9th Renewal Convention on
Adult Children, Recovery, & Trauma
Las Vegas , NV �February 23-26, 2005
Parenting in Recovery: Changing the Family Legacy
Jerry Moe, M.A. (ACOA25-009-Moe)
MOE: Well, good afternoon and welcome. I am delighted that you are here. It's a blessing for me to be here. I was asked to talk about parenting and recovery. I am a children's therapist by profession, and what I got real clear about about ten or twelve years ago was simply this: That while we can do a lot of good work working with children�and I primarily specialize in six- to twelve-year-olds�we do a lot of good work; we can serve those boys and girls even more if we help their parents to become more effective in their parenting. What's wrong with the topic, �Changing the Family Legacy,� it should be �Parenting/Grandparenting in Recovery.�
At the center that I work at, a child must be accompanied by an adult to participate, and about 20 percent of the children that come to us are brought by their grandparents, and that's a figure that I think we'll see continue to grow.
I tell you, it is nice to be in a room full of adults. It is very nice. It is humbling to be a children's therapist because kids will just stay stuff. Let me start with a story, and we'll get right into where we're going.
There is this little girl, and she comes to the first day in our children's program. And know that in our children's program, we work with kids seven hours, so all day. Why do we want to work with children who come from addictive families all day? Because so many of them are looking-good kids, and when you work with them all day you really begin to see the issues and what's going on in their lives.
So the little girl comes in the first day, and it's about 117 degrees in the desert�it's August�and she's got her jacket zipped up all the way to the top. She never once takes her jacket off in seven hours. Sweating profusely. The only time I ever saw her hands out of her pockets was snack time and lunch time. Most of that first day, she kept her shoulder turned away from me. I couldn't get eye contact or a smile. Second day; same thing. Third day, we're on the floor doing collage where we cut and paste and put things on poster board, when out of the corner of my eye I saw this little girl crawling toward me and toward me and toward me and toward me, and in a way only a seven-year-old could do. She crawled right up to me and went like this. I've been clinically trained�after 45 seconds of breathing on me, it was like a red flag; maybe she wanted to ask me something. So I tilted my head back and said, �You can ask me whatever you want. If I don't know the answer, we'll find someone who does. I promise, you're not going to get in trouble.�
She's just about to open her mouth�it's the moment of truth�and she looks around the room, and she sees 11 other boys and girls like this as if she were E. F. Hutton about to espouse some sound financial advice. She freaked out and crawled all the way to the deep, dark recesses of the corner. What am I doing? I'm crawling after her in hot pursuit, tingling inside thinking she's going to share her feelings or tell me something that's going on in her family. Breakthrough time�yes! I got off to the corner, looked at the biggest, most captivating brown eyes I have ever seen in my entire life, and I said, �Go ahead, anything you want to know.� Well she gulped, and then she sighed, and finally our eyes met. These are the words that rolled out of her mouth: �Where do you work?� This was one of the few times in my life I've been speechless. She saw the confused look, so she reframed it for me and said, �After you play with us on the floor all day, where do you go make money?� She was concerned; I was appreciative. I looked at her for about a half a second to make sure she was being genuine, and real spontaneously I blurted out, �I don't have a job,� at which she got an ear-to-ear grin, the biggest grin the entire time she was there, and looked at me and she nodded, and she said, �That's what I thought.� So I guess I do have some resumes available. I guess it's time I should be gainfully employed.
Changing the family legacy. What I'd like to do with the time that I have with you is give you both some personal and professional observations and tell you what we emphasize back home because a lot of the boys and girls we work with have parents who are new to recovery. It's interesting, the most important job I will have my entire life is the job for which I'm least adequately trained and prepared to do. Where do we learn to parent? We learn from our parents, who learn from their parents, who learn from their parents. I am proud to stand before you today and tell you that I've got the best parts of my mom and dad wrapped up in me. I'm proud of that. But you also need to know that I have some other blind spots; and as my three kids, all adults now�I didn't say �grownups� I said �adults��all adults, guess what? They've got some of mine and my wife's positive attributes, but they still have some of our blind spots. Let's all be clear about one thing: Parents are children's primary teachers, and either in their presence or in their absence, parents and families so impact growth and development of children. Largely it's in families where kids grow and develop.
So, with that in mind, let's begin. Alcoholism and other drug addictions. Bob Ackerman and Claudia Black said it so well yesterday: It's a family disease, and everybody's hurt by it, including children. And all too often and unwittingly, this is a disease that gets passed from generation to generation to generation. Where does it stop? Enough already. I want you to know that when I go to bed every night, when I go to bed it will be no different, but when I go to bed I say a prayer. I won't bore you with it, but it's got two parts. The first part of my prayer is I thank my higher power that I have another day of recovery because recovery is not something that comes easy. But the second part of my prayer is simply this: That your children and my children and all of the children I am best to serve, they don't get this disease, that it stops with us. No more pain, heartache, trauma, silence, secrecy, degradation, stigma. All gone. No more of that.
I was doing a lecture for all of the patients at a Betty Ford Center on Tuesday evening before I came here; and I told them, and I'll tell you, the greatest gift a parent can ever give a child, the greatest gift a recovering alcoholic or codependent can ever give a child, the greatest gift they can ever give to the people they love the most and who love them the most, ironically is the gift they give themselves. It's called recovery. It's the greatest gift a parent can give a child. I could stand before you and say, �Oh, yeah, I've studied it��and I have�but more importantly than that, I've lived it. I just got off the phone with my dad about 20 minutes ago because my father will never allow me to break his anonymity without his permission every time I do. I was just on the phone with my dad. Do you know how blessed I am? On January 25, my dad got his 34-year medallion in Alcoholics Anonymous. My dad is going to be 84 years old pretty soon. Twenty minutes ago, I'm on the phone with him, �Dad, can I tell them about you, please? Can I tell them how proud I am of you?� He said, �Yeah, go ahead, it's okay. Don't tell the press!� because my dad follows the traditions really religiously; that's how he got well. But he said, �Yeah, you can tell them.� When I hung up the phone, right before I hung up the phone, you need to know that what I told my father, and I do this all of the time, �Thank you, Dad.�
I think the greatest gift my mother and father ever gave me was they created me. They gave me life. They brought me into this world. But the second-greatest gift is my dad's recovery�the tenacity, the hard work, the single mindedness of purpose. See, my dad is the first member of our family to ever get clean and sober. I can tell you about five others who have died from this disease. That's what happens to people in my family; you just die from this disease. But you need to know that my dad has blazed a trail, and guess what? I follow that same trail, and I've got a brother who follows that trail most of the time, and we're creating a new legacy. So anybody in this room who is recovering, the greatest gift you can ever give your kids starts with your recovery.
Secondly, the second-greatest gift we can give our kids is we can give them a chance to begin their recovery at a young age. It's called prevention. Pay me now or pay me later. I'll bet you I am not the only person in this room right now who would have given anything if there had been a children's program to go to when I was a kid. Why do you think I do what I do? To help kids get better.
The best definition of addiction I've ever seen in my entire life is not written by a best-selling author�sorry, you can't buy the book while you're here!�and it isn't in a medical textbook. The best definition of addiction I've ever seen in my entire life was a drawing that a ten-year-old girl did. Her name was Laurie. I gave Laurie a piece of paper and said, �Draw your family.� The only instruction. Laurie takes a piece of paper and a pencil and goes to the bathroom very quietly�gifted, talented, insightful, and old salt. She works furiously for 20 minutes and comes back and hands me a piece of paper that makes all of the hair on my neck go up. Do you know what this little girl did? On the middle of the page she drew a bottle that was ten feet tall. The bottle had spaghetti-string arms and legs. The bottle was running across the page, and at the stem of the bottle was a hideous face, a monster face. It was the biggest thing on the page. Why? Because Laurie knew that's what dominated her family, that's where the energy was, that was the focus. Everybody organized and revolved around that. The next thing Laurie drew, she drew her dad, and she loves her daddy more than anyone who walks on this planet. His hair was all over the place. He had a wild look in his eye. He was right behind the bottle. He was crouched and had one hand just about to grab it. Is that not the nature of the disease? And right behind the bottle was a picture of her mom: hair all over the place, big eyes crying, looked scared, looked worried, with both hands going like this as if to yank the back of her husband's collar and yank him away before he could get the bottle, and holding onto the legs where Laurie and her five-year-old brother.
See, what people don't understand, it's the disease that runs the show. Everybody, including the alcoholic and the addict and the codependent, is out of control by the very nature of the disease. I'll tell you, in the dance of development, if parental attention is focused elsewhere, there is no partner for the dance and sometimes kids unfortunately have to dance alone.
If you can visualize this, this was years later. This is something comparable, but this is not Laurie's creation. You get the same feel for it except this time the kids aren't holding on; they're going along for the ride.
In my mind, in my simple mind�please, I work with kids all day, and I'm proud to do that�in my simple mind, our most basic human need from the moment we are conceived until we take our last breath, and who knows then, our most basic human need is the need to love and be loved. Basic. Do you know that if today's an average day in America, about a dozen infants today will die from a condition called �failure to thrive��FTT? If infants aren't held and touched and talked to and played with and if they don't experience human warmth and kindness and love, we give up the very gift of life if we don't [get] the people that love us. We give up the gift of life.
For years I would do this lecture, I mean, I've got some dear friends whom I love in this room whom I've worked with as colleagues. For years I would do this lecture and say, �It's our most basic human need from the time we're born.� We know that's not even true; it starts even before.
A story to illustrate this: This was almost 20 years ago when my wife called me at work�I worked in Northern California�and she called me at work said, �Jerry, sit down. I've got some news for you.� I could hear in her voice...she was six months pregnant, and she had just gone to see the OBGYN, and she said, �Today, Jerry, the doctor heard two heartbeats.� You know, sometimes denial can be a wonderful thing. I got off the phone, and I had a talk with God as I understood him or her, however it is. This paperwork never crossed my desk. I did not approve this. How in the world are we going to bring two babies into the world? I'm a children's counselor. We don't make enough money; big enough house, no way! Uh-huh. Can't do it. My wife said, �Meet me downstairs in an hour.� Right where I worked, Sequoia Hospital , Redwood City , California , she was going to have a sonogram. For the women in the room, I'm in awe of you. How do you drink six gallons of water and not go to the bathroom? What a gift. Incredible strength. The tech, I know the tech. She's a friend, and she's scoping my wife's belly. You've got the little screen there, and you could see fingers, and you could see hearts beating. Oh, my God! And she scopes, and she touches Baby A. And she scopes a little bit more, and touches Baby B. And she scopes a little bit more and touches Baby C. I kid you not! <Laughter> I look upward and say, �I take back everything I said before. Two would be awesome.� She freaked. The tech runs out of the room; here comes the doctor. The good doctor comes in to redo the test. He's scoping; they find A. He's scoping; they find B. That was all there were.
Now the doctor took one look at my wife and I; we didn't experience post-traumatic stress syndrome. If we're going to be parents...we're bringing in two...oh!...little Josh, he was three years old, oh my gosh! Then he sat us down. I love the part where the doctor told my wife what to do. I enjoyed that. I relished every moment. Internally, I'm going, �Yes, yes, yes!� Then he told me what to do; I did not like that part. The doctor had the audacity to look me right in the face and say, �You get down at your wife's belly every night. You develop a relationship with those kids right now...right now!� I wanted someone to take a urine on this doctor! I said, �What?� and I wouldn't do it. �I'm not doing it. Uh-huh, no way. I ain't doing it.�
Once my wife promised not to listen�it was always really just a boundary issue�I would get down at her belly every night, and for thirty minutes I would do news, weather, sports, traffic updates, the Wall Street Journal update. When Aubrey and Megan were born in the intimate confines of a labor and delivery room�and I'm getting to a point, I promise, because I've got to tell you�the best moments of my life were watching my kids be born. Oh, if you haven't experienced that yet, oh, do you have something to look forward to. And I can't begin to think what it would be to be a grandparent, huh?
So with 13 doctors and nurses�and we needed every one; you'll see why in just a minute because they knew what was going to happen�with 13 doctors and nurses, Aubrey was born first. My job that morning was to figure out who was going to be home. We had the names. I had them figured out; and do you know what? They took her, and they cleaned her off, and they checked her out. And the moms in the room, oh, the work that you do to bring kids in the world! They usually hand the baby to the mom. My wife was still kind of occupied at the time, so they gave Aubrey to me...ten minutes old at most, and you need to know that I took her, I took her like this, and I held her real close and I put my mouth right next to her ear. I said, �Aubrey, I'm your dad. I promise I will always take care of you.� Before I could get that out of my mouth, do you know what she did? She did this; she did the voice. Now if she could have spoken, she probably would have said, �You're the fool that's been talking to me all this time! Did the Lakers repeat? Did we take the Frontage Road Exit? What about the Walmart stock?�
Her sister Megan had complications, and they couldn't get her to breathe. You know, this gift we have called life is so fragile so I've got to appreciate every moment. If you were there last night to hear �Chicken Soup Breathes,� do you remember what Ted Klonz said about the last 24 hours...or 24 hours to live? Just remember that, to live in the moment. And they rushed my little girl upstairs, and they had the best kind of medical care you could ever have. I finally tracked down the doctor, and they said, �We have done everything medically possible we can do for your little girl. Let's see how the next few hours go.�
Do you know what? It finally hit me. �I work here. I'm going to hold my little girl, even if it's only once.� Couldn't hold her...too many things. Too many instruments and tubes and everything; but do you know what? I got right down next to her ear and I said, �Sweetheart, your name is Megan. I am blessed to be your dad. Don't give up, sweetheart. Don't give up.� And as weak as she was, do you know what she did immediately? She did this. <gesture> And we stayed connected the next few hours. I would not leave until we got through that critical time. She still has got a spirit to her today, Megan does.
Our most basic human need is to love and be loved. If you will allow me in only one sentence, the biggest tragedy in this disease called addiction, the biggest tragedy in this disease called codependency, is simply this: When we are in it, we cannot consistently love the people who mean the most to us because it keeps getting in the way. And don't you see it right here? Look at this! I know these parents. They continue to bring their kids to continuing care every Wednesday night. They love their kids; and do you know what? Part of recovery is finally doing what? Getting them to turn around and allowing our kids to be part of the process. Turning around. I'll tell you, in one sentence if you tell that to your clients, you tell that to your patients, it cuts right to the heart. When I am in my disease, I can't live my values. The diagnosis keeps winning.
How do little kids get love? How do four- and five- and six-year-olds get love? Well geez, Claudia Black has been teaching us this for years, but what do we do? We don't talk. Nobody talks about what's really going on. How in the world can a family be in the middle of something so painful? The only thing I can think about, I have a dear friend who wrote the first workbook on children of alcoholics in the United States for young kids. Some of you remember it: An Elephant in the Living Room , Jill Hastings. There's a six-ton elephant sprawled out in the living room going to the bathroom all over the place. It moves around and knocks everything off the table, and we're talking about, �Geez, spring training is coming up. How do the teams look this year?� and we don't talk about what's really going on.
Second, what did Claudia teach us? Don't trust. People, they'll hurt you, they'll disappoint you, they won't be there for you. I think sometimes with little kids, do you know what hurts the most? Not only the little kids, but generalize that to all adults, but guess what? They stop trusting themselves�their gut, their sense of what's going on. We learn don't feel...don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. Boy, do we learn those good, and they allow us to survive; but when we become adults, we pay a price. We'll talk more about that in just a little bit.
What's my point? My clinical experience, kids might not know what to call it. They might not know that it's alcohol, they don't know the word �codependency,� but do you know what kids do know? They know something's wrong because they love their parents more than anyone on this planet. For way too many kids, we need more children's programs because for way too many kids, what do they do? �Something's wrong with the people I love the most. Nobody's talking about it. Maybe, just maybe it's me.� And for some, is that not the genesis of the guilt and the shame? Rocket fuel for all different kinds of addictive disorders... �Just maybe it's me.� Two examples, and then we'll move on, and we're going to get real practical with solutions the whole time. Here are things parents can do. We'll get to that in just a second.
There is a mom in treatment�doctor by profession, brilliant lady�and I must have met with her five times. �You've got to let your kid come to the children's program.� �No way! He's not coming. He has not been affected. I did all of my drinking when he was asleep. He's not been affected by this.� And you know, we wrestled and we went back and forth, but guess what? She is the mom I need to work my first step, �I need to let go.� �I disagree with you, respectfully.�
Think about this: When you work in a treatment center, what have the adults told their kids about where they are? It's critical because in Jack's case, Mom had never been gone more than one night in the eight years of his life, so they made up some story Jack knew wasn't true because sometimes parents don't know what to say and we want to say the right thing. Didn't know what to say. Two weeks, Mom's in Trim. Dad gets a note from school: �What's wrong with Jack? He's withdrawn, he's sullen, his world just caved in.� Dad can't take it anymore. Dad sits with this eight-year-old little boy on a Friday night and says, �Jack, Daddy's sorry because I didn't know how to tell you.�
Isn't it cool to be able to tell our kids we're sorry? Anybody in this room as an adult remember a time when someone could have told you that when you were a kid and how much you would have benefited from that? Oh, my goodness! So �Daddy's sorry. I didn't know how to tell you this, but when you go to bed at night, Mommy drinks wine. It makes her sick. She's at a place getting better. We'll go see her on Sunday; it's visiting.�
The little boy, eight years old, Jack goes like this. He won't talk. He won't talk to his daddy. Finally he says, �I'm going to bed now� an hour early on a Friday night. Can you imagine? The next morning�it's November; an early November morning�5:45 in the morning, and the dad wakes up because he hears all of this noise in the kitchen, cabinets opening, things spilling. He goes downstairs, �Jack, it's the middle of the night. What are you doing?� That little boy turned around ever so slowly. Let me tell you how he was dressed. He had on a sweatshirt, and the hood was on. According to his father, Jack, eight-year-old Jack had a flashlight in his right hand, and in his left hand he had a handful of Fruit Roll-ups, and he turned around and said, �Dad, I'm going to go get Mom now and bring her home.� And that little boy started to cry; and once he started, he couldn't stop, and he said, �Oh, Dad, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to tell Mom I hated her when she wouldn't let me go to my friend's house. I'll do better in reading and I'll clean up the dog poop and I won't bother my sister. I need to tell Mommy I'm sorry I stress her out.� Look what he had told himself, �I just want to hug my mom and make sure she's okay.�
Do you know what? If that little kid had gone out the door, he had a 250-mile walk. What I know about most boys and girls that I work with, they love their parents and they would do virtually anything to see that they got okay, just be okay. �Don't leave me; love me. Play with me. Get involved in my life.�
Example two, and we'll move on. We're doing a children's program, and we're only an hour into the program and we take a bathroom break. We've got to show the kids where the bathrooms are because if I've learned anything as a children's counselor, it's this: When you've got to go, you've got to go, so let me know when you've got to go!
A little girl takes me by the hand. She does not even know my name yet, and she sits me down and says, �Hey Mister, Mister! Would you help me please? Could you just tell me what's wrong with me? What do I got to do to get my dad to love me again and to hug me, tell me I'm beautiful, play with me, not fight with my mom, not give me those stomachaches? Hey Mister, tell me what's wrong with me.� The greatest gift a parent can give a child is recovery; the second-greatest gift is an opportunity for kids to begin their own healing.
Let's face it, and then we'll move on. I said this this morning�how many were here this morning? The relapsers in the room! All right�my experience for most of these parents is guess what? They wake up one day with their codependency, with their addiction, with their trauma issues. They wake up one day, and they realize how all of those have hurt their kids. My goodness, who in this room, unless there is a sociopath among us, ever wants to hurt our kids? But it cuts at an even deeper level. Do you know why? Because so many parents grow up and they say not only, �What has it done to my kid?� but �I start to remember what happened to me when I was a kid,� and that's a horror upon horror...it's the worse nightmare.
So a lot of times it's not just the parenting, it's not just grandparenting; it's re-parenting. If you were listening to some of the stories last night when they launched Chicken Soup, my dear friend, Tian Dayton, notice what she said? �Our children are a gift from God that gives us a second chance to go back and to clear some things up as we go along the row.�
So, to treat parents with dignity, with respect... my goodness, for a parent to stand up and say, �I want it to be better for my kids.� So many parents who do what? Who give their kids the gift they never got when they were kids, and that's a place to go and get better. That's exciting. That's changing the family legacy.
We ask and think about this. Dr. Stephanie Brown is here. Dr. Stephanie Brown talks about the trauma of early recovery. Did you ever think just what recovery means to kids? Kids don't get this. All of the sudden Mom and Dad have all of these new friends; none of them have last names. <Laughter> I remember 12 or 15 years ago doing an opening exercise for kids and talking ...what was the natural high you had, and a little kid said, �My parents took me to a Kenny G concert,� and another kid said, �Oh, Kenny G? Oh, frick! Not another one of those recovering people!� All of the sudden Mom and Dad are walking around saying incomplete sentences. �Let go and let God.� �Let God what?� �Think.� �About what?� �Easy does it!� �What in the world is it?� Then Mom and Dad go to these meetings where they hold hands and chant and put money in a basket. Think about the importance of explaining from a kid's perspective. �With is this stuff?�
So we give parents in early recovery, but it works for all ages and I'll bet some of you were here, and you're going to get a huge validation because you're doing some of the things we suggest, but we give them a menu of four items. And we ask parents...and I guarantee you, if parents will do one of these four things consistently, it will heal and deepen relationships with kids. We're going to go through those right now. We're going to talk about the six principles that we as parents can do to change the legacy in our family.
Number one, give time. Time is the greatest gift we can give our kids. Second, to love unconditionally. No strings. Third, to communicate honestly�in an age-appropriate way but honestly, especially about feelings. Four, to provide a balanced structure�clear rules, consistently enforced consequences, value-driven system. Five, to be a role model and to practice self-care because kids don't do as we say; they do as we do. Number Six, forgiveness. And guess who's the most important person I need to forgive? Me...me. So let's go through these.
Give time . The greatest gift parents can ever give their kids is time. The greatest gift. What do little kids tell me all of the time? �My mom and dad never have enough time for me.� You will have kids who will resent your A.A. meetings. We call it T & R back home�treatment and recovery�and the reason why people do treatment and recovery is it keeps addiction away. If people stop doing T&R, guess who comes back? Addiction. �He's back!� It's the greatest gift. We never have enough time. Time with our kids...give time. You know the greatest gift? Focused attention. Look what you are doing right now. All of these people are in the room. I'm giving you eye contact and a tone of voice that's inviting. I need to make you a priority, and not just say it but live it...live it.
People often ask me, �As a children's therapist, if you could change just one thing that would make life better for children in the United States , what would you change?� What I'm about to tell you now, and it would be so easy...you see this all of the time on Prime Time and 20/20 ...you see this study; it's done every year...University of Michigan: How much time�average daily�do parents spend with their kids in what the research called �meaningful interaction�? It's what we're doing right now. It's what you and I are doing right now, just focused, just being with him. Look�Dad, 8 minutes. Moms, who often have two full-time jobs�so many of you not only work professionally, but then you've got the full-time job of being a mom; and dads are great and dads are cool, but guess what? Kids need their moms. So many of you have done that through the years. My goodness, Michelle, my heart is with you�a friend who I worked with at Sierra Tucson who does such incredible work as a family therapist and then having enough to go home and then give it to her daughters amazes me.
So we'd change one thing, that I am tired of little boys and girls saying, �I'm not sure if my parents really love me.� They say it, but they don't do it. We give them a menu of four things; pretty simple. So let me go through them for you. We ask them to pick one of these four that I'm about to share with you, and it's all in your handout.
Number one, once a week, sixty minutes alone time with each of your kids individually�60 minutes; make it a date. And please, I am not the only person in the room that's done this; and if I am, I'll go to the support group tonight by myself. Think about this: How many of you have ever created this labyrinth of things for your kids at great time and great expense and not told them about it until the day of, and then excitedly tell them and have your kids tell them, �Ugh! I don't want to do that!� And then I can go right to that place: �Why, if somebody would have done this with me when I was a kid, how grateful I would have been. It's just a problem with kids today; they just have too much...� and instead of coming closer together, what do we do?
The deal here is simply let them pick what you're going to do. It's not about �Let's go to the mall and spend $1,000.� It's not about money. It's about time. �What are we going to do, throw the Frisbee? Take the dog for a walk? Are we going to cut out paper dolls? Are we going to cook together? Are we going to read together? Are we going to take out cards and play with those?� Help our kids create a menu at first; let them pick. The only thing we've got to do is just show up physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually once a week for an hour. Come on! Now that is doable. Some of the time the parenting stuff we do is not even realistic; it's going to fail. This is doable. Sixty minutes once a week, each of our kids individually.
Now, do you know what comes up for a lot of people? Do you know what comes up for parents who have been traumatized? They don't know how to play...they don't know how. I'll never forget a lady at the center, you know, in tears, shaking, �I don't know how to play. All of this spontaneous stuff, man, I don't know how! I don't know how!� Do you know what the response was? I asked her, �Who loves you more unconditionally in your life than anyone else?� Do you know her response? �My little girl.� Sometimes it is okay to let the children teach us. Who is a more gentle teacher than your own kids could be? Just show up; let them show you. She did that, and she showed up, and she played dolls, and she called me the next day, and there was this voice mail, and do you know what it said? Her voice was, �Oh, my God! Thank you. What got me the most, it wasn't the dolls. What got me the most was the look in her eyes. The magic was back.�
Please keep in mind, your children or your grandchildren put you on a pedestal. There is no one more important in this world. What a tribute to be put on this pedestal, but it's bittersweet. Sometimes our kids fail, and our grandkids fail too, and we need to realize we're human, too. We make mistakes. Once a week for an hour, my goodness, that is doable. You can do that.
Do you know what? I didn't know any of this stuff. As a children's counselor, I can work with your kids all day; that's really easy. I think we should just have a draft to draft each other's kids and send them home when they're 18. I'll give you the twins for one of yours and an undisclosed amount of cash and a draft pick next year. <Laughter> I think it would be healthier gig. I really do, I think it would be a healthier gig. So I learned this.
Talk about humility, as a children's therapist going in and taking parenting classes and sometimes being in a parenting class with people who are my clients. Whoa! Why? Because I would do anything in the world for my kids. I needed to learn how; somebody taught me this. I used to, every Wednesday night at 6:45, it would be Aubrey and me in her room. You know, the twins had a bedroom that they shared, and I would find that little spot on the floor where I could get down and have a good chance of getting back up. We would take out all of the My Little Ponies, which are rebounding now, which just goes to show you, save all of the toys; they'll come back around. Sometimes it takes a long time for the choo-choo to come around the tracks, but eventually it will do it. Do you know what I miss? I miss that. We would get on the floor with My Little Ponies; and I swear to God, they were breeding some more in our house because every time I turned around there were more! <Laughter> There was Big Brother Pony, there was Sunshine Pony, there was Beachtime Pony, there was Detox Pony�it was kind of shaking�and there was Managed-Care Pony�no bridle, no saddle, no hay, and an 800 number you call until, you know, and they all had that little brush. I mean, it had that brush; and if you brushed too vigorously, it became Bald Pony, and we'd join the Hair Club for Bald Ponies. I miss that. I miss that big time. Individual time, show up. Sacred time. Give them attention, give them the focus. No cell phones, no beepers, no Laker games. Nothing is more important than to be with your kids because what a statement that gives them. Because do you know what the message is? �I must really be important. I must matter if my mom and dad take that time.� Sixty minutes a week is doable.
Second menu item�and we ask you only to pick one�second menu item...even before we get to the second menu item, let me just say this and then we'll move on. Did you ever notice�and I tell this to the patients all of the time�you know when your kids or grandkids are hurting more than anyone else? You know; you're the experts. But did you ever notice when they're hurting and you try to talk to them, and they go monosyllabic? �How are you doing?� �Fine.� �Learn anything in school?� �No.� �How was it?� �Bored.� �Where are you going?� �Out.� �Bye.�
There are three prime times kids will talk. Number one, when they're in the middle of doing something they enjoy. You don't even have to ask them questions; they'll start volunteering stuff. Kicking the soccer ball, they'll tell you stuff. They'll let you in! Do you know another time kids will talk to you? In the car. Look at how kids talk in the car. Do you know why I believe kids will talk in the car? There's one reason kids will talk in the car: It's because I'm focused on driving! <Laughter> Unless you go, �You did what with whom, where?!�
When my wife and I started to have kids, I told myself that my kids would never have to go through what I went through. Do you know what my sponsor told me? �That's not true. How do you know? You're powerless over what your kids are going to go through. They're not walking your path, Jerry; they've got their own path.� And unless we're careful as parents, do you know what we can do? I can hover around you so much, you can't even breathe. It's just the other opposite end of the spectrum�too much, too little.
Claudia Black years ago said living with addiction and co-dependency is one in ten; recovery is three through seven. Balance, in the middle. The kids will talk in the car because I'm not hovering all over them.
Other times kids will talk, and granted, it's a time-honored tradition that's been passed down through the generations, is bedtime. All kids will talk, and they'll stay up any way they know. �I've got to go to the bathroom. I need some water. There's a monster under the bed. Freddy Kreuger, I just saw him outside the window!� Something about these kids that I work with, and it's true with us as adults, guess what? Little kids can stay busy all day long. I can stay busy, I can be busy and doing and doing and doing; and until it's time for me to lay my little head on my pillow and rest, what am I thinking about? All of the terrible stuff that's going on in my life. What a time for kids who need to talk...what a great time. Turn out the light�I don't care how old they are�turn out the light and sit at the edge of their bed. Spend a couple of minutes; make it a really important time.
I had a little boy tell his dad in treatment, he said, �Dad, when I would go to bed at night and you were out and I didn't know where you were, I would pray for you.� He said, �Dad, every once in a while I would wake up because I'd heard sirens. And Dad, I would get out of bed and get on my knees and say, �Dear God, please, not my dad. Let him come home safe tonight.'� So a prime time kids will talk is when they're in the middle of doing something fun: in the car�go for a ride�or bedtime feelings, and we'll go back to that.
Second on the list, here's truly the second menu item: Family night. What about one night a week having family night? One night a week having family night�teaching our patients and clients how to do family night with their kids. For those of you who work a recovery program, when do we tend to go to 12-step meetings, when do we tend to do our therapy? Evening time, often without being able to say good night to our kids. What a great time, one time a week. One night a week, family night. Now guess what? We live in the real world; it can't always be the same. And I think it's good when we have to change it sometimes because everything doesn't always work in an orderly fashion. But I can stay true to my promise saying, �We can't do it this week on Tuesday. We need to do another night because of this reason.� Family night�family together.
There are many different ways how to do this. Let me give you a couple of examples of what people have taught us what they've done with this. There was a guy that came in and he brought his three kids to the children's program�11, 9, and 7, three beautiful little blonde girls all come in their overalls, really cool. They start doing family night every Sunday night. Do you know what they do? They go out to dinner as a family. Then they go home and they play a board game.
What my kids used to love when they were little was putting a sheet on the floor in the family room and on paper plates eating dinner watching a video or something. When they're little, it's simple; as they get older, it gets more complex and extravagant.
This guy says, �We eat royally because the little one gets to pick where we eat one week, then we work up.� He says, �We've got to work up the food chain. It takes four weeks to get to the good food. We eat royally�Burger King, Dairy Queen, then we go home and play a game.�
We had a family one time, we were working with a family one time, and there are a lot of ways to be rich in this life, is there not? We can be rich with our health, we can be rich in our spiritual world; these people were rich moneywise. I mean, oh, my God, these people had money. I even had my lawyer draft up a paper to see if they would adopt me. A [ ] right in the house; they wouldn't do it. Do you know what they decided to do? Do you know what their plan was? They did this: Every Wednesday night in their house is Thanksgiving. And guess what? The whole family makes the meal. So there's a seven-year-old tossing a salad I would never eat, and a nine-year-old putting things in a Jell-O mold that I couldn't even begin to think of. They make the meal together, and then do you know what they do? They hold hands, and they go around the table and they pray, and they all talk about something they're grateful for. Different...different way to do it.
We had an alumni member call me from Richmond, Virginia because it was 7:00 p.m. It was 4:00 on a Saturday back home where I worked. He called me and said, �You're the only person I can tell this to. We are camping out in the front room. The tent is up. The sleeping bags are unrolled. My kids are watching a 1½ -inch battery-powered TV, and I look around the next room and there's a home theater system.� What's wrong with this picture? Family night...doing something together.
Maybe it's not family night. Maybe it's worship on Sunday. Maybe it's doing service for others. Isn't it wonderful to teach our kids that wherever we go in this world, there is always people who appear to be better off than we are whether they are or not and people who are less fortunate? That's the way of the world. Family night, what are we going to do? How are we going to hang out together? How are we going to spend that time? That's second on the list.
Third on the list of ways to spend time and ways to do things together, third on the list: Family meetings. When do we ever just sit down as a family and talk about what's going on? Usually bi-weekly. I think sometimes weekly is too much. Never more than 25 minutes because most of the time we make these age-inappropriate. When the kid says, �I'd rather take a bath,� you know something is wrong. The meeting only has two things�and again, I didn't know any of this stuff. Why? I just didn't. If I had known it, I would have used it. I just didn't grow up with it. My mom and dad loved me. They gave me the best they had, and they continue to do that with their life now in recovery, which is so cool. I am a lucky man.
Two things happen during the family meaning. The only thing you need is an egg timer because everybody gets one minute at the beginning. Everybody gets one minute, and you rotate. So here's the eight-year-old, �I call this family meeting to order.� Everybody gets a minute. They can only use �I� statements: I think, I believe, I feel, I need. It is not a ratting session. I cannot take my minute and say, �She came through the door at 4:00 in the morning. She's smoking cigarettes again. She was on the couch with her boyfriend doing...��I have no idea��She's stealing CDs.� No. All I can do is talk about me�my experience...my experience.
About three weeks ago, it's six-thirty. We had just finished continuing care for all of our kids at the center. There was this seven-year-old, and you could see Dad was really tired, right? Right from work, right to continuing care, boom�and they're going home. The kid says, �We've got to go to the store.� �No, we're going home.� �Dad, I've got to go....� �No, we're going home.� �Dad, I just remembered. I have a project due tomorrow. I've got to build a California mission with sugar cubes.� I prayed for that kid the rest of the night. You know, think about how often we just need to drive our kids places. What a great time to go over the calendar. So the first part, everybody gets a minute.
The most important part is what comes next because you need to know what parents tell me all of the time, and this is a defect of character that a lot of parents and grandparents have. I'll see parents, and they say this, they ask me, �Jerry, how come the easiest people in my life to get angry at are my kids? I'm not even mad at them.� Do you know what the answer is? �Because they love you unconditionally.� Come on, when that happens, you yell at them, something's going on at work or something's going on in your recovery program, and you yell at them and then it takes 20 minutes and the guilt and shame crawl all over and you fell awful. Well, this can save, parents tell us all of the time, �It saves us� because what you do is on the refrigerator you put an agenda for the family meeting�1, 2, 3�and anybody in the family can put an agenda item on there, anybody in the family. Anybody here ever experience this, especially those of you with teenagers, ever experience this, ever come home one day and you notice that all of the spoons are missing? There are none in the sink, there are none in the dishwasher, there are none in the drawer, and I'm thinking, �Are they on vacation? Is there a picket line? Are there some demands?� Parents say all of the time, �Okay, that's it. Nobody eats in their room anymore. We'll knock all of this stuff off immediately. We will only eat at these...� The parent said, do you know what he did? The parent goes and writes the first agenda item: �Spoons missing. Reward.� <Laughter> Never says a word...never says a word.
The most important part of parenting is the �C� word; it's consistency because how often do we start things and not stick with them? Those of you in your recovery have said, �I went to a 12-step meeting last night. I'll probably go to one in August. I think I'll be okay.� I know that if I don't go back to work on Monday, there won't be a check for me next week. Consistency. We're doing family meetings�kids don't want to do this�and my son Josh, who thinks all of this is crazy, says, �Hey Dad, you're not working at home. I'm not one of Jerry's Kids. I don't do this. I don't do this touchy-feely stuff at home. I don't do it.� Then he says, �What happens if I can't attend the family for a medical emergency?� I looked at him�he's a 13-year-old�and I said, �We will wheel you in in the iron lung, and then attend to you right after the meeting.� So my kids know there is no getting out of this. I want you to know that in their teenage years we got more accomplished in our house in the 20 minutes before the family meeting than any other time during the week because the kids were smart enough to do what? They would go look at the agenda list, and they'd see where the heat was and take care of it immediately. �Well, I guess this ought to...� as the guy told me, �Five minutes before the meeting, 17 spoons in the sink and all forms of decay and decrepitation,� but he never had to raise his voice.
My wife, and I love my wife�she'll be here tomorrow, actually to keep me in line�do you know what she used to write? She used to write one word on the agenda. She'd write the word �M-A-I-D� as in �I am not one.� It was a very powerful behavioral intervention in our family system. Oh, my goodness!
Family meetings. We need to create opportunities for our children to be significant contributors to the well-being of the family. �I don't have those opportunities anymore. Too much free time.� Give them some chores. Come on! Do you realize that 100 years ago children would be working for the well-being of their family and they'd get a sense of worth as a result of that work? We need to teach kids that they can be, at least children, can be at least partially responsible for creating their own sense of well-being. So family meetings.
Last on the list: Bedtime rituals. We talked about it before. Bedtime rituals�turn off the lights, and I'll give you three variations. One is from a dear friend who runs a children's program in Dallas, Texas called Rainbow Days. What Kathy Brown always teaches boys and girls and adolescents and parents, every day there is sunshine and there is clouds. So when it's time to go to bed, teach them about sunshine. Have the kids share about sunshine, about a good thing, and have them share about a cloud because their days are filled with both of those.
What I used to like to do a long time ago in our family, and sometimes we'd do it at the dinner table instead of at bedtime, is everybody shares two feelings they've had in one sentence. You know, �Today I felt happy when,� or �I felt hurt when� or �I felt angry.� And guess what? We as adults do the same thing and share, too, with them. And please, when our kids are little, be careful what you share. I don't want to go home and say, �You know, I'm kind of worried. I think there are going to be some cutbacks at work.� �Thank you for sharing, Dad.� We've got to be careful what we share.
And here is the most important of all, and then I'll give you a third variation: Whatever kids share, no questions. Do you know what? I am convinced little kids learn at a young age when you ask them how they are, they'll say they're fine, they'll say they're good, they'll say they're all right, they're doing okay because when they really tell us how they feel, we've got a million questions for them. �Why do you feel that sadness? What part of your body do you feel that sadness in? How often do you feel that sadness? Do you have someone you can talk to about that sadness?� Whew! Look what we do. Just let them have the feeling.
My daughter Megan at the age of 12 says this one night, �Well, I feel angry that I lost my 49er's starter jacket at school today,� and I'm about to come unglued. Thank goodness my wife taps me on the knee because do you know where I'm going right away? �When's the last time you saw that jacket? Did you check lost and found? Does the teacher know you lost that jacket? Did you put your name in that jacket like I asked you to?� and on and on and on. If you need to say anything, wait until the next�look how many people are laughing!�wait until the next morning. Just let them have it. Just let them have the feeling.
Last one is there is a book that I'm incredibly proud of. It's a one-day-at-a-time book for kids. The idea is, guess what? A lot of parents do this in the morning or at night. Somebody tell me your birthday, please. May 24 th ? May 24 th : �I can learn ways to take care of myself and be safe.� What a great sentence, and then talking about it. A great sentence, and then talking about it.
I've got to tell you, I'm doing an elementary school assembly in Michigan, and it was the day before Christmas vacation, and it was like December 17 th . A little kid came up and participated. As a gift, I gave him this book. Right? I gave him this book. �Here, take one of these books,� and he was very disturbed and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Finally, he was going back to class, and I took him out of line and said, �What's wrong? I see you're upset.� �Yeah. I don't think I like this book.� I go, �Why not?� �It's almost over.� <Laughter> I was like, �No, when January 1 comes, you can start again. It's cool. You can start over again.�
Okay, let's keep rolling...let's keep rolling.
Love unconditionally. Treat our children as assets, not as objects. The biggest blessings of our life�and always, separate the person from the behavior��I will always love you unconditionally. I will always stand next to you. Sometimes I frankly don't like your behavior, but I love you.� What an important message. I'll bet you I'm not the only person in the room that wish I'd heard that more when I was little because sometimes it all looks the same. You know, we're human. We make mistakes, and that's okay. We're all part of the human race.
Warmth, empathy, value. Treat our kids as if they were the top priority, because they are. No discounting, no put-downs, no abuse, no violence. Treat them with respect and love. Love is an acronym: Listen. I think the most important part of parenting, the most important part of my parenting have been times I never opened my mouth. Boy, is that hard. Just be there. Let them talk.
The �O� is to observe. Always watch because our kids�our teenagers�give us so many non-verbal cues: tone of voice, body posture, facial expressions, what they're wearing. Are they hungry, are they tired, are they angry? Who are they hanging around with?
Validate. From the Latin word [volidare]. Claudia Black has a book over there, it's called Changing Course . It's a great book, and in it Claudia talks about how validate comes from the Latin word [ ] meaning �to give strength to.� �I could see why you'd be upset. I understand you'd be confused by something like that.� Validate. Give strength to their experience.
Educate, and we'll get into this more in a minute, but I ask you to think about doing this: If you have the blessing to be in a double-parent family�both parents living in the same place, and there's a lot of that not happening anymore�think about this: If your children needed to leave home tomorrow and go out and live in this complicated world and you could only teach them three values, what would they be? We could spend three days doing a values-clarification workshop. What would the three values be? Honesty. Treating people with dignity and respect. Always taking responsibility for every action I take. They would be different for all of us. What would be the values, and are you living them? It's important to be honest. My kids hear me on the phone trying to get myself out of a speaking engagement when I'm making up an excuse, and my kids know it. Or am I talking about respect and then telling a joke that's sexist or racist or homophobic?
The second, �E� is to empower�to give our kids skills and tools to help them along the way. So love unconditionally.
Communicate honestly, and the most important part of communicating is listening. It's not talking; listening. Keeping the lines of communication open. Do you know what? When you leave this conference on Saturday, if you're driving, what would it be like if when you pulled out of the parking garage here and there were no street signs, there were no road signs, there were no lights, what would happen? It would be chaos. I would get lost...I get lost when all of those things are present! It would be chaos. We couldn't find our way. We'd be crashing into each other. Guess what? Feelings are nothing more than road signs, that when I'm cruising through today, those feelings are just guiding me along the way. That's all they are. Teaching our kids that feelings are legitimate, and simply this: teaching kids of all ages that when I have a feeling, I always have choices in terms of how I deal with that feeling and every choice I make has a consequence.
Do you know what scares me? People that don't understand us. People that don't understand us who are in recovery. Do you know what they say? People on the outside look in and say, �You're a bunch of whiners. You're a bunch of babies. Grow up! You're blaming everything else for your condition.� Sometimes, quite frankly I think too many grown-ups are looking for their inner child when they need to be looking for their outer adult, and that's taking responsibility and accountability for every step that we make. But teaching kids what? �When I'm confused, I get more information. When I'm sad, seek comfort. When I'm lonely, reach out. When I'm scared, find a safe place.� Teaching them.
Sometimes parents say they apologize to their kids for how they feel. I ask them not to do that. Don't apologize for your feelings. Why? We have them all day long. Maybe truly what it is you want to apologize for were the choices you made to communicate those feelings, but there's a difference. I get concerned when so many kids think it's wrong to get angry. If you look at the research on anger management, gosh, what's the most popular workshop about little kids these days? Anger management and violence prevention. Guess what? Humans tend to get angry nine times a day. That's what the literature says on a whole scale. It's okay to get angry. It's okay to have feelings. It's what we do with them that counts.
Lastly, when feelings get really intense, he's all over the United States; his name is Steven Glen. If you have adolescents and you want to know about the best book you can ever read, I've read it so many times, I've highlighted in it so many times it bled through the whole book. The whole book's highlighted. Steven Glen wrote a book called Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World . And Steven, God bless you for how many people you have touched. Do you know what Steven taught me a long time ago? Steven taught me a long time ago that, �Jerry, when your feelings get really intense and emotional, take a timeout and go take a walk.� Communicate honestly, especially about feelings.
Provide a balanced structure. Provide a balanced structure. Clear, positive rules provide a framework for safety and getting needs met. In a children's program, I would never let children come up with the rules because they come up with 3,054 of them. Simple, just a few rules. And never let kids come up with the consequences; it borders on the Draconian. The fewer the rules, the better. And guess what? Consequences. Consequences that are both positive and negative. And no, not �Just because Johnny's done one day real good, we're going to Disney World.� That's not how it works. Positive and negative consequences, consistently enforced. They can be natural consequences, which kind of just unfold because of the event. They can be logical consequences that we determine ahead of time, and Steven taught me this. Do you know what Steven told me is the best example to describe it? Flunking is a natural consequence of not studying; getting grounded is a logical consequence for not studying and flunking.
As parents, look what we do...as parents, we do with our kids...we do the line: appropriate and in appropriate, and we stand there. Do you know what's natural and normal and healthy for our kids to do? To test the limit. What do they do? They walk the line! They're supposed to! And unless we're careful, do you know what we do? They walk the line, and we take a step back. �Okay, I mean it now! I'm not kidding anymore. Here's the line!� What do they do? Walk the line! And then too many parents are like this, �Oh, help! What's that hotline number?�
I watched a TV show when I was a kid called Baretta . Do you remember that theme song? Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Hold on. I'll tell you, kids are players, and that's not bad. I love little [ ], last week when they said, �You know, Miss Carol said I could do that.� �Oh, really? Okay, come on with me and let's go talk to Carol.� �No, I'd rather not delve into that at this point in time.�
They'll play it! If you're my mom. I'm seven years old, right? And I broke the rules. And predetermined consequences, please! Have them ahead of time, or you'll say something like this: �You're grounded for six years!� So I was disrespectful to my little sister, so do you know what my consequence is? No Nintendo, Atari, Sega Genesis, Turbo Graphic, X-Box, Play Station, Game Cube, Game Boy, 12-pack of game cartridges for three days. They don't even de-tox me on it. Cold turkey! So watch me, I'm a player...watch this. First day. Second day��Kind, loving, caring, nurturing mother who gave me life, I was wondering if I could communicate with you for a few minutes, please? Because I know I made a terrible choice, and those few words ripped away at my little sister's growing psyche, and I was wondering if I could partake of just 15 minutes of video games to recapture the magical child within.� It's like a Hallmark moment! You need to get out the Kodak. Did you year that �growing psyche and...� Oh, and we cave; and when we cave, kids do the five-step rule. Oh, we can never let kids hear this. They would say I've changed allegiance. I've crossed over. Five-step rule: One, two, three, four, five, shut the door, and what do I do? <Laughs> Hold them to those limits.
There was a book written, a best-selling book with millions of copies called Positive Discipline used in classrooms around the world, and guess what? People in recovery said it doesn't fit, and I'll tell you why. How often do I assuage my own guilt and shame of how I wasn't there by letting you off the hook? And guess what? I have not served you and I have not served myself. So guess what she wrote? Jane Nelsen, guess what she wrote instead? She wrote a book called Positive Discipline for Parenting in Recovery .
Practice self-care. Take the time. Do you remember we talked before about values? Figure out your values; figure out your priorities, and live them on a daily basis. A dear friend of mine, one of the pioneers in this movement, his name is Bob Sube. Some of you are shaking your heads. Do you know what Bob said years ago? He wrote a book, and in the book he said this: �When we're children, we're victims; but when we're adults, we're volunteers.� That is, as kids, a lot of us to survive, guess what? We made a choice on an unconscious level to ignore the painful events and feelings in our lives, but that same behavior doesn't work when we're adults. Sometimes the best part of parenting and grandparenting is taking time just for us away from our kids. So when we need help, we get it.
Lastly is forgiveness, and this is a big one, and I'll close with a family at Sierra Tucson that I worked with some years ago. I need to begin by forgiving myself. And guess what? Accepting responsibility for what I've done is not the same as deciding to be guilty about it for the rest of my life. If you look at those 12 steps, Step 8 and Step 9, the Amends Steps, does not say �Made a list of all of the persons we harmed and became willing to feel guilty about it for the rest of my life.� I see a lot of parents who do that. It gets in the way.
If you look at yesterday, and I truly believe yesterday all of us did the best job we could do with the gifts and skills that we have; but today, I can do better. Progress, not perfection. Be the best parent I can be one day at a time. And if you want to make amends to your kids, you get actively involved in their lives. You stay clean and sober. You let go of those self-defeating behaviors of codependency. You get actively involved in their life.
At Sierra Tucson during family week, I had the privileges of a 10-year-old boy, a 45-year-old father, and a 76-year-old grandfather�three generations. At the end of Family Week at Sierra Tucson, we would do a process where if people wanted to, they could ask for forgiveness. They do that on the last day. So the dad brings his 10-year-old son out to the middle and says, �Would you forgive me for not being there for you? Would you forgive me for some of the cruel things I told you? Would you forgive me for not loving you the way you truly deserve to be loved?� The little kid looked at him and said, �I forgive you under one condition.� The dad was shocked and said, �What?� �You play with me every week.� Grandpa brings out the son and says, �Son, will you forgive me for not being there for you? Will you forgive me for the cruel things I said? Will you forgive me for not loving you the way that you deserve to be loved?� The dad said, �I've learned here at STI that I can't carry that stuff. I forgive you.� And the grandpa at 76 years old closed his eyes, and his body started to shake, and the tears started streaming down his face. I looked over at the family counselor and we were looking at each other, and finally the family counselor named Wally said, �What is going on with you, sir?� and the 76-year-old man said, �I just forgave my dad.�
You know, many years ago one of the pioneers in the treatment field is a man named Dr. Joe Persh; and Dr. Joe Persh in a talk one time made it very simple. He said, �We go through life and we either repeat or we recover. It's that simple.� So let's change the legacy for our kids, for our grandkids, for the kids and grandkids of our clients. Let's say goodbye to this awful disease. Let's give our families and our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren a legacy of health and wellness.
Thank you so much for being here this afternoon.
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