Barbara M. was too young to remember when she had her first drink. .

When she was two, she'd roam the living room in her jammies draining the glasses of her parents and their guests, with her parents' amused approval.

"From the outside, our family life looked beautiful," Barbara said. The reality was different. For one thing, the family moved all over the country-Wisconsin, El Paso. Houston, Whittier California-as her father followed his career as a tire manufacturer executive. But there was a more sinister reality that Barbara only remembered after 13 years of sobriety. First, there were dreams, and then a year later, while she was in treatment, clear memories of sexual abuse.

Now sober for nearly 30 years-her sobriety date is Aug. 27, 1977-she has long since come to terms with these memories and moved on. Currently, she is director of Seattle's Sojourner Place, a residence sponsored by the Sisters of Providence for homeless women. It's been nearly 20 years since she began her professional career working with the homeless, first in Tucson, then San Jose and now Seattle.

"God has given me so much, I wanted to give something back," she said. So when her two children were old enough to take care of themselves, she gave up her high-paying job with IBM and began her work with the homeless.

Sojourner Place focuses on women who have a real chance of making it back to a fully productive life. Some are employed but don't make enough to support themselves without the support Sojourner provides. Half of them have alcohol and drug problems, and about 20 per cent mental health issues.

Barbara says the program has an extraordinary 90 per cent success rate, as defined by how many clients are able to move on to independent living successfully. Barbara acknowledges that the success rate is so high because their clients are not women with long term homelessness, but primarily the working poor who need a hand up.

The program makes sure they take advantage of their opportunities, a carrot and stick philosophy. Clients must be either in school or working, or both; and attend at least two 12-Step meetings a week. Why 12-Step instead of A.A.? "Well, whatever fits-Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous-whatever works," Barbara said. In exchange, Sojourner provides up to six months of housing and training in such elemental skills as cooking and budgeting. She said it's surprising how many women need to be taught to cook.

As for her drinking career, even though she was sampling cocktails before she can remember, she was a "really good girl" all through high school. "I only drank around home. My parents supplied the liquor." When she was 18 and living with her family in Houston, she decided to visit her sister in El Monte, a Los Angeles suburb. There, she met her husband, and was soon drinking heavily. A year into the marriage, she broke her foot and started using heroin to control the pain. "You can't afford a doctor, but you can always afford drugs," she noted. "Last May, I broke my foot again and I treated the pain with Tylenol." She's still in a cast from complications from the fracture.

Heroin is expensive. How does one afford it? "I stole a lot of stuff." And she was soon a hard core heroin addict to go with her alcoholism.

Life moves in mysterious ways, and her arrest for shoplifting was one of the best things that ever happened to her. "I was done at that point in my life. The pitiful, helpless demoralization they talk about in the Big Book. Afraid to live, afraid to die, so I thought I'd give this sobriety thing a try. Low and behold, it worked."

She began going to A.A. before her court date to get attendance slips signed to impress the judge in El Monte. It worked. He sentenced her to a 90-day treatment program. "The judge was easy on me. A.A. was not." Although controversial at times, sentencing people to attend A.A. is a good thing, she believes. "I don't know what would have happened if it had not been done that way. We all get sober for the wrong reasons, but we stay sober for ourselves."

Her sentence was to a treatment program in Watts, deep in the South Los Angeles ghetto. Called the Mini 12-Step House, it was created by four black women for all kinds of addiction.

Barbara remembers those three months with love and admiration. "We had all kinds of wonderful stuff there. We used an inventory guide that they had developed similar to the Big Book's. It had seven categories starting with theft, which was really smart because it gave us something tangible, physical, to start with. I still use the format with people I sponsor.

"You can only teach what you know, and that works for me. I've discovered all my brilliant ideas come from other people. One of my most gratifying experiences happened when I was five years sober. I was sponsoring a woman, and she was sponsoring someone else. I happened to be at the same meeting with the second one, and what do I hear but my words coming out of her mouth! We are all part of a chain that gets and then gives. That's how it works."

Sober when she left Mini 12-Step House, she was still heavily into heroin. It was another three months until she kicked that habit with the help of prescription drugs. The day she left heroin behind is her sobriety date, Aug. 27, 1977, even though she had three months of freedom from booze by that time.

Her son and daughter were waiting for her as she began her sober life. For awhile, they lived in San Jose, then Tucson, where her husband got into legal problems that sent him to prison. She no longer is in contact with him.

"I raised the kids, and everybody is doing well now. They've given me six grandchildren."

Ten years ago, she followed them to the Northwest when they moved to Bellingham. She opted for Seattle-"close but not too close."

Since coming here, she's continued to work hard in the program. "When I first got sober," she said, "I thought all my problems were over. Not so. What I got was life, not Disneyland. Sobriety is a lifetime commitment to hard work."

From the time she arrived here, Barbara has committed much of her time and energy to working with the city's homeless population. She worked for the Downtown Emergency Service Center and the Compass Center before joining Sojourner Place.

Committed as she is, she's skeptical about the city's 10-year plan to eliminate all homelessness. "It amazes me the amount of stuff here to help the homeless. Not just food and shelter, but a way out if they're willing to work and join the mainstream."

Barbara takes the middle ground on the dual abuser issue which plagues A.A. "When I came in, if you said you were an addict, they'd ask you to leave so I always said I was an alcoholic. Today, in my home group, we allow discussion of drug problems, though it's not encouraged. At the beginning of the meeting, we say 'If you share a problem, share a solution." We're a solution-based group. After awhile, what we talk about doesn't matter. What we want to hear is how you got sober and turned your life around."

She sees A.A. as the "wheel of my life. A.A. is the hub of the wheel and all those spokes from the wheel make my life complete."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.