Good morning, everyone. My name is Emma Linda McGinnis, and I'm a grateful and enthusiastic member of the worldwide fellowship of Al Anon and Al-teen. I want to thank the committee for inviting me to share my experience strength and hope. And I want to thank that basket maker who's going to get my a 1c up. I had just, I just got rid of diabetes, but boy, that basket was wonderful. Thank you so much. I am responsible today to share my experience, strength and hope that means what it was like, how I got here, and what my life is today, and I'm responsible for doing it in about 40 minutes. So let's see if I can make that happen. 3035, 40. Okay. I was born and raised in New York City, but then I moved to Puerto Rico, where I lived for five years after I graduated college and and then I went to North Carolina, and then I went to California, and I've been here for 35 years, but every once in A while that New York accent just comes out. So I was born into a big, extended Puerto Rican family, and that means everyone lives within a block of each other, your aunts, your uncles, your cousins, your mother, your father, your grandmother and great grandparents think you belong to them, and they are there to bring you up. And I did not want to be like that. I wanted to be like the TV shows where they were just a mother and father and a couple of kids that did not portray my family. And right there was my first character defect, of comparing myself to others, feeling less than because that was not the picture that I saw. So I was raised in this big, extended family. I did not know that there was alcoholism in my family, because all I saw them was playing dominoes on Saturdays and the music and my cousins, the musicians, would come and they drink. But it wasn't like the guys at the Bowery, where they had the paper bag and the beer and or the bum in front of our stoop, you know. So I didn't see active alcoholism at all. I didn't know it was there at all. As a child, I was very Goody, two shoes, perfectionist, perfectionistic. I'm the oldest of four, so that means, naturally, I'm controlling and demanding.

And I loved controlling those siblings. I made them play teacher, and they had to listen to all my instructions. And so I went to school. I excelled in everything. I was a teacher's pet. I rewrote my my homework. I wanted everything perfect, and I had moved around, like six or seven years old from that extended family neighborhood, and my parents and the siblings moved to Spanish Harlem, and there we were, just the nuclear family. But that didn't last very long, because my mom got involved with the local butcher and left my dad the alcoholic who showed her how to smoke marijuana. And that was my first resentment. I resented my mom for leaving my fabulous father and I, I thought I had my picture of my nuclear family, and right away that got taken away, so I lived with my dad and his girlfriend. He found a girlfriend right away to take care of all four of us, and that didn't work out, because the young girlfriend was abusing my sister, so they moved out of the apartment, and my mother and the butcher moved into the apartment. You know, the kids stayed in the same apartment, so it was a little bit of stability, just the parents moved in and out. And that quite didn't work out either. He tried to molest my sister and and but my mom stayed with him. He was an alcoholic domestic violence. And I wanted my mom to be like, Leave It to Beaver and my three sons and be witch. And I wanted her to wear a bun in her hair and have an apron and greet us when we came home from school. Well, my mom wore her hair in an afro, big dangling earrings, and she made brownies, but with marijuana in them.

4:55 I mean, that was my mom. And so we got. Schlepped to my grandmother's house. And my grandmother is an untreated Al Anon. So that house was known as the Maldonado Hotel. Everybody that came to live from Puerto Rico landed in our house. I had to give up the bedroom. The cousins lived there. I loved it, because I'm social. There was cousins. My sister hated giving up her bedroom, hated giving up her space, and so sometimes I lived at my grandmother's, and then I had visits with my father, and then visits with my mom. And then when my aunt had a baby, I went to live with her for a while, and then came back. And because of the chaos. I think that's when I started color coding things. I wanted everything to match. My headband had to match my earrings had to match a necklace and the jewelry kind of like today, you know, they gave me a black lanyard and said, I said, I'm sorry I'm wearing gold. I need to bring my gold necklace because I have to be matchy, matchy and and it gave me a sense of safety and control. Now I match because I like it, you know, but, but back then it was safety because I was moving all over the place and I didn't have stability. And so I was the first one in my family to go to college, and it was 10 hours away from New York City, and I got busy in everything. I found out in Al Anon that when I get busy is a is to avoid feelings. I don't want to have any feelings, so I just go, go, go, go, go and Bb, B, so I joined the track team. I joined the cross country team. I babysat, I typed papers for $1 page. I hemmed pants for guys. And there was no Latin Student Union, so I joined the Black Student Union. I mean, I was busy. I became an RA, and that was fabulous, because I got to be in charge again. I had the key to everybody's room. Everyone came to me for advice.

7:19 I got a cup that said, Mom, you know, I was in training, so I got into a profession of helping others, and I got this like internal 6o Meter. That's what I call it a 6o meter, and I could look at you and make a quick psychosocial assessment of what you need to be working on. Now, you never asked me for any of those things, but I know what you need to do and what you need to do to get there, and then I'm expecting you to thank me after that and be really grateful. So I got into this profession. I'm the Goodie Two Shoes of the family, and I get engaged to the local Tony Montana of the neighborhood, because I was going to fix him. I was going to help him. I felt sorry for his childhood story, and in my perfectionistic way, I planned the perfect wedding and beautiful red gowns and the perfect flowers. And, you know, he's a big drug dealer, so we had lots of money to make a big party. The only problem was that the police were looking for him. So as I'm getting ready in my room, I'm putting on the gown and everything, the cops come down and pick him up and swarm him off.

And I run upstairs, and I see all these cop cars. And there it is my groom in handcuffs. Now, remember, I belong in Al Anon. I have distorted thinking. And my thinking at that time was well, the band is here. The DJ is here. All my friends are here. My family is here. I don't really need a groom, because in New York City, you could get married by proxy. So my dad took me by the hand. I walked down the aisle, and I married my brother in law, and the pastor said, you know, really, if you don't sign these papers, you won't really be married. And I'm thinking, what I gotta stand by my man, you know, how am I gonna go to prison and visit him? I have to be legally married. And I went through the entire process. I didn't have a higher power then. I didn't know that I can pause, postpone, action until serenity emerges. I didn't speak Al-Anon, I didn't have my acronyms, I didn't have the whole 12 Steps. I had nothing. I had distorted thinking and I forced a solution. Yeah. Right? So I married him the next day, he was in the front page of The New York Post on his tuxedo with handcuffs. And so we went to court. We bailed him out. We went to a couple of hearings, and the attorney said, you know, you're not going to get out of this. And so we jumped bail, and that's how I got to Hawaii. We were on the lamb for like two years, and I lived on lillipuna Road and away from our family. I mean, what happened? That was a Goodie Two Shoes. And there I am on the lamb. So I was there for like, two years, and we decided we're going to go to Puerto Rico. He opens up a nightclub, and then I get pregnant with twins, and the twins were four months old, and he's assembling a little swing, and my house is surrounded by FBI agents, because now they have to extradite him to New York. And so my brother, who is an unrecovered drug addict, he had seen a sign that said, if your tip leads to an arrest, you will get $500 so it was 1990 something, right?

11:27 So my brother got $500 and my husband got 20 to life. So then I had four month old twins. I had to take care of the nightclub. I had established a nonprofit organization for parents of multiples. I had to visit my my husband in prison in New York every like two or three weeks with the twins in tow. And I got busy so I wouldn't feel a thing, so I wouldn't realize that, oh my gosh, what am I doing? And I'm I just kept busy, busy during the day with the kids. Oh, and I was a super woman, you know, I was gonna breastfeed the twins, and I did. I had a resentment because I had to stop because all traveling for him, and there we were visiting prisons. I didn't belong there when I compared myself to those people. And they're my kids, a little Oshkosh, all nice and matchy, matchy, and we're going to prisons all over New York. Now, I did not have the courage to get divorced, and I realized, enjoying my fourth step, that I am loyal to a fault, and I also learned in my four step that I accept unacceptable behavior and that I get busy to avoid feelings. And so I ended up having an overlapping relationship with someone, and and overlapping sounds so much better than extramarital affair. So it was a Friends of the friends, and we had this wonderful affair.

I mean, the first husband, he was charming. He, you know, smells good. I love colognes and he would drive, and he'd snap his finger to the music. He had rhythm. You know, I saw that. I didn't see the red flags. They were all coming, you know, yellow, green. And this guy, he upped the ante there. He not only did he snap the fingers to the rhythm, he danced salsa and we danced salsa. He was tall, he was handsome, he was charming, but he was married. And I didn't know that alcoholics come like in different ways, and he was a periodic drinker, so I didn't see him like drinking every day or every weekend, and he was very social and fun. So I justified and rationalized things and had an affair, and after about, I don't know, six months of that, I had the courage to ask for the divorce, and I got divorced, like August 4, he got divorced, August 7 and we got married. No, no. April, April 4, April 7 and we got married. April 29 I mean, this barely. We had a wonderful wedding. No one got arrested there, and we moved to North Carolina. So I had my twins. He had his two boys that lived in Georgia, and we became a blended family. And he had guys come over, and, you know, I purchased the Heineken and for a while it was, it was fine. There wasn't any. Active alcoholism. We got orders to go to 29 Palms, California, and then there I had our daughter.

And so we have four boys and a girl, and later on, he got out of the military and went to the police department. Now I was always trying to figure out, why wasn't he emotionally available, and why wasn't he deeply vulnerable, and he was a child of an alcoholic who was physically abusive and and I just analyzed and obsessed over his family history, but still had no clue about that. It was alcoholism. I thought, Oh, he's maybe he's stressed because he has a blended family. Maybe it's the new work. And so I dragged him to counseling to find any issues, marital encounters, weekend retreats, because I had to get the answer. Why couldn't he open up? Why couldn't he be vulnerable? Why couldn't he all of these Whys it didn't matter about why we moved to Cathedral City and he he lied when it was easy to say the truth, you know, did you mail the mortgage payment? Oh yeah, I nailed it. And then I would find the envelope and the stamp in the car, you know, did you do this? Oh yeah, I did that. And then the evidence of such dishonesty. At one time, our car was missing from the front, and I thought, Oh, they stole it. No, they repossessed it because he failed to pay for it. So I was going crazy trying to fix and find out and I became a little private detector. I went to Radio Shack and I purchased a device, and I put it underneath the bed with the tape. I would go to work and then come back for lunch, get the tape, put the new tape on, go back to work to see I know I'm gonna find out something. Is he seen another woman? Is he lying about something? I never busted this guy, but I did bus my junior high school, one of the twins selling pot with a drug dealer on the phone. He said, will you take $10 and quarters for the pot? So I busted my son because I was so fearful that he would be a drug dealer like his brother, or a heroin addict like my brother or like his father, I was so scared I put him at that time at the Betty Ford Center, a 10 week program just for smoking pot. And he came home, he goes, Mom, I don't belong there. I don't care. You're gonna do those 10 weeks.

Because I realized in my fourth step, I am fearful. I base my actions on fear. I was so afraid of what they could possibly become that I went totally overboard with that because I couldn't control my husband. I color coded the kids. You know, Melanie was pink and Jacob was blue, and Rolando was green, and we had green hangers and pink hangers and blue hangers, and the towels were all color coded. And the toothbrushes and that frozen cup that you put in the freezer, it was blue, green and pink, and the blankets and the pillows, because if I found anything out of place, I knew who would belong to. All their toys were in specific color coded buckets. You better not put a Ninja Turtle item in the Lego bucket. And if you were playing and it was time for lunch, you need to clean everything up. And my son Jacob was like, Well, Mom, I'm making these things. I'm building I'm sorry. You need to put everything away before you come to lunch. And he says, You know, I can't be this perfect child that you want me to be. I'm going to kill myself. He was eight years old. I took him to therapy, and the therapist says, he's fine. You're the problem. You know, they had bicycles, and I put masking tape on the floor, and they had parking spots. Everything had to be in order. And this is way before that organization thing came out. You know, I could have written a book then about how everything was organized, because I couldn't control the alcoholic. And he'd say he's gonna go to a convention, and someone would call me, hey, he's in Palm Springs. I thought you said he was in San Diego, and I, I go find the car, move the car so he could think it was stolen, and then confront him and have a big altercation there. You know, in understanding ourselves that pamphlet, it says that we can. Get angry, and we can change it to someone that we didn't even know. I became violent. He come home at two o'clock in the morning after his shift, drunk, smelling like a woman, and I take one of those four poster boards, you know, they'll take that out and beat him up with with one of those posts. He's a six foot guy cop here I am exhibiting domestic violence. How did that happen? That Goodie Two Shoes. I was so out of control that I could not control him.

20:42 So how did I get to Al Anon? That's how my life was, crazy, hyper focused on everyone except myself. And so I got to Al Anon, through a therapist, through a professional. He recognized that it was alcoholism, and for me some OCD. And so my husband went to outreach program. The kids went to a Betty Ford children's program, and I went to Al Anon. Now, you know, I was smug, you know, with the neck and the attitude, I'm like, Listen, I have a couple initials after my name. I'm smart. I don't need to be coming to these meetings. I'm going to buy all these books. I'll highlight everything. Open them up so you can read the highlighted portion. And I went to my first meeting. I cried, which I'm not a crier, and I shared, and I didn't come back for a year. I had to get things to be crazier for me to come back. And, you know, they said, it's an anonymous program, and this meeting was in like a mental health place, and there was the secretary moonlighting being the person that checks in. I mean, how many MLS are there, and the person that works in my office is there? I was like, but I came back. I came back the next year, and I stayed. They said, Be of service. And so I became the book literature person, because I'm an opportunist. I'm going to carry this blue bucket back and forth every day, every Sunday, to my house, and I'm going to get to read all the books for free.

22:20 So that's how I became the literature person. And then there's skits, and there was heart to heart, and I got into a skit, and I got busy in the program, still going to the meetings. And he said this, and he did this, and he did this to the boys, and he said this to Melanie, and he and he and he and he, I had the he, he's for at least five years. And these people said, you know, keep coming back. And Melinda, you know, I know this one girl that's been there, you know, 27 years like I am, and she goes, we saw you walk in, and I said, she's not gonna last. And now I tell her, 27 years of recovery. You know, I stayed. I stayed because I wanted to fix him. I stayed because I had this other thing in my head. I call it image management. I have this image of how I want things to be. I want to have dinner and serving bowls all matching and placemats, and everyone is sitting getting along, and there's no eggshells and walking on eggshells, and we're holding hands and we're swaying and singing Kumbaya like that's my picture, and I have pictures for everything. You know, my twin sons, they got married, and one they had a difference of opinion, and one of the twins says, you know, you're not going to be my best man and and you're uninvited to the wedding.

And I thought, Oh, my God, the picture. I need the picture the Mother, the Father that, how could one twin be missing, and I try to force a solution. I'm a professional mediator. I couldn't do that, and it took me seven months to accept that he was not going to be in the family. Photos and image management, I cannot manage those pictures in my head, because I have an idea of what it should look like, instead of giving it up to God, whatever it's going to look like. So I went to Al Anon all those years, and it did not save my marriage, and it's pain in my heart, because I loved him, and he was not an everyday drinker. He was a periodic drinker, and my children never saw him drunk or drinking. He only did this after work, 234, o'clock in the morning, weekends when he would go away. And so they were like, What, you're getting divorced. Why you guys dance? You get along. And we did. We got along. We had a sense of humor. It was a wonderful there were great things about. That marriage, and it took me a long time to make a decision to divorce him. I knew my daughter would be devastated because she was so close to him. She was 12. The twins were 17, and I work with my sponsor, doing you know, pros and cons, and I'm like, okay, he's a liar. He's a cheater. He's forges my name on loans. He forges My names on credit cards and then the other side, but he makes such a great cheese omelet.

25:32 So, you know, I decided, forget the cheese omelet. I'll go to Denny's. And I got divorced, and it was really hard, my daughter picked sides, and she was angry at me, and from the age of 14 till about 18, went to college. We had a really stressful relationship. She threatened to get restraining orders on me if I contacted her. She went to live with him. At one point, she uninvited me to her graduation. And again, I'm an opportunist, and at that time, my sister was an assembly woman, so I got front row seats to that graduation, and my Al Anon lady said, you keep your side of the street clean. You know, she's a teenager, she's immature. She'll grow out of it. You keep doing what you're doing, sending the birthday card, sending the Christmas cards, sending the text, even though she's threatening me with a restraining order, I contacted her again, and so I went to that graduation, and I was the only parent walking away from that graduation, and everyone took pictures and but I knew that I had my side of the street clean, and I got really busy in Al Anon, sometimes a little too busy. I had nine spawn fees. I had meetings at my house once a month. I was meeting with them every week, and I realized that I was being really busy again and what.

And I released that busyness when my first granddaughter was born, because she I had no space for her. I was just too busy. And so I had to find balance. And I learned that here in Al Anon about finding some balance. So I was scared of any kind of relationship. I didn't trust myself. I knew that if they smelled good and had rhythm, I was going to go with them. And so my picker was broken, so I let eHarmony pick for me, and eHarmony picked for me, and they did a wonderful job. And I met Gordon McGinnis, and he was short and he was jolly, and he had a big belly, and he wore Tommy Bahama shirts and round toe shoes. Everyone knows you should wear square toe shoes. And he had no rhythm. He wore no cologne. And when we go on our first date, he's saying like, Oh man, she's cute. And I'm saying like, Oh my god. He's short, he's sad, he's and he had these big, gigantic glasses and had space in his teeth. And I, you know, I'm very judgmental and critical, and everything needs to look visually appealing, because if it's not all like, something's out right? So we go on this date for four hours. And God, he's intelligent, he's funny, got a sense of humor, but I tell him, Listen, if you want to line up, I'd never pick you. You're not my style. And he said, I understand. I mean, that man was, thus is, the sweetest, gentlest, greatest guy ever the planet. So we go on these days, and I date him for two years, and I go to my meetings, and I'm like, he is so boring. He, you know, he says he's going to come at six, and he shows up at six.

29:19 I mean, he's reliable. And he doesn't curse. He's nice to the waitresses. He has he has no temper. I mean, I haven't had one disagreement with him. I mean, I'm missing makeup sex. I mean, I'm used to like fighting, and then makeup said nothing like that. He was just a nice guy. I said, I've got to find there has to be something wrong with this guy. So he has nine siblings. I interview all the siblings. He had two ex wives, one that he was married to for only seven months because she was 15 years. Are older than him, and she says he's a great guy. He's a wonderful guy. You know, our thing was the age difference, and then the second wife, she was a nurse, and she got hooked up on drugs, and he was allowing her temporarily to live on her couch. So I said, I'm going to interview her. And she said he is the kindest, most generous guy. He'll never forget a holiday or birthday. He loves giving jewelry. I was bipolar. Didn't know it. He was just so patient with me, whatever.

And once she said that, I'm like, okay, the ex wives are in. Okay, I'm in. And we got married. We got married in 2006 and I still was like not trusting myself. I was just, you know, he's going to change. He's going to Nope. And before we got married, I, you know, my 6o meter was very activated with him, because he's not my cup of tea, right? So he had that space in the teeth, and I said, you need to get braces, because I don't like that space. So he got braces. I'm going to make this part really short. And then I said, I'm 45 and I don't want to get pregnant, so you'll need to have a vasectomy, because I don't want to do birth control. So he got a vasectomy. And I said, I don't really like those glasses. They look really big, so he started wearing contact lenses. And then I said, you'll need to get a full physical and a colonoscopy, because I want to make sure that I don't have to be a nurse to anybody. And so he goes to the doctor, and he tells the guy, the doctor, he needs a physical and a colonoscopy. He says, Well, Gordon, you're only 45 colonoscopy happen when you're 50? He's like, I don't care. My fiancé wants a colonoscopy. Give me the colonoscopy.

31:52 So I fixed them all up. I did the clothing shopping. I'm like, You can't wear that that doesn't match, has no rhythm. You know, his mother's from Europe, his father's black. I'm like, Come on, get that, get that rhythm side going. Come on. Now. No, no, wasn't there. And eventually, finally, I accepted, okay, he's, he's a nice guy. You can trust him. But still sprinkles of my controlling, my perfectionism, my wanting things to be right. He had a teenager that came to live with us. I wanted to change and fix that kid, and I had that was my lesson there, that I had to do acceptance. Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today, and it was me, I realized, Oh, my God, um, the problem, and Al Anon is the solution, and the tall sets and the traditions and the concepts and my higher power, that's the solution. But it took me a long time to realize that.

And then I went back to my family. Hey, wait a minute, is there alcoholism here? Oh yeah, my mom, my this, all of a sudden, I realized I belonged here way before I even married my husband. And so everywhere I went, I thought, Oh my god. Al Anon is so great and wonderful. I am buying courage to change books, and I'm handing it out to my co workers, my neighbors, I had a mini van. I took two neighbors and a cousin to an Al Anon meeting. I go to that same meeting, and I said, MLM that we remember when you came with your friends and family members at a van full of people that never even asked to be in Al Anon. I hadn't done any of the stats. I didn't realize that the 12 Steps that after you have a spiritual awakening, and after working all the steps, then you carry the message by, you know, attraction, not promotion. There I was. I was promoting Ellen on like, you need the program. You need the program, the program. I was like Oprah, handing out stuff, you know, I couldn't help myself. I was obsessive, and I couldn't keep the focus on me, even though I was I was coming to Al Anon. I was working with my sponsor once a week. I still work with my sponsor once a week. Still work the steps. And I was telling myself, Hocus Pocus, where's your focus or not? Not my pig, not my farm.

34:29 And point to who you're responsible for me. I'm responsible for me. Me, nobody else. But I would deviate. I had to go to work with those noise canceling headsets because if I hear someone saying, Hey, do you know the resource for Yes, yes, yes, it's in shelf number three. When I couldn't mind my business, I was wanting to help, and I couldn't help myself. Thankfully, the therapist referred me. To a psychiatrist who said, you have obsessive compulsive disorder, which is pure Oh, I'm not the cleaning hands and the organizing stuff. I'm just the rumination, the obsession, the perfectionism. And Lexapro works for OCD people, and it took out a little bit of that noise. But Al Anon is the one that gifted me with the tools and the strategies and the acronyms to do that. My husband got diabetes, and I developed a chart for him. This is when you take your sugar and you need to exercise and check the boxes, and I taped it to the mirror, and he never followed any of those instructions. And so God had a good sense of humor. He says, I'm going to give you diabetes. And Melinda. And so when I got diabetes, I started minding my business with him, and I started taking care of me. So God has always taken care of me in that regard.

35:57 And you know lot, two years ago, in September, we he went on a cruise with a bunch of guys, his cigar buddies, and he came home with a stomach ache, and we went to the ER, and he had a mass in his pancreas, and eight weeks later, he was dead. The love of my life, Gordon McGinn, and you know how much time I have left. Thank you. And Al Anon carried me through all of that. My home group is Palm Springs. 10am for those girls that are going to move to Palm Springs, it's path. Paths to recovery. 10am we work the steps, the concepts and the traditions, and I've been there my whole entire recovery. And in order to go to that meeting, my daughter worked out this schedule to stay with Gordon for those two hours, I would go to my meeting. I would go to anticipatory grief counseling to know what's coming my way to prepare myself, to get myself ready and and I was able to walk through that process because my Al Anon family was there, and there have been so many miracles In my Al Anon story, when my sister just abruptly died from a lung embolism, my Al Anon family was there and took care of all the food and came to my house, and all my family members were like, Who Are all these white people?

37:40 Linda's Al Anon family. And when my mom died, they were all there. And when my grandmother died, and when my dad died of covid, it was my Al Anon family that bought the meal train that picked me up to go to meetings. They've always been there for me. And, you know, when I first came to Al Anon, I had this whole thing that I wasn't good enough. I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't white enough, you know, I was brown, and when I went to Palm Springs, everybody was white, and they're like, oh my god, are they gonna love me? They're gonna accept me. And I found out that Al-Anon has no color that they love and accept me, even if I walk in with lime green shoes, because I love color. And I found a place here and now, I don't feel out of sorts or out of place this. This is my Al Anon family, and my family says, like, you're not even living with an alcoholic anymore. Like, why do you go? I go because I'm the problem, and Al Anon is a solution. And I learn and I grow here, and I can be of service, and I love Al Anon. I only speak Al-Anon. My kids know all the acronyms, and I live my life like that. So my husband was dying, we had a beautiful Memorial. Thank God. I had another fellow who had lost her husband. You know, some of you know our scene just a couple of months before, and she was able to share her experience, strength and hope with me. And no, they say, together, we can make it, and I'm making it. It's going to be two years in December, I have some moments of sadness, but really and truly, I am living large. I am happy, joyous and free.

I have grandchildren, his grandchildren from his side, my side. We're a big, happy, blended family. I get to speak all over the place. I have I live in a 55 and older community, and that really means, like summer camp for seniors, there's pickleball and tennis and yoga, and so I'm busy with that. I'm an outreach coordinator. I'm going to run for the DR, and I keep myself busy, not in a busy way, like the anxiety, frantic, busy way I give myself. Time I learned about TV. I mean, my husband used to be the TV guy with the football and the news, and now I'm in charge of the remote control, and I watch Netflix. Now, you know, I swing in my hammock. I am not so busy. I'm living my life, and it's so wonderful. My daughter's like, come and live with us in Sacramento. Oh no, my Al Anon family, Southern California. No, I will be fine. And what has Al Anon given me in keeping with the terms of I'm responsible, I'm responsible for my happiness, I'm responsible for my distorted thinking. That first thought is going to be distorted, because that's why I belong here. That first thought is distorted. And then after I use pause, then I get the recovered thought, oh, yeah, no, I I shouldn't take my little magic wand and manipulate the adult children. No, so I know better. I do better, and I stay out of everybody's business. I don't have to do the head canceling headphones. I don't have to do hocus pocus. I wake up in the morning organically when my body says it wants to wake up. And now it's like 839 o'clock and whenever. And I do self love and self acceptance, I don't I don't punish myself. You should do this. You should do that. You know, I don't. Should on myself.

41:35 And I say the Serenity Prayer. I go to an early morning Zoom meeting. I they read the four readers in 30 minutes. There's a 7am meeting and an eight a meeting, and they read the four reader daily readers, and they share. And that's my morning dose of medicine. I journal. I write in my journal, and then I read an old journal. I'm up to 2013 when I read my 2013 journal, I thought, Oh, my God, you came in 1998 and you were still that crazy. I could see my growth. I could see how I'm not obsessive with everybody's business and working from morning all the way to night, telling myself, Oh, I wish I could go to the serenity room and journal and listen to music and put a candle on now I do that all day. I get to do me hocus pocus. Where's your focus? Me? It's all about me, and not in a selfish way. If I need to babysit Vegas my grandchildren, I go and potty train them for a week and come back. I'm of service in that way too, if they ask me. Because, you know, before I'm there interrupting, I want to wear a button. Ask me, ask me. Ask me for advice. You know, and my sponsor worked with me for two years. You do not get to help or do anything unless they ask. So I wait, I wait for the ask, if not I mind my business, and I'm living a life that is just unbelievable. I have ala pals all over the world because of covid, and as soon as I recover from my recent surgery, and Susie recovers of hers, we're going to go on cruise together, and life is for the living. And Gordon is with me every day, in my thoughts and in my prayers, and I just put one foot in front of the other and and when he died, I really got the gift of living one day at a time. Every day I could only do like two things, besides taking a shower. You know, what two things can I get done today and every day was just one day at a time, and I came here to Al Anon for him, and I stay in Al Anon for me. So thank you for letting me share you.