Kathy's story ...
My name is Kathy and I'm an Alcoholic, sober in AA for 19 years one day at a time.
I believe that I was born with the potential for Alcoholism, I was chronically shy, never fitted in at school (or rather, I would just get settled in at a school when we would move on and the whole sorry business would start again). We also had alcoholism in the family on both sides.
I was prescribed Phenobarbital when I was 12 for Chorea, which I had with Rheumatic Fever. I stayed on them till I came to Australia (from the UK) when I was 21. I believe this is what kept me away from early drinking. The sedatives also affected my personality, I was quite reclusive till I came to Australia.
I arrived in Perth in September 1969, got a job in a supermarket warehouse within days and was experiencing my first drunk on payday the next week. Within 3 weeks I was living in Derby (a country town in the North West of the state) met my husband to be and settled down to work in an airline crew hostel and learned very quickly about drinks after work. I never touched a Phenobarbital after I picked up a drink.
I got married, moved to Perth, and drinking began to be a problem, or should I say, the lack of drinking became a problem. I was married to a man who would bring two bottles of beer home on the nights he wasn't working and I never got enough to drink. Of course over the next years my drinking increased, I would buy booze out of the housekeeping usually cheap cask wine or Cinzano, but my favorite was always beer everything else was medication.
In 1979 I began to question my drinking habit, I knew I had to drink to feel just OK and I knew this was not normal drinking, my doctor prescribed Valium, I put them down the toilet. Finally after long bouts of dry drunking during 1984 I had my last drink on October 13 and after taking my daughter to gymnastics class (driving) I came home to find that my husband had found a liquor store docket on the table and I was told to pack my bags.
I went to a women's refuge where I didn't fit in very well coz I had never been struck by my husband. It was a long time before I know that constant put downs and sarcasm is also abuse. Within 2 days I was at my first AA meeting I didn't like it but I kept going back, I did 17 meeting a week for the first three months, I developed an AA habit and I didn't pick up a drink. I was told at my first meeting that I could leave that room and never drink again, I made a decision that I would believe that.
I went back to my husband and children and stayed with them for 7 1/2 years till I got well enough to realize that I was bitter angry resentful and a classic dry drunk. Stopped going to meetings didn't I? husband didn't like me going out on my own where there were men, and anyway, after all this time I was better, wasn't I? Oh yes, so well that I was standing in the kitchen one day screaming at my family, stark raving sober.
That did it, I was at a meeting that night, Victoria Park it was, I was late but I was there. Soon I was on my own learning to make a life for myself.. I did heaps of meetings, gave up work and went to school. Did the Steps ( again) (still!!!)
The years have been good to me. I am reconciled with my three children, my ex talks to me. I have been to Japan twice to see my son and his two daughters. I am going to England in April to visit my youngest daughter, who is having her first child next month. I have also been to Bali, Singapore and Thailand, all in the last 2 ½ years since I got a job.Getting a job took a long time, I am still scared of not being 'good enough' but I get by. I have lost both parents and a boyfriend to death and didn't need a drink. Even better, I have not wanted a drink. I share an apartment with a friend who keeps me from being a recluse and I live a very quiet life. I am not content, the disease is there in the background all the time, I am very aware that I am one drink away from a drunk. Still I am not unhappy which is a bloody miracle.
I think I work the program!!! I know the program works in me. I got a God as I understand God.