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It took her awhile, but when Vimla K. decided it was time to sober up, she went all the way.

Through two troubled marriages in India, Vimla had learned, not only to drink, but to chew tobacco, smoke two packages of cigarettes a day, abuse sleeping pills, eat meat and eggs in violation of her strict Buddhist Vedic upbringing, and get involved in numerous "relationships," With sobriety on Nov. 9, 1999, all that bad stuff went out the door and she set out to build a new life.

Now, she´s in the U.S. on a visitor´s visa. She´s been visiting her son in the Seattle area, and is now in New Jersey making amends to her daughter, who, she says, is still mad at her for wrecking her childhood. While here, she came by the Intergroup office to tell her story.

Vimla is nothing if not ambitious. Her first choice is permanent residency in the U.S. If that doesn´t happen, she wants to go back to India to start Intergroup offices around the sub-continent. "There´s nothing like that there," she said, "and they´re badly needed, especially for women. There are lots of hidden alcoholic women in my country who need help. I´m looking for a group to sponsor me to get started."

She also dreams of establishing a rehabilitation center, again for women only. "Our women alcoholics are not coming out for help. When I go to meetings, I´m the only woman there. I believe that once we can get such a program started, the floodgates will open."

Vimla was raised in north-central India, the daughter of a famous Brahmin Vedic scholar and teacher. She was brought up in the strict sanctions of this ancient religion. Married at 17 and soon the mother of a daughter and a son, Vimla found she had little interest in her life as a housewife. It was her job to stay home, raise the children and obey her husband.

Her husband, though a Brahmin, did not come from a priestly family. Marital and religious conflict became central to her life. "I built up a huge resentment toward my husband. I felt there was no regard for my feelings from the very first day we were married. I decided to be self-sufficient."

But how? She wasn´t supposed to be out of the house. "Discretely," she slipped out to study to be a secretary. But not discretely enough. Her husband found out and their relationship went from bad to worse. At this point, the Brahmin principal of the local college lent a hand.

"He was impressed with my goals," Vimla said. But he taught in English, and she did not know the language. Solution? She began studying her children´s school books. Both were learning English in a Montessori school, "and that´s how I learned it too."

There was more. In the 70s, her husband got a job with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), assigned to Kabul, Afghanistan. Paradoxically, she had more freedom there than at home, so she seized the opportunity to learn both Gregg and Pitman shorthand. Not to mention touch typing. Vimla says she can type 120 words per minute.

Eventually, this choice life ended when the Russians invaded Afghanistan and USAID pulled out of the country. Back in India, the marriage disintegrated into separation. Vimla found a new husband almost immediately "because I had to have someone take care of the children." But "it shattered my father. If a woman divorces, it´s okay as long as she doesn´t remarry. I was rejected socially, kept from my children (her first husband got them), and estranged from my family."

Vimla decided she had to strengthen the marriage she had, so had a child. It didn´t work. Her husband lost his job through excessive drinking. "Food was short. I had to sell off my jewelry to pay the rent. Even the day our son was born, my husband was off drinking. I decided I had to focus on my own career."

She got a job teaching English and Hindi to small children. (Vimla says she is fluent in Hindi; her native language, in addition to Tamil; English, Maylaysian, Persian and Bengali.) but It didn´t pay enough, though, so she went door to door on a job hunt. Her new dress for success saris had to be bought on the installment plan.

Eventually, a lawyer hired her for her shorthand skills and she began a sprint up the ladder of success. "There were good jobs and good money," Vimla said. "When I got another promotion into marketing, I had to be with the trend. That´s when I started smoking and drinking vodka and orange juice. I worked for a liquor business, so the liquor flowed free. There were lots of privileges: a house, a car, free cigarettes and drinks. I kept climbing the ladder to regional manager and finally vice president and general manager. This was the top of my career.

"My drinking increased, and my personality changed along with it. I had big shotism, glitter, glamour, money, position and multiple boyfriends."

Meanwhile, her husband began vomiting blood. "A friend said her husband had had the same problem and she´d gotten him into a rehabilitation center. "Until then, I´d never heard of A.A. I got him in for six months. When he came out, he was profoundly changed. While he got better, I got worse. He still wasn´t making any money, but he was working his program 24 hours a day-many, many 12 Step calls. I resented him. It was awful. I joined Al Anon to share my feelings, but they told me I wasn´t Al-Anon, I was A.A.

"My husband didn´t say anything, just said it wouldn´t hurt if I started going to meetings. So I did, on Nov. 9, 1999 for the first time. I stood up and admitted I had some problems. Once I did that, I stopped drinking.

"It was extraordinary for a woman to admit she was an alcoholic. Anonymity was doubly important to me because of my job."

But then, her wonderful job ended when the business closed. From then on, it was a hand-to-mouth existence for Vimla and her son. When her husband got a job at last, she thought, "Thank God, he´s going to take care of me. But instead, he said he wanted to live alone.

"I think God was punishing me because I had not been a good girl."

Times were desperate until her older children, now adults and living in this country, began to send her money. They are also paying for their young brother´s education.

Vimla is tired of depending on others for support. She hopes her plans for a rehab center will restore her independence. Meanwhile, it´s a day at a time in a life she never expected to be so fulfilling. "A.A. is everything to me," she declared.

Interviewing and writing by Dick S.