[00:00:01] Mary Pearl: I said, “I never wanna be like that.” Guess what? I became like that I became my mama,

[00:00:09] Spencer: Welcome to episode four hundred sixty-one of the Recovery Show. This episode is brought to you by Jason and Sima. They used the donation button on our website. Thank you, Jason and Sima, for your generous contributions. This episode is for you.

[00:00:23] We are friends and family members of alcoholics and addicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness. We who live or have lived with the seemingly hopeless problem of addiction understand as perhaps few others can. So much depends on our own attitudes, and we believe that changed attitudes can aid recovery.

[00:00:41] Eric: Before we begin, we would like to state that in this show we represent ourselves rather than any 12-step program. During the show, we will share our own experiences. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest. We hope that you'll find something in our sharing that speaks to your life.

[00:01:02] Spencer: My name is Spencer. I am your host today. Joining me today is Eric. Welcome back to the Recovery Show, Eric, after many episodes together.

[00:01:11] Eric: Umpteenth

[00:01:12] Spencer: Umpteenth, yes.

[00:01:14] Eric: Good morning from Greenwich, Connecticut

[00:01:17] Spencer: Today we've got a special treat. Recently Eric arranged with Mary Pearl, who's affectionately known as Merp, for her to share her story in a special online event, and we're gonna share that story right here.

[00:01:28] Eric, could you introduce Merp for those who are not familiar with her many talks, and tell us how did this come about?

[00:01:36] Eric: I also on occasion attend an afternoon meeting called Front Range, which I presume therefore started somewhere in the Rockies, and it's two PM Eastern. It's a daily meeting, an hour, and often they have speakers. I've been invited to be a speaker on that, and the speakers usually do a twenty to thirty to sometimes forty-minute share.

[00:01:57] I tuned in one day and heard Mary Pearl. Anyone who's been around the rooms for more than a few years I'm sure has heard the name Mary Pearl. She's been recorded many, many, many times, and she's on the WSO speaker app. I was amazed she's still around, and she's been in the program I think since she said nineteen seventy-five.

[00:02:20] She said during her share she doesn't use the chat, but she uses her phone, and she gave her number out to everyone in the after meeting. So I thought, “What the hell? I'll text her.” She responded, and we had a chat. I asked if she'd join us to do a special one-off event, which is now becoming a kind of a special event arrangement with the You Are Not Alone meeting that I attend virtually every morning.

[00:02:46] She spoke about a month and a half ago on a Saturday. This is her share, and I hope you enjoy it.

Mary Pearl

[00:02:54]

[00:02:54] Introducer: This is an Al-Anon share by Mary Pearl, affectionately known as Merp, recorded on May 16th, 2026. Merp has been an Al-Anon since January of 1977. This is her experience, strength, and hope

[00:03:15] Mary Pearl: Thank you very much. Uh, I am not a big deal, you know? That's what always, uh Terrifies me is when I have to be a big deal anymore. Um, my name is Mary Pearl, and my nickname is Merp, and I'm an Al-Anon who just happens to be happy, joyous, and free. That was what I wanted when I got here, uh, a few years ago. I came in January of 1977.

[00:03:56] I never planned on staying this long. I've never been in anything longer than I have been in Al-Anon, because it is such a wonderful way to live. So many people say, “Well, uh, are you just, uh, you just live for Al-Anon?” I said, “No, but I live by the principles of Al-Anon, and I go to meetings on a regular basis.”

[00:04:29] I do the things that we are told to do. And so having said that, I'll start off and tell you that, uh, as a small child, I hated my mother. I loved my daddy, and I think he had a, a, a bit of a thing with her as well, because we, we sort of ganged up on her from time to time. But my mother was the child of alcoholism.

[00:04:58] Her mother, father, two brothers, three sisters, were all drunks. Didn't call them alcoholics back in those days. And so we just didn't go around them. There was never any drinking in our home. My daddy didn't drink. Of course, Mama didn't drink. But, um, in looking back at that, my mother certainly had the family disease of alcoholism.

[00:05:30] And if you want to find out where the family disease, it's talked about in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I am a student of the Big Book, and if that's offensive, you might wanna leave now. Because there was a time when, uh, it was not as welcome as when Lois was with us. Anyway, I didn't like my mother, and my daddy died when I was 12, and I was left with her.

[00:06:03] And, uh, it was hell for both of us, I made sure of that. Anything my mother told me not to do, I felt a compulsion to do. I had just, I had to do whatever she told me, because I knew it was gonna be fun. If it wasn't gonna be fun, she wouldn't have said anything. So that was my thinking as a small child, and also I carried that same thought with me.

[00:06:31] The thing that happened the night I watched my father die of a heart attack was that I knew that everything they had told me at church was a lie. Because they told me that God loved me, and I knew that night that God did not, because if he had, he would have taken her and not my daddy. I just absolutely was thr- I went fishing and hunting with my daddy.

[00:07:00] We raised and trained bird dogs, and it was a wonderful thing, and then all of a sudden all that just zapped away. And, um, I was, uh, believe it or not, I was a straight A student, a straight A+ mostly, and, uh, I, I did that to please my daddy, and I went ahead and pleased my daddy All the way through school. I would go away.

[00:07:35] I had a tremendous memory back then. Not so much anymore. But I think that's a normal thing. But anyway, I wanted to get away from home, so I got married when I was very young because he promised to take me away from home. I would've gone with the devil himself if he'd came and said, “I'll take you away from her.”

[00:08:00] And, uh, the first thing, my husband was in the military, and, uh, we, I had this in- vision, 'cause my daddy was in the military, my brother was in the military, and I had this vision that we were going to go and do fabulous things in fabulous places, and we ended up going to Newfoundland. Now, for those of you who don't know, Newfoundland is a little teeny island off the coast of the east coast of Canada.

[00:08:31] Nothing there much but moose and snow. That's it. We had around 290 inches of snow every year, and, uh, it was boring. Now, I am addicted to excitement. That's my adrenaline rush. Wow, I love excitement. It was not exciting, so I had to do what I could do to make it exciting, and I did. I did all the things that I had told myself I would never do, and I did do.

[00:09:09] I worked for the American Red Cross on the base, and, um, huh, one exciting thing was one afternoon I was looking out the window over the bay, and I w- watched a submarine rise with the hammer and sickle on the side. Hmm. And I was thinking of The Russians Are Coming, you know, that movie. And I thought, “Oh, my God, here they are.

[00:09:34] Here they are.” And they had hit an iceberg, and they needed time to repair, so they asked permission to come up. But that was, that was fairly exciting. But that was some of the easy exciting stuff. When it came time, we stayed there for almost five years, and, um- When it came time to rotate back to the States, uh, I called down to the assignment section in Maryland and I said, “Where are we going?”

[00:10:04] And they said, “Minot, North Dakota.” Minot? I'm

[00:10:09] not. You know, I am not going with more ice and snow. I've had it all these years. I am not going there. And so the sergeant said, “Well, where do you wanna go?” And I said, “I wanna go back to Little Rock Air Force Base.” ‘Cause see, I had friends back in Little Rock and what have you, but it's always been amazing to me in retrospect, the one place I couldn't stand to be, I wanted to go back to.

[00:10:36] It just shows you, you don't ever know what in the heck you're doing. But anyway, he said, “There's not a hu- opening in your husband's career field.” I said, “Well, make one. I mean, y- you got the pencils. You can do this.” And he said, “No, I can't.” And he said, uh, “But I might could change your husband's career field.”

[00:10:58] And I said, “That'll work. Whatever they need in Little Rock.” And so my husband became the head of a missile inspection team. He had never seen a missile. And we got to go back to Little Rock, and then they had some paperwork to straighten out, and then they sent him on to, uh, Kansas. And I said, “The tornado capital of the United States?

[00:11:24] I think no, no, no.” And the bottom line was I wanted to get away from my husband as well as anything else, and so I wanted just to be free. So I told him I was not going with him. I was going to stay there in the house that I had rented, and I was going to be happy. And so he left But he also left me with what I asked for, and that was an allotment check.

[00:11:55] I didn't have to work. I could do whatever I wanted to do. It was a wonderful period of freedom, but you don't know what to do with it. So I found interesting ways to get, and one of those was a baseball team, a softball actually, softball team. And it was a neighborhood team, and we had, uh, men and women and whatever, anybody wanted to play, and we played other neighborhoods.

[00:12:26] And, uh, it was our custom after the game to go over to someone's house and discuss the game and have some refreshment. Now, refreshment in those days, I had missed being a hippie, 'cause I was in Newfoundland, and so I decided now was my time. And so I ran around with people who were doing drugs. They were, um, had some little sugar cubes.

[00:12:55] They had marijuana and all like that, but I saw how they acted after they did that, so I never did. I was afraid. I would never admit that I was afraid. I would just say, “I don't care for it.” But I did drink. And, uh, there was a young man at my house that was on the team one night, and he got drunk, and I'm going, “Oh dear,” 'cause he's underage to drink, but he was drinking at my house, so I didn't want him to get picked up by the police going home.

[00:13:29] And, uh, I might be liable for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, so I offered to take him home. He had driven a pickup. I had other people following me to bring me back, and in the front seat of that pickup was a box with a little china tea set in it. And I thought, “What is that?” He said, “I got it for my mom for Mother's Day coming up.”

[00:13:56] “Oh.” Well, I was afraid since he wasn't walking very well, that he would liable to fall and break it, so I offered to take it in the house for him. Now, I've never been in this house before in my life. I'm going in with a drunk 17, 18-year-old kid. Following him through the house, and we get to the, what became his room, and he flipped on the light, and there was a man laying on the bed in his jockey shorts.

[00:14:30] And he says, “Well, hot damn, little brother, you brought us a broad home.” I said, “Well, not tonight, fella.” And so I went on and went back home and never thought about that. ‘Cause when people say, “How did you and JD meet?” Well, you know, it's sort of difficult in the real world out there to say, “Well, he was laying on a bed in his jockey shorts.”

[00:14:51] But people in the program, anything goes. You know, it, you have that freedom. And then later that summer we met again and we started dating, and we had a wonderful time for about four years. And then he ruined it. He asked me to marry him. Now, I had seen him get drunk several times during that period of time, but not anything that bothered me.

[00:15:19] Um, I mean, he didn't live with me. He lived with his mom. He was divorced. And, um, it di- it just didn't come up. And so he said to me, “Would you marry me?” And I said, “Oops, I can't.” And he said, “How come?” And I said, “I'm already married.” He said, “What?” He said, “You sure didn't act married.” And I said, “Well, I had forgot.”

[00:15:46] I had forgotten all about being married. You know, I had this freedom, and it was just sort of, you can just push things out of your mind that you don't wanna think of and what have you, and we were having a fun time. I was dating. And, um, so anyway, the bottom line was I filed for divorce. I got divorced, and, uh, alcoholism moved into my house.

[00:16:11] I never saw it coming. There it was. We got married on the 7th of November, 1969, and, um, had people over for Thanksgiving, which was the 23rd that year. And, um, uh, the thing you always did when somebody came, you offered them, “What would y'all like to drink?” And we didn't have anything. My fully stocked bar before I got married was empty.

[00:16:43] And I had a German shepherd and a poodle. They don't drink much. I would have an occasional drink. Where did it all go? JD says, “We've been robbed.” And I said, “What?” You know, he talks about the alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful. That's for some of this, you know, that fast talking for, “I can't believe how that…”

[00:17:07] And I'm trying to figure out, we hadn't been broken into, nothing else in the house was missing, and we just got some more alcohol, went down and got some, and, and went on. Didn't wanna think about it too much, 'cause see, denial's a wonderful thing. Because if you'd had a, half a brain, you would have known he had taken it, he had drank it.

[00:17:30] He'd done something with it, bottles and all, gone. And so that began my denial, and it got worse. And, and JD drank. They say it's an allergy. Well, he broke out in spots. Memphis, St. Louis, New Orleans. He would just go and be gone for days, and then come back and act like he'd been gone 15 minutes. And the pitiful part of that is, in 30 minutes I was convinced he hadn't been gone that long.

[00:18:04] You know, that fast talking for slow thinking And, and the disease of alcoholism was running rampant. Well, my mother was not one to control her temper. She didn't know how, and so she would just abuse you. She would physically abuse you, you know? She wasn't happy unless she brought blood, bruises, those kind of things.

[00:18:30] And so guess who became like her mother? When he would go out and drink, and I'd tell him not to, when he came home, he had to be punished. One time he had gone over to his dad's and his dad said, “Jim, how come you have so many black eyes?” He said, “Well, it's the doorknobs.” And he said, “Well, they're at a funny place in your house, Jim.

[00:18:52] That's all I can say.” And he says, “You know, you let the woman get the pants on in that family, and you better go home and get those pants off of her and put them on yourself and be a man.” J.D. said, “Okay.” So he had to fortify himself to be able to do that. And so when he came home to put the pants on, he'd get hurt.

[00:19:16] He would get hurt. And, uh, I was w- w- the neighborhood that I was raised in was 11 boys and one other girl, and so I mean, I was one of the gang. And so I never did fight like a girl. I understand girls slap and scratch and pull hair. I just took a fist and whoom, knocked you out. I mean, it was just that simple.

[00:19:39] And so I broke bones, knocked out teeth, those kind of things. It wasn't the, the little minor stuff. And, uh, I told him, him when he said what his daddy had told him, I said, “Well, you know, if you keep talking to your daddy, he's gonna get you killed.” Little did I know how that was gonna come true. Little did I know

[00:20:05] Ciao

[00:20:08] What would happen as time moved on, things got worse. And JD always drank away from home, 'cause I, I would ask him, I said, “Why do you drink, uh, away from home?” And he said, “‘Cause you won't let me.” ‘Cause every time he'd start to drink, he'd take the cap and throw it in the trash, and I'd get it out of the trash and put it back on.

[00:20:31] My mind could not comprehend that he was gonna drink the whole bottle. He knew he was gonna drink the whole bottle. Why bother to put the cap back on? And so we would fight over things like that. Well, it came to a point, with all the physical violence and stuff going on, I finally decided that, uh, to take him to the doctor and get him seen about.

[00:20:55] And so the doctor told him, he said, “If you're an alcoholic…” JD said, “I'm not an alcoholic.” I said, “Yeah, that's right, he's not. Now, my grandfather and grandmother and all those were, but he's not like them. I'm not gonna let that happen. That is not going to happen.” My grandfather died of wet brain from alcoholism.

[00:21:16] He was an under-the-bridge wino, literally. And I said, “That is not going to happen to JD.” So the doctor told him, he said, “Now, there's a group of people that seem to handle this much better than the medical profession, and that's Alcoholics Anonymous.” He said, “Have you ever thought about going?” “No, have never thought about going there.

[00:21:37] I'm not that kind of an alcoholic.” “Okay, okay.” He said, “Well, what do you want?” And JD said, “I want a prescription.” He said, “Some friends of mine are taking a little drug called Antabuse, and when you take it, you can't drink.” And the doctor said, “No, you can drink when you take it. It might make you very sick or even kill you, but you can drink when you take it, so keep that in mind.”

[00:22:03] And he wrote out the prescription, and I took it. I am in charge of the pills in my house. So we get home. In the mornings, in a hurry, I have, JD is on the pill, I have high blood pressure and some stomach problems from all this upset I'm in all the time. Anger will do that, you know? And then I had an epileptic dog.

[00:22:31] Now, everybody got a pill in the morning, and I can't guarantee who got what in a hurry, but we all got a pill and we went off. And you would think, “Well, now everything's gonna be okay, because if he'd just quit drinking, I'd be okay.” It's like, “I've got a headache. Would you please take my Tylenol?” You know?

[00:22:50] I didn't realize how crazy that was. Anyway, this is when the family disease took over in Mary Pearl. The thinking and reactions and stuff became very, very different. That summer, now he's not drinking. I can't blame him for how I feel or whatever's going on, but we can't agree on anything. I mean, even a meal.

[00:23:20] “What would you like for supper?” “I don't know.” “Well, would you like some fried chicken?” “No, I don't want fried chicken.” “Well, would you like some spaghetti?” “No. In fact, you make the world's worst spaghetti.” Thank you for sharing. And we would go on, and then finally I'd just fix something, and then he would look at it and say, “Do you expect me to eat that?”

[00:23:42] And I'd say, “Well, you can eat it or wear it. You know, it's a choice. It's a choice.” And so the bottom line was sometimes he ate it and sometimes he wore it. But we now began to, we could not be in the same room together without snapping at one another about anything or everything. It was worse than when he was drinking.

[00:24:07] I didn't think anything was possible to be worse, and it's worse because I'm worse, and I think about it all the time. I can't get it out of my mind. I am so miserable with him. I thought I was miserable with Wisp, but no, no, no. This is where I'm miserable. If I could just have him out of my life. And then the next little Mary Pearl said, “Well, why don't we just do something about that?”

[00:24:34] Well, what can we do? “Do you want to get a divorce?” No, I don't want to get a divorce. You see, a committee began to form in my head with all these suggestions

[00:24:46] And one of the committee said, “If you were a widow…” Oh, I like that one. Let's talk more about that. And so it was determined that he should die. That sounded okay to me. And so it was, let's find a way to do it. Well, there, you know, we can come up with so many different ideas of how to do it, and my favorite was always stab him in the neck with an ice pick and watch him drip.

[00:25:14] You know, such a sweet, loving wife here, you know? Do I realize that I am getting mentally ill? No, not a bit. It makes sense to me. It makes sense to me. That's the reason you should never do all of your thinking alone. That's the reason the program says we. Alone, we can do lots of weird things, but the we hopefully will not be another committee member in your head.

[00:25:46] And so I saw in the paper where a woman who'd killed her husband, and the jury found her guilty of murder and put her in prison, and I thought, “Nope, nope, that's too much. I don't want that.” So now we gotta come up with the perfect crime. And, you know, given a little time, we did, and it was if an alcoholic were to pass out in the bathtub and drown, who would know?

[00:26:11] Who would know? And so, the bottom line was you just wait long enough and your time will come. As I would tell him, every dog has her day, just wait. And so sure enough, about a year after he had been on the Antabuse, little did I know that he was spitting it out. He was planning his next drunk. And, uh, that day we had had a little ice and snow in Little Rock.

[00:26:43] Well, that means nothing goes very far, because they just don't know how to drive on it. But I heard our truck coming home, and it was sounded like it was doing about 40 in second gear. It was really whining. And all of a sudden he missed the driveway totally, went across the yard and hit a tree that we had, and that stopped the truck.

[00:27:10] And he opened the door and he poured out. I'd seen that too many times. And I'm looking out my front window and I said out loud, “I'll kill that SOB if it's the last thing I ever do.” So when he came in, I never said a word, I just hit him as hard as I could, and he fell and he hit a, a maple coffee table that we had, bonk, and he went out.

[00:27:38] And so I drug him across the living room floor down the hall into our bathroom. I took his clothes off of him. I turned the bathtub on to warm water I put him in and held him under until the bubbles quit coming. And there was a voice that came into my head and it said, “You can't do this. Look what you're doing.”

[00:28:04] And I picked him up by the hair of the head and I said, “The hell I can't,” and I put him back down again. And the voice came back and it said, “Do you not realize that you're taking the life of someone you once loved?” No. This isn't murder. Yes, it is. It's premeditated murder. Oh, my God. Well, thank God I had worked for the Red Cross.

[00:28:29] I'm a senior lifesaver. Jerked him out of that tub, resuscitated him. He's still out cold, but took him into the bedroom, put him up in the bed. I had dried him off, and I got the hair dryer down, and I dried his hair. You know, you want them dead, but you don't want them with a cold. And then women, you understand that.

[00:28:54] A man with a cold, is there anything worse? Is there anything, that whining and everything that goes on? Then I came back in here, and I sat in my chair, and I rocked for hours with a desperation I had never known before I don't know how I can live like this, but I don't know how not to live like this

[00:29:22] I went on to work as if nothing was wrong here at home. I mean, I have this big, important job. I've got to go. I'm the administrative assistant of the CEO of the oldest, uh, l- legal reserve life insurance company in the state. I've got a job. I've got responsibilities, so I go on and I go to work. I've left him in there in the bed.

[00:29:45] I don't go back in there. I still want to kill him. And so I came home, and it was about two or three days later, and he had finally made it out of the room, and he was sitting at our bar. And he said, “Would you call this number for me? I've been trying all day, and I can't get it.” It was the Alcoholics Anonymous number that the doctor had given him, and we had just gotten new push button phones.

[00:30:17] So e- he was shaking so bad, he couldn't get anything but wrong numbers. And so I called central office, and they told me there was a meeting six blocks away from my home in one hour And so he asked me if I would take him, and I said yes. And it surprised me because the building they were built, uh, were meeting in was built by my grandfather, who was a brick mason and rock specialist, um, back in the 1930s

[00:30:53] And yet he died of alcoholism and they were meeting there in his building and I had gone to Scouts when I was a kid in that building. It was a community building. And, um, I took him to his first AA meeting and when we came in, they were sitting around this big old long table and, um One of the guys over there, an old…

[00:31:19] He looked worse than grandpa did when we buried him. He says, “Hey, boy, have a seat.” And these two ladies from around behind the petition came over, and they said, “We have Al-Anon. It's for you.” And I said, “There's nothing wrong with me.” Now, can you believe how quickly you can forget that murder's not allowed?

[00:31:44] You know, “There's nothing wrong with me.” And so they said, “Oh,” and the AA group said, “Have a seat.” So they let me sit in on their meeting, and I thought, “This is a bunch of bull.” They were talking about honesty. If anybody in the world was dishonest, it was my husband. He'd lie to you in a heartbeat. Anyway, I wasn't impressed.

[00:32:07] After the meeting, this old fella that hollered at him came over, and he said, “Boy, I'm gonna help you get sober.” And that became his first sponsor. And every time he would take him away, which was every day, because by this time he'd gotten fired off his job, he said, um, “They have Al-Anon. You really ought to go to that.”

[00:32:27] And I said, “I don't need to go to anything. If you just get him from drinking and be happy about it, then I'll be okay.” But still in denial. And then, like I say, after he lost his job and everything was left up to me to have to take care of, I sort of went into a panic. So I went over there on Friday night to that Al-Anon meeting, and there was those two ladies.

[00:32:57] That's the entire group at that time. They had started the meeting in August, and this was January, and they had no handbooks, no nothing except a few pamphlets. But the night I arrived to go to Al-Anon, two other ladies came from the oldest group west of the Mississippi, and they did what we do best. They shared their experience, strength, and hope with me, and they told me there was other meetings, and where to go, and what day.

[00:33:29] And I mean, they gave me more information that you could ev- And I took it, and I went ev- I get tickled at people say, “90 meetings in 90 days.” I thought, “Dear God, I went for a couple of years without missing a meeting.” I mean, what are, what are y'all talking about? I was either in an open AA meeting, and which I loved, 'cause they were funny, or I was in the Al-Anon group, and whereas they would sit and talk about the problem instead of the solution.

[00:34:01] We only had four books in Al-Anon in those days. Anyway, kept going, got a sponsor, and, uh, my life changed. My life changed when I got a sponsor. When I got somebody who had been there 10 years, who knew how to work the program, who did and who lived it in her life, and it was the last person in the world I would have thought I would have chosen to be a sponsor because she was a Black woman and I was a racist.

[00:34:34] Well, she taught me to learn all people, all colors, didn't make any difference. W- She was just what I needed, just what I needed, and she loved me The first time I'd had a real mama. She loved me, so why wouldn't I do what she suggested? You know, I get tickled at people now, you're sponsoring someone, they'll say, “I don't wanna do that.”

[00:35:01] And you go, “Excuse me? What was that? You don't wanna do that? Well, you're gonna learn to do lots of things you don't wanna do in order to get the results you want, so yes, you will do that or you'll get somebody else to sponsor you.” You know, it never occurred to me not to do what she told me to do. She was helping, trying to save my life and to keep me out of jail.

[00:35:29] Both were big deals in those days. And so I arrived at the doors of Al-Anon a sick puppy. But after that first year of doing all those assignments that she told me to do that I knew that wouldn't work, which worked. Isn't it funny how they always seem to know what to give you to, for you to find out what's the matter with you?

[00:35:57] And I began to study the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the disease. We have the same disease, just not drinking. I can… I mean, I can go into these crazy fits and mood swings and do all the things that they say that they have. I mean, I can even, uh, have blackouts. You don't think so? Get in the car and start driving to work, and then when you arrive in the parking lot, wonder, “How did I get here?

[00:36:30] I don't remember driving here.” My mind was totally not on what was going on in my world. I'd get into work, I had to function there, and then some days I couldn't function and so I would call my sponsor. She also worked. She couldn't always use the phone. So there was a lady in the group, and she had been in for 17 years, and so I called her and she said, uh, “Come over to the house.”

[00:37:02] I said, “Okay.” So I got in my car and I drove over there to her house, and, uh, her husband was laying in the floor. Laying in the floor in the doorway. He didn't look good, he didn't smell good. And she said, “Just step over him. He's been there for several days.” And I thought, “How could she invite somebody into her home with that at the front door?”

[00:37:32] And so when I got in there to the kitchen, and she said, “Okay, what is the problem?” And I said, “Hell, I forgot.” I said, “How can you do that?” She said, “Do what?” And I said, “Have that at the front door as the welcoming committee. I could never have done that.” And she said, “But honey, he's sick. He doesn't want to be like that either.

[00:37:57] He drinks to pass out, to drink to pass out. He's been there for days in his own mess.” She said, “Who would want to live like that?” She said, “It's a disease That was the day I came to believe in my heart of hearts that alcoholism was a disease. I had questioned that. I didn't question it anymore. And it was a month or two later.

[00:38:28] Now, he had been going to AA meetings for 17 years and got drunk every weekend And they brought him into our speaker meeting that we had at Rose City, and a guy under each arm, he couldn't even walk. He never had another drink. It's amazing. Cunning, baffling, powerful, that is the disease. And I thought, “Wow, that is absolutely amazing to have seen him like I saw him at each one of the stages of his recovery.”

[00:39:11] He works with the prison system. He helps the guys in prison. Who woulda thought he would ever do that? There's so many miracles, and there's miracles in Al-Anon. The miracle is when you see the light come on in somebody's eyes, where they have gotten a higher power. You know, that was one of the hardest things for me because, you know, I had been mad at God since I was 12, and my sponsor explained to me that God did not kill my daddy, that my daddy was an old man.

[00:39:49] It was his life span. You see, my daddy was born in the 1800s I was that change of life baby. My daddy was in his 60s and mama was in her 40s. My sister, my closest one to me, was 16 years older than me. My brother was 20 years older than me. I was an only child. That's the reason I went with daddy everywhere and did everything with daddy, because I'd go around mama, mama's favorite phrase was, “Shut up.

[00:40:23] Leave me alone. Can't you see I'm busy?” I said, “I never wanna be like that.” Guess what? I became like that I became my mama, and I realized that when I did my sponsor's sponsor's inventory. There's this old woman, I didn't like her at all. I couldn't figure out who she reminded me of, but she reminded me of somebody, so I started keeping a list of things I hate about Ethel.

[00:40:56] And then JD said to me one night, “What are you doing?” I said, “I'm looking over my list of things I hate about Ethel because I don't want to duplicate anything, and I'm getting ready to go to the meeting.” He said, “Oh. Well, in AA, don't you hate it when they start off like that? In AA they tell us there's something good in everybody.”

[00:41:18] I said, “There's no good in Ethel.” He said, “You ever look for any?” I said, “No.” See, he challenged me now. So I turned the paper over and put things I like about Ethel on the other side, and went to the meeting, and she was talking about how when she gets mad at her husband she jerks plants out of the pots, and then puts them back, and said sometimes she had worn the roots of them off killing him and burying him in those damn pots.

[00:41:45] So I go back home and I said, “Ethel likes plants.” That was the first thing I had on the things I like about Ethel. And then there came the day when I had both sides filled up, and I'm looking at it, and I said, “JD, I have come to a terrible, terrible awakening here. I think Ethel and I are alike.” Because I looked at those things that were her negatives and, and her positives and they w- it, it's like when you take somebody off of the inventory, just take their name off the top and put yours up there and save yourself the time You know?

[00:42:30] Just do that because it's gonna fit. ‘Cause if you spot it, you got it. You know, that was what I learned. And so I told my sponsor about my revelation. She said, “Oh, we all knew that.” I said, “Why didn't you tell me?” She said, “It woulda killed you.” And I said, “That's true.” I had to get well enough to where I could see and accept how I was.

[00:42:59] And I had accepted the fact that I had a higher power that loved me because I asked for help one day, and I had, and I did the let go and let God, let go and let God that I'd heard at the meetings. And I said, “God, here's the situation. My car is acting up. I wanna get home. Please get me home.” And I got in and I tried to start my car, and it just, beh, meh, meh.

[00:43:26] And I got, and I said, “God, it won't get me home like that.” And I did it again and the car started up and I drove all the way home. And I got out of my car and I knelt on the lawn by my car and I thanked the God that I didn't have when I went to work that morning, but that I had when I came home that evening.

[00:43:51] The miracle had begun to happen in my life, and it can happen in your life just as well. That's what I've learned. It happens so many different ways, but God comes to people who invite him. You know, God is a perfect gentleman. He doesn't go where He's not wanted or not asked. But the moment I asked for help from God, it was there.

[00:44:21] It was there. And it continued on. And the, the, the next real miracle I th- I said, I, I live a life of miracles. The next miracle that happened was my con- my sponsor said, “Let, uh, you need to go to the convention.” And I said, “We can't afford to go to convention. He's been out of work for so long.” And she said, “Well, pray about it.”

[00:44:49] That was her solution to everything. Pray about it. J- I knew what she was gonna say, but I needed her to say it and then I would do it. And so I would pray about it. And so I asked him that night and he said, yeah, his sponsor had told him the same. And I said, “Well,” since he s- he would kneel on one side of the bed and I was on the other doing our prayers, we decided we would pray together on that.

[00:45:19] And so we held hands at the foot of the bed. That was the first time we ever prayed together, and we've been praying together ever since. And we just said, “God, if it be possible, we'd like to go to the convention, thank you very much.” I mean, just that simple. And the next morning I went to work and we had a WATS line and I called and made a reservation

[00:45:48] I've done all I can do. About 30 minutes after that, JD called and he had a job, which he held for 39 years. He told them right off the bat he was an alcoholic, but that he was sober in AA. And the guy said, “We love y'all. Y'all show up when you're supposed to, and you work and do your stuff.” He said, “We love Alcoholics Anonymous here.”

[00:46:16] And my husband became the top welder in the company, and he worked until he was 79 years old because he loved his job, and they loved him. They never once mentioned the word retirement. They said, “He's got more knowledge in his head than we will ever have again That wouldn't have happened without God, AA, and Al-Anon.

[00:46:44] JD and I will celebrate our 57th wedding anniversary in November. Who would have thought? I didn't even know people lived to have anniversaries like that. I figured we'd probably crap out about 60, somewhere along in there, especially the kind of life we'd lived, and all of the injuries and stuff. I got tickled, the, the heart doctor says, “Well, JD's got two valves that are just…”

[00:47:12] And he's got aorta lsten- And I said, “Oh, but he's got a strong heart. He's lived with me all these years. He's okay. He's okay.” And JD turned 90 back in January. Excuse me, February. His AA birthday's in January. That think probably that one is more important than the belly button birthday, is the fact that he came, and he stayed, and he's worked with people.

[00:47:40] He has outlived five sponsors Amazing. Amazing

[00:47:50] You know, I'm not too sure on the time, but I think I'm about through here, so I'll close with a way I've closed for years and years. My life is but a weaving between my God and me. I do not choose the colors, but He worketh steadily. Oft times in sorrow, sometimes foolish pride, I forget He sees the top while I the underside.

[00:48:23] Not till the loom is silent and the shuttle cease to fly will God unroll the canvas and explain the reasons why. But the dark threads are as needful in a skillful weaver's hand as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern God has planned. Thank you for having me

Upcoming

[00:48:54]

[00:48:54] Spencer: Thanks for arranging that, Eric. Her story is pretty amazing. But we've got another special talk coming up, and Eric, you wanna tell us about that?

[00:49:02] Eric: Just, on a whim, I decided maybe to do a, a special events kind of flyers for speakers. We have another coming up. The one coming up, I do know personally. I do not know Merp.

[00:49:14] This is Grace G. And Grace spoke at the Lois Picnic when she was 18, having been in Alateen since she was, I think, 13. The Lois Picnic, if you don't know, is at Stepping Stones, the home of Bill and Lois Wilson, which is right nearby where I live, right across the state line in New York. She was the Alateen speaker at the picnic, which had AA, Al-Anon, Alateen. Which went out to the world and everybody under the big top, 400 people on site probably, and thousands online.

[00:49:48] She then was invited to speak as the Alateen speaker at the North Carolina Bermuda convention. I was also invited to speak at that convention as the keynote speaker for Al-Anon, via someone that listened to the Recovery show.

[00:50:06] So I've known her for quite a while. Her story is incredible, really motivating, inspirational, and I hope reaches a younger group of people. Because like I say, why I got involved in so much in public outreach, I wish I had known sooner. So hearing from a 23-year-old who has eight years of experience, I think is gonna be pretty fascinating and enjoyable.

[00:50:30] Spencer: She has a great story, and she presents it very well too. We're talking about inviting her to be a guest on the Recovery Show at some later date also. We'll see if that works out.

[00:50:40] Eric: Hope so.

[00:50:42] Spencer: As always, we welcome your feedback. You can join our conversation. Leave us a voicemail or send us an email with your feedback or questions. And Eric, how can people do that?

[00:50:53] Eric: You can send a voice memo or email to feedback@therecovery.show. Or if you prefer, you can call and leave us a voicemail, seven three four seven oh seven eight seven nine five. You can also use the voicemail button on the website to join the conversation from your computer

[00:51:11] Spencer: We love to hear from you.

Outro

[00:51:17] Spencer: Thank you for listening, and please keep coming back. Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If we did not talk about a problem you are facing today, feel free to contact us so we can talk about it in a future episode. May understanding, love, and peace grow in you one day at a time.

[00:51:35]