"How It Was and Is For Me" chronicles the life of author Judy Walters. At the book's beginning, she is 6 weeks old and living in a travel trailer in Arkansas about to move on to another town in another state where her alcoholic mother and father can find work. This is just one of the patterns that keeps repeating itself over and over again. Throughout the book, Judy details the struggles she endures growing up in an alcoholic family. She also shares about the tragic loss of one of her own sons to the disease of alcoholism as well as the poignant memories of she and her brother, Casey and half sister, Ruthann, building sand forts in Arizona. Judy's life is a testament to the fact that patterns keep reemerging, but can also be broken as after years of chaos, abandonment and basic survival as a child, to marriage, divorce and loss in adulthood, Judy sets out on a path to break free of the chains of the past and find the beauty, joy and love life holds in the form of children, grandchildren, spouse, family and of course, dogs.