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(#1237) Natalie S (Toccoa, GA)
7/27/2000 in Atlanta, GA  EVENT: 25th Atlanta Roundup  TYPE: AA, Female, Story

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.


(57 min) (13.2 MB) (id#1237)

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