Speaking near her home town, her mother is a very dominant person and her dad is a strange man with a wonderfully bizarre sense of humor. Drinking was not a part of her family though there were a few "mean Irish drunks" in the clan.
"Everything that came up we just made jokes about it."
Anger and self-pity just did not work in her family. The nuns told her JOY stood for "Jesus-Others-Yourself".
Her husband was the most exciting person she ever met - a marine pilot in training. He was crazy but she was fascinated by him.
She never noticed his drinking though his father was notorious. She thought she could make it worked but she could not.
"It was as though somebody gave me a set of skis and a parker with a hood and gloves and snow goggles and then dropped me in the desert."
Kathy did an Al-Anon Step Workshop that is very good:
(1 hr 3 min) (14.6 MB) (id#1800)