Forty nine years of sobriety comes with a considerable track record, both good and bad. Exhibit A in that regard is today's interviewee, Betty M.

Betty grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin, the daughter of hard-drinking parents. "One of my earliest memories is my uncle showing up at our place on Saturday night with a jug of moonshine, pure alcohol. He and my dad and my mother would proceed to get drunk. I never got over the way those guys would choke that bottle up and take a big long drink and make this horrible face and then say 'Oh, boy, that was good.'

"Grandma and I drank root beer and my grandpa drank milk. My grandparents, who lived with us, were teetotalers. We all ate crackers and cheese with homemade horseradish and listened to the radio every Saturday night.

'I never drank at all 'til I graduated high school in 1949.' (A touch of the Upper Midwest still lingers in Betty's speech. Out here, it's "graduated from high school"). Betty got married shortly after graduation and moved to Baraboo, Wisconsin for a couple of years. Betty went to work in a bakery. One day, the boss took all the sales girls to dinner, starting out with grasshoppers. "I kinda liked those, so I had another one, and then another one. I got a little carried away, but it helped me speak up for myself and get over my shyness.

"I didn't do any more drinking 'til there was another party, this one put on by my husband's boss. Well, I proceeded to get drunk, and watch a big shot's wife play up to the boss of bosses. She told him how much she loved his cocktail glasses, so he promptly said he'd buy her a half dozen. When we were leaving, she started smarting off about those glasses. I told her that if the rest of us wanted to get our butts patted like she did, we'd all have gotten some.

'I was so embarrassed the next day, but everyone thought it was pretty neat, and her husband wasn't mad at all."

Not long after, Betty and her husband were divorced and she married again. She didn't drink very often, but when she did, she made up for lost time. "It became a big thing, big deal" she said. "'Hey, Betty's drinkin'. Oh, hey, look at this. It's gonna be a big party tonight.' I thought it was fun, and I could get out on the dance floor. I couldn't dance without being drunk."

The young couple lived in Illinois for a few months before packing up and moving to Seattle to "straighten out my dad." It seems her father and mother had divorced, and her father had moved to Seattle and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. "I had a fit. I didn't want my dad to be in A. A. No way was he a drunk. He was just lonely. So we put some money together and came out here to straighten him out. By the time we got here, Dad was drinking again.

"Cecil and I soon got a divorce, but I decided to stay in Seattle and drink with Dad. Dad was in and out of A.A. When he was drinking, he never missed work; but he was never quite sober. That went on for a couple of years. When he wasn't drinking, I'd go to the Alano dances on Saturday nights. That was a wonderful time in A.A. I don't know how anyone stays sober without a good Alano Club. There were a lot of young men in the program then and not too many young women.

'I'd go there sober, and the next night I'd call my drinking buddies and get smashed. My dad would show up the next day with a couple of beers and a can of tomato juice. He was taking care of me.

"The Alano Club at that time was in a beautiful stone house on Capitol Hill. That was around 1954 or '55. Those dances were something special. Everyone dressed up. One couple came in formal wear. He'd be in a tux and she wore a formal. We had a band of professional musicians. They'd play for our dances when they didn't have a paying gig. We had good music and a huge dance floor. It was so much fun!

'We were like a little village right in the middle of Seattle. I could go downtown any time and be sure of running into at least one A.A. member. I loved it!

"In 1956, I married a merchant marine named Eddie. He was a friend of my dad's through A.A. My last real drunk was with Eddie. A friend of his in the merchant marines threw this big party in a downtown hotel when he got paid and we all got drunk: me, the street walkers and the sailors. And I had my first and only blackout. I was talking to the host, Red, and everything went blank. I had no idea how I got home. Eddie thought it was pretty funny when I almost got hauled off to jail. The cops were downstairs arresting a guy, and I told 'em to leave him alone. But Eddie got me home, and I was soooo sick.

'The next morning, a friend brought me half a bottle of whiskey to get well, but I didn't do much drinking after that. A couple of months later, Eddie shipped out, but before he left, he asked me to talk to a friend of his about my tranquilizers. I was addicted to those too. We talked all weekend, and he finally said, 'I think you're an alcoholic.' This was 1957. I called a friend, Kathy, and asked if she'd be my sponsor. She grabbed me and hugged me and said 'I'm so happy! We've wondered what could be the matter. You were always so distant, never let anybody get close.' I told her it was 'cause if people knew me, they wouldn't like me.

"So Kathy became my sponsor, and she was a good, good sponsor. I was only 26, but I was sober. My sobriety date is March 4, 1957, 49 years of good and bad, but mostly good. Kathy saw to it that I went to a lot of meetings, and I still loved the dances. I thought of them as 12th Step work.

'I did a lot of work with Eddie's sponsees. I shepherded them like loving chicks. I suppose I nagged them too. One guy got drunk and sobered up in our place. Before he did, he drank all my perfume and then the Listerine that he was selling out of his house. Eddie finally said, 'Stop giving him that Listerine.' Well, I told him, he was sure a sweet smelling drunk.

'Later on, when he was sober, he was over for dinner and I couldn't find the vinegar. 'Well, I sure didn't drink that,' he said."

Along about this time, Eddie and Betty moved to Miami Beach for a few months. She liked the Alano Club and the people there, and once roasted a 22-pound turkey for everyone for Thanksgiving. "Such fun! The best Thanksgiving I can remember."

The Miami stay didn't last long, and two days after the couple returned to Seattle, they separated. Friends said was a mistake, That they'd never stay sober. Betty had some trouble staying sober, but her dad, now permanently an A.A. member, helped her through her bad time. Then she met her fourth husband, Les, and for the next seven years it was a good relationship. They lived most of that time in Spokane, where her service specialty was speaking to groups of high school girls. Because of her own youthfulness, she related well to the kids. Sadly, Les died of cancer in 1969.

Still in Spokane, Betty was secretary of a meeting when she met Don and they were married. They moved around the state while she and Don went to various colleges. He got a master's degree at Eastern Washington University while Betty was earning her bachelor's degree. It was a life full of challenges. A baby was stillborn, and then in 1988 Don became ill with Lou Gehrig's disease, and died in 1988. The Phoenix Club, and her many friends in A.A., helped her through these crises. 'God helped me, too." In 1996, Betty moved to a small farm in Darrington and has stayed ever since. She learned to ride horseback and, with her housemates, has made the farm into a prizewinning wild animal sanctuary which has twice been named the best in the state.

Betty is winding down now, no longer very active in the program. She's paying the price for a lifetime of smoking; she's on oxygen around the clock. But she continues to reach out to others. Last year, she was the speaker at a Seattle A.A. meeting. 'I couldn't stop crying. I'd say a few words and cry. When I sat down, I thought all anybody would take away from the meeting was the memory of a crying, hysterical woman. But there was a man there new to A.A. He told me later that he thought to himself, 'If she can stand up there and cry in front of all those people, embarrassed as she obviously was, I can try this program.'

'And he very soon got his life back. I saw him later at a Monroe meeting I was chairing and had the pleasure of calling on him to speak."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.