August 23, 2004
                                                              

Hi, I’m Carly, and I’m a grateful alcoholic. This is my story. It really isn’t much different than anyone else’s, except for geography and names. I was born into a very strict Catholic family. I was taught from a very young age not to cry, not show emotion, always be perfect, always be the best, always be a lady.  I was a straight A student and never gave cause for any reprimand, as a result.  We didn’t “air our dirty laundry” and there were few visitors.

My father suffered from manic depressive episodes, with periods of black depression that erupted in violence. My mom and I basically tried to tiptoe around him on a daily basis and not upset the apple cart. I learned fear from a very young age.  I learned to block out all the horror and sounds. By breakfast, all would be forgiven, which only added to my confusion.  It was as if nothing had happened and everyone would be smiling. It made me think I was crazy! That I had imagined the whole thing, but I know I didn’t.

When I was around seven years old, a family member molested me, while another stood by and watched and did nothing to help me. I know that in the midst of it, I unconsciously blacked out, using the only survivor tool I knew…to make it go away, and everything would be ok in the morning. When I was 16, I was taken to a “back street doctor” who “deflowered me” because my parents thought I’d been with …gasp…a boy. (I hadn’t, having attended private Catholic school most of my life. The pain was excruciating.  At 18, I was raped by a drunken sailor in an abandoned house, but came home, quietly took a shower, never said a word to anyone, and life went on as usual. It wasn’t until I came to AA in 1978, that I finally told all these “secrets” that had been eating me alive.

We moved around a lot, so I was always the “new girl” in school, which made me very shy and introverted.  I had few friends, was very self-conscious, and withdrew into a fantasy world of books, stuffed animals, dolls and playing board games with my grandmother, who lived with us. She saved me on a daily basis with her kindness, love, spirituality and protection. One night my father was in a drunken rage and was going to burn my mother’s face off with lit candles from a birthday party.  I went and hid under the table, burying my head in Grandma’s lap and holding my hands over my ears. The police came, and a priest, but nothing ever worked. I became used to the pots and pans being thrown around the kitchen and the deafening roar of my father threatening to kill us all (while drinking wine). I left home at 18, the day after graduation.

I had been so cautioned about boys that of course the first thing I wanted to do was find “the forbidden fruit”. I did, and more. I also discovered smoking, drinking and partying and I did all of them with unbridled passion. I did go to college, discovered the “hippie” culture, and immediately felt accepted and loved, which is all I ever wanted. I worked part time as a secretary (a trade I continued for over 30 years) and played in the Haight-Ashbury on weekends. I was arrested once and was facing a jury trial for a felony possession charge and the night before court I made my first suicide attempt.  I smoked pot, took LSD twice (both bad experiences), experimented briefly with Opium and Hashish and my drink of choice was red wine. I grew up with the Beatles and Stones and back then it was sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, and I did my fair share of it all. By this time, the ugly duckling (so I thought) had blossomed into a very beautiful young woman (so I was told), and soon men became “my drug of choice”. They loved me and I loved them and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!!  HALLELUJAH!!

I soon tired of the hippie life, met a wonderful boy just back from Viet Nam, got married and had a baby. He taught me to sleep with guns under the pillow and many a night I’d awake to see him huddled down by the front door, “so the VC couldn’t get us”. It was a hard time.  Our baby died at 9 weeks old, of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), formerly called Crib Death, and the horror of it was devastating. My husband isolated himself and I went back to work and discovered “the three martini lunch”, and Happy Hour. I drowned any feelings I had, jumped into a bottle, and didn’t come out for 10 long years. I went to all the best nightclubs, discos and parties. In the beginning I had a ball. By now my husband and I were divorced, I’d moved out and was finally free to go crazy and stop the voices in my head once and for all. One night, another tenant, a biker, found me floating in the swimming pool, in the pouring rain, stoned on sleeping pills, and drunk on Vin Café’ wine. He told me I was crazy.

I continued to binge drink and have blackouts. Eventually my first husband and I reconciled, had another baby (at my insistence, to save our marriage) and lived together another 2 years of constant fights and infidelities (on his part).  He had a penchant for squiring the stewardesses from the airport where he worked to Reno on weekends. At one point I tried to again commit suicide by slashing both my wrists, under the influence of a bottle of rum and 50 Phenobarbital. It took 150 micro stitches by a neurosurgeon to close the wounds.  His biggest concern was that it would get in the papers and ruin his family’s good name.  I nearly bled to death as I had been lying in a pool of blood all night and wasn’t discovered until he came home at 6 a.m.   I was miserable and lonely.  So I left him.

I moved into a shady neighborhood, with $50 and a clunker car, and my one-year-old baby. There, at various times and by various unsavory sorts, I was severely beaten with a bullwhip, had my hair cut off with a switchblade knife, and another time I was shot full of speed against my will and left on the beach to die.  From this last incident I incurred many serious injuries, some that I still battle with to this day. I’ve had permanently torn cartilage in my rib cage, broken ribs, broken breastbone, broken nose, and other asundry injuries.  All this, because of my inability to control my drinking, which put me in precarious places with even more precarious people. Booze was killing me, through the people I was associating with. Inside I was just lonely and looking for love.

I found another job, cleaned up nicely, and met my second husband through a blind date where I worked. He drank more than I did, but somehow always managed to keep it together. He moved my son and I into a nice family neighborhood, and I once again started over. (We alcoholics are such chameleons, aren’t we? We can be whoever people want us to be—at least I was.) I was very happy there, well into my sobriety. But our drinking caught up with us and one night we went to Reno in a stupor to get married. To this day, I have no recollection of how I got there or how I got home. The last thing I remember is sitting at a bar in Harrah’s, then getting married at the Chapel of the Bells, in sandals, blue jeans, and a black velvet shirt that had a jeweled picture of a lady smoking a joint on it.  I later had the marriage annulled.

 I continued to date, work and somehow managed to raise my son.  Another night I got all dressed up and joined some girlfriends from work for a drink at a nearby nightclub. Somehow, after many, many drinks (I never drank normally, “MORE” was always my battle cry) I got separated from the crowd, and ended up in a motel room with a man, under the guise of fixing me breakfast.  Instead, I was raped at gunpoint, and he had cut the telephone cord so I couldn’t call for help.  He dumped me in my shredded “cocktail dress” on the front steps of the motel room in the freezing cold at about 4:00a.m.  But, as always, I didn’t make a fuss, came home, washed up, and went to work the next day like nothing had happened. Yes, I was by this time also very mentally and emotionally sick. Talk about DENIAL and INSANITY!!!

I had many relationships, then one day in March of 1978, I discovered that I couldn’t get drunk, after drinking alone in my house for 36 hours. That terrified me because I felt I’d now been abandoned by my best friend, and without it I could no longer cover the pain. It freaked me out.  For some reason, now revealed to me as Divine Intervention, I went into my kitchen, picked up the phone book, looked up AA and made that first call. The wonderful woman they sent out became my first sponsor, and I took to AA meetings like a duck to water.  I finally felt like I was “HOME”. That these people understood me and accepted me unconditionally into their lives and hearts was beyond my comprehension, but I accepted it all gladly. Sobriety has been the most exquisitely beautiful experience of my life. I know that it saved me from a life of hell on earth and I’m truly blessed. I’m grateful for every second.  Today my son and I have a special bond.  At age 19, he and I battled an almost-deadly case of Hodgkin’s Disease and won.  I helped him through a year of grueling chemo, radiation and multiple surgeries.  Today, I have 3 beautiful grandchildren, am active in my community, go to church when I can, but most of all I’ve gained the trust and respect of those around me.

In 1980 I began working for a very prestigious university, starting out in the president’s office as a vacation fill-in.  For 12 years I worked as an Administrative Assistant.  In one department, I was responsible for seeing to it that the Ph.D. students received their Doctoral. Six years ago, I became a nurse’s assistant, specializing in Alzheimer’s and Hospice cases. What they give me is so much more than I give them. Today I am worthy of being held accountable and am sometimes literally entrusted with their lives.  I’ve had to make many a 911 call to revive a patient, and just as many to the coroner to come pick them up. I stay with them until their last breath, and consider it an honor and a privilege.  I have wonderful friends today. I started my own ceramics business a few years ago and now prepare showings for our local crafts festivities. I am actually asked to attend certain functions and asked to help out at our fairs and community fund-raisers.  It feels good to be thought of as someone with something to give.  Hopefully I have given back to AA just part of what has been so graciously given to me.

Sometimes life is still difficult, but it’s ok.  My third marriage of 18 years (to a non-drinker) began to unravel about 9 years ago.  We’ve been separated many times. I’m hanging on by a thread, trying to make it work, yet knowing it can’t possibly.  However,  “Just For Today”, I’m happy, joyous, and free.  I’ve survived many deaths (both my parents, friends, and relatives), illnesses and injuries (my own) and assorted life problems that one is bound to meet up with if one lives long enough. Today I just take it one day at a time, do my best, put my life in God’s hands, and know that even better days are still ahead. I’ve never quit “five minutes before the miracle”, and HP has never given me more than I can handle. Today I have a chance.  I no longer cringe when I wake up in the morning, wondering what I did the night before. Today life is good. I’m much older and hopefully a little bit wiser, but always still learning from other sober alcoholics, who have taught me the true meaning of “unconditional love”. For that, and for you, I am eternally grateful.

Carly

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Glen H
Revised: 18 Dec 2005 06:08:21 -0800