Had 67 jobs.
I had tried alcohol here and there as a child. My mother never drank and my father did, rarely. The first time I realized what alcohol could do for me,
I was 12. It was at my father’s second wedding and I did not want to be there.
I was very unhappy and had a couple glasses of champagne, because I liked the taste.
I ended up stealing a bottle and hiding under table to drink the whole thing because I LOVED how it made me feel…nothing mattered anymore.
I wasn’t hurting at all, I felt GOOD. I went into high school very cautious around alcohol. I invested in “being good” and “bad” kids drank. Then I met some kids weren’t so bad, and drank and it became OK for me to drink. It was hard to get my hands on it, but every time I did, I got stinkin’ drunk.
When I went to college I suddenly had so much freedom. The school I went to had a huge Greek organization, and all of the social activities centered around drinking.
This is when I began to black out. The next 9 years were a long slow road to misery. I gained almost 80 pounds. I had 67 jobs. I didn’t care about anything except “having fun” but that meant drinking to me.
My career was drinking. A lot of unpleasant things happened when I drank. I slept with strangers. I never knew if and when I was going to black out. I was evicted from one apartment.
I found hard drugs, which I used only to enable me to stay up late and drink more.
At 26 I went into Overeaters Anonymous to take care of the weight and the first thing they told me to do was to stop drinking.
The sugar content alone was an issue, as well as relaxed inhibitions. I was outraged. This was my lifestyle they were messing with! However, I was so desperate to lose weight that I did stop, for about 72 days.
Then it was my birthday and I HAD to drink. Then I stopped again. For about a month. I can’t remember why I “had” to drink that time. After that I would go about a week and a half and “slip”.
Alcohol was part of my abstinence, and I couldn’t stay away. Finally, I had one last awful drunk.
I blacked out, squeezed the privates of a casual acquaintance, lifted up my shirt, fell in the street, vomited profusely, then passed out. I overslept and was two hours late for work. I had to make up some crazy lie about getting hurt and fake a limp all day.
I sat at my desk, shaking and sweating out the odor of Jack Daniels. I realized this all started with one drink, which is all I intended to have in the first place. But once I started, there was no way I was going to stop.
I went to my first AA meeting about a week later, then started counting days on October 8, 1995. I have been sober ever since.
Since I’ve been sober I have seen four people in the fellowship go out for “more research” and die. Countless others have slipped and I have no idea what happened to them. I know that this is a matter of life and death.
My sobriety is the number one priority in my life. I have a good job now that I’ve been at for almost five years. I have a nice apartment and I am able to pay the rent.
I have good friends that really know who I am.
I was able to amend my relationships with most of my family. I have dreams again, and I am taking steps to make them reality. I am alive, and I am grateful that I survived.