Hi, my online name is Matilda. I am an alcoholic in recovery (since September 4th, 2011). I was a little hesitant about writing to an online message board for two reasons: 1) I feared breaking anonymity (I have a fb page but don't discuss AA related topics there, though I have many friends in recovery there, but I don't interact with them with sobriety based issues, and many know that I delete any AA related topics if they post them to my time line.)

2) I am pursuing a BSW and don't wish to disclose my personal life too much for professional boundary issues. Yah?

I am an Australian who lives in Ohio in the US. This has meant that my accent attracts a lot of attention at meetings, and sometimes that can flatter my ego (you know makes me feel "unique" or "special") and other times can feel quite isolating because often I am not sure if people hear what I say (eg: "oh how sad, your grandmother died, but I LOVE your accent...blah blah blah).  I get homesick quite often and if I don't remind myself that I am here as a direct consequence of some former alcoholic fuelled decision making, and that my HP has me right where he/she wants me then I can dip into self pity quite easily.

I came into the rooms later in life, and my bottom was at the end of a third marriage. (It was a very alcoholic marriage, he used to hide his alcohol, and I would steal it - he never asked who or what or how it went -mainly because I don't think he could remember if he drank it or not) and he had been having an affair with his ex wife for the last two years of our marriage. He was also (I think, but who knows for sure) addicted to crack and had managed to get our house into foreclosure (see how I blame shifted? I was at college studying fulltime, and had a fulltime job - so I abdicated my financial responsibilities and I had left the bill paying to him.) I was irresponsible. When he left to be with his ex wife I descended into working fulltime and just drinking the rest of the time. I was quite often hung over at work. I had been studying addiction processes at college and remember looking at the alcohol progress scale and thinking I still had a few years of drinking to go, and that I would be okay and then going home to have a beer. Beer, sigh. It started off as dom perignon and champagne but all ended up as beer.

Prior to coming to America I had worked as a stand up comic for about 20 odd years. This was a wonderful life for this little alcoholic.. If I did a show and I went well, everyone was my best friend and bought me  drinks. If I did a show and went badly, people would feel sorry for me and buy me drinks. I got very burnt out from this life. I still love stand up, still have done it occasionally since sobriety (even did a gig for an AA event) so I know now I am capable of not having to drink to be funny.

I am grateful that husband no. 3 left me because it brought me to the rooms of AA. It wasn't a fabulous start. I had dropped to 116llbs my self esteem was in the toilet and a man at my very first meeting told me I was "pretty" (oh how my little ego needed that boost.) We began dating straight away. He had nine years sober and I really thought he was all that.  Many women began approaching me to warn me that this man had a reputation for hitting on newcomers. I had no clue about AA, and sobriety and how it all worked or didn't work so I didn't understand what they were talking about and chose to believe him when he told me these women were "jealous".  I was trying to hang onto my house -the one about to go into foreclosure) and he suggested I take in three of his sponsees as renters. I did. (doh! now he had access to my home anytime he wanted.) I also lent him 3,000 dollars (he asked) to help him get dental work done. He was to pay me back. He didn't.  When the truth of who and what he was started to dawn on me, and I confronted him over some issues he got very threatening and violent. He wanted to sponsor me and I said "no" (at least I knew that much.) I found a sponsor (one who had a similar relationship history to mine and who - I could see "walked her talk" and she is still my sponsor to this day), she told me pretty much exactly how it would all go down unless I ended this little affair. It ended with me confronting him over his inappropriately sharing some of my history with others (breaking a confidence) in the rooms of AA, and me telling him I was going to leave (oh yes, after only six months sobriety I had started to move my things into his house), and he pulled a gun on me. There I was, running outside his house and calling aa members asking what I should do. It never occurred to me to call the police, which one member recommended (strongly) that I do, and I did and that was the end of that. It saw me head into a 6 week relapse. I then hated AA. When I reflected on all of that later, I realized that it was I who had put myself into that dangerous position and that predators exist everywhere- in churches, bars, and any social situation. In fact many times when I was at a bar I often accepted drinks or rides home without a clue about the person's background. Everyone was my friend. I had no boundaries.

So when I eventually found my own apartment (at my sponsors suggestion), surrendered my home and let everything go I began working the steps again in earnest. About six months later I met another man in AA. He had been in AA and sober for 16 years and then relapsed for four and had been back in the rooms for a few months. What was I thinking when I began dating him? I wasn't. I just wasn't thinking. Like most alcoholics I know I have a broken thinker. I thought we were doing everything right- by the book- you know. Both attending the same home group, taking it "slow' (comparatively), and not living together etc etc. He was living in his mother's basement when I met him. Then moved into my sponsor's husband's rental properties as a caretaker. He became very active in the church, (very heavy duty Christian).  He then wanted to pursue a career as a Pastor. Like all good co-dependents I then made his world more important than my own. I began attending church with him, running youth groups with him, writing his papers for college (his English skills were dreadful) in exchange for rides to and from my own college classes and work.  He is the only child of a very rigid Baptist mamma, and she would call him 3.4 times a day. I became close with her, but understood over time that the relationship they had was  a very emotionally incestuous one (he called her "sexy" as a nickname, and she called him "daddy"). I grew to become very uncomfortable around them.  But by then I was hooked in  my other addiction - that of relationship/romance. I was hooked into the co-dependent dance that was very familiar to me (as a child I used to be the "special" favorite of my alcoholic grandmother. It had been my job to go get her brandy that she had hidden under the kitchen sink at my mother's when she would come stay with us. That had been our secret. And when my grandmother drank, she would tell me the most wonderful stories of long gone family members. )

Long story short. I married this man. Even though my sponsor asked me was I really ready to be a Pastors wife, even though my sponsor told me to slow down. And when he and his mother decided to sell up everything and move to VA beach and asked me to go with them and my sponsor told me that I was in danger of being isolated and moving too fast, I went. And as could be predicted it turned out to be quite the spectacular disaster that only alcoholics can manage. I did well for awhile, I made good friends in AA there. I couldn't find work in the field that I had been trained for, but I did find work for a time. Meanwhile he was busy filing for back pay on a disability (and I believe it was bogus- supposed to be for a bad back, but he was able to go fishing on overnight trips, and go roller skating etc etc- so I felt I was participating in a lie)...and eventually, when he received his 80,000 dollars, he left me. He sent me a text to tell me he wanted to "move on without the relationship." There were many more aspects to this whole saga (his being very rigid- in my view anyway- with religious beliefs etc etc.) I ended up calling my sponsor in Ohio and returned to manage her sister's sober house while I healed from the whole episode. I never heard from him until a year later when he filed for divorce. Turns out he's gay. Who'da thunk? So no matter how many fourth and fifth steps I did, no matter how I went over and over the whole "coulda shoulda wouldas" I finally was able to accept that there was nothing on God's earth that could have saved that marriage. What I did learn was that the potency of sex with love produces a chemical in me that sees me go into an addiction process that will have me attaching to a person too quickly.  Even without the "gay factor" if I am honest and look at that relationship closely, there were so many differences that we had in our lifestyles and belief systems that it was not a situation conducive for a marriage. But I feared rejection, I feared abandonment and I feared, feared feared (the corrosive thread that ran through my life.)

I came to America based on another romantic delusion. I had met a native American and in my own little "dances with wolves" fantasy, I threw my former life aside to escape into a marriage (no. 2) which turned out to be a dangerous and violent episode in my life. (funnily enough I didn't drink much during that, most likely I was dry drunking out of fear for most of that.) I spent three stays in women's shelters, moved around a lot and had three miscarriages during that horrific time. It left me with PTSD. This was an issue I had the responsibility to heal, but I didn't. I was too weary, exhausted and broke from that whole experience. I  literally had to escape from that situation (we were living in a camper in an isolated property in Michigan before some angel who overheard this Native American husband going on a rampage offered to drive me out of there to safety.-that's another story). 

There are no other places that I know of where I can tell my story with people who nod their heads in recognition. There are no other groups of people who understand when I tell them I have been married four times. There are no other people who know what it is to have to come to terms with the truth of what it means to be the "common denominator" is such dysfunctional relationships.

Where I am at now? I am in serious self review. I am in serious healing mode. I am not dating anyone because my choices have been so very unhealthy that I cannot trust myself to make healthy choices until I feel I am well again. (And that I will check with my sponsor.) I recognize that I have a dual addiction - alcoholism and co dependency.  I have let go of trying to control anyone or anything.  It's hard. I have arrived at midlife living in a small apartment. My family are all overseas so I do get lonely sometimes (a trigger I recognize that sees me leap into bad relationships, so I am working on this.)  I study for a BSW because I want to make meaning of all this pain I have put myself through to support others through theirs.  It's a life quest.

And I thank you for "listening" to my story.

Matilda