Tears from the heart

I have a lot of tears from my heart today.  The party last night was really nice.  It all went well.  I am posting a few photos here to give you an idea of the ambiance. The party was held at a very casual seafood place that sits on pilings over the water.  The original place burned several years ago.  It had written on its walls names that went back for years and years.  A little bit of the area's history burned on that day.  But the rebuilt place is getting to be as tacky as the old one was, and it is a great place to have a party.

The atmosphere was laid back, with good food, good music, and a good time.  I only felt sad a few times when people asked where C. was.  And one fellow asked how it was going to feel when I woke up one morning and there was no place to go (i.e. to work).  I said that there was always some place to go. His was the only negative comment of the evening.

After the party, I watched the Lois Wilson Story.  I think that a lot of people watched that movie.  I am not a movie critic so I'm not going to comment on whether the acting was good, or whether the plot dragged.

I can only go by what I felt during the movie.  I  know that I had a visceral feeling of anxiety when I watched the scenes with Bill W. in a drunken stupor.  And to see how the people around Lois, seven of them were named at the start of the movie, were affected by alcoholism rang so true. I could identify with every angry outburst, every look of disgust,  every bit of chaos.  The trip over old territory for me was smoother because of being in Al-Anon, but still it had an old familiar affect, similar to PTSD. I think that I could view both Lois and Bill with a great deal of compassion and not the hot anger that I used to feel that was fueled by resentment towards the alcoholics in my life. 

I felt my heart tear a bit at the utter selfishness of the alcoholic though.  And at Lois's pitiful attempts to control something and someone that is uncontrollable.  Tears came to my eyes when I heard her recite the 12 steps and the group joined hands for the Serenity prayer. 

This reminded me of just how grateful I am for the grace of a loving God who worked through Lois and Bill to have them pave the way to show future generations how to get out of the insanity of alcoholism. They and the other early followers of AA and Al-Anon were the ones who had to endure much suffering to put the programs into action.  We simply have to follow the directions already laid down in the 12 steps, the books, and the traditions that they were divinely inspired to provide. Yet, many stubbornly refuse to see the way out of their misery.  I am glad that I understood and got the message.  It's powerful how God showed me all manner of love and tolerance this evening.   My misery is optional today. 

Much going on

This afternoon is the "retirement" party.  I am taking my sponsor and another friend.  It is at a neat place overlooking the river. There will be music, BBQ, and some breezy weather to blow the "no-see-ums" away.  I have to say honestly that I am ambivalent about it at this point.  I just want to get through it.  If it's a good time then that will be great.  If it's not, then it will be over and that's okay too.  I've learned to have few expectations and to just go with the flow.

I stayed on the boat at the marina from Friday through this morning.  It has been blustery with storms rolling in this morning.  It rained most of the night.  At 2 AM, there was a lot of shouting at the marina.  I talked to a fellow who was rushing down the dock calling out for his 13 year old son who had gotten lost. He was in a panic.  So I kept an eye out, walking up on the boardwalk to see if there was a kid wandering around.  I heard the police announce that the boy had been found so I went back to our dock to tell the father.  He said, "Thank God" and took off running to get his son.  I was glad that the boy was found and not trying to play Hide and Seek on some of the boats. 

This morning I read on the front page that a 36 foot boat that used to dock at the marina was confiscated in a $30 million marijuana smuggling case off Bermuda.  The man who owns the boat is being held in jail in Bermuda.  He was well-known among local sailing enthusiasts.  Where does one put $30 million worth of marijuana on a 36 foot boat?  I don't think that the Bermudian authorities are much amused by drug smugglers so he is sitting in a cell awaiting a hearing.  It made me wonder how much of this kind of stuff goes on at a marina.  I confess to being naive about the waterfront drug scene.

And finally, tonight is the CBS movie about Lois Wilson.  It starts at 9 PM.  I am exiting the party to make it back to watch that program or at least that is my plan.  I am a bit tired after all the excitement last night.  Storms and lost children have left me rest broken.

Hope that you are enjoying your Sunday.  I'm going to take a quick nap before meeting up with my sponsor before the party.

Movie about Lois

I received this via email from CBS and wanted to share with you.  

"We wanted to make you aware of  CBS's new Hallmark Hall of Fame Presentation about Lois Wilson, the co-founder of Al-Anon, entitled WHEN LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH: THE LOIS WILSON STORY.  We felt the content of the movie may be relevant and of interest to visitors to your site, and we encourage you to post information to help encourage viewership.   

The movie, starring Golden Globe Award winner and two-time Academy Award nominee Winona Ryder ("The Age of Innocence," "Little Women," "Star Trek") and Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award nominee Barry Pepper ("61*," "Seven Pounds," "Flags of Our Fathers"), is based on the biography of Lois Wilson by William G. Borchert, and will be broadcast Sunday, April 25 (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.  Spanning more than 30 years, this movie is based on the true story of the enduring but troubled love between Lois Wilson (Ryder), co-founder of Al-Anon, and her alcoholic husband Bill Wilson (Pepper), co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. 

A college-educated young woman from an affluent family, Lois Burnham spent her winters in New York and summers in Vermont, where she began her deliriously happy courtship with Bill Wilson, a slightly younger man of modest means.   She married Bill in 1918, and, after his return from duty at the end of WWI, the two set out to build a life together in New York City.  While Lois worked as an occupational therapist at Bellevue Hospital, Bill struggled to find his niche.  Lois strongly believed, however, that Bill was destined for greatness, and despite noticing an increase in his drinking habits, she showered him with love and support.  Eventually, Lois persuaded a friend's husband to hire Bill at his financial firm.   By 1927, Bill was a lucrative securities analyst on Wall Street and the couple was living a luxurious lifestyle.  Despite Lois' countless efforts to control his drinking, Bill's addiction to alcohol spiraled further out of control until his job, their lifestyle and dreams were gone.

In 1935, after years of unsuccessfully struggling to cover for Bill and manage his disease, Lois finally saw him take control of his alcoholism; however, his sobriety was not the result of Lois's help, rather it came through the support of a fellow recovering alcoholic, Dr. Bob Smith.  As Bill and Dr. Bob attained lasting sobriety and co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous, Lois began to question the value she had in her own marriage.  After devoting 17 years to healing her sick husband, Lois felt isolated and resentful that he was sober without her help.  Lois eventually discovered that she was not alone.  She slowly engaged the wives of the men in Bill's program and came to realize that while Bill was addicted to alcohol, she was addicted to him – and that the family and friends of alcoholics are, in some ways, as sick as their loved ones.  Lois gained the necessary understanding needed to repair her fractured relationship and to help millions of others do the same.   She co-founded Al-Anon in 1951."

I read the book When Love is Not Enough and found it to be a thorough and well-written biography of Lois and Bill.  There is a lot of information about their relationship, Bill's alcoholism, and the founding of AA and Al-Anon.  I'm glad that their story will be available to a large audience.  It may help more people to understand how alcoholism damages not only the alcoholic but those who live with alcoholism.

In remembrance of Lois

Today is Lois Wilson's birthday. She is the co-founder of Al-Anon and the wife to Bill Wilson.

If you haven't read the book The Lois Wilson Story: When Love is Not Enough (Hazelden Press), I would encourage you to do so. It tells the story of her life and how she stuck by Bill W. through his 17 years of alcoholic drinking. Lois, like so many of us who have lived with an alcoholic, thought that her love could cure his disease.

It's remarkable that she stuck by Bill, always hopeful that he would get better. Even after he was sober, she stayed by his side in spite of his affairs. Theirs wasn't a fairy tale love story. Both Lois and Bill W. had character defects, as do all of us.

But it was what she learned from being with her husband and what she saw in herself and others who were struggling everyday, that caused her to realize that alcoholism is a family disease and that the families and friends of alcoholics needed a program of recovery too.

In remembrance of Lois's birthday, members are asked to participate in a project called 'Leave Hope" on March 4th. This is the project where members "forget" a piece of Al-Anon literature in a public place where it will be found, such as a doctor's office, work, library, grocery store, etc. Basically, it can be a piece of literature from your meeting, past issues of the Forum, or any CAL that you choose. We're encouraged to leave the District phone number on the literature.

Maybe some one who needs help in dealing with the effects of alcoholism will pick up a pamphlet and make a phone call that will change their life.

Happy Birthday Lois W.

Yesterday was Lois Wilson's birthday. I talked a bit about it last night in the meeting. And how dismal and dark her life must have felt during Bill's drinking years. Yet, she triumphed. And used her realization of the effects of alcoholism on families to help herself and countless others.

I put this information from the book The Lois Wilson Story: When Love is Not Enough by William Borchert to give you an idea of her despair and recovery:

"Near the bottom of her husband Bill's downward spiral into alcoholic hell, when he collapsed one night in a drunken stupor in the hallway of their Clinton Street, Brooklyn home, Lois Wilson felt she could bear no more. Pounding hysterically on his chest, she screamed out in despair: "You don't even have the decency to die!"

The compelling story behind this painful, oft-repeated scene that eventually led to the founding of one of the most important movements of the twentieth century is dramatically revealed in Hazelden Publishing's new book, "The Lois Wilson Story: When Love Is Not Enough." (Hazelden, September 30, 2005. $24.95)

Lois Wilson, the wife of the man who co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), stuck by her husband through his seventeen years of tormented and abusive alcoholic drinking, believing that her unconditional love could get him sober. But it could not. The daughter of well-to-do parents, this loving and determined women watched her husband, Bill Wilson, destroy his career, his relationships and his health, checking into and out of alcoholic sanatoriums as he neared the point of insanity and death. Finally, through a life-changing spiritual experience, Bill Wilson was led to another alcoholic named Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith, in Akron, Ohio and together in 1935 the fellowship of AA was born.

It was through her heart-rending, emotional struggle and her witnessing other spouses and children similarly impacted that Lois Wilson came to realize that alcoholism is a family disease and that the solution was a program for recovery, a family support group that came to be known as Al-Anon.

From her priviledged childhood in turn-of-the-century New York City, to her unexpected but exhilarating courtship with the dashing Bill Wilson, to her socialite status as a "Wall Street Wife" in the Roaring Twenties, to the couple's audacious cross-country motorcycle excursions in the 1930s, Lois was every bit the adventure-seeker her legendary husband was. But nothing could have prepared her for the chaos, pain, and loss caused by her beloved Bill's descent into the depths of alcoholism. In the end, however, her husband's addiction proved not to be the tragic undoing of this brilliant, promising couple, but rather the beginning of one of the twentieth century's most important social movements.

The "Twelve Step Programs" that Lois Wilson developed for Al-Anon and her husband, Bill, developed for Alcoholics Anonymous are among the most successful forces for good in the world today. They have saved millions of lives, restored millions of families and are the basis for more than 300 self-help groups growing around the world-from Narcotics Anonymous to Overeaters Anonymous.

Lois and Bill Wilson are heroes to recovering people worldwide and generations who credit AA and Al-Anon and the Twelve Steps with saving their lives. Like other influential heroes, they were far from perfect. The story of Lois Wilson is a poignant but not always pretty love story, and to his credit, Borchert tells this story with a straightforward candor that lets us appreciate the immense toll alcohol takes.

Lois devoted her own life to Bill and to AA/Al-Anon, working tirelessly and selflessly, so that she became not only a guiding light but also a symbol of the movement itself, its nurturing spirit, revered and beloved by all who knew her. Bill Wilson died in 1971. Lois Wilson died in 1988, at the age of 97."

I sometimes wonder

I sometimes wonder what life must have been like as Bill Wilson before he got sober. And I wonder what it must have been like to be Lois who devotedly cared for her husband through the very worst of times when he was a hopeless drunk.

It's amazing when you think about it. Here was a man who by all rights was near alcoholic insanity, about a few days away from being committed forever, and yet he managed to get sober and eventually put together, along with another drunk, the steps to a better life without alcohol. The stories about Bill and his inability to stay sober really indicate that something forever changed in him once he understood the principles of the Oxford group, saw living proof in Ebie Thatcher, and began to help other alcoholics.

And beside him all the way was Lois who did just about everything she could to stop Bill from killing himself. It's truly an amazing story of how two people stuck together and supported each other through a lot of insanity. It's an inspiration for me because it shows the love that they had for each other through so many difficulties. I'm not sure that many people would be so devoted. And it indicates to me that the HP had a hand in his life as the circumstances came together to form the program called AA.

Reading

Last night I read some in the book Lois Remembers which tells the story of Lois W., co-founder of Al-Anon. In this book she chronicles her life before and after getting married to Bill W. co-founder of AA. I am only part way through the book but can only wonder at the stamina of this woman and all that she sacrificed in her life. One of the more telling passages for me was her statement on pg. 78, "The problem is not about my life, of course, for probably the suffering is doing me good, but about his--the frightful harm this resolving and breaking down, resolving and breaking down again, must be doing to him......."
"I'm afraid I have always been and still am too foolishly idealistic and sentimental. I had hoped Bill's love for me would cause him to stop drinking. For I know that he loves me --but perhaps that is not enough. "

When I read this, I can only think what the anxiety level must have been in this woman. If ever there was a person who needed to practice Step One, she was it. However, without her terrible sacrifice of herself there wouldn't be an Al-Anon and perhaps things would have turned out much differently for Bill W as well. Reading this book points out over and over that the people who love alcoholics have to take care of themselves. Yet, when you love someone as deeply as Lois W. did , it seems almost that detachment could only occur through physically tearing yourself away from the other person. Lois tried that but Bill W. would return to his bottle after she returned. It was only through his spiritual awakening that he was able to quit the bottle, yet he continued in other behaviors and character defects that seem equally as difficult to accept. It seems that Lois W. was determined to sacrifice herself at any cost.

I think that perhaps her attitude reflected that of the times. She stuck by her man regardless or perhaps she was obsessed with Bill. Maybe that will be revealed as I read further in the book. In these more modern times and through programs like Al-Anon and AA, we are able to learn how not to wear ourselves down to the point that we give up everything for another. We learn to take care of ourselves. Her writing practically screams at me that detachment and self-focus have got to take precedent when dealing with the alcoholic.