53:16 – 53:35)
They’re on top. Al-Non’s nerves are buried four inches deep with fat and hide and stuff
on top, so it’s hard for me to feel the way the alcoholic’s feeling. And so some of that had
to be, I think, stripped away from me so I could know what my life is and where it’s going
and what’s happening, and feel.
(53:36 – 53:42)
And I found myself standing alone. And when you’re alone sometimes, you know, that’s
when I realized it’s not the alcoholic. It’s me.
(53:42 – 53:51)
I’m goofy. Monica and I were in Dallas at the airport waiting to come up here, change a
plane. The plane’s about an hour and a half late.
(53:52 – 53:54)
And I saw Johnny. He came. He saw me.
(53:54 – 53:59)
He walked over here and walked over there. It was an hour, I guess, an hour and a half.
And I was just watching Johnny.
(53:59 – 54:09)
I knew where he was the entire time. I saw him, and I was watching him and seeing what
he was doing, if he’s okay. We were going back and forth getting drinks, and I thought,
well, I think I’ll wave at him, see if he wants something to drink.
(54:09 – 54:14)
And I thought, no, he’ll get something to drink. And then we waited and waited. He was
coming in and said, we’re going to get something to eat.
(54:14 – 54:19)
And I thought, oh, I need to see if Johnny wants me to bring him something to eat. And I
thought, he can get his own food. He’s a grown man.
(54:19 – 54:29)
Why are you watching a sober alcoholic with 40 years do all this stuff? And, I mean, I was
just obsessed with Johnny eating, Johnny drinking. He hadn’t even spoken to me. He’s
way over there.
(54:31 – 54:39)
And Monica said, why didn’t he come over here? And I said the same thing that he said
last night. Alcoholics don’t like small talk. He’d rather be beaten with a stick than come
over here and talk to Alamance.
(54:39 – 54:52)
He’s over there, you know, doing what he needs to do. So he walked by. He came by,
and he stopped, and he said, what’s the deal? And I said, Johnny, would you like for us to
keep your luggage here while you go walking? I mean, I couldn’t let it go.
(54:53 – 54:59)
I almost made it. I almost made it. And he said, no, it’s too valuable for you.
(55:02 – 55:09)
I mean, I just, I cannot not take care of an alcoholic. I mean, I just, I’ve got to watch
them. I’ve got to see what they’re doing.
(55:10 – 55:20)
It’s incredible. I mean, it’s absolutely incredible that I take an alcoholic and put him on
my back and carry him today with 32 years. I’m watching Johnny, for God’s sake.
(55:27 – 55:35)
About, I guess it’s a month ago now or something, I got some chest pains. I hate telling
this. This is so dreary.
(55:35 – 55:45)
It makes me feel so old. But I got some chest pains and discovered that I’ve got this little
heart problem. And they put me in the hospital, and it was an emergency, and it was
kind of cool because everybody was coming to my aid, and, you know, I was center of
attention.
(55:45 – 56:01)
It was kind of cool. And they did a cardiac cath on me and grounded me for three weeks,
and I was all by myself for three weeks. And I only went to two meetings, I think, in that
two or three weeks.
(56:01 – 56:13)
And I realized I am, I really, I need what is here. Because in that house by myself, I was
walking around. I was supposed to be quiet.
(56:13 – 56:26)
It was just like, it was crazy. And when that doctor was taking me up to do that cardiac
cath, I wasn’t taking it all that serious. And he told me, he was telling me this could be,
this is very serious.
(56:27 – 56:44)
And as I was rolling up there, I thought, well, you know, I guess I could die. And as they
was rolling me, I was thinking, there’s not one thing left unsaid. There’s not one thing left
undone in my life.
(56:45 – 56:57)
I am so okay that it really doesn’t matter. I don’t have to regret anything or wish I’d said
something to you or you or you. I’m just, I thought, golly, how fantastic.
(56:57 – 57:07)
There is nothing left unsaid or undone, nothing. And it really didn’t matter to me if I was
with my family here or my family up there. At that point, it just didn’t matter.
(57:07 – 57:22)
And I had such a peace come over me that I, to this day in my life, I’ve never had. That I
am so okay, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, and it just doesn’t matter. What
matters is that I keep coming here and doing what I need to do and being with y’all.
(57:22 – 57:36)
It’s just, it’s absolutely incredible. There was a man named Bob White, and he was one of
my heroes, too. He, when I was new, he was around, and I used to sit at his feet.
(57:36 – 57:46)
And Chuck Chamberlain used to come down to City Glen and Brownwood, and I’d come
and call him strings. And Chuck would, in his room, he’d have a meeting, and we’d go in
there and sit in. I’d sit over in the corner just staring, my mouth hanging open.
(57:46 – 58:04)
And I heard he and Bob White had this long conversation, and I’m just mesmerized.
Anyway, Bob got sick a few years ago, and I was able to take care of him, and it was so
cool. I need to tell you that I made amends to everybody in my family, except my
brother that I told you about that killed himself.
(58:04 – 58:18)
And everybody in my family absolutely has forgiven me for everything I ever did. And I
was telling Bob all this stuff, and he says, anyway, we had this, Jim and I started a place,
a thing called Canyon Conference. It’s a pattern after all the other places that we’ve
been.
(58:18 – 58:32)
And the first year we had Clancy and Bob White, and it turned out to be Bob White’s last
talk. And Bob said, you know, we say the Lord’s Prayer after every meeting, and it starts
off with our Father. And if it starts, and then it says the kingdom, the power, and the
glory.
(58:33 – 58:42)
If there’s a kingdom, He’s our Father, that makes you and I prince and princess of the
kingdom. And the power is in these meetings, and the glory is God. He said, I invite you
to claim your heritage.
(58:42 – 58:52)
He said, you’re a princess, and you’re a prince. And act like it, and treat each other like
it, and the glory is God, and let’s do that. Let’s pray the Lord’s Prayer instead of just
saying it.
(58:52 – 59:00)
And I took that on, and I really, because my self-worth, like I told you, has always been
really low. And I took that on, and I thought, yes, I am. I am.
(59:00 – 59:07)
I am a princess. I’m a child of the king, and God has forgiven me. And everything’s
cleaned up, and I have to stay here to keep it cleaned up.
(59:08 – 59:12)
And that is my heritage. I am Princess Lenoi. I’m a child of the king.
(59:12 – 59:19)
And my heroes are here that’s helped me get that. And I cannot tell you how much I just
love and adore you people. I really can’t.
(59:19 – 59:24)
I mean, you saved me, you saved my kids, and I love you for that. Thank you very much.
Carry The Message
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