Hi. My name is Snow White and I’m an alcoholic. Thanks for having me as a speaker today. I’ve been sober for three years and five months now. I was sober for four year before my relapse. But that’s how it goes, sometimes. I’m just glad to be back on track, and I’m really glad to be here tonight.
Let’s just get it out in the open. I know my name is weird. My mother thought it was a celebration of my “alabaster skin.” I mean, if you think about it, it just means like “white white or cold white white.” I got teased about my name when I was a kid and even more so as an adult out in the world. Snow-Blower, Blizzard, Sleet Slut, Cold Bitch—I’ve been called it all. You can call me Snowy.
My mother died giving birth to me, so I never knew her, and that totally sucked. Then my dad, the king, basically rebounded and got married again within the year. I guess I can understand. He had this big castle to run and though he knew horses and politics, he knew shit about running a household. So, he married the most beautiful royal pain-in-the-ass he could find, my step-mother. Yeah, he wasn’t the best judge of character.
I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but she really was a total witch. I realize now she was probably mentally ill. She absolutely suffered from extreme narcissism and obsessive-compulsive disorder, but of course was never diagnosed. But even knowing that, it’s still really hard to forgive her most days since she tried to kill me, like four times. It wasn’t the rosiest childhood. But through a hell of a lot of therapy, I do realize it wasn’t my fault. Some days though, I still feel like it is. You know what I mean.
Anyway, my story. So, what happened is my step-mom had this magic mirror and because of her affliction, she spent a lot of time in front of it, we’re talking a lot. She was obsessed with the idea of being THE most beautiful woman in the kingdom. So, she’d ask the mirror every single freaking day, “Who’s the fairest one of all?” And the stupid mirror always replied she was. I guess it didn’t measure inner beauty. Well, this continued until I turned seven years old. Up until then, things weren’t bad actually. I mean it wasn’t great. I was basically ignored by my dad and step-mother, but I had sweet Nanny to take care of me and tutor me, and I got to run around and climb trees in the garden and ride ponies. And though I got teased, I spent more time alone.
Then on my seventh birthday, that stupid-ass mirror says, “Snow White is the fairest of them all.”
I was a just a kid. I had no control over how I looked. You all know the Serenity Prayer. So, she’s absolutely pissed off, my step-mother, and for a few months, she just made my life miserable. But after the mirror kept repeating Snow White, Snow White, Snow White, she decided to do away with me. My dad just wasn’t paying attention. It’s hard to forgive him some days too. Anyway, she basically tried to hire our head huntsman to take me out somewhere and kill me. What she didn’t know is that he was a sweet old guy, even though he could wield a mean knife. AND he was married to Nanny. They were all just servants to her.
So, he gets me out of there and sneaks me way up into the mountains to my cousin’s house. My cousin Happy is a dwarf. Dwarfism runs in some members of my family. My dad once said it was because of royal inbreeding, but it’s just genetic. Happy lived in a group home with a whole bunch of other Little People. I’d never actually met him and he wasn’t there when I arrived, but the huntsman had to go kill some innocent animal and bring the heart to my evil step-mother and claim it was mine, so he had to go.
It was getting late, so I found some food and went to bed. It was quite a surprise for those guys when they got back, I can tell you!
Well, it turned out that Happy was—really happy, by nature. He was a super nice guy. His buddies all had these ridiculous nicknames—although I’m not one to talk. But they totally suited them. There was Sneezy who honestly had every allergy in the book. He had no business working in the forest, except he wanted to be with the others; they were all like one big family. Sleepy loved to nap, swear to god, he might’ve been narcoleptic. Doc was totally helpful and kind of looked out for everybody. Bashful was adorable, really shy, didn’t talk much on account of his stutter. They all put up with Grumpy. He was a real curmudgeon but he had this great cynical sense of humor. And there was Dopey. He wasn’t quite right in the head but was so gentle, like a little kid really. He played with me a lot.
They took me in. They became my family. Everybody in the house had to work. That was the rule. Because I was a “girl,” I was assigned housework. Not my favorite task. I had never cooked before in my life and burnt the first few meals, but the guys were really forgiving, and I learned. It was actually a really good ten years. The dwarves got me patterns and gorgeous materials and I learned to sew my own clothes. I learned to do all kinds of things. Flower arrangements and repairs. I could fix the goddamn toilet. I became capable. And I was loved. I was expected to be cheerful all the time, and that was damaging. But I know they didn’t mean any harm. We ate together, sang together, laughed. I also fell in love with the forest, especially the animals. I learned how be still so they wouldn’t be afraid of me. I could take care of them when they were injured. Doc taught me. I love animals. They’re a lot more reliable than people. I see some of you nodding.
And then came murder attempt number two.
I don’t know what caused the mirror to change its tune after ten years. Maybe my father’s realm expanded to include our part of the forest, whatever, I don’t know. But all of a sudden, after ten years of not mentioning me at all, that idiotic mirror declares “Snow White is the fairest in the land, and she lives with the dwarves.” Great.
This time, scary step-mother decided to do the deed herself. She disguised herself as an old peddler and came knocking on our door. We had peddlers come by from time-to-time. That wasn’t unusual. Anyway, she had these gorgeous silky laced bodices. I mean these things were sexy. I was seventeen. I was discovering my sexuality. I was dreaming about handsome princes. And I lived isolated in the forest with short old dudes. And, I was really, really naïve. So my witchy step-mother, a.k.a the old peddler, offers to help me put one on so I can see what it looks like. She laced it up so tightly, I fainted. She left me for dead, barely breathing. Luckily, the guys got home right after and Doc revived me.
A week later, an old woman selling hair combs comes by the cottage. You guessed it. Witchy-woman disguised again. I was a little wary. But I thought, what harm could there be in a comb? They were really pretty, and I didn’t know what to do with my hair. It was really thick and dark. I like it now, but you know how self-critical us women can be, right? Especially when we’re young. Yeah, if we knew then what we know now, right? The comb was poisoned. The poison ran down into my scalp and out I went. Again the guys got back just in time, took the damn thing out of my hair and nursed me back to health. It wasn’t pretty.
You’d think I’d learn, right? Well, two weeks later, a farmer’s wife comes by the cottage with the shiniest, juiciest red apples you’ve ever seen. They reminded me of the ones in the trees I climbed as a kid. The farmer’s wife seemed really sweet, and I wanted one of those apples, bad. I thought, ah hah! I’m smarter now. I told her I would buy an apple if she split it with me. She cut it in half and started eating. Okay! Cool, I thought. It’s safe. Well, I didn’t notice she was only eating the white bit. I bit right into the red skin. I fell into a freaking coma. She thought I was dead and left.
Happy and the others couldn’t revive me that time. They thought I was dead too. But they always said I was beautiful, and, you know, that was great. They helped me to believe I really was, to see myself that way. Because of my beauty, they made a casket out of glass, so they could see me for as long as they could. I heard later that even Grumpy was crying. They made this gorgeous shrine for me in the garden beside the cottage, with colorful flowers all around me. They wanted my animal friends to be able to mourn with them.
That’s when Prince Charming came by. This is where the story becomes unclear. I’ve heard two versions, that the Prince, having his men move my casket to take it back to his castle to admire my dead-ass beauty there, dropped one side and dislodged the apple skin that I had eaten—along with the lid of the casket—and I awoke. But Charmer claimed he kissed me awake. All I know is that I woke up and saw this gorgeous guy kneeling over me, looking at me all lovey-dovey, and I thought wow, he’s really tall. Mind you, I’d been living with Little People for ten years. He looked strong. He had the best clothes. He looked like he could take care of me.
He asked me to marry him. I said yes. We moved into his castle together, had our wedding night. It hurt but I guess it was okay. I didn’t know much about sex. And then we were supposed to live happily ever after. He punished my step-mother, by the way, and she died. I didn’t even know about it until later. You’d think he’d tell me. It still feels weird.
So, I was living in this castle, having really mediocre sex with this husband that I realized I didn’t really know. At all! He didn’t want me cooking or sewing or feeding the horses, because he had servants to do all that. I was bored out of my gourd. I didn’t even get to really run the household. He had his father’s old house manager and butler and they pretty much owned the place. I felt useless and depressed. And then, it turns out Charming is totally surface and vapid, like he had no internal life, no opinion about anything. He barely read. He was afraid of animals. And, he didn’t like music. I mean, who doesn’t like music?! We had nothing in common. Nothing. I realized I didn’t love the guy. I didn’t even like him. And he didn’t take care of me, not emotionally or mentally. I mean, yeah, the food was good, the clothes, all that crap. but he used those material things to hold me hostage, control me, while he did whatever the hell he wanted to do. It became crystal clear: I was a trophy wife.
I had to get away. I snuck out and rode into the mountains to visit Happy and the gang.
They liked to drink now and then. I had never touched the stuff, because I’d been underage. They didn’t let me. But now, I was a married woman, so sure! They said, have some whiskey with us. It burnt my throat the first time. But I liked how it felt. I liked that it numbed the pain, numbed the feeling of being captive, of feeling stupid, of regret. Of shame. It all went away. And I was a fun drunk. We sang and laughed. I was up on the table doing a jig while Happy played his mandolin and Dopey banged on the drums and Bashful blew on a piccolo. I started going to the cottage often, sometimes getting so drunk, I blacked out, had to spend the night. The guys said I was getting out of hand, that I should take it easy.
And then Charming found out and forbade me going into the forest. The bastard threatened to hurt my cousins. So, I found alcohol around the castle, developed clever hiding places. Drank alone.
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash
I spent ten f***ing years like that. Drunk and miserable and lonely and self-loathing. Charming had started sleeping around with all kinds of freaks, surface chicks that he had a lot more in common with. And because he was the man, it was totally acceptable by his advisors. Everybody looked the other way.
I mean, maybe if I had kids it would’ve been better, you know with someone to look after and love. But Charming and I stopped having sex. I hated it with him anyway. It felt completely obligatory, for his pleasure, not mine. I had read a book or two by then from foreign lands and knew women could get pleasure from sex. Also, I had stopped trusting myself. With all the drinking, I was pretty sure I’d be a shitty mother. I was poisoning myself slowly. I didn’t even need my evil step-mother around to do it for me anymore.
I probably would’ve ODed if Happy didn’t come along. He came to see me, because he had bad news. Grumpy had died. From too much booze, he said. As a result, they had all decided to give up the drink. Happy said it had been really, really hard, but they were all much more content now. Happy didn’t smile quite as much, and he said that felt good. Real. Even Sneezy, who had lost a bunch of weight, evidently, wasn’t sneezing as much.
He asked about me. I just burst into tears. I told him everything. That sweet cousin of mine. He saw that I had to get out of there. “You need to live your life,” he said, “the one you want. Be Snow White.”
We walked the grounds together and came up with a plan. The one person who didn’t know about my husband’s wild infidelity was his mother. And he was a total Mam'a’s boy. When he took over the castle, he built her an adjacent mansion where she played cards with her old crones and hosted chamber concerts and lived a carefree retirement, free of her husband who had croaked. She was one of the most content women I knew. She had a companion named Winifred. I’m pretty sure they were getting it on. Good for her. She was pissed at me though. No grandchildren. And she still told Charming how to dress and eat on occasion.
Happy went home and wished me luck, and I went to see my husband. Extortion seemed my only option. I had a list of all the women he was sleeping with. I told him I would show it to his mother breaking the illusion of her “perfect son” and explaining why she didn’t have any grandkids if he didn’t let me go with a sizable settlement so I could get on my feet again. He could tell others that I had to go to nurse my dear, elderly aunt in her last years of life. That would save my honor and his. He agreed.
I packed my things and took two horses, my favorite steed and a packhorse to carry my things. I had a sack of gold and jewels, and I left.
Happy took me in for a while, but the guys didn’t want me cooking and cleaning for them anymore. They wanted me to live my life. They were in semi-retirement by then, enjoying puttering around the cottage half-naked. They loved me, but they didn’t want me living there.
I wandered for a while. Started drinking again. Those couple of years are a whole other story! Some ugliness. But then I found you, my friends, my fellow princesses, rehab and this Princess Recovery Group. I’m so grateful. I have learned so much from all of you and your stories, Rapunzel, Sleepy-P, Cinder-Baby. You guys are the best. And I hope my story helps others. Belle, Tiana, Ariel, welcome. It’s a pleasure to get to know you. You have my support.
I’ve been in therapy now for seven years. I love my therapist. I realized that my relapse came because I was still thinking “Happily Ever After” was somewhere else than inside me. But I did the entire 12 Steps again. And now I realize it’s not human to be happy every second of the day. I feel better. As they say in program, I feel EVERYTHING better.
And I like who I am now. I didn’t completely drink away my settlement with my ex, luckily, so, as you know, I built myself The Gardens Bed and Breakfast. I’ve had you all there. I make a good living and have a great staff that I manage. I have a menagerie of pets and nurse hurt animals and return them to the wild. I’m working on a recipe book. Everything has apple in it.
Happy passed away. I miss him terribly, but I’ve been taking mandolin lessons with his old mandolin, and I’m learning. It’s fun and hard and frustrating sometimes. But I’m sticking with it. I love singing in the local choir. I’ve even started dating again. There’s this farmer’s son turned land-owner. He seems to get me. He likes that I’m independent. But we’re going slow. I’m not sure I ever want to get married again. But it’s nice to have a companion for events. And he’s great in bed! We even read the Kama Sutra together. It was really exciting.
I may still have a child. I’m not sure. But right now, I’m happy to learn more about myself, to truly take care of myself, be the mother and step-mother to myself I wish I had, you know? I’m creating the new habit of loving myself. Every day. As best I can. And I’m working the program. And taking it one day at a time.
So, thanks for listening guys.