It´s Alcoholics Anonymous all the way for Gail H. and Eddie H. of Renton. They learned how to live life on life´s terms in A.A., met and married in A.A and built new lives together in A.A..

Gail was the first into sobriety, on July 12, 1988. Eddie followed her on July 2, 1990, a two-year lead that Gail likes to point out to encourage humility-his, not hers.

Gail says she always drank too much from the time she picked up her first drink at the age of 12. She was living in Grants Pass, Oregon, when she stole her father´s whiskey to launch her drinking career. "I had a blackout with that first drunk," she recalled. In spite of that, she says that "alcohol worked for me, changed the way I looked at everything for the better."

"Better," despite numerous wrecked cars and trips to the drunk tank. "I was a violent drunk and I couldn´t see that alcohol had anything to do with it," she said. "I dropped out of school when I was 16 and had a baby. I met my first husband when I was 21 working as a bartender. He was a wild and woolly regular in my bar who drank like I did. We got married and had two kids. All three of my girls have alcohol problems today, but thank God, no fetal alcohol syndrome. It was Russian roulette and they won. My being young helped too, I think."

By 1979, she and her family were living in North Bend, Washington. The idea was to be closer to her husband´s brother in the hope that his influence would help them to drink less. So there was a hint of awareness by that year, but it didn´t take. It was a neighbor who finally pushed her into seeking help.

"I´d recently been divorced when this happened. I´d been drinking all day when I ran out of cigarettes and booze. The kids were asleep, so I decided to make a quick run to the store. That´s the last thing I remember till I woke up at home the next day with no idea how I´d gotten there.

"My neighbor told me how. She saw me leave the night before and knew the kids were alone. That next day, she marched over to tell me she´d watched through her front window till 2 or 3 a.m. to make sure the kids were safe. When she saw me crawl up to my front door, she went to bed, but the next morning, she told me I´d have to get help or she´d call the authorities and have the kids taken away."

That got Gail´s attention. She called a friend who´d dropped out of sight four years earlier when she´d joined A.A. The friend and her sponsor came over and got her into a treatment center. Her children stayed with a friend while Gail learned about sobriety. When she got out, she wanted sobriety and started going to A.A., but she couldn´t stop drinking.

"I went to a lot of meetings drunk. The oldtimers out in North Bend have a lot of stories about me, but none that can be printed. I´d say terrible things." That went on for six months, and then sobriety began to take hold. She was still bartending, though, until she finally had a week´s sobriety.

She took a big pay cut to go to work for a medical clinic in Bellevue, where she was taught how to work in an office. "They seemed to hire a lot of single moms. A really good bunch of people." She stayed for seven years. Now she´s staying home.

Gail´s a lover of Fremont Hall, where her home group was for years. She still goes to meetings at the North Seattle club, all the way from her home in Renton.

Eddie entered her life after she´d been sober for several years. Gail explained: "I was working for a doctor who knew about alcoholism and referred people to A.A. I was G.S.R. for my group, and through him I learned about the Cooperation with the Professional Community committee. I got involved, and met Eddie through the committee."

Eddie: "I was serving as district chair for District 18 for the committee in ´91 and ´92. We did some projects together and became friends. There was no big relationship for a year or two, but then it ripened into a romance and we were married July 6, 1996."

Eddie and Gail are raising two of Gail´s granddaughters whose mother is having alcohol-related problems. It hasn´t always been easy. When Eddie was delegate, she was area chair-"two of the busiest jobs, and it was really hard, with two small children at home," Gail said. Sponsees and friends helped out with child care. "God provided for us," Eddie said. "Wonderful people helped us along the way."

Gail: "Always, always, always, we received exactly what we needed to be grandparents, stay sober and stay married. And we have met some of the most tremendous people. An amazing thing, this program.

Despite having two children at home, Gail and Eddie have continued their strenuous A.A. service contributions. Eddie has been Western Area alternate treasurer and treasurer as well as many other positions. Gail is currently alternate delegate for the area, and has been D.C.M. and held many other jobs.

Eddie grew up as a sandy surfer in Southern California whose parents always bailed him out of his difficulties.

"I was a beach boy. I started drinking when I was 12 and hanging out with other kids on the beach. My life centered around water-diving, surfing, you name it. That all changed when I was 16 and I got my driver´s license. I ran off to the high desert in Lancaster, where I drank and partied and slept in my car. I stole my dad´s credit card, and as long as I kept the charge below $50, it was open season ´cause cards weren´t checked automatically in those days. But eventually, some store confiscated it and I moved back home.

"That´s when the enabling really started. My mom drank; my stepfather, who´d raised me from the time I was two, was always there to take care of me with money, housing and whatever else I needed.

"When I was 21, I was down and out. He offered to send me to tax accounting school if I´d stop drinking. I took him up on it. For a year, I didn´t drink. I got my tax license and went to work with my dad, but life got harder and harder. Alcohol and drugs really settled in on me. I ended up losing my apartment and had to move back in with my parents. It all came to a head one night when I drove into a 25-foot ditch along Pacific Coast Highway.

"It was about 4 in the morning. I explained to the cop that my car had rolled into the ditch. He booked me for drunk driving, but my parents were there immediately to bail me out. Two weeks later, the judge gave me the choice of A.A. for two years or jail for one year. I´d been in jail so many times I chose A.A. As part of the deal, I was interviewed by a counselor and lied my ass off all the way. Nevertheless, the conclusion was that I was a late stage alcoholic. If I´d been truthful, what would I have been called?

"I decided to make a geographical change, so I moved up here in 1990. I figured I didn´t know anyone so I couldn´t drink, but I was on the streets immediately making drinking friends and finding the drug dealers."

The system worked, though, in spite of Eddie. His probation was transferred to the courts here. "I knew I had to go to one meeting a week, and I did, starting July 2, 1990. I didn´t like the meeting, but for some reason I went looking for others instead of drinking." He found one that was so welcoming that he stayed sober in spite of himself. Pretty soon, he had a tough sponsor who took him all over the West for service, he started answering phones at Intergroup, moved into Area service, met Gail and the rest is history.

Even though both Gail and Eddie were heavy into drugs other than alcohol, they take the traditional A.A. view that A.A. is for alcoholics. "I believe in A.A.´s singleness of purpose," Eddie said. "There are still people out there for whom we are the last stop on the block. I think of my mom, who does nothing but drink. If she walked into a meeting that was talking about heroin, she´d have an excuse to walk out the door. I don´t want to be someone who might scare someone else´s mother away from A.A. "

"I agree exactly with Eddie," Gail said. "When I share about alcohol, my whole body lights up. I loved booze. The other stuff was just something that happened to me."

Both seem to have had a relatively easy time shedding their other addictions. Gail said she developed a serious illness from drugs, decided "drink was the better choice," and quit everything else cold turkey. Eddie said his other addictions just "went away" once he got sober. "I never did anything else to quit."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.