Power to persist, and a heart to help

Through the years Jeanne Rheaume has battled the bottle — and cancer. Now, she’s determined to keep fighting the good fight.

No, Jeanne Rheaume wasn’t an only child.

She just felt alone. 

A lot.

That can happen when your identical twin dies just a day after entering the world.

That can happen when you’re the youngest of seven kids, and the sibling closest to your age is 11 years your senior.

That can happen when the mother you adore dies when you’ve just turned 10.

Yet as her childhood began to morph into adolescence, Jeanne Rheaume didn’t just feel alone without her mom there to comfort and guide her.

She felt responsible for her death.

THE MISSING QUARTER

“I was terrified of God as a child,” Jeanne remembered. “Looking back, I thought I was a good Catholic school girl because of that.”

Jeanne grew up in Waltham, Mass., about 10 miles outside of Boston. Nearly 80 years later, you can still tell, especially when she says “Decem-bah” or “remem-bah.”

She attended St. Mary Parish and studied the catechism, recited prayers from memory, and faithfully attended Mass each Sunday and on holy days of obligation.

Her mother, Mary, contracted rheumatic fever as a child and the illness weakened her heart well into adulthood.

“This one week my mother was sick and she hated to go to the doctor’s,” Jeanne recalled. “So my dad told her to stay in bed all day. If she got up, dad said he would take her in.”

Young Jeanne, meanwhile, was heading off to school and raced upstairs to tell her mother goodbye. But first she had a question.

“I asked my mom for a quarter. Mom said, ‘Not today. My purse is downstairs.’ ”

A disappointed Jeanne trudged down the steps. But before leaving the house, she had an idea: She would rummage through her mother’s purse and pull out a shiny quarter. After all, no one would ever know.

“I remember the priest coming into our classroom at school that afternoon,” Jeanne said. “He told me my mother had died.”

Jeanne began weeping, then begging God to bring her mother back to life. She even promised to return the quarter if He did.

“When I got home from school, they were carrying her out of the house. It was horrible. I thought it was my fault because I took the quarter.”

TROUBLE AT HOME

Fast-forward a few years and Jeanne Rheaume is now 18. She’s living on her own after getting the blessing of her priest, Father Sullivan.

“He was a younger priest,” Jeanne said. “He was cool.”

She had confided in Father Sullivan after her dad had married another woman who never had kids. The stepmom just didn’t understand Jeanne, who had graduated from Catholic school and was working for an attorney at the time.

“Father Sullivan talked to both my dad and my stepmom. Afterward, he told me to move out, so I did.”

Jeanne grew to love the freedom and independence — but relished the night life even more. She remembered an invitation that would lead to her life spiraling out of control.

“My cousin called me and said we’re going to a restaurant-bar to hear some music,” Jeanne reflected. “I fell in love with the nightclub atmosphere.”

Not long after, she began a love affair with alcohol. So did her husband, Gil DeCouto. Jeanne married him when she was just 20, and within two and a half years, the couple would be raising three children together. If that weren’t stressful enough, Gil was taking night classes at Northeastern University, while Jeanne was waitressing part-time.

“We moved to the suburbs and we would get together with neighbors,” Jeanne said. “My husband began drinking more and it was really affecting him. He had gotten a DUI.”

Despite repeated warnings, Gil continued to drink even more heavily. Jeanne, meanwhile, was becoming more frustrated.

The two separated in 1969 and divorced a year later.

“I had enough of all his broken promises. I wanted a divorce.”

Once again, Jeanne felt alone even though she now had four children to raise. She took a job tending bar at a popular dance club to make ends meet.

“While I was at the bar, my oldest daughter would baby-sit the other kids,” she said. “I loved the atmosphere. I started going out more to bars and drinking on my days off.”

In December of 1974, Jeanne was working on Christmas Eve when she received a call at the club. It was a police officer wanting to know where her best friend, Beverly, was. He had some news to share about Beverly’s children.

Jeanne remembers exactly what the officer told her.

“There’s been a fire in her home and three of her four kids are dead. One of her boys lit a candle and it started the fire.”

Distraught, Jeanne quit her job a few days later.

“It really got me thinking. I said, ‘I can’t tend bar anymore. I thought something like that could happen to my own children when I was out at night. So I went back to office work. I was always good at what I did.”

Except knowing when to say when.

A CRY FOR HELP

The year was 1982. Michael Jackson was moonwalking to global stardom. J.R. Ewing had already been shot. So had President Ronald Reagan. And a young man named “Mike” Jordan was leading the North Carolina Tar Heels to an NCAA basketball title.

That same year, Jeanne Rheaume was found slumped over a steering wheel. Passed out from another round of heavy drinking.

But don’t be misled. She wasn’t exactly on the street and chugging cheap wine from a brown paper bag. Now living in New Hampshire, Jeanne was a high-functioning employee for a company that invented the smoke detector.

But when the cop tapped on her car window with a night stick, all that didn’t matter.

“I thought I was sophisticated,” Jeanne remembered. “I was having Manhattans for lunch. On my way home I did a U-Turn and drove off the road.”

Jeanne was arrested and booked for a DUI. She spent three hours in a jail cell after failing a breathalyzer test.

“I thought, ‘I don’t belong in here. This is all a big mistake. All I ever wanted to be was a good kid.”

She felt alone again, naturally.

Three of Jeanne’s children were now grown and out of the house. Her life was changing — and not for the better.

“After the DUI, I stopped being able to look people in the eye. But that still didn’t stop me from partying.”

As part of her role in the company’s human resources department, Jeanne visited a local rehab center to learn more about helping people who were struggling with alcohol addiction. She happened to walk in as some alcoholics were sharing their stories of recovery.

“I was relating to the people who were talking,” Jeanne admitted. “It hit home for me.”

So Jeanne called a friend.

“I had been drinking, of course. I told her, ‘I may have a problem.’ ”

A week later, she attended her first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

“I hated me. My values had all changed,” Jeanne reflected. “I knew I needed help. My life was going downhill.”

So she started going to AA meetings regularly and went three months without a drink. 

Then she got a call from Beverly.

“She had moved to Florida and fell in love with a lifeguard. She asked me to go down there with her.”

Jeanne quit her job, packed all her belongings into her Chevrolet Impala, and drove to Pompano Beach, Fla., with her 16-year-old daughter. Each time they stopped at a rest area, Jeanne would take a swig of booze. Maybe even a few.

“After moving, I realized I was an alcoholic.”

Jeanne attempted to go back into waitressing, but she was fired on just her second day on the job.

“They could smell alcohol on my breath.”

On July 10, 1983, Jeanne went home and uttered three words that would change her life for all eternity.

“God, help me.”

A NEW LIFE

Still, Jeanne wasn’t sure anyone would answer. She was an agnostic at the time.

“I wasn’t brave enough to be an atheist.”

Her AA sponsor, Joanie, asked the question anyway.

“Do you believe in God?”

Jeanne answered: “I guess, in case there is one.”

Joanie responded: “Good. Then use my God. He does good work.”

“So every night, I would pray to Joanie’s God,” Jeanne remembered.

And for the next decade, Jeanne Rheaume would rely on her friend’s God, and the support of AA, to remain sober. On the way to work each day, Jeanne would pass “a little white church.”

In the spring of 1997, she felt a prompting to make an appointment with the pastor.

“After a long meeting, I prayed with him and gave my life to Christ.”

But as her life began to turn around, so did her children’s. In the opposite direction.

“Three of my kids started to drink heavily in their 20s, and they went down the same path I did.”

Through years of patience, persistence and prayer — especially prayer — Jeanne’s children broke free from the stranglehold of alcohol addiction.

She practically glowed when offering updates on two of them: Laura, 59, has been sober for 29 years while Steve, 58, has been sober for 20 years. Her son, Bob, who’s now 56, did not get caught up in the party scene and is now an elder at his church.

But another daughter, Anne-Marie, who is 50, continues her battle with the bottle.

“I’ve watched two of my children get sober, and I continue to pray for Anne-Marie,” Jeanne said. “I am trusting God for her recovery.”

She paused and looked out the window.

“The most beautiful four-letter word in the English language is ‘Hope.’ There is hope in the Lord.”

And Jeanne has vowed to share that message with anyone willing to listen. She now sponsors six women in Alcoholics Anonymous, and doesn’t hold back any details from her own experiences.

“I’m just another alcoholic,” she said. “When you have 33 years sobriety, you’re kind of an enigma. I have no secrets. You’ve got to be able to let people know you — pimples, warts and all.”

She also serves with a ministry called Celebrate Recovery at the Beaver County Jail.

“I work with women fighting drugs and alcohol. I’m walking with them and trying to get them focused on Christ. That’s my most important role — introducing them to Jesus.”

ANOTHER BATTLE

John Westurn, executive pastor at Pathway Church, has witnessed Jeanne’s transformation since he invited her to join his small group in 2009.

“Jeanne probably has the biggest heart, or one of the biggest hearts, of anyone I know for people who are hurting,” he said. “She loves people where they’re at. She doesn’t try to fix people. I’ve seen many people come to Christ because she reached out to them.”

Jeanne moved to Beaver County eight years ago and now lives in the Ralph Edwards Apartment Complex in Rochester. So how does one bounce from Boston to New Hampshire to Florida to here?

She wanted to be closer to Steve. No, strike that. Actually, it was his idea for her to move up north.

“He wanted to keep an eye on me,” she said, laughing.

She retired from her job at Project Star in Monaca last year. Yet at 79, she might be busier than ever. At Pathway, she’s deeply engrained in the PrimeTimers group for seniors, the Tuesday morning women’s Bible study, and the Crossroads adult Bible fellowship.

“Right now, I’m shocked that I’m 79. I’ve always been so full of life and energy.”

Even in the midst of a cancer diagnosis in 2010. 

Jeanne had been a heavy smoker for years, which she believes led to her tongue cancer. She underwent a risky surgery and had part of her tongued removed.

“The doctors told me I might not be able to talk afterward.”

Jeanne is able to speak again, but she struggles to annunciate her S’s because she has no feeling on the left side of her tongue.

“Now I’m not drunk anymore,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I just sound like I am.”

Divorce. Alcoholism. The pain of seeing her children follow in her footsteps. Cancer.

Not exactly a feel-good script for her life story. But she’s feeling good about life these days.

“I’m a child of God. Happy, joyous and free,” she explained. “God is everything. He is always where I’m going before I ever get there. He never lets go of my hand, even when I forget and let go of His.”

And her heart breaks for those who are struggling to let go of their destructive habits.

Her advice? Just keep fighting.

“Never give up. Never, never give up. There is hope, and you only have to do it for one day. And that day is today.”

She pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped away the tears welling in her eyes.

“There are many times I wanted to give up, but I had to learn to trust in the Lord. He knew where I was going before I ever got there.”

She smiled.

“I can’t tell you the joy of watching people who stop drinking and get a life. I can’t explain how wonderful that is.”

Maybe not, Jeanne, but you’ve certainly given us a good idea. 

Even better, you’ve shown us that no one has to do it alone.