A Mother's Reprieve

I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous in June of 1987 after my second divorce. I had been drinking alcoholically since my first drink at age 19 in 1976. I loved drinking. I became someone else—someone I really liked; but I didn't think I was an alcoholic. I thought I was just a nice, Irish girl who drank a little too much. I wasn't an alcoholic. My dad was the alcoholic in the family. I compared myself to him constantly in order to justify my drinking: I hadn't been arrested, I hadn't been in bar fights, and I hadn't lost job after job due to drinking. I told myself and others I was nothing like my dad.