'Coming together under sobriety's roof'    

A Couple tops off new life with new house 

Rosemary Harris: The Gazette

When    As they move into their new 2,600-square-foot, stucco custom home in Soaring Eagles, a development in southeast Colorado Springs, they'll be remembering their connection to another house: Eighth Street ALANO. It's the central gathering place for 12-step programs where the McGees met nearly seven years ago, fell in love and learned how to live without drinking or taking drugs.  "I was 40 years old when I first walked into ALANO," Kevin McGee said. "I had nothing. But now I have to rewrite my wish list because I have everything: an awesome wife, two sons, a new home, my own business, sobriety, spirituality - and it's all linked directly to ALANO."

Eighth Street ALANO, formerly the Serenity Club, will mark its own milestone soon: six years of housing 12-step programs, including Alcoholics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous, which organizers say have helped lead thousands to recovery.   ALANO hosts at least four meetings each day, every day of the week, including holidays, every week of the year. At least 300 people attend meetings each week, manager Patrick K. said.   "ALANO saves lives," Karen McGee said.  "It saved mine."

It's hard to tell how many people might need alcoholism and drug recovery services at any given time, said Deb Hallisy, executive director of Full Circle Alternatives, a house for women recovering from alcohol or drug abuse. "The population is so transient. People feel a great need for treatment at one moment and no need for it the next. Some are in denial and some just hide."   

Kevin McGee, 47, a Colorado Springs native, said he didn't start drinking to become addicted. "It was an experiment; me and a 10-year-old bottle of sake." Although he didn't drink every day, when he did drink, he couldn't stop until he blacked out.

It cost him a high-diving scholarship, he said, a relationship with his family, good jobs and his freedom. "When I was in the Denver County jail on my fifth DUI offense, I was finally willing to do anything anybody wanted me to do to get sober. I was done. I was at my bottom."

Karen McGee, 41, also a Springs native, said she started drinking because her parents allowed it. "We were always allowed to take little sips of whatever they were drinking." She liked it and seemed to tolerate it, and started binging when she was 13 years old. "I could go weeks or months without it." On one of her binges, though, Karen's former husband dragged her out of a bar, took her to her family and said she couldn't come home until she got sober. It was a terrifying wake-up call.  Coincidentally, she and her future husband almost simultaneously started their path to recovery at ALANO.

Although AA wisdom says those in recovery should attend 90 meetings in their first 90 days sober, Kevin McGee went to 200 meetings in 90 days. Karen McGee went to almost as many. They found each other at a meeting. "I had never been sober in a relationship - until Karen," Kevin said. "I wasn't sure I knew how to do it."   Their son Shawn was born four years ago, and Ian came along 18 months ago. Last year, on July 22, they got married.  

 Both see ALANO as their home away from home and its founder, Coyt Shirley, as a godfather of sorts. He helped them find jobs and served as their sounding board during recovery.   In many ways, Shirley already knew their story because he had lived it. A recovering alcoholic, he took over the beleaguered Serenity Club in 1996, renaming it ALANO because he wanted to offer the same hope that helped him beat his addiction, stay alive and help others stay alive.  "There was a time when people had bets on whether I would blow my own head off," said Kevin McGee, who now owns DecksRUs, a custom installation business, volunteers at ALANO and recently completed Top Gun, a men's ministry training program at First Presbyterian Church.   But all my dreams have come true."