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ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Meet Challenges Editor & Publisher, Donna Bailey-Thompson.

The only child of a one-parent family (her father died before she was born; her mother was a career woman, first by choice and then by necessity), Donna was a latchkey kid before the phrase was invented.

At 18 she married a scholar, continued her education, adopted two children, and divorced. Two more marriages followed--both to alcoholics. One was mentally and physically abusive, the other emotionally cruel. It was during the third marriage that she came to recognize what constitutes alcoholism.

Once she realized she was not "too good" for Al-Anon, she became an active member, and also participated in four private family treatment programs and various facilitated support groups as well as one-on-one therapy. Also, to further her recovery and expand her knowledge, she attended seminars, workshops, read and studied extensively the effects of alcoholism on "significant others."

She has 13,000+ hours of peer counseling experience, has facilitated "Women Who Love Too Much" groups, and has 25 years' experience as a freelance writer and/or editor. The basis of her autobiographical book-length manuscript, Stark Raving Sober, was a Northeast (Hartford) magazine cover story (January, 1983).

She was happily married from 1989 until her husband's sudden collapse (full cardiac arrest) in 1995.