Powerful Women in AA: Personal Stories of Recovery

by Alberta C Schoen Cadc

Overview

I HAVE BEEN AWARE OF A DIFFERENT KIND OF WOMAN IN A.A. YEARS AGO, INFORMATION ABOUT AN ALCOHOLIC WOMAN, WERE VERY DISMAL. WORDS SUCH AS: "DEVIANT BEHAVIOR". THOSE ARE HARDLY WORDS THAT WOULD MAKE A WOMAN WANT TO GET SOBER. LABELS LIKE THAT ARE FRIGHTENING AND ARE FILLED WITH SHAME. I HAVE THOUGHT FOR TOO LONG WE NEED A BETTER AND TRUER IMAGE OF WHAT WE PERCEIVE AS A WOMAN ALCOHOLIC. THAT IS WHEN I THOUGHT OF THIS BOOK. IT IS A WAY TO GET AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE SOBER WOMEN AND THEIR STORIES. THANKFULLY THEY ARE WILLING TO SHARE THEM WITH YOU. THEY DO THIS IN THE HOPE OF HELPING SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO IS STILL SUFFERING WITH ADDICTIONS, THAT THEY THEMSELVES, ARE FAMILIAR WITH. THESE STORIES WILL GIVE A NEW PERSPECTIVE OF WHAT A RECOVERING WOMAN LOOKS LIKE. SOBER WOMEN ARE POWERFUL IN, HOME LIFE, BUSINESS, POLITICS, COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES, ETC. I FIND AN INTELLIGENT, TALENTED, CARING. POWERFUL GROUP OF WOMEN, IN THE AA PROGRAM. COURAGEOUS ALSO, (EVIDENT IN THE FOLLOWING STORIES). YOU MAY BE AMAZED AT THE OBSTACLES IN THEIR LIVES, BEFORE AND AFTER SOBRIETY. BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND THE THE AA PROGRAM THEY HAVE FOUND A NEW DIMENSION

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452078953
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	10/22/2010
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.27(d)

Read an Excerpt

Powerful Women in AA

Personal Stories of Recovery

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By Alberta C. Schoen

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Alberta C. Schoen CADC, MS
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-7895-3

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Chapter One

STORY I FREE AT LAST

ALICE Z.

I grew up an only child in Washington, DC. My parents met there right after World War II. My mom worked for the FBI and my dad was a student and a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. They were married for about five years before I was born.

We moved to the suburbs of Bethesda, Maryland, and my mother quit her job, as was expected of her at that time. My mother wasn't really happy as a stay-at-home mom, and she drank for as long as I can remember. My dad worked all day and often into the evening. My mother became more unhappy and resentful when she got drunk and accused me of doing something wrong almost every day. That was her justification for hitting me and telling me how worthless and stupid I was. To those on the outside, we looked good. I was well dressed, did okay in school, and was a happy child.

When I was eight, we moved to New Jersey, just outside of New York City. My father worked in Manhattan, and when I was ten he left my mother and moved into an apartment in New York. I spent many of my weekends with him in the city. My mother's drinking continued to worsen, and at age sixteen I wondered if she would kill me. It seemed she felt she'd be better off with me dead. Around that time, my father remarried and bought another house in the same town I lived in with my mother. My mother moved back to the Washington, DC, area, and I moved in with my father and his new wife, who was only twelve years older than I was. My stepmother was wonderful, and we got along great. To this day, she and I are very close. She is more like an older sister than a mother to me.

I saw my mother three times after that, including while she was in the hospital expected to die shortly from cirrhosis of the liver. I didn't recognize her when I saw her, as the ravages of cirrhosis had changed her appearance.

When I was fourteen, my father and I went to Puerto Rico for a vacation. The bank he worked for had offices there, and he had banker friends who were wealthy and lived in beautiful homes. I smoked hashish with my father's friend's son, who was in college. I had no reaction to the hash, but that was the start of my drinking and drugging. After that, I became one of the kids in my high school who smoked dope. It was easy to get and plentiful, and I had the money to buy it.

At sixteen, I met my high-school sweetheart. He was the brother of one of my good friends and already in college. I was allowed to fly down to the school and visit him on a regular basis. That was when I began drinking in addition to smoking dope. I managed to get into the same university where he was going and was a very good student, studying hard and making good grades. He liked to drink beer and smoke dope too, and we did a lot of that. In my junior year, he left to go to law school in California and broke up with me. It had been like a bad marriage that you can't get out of with him. So as much as it hurt, I was ultimately glad that it was over. He was mentally and somewhat physically abusive.

I graduated from that university having done well, and got a job in Atlanta, Georgia, working for a nonprofit housing corporation. I lived by myself and traveled all over the country to meet with city governments and community organizers in inner-city neighborhoods. I made speeches and worked hard, and was very responsible for a twenty-two-year-old. I drank and still smoked dope when it was available to me.

During my senior year in college, I had met another young man who was significant in my life. He was a year younger than me and still at the university when I lived in Atlanta. He wasn't much of a drinker and didn't smoke dope, but we loved each other until two years later, when it became apparent he was gay. We broke up without him admitting he liked men, but many years later he did come out to a mutual friend of ours.

After six months in Atlanta, I was transferred to Washington, DC, along with my boss. I was happy to leave Atlanta and glad to be in the town where I grew up. There were good friends of mine in Washington that I had gone to college with, and I shared a house with two of them. We worked hard all day and went out dancing at night. I didn't drink as much as smoke dope during that time period. I also snorted some cocaine during my time in DC, but not so much that I became addicted to it.

Since high school I had tried other drugs like LSD, uppers, and downers, but each just a few times.

When I lived in DC, I called my mother and pretended to be visiting from wherever it was I lived. She and I were not in contact. She greeted me at the door drunk. That was the last time I visited with her before seeing her for the last time, just before she died.

My life in DC was interesting. After two and a half years there, I was offered a job in Chicago in the training department of the same organization. I loved Chicago and had spent weeks at a time there while participating in training programs. I moved to the city in the spring of 1979, found a beautiful apartment in Uptown, and lived there for five years. There were times when I drank so much that I blacked out. Fortunately, I had sold my car before I moved, so I didn't drive drunk. But I drank regularly and even then was dependent on it.

No matter where I was, I seemed to always find someone who drank to excess like I did. I met my husband in 1981. He was a big man, 6' 3", and when we went out for beers I would drink the same amount he did, although I was much shorter and smaller. We drank wine and beer after work and champagne on Sundays. We belonged to two ski clubs and spent a lot of time at their weekly parties, where we drank. We married in 1985 after living together for two and a half years.

We were to be married in my father and stepmother's backyard in New Jersey, where I used to live with them. They had a beautiful garden surrounded by woods. A month before the wedding, my father called me to tell me that my mother was dying and I should go visit her. I did. The first thing I did after leaving the hospital with my cousin, who had brought me there, was light up a joint. That was how I dealt with pain.

A week after I saw my mother, my father went into anaphylactic shock and then a coma from an allergic reaction to a medication. The three days waiting to see if he would be okay were worse than any of the abuse I had suffered at the hands of my mother. He was declared brain dead. My stepmother stopped the machine keeping him alive and he died a week later. She was left with two sons aged eight and five. It was very hard for her and she never really recovered from his death, although financially she was always okay.

I wanted to marry my husband anyway, so we had a small wedding here in Chicago, performed by the priest from the church where we met. It was happy and beautiful, and I felt like my dad was watching me. My marriage is good and we have fun together.

I changed careers at twenty-eight, and the new one involved being wined and dined by people who wanted our business. My boss was an alcoholic and took a three-hour lunch every day. Out of six people in our department, three of us were alcoholic. We traveled for up to two weeks at a time, all the while drinking heavily.

Eventually that organization disintegrated, and I found a new job as the director of a family-owned publishing company. Once again, I found out who liked to drink and we had lunch together a few times a week. Once, the president of the company witnessed my excessive drinking when we were out of town. He said he had never seen someone drink so much beer in his life, and I responded that I was trying to keep up with the boys. In retrospect, I probably drank more than the boys. This president eventually outsourced my job.

My husband would mention to me on occasion if I drank too much, but other than that it was not a big deal with him. He did not drink alcoholically. I should also mention that before we got married, he told me he was certain he didn't want any more children (he already had two from a previous marriage with a wife who left him). I decided I wanted him more than children and it was fine. Many years later, I'm grateful not to have had any.

In 1995 I took a job that I hated and quit it three months into it. I had a lot of guilt about it and was sitting at home drinking during the day, and even in the morning after my husband had gone to work. I realized I couldn't stop drinking; I was out of control. Every day I would say that I would not drink in the morning, and then I would find myself out there buying more.

I began reading books on adult children of alcoholics, and then alcoholics. I knew I was an alcoholic and was on the same path as my mother: slow death. The whites of my eyes when I pulled down the lower lid were yellow and my heart raced at night. I thought, "My God! I'm an alcoholic like my mother!" Then one day in January of 1996, while I was sitting on my sofa, I raised my hands in the air and asked God for His help. I told my husband I was an alcoholic and could never drink again, and I started going to AA meetings.

The first words I think of when I look back at my drinking life are "Thank God almighty I'm free at last." AA set me free; it was a beautiful experience from the beginning. I cried in meetings for months before I could say anything. There was so much commonality of experience in AA that I felt it was okay to be there and share with those folks what life had been like and what it was like now.

I left my last job knowing I had done the very best I could. I left with good wishes for my new life. Now I spend my days enjoying life with almost no stress and no job to worry about. It was a goal of mine not to have to work. My husband and I travel and just enjoy each other. That job was my first big sober job, and I felt really good about it. I am living the life I'd dreamed of, with a daily reprieve from alcohol and wonderful AA meetings to help me stay sober. The promises have come true for me. I lead a happy, joyous, and free life for the most part. Of course, life always will have its challenges, but as a more mature person with lots of "tools in my toolbox," I know how to deal with life on life's terms. I still take the words from the Big Book very seriously. Alcohol is "cunning, baffling, powerful," and I don't take my sobriety for granted. I must continue to work on the program.

If I had just quit drinking and not gone to AA, I'm certain the quality of my life and my relationships would not be anywhere near as rich as they are. I feel grateful to God for my life as it is today.

Chapter Two

STORY II GOODBYE OLD FRIEND

BETSY Y.

I am a forty-three-year-old recovering alcoholic. I am also a forty-three-year-old freshman in college. I never in a million years thought I would get a college degree. Fear always held me back. The following is the written copy of my last speech for my oral expression class. I stood with confidence and grace as the truth in this paper flowed from my mouth in front of twenty-five classmates. P.S.: I am also a forty-three-year-old recovering alcoholic who is on the dean's list of my college.

Today I am here to say goodbye to my old friend Jack Daniels. The moniker on your bottle states you're "Old #7", but you were always number one in my book. I loved everything about you. You have the color of golden amber with a touch of topaz. Your smell is woody, sweet with a hit of heat, just like the way you taste. You taste of oak and charcoal and maple and the burn.

You warm my body from my head down to my toes, like a roaring fire on a cold winter's day. Why anyone mixes you with ice or soda is a mystery to me; personally, I think it's a sin. You, my dear friend, are perfect on your own.

I remember the first day we met like it was yesterday. I was eighteen and you, well, you were aged who knows how long. They told me at the distillery that there is no time limit to the barreling process. The tasters at the distillery decide when you are ready to be bottled.

"The tasters?" I asked my tour guide when I was visiting you at your birthplace in Lynchburg, Tennessee. "How is it that there are tasters at the distillery, when Lynchburg, Tennessee is a dry county?" My dear friend Jack, my tour guide was one day older than God and had two teeth in his mouth, but he was as serious as could be when he answered, "Honey, we spit not a swallow here in Lynchburg."

My dear friend Jack Daniel's, my friend since I was eighteen, we have seen some good times together. Remember when we went to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest? It was a hundred degrees in the shade. I was in my four-foot-high sombrero and you were in your gallon jug with the handle. Yes, not a pint, not a liter, but the gallon jug. I have to say I'm surprised they let you into the show, but security didn't say a word. You and I sat all day in that blaring sun listening to the Allman Brothers, Buddy Guy, Jackson Brown, and so many more. Shamefully, I had a block of ice cooling my head, tucked up under my four-foot sombrero and you, well you sat in the sun and didn't complain once. Every once in a while someone would holler "Whiskey!" and we would throw one down.

What about when we went to Paris to see our favorite band? I loved you in the little two-ounce bottles the flight attendant gave out on the plane. Could you believe it when the band canceled the show? All the way to Paris, and their bass player gets sick. But that was okay. Jerry, Layne, Shawn, Kim and I spent the afternoon and evening in the bar with you, our dear friend Jack. I have to say, when you're in Paris, you're quite pricey, my dear. A $1200 bar bill! It's no wonder we woke up in Amsterdam the next day.

You were there for all the good times. You gave me confidence, because I had none of my own. You gave me courage, because on my own I was a scared little girl.

But you served another purpose. When my father died sixteen years ago, you comforted me. The pain and sorrow were heavy, and you alone eased them. The sorrow wasn't so deep with you in my life. I could count on you. I could feel the comfort with each and every sip easing the loss. It's not easy to say goodbye to someone who takes his own life, as my father did. But you, Jack, you made it easier. In every way, you made it easier.

There years later, you would be tested. When my mother's life was taken by that single gunshot, you were there. Again you eased my pain, you comforted my sorrow. I knew I would never be alone because I would have you to lean on. And, sadly, you failed your test. I no longer leaned on you, but you were my crutch. Life was unlivable, but with you I could make it through the day.

You were there in the morning to settle the tremors. I knew you so well. I knew how much of you I could take and get through my shift at work. I didn't need anyone else; I had you. Who needed anyone? They all leave anyway. Jack, you never went away. Even when I didn't want you anymore, I couldn't let you go.

Then it happened. You turned on me. You stopped working. You could no longer comfort me. You no longer had the ability to ease my pain. It was you and me every day, and you failed me. You were more than just a crutch. I needed you, and you stopped. I tried so hard but no, no more magic for you. You left me lost and without hope.

It wasn't easy. But I put you away and with some help from my friends and twenty-eight days, I was able to start a new life. A life without. It's been ten years now. I revisited you once, but only for a couple of days. But now I live without you. I live without you because I have something I never had with you: faith.

Faith lets me feel pain, but it reminds me it's okay to feel pain but not to live in it. Faith lets me fall, because it reminds me that life is not about how hard you fall but how you rise. Faith reminds me that my scars are reminders of my past, but they don't dictate who I am or what my future will be. Faith reminds me that no matter what struggles I go through, I am never alone, because faith never stops working. And faith never gives me a headache.

So today, my dear friend Jack, I am saying a formal goodbye to you. I don't regret that you were in my life. I am who I am now because of what I went through with you. I wouldn't be where I am now if we hadn't had our time together. I have to say, though, that I don't miss you. And I hope I never will.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Powerful Women in AA by Alberta C. Schoen Copyright © 2010 by Alberta C. Schoen CADC, MS. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction....................ix
Story I Free at Last....................1
Story II Goodbye Old Friend....................9
Story III I Don't Have to Be a Star....................15
Story IV The Richest Woman In Town....................21
Story V Looking For Information....................31
Story VI Leftover Love....................39
Story VII Next Year In Sobriety....................47
Story VIII A Rainy Night in Georgia....................53
Story IX Seriously....................61
Story X Waiting for the Now....................65
Story XI Faith and Gratitude Gave Me a New Live....................71
Story XII Terms of Personal Power....................77
Story XIII God Could and Would if Sought....................83
Story XIV Struggle, Searching, Survival, Serenity Time to Remember....................89
Appendix....................93