By Carrie Wood
For The Reporter
Holding a gun to her head after drinking all day, Stacy Smalls could no longer take the emotional pain.
But she knew she didn’t want to die.
“I just didn’t want to feel the desperation, isolation and loneliness anymore,” Smalls recalled of the last time she was drunk, during the 3rd Annual Residence XII Benefit Luncheon at the Hyatt Hotel in Bellevue Sept. 24. “How could I do this to my family? My daily life was just too difficult and challenging. I remember crying out loud to God to help me.”
During the event, Smalls shared with several hundred event attendees what life was like as an alcoholic.
She had her first drink at the age of 13 while at a family reunion on Bainbridge Island. The adults had all gone to bed or gone home, and she joined her cousins – one who would later die from alcoholism at age 42 – around a beach bonfire.
“I will always remember that first drink,” Smalls said. “I liked how the warming sensation felt. But what I really liked was how it made me feel. It gave me a sense of self confidence and belonging.”
By the time Smalls started college, her drinking had increased and she convinced herself she was a more cautious driver when she had a couple drinks.
At the age of 26 and en route to a hotel on her wedding night, Smalls was so drunk that her husband had to pull over so she could throw up on the freeway, ironically next to the old Rainier Brewery, she recalled.
“We would go out to night clubs and I would often create a scene where my husband would have to escort me out of the club before the bouncers did.”
At home, she would hide the empty beer bottles in the garbage or hide the wine bottle in the back of the refrigerator so her husband wouldn’t see how fast she was going through the bottle. And if there was no liquor in the house, she would take a couple gulps of Nyquil to help her sleep.
Something had to give.
It finally did the day she held the gun to her head – and found Residence XII.
The Kirkland-based nonprofit organization is only one of two known gender-specific treatment centers in the country for women struggling with chemical dependency.
Last year, 49 percent of the women that the organization served resided in King County, while 6 percent came from out of state.
Opened originally in 1981 on property that belonged to the Catholic Archdiocese at Bastyr University in Kenmore, the facility has since relocated to Kirkland. The organization has treated more than 8,000 women ages 18 and up and their families.
Officials also hope to expand the program in the future as the organization has to turn away an average of five women per month due to lack of funds or program capacity.
Residence XII (the Roman Numeral XII referring to the 12 Step Program of recovery as used in Alcoholics Anonymous) was founded by Margie Clemente, who was able to attain sobriety due to the support she received from other sober women. In the early years of her sobriety she learned that women’s needs were much different than those of men in recovery.
“Being the caretakers that we are, we learn very early on to put aside and minimize our needs for personal identity and growth in the care taking roles we assume as wives and mothers,” said Clemente, honorary chair for the luncheon.
The organization offers intensive in-patient treatment for women and provides them with the tools to take care of themselves.
On a recent afternoon, Pat Dye, director of development, points to a collage on a table that one of the 25 residents put together at Residence XII. Words like “loser” and “dream” headline photos cut from magazines.
When women first arrive at the facility, they are asked to put together a collage of what their life has been like as an addict and what the future might hold.
“We want women to be able to differentiate between the fact that they are not their addict, but that the addict has been running them,” Dye noted.
A pay phone in the dorm hallway dangles off the hook.
During the first week, woman are also prohibited from contacting family or friends. After the first week, she is given a certain amount of time to call home.
“When women come in here, they have to leave behind what’s been going on in their lives, so they can begin to concentrate on themselves,” Dye added.
Treatment includes addressing issues that women commonly face, such as depression and anxiety, dealing with guilt from addiction, trauma related to prior abuse, relationship issues and spirituality. In addition, families are also offered treatment to educate and empower them.
A woman’s length of stay varies from three to five weeks or longer, depending on their initial assessment.
Smalls stayed at Residence XII for seven weeks.
When she first arrived, she was angry and “felt the wall go up,” she said. “I was shown to my room and saw my roommate on her bed with no less than 15 stuffed animals around her. I wasn’t sure what I had gotten myself into.”
During her first meeting, she read the 12 steps of AA on the wall and was enraged when she saw the word “God” mentioned in some of the steps.
“…If I wanted a sermon I would have gone to church,” she told staff, who responded they were there if she wanted help. “All of the sudden, I started to cry uncontrollably and said that I didn’t know how to ask for help.”
The best part of her stay at Residence XII were the group counseling meetings, where she could talk about what was really bothering her and other women understood.
She learned she was the problem in her life – not those around her. She was able to see how “her addict” wanted to keep her drunk and that if she was not willing to be honest with herself, she could not stay sober.
After treatment at Residence XII, Smalls stayed at a clean and sober house for more than a year.
Now, she is on the Residence XII Board of Directors and last year served as president of the Alumnae Association. She also works as a Loss Prevention investigator for Safeway Stores, which donated $20,000 during the luncheon.
“I see the consequences of this disease so often in my work at Safeway and when it affects fellow employees, I try to share with them what I have learned,” added Smalls, who will celebrate her 20th year of sobriety on Nov. 25.
