Fallen Angels

She told him she should tell somebody. Maybe she said. It was just for me. I get it. Oh OK. The end of the year. It was here we had a house party coming up. And this was the earth. Anyway he served illegal booze in the dorm anyway. Do you know what you can. Turn up completely right here. I mean T-shirts. Oh yeah we're at war right. Teachers are like. That right here and what on the back. It just kills you. We don't read across the whole lest we forget. I mean there are you. Know you guys have those guilty I remember that I remember as good as a nurse before I was married I used to make this statement and how ignorant I was to read enough. It was in jest but I used to say if I could afford it

I'd be an alcoholic. And I was making funnies at the time. But little did I know haha how much that was really true. Yeah I want to OK let's do it right. Here. Are you ready. Now one two three. God damn ice cube right. I was so happy to relieve the alcohol brought me. I would be tanned and if I took a drink then I could relax and maybe

excuse that as possibly a reward for having been a good girl. Remember stuff you know about what was in there. For I got 195 right and I won over five. Others as well. My wife was great we had great wine I drank and I say to my roommate Oh my gosh that's. Right. Why do you get out when any person would be drinking and I wouldn't want to be.

Alan. I just felt like. We live in a respectable child and I could be. Advertising. What. Was My what. Are you going for you. Joe. Yeah. You. Might feel. OK.

Right. Yes. There is no one there. I bet you course remember the fear of not having a drink is more dominant than any fear I'd ever hear of demo said to me your family your children your house your husband. So what if I can have a drink. I don't care all right. I mean.

You know the right deal. He said point blank it's either me and you're a guy to do something about. Time before this you know I didn't. I was. There but I wasn't about to admit it. Yeah. But. But.

Really sick man. Here's a letter I never knew you were a drunk. I never knew you were an alcoholic. You were never staggering and saying silly things you said when you had that grass there. I just thought it was like oh I heard. They. Tried to get that. Letter. I think you want Jack near my home. Degraded humiliated by shamed. Self pity.

My family was all ashamed of me. Society views alcoholic as a clergyman should identify

with women alcoholic because he thinks a man shouldn't have this problem. He should be stronger. Put some kind of word where the word kind as a strength when Fall of course. We Fall words shouldn't fall. Just like it used to be

public except the. Way people see a woman that is drunk. I would say in the beginning when I was drinking have all I and I drank mostly vodka some beer but mostly I would say about a half of a fifth. In the beginning and that was over a period of several hours because not a fast drinker. And then it increased to well when I started getting the shakes noticed that I was

drinking about a fifth of vodka a day which I knew that was too much. But I required that in order to stop shaking and just act normal or try to act normal. I worked in a bar as a bartender and for a few months while this with my daughter and myself was going on and all these problems personal problems I was having and it did lay into it for the fact that instead of going straight home when I got off for work I usually stayed at the bar where I was tending bar at or go dancing. One of the two and I instead of going straight home and consume this liquor. And I'm not ashamed I'm not ashamed of it at all now. Maybe my relatives some of them all are now yet I don't know if

it is then that's their problem. Because if it's not one thing it's going to be another with them. Well they're anybody they're going to have a problem of some sort. Some of our most intelligent people and prominent people in the world are alcoholics. Getting my day that is the only thing of which I'm proud. But I was years I'm so ashamed of because I had so many opportunities that I didn't take advantage of and I could have met so many others and done so much more with my life and foreign service. If I hadn't been an alcoholic I to begin with Drank stronger stuff. I wouldn't dream of drinking before going to work in the morning and would only drink at lunchtime if I were offered a drink by a superior. And other words I was conscientious on the job. And but the minute

that I got out of the office and one home I didn't wait for friends to be sitting around in my living room before taking a drink particularly if I had had a hard day or were home sick around greyer you know. I would drink by myself. And another thing too. It didn't take me any length of time in a city like Nairobi far away from home to ferret out the women alcoholics to drink with. I was dependent upon alcohol in a different way. LAUNCE I was married to a likely and mature person that I was before I got married when I was engaged. I thought to myself Well you've been drinking too much for your own good and it's all because you've been with a hard drinking crowd. But once you get back to

America things will be altogether different because you'll feel more at home and there will be so many of your old friends that you haven't seen in years and you'll start having children and just being married will change the whole pattern and it didn't turn out that way at all. Because by that time I had not only the mental compulsion to drink but the physical craving. And I found that if I tried to get along for a day or two without it I would go into convulsions. And so I couldn't carry on my daily work Supposing for example one housewife. Especially if she was married to a man in a prominent

position is forced to wrong just certain societies and perhaps the chairman of the group or vice president of the Woman's Club or whatever and is an alcoholic and perhaps has to make speeches at least presenting guest speakers to the audience. Doing that sort of thing entertaining frequently and going places with her husband and she is by nature terribly shy and self-conscious and alcohol has been her crotch. Supposing she was invited to a tee where no alcoholic beverages are served. The team is in the afternoon so you get around two or three. She can't arrive with alcohol on her breath. So she just and she usually doesn't sleep the night before and she just has to steel herself. I'm going to she wants

unless she doesn't care about disgracing her husband. But if she wants to go to that party sober and not make a fool of herself. The willpower that it takes not to drink before appearing at that tea. And you probably by the way will not even lift the cup to your. Lips because of her shaky hands the willpower that it takes is tremendous. For I always say hit it in the bedroom closet or in the storeroom because of people coming in you know neighbors and relatives but I didn't have to. From my husband and he wanted to shield me from public disgrace and he never wanted it to be sad that his wife went to the government liquor store here in Bloomington and instead every weekend he would

go to other towns seven or eight of them and then he would alternate. Sometimes driving for hours I don't know exactly how long the trips would take. Return trip sometimes five hours just from my supply to last me for the week. Because he never never wanted me to go into the government liquor store and he knew I would never go into a bar. Well if you're a career woman and you have been drinking yourself to sleep the night before starting him say at seven o'clock and then getting up the next morning the ceiling is the average for some years had to try to get out of bed and get dressed and try to eat breakfast try to get themselves into shape

to get to the office and van get the rule of the day was I was a drunk. You have no idea of the willpower it takes. You just have to keep saying strike that fight fight. You can't give then you can't get then you'll lose your job you'll lose your job. Thank you. And of course that's when my family fell apart. I just able to function. And. Conjuring music that I didn't know well enough to earn my way through. It was just too much coordination and too much thinking. The A.

There would be fast. There would be sections. Every you know had. An accidental. Right. And when you open your heart to have to move very quickly I could Thanks room is a disaster for a person because you have great distances to cover and accuracy and heading and knowledge and play are simply intolerable. Here's a real disaster and that's. A very hard thing. By the time I left. And I tried to quit that when I went immobile because it was a full time job.

And that's. Progress because I was unhappy with the professional situation. So I resorted to alcohol just simply to get through the rehearsal and I was trying to play under more and more circumstances where. I was less and less prepared was amusing. So I became and I'm able to sing. I would wake up very early in the morning feeling very shaky and very insecure and I would think well will my stomach get me through it. Two and a half hour rehearsal and feeling as I did any food recall effort just stirred up things and I just was feeling too shaky so I would start out as early as seven o'clock in the morning with a drink and for a while that would be enough to say yes me through the morning with maybe a nap at intermission

and then I found that I had had to get up earlier and earlier in order to feel this terrible thing. And give me the courage to even arrive there and be able to hold my head up. And yet I realized that I was in Conway music that I was on from earlier where so I didn't have the coronation to handle it. So I knew I was really in serious trouble. A good 10 or 12 years before I sought help. I just had a feeling that I was going to need professional help before I could get it straightened out. And the idea that I could taper off a chorus had entered my mind and I tried that but it simply didn't work. Not caring I feel is one of the disasters. You don't care not only in Iraq your professional integrity. In fact you really couldn't care less. But it's a Haas hall playings too you don't care

why the need is just the obsession is where does this next drink come from. And I mustn't allow myself to run out. And as long as that need is satisfied everything else will for itself. Now as a single person I didn't have family responsibilities at that time and I felt. To meet for anybody. I would always have the feeling well he can take care of himself without my help and my home center behind the players were able to cool it and. Under play so that I would say amusing at the same time not contribute and

not contributing when you are contributing not healthy. For you. And your brothers in America. Why didn't I do it I just didn't have the courage to do so I mean this story and I just didn't have the courage of my own food. And alcohol. 900 coal is the greatest excuse I used to think that's very nice laid off is because I could relate to

that 19th hole and I could get by early in the afternoon. So any excuse we could use. It was great. After we came back and I think that's when I restarted my alcoholic drinking at about age 28 and had two children by then and I'd always tried not to drink in the morning because I'd say drop to five in the morning and people would say well you don't drink in the morning you couldn't be an alcoholic. And living with an alcoholic who drank in the morning I figured that this is one way I'll be better than he is. And so I didn't choose to drink in the morning. And went down to Phoenix after awhile figuring that Sioux City wasn't the answer. More geographical cure and more escape. And Chris we got to Phoenix and thought we'd died and gone to heaven because I was a dry state at that time and they had bars and liquor stores on every street and any hour you want to give out or get drunk you were fined and it was much nicer to

have a nice clean bar to go into than to have a place like you had to be here. Either you were at the Country Club and drinking or you were in some of these lousy bars downtown and you certainly didn't want to associate with those people. So down there everything was fine and went into a real full blown alcoholism right down where I drank not in the hall No I like it and I had such a hard time identifying with the one alcoholic after I got sober. Because most of the women drinkers do drink at home and I didn't choose to because of the children I thought if I could get out and I think also I was seeking company lower than myself because. Probably the self image and the ego was so low that when I could get down to some of these good old bars like the wild bars in Phoenix and some of those places and I would be a queen. I'd walk in and just write a check and they'd say Oh here she comes. And I would always take care of me because I'd get to the point where I couldn't drive the car and so I had they put me in a

cab send me home. And I wake up the next morning I had to go out in the garage to see where they get the car I was there I don't remember you home. And I started to blackouts and so severely I be driving down Central Avenue in Phoenix and I would say stop the car and ask somebody how to get discussed you know and I can remember one time a man said to me lady if you're in that bad shape you better not be driving. Well shortly after that I was picked up for drunk driving. And I would. Strangely enough I wasn't too drunk and so but they had followed me from some bar. So I got into that paddy wagon and I said you can't take me down to jail you don't know who I am. And they said Lady We could care less. Well I think this helped me more to eventually get sober than anything I know of. It really did. It humiliated me down to the point where I couldn't believe what was happening to Patty Martin. I just couldn't believe it. But I figured the drinking pattern that I had was probably no different than anybody else and at the time maybe it wasn't because birds of a feather flock together so the people I

was with probably didn't drink any differently except they used to comment that I had a hollow leg and I was sure I could drink more than the average woman. And I thought it was great. I used to get very nauseated when I first started drinking as I said on my first drunk. I became Nigerian and lost it all. And then I thought how great after I could drink and not get sick anymore and not pass out I could just keep that euphoria going. But then I reached a point with this very high tolerance and it came on very suddenly with the blackouts and where I would. I have two drinks and I couldn't believe it. I was completely bombed and I was taking no drugs so that had nothing to do was it. And I would accuse bartenders and my friends and ex-husband that I was being slipped a mickey and I wasn't at all that the Tarrance had completely gone and that is when the one of the final stages I guess of alcoholism. But I didn't recognize it. And

I set out on my patio one stop by the pool and I sat there and I said I don't know why I get so drunk and I was crying naturally because I think I cried probably half my drunken years or the last five years. And they said why you drink and I said I don't know but would you fix me one at that point I couldn't even walk into a bar to get a drink. So they brought a drink out and. Then I would go into my terrible personality change. And this is what I think probably I dreaded more than anything because the morning after as I wouldn't suffer from a tummy ache or a headache severely but I would suffer remorse It was unbelievable. What did I say. Who'd I cut up last night. And being a woman I was foxy enough to realize I could get by with throwing drinks and throwing furniture and using foul language and cutting people up. I became very paranoid and very much of a persecution complex imagining. I think I had elucidations probably more than I realized. And I do remember one Christmas my very final

Christmas before I quit drinking was one was tragic scenes I have ever ever and I don't want to ever forget it though. But I don't play on it. And we were all sitting around the Christmas tree and this time I we were trying to get mother to get was it so she could have something with her children and I got up and I took the Christmas tree and I threw it clear across the floor. Well course this really is something that you never forget. And. I just went. Then I tore out the front door and went right to my bars that I had to see because I don't know what. I just completely flipped out. So the mental part of the problem is definitely there. I mean what. Why did they drink to have me get out of a chair and tear a Christmas tree down in front of two innocent children. I had. Some very strong hang ups. Do the fact that I was brought up in such a strict. Religious home. And.

It was. My. Interpretation of God was not. No loving God. As he's supposed to be. Made of punishing God and yet always had a frown on his face. Because I knew the difference between night run and down. When you're drinking in your you know you have absolutely no inhibitions whatsoever when you're drowned. There are things that you're going to do that you know are not right. Drinking over indulging in drink for one thing is wrong to begin with. So. Consequently you are. Winding up with being upset about. Religion in these things. Because it was something that was. Preached to me from a time when there was a small child.

Until you know I got married. And I. Man I married a boy that was the same faith as I was and he had been brought up in the same kind of power in my head. So. Consequently we were. Still going to church and. So far. That I had just begun really. My. Drinking career by their time and of course by the time I was 21 years old and we got married when I was 19. And then the time I was 21 able to go into bars and have a good time you know this was. A very and casein to me I think. It would seem in my time in my life. I guess I thought I had grown up.

You know. You know I lived with my grandmother until I was 19 till I got married you know of course she was a teetotaller and didn't drink anything but my step grandfather drink quite a bad. And of course my mother drink quite a bit add. And like I say my mother worked in the trade in I saw her on weekends and so forth. And I think I probably felt rejected as a child. I love my mother very much and we do. When we're both sober we can have a good time together. We used to have a good time and he usually when we drank. But this doesn't lie as long because then you get so drunk and then pretty soon you get in an argument. And we used to get in some real good arguments when we were drinking and my father died about. I was six or seven years ago. You know. Our institution.

From. Alcoholism so I probably got a pretty good background. After I came back. From his treatment center right there I am. I was sober for about a year and beyond I had been discussing a damn child before. I quit drinking you know corners while I was still drinking it was simply out of the question. And if I had been sober about a year when we decided to Adak because by this time I knew that I was well I was am I way to being. A decent man their ideas. I wanted child very badly. And. When I was drinking I felt very inadequate is fires. Motherhood was concerned

and so after being sober for a year I found out that this was a time to start doing some of the things that I had mine to do all my life and I felt that I was ready for this. And then I was going to be able to be a good mother. And. Now at wind it gained ground communion and because coming from a. Out of the alcoholism I didn't want my daughter exposed to this. I didn't manage any child to go through this. And each out of mine. We applied for a diversion. A year after I got my songwriting and we got her about six months after we apply. And this was the most important thing in my whole life because I had wanted it for.

So on and as I said the adequate and yet when we did get her I felt like I was. On a new road or you know. I actually can take it. For me teaching me in some ways was an escape from the real world because I didn't have to deal with adults. And as a result I didn't I really relate to adults on a social level either. I just had that classroom in my brain. Security in life. I guess. I was going in your mind. Third year of teaching and I had two years previous had been very rough and I. And. My brother when I went to the wedding.

I proceeded to get drunk and point that thing that thing that's going to. Give me this feeling of euphoria that I can handle anything and that nothing bothers me from that point I went into the teaching and. It was to me it was his face. I couldn't handle the situation. I couldn't really blow my record. Many school teachers because a profession that is full of creation and tension from parents their strict principal I mean because she was

always looking. At. Everything. Absolutely quiet no discipline problems in itis one absolute perfection from these kids. And if I didn't get it then I became terribly upset and frightened. I had the noon hour so I would go to Will. I did. I guess I didn't feel that in enough time to go to the apartment. I would purchase a bottle and then. Go into saying the diamonds and get a hamburger and a coke and then pour out most of the coke and then for the liquor and then sit there and drink it so that people wouldn't see you know that I was or at some times. I guess if I were if I was in a hurry in the school's restroom I'd drink as much so I felt I needed and then

I'd used mouthwash and and need to buy ois used a larger person. And I brought a purse you know that would carry carry a pint in it and. To be going to the same liquor store and then I found another one will further away or if it's real short on time I go to the supermarket and drink beer and drink which I hated. But I do anything to get to this release state. Of being above fear. I do remember standing and bored. But influence with the children.

Toward women. I don't think. We're talking sort of. Everything everything. Right away you know. So. It was completely the morning it was the stark reality of these 30 restless kids. And then the afternoon was sort of you know everything was blacked out. I wonder I didn't want to drink while I with all my responsibilities as long as I was there my children were going to make some demands on me. I had to get out away from it all. Right away you know. And of.

Course and here a lot of the home quite a bit. And I used to you know. Like we all do. You know I could always make a thousand excuses you know. Well by God just want her to get supper. I go boy maybe at one o'clock and here again you know I'd have everything arranged. But see I have a few drinks and then there was no tomorrow. I didn't go home at 4 when the kids come home from school and I was in there for supper. And then of course you know and I was you know home like this and there's that. That kind of a Cold War going on all the time where even if you don't battle in front of the kids which most people do. This is what I think is so hard. It's a family onus. You know it's a family disease because you know you got to. Talk to your husband when he comes home from work and you're not always sure you know what you did. And

you know that weight was always real hard for me. You know I just always wished that I could get it over with. And. Get the. Recriminations or stubborn or just not talking about it ever would get is just get over it because I I think not knowing of course was worse than that I really get through it. I think probably the blackouts and not liking And then of course we all have a crisis you know something really traumatic happens and with me it was as falling down in a bar. And I remembered when I hit. That bar and hit my head. I did I was aware enough at that moment to know you. You know you you really you know you dirty you know everybody's looking at you. And I remembered. My husband and another man helping me out. In his loaded as I

was and not aware I knew even at that for that moment I didn't remember anything. From then on. But that was just like a light that went on and off. And. It snapped. Like that with my loss of control was like four or five. I lost the control is I don't give a damn. From then on. Where I can write I could remember saying with all the sincerity in my heart and really minute you know I get this to do tomorrow I got to take the kids to the dentist I got to do this I get I got a full day and I don't want to feel lousy. You know I don't want to be hung over so I'm going to really be a lady when I go on when my husband's ready to go and I'm going to. Try to coast about on three drinks. Good.

Bye. Oh. As I said.

She started.

Yeah actually I was the kid. I quit drinking problem with him that I don't drink just with him. I couldn't keep my problems from being there when they see you hit bottom. I think they're fine but he'd be hard pan myself.

My nervous shaking went a week before and the next day. Keep in mind all this time a kid went off on him in the game. OK so what I did was listen to talk about it was so bad. So how did it start with your birthday and then what are you doing here. Did you. Find a parable. I don't want to go anywhere. In the. State. And.

City when you meet women. You see me here tonight when you get to see expect still thinking that I just came. From the study. You know my injury. You're more than glad to be your words here. The big clown you mean. Yeah you know this pretty much knew that I need to get out of that there isn't any water.

She would give me along with her so she knew that she would be a jewel. So that's where she wanted to go so everybody went in she would play it. So for me it would be new. It's just teenage names I came away. Oh well I must admit. No I never met I didn't drink beer every four years. Craig you know this mean streak. I didn't get in to fight with someone I didn't get along. I got into a fight with a woman and I didn't even know if she can call me and I had to think and now she called me to write the still angry. What a shame. I was so

drunk and she would be all right. She wiped up floor with me and show me your bar room. So I don't want to gag. I mean I see her. He did it. So I can get. Do you feel significant and you feel importantly though do you feel important to your family. You. Mean. You think somebody.