Sober 16 years since 12/18/1972, this a powerful story of transformation.
Past delegate, her name was drawn from the hat by a man who helped her early in the Program.
She stood reluctantly and became SE Regional Trustee.
The youngest of three daughters, she was raised almost as an only child in St. Louis, MO.
Her father died with many years in the Program but her mother could never accept his alcoholism or Jackie's.
She drank from age 17 to 37 but did not start drinking alcoholically until after college.
In the end, a mother of three, she was drinking all the time, screaming and fighting with her husband and, today, she cannot recall what the fights were about.
He kept moving them from place to place as he got tired of one job and moved on to another, taking her and the kids with him.
"And I found that, you know, I would go to a party and I'd drink too much and pass out and I didn't even think about it. I didn't even think what was happening to my life, what was happening in my family, how my kids were getting out of hand - never dawned on me."
She became a thing in the house that people talked about while she was in the room.
