K.C. Victor was raised by a narcissist so reached out to many others for support.  Trained in the true classics, then law school.  K.C. married young to a man she still loves, and they have one daughter and five grandchildren in blended families. K.C. was an excellent legal recruiter because it involved both law and psychology.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/k-c-victor-7472699

Q. If you are in recovery, what was your drug(s) of choice and when is your sobriety date?

A. My drug of choice was marijuana, but because it was illegal when I got sober, I also abused alcohol, mostly Tequila, when I was near my daughter and others who I wanted not to know how often I smoked marijuana – almost every night.

Q. Is there anything special in your sobriety toolkit that helps keep you sober?

A. Working the steps even as an atheist.

Q. Do you think addiction is an illness, disease, a choice, or a wicked twist of fate?

A. Illness or disease – what’s the difference?  I am also a Type 1 diabetic and especially from that perspective, I believe that we take what is a progressive and sometimes fatal disease – alcoholism/addiction and turn it into a chronic disease.  Like any other chronic disease, it needs frequent, often daily, treatment to keep it at bay.

Q. Where are you from and where do you reside now?

A. I am from New York City, still the home of my heart and now live in San Luis Obispo, CA.

Q. What is one word you would use to describe yourself?

A. Curious.

Q. Describe how you came to your “rock bottom” point.

A. My daughter was 14 when I got sober.  We then lived in Los Angeles.  She had confronted me in a family therapy session, and I lied to her and told her I would quit.  At that point I started to get stoned in my car before going home and left all drugs and paraphernalia in my office.  One day when I went back to my office to leave everything there, I realized I was so stoned that I was not sure I could hide it.  I also realized that I was almost an hour before I must leave my office.  I threw everything out that night and went to my first meeting not as a tourist the next afternoon.

Q. If you ever retire, would you prefer to live by the ocean, lake, river, mountaintop, desert, or penthouse?

A. I am retired, since 2020.  I live in a small City and would love to live in a big city.  My husband is thrilled about where we live and I love him, so I adjust by traveling a lot, most of the time with him.

Q. How do you measure success?

A. Success is all about human connection and sharing and hearing the truth about important things, without being mean.

Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?

A. This is beyond “pet peeve”: I am almost always upset, from angry to annoyed, that not enough is being done to keep Earth safe for human life.  But as Admiral Rickover told the United States Senate decades ago, “We weren’t always the dominant species on this planet.

Q. If you had an extra million dollars, which charity would you donate it to?

A. If this isn’t cheating, I would split is between The Union of Concerned Scientists and Democracy Forward.

Q. Who has been the biggest influence throughout your life?

A. My husband.  We married young and have nearly identical values, but he is much more circumspect than I am.  At least a few times a year I hurt someone’s feelings just by being forthright.  He gets what he means across with discretion and is much more patient than I am.

Q. If you could give advice to your younger self what would it be?

A. Do not believe the negative talk I was raised with about myself.  It took decades of various sorts of psychotherapy, three 12 Step programs and good friends and a good marriage to remove most of those beliefs, but I would like to have even less negative self-talk.

Q. Who made you feel seen growing up?

A. I was seen because I was smart, and I was.  Since my early 20’s I have understood that intelligence is not a virtue.  It is a tool.

Q. Which living person do you most admire?

A. Unfair, I have three or four.

Q. What major event or realization shaped who you are?

A. The November 1969 “Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam” march.  I met my high school boyfriend that day, and after about a 20-year period of us not seeing each other we are good friends again.  More importantly, I saw that even large collective actions may not change the world, but they affect human souls, both those who participate and those who observe.

Q. What sound or sounds do you most remember from your childhood?

A. My dog yipping with excitement when I got home each day.

Q. What do you love most about living sober?

A.”The wisdom to know the difference” – not always, but often.

Q. Which part of your treatment and recovery do you feel was the most interesting or unexpected?

A. The love in the rooms, almost no matter what.  I was not raised with unconditional love but I see hundreds of examples of it, in both large and small gatherings, among 12 Step fellows.

Q. What’s your concept of a Higher Power?

A. The phone list.  I have never learned of an issue, my own or others, where with reaching out I cannot find someone else who went through the same thing or something very similar.

Q. What is your Astrological sign?

A. Pisces, Scorpio rising, Libra moon.

Q. Who is your favorite celebrity in recovery?

A. I believe in anonymity.

Q. What book(s) have you read more than once?

A. The Iliad, The Odyssey, Anna Karenina, Beloved and several others.

Q. What books are you reading now?

A. Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot.”

Q. If you were giving a dinner party for your 3 favorite authors, living or dead, who would they be?

A. Miguel de Cervantes, Toni Morrison, Galileo Galilei, Anton Chekov.


Q. Which film have you watched the most?

A. Hiroshima Mon Amour.

Q. Who is your favorite film director?

A. Frederick Wiseman, and he died today.  Close second, Charlie Chaplin.

Q. What book would you most like to see turned into a movie or TV show that hasn’t already been adapted?

A. Bleak House.

Q. Are you binge watching any TV series?

A. I spend between 90 – 120 minutes most days on my treadmill because it helps control my blood sugar, so I watch a lot (movies and news also).  At the moment, I am watching “The Closer” which is fun but teaches nothing.  I loved season 1 of “The Pitt” and adored “Incredible Attorney Woo.”

Q. What is your favorite App?

A. Political Wire.

Q. Who is your favorite performer, living or dead?

A. Emma Thompson.

Q. Who are your heroes in real life?

A. Anton Chekov, for being both the author he was and a doctor.  Ramsey Clark, for being the only person I actually knew who never compromised his values.

Q. What are some of the most memorable songs in your life?

A. Sitting by the Dock of the Bay, Why Did I Choose you?

Q. What is your favorite city?

A. New York City.

Q. What is your favorite cuisine?

A. Japanese.

Q. What is the best concert/performance/play you’ve ever attended?

A. 1986 staging of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” because finally somebody understood that a family so torn up by addiction would seldom listen to each other and most of the time speak over each other.  It is a much shorter and truer play that way. Also, Mark Rylance’s amazing Twelfth Night.

Q. What are five things you always carry with you?

A. Diabetic equipment of three kinds, something sweet for low blood sugars, a card with the 12 Step and 12 Tradition Principles.

Q. What is the best and or worse piece of advice someone has given you?

A. Feelings aren’t facts.

Q. What is the best piece of advice you’ve given someone else?

A. Find the lesson.

Q. What is your most treasured possession?

A. Not sure, unless my various dogs over many years are possessions – not really.

Q. What do you value most in a friendship?

A. Common interests and caring.

Q. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

A. Listening well.

Q. What is your favorite compliment to receive, and why?

A. You seem relaxed, because I seldom am.

Q. What is your biggest fear?

A. Extreme physical pain.  I have been there a few times.

Q. Where do you go when you’re seeking solitude?

A. My bed.

Q. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

A. To listen better.

Q. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?

A. With my husband and good friends at the beach with a book.

Q. What is your biggest regret?

A. Not having seen the almost certain disaster that a business partnership I entered into in the 1990’s – would have been spared a lot of heartache.

Q. What is the greatest risk you’ve ever taken?

A. It was unconscious but I engaged in diabulimia for a number for a number of years when I was younger.

Q. Which living person do you most despise?

A. Vladimir Putin.

Q. What is something you’ve learned about yourself in the last six months?

A. That even when I am unhappy, worried, etc.  I can focus on things, however small, that bring me joy and work my way to a better place emotionally.

Q. What is something you are currently curious about?

A. Is there an afterlife?

Q. What do you love most about yourself?

A. I am kind.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?

A. Travel.

Q. When did you realize you were a grown-up?

A. I was a true adult by sixteen.  Since then, I have become wiser, but my values have changed very little.

Q. How important are your pets to you?

A. Crucial.

Q. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

A. ”Really?”  “This too shall pass.”