Sober 5 years since 8/12/2012, this is her second time telling her story.
This is a fascinating story with lots of interesting twists.
She was raised by normal, non-alcoholic parents in "Mayberry". It was kept from her that her grandfather was alcoholic and died when she was young.
Beer repulsed her in college but she loved "weed". She majored in art and minored in "secretary stuff".
She met her ex-husband there and married in 1973. She has two sons and a daughter. The daughter was at this event having picked up a white chip the night before.
In 1990 she had begun to develop a taste for beer and got a dream job as a paralegal assistant for a female judge in Florida. Her ex-husband eventually married his secretary at the time after 33 years of marriage to Marianne.
Marianne had to resign the dream job because her ex-husband's company was under investigation.
They moved to Georgia and her stay-at-home-mom drinking began to escalate. She was at times a functioning alcoholic. She began to suspect her ex-husband and the secretary and drank over that.
She was under the influence of alcohol throughout her father's funeral services in 2003.
It was her horses that kept her together long enough to make it to the rooms.
"I had no self-esteem. I did not know who I was."
A friend Matt and his wife stayed with Marianne and her ex-husband until their home was ready. Matt was in AA and planted the seed through his attractive outlook on life.
In the hospital, the doctors told Marianne she would die if she drank again. She went to AA but thought she had nothing in common. She stopped for 90 days then drank again for another year.
She went back to that same meeting and asked God to remove the obsession.
Then she realized, "I was just like you."
Now she builds her life around her meetings rather than her meetings around her life.
She then spends over 15 minutes sharing her recovery.
(44 min) (7.7 MB) (id#2034)
