Marilyn S. is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous who has seen the 11th Tradition work over and over. She is one of the hundreds of AA members in the Greater Seattle area who makes up the Seattle intergroup 12 Step list, people who make themselves available to carry the message when calls come into the office for help.

Since joining the program 13 years ago, Marilyn has gone out on a couple dozen or more 12 Step calls, always with the approach that "Here´s our program. If it has something for you, I´ll help you find it." Rarely does she know the outcome of these initial contacts. "But I truly believe that the seed has been planted. I´m not necessarily the grower or the farmer, but I get to plant the seeds," she said.

Marilyn sees herself as Exhibit A in this process of gaining sobriety. She was drinking a quart of vodka a day and using wine and beer as aperitifs, as she put it, when she finally called AA late one night. "I was drunk and snorting cocaine when someone I think it was Angus called back. We talked, but I didn´t go to a meeting for a long time. The seed had been planted, though, and eventually I sobered up."

Only in her own family does Marilyn have dramatic and incontrovertible evidence of the truth of the 11th tradition. She has a godchild whose drinking she facilitated when the girl was 14 years old. Marilyn hosted a breakfast for her godchild and several friends, and served them champagne and strawberries this at a time when she was tucking away her own daily fifth.

Some years later, when the girl had become an alcoholic herself, Marilyn went to visit her and told her she no longer drank. The girl was fascinated, knowing her godmother´s consumption habits, and asked many questions. Again, planting the seed, sharing her strength and hope.

"She watched me sober for a year and a half, and then on my belly-button birthday, September 4, 1988, she told me she was going to stop drinking, that that was her birthday present to me."

´If you could stop, I know I could stop,´ she told her godmother. Later, the girl´s husband quit drinking, too, following her example, and previously, Marilyn´s husband had joined the program a month after she herself opted for sobriety.

"I feel very blessed," Marilyn said.

Interviewed and written by Dick S.