A long way to health: from alcoholism to founding a program of recovery for women.

I am one of the 7 million women alcoholics in the U.S. Some are drinking; some are not. I am one who no longer drinks. But it took 29 years for this to happen, and I hurt many people close to me during those drinking years.

Why was alcohol such a part of me? My life was very ordinary growing up in a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, a place where everyone knew everyone, if not by name, then by visage. There was little friction in my life. Perhaps I was lonely as an only child, but in the realm of catastrophes, this one doesn't even rate.

We really were the metaphor of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. My parents belonged to a Saturday night bridge club at which the men had two or three drinks and a few of the women nursed one drink the whole night.

All these years later I cannot understand why I immediately began to drink when I went away to college.

But that's what happened. Most of my feelings at the time were of loneliness and feeling out of place. It was as if I had no plan to follow, even though the colleges had disciplines, none of which I was able to stay within. Needless to say, I was asked to leave not one but several colleges.

To escape reality, I eloped with a young serviceman whom I met through my father's business acquaintances. Running away from reality and denying that you drink too much are the hallmarks of alcoholic behavior.

I was divorced soon after my husband returned from a tour of duty overseas. It was at my instigation, although I think he secretly rejoiced in being rid of a heartbreaking problem.

I simply moved from one thing to another. Not able to do much of anything that required training, I went back to college after my divorce and just barely managed my drinking enough to squeak through.

Over the years I managed to finish a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and a Ph.D., but these achievements were punctuated by an arrest for drunk driving, assault and battery of a police officer, a night in a Philadelphia jail, and a three-month jail sentence committed to a mental hospital, where I spent almost a year. After this I was in outpatient psychiatric care, followed by two hospitalizations for attempted suicide, once in Maine and then in Pennsylvania.

To this day, so many years later, it hurts me to write about the travail I caused my husband and especially my parents. Their suffering was so much greater than mine, for they helplessly watched my disintegration.

Today I would be referred to a 28-day residential recovery program, but before the 1970s this kind of help was pretty much unavailable. Twenty-eight-day treatment facilities became popular when they qualified for insurance payment.

I believe the best treatment these days is residence in a treatment facility, and then, on release, one-on-one counseling with a qualified alcohol counselor, and at the same time, attendance at a self-help group.

I started such a self-help group for women in 1976 called Women for Sobriety (WFS) "New Life Program." It's for women only because it deals specifically with women's problems, recognizing their emerging role and necessity for self-esteem.

I began by asking myself such questions as: When I was calm and sober, why did I shatter this by going to buy a bottle of liquor, disrupting the peace I felt, uneasy though it was? The best answer I could come up with was a litany of self-pity going on in my mind: Nobody loves me, nobody cares if I live or die. I'm nothing; my life is meaningless.

To fix the "poor little me" chorus, I had to find ways to change that so I could quit drinking and face life.

Like an automatic repeating machine, I spent a large part of each day looking for the positive things in my life and writing them on a piece of paper so that I could say them again and again. Each day I spent at least 20 minutes in the morning writing and thinking, "You are a good person," "You can help many after you help yourself," "By loving others you will receive love," "You are in charge of your life," "What you do can either be for the good or the bad, but it's your choice."

Writing these phrases again and again several times a day, I was able to get my life back on course, and it led me to my life's work--putting this technique into a self-help program for other women to use. The program centers on these 13 affirmations:

1. I have a life-threatening problem that once had me.

2. Negative thoughts destroy only myself.

3. Happiness is a habit I will develop.

4. Problems bother me only to the degree I permit them to.

5. I am what I think.

6. Life can be ordinary or it can be great.

7. Love can change the course of my world.

8. The fundamental object of life is emotional and spiritual growth.

9. The past is gone forever.

10. All love given returns.

11. Enthusiasm is my daily exercise.

12. I am a competent woman and have much to give life.

13. I am responsible for myself and for my actions.

We know that just stopping drinking is not a guarantee to continuing sobriety. We must also aim at healthful living to bring this about--we need to eat on time and eat the right foods. Good nutrition and daily prayer and meditation, plus attending a self-help group, will help end the compulsive craving for alcohol. Each day the craving is less and good health takes a step forward.