Sober 28 years, Natalie attended the 1st Atlanta Roundup in 1976 and many after that.
"I tell it like it is." The first time she spoke, with less than 6 months sober, it was more like a fifth step.
Born an only child and brought up Catholic in Chicago, married now to a boy from South Georgia, her dad was an alcoholic and she certainly did not want to be like him. Her mother - an untreated Al-Anon.
She drank the first time alone in the attic at age 13. It was magic. She had a tremendous capacity from the start. She started seeking it out.
She decided she wanted to be a doctor but that was out of reach for several reasons. Maybe a nurse? She decided to get married instead to a boy from north Chicago and they moved to Miami for 15 years.
They had five children. She took her motherhood very seriously but continued to drink a quart a day - but would not do drugs. Then a doctor gave her a prescription for Dexedrine. She had the cleanest house in Miami mixing Scotch and speed.
Divorced, living in Dunwoody outside Atlanta, unable to make it through a church service without going out during the middle to sneak a drink, she saw a notice in the church bulletin announcing an AA meeting. It was a speaker meeting. "I had tractors in my stomach not butterflies."
She met her husband Glen at the Decatur group while wearing her mini-skirt and Go-Go boots. Sober six months, he had been to Willing Way and helped her in a way the oldtimers could not. They were friends first and were married after Natalie had a year sober.
