Back to home page Back to other stories   MARI   Hi, I'm Mari, and I'm an alcoholic. In my very dysfunctional family there were five children; I was number four. Until the age of six, my father was a practicing alcoholic. My mother was just nuts. I was beaten, sexually abused, and lived in fear all through my childhood. It was a living hell! By the time that I was in the eighth grade, I weighed two hundred and twenty pounds. My father called the store where I bought my clothes "Omar The Tentmaker's." I was addicted to television, old movies and family shows, because I wanted a life like that. I had a great imagination.   I did not do well with other people. In school I would have one friend at a time because people didn't like me. I was either afraid of them or "put up a wall." Audrey was my friend because she was as fat as I. In high school I drank seriously. At family parties, weddings, reunions, and funerals, I drank. I thought that drinking was the most wonderful thing in the world, fun, and when I was drinking, I could be who I wasn't. I didn't like the taste of alcohol, but I liked what it did. On weekends, Audrey and I would not eat all day so that we could drink and get drunk faster. We were like street corner bums drinking out of paper bags. We were "hot shit," drinking and hanging out with gangs. My junior and senior year of high school I drank everyday, cut classes, or didn't go to school. Eventually I was thrown out of school because I was never there. Mom told me to either go back to school or get a job. I got a job.   I worked nights in the canteen of a steel company. It was a great job because there were only a few women working in the mill. I loved being surrounded by millions of men, some of whom loved fat women. I was a kleptomaniac thief and would leave work each day with a few hundred dollars that I had skimmed from the cash register. I met Jay at the mill and fell instantly in love. We went out together for two years, doing drugs and drinking. He was paranoid from the drugs.   While taking Jay to a hospital for psychiatric help, our car broke down in a bad neighborhood. In the car he had a gun which I put in my pocket. When we were stopped by the police for looking suspicious, they found the gun. They pushed me up against a car like a major criminal and handcuffed me. Jay was really scared so I acted like the tough guy. I was taken to a women's lockup, and, when they locked the cell door, it made a distinctive click. I was there for fourteen hours. When released, I was told that Jay was in a psychiatric hospital. I knew that he was dead. At the hospital he had hung himself with his belt. My life was hell; I felt that no one loved or cared about me. I was angry at God and everybody. I drank heavily.   I began working for a magazine in a lake side area of the city. From the time that I got up in the morning, I was drunk or high. I drank all the time and took any pills that I could get or was given. I did LSD. I did cocaine once, but it made me sick. At lunch time, I'd get beer, light up a joint, and sit by the lake. My boss would tell me what a wonderful job I was doing. Everyone there was drunk and doing drugs. I had been one of the more functional alcoholics. After work, I'd do the same thing. Some days, I didn't even go home after work. I'd stay near the lake in my car or with a friend. I'd drive around getting drunk and high. If I did go home, I'd pass out for a few hours, get up, and start all over again.   Before buying drugs, I'd drive around the block a million times to be sure no one was watching me or out to get me. If I drove down the street and saw a cop coming from the other direction, I'd throw all my drugs out the car window. I'd know that he was coming to get me. When I'd realize that this was not true, I'd go around the block and try to find all my stuff. I'd stop at stop signs waiting for them to turn green. I'd drive eighty miles an hour on the expressway shoulders weaving in and out of traffic. It was insane, and I was on a quick trip to hell. I finally awoke one day knowing that I was just like Jay. I wasn't getting high anymore; I was just getting paranoid. I knew that I was either going to live or die.   I had gone to AA a few times with my father when I was seventeen, but I had not stayed. Now, I knew where there was an AA meeting, and I went. I saw a man, Gary, that I knew. When Gary asked me how I was, I felt as if ten thousand pounds had been lifted from my shoulders. He helped me locate some women that I knew on the Program. I was in AA and felt that I was one of those that was sicker than the others. I knew that AA was where I belonged.   After three months on the Program, I met and married a guy who had six months sobriety. He wore a bandanna with a stone in the middle, and they called him "cosmic Bill." It was one of the worst decisions of my life. He was ugly, crazy, and an old hippie. We were married at city hall. I wore bell bottom pants and no shoes. We celebrated and toasted our marriage with a bottle of seven-up. After we told my mom that we were married, she kicked me out of the house. I quickly found that I had traded one abusive relationship for another. The abuse was a living hell. I thought that I was trying to get sober, all I was doing was not drinking.   Bill and I had our first child eleven months after our marriage. She was a cute kid, but I was a child myself. I didn't know what to do with a baby. If it were not for my AA sponsor, I think that I would be dead. She taught me how to take care of my daughter, make shopping lists, go to the grocery store, clean house, make phone calls, and live sober. She has "hung in" with me and is till with me after all these years. Two and a half years later I had my second daughter. When I was pregnant with my third child, my crazy husband tried to kill me. Bill beat me badly, knocked my head on the concrete floor, and tried to choke me. When it was over, I told him to leave. I couldn't take it any longer. With no husband and no education, I didn't know how I would take care of myself and the kids. I decided to have an abortion.   I didn't really know what else to do. No one would advise me, they'd just listen. Dad called on the day the abortion was scheduled and asked me not to do it. That was all I needed. I'm so glad that I did not do it; I love my son. I love all my kids. I'm so grateful; I feel that if I had had the abortion, I probably would have died. Because of the kids and not knowing how to take care of them alone, I let Bill come home. He promised me that he would not touch me again. If you understand or have been an abused woman, you know what that is like. We went to counseling, and it helped for awhile, but we couldn't afford it for long, and things went back to the old ways. I stayed because I thought that this was what I deserved. In my family there had been no love shown except for hitting or having something thrown at you.   While still living with Bill, I met Joe. Joe showed me that I was important, worthwhile, and special. He never hit me. I left Bill and moved in with Joe. I was with him for the next seven years.   Through all these years, my dad had taken care of me, no matter what. Dad would buy the kids food and clothes and buy me cigarettes and coffee. If you didn't have your cigarettes and coffee, you couldn't function; we had that in common. Although it was hard for us to talk, my dad would come and watch the kids play. There was a wall between us that neither of us knew how to break down. We couldn't say what we wanted to say, but we were close at heart. Later, dad developed lung cancer. I would go to the VA hospital and take him to AA meetings. Dad had always been a big strong man, and the first time that I saw him in a wheelchair I cried uncontrollably. I have never cried that hard before or since. My dad, my king, my everything, my world, was down, defeated, and dying. The one thing that I wanted, he then gave me. He hugged, kissed me and told me that he loved me. It was his gift to me.   Two years later, trying to get my life together, I really began to work the steps of AA. The only step I had ever tried to work had been the first step. I had never admitted that my life was unmanageable. I had always done exactly what I wanted to do. I had always tried to be in control, and I had never been in control. The reality of this caused me to begin to work the steps. It is only the steps that got me through the next years.   After seven years of living with Joe, he turned abusive. Fear came into my life again. I didn't have relationships; I took hostages. That's what happened with Joe. From the time that I first had sex until my present marriage, I had never been faithful to any one man. Joe was fooling around, and I was fooling around, too. He never really knew the extent of what I was doing. I broke it off with him. I felt, that if someone really knew me, they would not love me. I didn't want him to find out about me, but I wished that he would. When I had something good in my life, I tended, as if on purpose, to screw it up. I knew how to deal with the shit; I didn't know how to deal with the good stuff.   Now, I am married to a good man. He has made my life completely different. He loves me and the kids. We have our problems, but I don't believe that there is anyone else with whom I want to continue to grow. I am different now. I know right from wrong and what sobriety is. I know where God is in my life. I have not taken this husband hostage, nor do I have sex with anyone else. That's a miracle! We are both trying to be responsible, mature, adults.   A while back I slipped into a depression. I couldn't and wouldn't come out of my room. I couldn't take care of my family. A friend suggested that I see a therapist who she was seeing. The therapist sent me to a psychiatrist who prescribed anti-depressants. They took a while to start working, but now I feel like a whole human being. I believe that the depression was a sign for me to change things in my life. I was wasting the gifts which God had given me. I now have plans for my life, things that I want to do. I'm planning to start an ALATEEN meeting in my town. I'm trying to become involved in Mother's Against Gangs. I need to help people.   My kids are the most precious thing in my life. They have the AA principles and the twelve steps in their lives. I'm very proud of that. Maybe that is the difference that I am making in life. I have raised the kids to be good people. I'm grateful that I was sober and able to raise them differently than I was raised. Thanks for the opportunity to tell my story.