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Thirty feet up a rope, hanging by her ankle while the crowd cheers its lungs out, hung over or half in the bag as she is spun at high speed:

That was the wildly exciting life of Susan S. for three years when she starred as an aerial performer for Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus. Recruited from her home in Seattle, she wanted to go to the circus´s Clown College, but when she didn´t get in, used her training as a dancer to get into the high rope acts.

"We climbed the rope, did the Spanish Web and other tricks and aerial work called aerial ballet. It was all choreographed; we learned it like ballet. All this, while my web sitter was spinning the rope as fast as he could."

I asked if she ever did the stunt where the performer grips the rope only with her teeth while she´s whirled. When I saw it performed as a little kid at a Ringling circus in the middle ´30s, it gave me a horror memory that has never gone away.

"Oh, yeah, the Iron Jaw," Susan said. "It´s not done much anymore. I never did it, oh, no."

Susan also worked with the elephants, and came closest to getting hurt when she fell off one. "I was dressed in red, white and blue, holding a ski rope attached to the harness. The elephant bent over to pick up another performer by her neck and ankle with his trunk. When he bent over, I was bending over, and I fell off, onto the elephant keeper who was down below. The boss said, ´Okay?´ Yeah. ´Then get back up there.´"

Susan was in her 20s, already into drugs and alcohol, when she joined the circus. "I loved it. I was hired here and sent to Venice, Florida. We traveled the country by train, three shows a day on Saturday. Yes, it´s true we did some of our stuff when we were high. The custom had been to have a party during intermission for the third show, but when I arrived with three other new girls, we changed that. We drank every day. First thing to check when we hit a new town was where the closest bar was. I was not totally drunk most of the time, but I always had a hangover. I slept on a Murphy bed on the train and never missed a performance."

Aerial ballet was cancelled at the end of her third year for economy reasons. The boss wanted her to stay on and work with the elephants, but Susan decided to come home to Seattle. "My self esteem was so low when I left, I turned down an offer of a reference. I didn´t think I was worthy." She moved in with her parents and tried to crack the local theater scene.

Susan still loves the circus, and especially the animals. She goes whenever the circus is in the area. It´s not like old times, though. The elephant trainer she knew was killed and the tiger trainer retired while he was still in one piece. She has to go to Everett to see it now because of strong animal rights opposition in Seattle.

Susan doesn´t disagree with the animal rights movement. "I feel differently about the animals now. It is an unnatural existence. But I love them and I love the circus."

Devastated when she didn´t get the role in a play she wanted, Susan drifted through a variety of jobs-bartender, cocktail waitress, waitress. Before the circus, she was a hippy in the U. District for awhile, and a long distance operator for Ma Bell. She enrolled at UW after graduating from Lincoln High School, but lasted only half a quarter.

She and her hippy buddies moved to Hollywood, where a wonderful new life of alternative religion, alternative foods, alternative movies and alternative clothes awaited them. But it only lasted a year. Susan came home to an escalating addiction to booze and drugs.

Back in Seattle, Susan knew something was wrong. She first tried to sober up in 1980 when she went to the Northwest Treatment Center. But the program didn´t deal with drugs. She was soon back out, spending all her money on cocaine and kiting checks. Only help from her parents kept her afloat. They even bought her a house and saw to it that the payments were made.

Then Susan got into a Listerine phase, buying two bottles at one drug store, two at another, and so on. It was when she was drunk on Listerine that she got her DWI. The kindly cop, himself with 19 years of sobriety, drove her home and helped her get probation. She went to Residence 12 for inpatient treatment and got off the booze, but was still a drug addict.

"Nothing had worked for me, so I decided to try Alcoholics Anonymous. Immediately, I knew if I let go of A.A., I would die. Then the Second Step took hold ("Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.") With the Second Step, the lights came on. I quit booze and drugs at the same time." That was on April 15, 1989, her sobriety date. "I realized that I had left God. God had not left me."

She became a regular at Fremont Hall, making coffee, doing all the scut work of a newcomer while doing 90 meetings in 90 days. Ten years later, she realized she needed to renew her commitment and did another 90-90 and all the steps. Her home group is now Water´s Edge.

"A.A. has saved my life," Susan said. "It´s given me a chance to do things differently. This is the only place I know where everyone wants everyone to succeed and do better.

"I am so grateful, so blessed."

Interviewing and writing by Dick S.