Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Pam Rickard, 46, of Franklin County trains near her Callaway home for her second New York City Marathon. For years she hid her alcoholism until after three DUIs, she went for treatment, focused on her faith and got healthy.

Healing through prayer: Pam Rickard (at rear, in glasses) participates in prayer with members of a Bible study class led by Barbara Murray (right) of Church of the Holy Spirit in Southwest Roanoke County. Debbie Nevins (left) brought a visitor who was dealing with some personal issues to pray with the group.

Photo courtesy of the Rickard Family

Family portrait: The family posed with 5-year-old Sophia Rickard at her graduation from the Franklin County YMCA preschool program in June. From left: Abby, 20; Tom, 48; Pam, 46, holding Sophia; and Rachel, 15. Tom Rickard says his wife now has "a much healthier perspective."

Because she is not allowed to drive, Pam Rickard is forced to rely on her husband, Tom, for rides to the Kirk Family YMCA in downtown Roanoke.

Two and a half years into her sobriety, Pam Rickard keeps one small Tanqueray bottle on her dresser, as a reminder of her alcoholism. The message says, "Remember the Reality, not the Illusion!"

Nine years ago, Pam Rickard's life seemed perfect: a working mother with a loving husband and a passion for distance running that was driving her to qualify for the Boston Marathon. The image was an illusion.

"I remember looking in the mirror and I did not like myself," she said. "I remember feeling like a big fraud."

Evening glasses of wine "just to relax" escalated to mornings when she did not remember the night before. Still she kept drinking, hiding it less and less successfully from her family, until a string of three drunken driving arrests in a span of 18 months pushed her to the realization that she had to stop.

She spent 33 days in a rehabilitation facility and three months in Roanoke City Jail.

Now, Rickard's life seems imperfect. She cannot drive or vote. And yet, she is still a working mother with a loving husband and a renewed passion for running built on the joy of it.

"I am sober now, and overwhelmingly grateful," she said.

'Wine to unwind'

Rickard, 46, hopes that telling her story will encourage others to get help.

"If I can do it, anyone can overcome this monster with humility and truth and resources," she said.

Rickard is featured in a book being released Tuesday by HarperCollins. "A Race Like No Other," by New York Times reporter Liz Robbins, is about the 2007 New York City Marathon. Rickard's story is intertwined with those of other runners and the city.

The Rocky Mount resident, who once worked in advertising at The Roanoke Times, didn't learn until she was in recovery that two of her grandfathers were alcoholics. One had committed suicide. Her family had shielded her from that information.

Her parents divorced when she was 8 and she described her father as "hard driving."

By the time she graduated from Ohio University, Rickard had been drunk enough a few times to suffer blackouts.

It was even on an alcohol-inspired dare that she ran her first 5K race. That spurred her to run more, to eventually quit smoking and complete seven marathons. Her personal best for the 26.2-mile distance was a time of 3 hours, 31 minutes. She qualified for the Boston Marathon three times.

"Even the competition was never healthy competition," she said. "I would be exhausted and not be able to unwind. That's how it started. It would be a glass of wine to unwind and the occasional overindulgence."

Tom and Pam Rickard, already parents to daughters Abby and Rachel, said they both had concerns with her drinking, but she quit completely when she became pregnant with their third daughter in 2002.

"In my mind that meant there was no problem," Tom Rickard said.

Downhill fast

For Pam Rickard, it meant the opposite.

"I remember looking forward to drinking again as soon as I stopped breast-feeding," Rickard said.

Tom Rickard said his wife went "downhill pretty fast after that."

"I was lying my head off," Pam Rickard said. "Many times I would 'go to bed early,' many times I was functioning and then didn't remember it. I was good at it."

Rickard got her first DUI in 2004 and had her driver's license restricted for one year.

After a second DUI, her license was suspended for four months and she got it back with a device that prevented her car from starting unless she was sober.

Still, she did not quit drinking. Rickard was trying to keep up with her running, "but I would run three miles and throw up. I was not healthy."

In February 2006, Rickard was cleaning and, of course, drinking, and decided she needed something from the store. She couldn't take her car. Her daughter's was sitting in the driveway with the keys in it.

Tom Rickard noticed the missing car and started out after his wife.

"I was praying with all my heart that no one would get hurt," he said.

He arrived after she had been arrested.

'Barbie goes to jail'

That day, Pam Rickard's idle search for an alcohol rehab facility turned earnest. She arranged to go to Williamsburg Place and Farley Center.

"I will never forget the lesson I learned at Williamsburg Place: 'Humility is following directions,' " she said. "I was really good at manipulating things and getting around things, and the world rewards that, but I abused it."

Rickard worked through the underlying insecurity that led to her drinking, and Tom Rickard and their eldest daughter, Abby, visited for family weekend.

"That helped a lot," Tom Rickard said. "[Abby] had worked up a lot of resentment and anger. Rachel didn't want to go; she was 13."

Both of the older girls are healing. Rachel, Pam Rickard said, has taken longer. "She has every right to be angry," Rickard said.

Treatment was not enough, though. In September 2006, Pam Rickard was convicted of her third DUI. A judge revoked her license indefinitely, and with the felony conviction, she lost her right to vote. She was sentenced to three months in jail.

"Physically, it was horrible, it was dirty," Rickard said. "The environment was hostile and nasty. But there are human beings in there."

When, with her petite runner's figure, she asked for a size small uniform, her fellow inmates mocked her. "They said nobody asks for small, and one of them said, 'Barbie goes to jail.' "

Turning a bad situation poignant, Abby made up a little Barbie doll complete with a jail uniform and "Barbie goes to jail" necklace to give to her mom. "So that's how it was: scary ... and funny," Pam Rickard said.

Rickard, who said she has always been a Christian, joined and eventually led a Bible study group in jail.

"I learned, literally, at the Roanoke City Jail, they can take everything from you -- they take everything from you except your wedding ring -- and they are mean and nasty," Rickard said. "I was five months sober, and I thought, 'No one can take away my sobriety and no one can take away my relationship with God.' "

'Well with my soul'

Tom Rickard said that has been the biggest change in his wife, who is still active in a Christian-based 12-step program.

"The good stuff is still there, but now she's really centered. She has a much healthier perspective, and that's because of her spiritual walk."

Two months into her recovery, before she went to jail, Rickard went to New York on a business trip and dropped in on an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Manhattan. "I had such an amazing experience there that I vowed if I ever run another marathon, it will be New York."

She won a spot in the 2007 race via lottery and, while training, answered Robbins' blanket e-mail request for interesting story ideas.

Last fall she ran her first sober marathon. "Running is another gift I got back," she said. "I don't even wear a running watch anymore."

For the marathon, instead of wearing her name on her back, she put the refrain from her favorite hymn: "It is well with my soul."

The hymn of hope in the face of tragedy speaks to Rickard because "I know something else is going to happen, but I've learned the tools and a truth to deal with it," she said.

"I'm using the tools of recovery to live a normal life."