My name is Maureen Schaefer and I am a 48 yr. old recovering alcoholic from Lima, OH. I started to drink at age 18 to fit in with my friends, and hopefully make friends, since I thought it was drinking that gave me a personality. I never thought I had anything to offer without it. I found that everyone laughed with me when I was drunk, but of course it wasn't long before everyone was laughing at me instead. I then retreated and drank alone at home. Drinking stripped me of everything I held dear in this world-a marriage, the love and respect of my children, yet I still lived in denial that I couldn't be an alcoholic because I was a mom and mom's just didn't do that. Well, I did for 28 long years and at the end had lost it all, including myself in the process. You stop growing when you enter addiction, and so I had stopped at age 18 and never learned how to live in a grown-up world. So I did what I did best-just drank and hid from life.

I never really hit bottom, I always thought that bottom was where I deserved to be. But at age 45 something snapped in me and I decided that I really DID want to live, or at least take a stab at it. Entered a treatment program at our local hospital and was introduced to a counselor who decided she could love me until I could learn to love myself. I truly credit her for saving my life and teaching me how to love myself enough to live without alcohol. We continue to walk the road of recovery together today. I tell you if I knew life could be this good and this REAL after three short years in recovery, I would have done this 15 years ago. Each day is a new beginning for me and a new adventure. Recovery has taught me to live my life passionately, and that we can't keep it if we don't give it away.

I will soon graduate from college and hope to continue to reach out to middle aged women living in the shame and darkness of addiction. It is my opinion that society views addiction in men and women very differently, and that more treatment programs geared toward women should be out there. I devote my life to that today, so that women will see that there really is light at the end of the tunnel. And my friends, when that light sometimes is an oncoming train, we simply need to get out of the way - for this too shall pass.

I have a life today I could only dream of for years. Pride and self-esteem are part of my makeup now, and all I'm asked to do is not pick up that first drink. My children are proud of me, along with the rest of my family, and I can now look in the mirror and be happy with the skin God put me in. For that, I am truly thankful.

Thank you for the opportunity to share.

Maureen E. Schaefer
Lima, OH Lima, Ohio