Dominic and Valerie met in recovery and to this day go to a 12-step meeting every morning. Dominic’s family affairs all were accompanied by alcohol. Parties and christenings alike all featured drinking, and so he started drinking at these events. By his teens he was also working as a bookie, seeking what he thought was a glamorous life full of fast times, fast money and fast women. Even his time in the military couldn’t stop his addictions. Valerie already had three months sobriety when Dominic met her at an AA meeting. She says her life was totally controlled by alcohol but didn’t realize that she was unique in her relationship with alcohol; she thought everybody drank the way she did. She recalls a drunken incident when young nieces and nephews discovered her late at night crawling to the bathroom, too intoxicated to walk.
