Back to home page Back to other stories   DANCER   Hi, my name is Dancer, and I'm an alcoholic. I was not a teenage drinker. I didn't care for alcohol or think about it, because my father was a heavy drinker. I thought that I had to do whatever it took to not be like him. By the time I finished high school, I had met my husband, John. We were married when I was twenty, and he was twenty-one. I had to learn to drink to be a social adult. I became part of the drinking scene as a social drinker, invited to other couple's houses.   It didn't take very long at all for me to get to like it, and I became a seven/seven drinker. I now see that I was a weekend binger; I would drink at home before a party and empty my glass before leaving the party. I didn't drink during the week. I had my kids early, a son nine months after I was married and my daughter three years later. I still drank only on weekends, but I began to drink at home even if we didn't go anywhere. I thought that my life was to be like my mother's life, married, with kids, and keeping house. As time passed, John and I drank at home, and I always made sure the house had a supply. I thought that I had to get high to have sex with my husband; it had to be a party. I didn't realize that I was downing almost twice as much as he did.   My husband started a business with his brother. I felt that I was doing the right thing in supporting him, even though I thought that it would fail. It meant a move to another state and disrupting the kids. Within six months the company was in chaos, and they were fighting about money. John brought his work attitudes home. My son asked me, "Will I ever have my 'old' dad back?" I wondered if I would ever have my "old" husband back. I started bringing home bottles of wine and sipping on that during the week, (this is a new memory for me). Wine was cheaper, more subtle and didn't show its effects as quickly.   The big change in my drinking came when I lived at the lake house for a year. John's mother owned the house and let the kids and me live there, rent free, for a year while we saved for our first home. We had always rented. The full blast of alcoholism surfaced now. I was all right that summer, but in the fall everyone around us closed their summer houses and left; I was isolated. I met a woman, Gail, who lived down the road and was as looney as a bed bug. She introduced me to the big red wine jug. So, I was going to town, ten miles away, to buy my own jugs. After the kids went to bed, the jug of wine soothed my loneliness. I drove a school bus for the town and would be in town everyday. As I drove to and from town, I threw the empties out in the woods, forgetting that all the leaves would drop in the winter. The empty bottles stared me in the face as I drove down the road.   Something snapped in me that year, After the kids were in bed, I would go down by the lake. Freezing, I would write weird poetry about how the lake and I would come alive again in the spring. I drank and drank and drank. In the spring I had an accident. I fell and went down all the stairs on my tail bone. I didn't know how badly I injured myself until eighteen years later when I had back surgery. At the time, I drank through the pain. I felt insecure, very small, and would cut myself down. John had always praised me with one side of his mouth and with the other exhorted me to do better. I stopped doing things, such as professional sewing and artistic creations. I felt that I didn't know how to do it any longer. I finally believed him and just drank.   After that year, I moved back to this state and drove a school bus again, drinking. Thank God I didn't hurt anyone. The marriage continued to go down hill. Fighting in the family company continued, and yet the company survived for ten years. When it folded, he left the company, me, and everyone. I felt that it was all my fault, as I had always taken the blame for everything. My children suffered through these drinking years, their formative years. My daughter had been seven, and my son ten, when I had begun to drink heavily. They knew me as a drunk. The first ten years of my marriage I was a kid with my kids, and the next ten, I was the drunk. I had not "grown up"; I just disappeared. I had no emotions left. When John left, I stood in the driveway and thought that he had problems that he had to work out. He told me that he would give me six months to straighten out my act, and that if I lost my job, we would be finished. I could not look at me and my drinking and say that I was the problem; my denial was so strong. I thought that I was a failure. I felt a lousy wife and mother, but I still had my job and believed that he would be back.   I thought that I would never lose my job, but that day came too, and I lost it. When my husband left, I lost my watchdog. I no longer bought only small bottles of wine; I bought gallons, two or three a day sometimes. It went down like water. I hid the small bottles in places like my vacuum cleaner bag, underwear drawer, inside blouse sleeves, in the closet, and the toilet tank. After I quit drinking, I found bottles and nasty glasses of evaporated liquor in strange places. Finally, Mary, the secretary at work announced that I had to go for an alcohol blood test. In that minute I just gave up. Someone else was taking some action and doing something with me. I agreed to go and thought, "If I lose the job; I lose the job. There goes ten years seniority and so what!" I was glad that I was found out. I almost surrendered that day. It would take three days for the results from the blood test, but Mary called me that night and offered to take me to a hospital to talk to someone. I was drunk when I went, but I did pretty well. The hospital staff wanted me to stay, but I decided to wait for the blood test. I hadn't totally given up yet, because I knew that I would lose my chauffeur's license. Mary came to my house and told me that I was fired; the tests justified the action. I couldn't react; forces were taking the problem out of my hands. I made arrangements for the kid's care and chugged wine before I left for the hospital. I binged because it would be the last time that I could drink. I wanted it to be the end, and it was.   At the hospital I was like a robot and did everything that I was told. Two weeks into the rehab, John visited and announced that he had found someone else and wanted the divorce. I felt that since I was getting better, he should be on my side and that we could put the family back together. The hospital staff followed me around for a week thinking that I might do something to myself. Then, at a group session, I announced that I was not going to let John pull me down to my knees again, and that if he wanted the divorce, he could have it. I didn't need this man that I once had on a pedestal. I knew that I could get better; I didn't need someone who tore me down all the time. This is when the program started working for me. When I went to my first AA meeting outside the hospital, I felt that I belonged, fit, and was home. I had always looked for somewhere to belong and this was it. The AA program gave me the freedom and hope that I could be something. I took to the AA program like a duck to water. I "rolled" with it and stayed on the "honeymoon" for two years.   I married a man who had been in rehab with me in all the same sessions. From the beginning we were drawn together by friendship. Together we felt calm. He didn't make a lot of meetings because of his job. I began to look forward to the times that I would see him. Program people suggested no solo dating for the first year, so we stuck with the group. We were over forty years old, and followed their directions because we knew that we were "screwed up". We went to meetings and coffee together. He would "drop me off" at my house without a goodnight kiss. We had comfortable companionship. We put no stress or demands on each other. We liked where we were with the relationship, and it was beautiful. After about a year, I asked if we could go out to a movie without the group. He agreed, and we went. Our sponsors suggested that we wait until we were in the program for two years before thinking about marriage. We were married two days before his second program birthday in the same church where we had attended our first AA meeting. It was seven of the most beautiful years that I have ever had. He taught me about total unconditional love and trust. He even "allowed" me to go with the group to AA program dances while he worked. Then, he died suddenly. I was devastated, but the program helped me to stay sober. The day after I buried him, I was at a meeting. I couldn't talk, but I knew that I had to be there. I couldn't be alone because isolation allows me to twist and warp my thoughts.   Today, I share at the meetings. My kids have been wonderful and have loved the program for me. I have never relapsed; I have been fortunate. God has probably been in my life through everything, but I haven't known how to recognize it. In meetings, I don't know how to talk openly about God because I can't phrase how I feel. God is definitely in my heart, and I am learning that there are different ways to feel that. My spirituality did not come to me in the AA program. Through AA, I had an awareness of God, but I was not able to connect with it, until I started another twelve step program. The AA program has given me freedom to make my own decisions. It has helped me to know that it is okay to build my self esteem and self worth. While I may stumble along the path, I don't go on alcohol binges anymore, but I do go on emotional binges. At meetings I share my problems, emotional life, and triggers. This is "me". I do try to protect myself from the triggers.   I have sponsored some people, but I don't give myself too much credit for that. Today, I won't offer myself as a sponsor, because I want to feel more comfortable in the spiritual part of my program. I need to get more from the AA program. Knowing this is part of my growth. When I have a problem, such as someone in the family dying, I am staggered for months. My coping skills break down. With help I can turn the bend in the road and stand on my own two feet. Right now, I am stumbling around in a problem, but I'm not falling down. I am starting to pick up the pieces, and, God willing, I'm going to be okay. I don't drink over anything today. I work through my thinking problems. I strive for independence today. I don't feel independent; I feel controlled by people, places, things, and the world. I don't want to be an island unto myself, but I do want to stand on my own two feet and take care of myself, especially financially; emotionally I think I can. I know that if I were to drink there would be nothing left of me fighting for my sanity. No matter what the cost, I have to leave destructive, controlling people, who would hold me as a mental prisoner. This allows me to gain emotional stability and move forward with my life. I never want to be a puppet in my own life again. Today, I have less than I have ever had materially. I don't miss it; I think that is a step in the right direction. I have walked away from financial security to have mental security. I have the AA program and friends, and I am never alone nor do I have to be alone again. I am sure that there are things that I have forgotten to say, but that is it for now. Thanks