Christine Al-Anon

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HI everyone, My name is Christine and I'm an Al-Anon.
My home group is the It Did Happen to Me Sunday night meeting in Morgantown, WV. My other committed meeting is the Thursday night Serenity meeting in Fairmont, WV. I also attend the Friday night open AA speaker meeting on Fairmont. I should know its name, oops. Thank you Gwen for asking me to write my story.

I was born into a household affected by drinking. My Dad was a heavy drinker. My grandparents also drank but things didn't happen when they drank like they did for my Dad. My grandfather on the other side died the year before I was born. I was told he drank and had ceriosis (sp?). I always knew my Dad had a drinking problem. What I could never understand was my Mom. Today I know she was focused on my Dad and not on us kids. There were 5 of us born in 6 years, I am the oldest.

I was 10 when I became in charge. My Mom went to work 2nd shift and wasn't home when we got home from school. Dad wasn't either even when he wasn't working. There was physical, emotional and sexual abuse in our house. We did not always have enough to eat, electric and phone were often turned off. It was a 2 bedroom house with 7 people in it. The heat didn't always work nor the water. My Dad was in many car accidents. He didn't always come home and frankly we were not unhappy when he didn't.

When I was 12 I'd had enough and pulled a knife on this 6 ft 4 man. He took me to get my Mom and then I went to be an only child at my grandparents for a couple years. I was 16 when I went to Girl Haven, an institution for wayward girls. It was run by nuns. I was 17 when I got sent back to the Lehigh Valley, put on probation and lived with foster parents until I turned 18.

Married at just turning 20 to a drug dealer. Sounds dramatic but all he did was sell pot and hash. Relationship was about 4 years long on and off but the marriage lasted about 6 months. Second marriage happened after I told him I would marry him only if he stopped drinking, drugging and lying to me. He went to out patient rehab and I was sure after we married and he had the love of a good woman, we would be fairy tale happy. The battle er marriage lasted 16 years. I fought him and his drinking. I left in Sept 1995 after many times of ending up in marriage counseling alone. Some how it was always my fault he drank like he did. And since I had many problems from the way I grew up--I believed I was the problem somehow. If I could just find a way to be a better wife, cook, housekeeper, mother...just better than I was then he would change, he would stop drinking.

I found Al-Anon March 1996. Lonny was going to turn 16 and I just knew I had to find a way to save him from his drinking and turning out like his Dad or my Dad. They told me to keep coming back. Thank God I did. I asked one woman to be my sponsor, she said no. A year or so later I asked a different woman, she said yes and took my I'm lonely Friday night calls. She would tell me to write a gratitude list. I fired her after a couple of months and remained sponsorless until Sept 20, 2000 when Lonny landed in jail for selling heroin.

From 1997 to 2000 Lonny would disappear for months at a time. He would call on occasion. I went to many many meetings trying to figure out how to eat, sleep, and live life with a child out there somewhere living a dangerous life. I never had accepted alcoholism as a disease. I figured if my Dad, My ex's, and now my son wanted to stop, they would. They had all been for many forms of help. Nothing worked for long. After Lonny landed in jail and I got my sponsor, who I still have today, my life began to change.

My sponsor asked me to do some simple things that were way very hard for me to do. She asked me to go to 2 Al-Anon and 1 open AA meeting a week. She asked me to call her every day for 30 days at the same time each day. She asked me to read the Big Book and work the Steps and be honest. Be honest? Call her every day? Wear a skirt when I chaired or spoke at a meeting--that was easy since I mostly wore skirts anyway. But call her and be honest? After my inventory she suggested I try AA. I did 80 meetings in 80 days. Could not relate to the craving for alcohol but I did know I craved the excitement, drama and the AAer's. I really did want to be an alcoholic. Not drinking for me was easy, I just wasn't a drinker. Finally someone in an AA meeting told me that if I didn't like to drink maybe I wasn't an alcoholic.
I'm not. My disease is wanting to be with, wanting to change those around me who do drink or drug.

Lonny did have some time in rehab, in AA and NA. I knew exactly the day he went back to the drink and the drugs. But I treasure that year and a half that I had a phone number and address and that we were in touch all that time. My son Lonny died from his disease October 28, 2004. I knew someday I would get that call and it came that day. But the Grace of God and the programs of AA and Al-Alnon helped me to have a relationship with him while he was alive. Although we didn't have the relationship I would have wanted to have with him, he always knew that I loved him unconditionally. I spoke to him the last time 2 weeks before he died. What a gift that phone call was for me. He told me knew I loved him and that it was unconditional. It took me going to Al-Anon meetings to learn about my disease and to open AA meetings to learn he was not drinking and drugging at me, it was not about me personally, and that I did not cause it in him. It took the Steps and making living amends and all I learned to do in this program so I could have a relationship with him instead of alienating him, judging him, raising his bottom, or all the other ways I used with others trying to get them to stop drinking or drugging and to love me. I was able to just love Lonny not make demands on him, just love him, pray for him and hope. I never lost hope that he might live thru this. He was only 24 years old when he died.

It is now May 2008. I finally surrendered to a God of my understanding in August 18, 2006. It took many years of fighting all that is good for me before I could stop fighting. My new Al-Anon birthday is December 28, 2000, just one day after my sponsors new birthday. Now that's a story how that all came about! There are many things I've not written here today of how this program has blessed me, how God put people in my path to help me, how Al-Anon carried me when I could not manage life, and continues to bless me while my younger son is involved in the disease. This family disease. And my hopes and fears of my little granddaughter becoming involved in it. I will continue to hope.
Thank you for letting me share.

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