My name is Kathy Berman and I live in Margate, Florida. My recovery date is 11/24/1976. Having grownup in a home controlled by alcoholism, I was able to see my addiction very early. Thanksgiving, 1976, I told my family that I thought I was an alcoholic. I fully expected everyone to disagree with me.

But, my mother said that she had been afraid of that. So I was stuck with the admission and being the “perfect daughter”, I never drank again and went to AA. I had no idea that I wouldn’t discover until 33 years later than I had experienced PTSD in that home which would continue to shape and direct me.

My third month into recovery, I had a radical conversion as described by William James in his The Varieties of Religious Experience. It was instant and I call it ‘”the moment that changed my life.” So I have been trying since 1977 to hear what God’s will is for my life. Many days I have followed my will and called it His. But there has been progress, too.