March 18, 2002

Gabrielle, grateful recovering alcoholic. I was born into a military family. Out of 13 adults when I was a child, only 4 were non alcoholic. I am the middle child of 3, all of whom ended up in recovery from drugs and alcoholic much to the surprise of our parents. They did not then nor do they now see why. My mother was handicapped with polio at 19. My dad, a young sailor saw her and married her in 5 days time. They both drank and fought constantly. I never knew how it was that my father could be an officer in the Navy and do the things he did and get away with it.

I cut my teeth on Johnnie Walker Black label and Jim Beam whiskey kept me quiet when I was fussy or had colic. That was just the way it was. By the time I was 7 or 8 I had already seen so many fights between my family members that I was withdrawn. I did not like my household and I was ashamed to bring friends home. I couldn’t change things, I felt very powerless against my whole family. I was not like them and I swore I never would be. It wasn’t long before that tune changed because I suffered from depression, my mother took me to see doctors but when I told them what was wrong, I got my butt warmed. So I learned not to say anything.

When I was in the ninth grade I was already drinking on a daily basis and had decided that it was better to join them than to fight. I still kept looking for a way out. I wanted to escape. I felt like a trapped animal, alone and beaten and left to die. And I did inside. I began doing drugs in High School and at the age of 17 I met a guy that was willing to be stupid enough to get involved in my plight. At least he tried to love me. We got married and partied every day, I thought it was heaven. Of course I tried to have babies because that is what married folks do right? But for some reason I kept losing them. Never dawned on me that it was the booze or the drugs. When I did finally keep one until delivery, he was born really sick, he had stomach surgery at the ripe ole age of 6 weeks because he could not digest food because of the ingestion of booze during pregnancy had eaten his stomach and intestine up. My daughter was born 3 years later and spent her first 3 weeks in the hospital because of severe jaundice, a bilirubin count of 15 (at 17 there is brain damage), and a failing liver. They gave her a blood transfusion and said her body was rejecting my blood and she might die. I did not see why her body would reject my blood, no one asked, I didn’t tell.

My marriage had become a total sham by now. My husband was a flight engineer on C-130’s and was gone most of the time. I had grown tired of being stuck with the kids. I literally hated them, they kept me from doing what I wanted. When they were 5 and 9, I woke up from a drunk and began beating them for disturbing me, thinking it was morning time. It was late afternoon, they had already been to school and come home. I looked down at my daughter and God Help me I saw myself , as a child, looking up at my father, I felt that hate again, I realized what I was doing and my brain shut down.

I woke up in a mental hospital, tied down and heavily sedated. I was not allowed any visitors and did not see any family for several weeks. They labeled me psychotic and violent. After 6 weeks and many hours of therapist visits, I was sent to the Alcohol and Drug Rehab wing. I began going to meetings for AA and NA. I remember them telling me I would have to sign a paper to stay on that ward and have the privileges of going off grounds. I read the paper and was horrified, I refused to sign. It said that I had a severe inability to cope with daily life. I felt trapped again. I finally signed the paper just so I could see daylight and started going to the meetings off grounds.

I sat in the back and laughed and joked, and made fun of the losers. Then one night this woman shared her story. She looked right at me, she talked about how she had had this huge hole inside. That no matter how much she had drank, or how many men she slept with, no matter how many drugs she took, she couldn’t fill it up. I was crying, it was how I felt. I went up to her after the meeting and asked her to sponsor me. You had to have a sponsor when you got out. She refused at first and said keep coming back. It was a couple of weeks later she came and shred on the unit and it was then that she said yes she would sponsor me. I was sure that was what I wanted!! She was very very hard on me. She made me communicate with women, and I had to sit with her at her meetings. I had to go to 7 meetings a week. I had to attend a Step meeting, a Speaker meeting and be in service to a meeting.

After I had been in A.A. for 6 months, my husband filed for divorce. He liked me less sober than he did drunk. I had learned a new word - NO. I was homeless and left to go forward alone. He was awarded temporary custody of the kids and for then that was okay. Later I did obtain an Alanon attorney and finally got custody of the kids back. It was not easy being a single Mom and going to meetings and trying to make a living. But it was all worth while. The steps and the program gave to me a new connection with God. They renewed my faith in myself and restored my confidence that I was a good person and deserved good things. I learned everything I could from my first sponsor, I loved that woman. I can not describe what being a humble, self supportive person has meant to me. My world in not perfect anymore and I can be happy helping others.

I was given the gift of forgiveness from my mother and was there holding her hand at her request as she drew her last breathe. It meant the world to me. It gave to me the respect I never thought I had. She had has loved me and the program brought that back and made it possible. I cannot imagine my life without A.A. In the beginning I went to a great number of groups, but in the end I stayed with AA It is after all the original.

In Sobriety, In A.A., In Life!

Gabrielle P

Gabrielle lives in Fort Worth, Texas, and would enjoy hearing from you.

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