Okay. Okay. Thank you, Michelle. Michelle invited me to come and be the Al-Anon speaker.

Thank you for asking me to be of service. It really is an honor and a privilege to be here and to share my experience, strength, and hope. I want to thank my very dear friend and Al-Anon sister, June, who accompanied me here today. I love you so much.

Thank you for your support, June. June was my very first sponsor when I walked into the rooms of Al-Anon and she helped me to build that foundation that we need and that trust and surrender to a God of my understanding. It really came from watching her and her example. I love you so much.

Thank you, June. My sponsor is Kathy Watson. Some of you may know her. I love Kathy.

I'm going to share a little bit about what it was like, what happened, and then what my life is like now in Al-Anon. I got prayed up before the meeting by Michelle and June and I just asked God to guide my words and to help me be honest and open and share some hope with anyone out there who's struggling with issues that relate to alcoholism. I don't know that this really helps to keep my hand up here, so I don't know. I don't know.

I'm not going to do this right now. Let me know if you need me to do that. Give me a little signal. I grew up in New York.

Yay! Yay! See the Rangers! I am one of seven children.

Italian family, both parents Italians, full-blooded. There was not alcoholism in my family of origin. I grew up in a family of violence. I grew up in domestic violence, watching my mom be abused.

My father was the rager in our family. It was my goal as a young girl, growing up, my primary focus was to get the heck out of that house as soon as possible. So when I got to 18 and able to go off to college, I did that and I went to SUNY Stony Brook out on Long Island and that's where I met my alcoholic who became my first husband. His drinking bothered me from the very beginning, but it also was very exciting.

It was very exciting to hang out with him. He was the life of the party. He was so charismatic and fun and everybody loved him. He was like the DJ at all the parties out in Stony Brook and he loved to drink and I loved to drink along with him.

I think if I had that in me, I would be an alcoholic also, but I am not. I am a pure Al-Anon. We started our journey in college and like I said, I was escaping that violent family and I was so happy to be away at college and not be under the reign of my father. We walked around on eggshells around my dad.

He was somebody that we lied to, we kept secrets from because he didn't want you to do anything. He really just wanted you to be a kid in the family, listen to him and stay home, not have friends, not be involved in activities. So to get out of that house was just like amazing for me and I went a little crazy at college and I found all the people who were acting up and not going to class and were drinking and doing other things and that's where I met my first husband, Fred. We were together for almost 20 years and we have two children together, two boys, Matthew and Justin.

They are not little boys anymore, they are about to turn 26 and 28. And my first husband was somebody that I lost myself in him. So I'm the kind of Al-Anon woman that I will glom on to my alcoholic, my him and I will do whatever you're doing because you're doing it. But most of all, I want to do whatever you're doing because I want your approval and I want your love.

So what I understand now, being somebody who's walked through the steps in Al-Anon more than once and I came into the rooms and stayed October 11th of 2004. So I just celebrated 20 years in Al-Anon and what I understand about myself today is I'm the kind of person coming from that very violent, dysfunctional, crazy home where I witnessed so many things as a young child that I shouldn't have and I grew up in a lot of fear. What I went out into the world looking for was love and will you love me, will you help me to feel important and valued. And I continued to look for that the majority of my life and I really only came to understand it more clearly by being a member of Al-Anon and working the steps in Al-Anon.

That I cannot find love and validation in other people. I can't find my importance and my value in other people. I have to find it in myself, between me and my God. So one of the greatest gifts that has come out of Al-Anon for me is to have this relationship with a higher power that I completely trust and I completely know loves me and values me.

And I don't need to look for that so much in other people today. I'm not perfect. That still breaks up for me sometimes. But I know that I am of value and importance just because I am a human being on this earth.

Just like you. No better, no worse. And that has been such a gift to trust a God who loves me so much and to walk through the things that I've walked through in Al-Anon. I came in and my boys were really little.

They were five and seven years old and like I said, now they're 26 and 28 almost next month. And I didn't really have a life when I came into Al-Anon because my world was my husband. I watched everything he did. I wanted him to stop drinking so that things could be okay in our marriage.

And I thought if he did stop drinking, we could have a really great marriage. I didn't understand that he suffered from the disease of alcoholism. Not just that he drank a lot. But I didn't understand that alcoholism was a disease and that it wasn't something he could just choose to put down.

I would talk to people and they'd be like, what is wrong with Fred? Why can't he just stop? Why can't he just slow down? And I used to think that too.

Until I came into Al-Anon and started working the steps and was told you've got to go to Open AA meetings. You cannot just be a member of Al-Anon living with active alcoholism and understand the disease of alcoholism. We don't understand the disease of alcoholism by going to Al-Anon. I learned about the disease of alcoholism by attending Open AA meetings.

And I did that the first few years of my recovery. And I took my boys. This is the west side of Los Angeles where the Pacific Group of Alcoholics Anonymous is. And there was a Saturday night meeting that had childcare.

And Matthew and Justin were little boys and they went in the childcare with all the other kids and I went to the meeting. And to be in the childcare I had to volunteer my time. So every maybe five weeks or six weeks or so I had to be one of the parents that was helping in the childcare room. And I did.

And everybody thought I was an alcoholic because I was there for years in the meeting. But I'm not an alcoholic. I'm an Al-Anon who was trying to learn and trying to understand and have compassion for my husband. I didn't stay in that marriage.

I left that marriage and the people in Al-Anon surrounded me with love and support. I never thought I would leave that marriage because I loved that man so immensely. Yet I knew that I was losing myself. And there came a point where we talk about what were we like just a week before coming into program.

And I don't know if you and Alcoholics Anonymous say that also. But what was it like for me right before I walked into the rooms of Al-Anon? Well, this is what it was like. I had two little boys.

I was an at-home mom. And I loved them so tremendously. Like I poured my whole heart and soul into these little boys. And I tried to protect them from their dad's drinking.

He wasn't a drinker that ever got violent. Or we fought. We never did any of that. So it was really the opposite of what I came from.

I came from violence and anger and rage. But that's not what I had in my first marriage with my alcoholic. He was a very quiet drunk. He would get drunk and he would go and pass out.

He would play video games. He would fall asleep. And he'd be on the floor or the couch or whatever. Yet I was trying to shield my Matthew and Justin from that.

But I lost my train of thought where I was going with that. Okay. So let me just keep talking about what it was like then. So when I came into the rooms of Al-Anon, these people loved me.

And they understood me like nobody did. They knew what it was like to have someone who drank too much. Whether it was their spouse, their brother, their father. They knew what it was like to have someone who drank too much.

Whether it was their spouse, their brother, their father. Their mother, their sister. It didn't matter. And I felt like I belonged right from the beginning.

And they helped me move out. When I did leave that marriage, they were the ones moving my things into my new place. Setting up my children's rooms so that they had a room that looked all together and cozy when they got home. And I'm so grateful for everything that Al-Anon has done for me through the years.

That alcoholic husband of mine died last May. May 30th of 2024. My youngest son, Justin, who had been living... Oh, here comes the rain.

I'm assuming I just stay here and keep talking, right? I'm not afraid of no rain. I am a New Yorker. But let me just share with you, my first husband, Fred, died from the disease of alcoholism.

And my youngest son, Justin, who had been living with him for about two years at that time in Florida, was the one that found his body on the floor in the morning when Justin woke up early that morning to go to work. His dad basically drank himself to death and never found the rooms of AA. I met so many wonderful alcoholics who are my friends, who are double winners and are members of AA. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And I used to fantasize, like, oh, I hope Fred gets sober and that so-and-so will knock on his door and 12-step him and help him to find his way in Alcoholics Anonymous. But that never happened. So Fred died on May 30th of 2024.

And that, like, rocked my world. I loved him so much that I couldn't, even though we hadn't been together in almost 20 years, I couldn't picture a life where he didn't exist and where he wasn't a father to our children. And my boys are struggling still from the death of their dad. But I know, I just choose to see it as that he's in a better place right now and he's at peace and he's not, he's not battling the demons of alcoholism any longer.

I wish that he would have found you guys and that he could have gotten recovery. But that wasn't in his story. So, so, to move on a little bit. Oh, it's really coming down now.

Oh, that's so sweet of you. They're going to put this over me, so hold on. Alright, I'm going to put this down. June!

June, back here! I'll stick it in. How fun! How fun is this?

We need a couple nails or screws and it will be solid. No way we have it. Okay, okay. I'm just going to continue on.

Okay. So, in Al-Anon, I met my second husband, who is a member of Narcotics Anonymous and has been clean and sober for 32 years. We started our life together as a blended family. He had one daughter and I had my two boys and I got to tell you, it was rough.

Oh, sure, sure. Okay, alright. I can't touch the mic anymore. Alright.

God, don't let me get electrocuted. And I don't know where Michelle is because Michelle is going to give me my time. We're good still? Let me know.

So, we went on as a blended family and I thought I had gotten so much recovery in Al-Anon for those first three years before I started my relationship with my second husband, Don. But let me tell you, I had not. All of those same character defects came up. You know, am I good enough?

Am I important to him? Does he love me? Does he really love me? And so, I just got to work through all of that all over again.

And I want to share that probably the most amazing thing that happened to me in Al-Anon, a couple of the most amazing things is I got to make an amends to my first husband, Fred. I got to take responsibility for my part in that marriage. And I also got to make an amends to my mother and father. So, when I walked into the rooms of Al-Anon, I hadn't spoken to that angry, violent father of mine for 16 years.

And eight of those years, I hadn't spoken to my mother. It was hard to have a relationship with my mother as a victim of domestic violence under the rule of my father. It was hard for her to have this secret relationship with me when my father had basically disowned me. So, I got to make amends to both my mom and dad and start on a new journey with them, especially with my father.

Now, I grew up hating my father. Wasn't an alcoholic, remember, but was very, very violent. And pretty much, I think, probably acted like somebody who was drinking and losing their temper and getting violent. But what happened in Al-Anon as I worked the steps is I got to have a relationship with him.

And by the time my dad died, I think I had about 10 or 15 years in Al-Anon before he passed. I got to be there at his bedside when he passed. And my father thought he was going to die alone. I'm one of seven children, if I didn't say that already.

I'm number five of seven. And all of us, except for one who couldn't get there, was at my father's bedside when he died. And I'm so glad that I made it to the rooms of Al-Anon and that I could see my father in a different way and have compassion for him and understand that he suffered from a different kind of disease. It wasn't Al-Anonism or alcoholism, but it was a mental illness that was never diagnosed or treated.

And had he gotten help, maybe he would have showed up in a different way and been a different kind of dad. But I got to have a really amazing relationship with both of my parents in their last years here on Earth and be there for both of them today. Kind of the challenges for me are I have these two adult sons that are almost 26 and 28. And it's hard.

It's one thing when you're dealing with the disease of alcoholism and it's a spouse or a parent or a brother or a sister. But when you see those isms in your child, it's really scary. And I had seen other people walk through it in Al-Anon and talk about the struggles that they had with their children. And I always used to think, God, that must be so awful.

I really feel for them. And then it started to happen to me. And my son Justin doesn't talk about being or call himself an alcoholic, but it looks to me like he could be in the rooms of AA. He turns to alcohol and marijuana to numb and deal.

Thank you, Michelle. To help him cope with life. And it's my responsibility to stay out of his path and what he's doing. And I see how the trauma of his father's death and finding him being the one that found him dead on the floor last May.

I see what it's doing to him. I see the tremendous amount of guilt that he has. And every once in a while, he shares it with me. And he says things that seem familiar to me.

And in that, he says things like, maybe I could have done something to help dad. Maybe those last few weeks when I was drinking every single day and I saw that he was going to kill himself, like it looked like he was going to die. Maybe if I had been nicer or kinder to him or stopped to talk to him, maybe he would have felt better or felt more loved. I know my son didn't do anything wrong to cause the disease of alcoholism to save his father.

But it's really, really hard to see him struggle and be in pain about that guilt and that feeling of blame that he's carrying around. And what he's doing in response to it is he's drinking. He's drinking more and more. He's isolating himself.

He's stopped working. So what happens for me is I want to make things better. I know where my son, Justin, is headed. Just like I would have corrected things and helped my first husband to find sobriety if I had the power to do that.

But I am powerless. I am powerless. I was powerless over Fred's disease and it didn't end well for him. And I am powerless over Justin and the choices that he makes.

I know that. I understand that. But it's really hard to see him struggle and be in pain about that guilt and that feeling of blame that he's carrying around. One of the other things that is such a gift from Al-Anon is to know that I am not alone.

And that relationship that I developed with a God of my understanding has carried me through a divorce, there's been so many things that I have had to walk through in the past 20 years. But because of Al-Anon, I was never alone. Because these people show up for you. Just like I know we show up for each other.

Whether it's coming to help me move or sitting with me or working a staff as my sponsor or just letting me cry on their shoulder. You know, I'm not in my life alone anymore and I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful that I have all of you in my program to walk through things with me. But I'm also so incredibly grateful that I have a God that I truly believe loves me, loves my children and that has a path for me and a journey for me that has all been planned already.

All I need to do is put one foot in front of the other and trust and I'm going to be okay. I don't know how much time I have left if I've got time to get into something else. Six! Okay, so that second husband that I married who's a member of Narcotics Anonymous, we were married for almost 15 years and being a blended family of any of you who have been a blended family, God bless you.

It is so incredibly hard. We were a blended family that really didn't blend ever and my relationship with that husband didn't last. We decided, well, I decided that I didn't want to stay in the marriage anymore and I asked for a divorce. That was four years ago and today I am back with that man and I used to hear I used to hear people speak at a convention or a fundraising event like this and talk about divorcing a spouse and then getting back together with them and I used to think, oh my God, how crazy are they to divorce somebody and then get back together with them?

Oh my God. And now I am one of those people who divorced them and now we're back together. And what happened when we weren't together for the past almost four years is I got to work on myself more in the rooms of Al-Anon and he got to work on himself more in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous and we realized that we really love each other and we wanted to try to make it work again so we're about to start that journey again together as a couple. We've started it but I'm actually on my way moving back to the East Coast where he currently is with our granddaughter and so the end of June I'm going to be moving back to the East Coast to reunite with my second husband and to start that journey again living together.

We've been doing and now that I'm walking through it and worked steps around it and brought it to people in Al-Anon and really allowed God in to guide me through it it doesn't seem so crazy after all. It doesn't seem so crazy. It actually seems miraculous to me that we could separate as a family divorce from each other live separate lives yet God allowed us the space to work on ourselves so that we could grow in our own way and then it helped us to come back together and be stronger together. I am under no delusion that going back to the marriage and living together on the East Coast I'm not expecting anything miraculous but what I know and trust is that I'm going to get through it because I have Al-Anon and he has his program and most of all because I have a God that I trust that is bringing me to that miracle for a reason so that we can continue to grow.

All of my family since both my mom and dad have passed on we've gotten closer to each other and I'm really excited about this next step in my life about starting a journey on the East Coast and being close to all of my family and being back in that relationship again with my second husband Don. We have a granddaughter who is the love of my life. She is nine and a half years old and from when she was about one until she was about six my husband Don and I raised her. My stepdaughter was a very young 19 year old mom when Vida was born and she wasn't able to care for her and we saw what was happening and Don and I asked her if she needed some help because we were concerned for Vida's well-being and we took custody of Vida and we raised her and I know she's not my baby girl but in my heart she's like my baby girl and that's what I call her my baby girl and I'm really really excited that I'm going to be going back to the East Coast and be a regular significant part of her life because the past three years of living apart from her has been really really hard for me.

Thank you again for having me here. I never realized as a person who was living with active alcoholism and seeing all the pain that came from it the pain that it caused other people and the pain that it caused me in my life I never thought I would stand and say that I am grateful that alcoholism brought me to where I am now and that through alcoholism I got to find my way to Al-Anon because I have a life today beyond my wildest dreams. I know that I would not feel the way I feel about myself had I not found Al-Anon. Although I grew up looking for love in all the wrong places and searching that out and needing to feel important today mainly that's because of my relationship with God that I found in this program.

So thank you guys for having me here today. It really was such a privilege to be here and look the sun is out and ready for an alcoholic to come and speak. Yay! Help me thank Lisa one more time you guys.

Thank you.