Hi Suzy,

I'm sorry for being slow to get back to you. I spotted your post this morning when I popped in to share a giggle with Cabbagehead, but couldn't actually sit to write at the time. I hope you haven't been checking in thinking female alkies must be as scarce as hens teeth - because we are not!

We are a funny breed though, and there's some things that are just a tad different I think, for women. The first meeting I went to just seemed filled with men and I was really uncomfortable for a lot of reasons that made no sense to the guys. You know, those deep things girls go on with...that leave the fellas trying to DO stuff to FIX things. I can laugh now at myself, but there were guys there who could clearly see I was having a hard time sitting in my own skin and they kept trying to HELP by bringing me, coffees, ashtrays, lighters, cigarettes, better seats, fresh coffees, clean ashtrays and it just went on and on. Little did they know every time they walked anywhere near me I was getting closer and closer to coronary failure!

I was so afraid. Facing myself was worse than any fear I had about meeting others.

After a while, a woman suggested I try the woman's meeting. I'd spent that much time on my own, I could think of nothing worse than a room full of women. I got visions of people knitting and sipping tea and stuff in tracksuits, and I put it off for ages. In the end it was a directive from my sponsor, because I wouldn't stop blaming the guys for 'bugging me all the time' as an excuse not to go to meetings.

So off I went. She gave me an envelope (that turned out to be empty) and I had to deliver it to a lady called Pauline or something like that. I walk in and the first thing I see is a lady knitting!!! I take a seat and suddenly I've got the tea ladies doing the coffee thing (just like the guys did) and someone explains its a closed meeting so as a newcomer I will be called to ID and there is no smoking inside.

I went outside for a smoke and decided I am going as soon as Pauline arrives. I tell the tea ladies I need to know who Pauline is and they say their not sure. I watch everyone arrive for the meeting. One by one ladies start arriving. Some are laughing, all are well dressed, some are on breaks from work - and none of them are Pauline.

I figure she must be inside already and the meeting starts so I go in when the tea ladies start fussing again, telling me Quick! You'll miss the start!

I look around. The room was full of women of lots of different ages. The knitter has put it away and is asked to share. She explains how she is only a few weeks sober, and had been knitting like a lunatic in an effort to keep her hands busy and her head occupied on counting. She makes me smile. I can't help laughing. It is kind of cute.

The next lady takes the wind right out of me. She stands up. She is very fit, she carries herself well and is quite attractive - she likes to smile. I like her immediately. When she shares her story, she begins by laughing at herself and I start to cry. And cry and cry and cry. This woman knows my shame. The loss of dignity that sits so deep in us. She shared her 4 and included the unmentionables that we simply wouldn't share in an open meeting. She told of how she let her kids down, endangered them, and made them sacrifice simple things just so she could have what she wanted - and I knew I was exactly where I needed to be. Among people who really understood this haunting damn disease that turns us into something so opposite to our real potential.

No one tried to give me a better seat, a cuppa, or a smoke. They didn't ask me to share either. Instead they just kept on doing what they were there to do. They shared their progress. I left that meeting feeling a weird freedom Suzy. It's hard to explain - amongst those women I was able to let go of SO much guilt, resentment, fear, pain (whatever it was) and they also filled me back up with hope!

I felt really motivated. I wanted what they had. They had families, homes, an education, jobs, friends, pets, even cool cars. I wanted it. I needed to turn my world around and they were all evidence that I could. They were walking examples of my own potential.

I walked into that meeting with nothing. I was a shell of a person, with no idea where my heart or my conscience was. No idea of my own potential. Today, I do. I have a family I am so proud of, my farm that brings me so much contentment and lots of challenges to remind me I'm capable, a partner who is my best mate, an education that I am just plain proud of, and my bike - there is no cooler transportation around! Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought back then, that I could bring those things into reality for me. It is so different now. My kids came home the other day and said the kids at school were saying they were posh because they have a pool and minibikes. I told them to tell them, we have what we have because I don't drink, and there's nothing posh about how we got here. It really is that simple. I'm lucky - but I only know that because I realise how easily it could all be gone.

I don't drink Suzy. I'm an alcoholic. And yes mate - there's lots of us.