Back MP3 Save Help
 
- - - - -
(#1772) Terry W (Fort Worth, TX)
4/22/2000 in New Orleans, LA  EVENT: 32nd Deep South AA Convention  TYPE: Al-Anon, Female, Story

A member of Al-Anon 16 years since 10/17/1983, her first sponsor raised her on the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and open AA meetings.

Terry was from a non-alcoholic, Catholic home in a small Wisconsin town in the 1960's. She always thought life was going to start sometime in the future.

Her role model was Doris Day and Rock Hudson and even he turned out to be not what she thought he was.

She decided God was too busy with all the problems in the world so she was going to have to take charge.

She went to nursing college in Milwaukee at age 18 and started a series of bad relationships with men including an abusive one from Saudi Arabia.

She didn't know how to end a relationship. Then she met Prince Charming, moved to Missouri and got married five years later. The 1st Thanksgiving she realized she had married an alcoholic and decided to live with it and not admit to others she had made a mistake - especially her mother.

He started going to AA and she started going to Al-Anon to keep an eye on him. He quit for a short time but then started drinking in "secret". They never talked about it.

"We had no friends and no one walked into that house."

After two years she decided she could not do this for the rest of her life and went back to Al-Anon. She met her sponsor who promised Terry that if she came back and did these things she would be OK.

"It was getting worse but I was starting to feel better."

How she got to Texas and married and, 13 years later, buried Jim W (a well-known AA speaker) is a moving and fascinating adventure.

Jim W passed 1/3/1999.

Hear Jim in 1994 in Marietta, GA on WeJoy:

Jim W of Aledo, TX at Marietta, GA 1999


(1 hr 4 min) (14.9 MB) (id#1772)