In just four more years, it will be a half-century of sobriety for Phyllis C. of Kirkland. Phyllis put the plug in the jug once and for all on July 1, 1958.

She´s packed a lot of living into her 84 years, both before and after she decided to join this fellowship-three marriages, three adopted children, world travel, A.A. leadership-and lots of men.

"Once I got sober, I was a pretty good girl, but yeah, I still stepped out once in awhile."

Life started for Phyllis on a farm in Nebraska, the only child of loving parents. She met her first husband, a medical student, when she enrolled at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. They moved to Omaha for his internship, and Phyllis "had time on my hands." She went to work in a World War II bomber plant and "got pretty involved," as she euphemistically put it.

There was a lot of quarreling, centered around her drinking. One morning when she woke up with her face black and blue, she accused her husband of hitting her. "Not me," was the reply. "You took a swing at me and fell on your face."

"Well, why didn´t you catch me?" Phyllis demanded. She believed in having the last word.

Her stormy, alcohol-fueled marriage lasted seven years before Phyllis got a divorce. She´d never had a drink before going to college, but now that was the priority and her husband was in the way. "It wasn´t fair. I blamed him for our problems, even though I knew he was a good man and that I was ruining his life. The thing was, I needed out so I could drink."

So the marriage ended, but "in those days, there was always one waiting in the wings," and she was soon married again, this time for five years. "I was very unfaithful to him," Phyllis acknowledged, "actually, to both my husbands. I decided my husband was a pathological liar; I got him to go to a psychiatrist, but it backfired. The doctor told me that I should stop drinking.

"I came home and told him I couldn´t stay married and not drink, so I left him."

By now, the couple had migrated to Salem, Oregon, where her husband worked in sales and she went to work for the state legislature. "Those lobbyists were a wild bunch of people," Phyllis recalled. "I got involved with several of ´em, especially one. But when the session ended, the party ended. I got divorced at the end of the session."

On her own now, she heard about a job in the new field of television. This was 1955, when TV was all black and white and grainy. KPTV in Portland hired her for the promotion department, but she was soon able to work her way into a sales job. "There were no women in sales, but after the station lost two networks, nobody wanted to work for them so I got the job. Within three months, I was the top sales executive, and I stayed there for 10 years."

Her drinking proceeded apace, and she began to think things were getting out of hand. "My biggest problem was I was always waking up in strange beds. These were people I worked with. It was pretty bad. It didn´t matter to me if they were married. My morals were pretty low."

She never got a DUI, but she came close. Driving to Salem at 120 miles an hour in her new Thunderbird, the police caught up with her and took her to the station. "I was drunk, but I told ´em I´d just had a couple of beers. I was given a $100 ticket for reckless driving, with a notation on the report that it was ´borderline drunk driving.´

"I was going to object to the fine, but a friend advised me to just pay it and forget it."

That was good advice.

Through most of her drinking career, Phyllis believed she was an alcoholic. She´d read Jack Alexander´s groundbreaking article in the Saturday Evening Post in 1941, and the Reader´s Digest "24 Questions" article two years later. She took the test, "and from then on, I knew something was wrong." Six years later, while working for the TV station, she quit drinking on her own for two years.

Then along came a new station manager who wanted his people to wine and dine their clients. Phyllis figured with two years under her belt, she could handle one martini at lunch. But what do you know, one martini at lunch sometimes stretched into the afternoon and evening, and her sales went to pot.

She was living in Portland by herself, "more or less," when she woke up one morning not knowing how she and her beloved T-Bird had made it home. She called A.A. on July 1, 1958, and a whole new life opened up. The 12-Stepper who called on her stayed for nearly five hours. "I´d never known anybody who knew so much about me," Phyllis marveled. "Anything I´d done, she´d done something worse."

Her new friend took her to the Portland Alano Club meeting that night, "and I was sold on A.A. from that time on. I was so ready; I believed every word I heard.

"But I was too eager a convert. I wanted to carry the message immediately, so instead of doing the Steps, I focused on service work. I was GSR in three months, and by the end of that first year, I was secretary of the Oregon State Committee. But I suddenly realized I wasn´t very happy. I quit service work and went to work on the Steps until I finally got it."

"Portland´s Alano Club was a wonderful place. Lots of activities besides A.A.-bridge, birthday parties, other social events. And I was a pretty good girl once I got sober. Maybe stepped out once in awhile."

Two years into the program, an attractive young man named Jim appeared at the club. He was married and had three children, so the new Phyllis let it pass. But then Jim´s wife ran off with his sponsor. One thing led to another, and they were married in 1963. Phyllis adopted the three children. The marriage lasted until Jim´s death in 1992.

Once married, did they live happily ever after?

"Are you kidding? You know alcoholics. Here we were, two adult alcoholics and three small children. Eventually, I realized we should not fight over who´s going to be top dog in the house. I learned to let go, and discovered that he was often right. We became soul mates, really. We had a wonderful life together, and the kids have turned out okay too."

In 1966, Phyllis decided to quit her high stress job in television to stay home with the children. Jim was an insurance executive, a career that led them first to a Los Angeles suburb for five years, then to 10 years in Europe. Most of the latter period, they lived in London, but also were in Paris for awhile. By now, Phyllis wanted to move back to the U.S. "No matter how long you´re there, you´re still a foreigner."

They returned to California, then moved to Seattle in 1982 and later to Kirkland. She and her husband started a number of meetings. She was also on the board of Residence XII for six years.

Her favorite meeting is an unofficial one that meets the last Friday of the month at her home. There´s a potluck at the Mariner Houseboat Birthday Party meeting, followed by "attitude modification" for an hour-and-a-half, then birthday cake with chips and medallions. They meet whether Phyllis is home to host it or not.

A script of the meeting that Phyllis provided shows it places strong emphasis on God, but Phyllis says she´s not particularly religious. She´s an open-minded Episcopalian. Recently, at a Catholic mass, Phyllis saw clearly an image of her late husband near the altar. Behind him, hazily indistinct, was another figure that Phyllis believes was the Higher Power.

She´s open-minded about what´s talked about at meetings too. "I have no problem with people talking about drugs other than alcohol. An addict is an addict. Telling people to go to another meeting, like N.A., is bad. I like to hear recovering addicts talk. I don´t know anything about those problems. Drugs weren´t available when I was drinking."

Phyllis is a remarkably young-looking 84-year-old. She credits her good health to a titanium heart valve, regular exercise and good medical care. And her mother´s influence: "When other kids reached for a candy bar, I reached for a green pepper."

Phyllis has made two trips to the Holy Land, the second time after Jim´s death. "It helped me to pursue my Higher Power. I loved going to the places that are sacred to Muslims and Jews as well as Christians. On the second trip, we were able to go to Mt. Nebo, where Moses looked into the Holy Land. He was denied entry for his sins, and here I was, a worse sinner than he.

"I got into my Promised Land when I joined A.A. This program means everything to me."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.