About the Founder
I took my first drink, under peer pressure, the night I graduated from High School at age 17. I felt an inexplicable warmth throughout my chest and then, eight minutes of euphoria. I chased the effect that alcohol produced in me, for 19 years.
My Story
By the time I was 20 years of age, I had moved into using marijuana and psychedelics. I received a DUI (Driving Under the Influence of alcohol or drugs) at the legal drinking age of 21 and another at 22. I didn’t understand that I had an allergy to alcohol that prevented me from stopping after I took the first drink. I didn’t understand that I had an obsession with alcohol that kept telling me “This time it will be different”.
My co-workers would say, “Let’s go have a drink after work”, and I would hear “a” drink, but it was never just one. I took a drink; the drink took a drink and then the drink took me…. DOWN …down a path of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. As a child, I hadn’t aspired to be an alcoholic when I grew up. My mother was an alcoholic, and I swore that I would never be like her, but I didn’t understand that no amount of willpower could overcome genetics. Heredity often chooses our disposition, and I was pre-disposed to alcoholism.
Alcohol was my drug of choice, however, I found myself doing illicit drugs to get sober enough to drink more. I didn’t know that alcoholism is a disease, and my dis-ease took me into drinking in the morning, drinking all day, drinking on the job, and drinking to pass out at night. In August of 1988 at age 36, I lost a job due to my drinking. It was not the first time I had lost a job or quit a job just before I lost it, due to my drinking, but this time was different. I was told very gently by the owners of the business that my health insurance would cover me for 30 days. Deep in my soul, I knew what that meant. It meant that I should get help.
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I left Bloomington, Illinois, and traveled 1989 miles to get sober (drinking and drugging the whole way to keep from getting seriously ill). I threw my last drink out at the “Welcome to Richland” sign in Washington state. This was but a bare beginning. Within a few days, I checked myself into an inpatient alcohol recovery center in Oregon, where I studied a 12-step program and was introduced to a new lifelong adventure of sustaining my sobriety through practicing the twelve steps daily.
On August 29th, 2023, I celebrated 35 years of being clean and sober and an asset to my friends, family and community. Today my children love me unconditionally. Today I have a host of “real” friends, not just fair-weather friends. Today I can say I have had an 18-year career in a prominent position at a Fortune 500 company, not just a job. Today I have opportunities I never dreamed existed.
I pay my debt to society by helping other women stay clean and sober and become assets. There are no words to express my love for sobriety and continuing zest for a life well lived. I am grateful.
As a mother of a chemically dependent 47-year-old daughter wanting and needing recovery, I panicked when I found no viable solutions within the Washington State area. I researched treatment leads for nearly a year while my daughter continued to medicate her mental health issues with alcohol and street drugs.
On October 8, 2018, my daughter attempted suicide rather than continue down the path she was on. In doubling my efforts, I found that almost all therapy facilities do not counsel on drug and alcohol addiction. I found that almost all chemical dependency facilities have total abstinence policies, meaning no medical and mental health treatment through psychiatry.
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My last straw was to send my daughter to a co-ed, overcrowded, big business, high-risk of relapse, treatment facility in Dallas, TX hoping that she might find a solution. Due to the lack of counseling support, after care, relapse prevention, and stable medications, she struggled for another 24 months of active addiction, waffling between sobriety, and using.
As an alcoholic woman, 35+ years in recovery, I feel a sense of urgency in creating a path of permanent recovery for young women along with a path for many other mothers facing dead ends.
Donnie’s Table is more than just a dream. It’s a need. After working on this Recovery Retreat since November 11, 2018, I know it is destined to become a reality.
Maryann Campbell, Founder
