Celtic Woman and What
They Mean To Me
by Brandon Williams

Hope and Inspiration. That was definitely what I needed when they came into my life. That is what I continue to need everyday. I would even venture to say that I am not the only one. Your story may not even be all that different from mine.

When I first discovered Celtic Woman, I did so by accident. When I bought the CD, I was under the impression that it was a collection of Celtic artists such as Enya and others that I had already heard about. But when I brought the CD home and placed it in my CD player, I was in for two surprises. The first was the mere fact that it was not what I had expected. It was so much more. And the second was that I had no idea how much of a life-changing effect they would have on my life. To understand the life-changing effect, you need to first know about my life at the time.

I am an emergency police dispatcher. It is one of the most highly stressful jobs, and it also has one of the highest burnout rates. The average dispatcher lasts about five years, because it is a very difficult job to perform. I have to deal with other people's problems on a daily basis and they expect me to be able to solve their problems immediately. If not sooner. And after six years, I was reaching the point of burnout.

There were, and still are, many times when I bring my job home with me. How could I not? I'm only human. The job still gets to me on a very human level. Their problems become my problems.

When those problems began to really get to me, I had to find a way to deal with them. So my way of dealing with all of it was to drink. And I drank a lot. More than what would have been considered healthy. But it was the only way I could deal with it all and still be able to sleep at night. My life reached the point to where I was simply waiting until I could begin drinking again.

I didn't care how much I had to drink each night, just as long as it took away all of the crap I had to deal with at work so that I could sleep. But I wasn't really sleeping; I was simply passed out drunk. There were even times when I got so drunk the night before, that I was still legally drunk when I went to work the next day.

My drinking began to affect my job. Not my job performance as much as my attendance. I've called in sick to work because I was too hung over to come to work. One morning, I was even sent home from work because I could not stop vomiting. I told them that I had the flu. But the truth of the matter is, I had drank so much the night before that when I tried to eat breakfast, I simply could not keep it down.

Drinking became such a problem for me that I was forced to hide it. I was spending more money on beer and whiskey than I was spending on rent each month. But I hid it very well. I basically became a functioning drunk. Nobody could tell when I was drunk or sober. Mainly because they had never really seen me completely sober.

Then one day by mistake, or maybe it was Divine intervention, I discovered Celtic Woman. The day that I bought the CD, I put it in the CD player to listen to it. At the same time, I took a beer out of the refrigerator. I sat down and listened to the music and drank my first beer of the evening. Celtic Woman had such a calming effect on me, that by the time it was time for me to go to bed that night, I had only drank about four beers.

Not only did that become a trend that helped me to calm down so that I could sleep at night, I also noticed that I was beginning to drink a lot less. It eventually got to the point to where all I had to do was play the CD and I would be able to go to bed without having a drink at all.

Even though discovering Celtic Woman was a total accident, it has become the best thing that has ever happened to me. I no longer have to drink in order to be able to sleep. Even though my job is still as stressful as when I began drinking, I no longer have to drink in order to deal with it.

Is Celtic Woman simply a group of women singing Celtic songs? Not to me they aren't. Méav and the others are Angels. I would not have been able to do what I did if not for them. And because of that, I not only have the deepest gratitude for them, I have the deepest love.

I love them because Celtic Woman is the reason why I am the man that I am today. I am not only the man that I am today, I am the dispatcher that I am today. The music of Celtic Woman transformed me from a functioning drunk into the absolute best dispatcher that I am today. And I am the best because they gave me the hope and inspiration to become the best.

Because I had spent so many years drinking, I was never really a part of my own family. I spent very little time with my family. And when I was with them, I was either drunk or hung over, so they never got to really see the real me. They only saw a shell of the man that I could be. And that hurt them - especially my mother.

Before I began drinking, my mother and I had been very close. But after I began drinking, I pulled away from my entire family, including my mother. And I know it hurt her very badly.

When I began drinking, that became the one and only thing that I wanted in my life: the ability to get drunk. And I spent every spare dime, as well a every available minute, doing whatever I had to do to get drunk. I am not proud of that fact. And I am not proud of the fact that I pushed my mother and my family away. I'm not proud of any of it. Because, if not for Celtic Woman, I would still be doing it.

Thanks to Celtic Woman, I am not the same man I was when I was drinking. But I owe Méav and Celtic Woman a lot more than that. I don't just owe them my thanks, I owe them my life, because, I am not the same man I was when I was drinking. I am a much better man now.

Several months ago, my mother and I drove to Abilene, Texas, to my brother's house. On the way there I rode with my mother in her car, and I put in one of my favorite CDs: Celtic Woman. I put the CD in because I knew that my mother loved Celtic music as much as I do. My mother fell in love with that CD.

I wanted to get my mother that CD for Christmas. However, everywhere I went, it was sold out. And to be honest, I wasn't all that surprised. So I decided that I would do the next best thing - after all, Celtic Woman is more than just one CD. So I found four CDs that were from the collection and gave them to her for Christmas. She loved them.

For her birthday, I found the Celtic Woman CD along with the other three CDs in the collection and ordered them for her birthday. I told her that I wanted to finish the collection I gave her at Christmas. She loved it. She could not stop talking about them.

I already have the entire Celtic Woman collection, including the DVD that was recorded in Dublin, Ireland. I love it. I love the music. It's kind of hard to explain to people that don't already know. But the music is spiritual for me. It's just as spiritual for my mother - maybe more so. Because of the Celtic Woman collection, my mother and I have become close again. Even more so than before I began drinking. Now, we have a common bond: Celtic Woman.

Celtic Woman has done so much for me. Méav and the ladies have not only brought me peace in my life, they have brought me back to my family. And neither one of those is something I could have been able to bring upon myself. So I only have one thing to say:

THANK YOU MÉAV. THANK YOU LISA. THANK YOU ORLA. THANK YOU CHLOE. THANK YOU MAIREAD.

THANK YOU MY CELTIC ANGELS!