Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 08/99) - The 70 to 80 Alcoholics Anonymous members in Yellowknife have sworn secrecy about being a member of the group, but that does not stop them from telling their story.

Wally, who is in his 50s, started drinking as a teenager and regularly blacked out.

He started going to bars where he would sit on a stool and drink, alone.

One problem he had, that may have contributed to his drinking was low self-esteem, something he said participating in AA has helped.

The low self-esteem showed itself when he continually tried to one-up people who sat next to him to talk, he said.

"Someone would be sitting down and sooner or later we'd get around to what he did for a living," Wally said.

"Say he was a truck driver. If he was, then I'd become the owner of some big rig and I would have logged miles all over North America."

Wally describes alcohol's effect on him as creating a big ego though it also led him to embellish the truth if not lie.

From that life 10 years ago, Wally has become an advocate of AA's 12-step program.

He said the group has taught him love and compassion as well as boost his self-esteem.

"I lost friends, had blackouts and I used drinking as an escape," he said.

"I couldn't sit one on one and talk with people without drinking."

Wally spoke to the approximately 50 people who attended the annual AA public information luncheon at Northern United Place Sept. 3.

Allison is another AA member who regularly attends meetings.

Her story goes back to the early 1980s when her children were born and she was drinking from morning to night, and enduring blackouts and a lot of the lows many associate with drinking.

"It was the cumulative effect of my drinking that led me to AA," Allison said.

"But what may have been what finally got me to go was my two kids."

Gabriel is another member of the Yellowknife AA group.

He said anyone with a drinking problem who wants to join AA can come to meetings every night of the week.

The 8 p.m. meetings on Tuesday nights at Northern United Place is only one of the locations.

"We're not a club and we're not a cult. We're a fellowship, I guess you'd call it," he said.

"But women are also welcome to join."