WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) - Ashley Lange was drunk - more than usual. She couldn’t stand. She was slurring her words so badly that her younger sister, Brittany, couldn’t understand her.
Her sister called an ambulance. The two were rooming together in Madison at the time. Brittany was 23; Lange was 29.
Ashley Lange was rushed to UW Hospital in Madison, where she had her stomach pumped.
It was the third time Lange had been brought to the hospital due to her drinking. She isn’t sure what her blood alcohol concentration was that last time, but recalled once that it was over 0.30 - more than three times the legal limit to drive, and close to the levels of 0.37 to 0.40 that can kill a person.
Her family staged an intervention the next day. Her parents, her sister and her brother Kyle gathered at her apartment and told her “something needed to change, that it couldn’t keep going on like this,” Lange recalls.
Her parents, who lived 2.5 hours away in Athens, knew Lange had a problem with alcohol, but not the extent to which it consumed her.
“Trying to convince her there was a problem was the issue,” Bob Lange, Ashley Lange’s dad, told the Wausau Daily Herald .
That was in January 2014. Since the day Lange hit rock bottom almost five years ago, she has not had an alcoholic drink. She sought help, is now the proud mother of a 3-year-old daughter, has a full-time job and was elected this spring to the Marathon County Board, representing the west-side Wausau district where she lives.
Lange has shared her story exclusively with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin to help others who are facing addiction.
“You have to tell someone, because you can’t (face addiction) alone,” she said. “I want to be there for those that need it. I couldn’t have done it by myself.”
Lange started drinking while she was a student at Athens High School. She went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied environmental science; she graduated in 2006. At first she was like other students, going to parties on weekends. But it wasn’t long until she was staying up to drink until the sun came up, long after everyone else had returned to their dorms or apartments.
She then started drinking every day at a bar near her apartment or in her apartment.
“She had a problem with drinking starting her senior year in high school,” Bob Lange said. “Moving to Madison, she had a lot of good friends, but when you’re that age, partying is important. We wanted to be there for her constantly. … But you can’t know everything.”
Ashley Lange said she was very good at hiding her alcoholism. When her parents questioned her about her drinking when she returned to Athens for the holidays, she brushed it off as something college students did, she said.
She was able to work as a quality coordinator for Covance, a microbiology lab in Madison, without her co-workers realizing there was a problem.
“I was a high-functioning drunk,” she said. “I could drink all day and go to work the next day. I don’t think my parents - I don’t think anyone, really, knew how bad it was.”
Lange knew she had a drinking problem, but was in a state of denial about just how bad it was.
“It started with parties and bars, but once I started drinking, I couldn’t stop,” she said. “By the end … I was drinking, alone in my house, without any social aspect to it. Just to drink.”
After the January 2014 intervention with her family, Lange sought help. She went for individual and small group counseling at an outpatient recovery center in Madison. She went to individual counseling once every two weeks with a therapist and took advantage of all the group meeting possibilities.
She said those meetings still hold her accountable to this day, and what she learned in counseling still sticks with her.
“Some of the stories you hear there and knowing that small group, they are rooting for me, they keep me strong,” Lange said.
In 2014, her daughter Jane was born and it had an emotional impact on Lange, who said she has to succeed for her daughter. Jane is a cute, curly-haired bundle of joy that is almost always attached to Lange’s hip when she isn’t working.
Lange has now been sober for nearly five years. While her daughter is key to her sobriety, she also said you have to want to change for yourself.
“It won’t work otherwise,” Lange said. “I feel that is the only way you ever get and stay sober. You have to want to do it. I think I got sober for myself, I stay sober for my daughter.”
Ashley said she still is tempted to drink every once in a while, usually when she’s really stressed. But, she looks at the black curly hair of her sleeping daughter or sees her playing and laughing, and she knows she can’t even put her hands on a bottle.
“Through (therapy) I rediscovered the things that made me feel good, that made me replace that feeling I thought alcohol was giving me,” Lange said. “Chasing that high. Finding those things - volunteering and hiking. Hearing others’ stories in a group and in individual sessions reminding myself to love me and what I loved doing. You lose that when you’re drinking.”
Although her interest in government made it hard to leave Madison, Lange knew she needed to come closer to home and in spring 2015 she and Jane moved in with her parents in Athens.
“I loved Madison,” she said. “I just wanted to get a fresh start to get away from a bad routine in Madison and knew that I wanted Jane to be around and close to her grandparents.”
The two lived in Athens for nearly two years, but now have their own apartment on Wausau’s west side. Lange works for UAS Labs as a quality assurance supervisor in Wausau. She has worked at UAS Labs for three years.
“Jane has brought out a sense of responsibility in Ashley,” Bob Lange said. “She is owning her past addiction and owning being a mom.”
Returning home also sparked an interest to making a difference in the community and doing something “where Jane can see and be proud of me,” Ashley Lange said.
Earlier this year, Lange decided to seek a seat on the Marathon County Board representing the 9th District. That decision took Lange and Jane to many doors to hear from voters. She would work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then head out daily with Jane, bundled up in a pink coat and pink hat, riding in her lime green wagon with toys surrounding her.
Lange shared her campaign philosophy in a recent Facebook post: “It’s boots on the ground. It’s kids in wagons. It’s talking to your neighbors, even the ones who don’t support you. Especially them. . It’s not about big money from big donors and special interests. It’s not about spending unlimited funds on ads. It’s about people. They remember who made them feel like they matter.”
She also shared her story of addiction and recovery with some of those she spoke with while campaigning.
Lange was elected to the 9th District seat in April and said it was important for her because people in positions of power can influence change for those in need.
“She ran a really great campaign and you could see it wasn’t just for show. Ashley wanted to win,” said her friend and fellow Marathon County Board member Katie Rosenberg. “Ashley and Jane were out knocking on doors and talking to people. To have her story and want to make a difference for the community … it’s really inspiring to see up close.”
Her firsthand experience has made Lange want to help others battling addiction. She is an avid supporter of medical marijuana. Lange sees the drug as a legitimate treatment for some people and says it doesn’t belong in the same category as heroin and other drugs.
In the next 18 months (her two-year term will end in the spring of 2020), Lange hopes to propose and support initiatives at a county level for addiction and recovery help with better access to mental health and recovery resources.
“There is a stigma around any addiction,” Lange said. “But we have to help (addicts) whether it’s with resources or just listening. A lot of people are afraid to tell their story and I am here to support, listen and hopefully help create changes for those in need and help them know they aren’t alone.
“It’s incredible how many people have reached out to me since I opened up about my sobriety to tell me their own stories and ask for help. It’s a really humbling position to be in.”
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Information from: Wausau Daily Herald Media, http://www.wausaudailyherald.com
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