Today, I know what it means to have wings. Delicate and fragile, yes, but with them you can soar-they restore everything ever taken from you and give you the gentle and abiding grace of God.

My name is Harriett Pouyadou and I have my wings today. Ever so grateful because I know the Journey I took to get to the place I was given them, a long and hard one for sure...but I would take nothing for the journey now.

Here is my story.

I began watching Daddy drink when I was young. The disease of Alcoholism would later kill him, and young, way to young to die. I can remember him asking me not to leave him through tears when I would want to go out with friends. Right then I knew something was wrong. I swore I would never drink like my Daddy who died at 42, but I did. I gave up my choice in drink or rather the bottle took it from me after alcoholism had me in its grip. This Disease is insidious, insane and it will kill you. I sat by my fathers bedside and watched him die due to chronic untreated alcoholism. The doctors had told him to stop drinking but he didn't know how and there was no AA in the South, in the early 50's and no treatment centers so people just died, like my Daddy, & like so many still do. This disease took me places I thought I would never go and to bottoms I thought I would never reach. But for the grace of God I would still be drinking today. Rather, I would probably have already lost my life to this disease. I am ever-so grateful that I have this day and I am sober.

I grew up in the small town of Donaldsonville. I never had a drink in high school, we just didn't drink. None of us thinks that they want to grow up and be an alcoholic. When I graduated from high school I went to Georgia Baptist School of Nursing. I had always wanted to be a nurse. I first started drinking in college. My roommates were "Party Dolls" and they were determined to get me drunk and they did. I graduated from college and became a registered Nurse. I had met a young man in my senior year in college we got engaged and then married. I soon found out that I was not good at being a wife. As an Alcoholic in recovery today, I know that my serenity is directly proportionate to my expectations. We have to be careful of what we expect of other people. I gave my husband the responsibility of making me happy. I thought that was what marriage was all about, he was incapable of that and that's when my drinking started. I was the typical housewife alcoholic. We protect that American housewife alcoholic until she is nearly dead. The same thing happened to me.

Lewis and I have 4 wonderful children. They were and are the light of my life. Lewis is a very good father, I just drove him crazy with my drinking. I used to hide my alcohol everywhere in the house. I hid it in the washing machine thinking he didn't wash clothes and he wouldn't have a clue, or at least that was what I thought. Later that would change, he would take my car keys, and make sure there was not any alcohol in the house. That never stopped me, I would call a taxi and get the driver to bring a bottle to the house. He would put it in a rolled up newspaper, hand me the paper and leave. Alcoholics are going to get their alcohol, there is nothing that can stop us. The only thing that can happen is we get a desire to stop. It took a lot for me. I thank God he gave me the desire. Louis and I divorced, after many tries to stay together, I had been drinking heavily the day we went to court. He wanted everything, I gave him everything. I even gave him custody of our children. It was not a benevolent act, this was all about alcoholism. I know what it means to burn with a desire to drink that is so overpowering that family, friends, jobs and even children mean nothing. I am not proud of that but that is the kind of alcoholic I was and that house, that business, that husband even those beautiful children were interfering with my drinking. When something interferes with an alcoholic's drinking it's got to go.

I moved to Atlanta and the next few years are a blur. I functioned a long time as an alcoholic. Then, when work started interfering with my drinking I quit. A Doctor  took me to my first AA meeting. Something within me cried out for help. I knew I needed it, and by that time only God himself could help me. He did. I am ever-so-grateful today because He did. I had finally come to a point where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I had come to a place where I had lost everything in life, but my life. I had lost everything that was near and dear to me. Reason would tell me to just give up and die, but God had other plans.

I made it to the Home of Grace for Women in 1986. I found a love there I didn't know existed. It was the Love of God and that love taught me that I was worthwhile and worth saving. It's the same thing I tell my clients is available to them when they come down Hallelujah Lane, the Love of God. If they have a desire He is able.

Recovery is truly a process, like life itself. We in recovery know that we have each day, a new day. The day we have is a gift. It cannot be taken for granted. We cannot forget we have this disease. We have a daily reprieve from alcoholism based upon our relationship to God.

I can truly say that I understand and have compassion for women who go back to their old way of drinking and into the grip of addiction for I did myself. After 9 years of sobriety I relapsed. I lost sight of the steps involved in recovery and I picked up that first drink. Thank God, I made it back. That was 6 years ago. I have not had a drink since. One day at a time. It sounds so simple and indeed it is. I simply offer my very life and will to the care of God with each new morning. That's what I tell my clients to do.

Today I know that I have to give much to get much. I give what was freely given to me by God and the caring souls who made it their business to care. I am now a counselor at the Home of Grace for Women in Eight Mile. I tell the ladies that they are precious and they have not gotten to the Home of Grace by accident but by divine appointment. For you see God runs the Home of Grace we just work there. We do His work and oh what miracles we see!

The ladies that come down Hallelujah Lane are beaten and broken by alcohol and drugs. They are often resigned to a sense of helplessness and despair. That they have their lives is a miracle by the time they make it to the Home of Grace. I tell the ladies that I see them as butterflies, they call me the Butterfly Lady, the butterflies God means for them to become, fragile and beautiful and able to soar with delicate grace. They arrive as caterpillars in a seemingly settled cocoon. By the time they have completed their program at the Home of Grace they earn their wings. To get them they must put in sweat and tears and many sleepless nights. What they get is a gift from God above. I truly believe that every lady that makes it to the Home of Grace is a miracle.

My life is happy and full today. I was married in the Home of Grace chapel to a Cajun Gentleman who is the love of my life, Harry Pouyadou. We were married by Brother Charles. We share life and all of its complexities and graces together and without the Home of Grace this wouldn't be possible. My joy is made full when I give my ladies their butterfly wings, when I see lives changed and miracles happen. God indeed is good and His is able. That which addiction steals He can more than restore.

There is joy at the Home of Grace. There is Love there, and there is recovery. I hope to give many more wings in my time here, I know I will, and with that I thank God for this awesome gift He gives me with each new day.