Pamela Pecs Cytron is a mom on a mission. Montclair resident, business executive, mother of two, community volunteer, and hostess extraordinaire, Pam is also a recovering alcoholic and a breast cancer survivor.

Patch chats with Pam about the 'catastrophic collision' of getting diagnosed with cancer four days after returning from rehab, her very different experiences with both diseases, and www.relate2us.org, the foundation she's started to try to help future generations - including her own kids - avoid becoming addicts.

Pam vividly remembers one afternoon a few years ago when she went to pick up her son and a friend at the friend's house - and the father - wouldn't let his child get in the car with her. "I'm not going to ask if you've been drinking, but I'm telling you that my son is not getting in your car, and neither is yours,' she remembers him saying.

That experience, although humbling, wasn't enough to get her to quit drinking.

"I had to drive 45 miles in a blackout and have my license suspended before I was ready to quit," she remembers. "I left my office in Newark, went the wrong way, and had four cop cars following me for 45 miles. Thank God nobody was hurt. At that point, the game was up."

Pam checked into a rehab center in California and endured the pain and unimaginably hard work of getting sober for many weeks. On her journey home on Mother's Day 2009, something happened that forever changed her life, and her perspective on both alcoholism and cancer.

"I found a lump on my breast on the plane," Pam remembers. "It was insane. Within 24 hours, I had a biopsy and ultrasound and - boom - I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I had to begin treatment. And I couldn't have a drink."

What changed Pam's life wasn't getting cancer, exactly, but rather, her realization of how shockingly differently friends and family responded to the diagnosis of this disease as contrasted with her diagnosis of alcoholism, another disease as classified by the American Medical Association.

"While I was in rehab, no one offered to make my family meals, or drive the kids around. That was fine, they were ok, but then, once the cancer was diagnosed, the cancer machine kicked in, and the outpouring of enormous support was just crazy," she says. "People were cooking meals and donating money and there was pink everywhere."

"But at that point, I'm home. I'm working. I'm going to chemo (in a cab), I'm making dinners, I'm volunteering at school. But no one talked about the fact that I was so alone, so isolated, and it's so hard," she says. "With cancer, everyone helps. With addiction, you're on your own. For me, breast cancer, even though I had major surgery and 49 weeks of chemo, was a walk in the park as compared to staying sober. I joke, but it's true."

Not one to sit around and mope, Pam channeled her enormous drive and seemingly limitless energy into starting a foundation to try to raise awareness about addiction, and to help future generations avoid becoming addicts.

"My kids are much more predisposed to becoming addicts than they are to getting cancer," she says. "I want to help them avoid the road I went down every way I can, and educating them about addiction and the consequences of addiction is really important."

Pam decided to call the foundation relate2us.org because "I wanted someone to relate to me outside of AA. I wanted to rebuild my life in my community with my friends without booze, not find another community. When I got home, I discovered there were no tools to do that with, and that's part of what the foundation will do."

She adds that: "When it comes to the kids, it's important to understand that the part of the brain that controls addictive impulses is one of the last parts of the brain to develop. So, the longer kids wait to have those first drinks, the better their chances are of not becoming addicts. It's not that you should never have a drink, but just wait. Wait as long as you can. Wait until you're 25, if possible. I'm 45 and can never have another drink. It sucks. They're only looking at a few years - that's it, and they will reduce their risks of addiction by so much. Getting that type of information out there is an important part of what relate2us.org does. The consequences of underage drinking are great. People need to know that. Good kids, and parents, end up in jail, and worse."

Pam's first accomplishment through Relate2us.org was to make September in New Jersey National Recovery Month. Her second major goal is to hold a fundraiser, probably in April 2012, coinciding with Alcohol Awareness Month.

"I'd also like to create a space for the kids that's club-like, something cool in town," she says. "You need it to be safe and fun and give kids independence and freedom - but create it in a way that starts to decrease their chances of binge drinking on the weekends."

Pam is on the board of the National Youth Recovery Foundation, and she works with both the New York Center for Living, which provides 'coordinated recovery for adolescents, young adults & families,' and ROAD RECOVERY, which also helps young people battle addiction.

"All these organizations are great, but I want to have campaigns and awareness in place so my kids don't ever need them," she says.

"Next time you want to get in a car after you've been drinking, take a good look at your car keys, your wallet, and your license. Do you want to keep them all?" she asks. "I went to jail. I went to rehab. I lost my license for two and a half years. I spent $125,000 on my DUI. You know how many cabs I could have taken?"

Pam said that her goal is to help others by telling her story.

"I cooked, was an active mom, business executive, CEO, the whole thing - but I was also a drunk and I lived in a world of isolation, and I am not alone in that. More people than you realize are in the same situation," she says. "I don't want people to think it's embarrassing, or something to be afraid of. They need to get help. There's so much information out there that needs to be shared.

"Other diseases have such amazing awareness campaigns, but people get blindsided by addiction," she adds. "People can go to my web site www.relate2us.org and find so many links with an incredible amount of information."

Pam concludes by saying that, "honestly I'm not so thrilled about the church basements and never drinking again. But my goal now is to make sure my kids and someone else's kids don't get there."