Monterey Bay Area Roundup

A continuación se muestra una transcripción en bruto en inglés de la grabación de audio de
Al-Anon Robin K. y Terrill K. en 2022.(Haga clic para regresar)

I'm just going to do my own thing. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I need all the help I can get out here. I'm sort of an old guy. My brain doesn't work that well.

Thank you. No. Hello. Oh, yeah. My name is Robin. That's true.

My problem. Okay. It's a pleasure to have you all here in all the familiar faces and all the eager aas and alanans. It's wonderful. When I first got here, Terrell, I first got here, there were about five people in the room here. So I thought, oh, wow, this is going to be kind of easy.

But it didn't show up like that. So I was just going to start out with a prayer of St. Francis. My spots are introduced this prayer to me a while ago and it's become absolutely most I don't know the word precious part of the literature, if you will, or what we use. And so I'll just read it in a prayerful way and then maybe make a couple of comments about it and then go from there. St.

Francis of Assisi. Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me so love. Where there is injury pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair hope, where there is darkness light, where there is sadness, joy.

Oh, divine master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned. And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Thank you. I'll say that this is probably mostly a focus on the spiritual aspects of alanon. And I would say just about everything in alanon is spiritual.

I don't know why I started that way, but probably some of the parts that especially speak up to me, but in terms of this prayer, it is structured with these polarities like despair and hope, darkness and light and things like this. And to me that's how the world of our own spiritual journey unfolds, it unfolds in that form of polarities. And so it could be that I'm in a place of despair. And as somebody who has an advanced degree in depression and anxiety, you know, I'm familiar with what's called despair. So then I think of there being a seed in despair of hope. That's in the prayer.

And so when we get into a place of heaviness or when I guess we might call it afflictive emotional state, then it helps if we can think of first of all what we're experiencing right now, let's say it's despair. And then what is the seed of the opposite in that paradigm of opposites that. . . So I got very interested in this way of looking at things when I was a little boy, I was about seven. I have to be mindful of how long I get to talk.

I'll just. . . 30 minutes. So I was a little boy and I was outside and poking around this apple tree where these apple trees came down. I mean the apple trees, the apples came down on the ground.

So I picked one up and I went like this. And so you can imagine what happened, Dorne. Maybe you can't. It's a big thing to imagine this. It had a worm in it. And so then I had this kind of brainstorm.

Like how is it possible for me to know what a bad apple is? It's an incredible question. So the only way I could know it really, if we look at it I think maybe logically, I don't know, is to know the opposite. What's a good apple? And so it started me on this journey of just weighing things like this and looking at things like this and being interested in how things arise. And so when I would suffer from depression, let's say, I would think that.

. . How would I know what depression is? If I don't know what feeling happy is. So then I would go there and focus a bit on happiness. So one more thing I'll mention in the spiritual realm and then start talking about how I got here to Al-Anon.

And that is I really got very interested as an Al-Anon especially in terms of where I put my attention. And that's a whole spiritual practice in itself. Because I found that what I put my attention is where my heart is. And it's very sobering to be able to actually see that process of where do I go. And then I realized that I could start to. .

. I'm very interested in foods. I use the food metaphor all the time. So one of my feeding. . .

Anyway, and some of the things I feed are not very nice, not very helpful in damaging for me and so on. So then looking at if it's depression, then looking at the seed of maybe happy. Something like that. And then imagine what that might be like. And imagine other people or myself when I've been happy. So it's a way of feeding that part.

I hope that makes sense. So I'll mention. . . So do I have this? You can hear me okay.

I know that's okay. Beautiful. So it took me a while to get to Al Anon. I was trying to figure this out. I was an old guy. I was.

. . When Al Anon showed up in my family. I had no experience of alcohol and drugs and so on in my family of origin. The family I grew up in. So when the alcohol drug stuff showed up, I was trying to do the math.

I'm not good at math. Probably about 50. Got that right. That's all right. I got close enough. Yeah, that was good.

And so one of the things that bothered me about coming to Al Anon was that nobody has my background. Everybody here, they've been diving and swimming in this world, this whole environment of addiction. Not necessarily theirs, but family members and things like that. So it was a little disorienting. But I was also a therapist and that's all I'll say about my professional life. And I reached a point especially when this disease showed up in my own family that just because I'm a therapist I should go to Al Anon.

Made sense. But anyway, so the way that this disease showed up was in the behavior of my son who at the age of about 18 had started this journey with heroin and also alcohol. But that was a point at which it was very hard to stop. And when he shared that with me, I thought, oh man, I was sort of in a state of shock about that. Like, how do I cope with this? And so one of the ways I cope with it was to find out where it came from because I was very interested to find out whether it was Terrell's side of the family that had the addiction stuff.

So that worked about one day and then I began to realize that it was on both sides of both of our families. It wasn't very much but it was there and I'm sure I poked around enough I could have found a lot more. But anyway, it's not helpful just to do that kind of comparison. I don't recommend any of you doing that. But so then began this whole long journey with the attic alcoholic. And that journey for one of our qualifiers ended about 15 years ago.

I got there. So 15 and a half. Wow. Now, how do you know that? What's your name? 17 years.

Okay. Yeah. So anyway, now I have to get, yeah, gather myself. Like, so in describing the journey with the alcoholic, I'll just do that for a little while. And say that we went through years of just in and out of the garbage pail from, you know, I won't use that language, I'll say, in and out of programs that didn't work. And they actually, I'm sure all of them were maybe just fine.

But the individual and the circumstances didn't work. And we all know this story. And then one of the challenges or the big challenge for me was just coping with it. And one, coping is wondering what to do. And also I got very interested in knowing what the tools are, if you will. And so that made me more interested in coming to Alonon meetings.

And I thought I'd just describe the first Alonon meeting I came to visit. Let's say I'm going to read some of the negative words that in the part of St. Francis Prayer. So what are they? There's hatred. There is injury.

There is doubt. There is despair. There's darkness and sadness. So I love the description in itself. Amazing description of the difficult parts. And then what I noticed about the meeting was that there were a few of us that were in a real state of fear of worsening.

We were already in a big state of suffering and then the fear of worsening. And the thing that just astounded me was that they weren't all like me. They were actually people in the room that were happy. And that made me just crazy at that point. It's how in the world, how do you dare to share being happy? And this circumstance when I'm here, it's kind of went like that.

And then I realized, well, that's just, I came to realize, let's say, how wonderful it is that in an environment where there's so much suffering, there's so much happiness too. And so that led me to deepen that appreciation for what the program has to offer. And just, I mean, that in itself was like a, come on in and sit you're welcoming. And then of course, eventually when I could free myself from being so self-centered and just looking at my own suffering and not be open to other people and how to work with it, you know, in Alana. And then I began to be able to be interested more in the happy campers, you know, like, wow, maybe it's possible for me. So again, it was that polarity, you know, it's very easy to, I could just feed the part of the polarity that, you know, I'm going to die of this disease called sadness.

I don't think I could handle it. I don't know how long I could handle it. And then just to start to get to know the other side. So that was one of those amazing moments of awakening, if you will. What is awakening? You're just like being caught up somehow in my stuff and then being able to step outside of it and get something new.

So I'll mention some other, I'll mention some other moments with my qualifier. One was, I think he was relatively new in the disease and was living in the streets up in Santa Cruz, if I remember. He came down to visit. So we hung out for a couple of days. And so fortunately I had developed a little bit of wisdom. He asked me, well, you know, it's nice to see you, mom and dad.

Can I stay here just a little bit? And I said, we said, not all you're still using and you're not working on that part of yourself. And I said it just about like that. And I was proud of myself that that was it. There's no rage or no, come on, change your mind and just get into a program. So then the part of this particular incident that really got to me was having just, we said goodbye to our qualifier and then he walked out the door and going up.

What's the name of the main street? Light house. You went up the lighthouse. And then so I had a client that I was going to see at the aquarium, Monterey Bay Aquarium and so as I was driving over there, I saw, saw my qualifier walking down the street. And you know, this is all subjective stuff, of course. He looked like there was almost no God speck in him.

Tiny little God speck. Now it was as if blank, almost blank. I can't even put it into language. I'll never be able to. But there was a sense of gratitude that there still is something there. But anyway, this journey went for a while.

And there was a point 17 and a half years ago, I think, depending on your memory. Okay, so then we, he called us up one day and he'd been living on the streets around San Francisco and been using and selling and so on. And he had bought some stuff to sell and then as the case may happen, cops showed up nearby and then in his effort to try to save himself, he took off and then lost his stash for what he was going to sell. So what that did was as things unfolded, the opportunity, it provided this opportunity for him to ask me this question about, hey, dad, would you help me? You know, I think it'd be about 400, $500, I can't remember. I think something like that, to help me to be able to remove my stash because it's not tenable for me to be around the city.

If I bought this stuff from my provider, what's it called? provider. It sounds like a Medicare provider. Anyway, and so anyway, he finally, so I said, no, sorry, sorry, buddy. I'm not going to help you pay off your Medicare provider. So then I said, hey, how about, why don't you think about going into treatment again?

You know, could work this time. And I'll do my best to get it lined up. And why don't we do this thing? You come, so you, Terlai, we're living in Pacific Grove. And we're asking that he, I was asking that he meets me at the Greyhound Busquipo in town called San Jose. He probably heard of San Jose.

And so that's what happened. Finally, we were able to get that part to happen. And then he, how do I put this, we had a nice, nice lunch together and he looked terrible. And there's part of me wants to go into these many details about how he looked terrible. What was it about it? But I won't.

I'll spare the spirit. But anyway, we had a nice lunch. And then afterwards I said, hey, I'm ready to take you down to this program in Santa Cruz. And he said, well, I'm not sure. Not sure if I want to do that. And so I, again, this is one of my best moments, a good moment for Robin.

I said, OK. But I'll just hang around for 10 minutes, something like that, 10, 15 minutes. And then I'll meet you back here at the outside of this restaurant. And if you're good to go, of course I'll take you down there. And so he took off. He just took off, and so I had, I did what I could do not speculate on what he's going to choose.

I just kind of tried to sit in a place of neutrality, just not easy under the circumstances. But in a way, just the enormity of it made it possible for me to just sit there, just sitting, just sitting, nothing going on, just waiting. So finally he showed up, and the rest is history. Now he's here in the world, and 17 and a half years sober and counting. And so now we have this kind of dilemma of, well, it's not a dilemma. It's like this grand opportunity.

How do we do? How do we deal with somebody who's just stable all time? You know, maybe not quite, but close to it. But anyway, OK, I'm going to see if I could just mention one other part of my my journey. I had all these things I was going to cover, but thank God I'm running out of time. So this was another story with my qualifier.

Again, he was fairly new to the program of sobriety. And we had gone up to Nevada City to visit some land that I purchased up there. And I think we were both pretty well and vulnerable, especially him. And he had this brainstorm. Hey, I know there's a meeting right nearby. And I've discovered where it is, and it's happening at about an hour.

Let's go. And so we did. And that was the first AA meeting I've ever been to. And what floored me about this meeting was that it had this topic. I don't know what happens in an AA meeting, but it happened to have this topic. It had this topic that I've never heard before.

It's called terminal uniqueness. And I'm still floored by it, that topic. I learned that it fit me like a tee. And I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not a drug addict, whatever. It fit me like a tee.

So it turned out that in my humble opinion, that's probably the main character defect that I've been working on, probably my whole life. I grew up in a situation where I had unusual family. My father was somebody who went to Harvard University. Before he got there, he was going to a small school in Massachusetts for wealthy pups, like his family. So my dad, as a way to get to Massachusetts, he started to ride the rails. And so he lived this kind of glamorous, difficult life.

And then he ended up going to Harvard and then dropping out of Harvard because he had such a strong sense of social justice. And so that led him to going to Spain and fighting the Spanish Civil War. And he had to join the Communist Party if you do it. And then on the other side, I had this mother who was very, very, very deeply spiritual person, a student of world religions, things like that. So having parents like this and some of the things that happened during that time of Ian screwing up, it helped me to understand why I was so able to relate to journal uniqueness. But I think that I will stop in about a minute.

I'll say I'm very glad that for the program I haven't said anything about the values and so on. There's so many things I was attracted to, to Alan on by, especially the story I told you coming to a meeting, but there are so many tools that I as a therapist loved and use almost every day today. And one of the main ones is this St. Francis prayer. So I'll say thank you. Thank you, Robin.

Can I invite the other half? I won't say the better. We never know. The other. Please welcome Terrell. So I'm going to set my alarm.

We each have our own style. Hi everybody. I'm Terrell and I'm a grateful member of Aladon. I'm surprised to hear myself say that I'm really happy to be here and grateful to be given this opportunity and grateful to all of you. I want to first of all acknowledge that I have a wound on my face. And I don't know.

God has a sense of humor. But yesterday I was fiddling around and suddenly finding all of these things that I urgently needed to do before coming here to Embarr. And as Mary shared with us yesterday, you know, the alcoholic has the bottle, but we have everything that's going on in our heads. So I wasn't paying attention and I was doing a little gardening and I went, I tripped on something, went flat down onto some cement. So that's why I look a little different than I did before. So there you go.

I also want to say a little bit about the process of saying yes to this. Many of you have heard that when you're in recovery and asked to be of service, the right answer is yes. And Sue called and said that they're out of the area speakers for this time slot weren't able to come and they'd like Robin and me to come. That was not my response. It was and usually it's not when I'm asked to do something that takes me out of my comfort zone. So I said I would think about it, but I also then came back and said, you know, I really want to stay with something else that I'd been asked to do previously that was not as scary for me.

Well Sue was very kind and very sweet and said, well let me tell you about what I did when I was faced with something similar. And so she shared her experience strength and hope. And then I heard myself say, well I do know that when one is asked to speak, it can be a way of jump starting your program. And my program is kind of stale right now. So when I heard myself say that, I thought, oh, I think I should say yes. And then all of a sudden I realized, oh, this weekend actually Tuesday is 25 years in Alabama.

And this year is also Robins and my 50th wedding anniversary. So think about it. It hadn't dawned on me that half of our marriage we have been in Alonon. And you know, I think we're pretty solid. I think we would have after 50 years. But I think we probably would be together with or without Alonon.

But Alonon is really enriched our marriage and enriched our family life. And given us a common language for going through hard times as well as for celebrating the good times. And so I'm very grateful, very grateful. So just a little bit about my growing up. I consider myself really fortunate that I've always had a higher power in my life. My dad was a minister.

There's quite a few of us preacher kids in this program. And my mother was a stay at home mom and a preacher's wife for the first, for most of my childhood and then went back to a school and then became a teacher. So there's a lot of values of service from my family. Like Robin, we didn't have alcoholism or addiction in our immediate family. So pretty stable family, a lot of love, a lot of generosity. There's also a lot of anxiety in my household.

My dad in particular was pretty highly strung. And so when people in the program talk about growing up with alcoholic parents and feeling like they never quite knew what was going to happen or that like they were on eggshells, I relate to that. There's also a fair amount of enmeshment with the extended family and also with the parishioners. So I'd oftentimes hear at the dinner table what the people in the parish were doing right or wrong. And so not very good boundaries. And I regret to say that that's something that I carried on into my parenting.

So I grew up with what was modeled for me when I owned flavor of it. Being assets of being loving, generous, kind and defects of being anxious and controlling and not having very good boundaries. Also people pleasing. As a child, I responded to my dad's control by trying my best to be the good girl. I had a brother who is six years younger than me who did the opposite. You know, it oftentimes happens.

He rebelled and a lot of his rebellion involved drugs and alcohol. And to this day he drinks more than I'm comfortable with. But thankfully over time we've balanced out. I've relaxed a little bit and he's become much more responsible and balanced and we have a wonderful relationship today. He was especially generous and over the top responsible in caring for our parents in their later years and their dying time. So I'm grateful to that.

And grateful to Alainan because it helps me see in that relationship as in many the positives to focus on what I'm grateful for rather than what I wish was different. So you know, bringing those assets and defects into my marriage, into parenting. So we have two wonderful children. The person that Robin referred to and then another child 10 years younger. And the first years of their lives were, you know, not perfect. We're, nobody's perfect, but it was pretty stable.

So I was totally, totally unprepared for alcoholism and drug addiction to show up in our family. And there were many years or at the time it felt like many, probably three or four in which our son was using and abusing drugs and alcohol. When a lot of people suggested we go to Alainan and I had lots of reasons to not do that. And it's been interesting for me to think about, reflect on that time period because you know Robin and I were doing prayer and meditation every morning. I'm so grateful for that. But I don't think we put our son into God's hands.

And I know I didn't let go and did quite the opposite during those years. You know, trying to control, figure it out, drop contracts, plead, all kinds of geographical, all kinds of things. Excuse me. Is this my water? Yeah. It's okay.

I got it. So there's a lot of denial and a lot of attempting, a lot of self-well, a lot of attempting to maneuver things in just such a way that maybe he would stop using drugs and alcohol. So as Robin alluded, the turning point was when he acknowledged being hooked on heroin. And that was literally 25 years ago on a Saturday morning. And it was terrible. You know, I just felt like the bottom had gone out of our lives.

And then that Sunday evening, so this is higher power. There's lots of higher power that happened at this time. That Sunday evening Robin and I had gone to have supper at what was then Tilly Gort sent sure a lot of you know about it. It has happy memories for a lot of us and just in so much pain and crying. And so I said, okay, this is it. We've got to go to Alonon.

And I'm going to call this particular person who I used to work with and who I knew went to Alonon. And I hadn't seen her for maybe six, nine months. I've been in a long time. Wouldn't you know it? You walk out of Tilly Gort and there she is. And I just said, oh, you know, gave her a hug and I started to cry.

And I said, will you take a beat Alonon? She said, of course. And so that next Tuesday is when we walked up the stairs to St. Mary's, now it's downstairs and little, but then it was upstairs and big. And at the time it was a speaker meeting. And so we walked in and the person who was speaking that night was a co-worker.

Now that could have been terrible, but it wasn't because I really liked this person and enjoyed her. But I was shocked. So I said, we must be in the wrong place. And so she gives me the sweet smile and said, no, Terrell. You were in the right place. So that was it.

Like Robin, I had a lot of judgments. I wasn't comfortable. I wasn't one of those people who immediately felt at home. I couldn't believe that there was so much laughter. In fact, I was convinced it was all sarcasm because especially when they said they were grateful to the alcoholic, I'm like, you've got to be kidding me because I was in so much pain. And it was so scary and so sad.

And yet you all were so kind and so welcoming. And at the very end, when we read that part of the closing of, you may not like all of us, but you'll come to love us in a very special way, the same way we already love you. I thought that that was being said specifically to me. I had no idea that it was part of the format. And it was so wonderful. So with all my judgments, I mean the slogans were corny.

We did too much reading. I mean all of that, the kindness was greater than all of that. And my pain was greater than all of that. So I kept coming back. And I'm so grateful. So the program has given me so much.

Some of the things that I heard at the very beginning that were super, super helpful were the three C's, you know, we didn't cause it. We can't control it. We can't cure it. The four G's get off of his back. Go be his slash her. Then get off the back.

Get out of the way. Get on with your own life and let go and let go. And wise people in the program I heard the wear of the sense of urgency. And your son has his own higher power and you are not it. And this has helped me tremendously. Since you don't know what's going on with your son.

Because as Robin mentioned, the disease has terrible symptoms. You know, homelessness, stealing, in and out of jail, etc. But since you don't know what's going on, imagine the best. Because that's going to be what's going to help you and be the best in your brain and help with your serenity. So I asked that person to be my first sponsor. And I'll just mention I've had three sponsors and they've all been wonderful.

Different people for different seasons. At the very beginning it was really important to me to have a sponsor who was the parent of a child struggling with alcoholism and addiction. At a certain point that didn't work so well. We worked the steps but we kind of, we just weren't connecting as well. And I asked somebody else who said I'd be happy to be your sponsor but you have to tell your first sponsor first that you're leaving. I'd been avoiding her.

So I finally did that. And you know, bless her heart. She said, oh, Terrell I'm so glad you're talking to me about this. And we had a good relationship. I'm sure you'll have a good relationship with her. And start talking about this in meetings.

We have this idea, this myth that you have one sponsor forever. But that doesn't always work. So I really, really appreciated her. I was so grateful. And then now I have another sponsor who the last time we met and we're always talking about how nervous I was, must have said to me about three or four times. Remember higher power.

Remember higher power. So I'm very grateful to her as well. She keeps me honest. Also very grateful to my sponsors who also inspire me by their dedication to commitment and to growth. And also keep me honest. Your gift of the program has been service.

I was fortunate to be part of the first committee for the Open Speaker of Meetings that we have in Alonon that happened in this district. And it's given me such an opportunity to work on my people pleasing and my control issues. As well as being able to connect with other people who are also dedicated to working with their own defects of character. As Robin mentioned, it was 17 and a half years ago when our son came into the treatment program where they didn't stuck. You know yesterday Guillermo was talking about his parents and how they had the candles burning in front of the Virgin Mary. And I thought of the many many candles over time that we had burned and the many prayers we had said because after coming into Alonon I definitely moved into praying every day that our son being in God's hands.

And we were fortunate to take a couple of trips abroad and every cathedral we went into we would light a candle. And you know so I'm very very grateful to have had that anchoring in spirituality and prayer and continue to. But right now I want to acknowledge something else that is very powerful. And that is that there are many many of us and many people many places who pray for their loved ones who are in this disease. And it doesn't mean that they get it. There are many people who are lost to this disease.

And many people who I guess I'm especially aware right now I know it's all of the diseases but I'm especially aware now of the opioids and of hearing just yesterday of a special young man who was lost to an overdose of heroin and fentanyl. And so I just want to I'm not quite finished yet but I want to take a couple of minutes of silence just to honor all of those who have been lost to the disease. And all of the families who have prayed and continue to pray. Thank you. Our family has been able to continue with the program and living in sobriety living with sobriety. We oftentimes think about that with the marriage relationship but with us it's ourselves.

Our two. Oh. I still have 10 more minutes. Okay. Not planned. So again what the combined programs of AA and Alan on have given us.

It's a common language. A common way of working with things. But we don't always, we're not all on the same time frame at the same time. I mentioned having a child who's 10 years younger than our son. The disease was really, really, really brutal on that child. Growing up, you know, elementary, middle, high school with having a brother who was in and out.

And even more than that having the effect on parents who were oftentimes preoccupied, worried and not very present. I want to mention the pressure to be the good one. Having grown up with that one would think that I wouldn't do that to my own child but inadvertently I did. So when our son entered into recovery, I want to say that I'm super grateful. I think thanks to Alan on there wasn't a huge amount of wreckage with I think our relationships. And so we could say kind of be pretty current with each other.

But not so much so with that relationship. And there were some really hard times that we witnessed. And I remember one family vacation where there was a lot of yelling, a lot of screaming. The process of making amends from our son didn't match what our younger child wanted and needed to hear. And so there was a lot of anger, a lot of disappointment, a lot of feeling misunderstood on both sides. And at one point our son slammed the door and left the cabin I was sure he was going to relax.

But again, thanks to Alan on I knew that the only right thing to do was to stay present and to stay in a place of love for both of the children and to listen to the younger child. And you know what? You didn't relax and they worked through it and it wasn't the last time that they had to go through something like that. But they did. And so it wasn't about me. Was it my timetable?

But it was what was true. I feel like we've used the traditions a lot in our family. I strive to. But there's no one of us that's in charge but we have a loving God as we understand that God amongst us to help us and guide us with small things and big things. You know life happens. There's been a marriage and a divorce.

There've been many deaths. There's been a move from a home that I was very attached to. You know life has its ups and downs and challenges and the 12 steps of these programs has and 12 traditions has helped through that time. So I want to end with a part of our family's recovery that's more recent and really important and that is with the second child. So our second child was born our daughter and it's a wonderful person. And about five years ago we'll back up a little bit.

High school college came out as gay. About five years ago came out as non-binary gender fluid and likes to be called they them, prefers they them. And again I think Alan has helped a lot because when they came out to us as non-binary I could both hold the celebration that they were becoming, they had chosen a path of integrity to be fully who they are. And I could feel joy and immense love. I mean what a courageous thing and to be truly who you are. I mean which one of us is 100% truly who we are.

And I had grief. I was, I grieved the person I thought this, my child was. And some confusion. And if I'm honest it's a little inconvenient. You know the whole day then thing has been a little hard. But that doesn't have to negate the love and the celebration and the respect.

So around this same time I was also aware that this person, our second child, appeared to be more and more altered during a lot of family visits and spent a lot more time taking little breaks to go someplace to chill. So I worked pretty hard to stay in my own lane and interested in enough a little later when they decided to come into sobriety. They said well if you were concerned how come you didn't say anything. So I think that we allanons need to kind of, that's an interesting place to be right. Like we want to stay in our own lane and not control other people. But maybe sometimes a person would appreciate hearing, I love you and I'm concerned about you.

What you do is your business, your responsibility but I love you and I'm concerned about you. So I'm still kind of working with that one. So a little over two years ago they came in to recovery and decided to go and having been an alanon for many years decided to go into the rooms of AA. And so I'm just incredibly grateful. I'm grateful to both of my children because they both work these really strong programs. They don't let me or their dad get away with anything.

I mean they're really really good communicators. So not always comfortable but always helpful. And I'm also grateful just to all of you. So thank you.