Below is a raw transcript from the audio recording by
Eileen W. in 2024.(Click to go back)
Well, my name is Eileen and I, everybody, you know, we've been sitting in this room for the last couple of days and it's nice because we were originally supposed to speak yesterday. And I'm glad it's today because I feel like I know the room now and know my surroundings a little bit. So thank you, Sue, for trusting us with this or inviting us, first of all. And thank you to the committee. Like Sue mentioned, Chris and I have been involved in helping to put this together in our town and reading countries, probably 103 there today.
Hey! So we know what it takes. And it takes a lot of people. And it was a great experience, though. If you ever get a chance to be involved with the committee, do it.
It's really great for your recovery. And you get a tribe. You get a tribe. So when Sue asked us, first of all, I thought she was calling because I was going to invite her to our Winter Fest this last year. And she called around that time and we talked a little bit.
And so, so are you. Come into our Winter Fest. And I'm thinking, that's it. She's, no, I want you to speak about it. You're kidding me.
Really? And it was a total blind side. And she said, pray about it. Think about it. And we did.
And we decided, you know, we can do this. God's helping me do this. And we do have a story like everybody in this room. So I want to thank all the speakers that have gone before us. Boy, it really, really helped us settle in, learn a lot.
I thought when Sue asked us, I thought, OK, so this is an incredible opportunity to share our story. And I know that sharing our story is healing. It really is. So what we do in the meeting? So I'm pretending this is just a meeting.
It's just bigger than our meeting. And I thought, what would I want to hear? You know, when I am in my pain, there's certain things I need to hear. And I thought, you know, there's going to be people in the room that are going through similar situations as parents of a child that is going through addiction. And what do we need to hear?
The first thing I thought is, you know, I'm in pain. I need my pain validated. You know, I need to know that you know what I'm feeling. You're not getting up there. You know, and telling me, oh, this is great.
You know, it's all turned around and life's good. And that isn't always how it works. So first of all, honesty. And that part, validation. And the second thing is honesty.
Be honest about what you've experienced. And you know, the dilemma as well as the delivery. And so I won't get much into the dilemma. I don't want to tell my son's story. You know, the two things that have kind of haunted me, frankly, since we were asked to teach, is part to teach, to speak, is I don't want to throw my son to us.
I'm a parent. I want to take care of my kid. He's not a kid. He's an adult. But and, you know, I also want to give credit to my higher power, my God.
This seeing me through this, is seeing me through this. So a little synopsis, very short, of kind of what brought us to Al-Anon. First I want to say the good things about my son. You know, I've heard people talk about a speaker. She's a circuit speaker, unlike me.
Arbutus, anybody heard that name? Oh, no. And she talked about, her situation was her husband that was alcoholic. And she described in this way, she was married to a wonderful young man, a fine young man. But he has a disease.
So I have a fine young son, I have a beautiful son. He is talented, musically so talented, gifted in that way. Excellent athlete, wonderful swimmer. So funny, can imitate anybody. Just amazingly funny.
Sensitive, creative. I remember he created a cardiocrussomic girl in junior high, and he made this card that I just, I wish I'd taken a picture of it to this day. It was absolutely beautiful. And he has, has, did have, and has an excellent work ethic. So that's my son.
But that's not my son without all. So his journey, our journey, began between eighth and ninth grade. And we didn't have any idea about addiction. Yes, probably the one thing we didn't plan on. We had a system, probably the problem.
System, formula, all that. So watch those. But we were loving. We love our son. So we had the tools we had.
You know, we, we found counseling. I really believe in counseling. And talking through stuff. So we took into, I think, three different counselors that honestly I'd gone to myself. I vetted them.
And they're good. And he did get some relief. But it was never anything that was sustainable. You know, whenever we would leave, I mean, he would go and buy himself, obviously. But when we would leave, I think they aren't getting it.
What is it? They're missing it. And I didn't even know what it was. The other thing is we thought, you know, he was, he really was struggling with focus in school. And really wanted to do well.
And so I thought, well, you know, we have ADD in our family. And so we'll get him evaluated to see if that's a problem. If it is, we'll address the problem. So we had an evaluated. He did have ADD.
And we got him meds, which he quickly abused. And we had to take away. So anyway, he's moving along. And none of these things are working. And so about his senior year, and he's just been showing up once in a while in school.
Spire rolling. And hanging out with kids who were smoking pot and smoking himself. And so one day is his band teacher who loved our son. And he was so gifted musically, just got music that he would get these solo things, you know, which he didn't appreciate. But he got these solo gigs, you know, in the band.
And so this band instructor didn't think anything of it. And Nathan was a little bit airheaded in some ways. And he was looking for something. And he just, not in a malicious way, went through our son's backpack to find it. You know, it's probably in Nathan's.
Sorry. Probably in our son's backpack. And it wasn't. But there was a pop paraphernalia in there. And with everything else that was going on, that ended up getting him expelled a month before he was going to graduate.
So I can't tell you how that didn't go with the plan. And so now he's home. And we're dealing with all of this wreckage. So while he's home, we're seeing his personality change. We're seeing him surly irritable, restless, distant, and often angry.
Just not happy in his skin. And still don't know what we're dealing with. And I've heard somebody say recently, and I think this for parents, especially, if you think there's a problem, there's a problem. We knew there was a problem. But as parents, I'll speak for myself, we don't want to see that it's a really big problem.
Something we wanted to do something that's easily addressed. This is not easy. This I've heard it called advanced parenting. I like remedial parenting. You say it, they do it, everything goes great.
That's what I'm after. I have never gotten that. Not all either one like this. So we became aware, finally, the last stop on the block. And by the way, what I'm going to share can be any relationship with any loved one with alcoholism.
It's not necessarily just a child. But that's what we're focused on, because that's our journey. We became aware of Alan onto some friends, a friend that I've had for over 30 years or more. And her son had been addicted to heroin. And so she was involved in Alainan, and she had remarried a man that was in recovery in AA.
And he had long time recovery. Wonderful man. And this friend had known my son since he was born. Literally, she came to my house when he was born. And she said it was like the fairy said visit.
And our son was born. Just energy in the house. It was lovely. So we're talking and, you know, commiserating about addiction. I didn't know what it was at that time, what we're experiencing.
And she suggested this is not conference approved literature, but God loses everything. And it's a book called Beautiful Hoy. And there's a movie made of it, which I couldn't watch. But it's an account of a father's account of his son's addiction. And she just said, you know, it might get something out of this book.
So my husband and I started reading this book. And interestingly enough, we were reading it in a cemetery. OK? Because it's quiet there. And we're sitting there.
And it's in an area that's historical, not too far from our town. We're sitting there and I'm reading this book and we're reading it together. And I thought, oh my God. This is it. And it was, of course, much more progress than what our son's going through.
But I felt like, you know, you get a strain and you pull it. I felt like I got that. That's it. And I was terrified because this was not a good story. But I also felt like there was some ground in my feet finally, you know.
OK, now we can explore this a little bit more. So we began attending Alan on. But we began attending Alan on. And he's progressing quickly in his disease. Not long after his expelli had his first car accident.
And honestly, there were beer cans in the floorboard of the car. I saw them. And I thought, my God, he's under the influence. And we actually told the officer. And the officer gave him mercy, which, you know, that's OK.
But so there was no real problem, really, with that at that time. But as is common in homes with alcoholism, there was a violence, you know, verbal, emotional, and eventually physical violence in our home. The first encounter, it was just he and I in the home. It wasn't physical, but it was at a level of verbal abuse that the threat was real. And so with everything else that had happened up to that point, we decided it was time for him to leave the home.
So at that point, we pursued a restraining order, which I mean, it's so unnatural. So unnatural. It launches you into the court system. It launches you into this universe that you don't recognize. And none of your friends, especially none of our friends, were dealing with this, except for this one friend that was in program.
And the people we listened to, you know, and all. So that put us on about a six-year period of time where we saw very little of our son, even after the restraining order was done, he wasn't interested in being around us. When he would come over, it was, I call it, Scrown Dog Day. There was never a foundation. You know, you see somebody, you have a conversation, you see them the next time you build on that.
And you're creating a relationship. My experience was we were starting over every time. You know? There just wasn't anything to get traction with. So after that period of time, he ended up getting his first DUI that involved an accident that honestly God saved him because he should die in the accident.
We got the call we arrived now. We got the call from the emergency room nurse, you know? Your son's kind of an accident. And I'm waiting for the next words. And in talking, the first thing she says, because she's a mom, he's okay.
But he's had this accident. He's here and, you know, he needs a ride home. I'm like, well, we're about four hours away. And I said, what happened? And she told me what happened.
And of course he had his window down, no seatbelt, and rolled the truck three times. And I'm waiting to hear he's got a massive hit injury. And you're going to have, you know, to care for him. I said, I'm waiting. And she said, and he just needs IV proton.
And there's silence on my ears. You're kidding me. She goes, she goes, I got to tell you, she says, I've seen this go really bad. This is amazing. And I said, well, I prayed for my son every day.
She goes, well, keep it up. This is working. So it's a miracle. And he even nurses a miracle after the fact when getting ahead a little bit after the fact when he was seeking the cupboard and was in our home for a while. This is a while.
He said, you know, mom, I never moved in that vehicle. I never moved. He was like someone had their hand in my head. I just sat there. Yeah.
So, you know, we know who accomplished that. So getting to the point where, and I didn't even set my time on. I'm sorry. I was just launching into this thing. Is anybody?
Okay. Thank you. Am I anywhere close? You're good. Okay.
So we ended up, at that time after that accident, he really was in the back of the car. He really was, I believe, really wanted to try. I don't know how committed he was, but, you know, I can't read his heart. And it was really hard to take him in because we had quite a history after that point. But since he was willing to try, we took him in for about, ended up in two years looking back.
I think one year would have been funny. The first year was fine. He was trying. He really was. We had fun with him and it wasn't perfect, you know, but he was trying.
And the rules, we were told by A is two rules. Don't have a budget rules because, you know, we're great with rules now. I had a list. But two, you know, he doesn't drink and he was in your home. And he isn't abusive.
And I thought I could move on to that. So those were our rules. So the first year was fine. The second year we knew he was doing something. We just didn't know what it was.
And we probably didn't want to believe it. We really, really wanted him to be successful. And we didn't do it perfectly. But we really did try to stay out of this way and let him work his own program. He didn't ask him a bunch of questions.
He was grilling when he comes home. How does the meeting or anything like that? Just let him be. But, you know, you watch the behavior and you know when things are starting to go differently. So time passes that second year, things were getting pretty wild.
And we went away for a while for a weekend and while we were on, he destroyed some property because he was high. So that ended up being an abusive situation, physically abusive to my husband. And the threat to me and then on calling 911 again. And he leaves before they come because they all come quickly and I understand why. It's a mess.
So, and you know, it's awful to call the police on your child. But it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do. So at this point, then he's homeless and he's living in his truck. Very resentful of us.
Very angry. Very angry that I call the police. And we're in the process of trying to get another restrain more. You know, there's one's never enough. You've got to get another.
And we just can't believe that we're doing this again. And of course, he's flying under the radar so we can't find him to serve him. So we feel very vulnerable. Very vulnerable. Because he's angry.
He's a big young man and very strong. So we have not gotten any restraining order yet. So he comes over to get mail or something. And there's an argument and that's another story that I won't go into it. And then he kicks our door in.
But that doesn't come in. He just kicks the door in. And it's terrifying. And we learn that he can get through any door. He can get through any door.
He's strong. And we don't even know our son at this point. So I'm calling the cops again, you know. They know me. They know my voice.
And 45 minutes later, they show up. And of course, he's already left. I have to go to work after that. I can't get anybody to suffer this thing that I did. And I thought, are you kidding me?
And my husband's home and the cops showed up. And God works this way. The cop that showed up had a brother that was suffering of his disease. And so he had some experience with this. And what he saw, you know, you see our white heads, he saw my husband and felt a regenerative woman.
That's what he saw. And he knows the age of our son. You know, he knows the process. And how strong he is and he understands alcoholism and his own experience. So I think that, honestly, got us some traction.
And probably about a week later, I think it was. Because we're praying at this point. Not because we hate our son and we never want to see him, we're praying that he'll be put in jail. This is the other thing. What parent prays their kid goes to jail?
Parents of kids that are in an addiction, because you know where they are. You know that they're safe, both relatively. And you've got the one thing to stop. And as much for their own good, maybe more so, then your own safety. So, and this was really hard.
We had to serve in the second restraining order in jail because he's going to get out of some of what we'd have to say. So we advocate for phone contact only because our goal is not to amputate. Our goal is to detach. We just want to be safe and we want to get some recovery so we can have a relationship with it. So let's keep some phone contact if that can be done.
And you know, they're not supposed to abuse you with a phone, but that's what happens. So at this point, the restraining order is still not that today. And at that point, we don't have any contact with it. So I better get into what we did. So that is just getting the surface, but that's the highlights.
So I want to share how it feels and what we did about it. I have to say, when I'm sharing that, you know, I may not be crying, but I'm crying. It's grief. That's what we're doing with it. And so I could even talk myself out of the back of my son as a drinking bottle today.
Well, maybe a son knows. But the difference, I think, being in the program as long as we have been and the experience is that you talk yourself out a bit quicker. You got, are you kidding me right now, Bruno? Okay. How's that working for you?
So I have not given up on myself, but I have given up on helping. But let me tell you, that's been a journey. I had to prove it to myself a million times and probably would have to prove it again. I just learned quicker. His disease, I've heard it said this way.
His disease is constantly telling him he doesn't have it. And my disease is saying, I can fix it. I'm his mom. I love him. Like nobody's ever gonna love him.
I can fix this thing. If I could have doubled it right, and I have been enabled to. Here's what it tells me. It tells me, first of all, I can fix it. It's not really that bad.
And mostly, this is the guardian lot. That's what I call it, the guardian of all the other little lives. It must be my fault. I just said, well, it was the four new love. That was the problem.
You should have done the four new. That's it. And that time you got mad and that's it. That's what it was. So when we were speaking with our friends that were in A and A and Alamo, the AA of my friend's husband, who just a new eight man, lovingly said, you know, he listened to my thing when we were there that day about how I felt a failure as a mom.
He said, you know, I sure wish my mom wouldn't have tried to love me in recovery. I may have found it soon. And when he said that, have you ever had a truth just go straight to your heart? You go, God, I don't want that thing in there. And I knew it would be my story and it has been.
So the hardest thing as a parent is to detach and do nothing. We'd rather do something, anything. But they have to get done and we have to get done. If we don't, we get through. They're happy to drive us along.
And nothing in my life has ever challenged my faith, has challenged me to my core like alcoholism has. We have to entrust them to their higher power. And that's hard. I can trust myself to my higher power quicker than I can my child. And that's wrong, but that's true.
That guardian lie about, you know, it must be my fault with that hung in there for a long time. And it's pretty much done. And he can raise its head every now and then. There was a speaker named At O at our winner fest. And I'm telling you, we were sitting in the front row and he was up here at the podium and he locked eyes with us.
I think we must have reminded him of this family or something. Maybe our pain was that obvious. I don't know. But he talked about his experience with his mom that was in AA, which is a single mom. And so she's going through recovery herself and me didn't have anybody to watch him.
So he was a little boy and she would come along to the meetings. And the way he described it is they would, you know, they would hold hands at the end like we do. You know, say this one in the prayer room, or in Lord's prayer. And he'd do it. And the women there loved him because, you know, who doesn't love a little cute little boy.
So he had love, he had knowledge of programming, even identified with the program he said. But he still went out and his story was pretty severe. Pretty severe. So he doesn't have any reason to lie. There's no reason to lie up here.
So he said this, if knowledge of the program had been loved for the company from being an alcoholic, you had a different speaker than him. And I don't know. Like it was the last little tether to that lie and I went, oh my God, he's not lying. It's not my fault. I have my part, but it's not my fault.
So they say, you know, I didn't cause it. I can't change it. I can't cure it. But I can't care. And I do care.
I do. So my love is, I'm going to save my son. That was clear. And for me, I guess the thing I struggle with the most, keep the pie on my time, is the brief over the line that I think I should have. The son, not so much.
I love my son for who he is, but not having a son in addiction. I shouldn't have a son in addiction. And you've got to challenge the shoulds. It's just a different assignment. It's a tough one.
It's really tough. I have to guard my heart against self-pity and comparing what you're comparing. As a mother, I told my husband this meantime, you know, you know what women talk about? They talk about their kids and their grandkids. They show you pictures, you know, and I love hearing about that.
But I've got to be spiritually fit to take that in and not just be in a heap of tears. Because I can't enter in. I can't enter in. So you feel kind of exiled. So if you're something that's helped me with that, I have to correct my behavior to match the reality of the circumstances I have, not the fantasies in my mind.
So for me, I have to run every decision, every action regarding my son through a grid of reality. What am I really dealing with? Because, you know, I am strong-willed. I've learned that about myself. I want what I want.
And I can't have it right now. So, what do we do? Yeah. So all those things that I've done, but here's the thing that I want to say. Something, you know, that's great.
We talk about all these things we do. What about the feelings? Because it's not like those magic we disappear. We still have a lot of feelings and we're still grieving. So what do I do with all this stuff that's hanging out there?
What do I do with those things? I take them to my higher power, take them to God, and I ask Him to help me carry them. I ask Him to do the heavy lifting because it's pretty darn heavy sometimes. And I remind myself that God loves my son far better than I do, and He can be effective for our camp. And I take them to my sponsor and talk to them.
I talk about them to friends at meetings, a friend, an alma a friend. And then I focus, I try to focus my thinking on the next right thing to do, or the next right thought. And that puts me in a position for God to reveal me what I need to know and have clarity and give me momentum to keep moving forward. An example of that, just an example is doing the right thing, doing the next right action, even if it's a contrary action. So let me tell you a lot of them are learning direct contrast to what you feel.
Calling the police when someone is assaulting you or your property is the right thing to do, even if it's your son. Maybe even more so if it's your son or not. How are they going to get help? What the heck is going to happen with that? And doing that as hard as it was, as hard as it was, that allowed us, God revealed to us that we had two more DUI's while we were living in our home and we had no idea.
That was that stuff that you was doing that we didn't know, but we knew what to do with some. So at that point, then we had the information, we made knowledge based decisions. And we had the information, we're in a void at this point. We're not helping. He's comfortable and he's continuing to use and he's broken a contract.
And if you're going to set up a contract, you're going to be ready to enforce it. That's hard. So that allowed us to be able to stay the course. And then he was out of our home of course. I don't know.
I think I'm running out of time. I want to get to the map. But hopefully, let me just end and say that the things that I did very quickly. While traveling this, improving our conscious contact with God is the most important thing. And another thing is being on the same page with my husband.
I'm so grateful for that decision early on because you want to be a solid force because we love her so dearly. And that love can lead us very vulnerable to manipulation. And that probably would have destroyed our marriage. We're in everything you can about alcoholism. Open AA meetings like we've been able to go to really are helpful.
That gives you compassion to work for 12 steps with sponsor. So let me just say, I know it sounds like we're still in it. We're still in it. Nothing has really resolved in my understanding. But I can say, I can't say I'm happy that alcoholism is in my life.
I would be dishonest. I'm trying to be honest of you. But I am happy for what I've learned. And it has been a lesson that has really deepened me and my soul and in my life. I have a full life, I have a different life than I thought I'd have.
But I have a full life and I do find joy. So I keep my heart open, but I stay alert so I can hold the boundaries I need to hold. So that's all my time. And I will, Chris pick it up from here and give his perspective. Thank you for listening.
I hope something helps.