0:01 Hi, I'm Fran Wasley, grateful member at Al Anon, thank you so much, Kathy and Michelle. Kathy for asking me to come and speak to you tonight. Michelle for being a hostess to me and taking me around and introducing me to a lot of you and and it's a bigger event than I thought it was going to be.

0:27 And the spaghetti was awesome, and all of you ate the cookies that I really wanted by the time I got back there with my money. So whoever had the chocolate chip cookie with the kosher salt on top of it, I hope they make really good do. You.

0:45 So I have 20 minutes to give you. So this is like a cliff notes version of my story, which is probably really all you need to hear.

0:53 My date that I came into Al Anon is January 7, 1995 my home group is the Thursday night stepped up group in Culver City. I have a sponsor. And welcome to Ricardo.

1:11 I'm glad you're here. Are there any newcomers in Al Anon here? Is there anyone who's new to Al Anon? 30 days? 60 days.

1:21 Okay, so welcome to all the old time Eleanor people in the room. I have just celebrated 30 years in this program, and I still feel like a newcomer.

1:36 I you know, it's a it's like your checkbook you're over, you can get overdrawn really easily in Al Anon, and it doesn't take too long to get overdrawn in this in this disease, actually.

1:53 So I love alcoholic men, and I have learned to like alcoholic women.

2:02 I grew up in a small town in upstate New York, and you know my mom was like you were always taking your bathing suit off at the beach. So that gives you any representation of my Al Anon story. I love alcoholic men. Every relationship I've ever had has been with an alcoholic man from the earliest get go from like junior high, probably. So that kind of gives you an idea of how I got here.

2:30 At 25 I got married to someone who drank a lot and used drugs, and that's what I call my 2.9 second marriage because it lasted. I got married in June, I left in November, I filed for divorce in January, so it was about a six month marriage, but in the meantime, I had found my next alcoholic, although he didn't look like an alcoholic, or seemed like an alcoholic, and I married him when I was 29 years old, and about a year after we got married, he came to me and he said, I think I'm an alcoholic. He was just like, but who's the common denominator in that me? You know, I married another alcoholics, and I was like, workaholic, alcoholic, whatever. Figure it out. And that was my compassionate way that I was when I got here. I was a person who was chronically late, and you just needed to accept that about me, my friends would say, you're always late, and I'd be like, you're just going to have to accept that, and my husband figure it out. So that's how I got here. So I was pretty rough around the edges and harsh with the people in my life. And so my husband all of a sudden, we would go to weddings, and we would have fun, and we would drink and we've, like, one summer, I think, in our late 20s, we went to, like, 15 weddings. And, I mean, who doesn't like to go to a wedding and drink and have fun and dance and and then he came to me and said, all of a sudden, he was a blackout drinker. And so I went to an Al-Anon meeting, and

4:23 I went to my first Al Anon meeting, because I was 29 and I had been married twice now to my second alcoholic. And what am I going to do? I'm a two time divorcee at 29 like, that's like, I don't really want that on my resume. So I went to Al Anon. And, you know, of course, I was in tears, and I thought, I want to get him sober. And he went to his first AA meeting that day also, or his second AA meeting that day. And he actually, he did get sober.

4:58 And I kept going to Al-anon. On and I went to a couple meetings. I got a sponsor. I did not pick somebody. I picked somebody that I thought really commanded the room, someone who really seemed to know the program. She had a lot of time in the program she I was kind of afraid of her, and, I mean, I'm not as afraid of her now as I was when I first started to be my sponsor, and she's still my sponsor today, but she knew the program, and she gave it back to me as good as I gave it, you know, in the sense of like, I'm kind of this very black and white person, like you like me, you don't like me. And she would just give it back to me, and I'd be like, oh, and then I'd say, Oh, you I kind of hurt my feelings. And she'd be like, I'm sorry. I hurt your feelings, but I care more about your recovery than I do about your feelings. And I was like, oh, okay, that was a little bit of a shocker. So she always talks about the six things, and so the six things that I've been taught to do in this program, and there's more than the six things, but the basics of the program that was given to me was go to meetings. You gotta go to meetings.

6:30 And so she would say, go to two or three meetings a week. And then she would say, go to an open AA meeting. And she'd say, you have to go to Open AAA meetings so you can understand alcoholism, and then get a sponsor. I got a sponsor. Now she's telling me what to do, and I'm like, this is person who's telling me what to do all the time. You know? But you know what? I was desperate enough. I wanted my marriage to work. I didn't want to be a two time divorce a at the age of 29 I didn't want that on my resume, so having Al-Anon on my resume, my life resume, was felt like a better option, not an option I really wanted, but something I could live with.

7:16 Then I'd go to the meetings and she'd say, take a commitment. Take a commitment. Like, Okay, I gotta take a commitment. Be a greeter. Oh, be a greeter. Let people hug me. Oh, you know, like I was not a huggable person. And I also really didn't love women when I got to Al Anon, because I always kind of thought I was a guy's girl. You know, I was a girl who went, we would go to dinner as a couple, and I'd always be like, my husband be like, how was the dinner? And he'd be like, I really like Joe, but Susie, you know, so I started having to be a greeter and hug people. And you know, you actually have to be on time. So she would always say, if you're 15, if you're not 15 minutes early for the meeting, you're late. So that really was a kind of a challenge for me too, like, oh, I have to be on time now, but now I have to be 15 minutes early. So, and you definitely had to be there at least 15 minutes early, maybe half an hour early to be a greeter, right? So I had to be a greeter and then so go to meetings, get a sponsor, take commitments, work the steps. So for me, working the steps has really been such a key to my recovery.

8:38 And I have worked the steps through many times. I've done a lot of many inventories. I have three kids. I've had to do a lot of work on my kids. My husband is sober, but not does not go to meetings. So there's lots to do step work on, right? And then there's lots to do step work on, because, I'm me, so I'm an over-thinker, I'm critical, I'm manipulative, so all the things so I have lots of step work to do, and that's how I got a relationship with a higher power. That's how I figured out that, oh, I may have came come to Al Anon to get my husband sober, but I'm actually in Al Anon for me. So when people say, oh my qualifier, people always say, oh my qualifier, my qualifier. Well, I'm my own qualifier. I qualify myself for this program because I'm crazy. I think and think and think and think and think about how you wronged me, or that wasn't fair, or why are you on your phone so much? Why are you not looking at me when I'm talking to you? You don't like me. Why are we even married?

9:57 Why are you taking Snapchat pictures of me? Con. Constantly when I haven't given you approval, because my daughter is constantly taking pictures and then snapping pictures and then sending them to her friends, and I'm like, I look terrible in that picture. Why are you sending that picture? Anyway? So working the steps has been key, and really was like a significant and continues to be a significant part of the program, sponsoring others. Nobody wanted me to be their sponsor when I came to the rooms, because people, well, people are still kind of afraid of me, but not as afraid of me as they used to be once I had kids, I guess some of those rough edges were softened when I became a mom, and so I've learned how to be a sponsor in this program, which you gotta be accountable. You gotta work a program if you're going to sponsor people.

10:52 I don't do I don't do sponsorship perfectly. Actually don't do anything perfectly anymore. You know, I may be a type A person, but with 30 years of recovery, I'm not looking for perfection at this point, don't look at my manicure when you come up to thank me because I made choices to do something else today rather than go get a manicure or a pedicure. So that's a joke in the sense of like you probably now look at my pedicure, but it's bad.

11:26 So I was like, I'm going to wear open toe shoes anyway. And that's just part of my recovery. Is that, you know, I was at the beach a lot this summer. There's no point in getting a good pedicure, because it's just going to get ruined if you're in the sand all the time in the salt water. So no pedicure. So people, I do sponsor people in the program, and it's a great way to give back. You kind of got to work a program if you're going to sponsor people. And 30 years in, I don't feel like I'm doing it perfectly, or sometimes even great.

11:59 I became re-employed. I was a stay at home mom for 20 years, and I became re employed at the ripe old age of 57 and basically had to kind of almost start over. You know, I had a career before I had kids, and now I chose a different career, and I had to, like, punch a time clock, which I was like, I haven't punched a time clock since I was in high school, and I would get into these big fights with my boss because I wouldn't want to follow the rules, because I wouldn't want to punch a time clock. I'm 57 years old, and have a bunch of time clock or be paid hourly in a long time, but that's how I started back in a new career, and now I'm like, on to my next job, my second job. And so it feels good to like, contribute financially to my household, to be an earner.

12:58 You know, being a stay at home mom is not a job where you get a lot of pats on the back, but it was rewarding, and I'm glad I did it some days, and because some days I'm like, wait, I spent all that time on you guys and you're screwing up now. Like, what happened?

13:19

But I was so type A that I couldn't work and be a good mom. So I got off from working the steps, sponsoring others and pray on your knees. So praying on your knees like once what I said through working the steps, I did get a relationship with a higher power. So I'm able to, you know, let go quite a bit, not always and not perfectly, of the people in my life because or let go of my performance at work, or let go of the fact that it's not going my way.

14:00 You know all those things, my higher power helps me to just pause, and a lot of times keep my mouth shut, because I can have a razor, sharp tongue. I have a son. I have three kids. My middle child has autism, and so his most recent thing with me is your tone?

14:24 What about my tone? You know, joking. So then I try to talk softly. I try to talk wildly, and then I'll say I don't have a tone. And then my son will my husband will say, she doesn't have a tone. And then I'm like, Cassie, I don't have so then I could just find myself, get getting ramped up.

14:46 So you know, this program has given me. How much time do I have?

14:55 Five minutes? Okay, I. This program has given me the life I thought I would have in the sense that I am married for almost 32 years. It hasn't been perfect. It hasn't been but there's, you know, moments and years of good things, and then there are moments that are difficult. And, you know, I who would ever know? I've never been married for 30 years. I don't know what being married for 30 years looks like. 32 years, you know? So I didn't like, I sometimes think back to, like, my parents marriage, and I'm like, Oh, this is what they were dealing with. Or, oh, that's why it was hard for them. Or, you know, because you you didn't know, when I was 17, I didn't know why my parents were not getting along, or feeling like they were just two people living in a house. But, you know, 30 years in, sometimes I know now that it's like, it's not all like this, you know, it's up and down, it's up and down. And there seems to be cycles to it. My husband suffer, has suffered from some depression at times. And, you know, I read that book, Soul of the sponsorship, and I was like, Oh my gosh. Bill Wilson was depressed for, like, talks about him being depressed for like, eight years. And my sponsor would go, well, you're five years through it. I'm like, You mean, I gotta wait another three years for and she goes, Well, you just don't know. God's got a plan. So the one of the things that the program does is it brings humor sponsorship and fellowship and meetings, takes the focus off the problem, and it can bring humor to situations that really feel not so fun or not so laughable, really.

17:02 And I know sometimes newcomers are like, can't believe they're laughing at that, but that's one of the ways that we and I know it has helped me when I'm able to say, not funny, but it's funny, you know, like it's funny that we can laugh about it. My mom passed away in September, so it's almost a year, which is hard to believe, and she had a good life. She was 1994, like a week before she died, and she pretty much decided I'm going to I'm going to say goodbye, I'm going to go, because I don't want to do this anymore. And so I said to my sister, okay, we're not going to see her. We're not going to see her awake again, right? And she's like, No, we're not going to see her awake again. I said, when we go, she's going to be in a coma, like a morphine coma. She said, Yes, she has me a morphine coma. So I had to go back to the hospital because I left my charging cord there. And I walk into the room and there's all this chaos, and my mom is awake, and she's like, I thought I was going to be dead by now.

18:11 And, you know, I mean the fact that those are the last words I'm like, you know, the last words I heard my mom say out of her mouth, like mother's gonna be dead by now, just now it like helps to ease the pain of her death. And you know, nobody wants to lose their mother, but it was we. She knew she wanted to go. We did a toast. We she was able to say her goodbyes, and you know, it's beautiful. And I had done similar. I was not as close to my dad as I was to my mom, but I'd had a similar experience with my dad, where I was able to be there with my dad when he died. So this program has helped me get through death. It's helped me get through infertility, marriage, kids with autism. I have a son now who's drinking daily. I don't know if he's an alcoholic, but I didn't drink daily like that when I was 25 my daughter is going to college on Tuesday, so all the things that our life brings us good and bad, the program of Al Anon and AA has helped me to live an accountable life of recovery and joy Despite what's going on, glad to be here. Thank you. Applause.