---

It was the hangover to end all hangovers. Dianne F. was in her living room thinking that if she ever took another drink, she would die.

Then she looked out the window and there was the family´s German shepherd pacing back and forth with a dead cat tied around his neck.

"I freaked," Dianne recalled. "They were gonna find me dead with that dog and a dead cat. It was too much. I called 911."

Glen F., her husband, said "It was the dog´s 12 Step call."

The emergency crew gave her oxygen to calm her down, and she hasn´t had a drink since. The dog? When her then-husband came home, he took the cat off the dog´s neck and buried it. The dog dug it up and took it to his doghouse. The whole exercise was an effort to train the dog not to kill cats.

The next day, June 12, 1978, Dianne began a regimen of daily meetings at Easy Does It. "I became a mainstay there," Dianne said. "Those were tough meetings. They were good people, really serious about their sobriety. It was what I needed. I was so lonely and vulnerable when I came in. That people wanted me to keep coming back was wonderful for me. That´s why I always reach out to newcomers. I was there myself once."

When she´d been sober six months, she met Glen at Easy Does It and they became friends. "I was impressed with how serious he was about his sobriety," Dianne said. "As serious as I was. That attracted me."

Eighteen months into sobriety, Dianne left her husband "and Glen and I started to get to know each other." They both loved to dance, especially disco, and began sponsoring clean and sober A.A. dances, including New Year´s dances.

They were married on Feb. 13, 1985. "I love my wife as much today as I did 24 years ago," Glen said.

Glen, who was profiled in these pages four years ago, was the dances´ disc jockey until he tired of it. "I played every one of those 45s I had," he said. That was no easy task. He has 20,000 45s in his collection.

Glen´s sobriety date is May 15, 1979, nearly a year after Dianne´s. "It keeps me humble," he said.

Unlike many alcoholics, Dianne got a late start on her illness. She was in her mid-20s, working with a roomful of women filling Sears catalog orders, when the addiction began. "Lots of us girls would go out drinking and dancing. I love to dance. Then I got on diet pills. I found that by drinking vodka, I could level off from the pills. That went on for two years-pills during the day, vodka at night. I thought vodka was a wonder drug. I could still take care of my family." (She was married and the mother of two young sons.)

"By 1977,I was getting crazy; I got off the pills, but my drinking was out of control, so I signed into a treatment center. They got me sober, but when I got out, I wanted nothing to do with A.A. I didn´t want to admit I was an alcoholic even though I´d gone into an alcohol treatment program.

"Three weeks out of the facility, my husband said he thought I could control my drinking now. That was the advice I wanted to hear. I drank that night, determined not to get drunk, and in no time I was worse than I´d ever been. In my last year of drinking, I was drinking a fifth of vodka every night. That led me to tranquilizers during the day to control my panic and anxiety attacks. The fear was horrible."

Dianne was afraid she wouldn´t live to see her sons grow up. But then came the events that turned her life around.

"I´d been to a retirement party and my behavior really got out of hand. That was the end of my marriage, although we stayed together another 18 months. When I got home the next morning, I drank till I passed out. When I came to, I knew I was going to die if I didn´t quit drinking." That´s when, with the help of her dog and the Medic One crew, she had her last drink.

Glen and Dianne are the complete A.A. team. They go to meetings together, do service together and go home to Burien together. Going against the traditional wisdom of A.A. romances, they are as much in love today as the day they met.

"There are a lot of happy couples in A.A.," Dianne said. "To marry successfully in A.A.. you have to have the same principles. Ours are the same. When you do, you don´t argue all the time."

"I never cuss at her or put her down," Glen said. "Once something bad is said, you can never take it back. I know. I was married twice before. We did have a near-fight one time. She took off for the doughnut shop and I did the same, on my own. We came home with a sugar high, and that took care of the problem."

Well, not entirely. Dianne says that when words are exchanged, "We apologize. Some say apologies don´t make a difference. Not so. They do."

Glen: (gritting his teeth in alleged imitation of his wife: "Hardest thing in the world for her to do."

Dianne: "No more, though. We both have anxiety problems, so we talk to each other."

Glen: "I had a spiritual awakening when I was 12 years sober. I was lying in bed one night, full of anxiety, having a really rough time, when a voice in my head said ´They´ loved me. That was God talking. Till then, I´d always had a problem with God. After that, everything was all right. I was walking two feet off the ground and I loved everybody. After hearing that voice, I had no worries, no fears. I cried and I made a bunch of amends. I also changed my sobriety date ´cause I´d smoked a joint after I quit drinking."

(As Glen said in his previous story, he had his last drink in 1972, but he started hanging out with non-A.A. folks and as a result smoked one joint. It wasn´t until his spiritual experience that he decided total honesty required him to change his sobriety date, so he moved it 12 years down the calendar to May 15, 1979.)

"I didn´t see much of him after he heard that voice," Dianne said. "He was too busy down at New Beginning talking to people late into the night. His mind was completely changed."

Glen: "With my spiritual awakening, I felt strong and without fear. Over time, the feeling has declined, but I know I´ll never be alone anymore."

Dianne faced a crisis to equal her alcoholism when, 12 years sober, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. "I was petrified. For my own sanity, I was forced into prayer and meditation. Finally, I started believing what I was praying, that God was healing me and I was getting well. Sure enough, six months later, I was cancer-free. They ´got it all.´ I was on a cloud. It´s really true: you can change your thinking."

Glen: "When she got sick, I went into a deep depression-cried all the way to my meeting. Just then, two young guys asked me to be their sponsor. That was another spiritual awakening. I learned you have to give of yourself. A.A. is not for people who want it. It´s for people who do it."

Dianne goes to a Presbyterian church, "but A.A. is more spiritual for me. God put me here to be sober and work this program." Glen: "Exactly. I don´t go to church. A.A. is my church. Here, we have a loving God, not a hating God like we had in my Holy Roller youth."

This A.A. couple has given up disco-"we´re getting too old for 2 a.m."-and driving people to meetings from treatment centers, but they keep busy. Glen sponsors several people, and both work a four-hour shift at Intergroup answering the phones. Dianne is also active in Al-Anon. "It helps me to mind my own business."

"Hmm," said Glen. "Maybe I ought to go there too."

They founded Pass It On, the A.A. hall at 17801 1st Ave. S. "It started out as three non-smoking meetings a week and eventually became a hall," she said. That was back when every meeting in Seattle was a smoking meeting, churches included. "Everyone said it wouldn´t work, but it did," Glen said. "Both of us were ´quit smokers.´"

The meetings are all closed. "We got tired of people talking about O.A.," Glen said. And the club allows no children or dogs except seeing-eye.

In contrast to these tough restrictions, there is no objection if someone talks about drugs other than alcohol, as long as those "others" are part of the alcoholic´s story.

So what does A.A. mean to this special couple today?

Dianne: "A.A. means my life. If it weren´t for A.A., I wouldn´t be alive today."

Glen: "Same as she said. I couldn´t imagine life without A.A. It´s where my friends are, where my happiness is. It´s my No. 1 purpose in life. I love A.A."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.