When I was 39 years old, my mother and father died in a boating accident. My sister and I found our mother's body floating in the lake. Our father's body was found a few days later. This was a tragic situation for me as an adult, and a devastating one for the child inside me.

My father was probably drunk in the boat, and my mother was probably with him to protect him. Co-dependency kills.

A year later, in a grieving, needy condition, I married a man I had known for 6 weeks, and he soon began physical, sexual, emotional, intellectual, verbal, and financial abuse.

16 months later I discovered that at age 42 I was pregnant for the first time in my life. I was also very physically ill and living with an abuser. While I was pregnant I somehow gathered the strength to divorce him, and I went to my first Al-Anon meeting. Al-Anon literally saved my life and my unborn child's life.

The people in this wonderful program accepted me as I was, cried and laughed with me, and helped me to see clearly what growing up in an alcoholic family had done to me. And they helped me get on the road to recovery, one that I imagine traveling for the rest of my life.

In the 8 years since my first meeting I have gained the freedom to quit a job that was not good for me, enjoy raising my wonderful little boy, marry again to a recovering alcoholic, and come a long way toward being me and liking it. I enjoy my life, and I am grateful to Al-Anon.