A Native American, nine years in the Program, her father died when she was three. Her mother remarried. Her step father, a periodic alcoholic, molested her whenever her mother was out but he was a good liar.
"All I wanted to do was kill him."
When he molested her younger sister, she rocked her sister to sleep then got a knife and went looking for him but never found him. Her sister was gone the next day and was never seen again.
Nell married an alcoholic and moved to California. She could not stand him or his girlfriends. They moved back to Oklahoma and she continued to bottle up her feelings.
She divorced. She started having trouble with her brothers partying at her house and eating her food. One night she called the police on them. That became a pattern.
Depression and insomnia set in. Her boys stayed frequently with her mother. She tried church but the good feeling would not last.
She met her next husband, Tom, at a bar. Her mother told her he was a good man though he drank all the time.
Then AA showed up at her home and Nell offered them a drink.
The AA told her she needed some help, too. And the journey began in fits and starts.
(52 min) (18.1 MB) (id#1773)