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(#1111) Charlene K (Kettering, OH)
11/21/1982 in Anderson, IN  EVENT: unknown  TYPE: AA, Female, Story

Sober 8 years starting at 31 years old, Charlene grew up in a large Irish-Catholic family in a small town outside Pittsburgh She was grossly overweight and shy which was really extreme self-centeredness. Alcohol filled in the gaps in her life though it was not a central part of her family life.

She does not know any normal people and does not believe they exist.

She drank to get drunk and every time felt guilty afterward.

Her military husband Dennis is a member of Al-Anon who married her after just few dates and moved to southern Virginia. She got addicted to drugs around the time her first child, a son, was born. She was instantly pregnant again and her husband was discharged from the service.

Drugs were readily prescribed by her doctors and she got further and further from reality though on the outside her house was clean, kids well dressed and she baked everything from scratch. She was in and out of the hospital with various illnesses.

By her third year of marriage the doctors started controlling the drugs and the outside looking good went away because she went back to alcohol.

They moved back to the suburbs of Pittsburgh and she started going to the nut wards regularly with an interesting flair. She began neglecting her kids and descend into the hell of alcoholism and several suicide attempts.

Living in Washington D.C. she got exposed to AA in a detox unit by a female member of AA and for the first time in her life became honest with someone.

She went to a recovery center and began this journey to a new life.


(49 min) (11.4 MB) (id#1111)