Beatrice M. never met an A.A.saying she didn´t like.

"I didn´t pour that booze over my head to get drunk. I poured it into my gut, and that´s where the A.A. program has to go.

"You can´t just talk it. You gotta walk it too. You gotta live it. When you´re gut level serious and knocked to your knees like I was, it will become your very life. And it is my life today.

"God is my sponsor, but so is every alcoholic I meet.

"We´re sensitive people, and the main thing that will throw most alcoholics is the 13th step. I´ve lived the 13th step, but mine is 1 and 3 combined. And the first word in that first step is ´We,´ not ´Me.´ We can do together what I could never, never do alone."

"The easier, softer way is A.A."

Bea was born on the Blackfeet Reservation in Whitefish, Montana, the daughter of a Blackfoot father and a Norwegian mother, brought to Seattle by her mother when she was two., Her father stayed behind in Whitefish and her mother raised the eight children by herself. The older boys watched the young ones and worked-Bea was the youngest-while her mother worked in the shipyards and in restaurants. Bea, a resident of West Seattle, is the mother of four daughters.

Her sobriety date is Oct. 29, 1973, the most important date in Bea´s life, and she has her late ex-husband to thank for it. "I was in such pain. I couldn´t take any more. By this time, he had 17 years in the program, so I called him and asked for help. He told me to call A.A. I never did anything he told me to, but this time I did. That night, a man and a woman took me to the Last Chance group.

"I was so dingy I fell in the door. Literally, I came to A.A. on my knees. It wasn´t long before I found the old Fremont Hall, and that became my home away from home."

When she was two years sober, she discovered the Sunday night Detox meeting, Keep the Plug in the Jug, and was soon chairing it. That has become a 32-year commitment. "When you don´t drive, it´s hard to get there," Bea said. Detox is at 1701 18th Ave. S., and she lives in West Seattle. "I have to get there, and by the grace of God, the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Metro Access van, I do. Access is my Cadillac."

Bea is lucky to be around to chair that meeting. In 1965, she was in a terrible car wreck that left her in a coma for 90 days.

This family tragedy actually started the day before, when her mother walked into her kitchen to find Bea´s 37-year-old brother dead of a cerebral hemorrhage. The next day, a doctor at Harborview Hospital called to get permission to do a tracheotomy on Bea. Her mother at first thought the call was about her son. "You see? I told you Billy wasn´t dead." But the call was about Bea. Critically injured, a priest was called to baptize her and give her the last rites.

"My mom almost lost five of us in two days," Bea recalled. Her twin sister was driving the car and Bea´s two small children were in the back. One was thrown out, but only Bea was injured severely.

Doctors wanted to take her off life support, but her "bull-head Norwegian mother" refused. "She was the only one that expected me to come out of it. Every day and every night, she was at the hospital. She held my hand and talked to me.

"My mom said, ´She´s going to live. I know she´s going to live.´ Finally, the neurosurgeon asked if there was anything I might remember of the wreck. I´d had my two little girls in the car with me. Did I think they were dead? The doctor put a phone up to my ear. My five-year-old on the other end says, ´Momma, Momma, hurry up and get home to us.´ The doctor said it was like a light was turned on inside me. I started coming back when I knew my kids were okay."

It was a long road back. When she got home to her mother and her children, she thought she was 10 years old. "I was so mean. Oh, my poor mother! I fought with my kids like I was one of them." For 200 days, she had a tracheotomy tube in her throat which left her with permanent damage to her windpipe and vocal cords. She speaks in a gravelly voice that at times has been mistaken for the booze talkin´. Twenty years later, Bea is still mad at the bus driver who thought she was drunk and wouldn´t let her board. "And here I was, 10 years sober," she said indignantly.

As she recuperated, she was having bladder problems. Her mother, trying to be helpful, got her a beer, the first Bea had had in many months. "One swallow and I swear I was camped on that toilet being Niagara Falls." Somehow, her bladder problem was solved, but she was back on the booze instantly.

"One swallow and right then and there, I got thrown back on the drinkin´. I started leading the high life. I was slim and trim, I had money coming in, I had guys that really liked me." It would be eight more rum-soaked years before she called her ex-husband for help and joined the fellowship.

Bea´s health problems are still a big part of her life. Since 1991, she´s been taking massive amounts of medicine for a severe heart condition. "I tell ´em at Detox I´m so full of nitroglycerin I could blow up a bank. But those pills keep me from having to have a heart transplant."

Like many others, Bea has seen major changes in newcomers to the program in recent years. "I hate to admit it, but the truth is there´s more drug addicts at Detox than alcoholics. I guess it´s the times. I don´t care for it, but I accept the things I cannot change. I don´t shut ´em up or nothin´, but deep down it kinda perturbs me because A.A. is for the alcoholic. But I´m gonna tell you, A.A., and N.A. too, are for those who want it, not those that really need it. If these programs were for those who need it, we wouldn´t have a hall big enough to hold them."

Another thing that perturbs her is swearing. "I can do without it. This constant use of the F word hurts the program. It shows no character. We´re not the highest intelligence people, but like they say, we come from Yale and we come from jail.

"I have two magic words in MY life. When I open my eyes in the morning, I say ´Help,´ and when I close ´em at night I bend my knees and say ´Thanks´ ´cause I didn´t bend my elbow to pour that poison into me.

"I guess there are those who are totally recovered, but alcohol is cunning, baffling, powerful, and very very patient. It waits right on our shoulders to grab us. ´Oh, you´re unique. You´re better than that. One won´t hurt. One drink of beer won´t hurt.´ Yesterday ´s history, tomorrow´s a mystery. Today is all I´ve got, and with ´Help´ and ´Thank You´ in my life, I don´t have to take one swallow today.

"Life goes on, people. What does an alcoholic or addict look like? If you want to know, go look in the mirror. You are the problem, but you are the solution too. Go back to the mirror, and to thine own self be true."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.