Powerful.
She speaks of a character that was being built in her childhood that developed coping skills that eventually headed for a drink or some other form of poison to quiet the mind.
She learned violence as a child an carried it with her for years.
Her mother is a German war survivor. Nothing was to be thrown away or wasted.
"Her pathology transferred into mine at a very early age."
The night of her first drink at age 12, she felt OK.
For the first time self was knocked out of the picture.
AA was a revolving door for her for many years.
She got sober first at age 23 for ten years but treated it as a homework assignment. She started to experience success on the outside but underneath she wondered if she was going to make it.
"I am not here to water down AA but I have some news for ya'll, the landscape of AA has changed and there are very few real alcoholic kids anymore...I choose to call that untreated alcoholism."
She gave her child away for alcohol - its trumps over everything except a higher power that is nowhere to be found.
At 43 she was out on the street as a prostitute.
Today, she and her mother and daughter are close, and the hard feelings are just gone. There is no conflict.
(49 min) (5.7 MB) (id#2400)