Geri F., an outstanding Lake Washington High School athlete in Kirkland in the 50s, changed careers at the age of 16 and got married. She also quit school and was a mother that same year. Seven of her classmates "were in the same boat," Geri recalled. "It must have been something in the Kirkland water."

Geri and her husband George are now longtime mainstays of Alcoholics Anonymous in Seattle, but they only got there on separate paths of nearly unbelievable pain and chaos.

Geri´s marriage ended when she was 18. She moved to Capitol Hill and entered a hard-swinging party scene while her mother cared for her young son. "The city was pulsing," she recalled. "I just had to play. There was great music everywhere. Jazz especially. Every weekend, I was at an all-night club and weekdays I worked as an accountant. I never finished high school, but I learned accounting on the job. That was my career all my working life."

George F. beat Geri to sobriety by almost exactly three years. His sobriety date is April 12, 1975, and hers, April 17, 1978. For George, "it was the end of a long road. I was just worn out, physically, mentally and financially." He´d been belting the booze since he was an 18 year old kid in Yakima. He moved to Seattle when he was 25 to get higher pay than his hardware clerk job, and to get married. "Everyone I knew was getting married and settling down. I figured I needed to too."

These two goals produced lifetime changes for George. He started a long career with Boeing, got married and fathered six children-three boys and three girls-- before he and his wife were divorced 30 years later. But he was drinking progressively more day by day.

Geri, meanwhile, was following her own path. Once she discovered booze at 19, there was no limit ,though like George, she always held a job. That despite "a few blackouts here and there." Two years into the partying scene, she married her second husband and eventually produced five more children. She has five boys and a daughter. Along with the 12 children, their combined family now has 25 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Geri´s kids were teenagers who´d been " taking care of themselves while I was drinking. With sobriety, the war was on. I insisted they go to Alateen, and now our relationship with a sober grandmother and mom is great. They forgave me long before I forgave myself."

Before she got to that point, though, Geri did some heavy stuff. Her husband was a successful salesman and between the two of them, she says, "we got into a big party scene which eventually winnowed down just to the serious drinkers. One time, I was filming my husband dancing with some broad. There was a fight, but I have no memory it it. There was lots of fighting that landed me in the hospital lots of times. I stayed with him for 11 years because of the kids, but it really got violent at the end. The last time I was in the hospital, he took the kids and hid ´em out.

"There was a big custody battle in which he got the boys and I got my daughter. He accused me of alcoholism. Imagine!" The trial´s outcome stopped her drinking for awhile, but then she drifted into other boozing relationships, including one with more physical abuse. Geri was working for her boyfriend when she found her children were in foster care. That´s what led her into A.A. for the first time. An alcoholism counselor got her to go to the Empire Way meeting, and she was then able to get her children back.

George, meanwhile, learned to drink at 18 to overcome his shyness. "I had a 1929 Model A that got me in with a bad crowd. One time, we were out cruising for girls with a gallon of wine when a cop stopped us. The toughest guy in the group sang like a canary and we all ended up in the drunk tank without even time to get drunk."

As time went on, George said, "I found when I drank I couldn´t stop. I´ll tell you when I´ve had enough," he said to many a bartender.

When he got to Seattle and married, his drinking got worse and worse. "I was blowing money, not caring for myself. I became a common drunk. When I could find my car, I´d sleep in it. Excuses, excuses, excuses-the whole demoralizing thing."

His then-wife gave him some A.A. pamphlets which he pretended to ignore, but he sneaked into the bathroom to read them. "I tried to cut down, but of course it didn´t work. All night, all day, all the time. I couldn´t stay at work till lunch. I had to sneak out mid-morning and get a shot."

But finally, George decided enough was enough. He tried to find A.A.´s phone number, without success. (Then as now, A.A. is almost anonymous in the Seattle phone book. There are 18 listings of alcohol-related programs before "Alcoholics Anonymous" finally appears.) Then, he saw the number in the Kent-Renton newspaper and the rest, as they say, is history.

George continues: "Mary Ball´s mother answered the phone. When Mary called back, she said she´d have a man call me. After I spent three days in bed and the bathtub to try to control the jitters, he arrived and took me to my first meeting, the Renton group. I have not had a drink since."

It wasn´t that quick for Geri. She came to A.A. in 1976 in her child custody battle and stayed sober almost a year. When she thought a glass of wine would be okay, she was drunk again for another year-and-a-half, until a doctor got her to go to treatment. To get her to stay, two women in the Fellowship sat with her that whole first night. After 31 days in the treatment center, she emerged sober and went back to the Empire Way group.

She and George knew each other from her beginning in the program. George, divorced now, began asking her to have coffee. "He told me he was going to marry me," Geri said. "The pursuit was on." He won, and with nine years of sobriety for him and six for her, they were married.

"I predicted World War III ´cause we both were used to being in charge," Geri said. "But we ironed out a lot of issues before we were married. But - yeah, we ironed some out afterward too. That first year was something else. But we have a good marriage, 24 years now and counting."

"I agree," said George. It helped that he had a long and successful career with Boeing. He started as a draftsman after learning his craft by correspondence, and later worked in flight testing on many of Boeing´s most famous planes: the 707, 727, 737, KC 135 and the 767. But "I don´t like to toot my own horn," George said.

With sobriety, both have been leading contributors to A.A.´s outreach. "I just loved A.A. when I got here," George said. "They were teachers, not preachers. After I was sober for a year or so, I was asked to go to McNeil (prison). I said no, I was trying to stay out of prison. But then, on a trip to California, I went to Tehachapi Men´s Prison with some members. I thought, ´I can do that,´ and so, for the next 25 years, he was active in Seattle Intergroup´s Corrections Committee, much of the time as chairman. King County Jail, McNeil, Monroe, work release: he was there for all of them.

""I´m not doing it anymore," George said. "The age difference became too great. It was too difficult to relate."

Geri has also been active in Corrections, and both have been chairpersons of Intergroup, one after the other. Both have had many other service commitments. There´s also life outside of A.A. They travel all over the map selling the travel accessories that Geri makes. Geri golfs (at one time, with oldtimer Al Wilson) and George builds computers in spite of having once said, "I don´t want any damn computers in this house." Now there are a dozen. He also collects stamps. George had just returned from a backpacking trip at the time of this interview.

They aren´t quite on the same page with regard to the third Step. "I believe God gave me a vocation to carry the message," Geri said. "Meetings and God got me, a loner, connected to the human race."

George says that "spiritually, there´s some connection now that I didn´t know before." But he certainly carries the message.

They both do speaking at meetings "to thank the fellowship for what it ´s done for us," Geri said. "You never know who will be in the audience that can be changed."

"A.A. is everything to me," George said. "It´s given me a chance to rebuild a shattered, pathetic life, to be the father my kids deserve, to be a good husband and a good employee. What more could I ask?"

Interviewed and written by Dick S.