Town & Country Magazine
IN HER 46th year, Isabella's life began to disintegrate. First, her father died, and her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Then, without warning, her husband died of an aneurism. ''I just took to alcohol,'' she says. ''I didn't even really like it, I don't think. It was just to numb the pain and get out of the reality.'' And so it was for the next two decades of Isabella's life. Until that catastrophic string of events, she had been a social drinker. Then began a dark, double life of finding refuge in the booze, punctuated by episodes of getting on top of things. ''It's 20 years of like a revolving door,'' says the grandmother of four, whose experience is typical of an emerging crisis among older people who are turning to substance abuse in growing numbers.
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