Hi I’m JJ and I am an alcoholic.

My sobriety date is November 15 th, 2003. A true blessing I am forever grateful for.

What it was like. What happened? What it is like now.

Some of us grew up in homes with active alcoholics some did not. I am one that did. Growing up I really didn’t know that not everyone lived the way I did. My father taught me as a toddler how to push the chair to the fridge, so I could climb up and put a beer in the ice bucket and spin it to get it cold faster. He would reward me with little sips of said beer when I brought it to him. When he came home from work it was with a 6 pack for the ride and a 12 pack, sometimes a case, for the night. He was so much fun. My mom would be pissed because the drunker he got the more he riled up the kids. I thought it was great. That was until the weekends. On the weekends he would come to, hung over. That was not fun at all. He would yell at us for constantly going in and out the house, even when we had been gone for hours on end. Then he would yell because we made him hurt his head yelling. He was a war veteran, and I had been born the child to fix him. I was told that all the time. Anytime he did something a drunk would do I would be blamed as I had not done my job to fix him. I would get scared when he would have nightmares and wake up trying to shoot us with his fingers. My mom was smart enough not to allow guns in the house.

Every Friday night from when I was a tot until I was a preteen my parents had friends over to play Rummy. I loved and hated those nights because I had to give up my bed for the younger kids of the friends to sleep. That meant I would either be made to sleep with an abuser or I could stay up if I sat in the kitchen corner and was invisible. Of course, I wanted to stay up late. I would only get up to fetch someone a beer. Of course, I knew that if I delivered them I would get a sip. I also knew that if I delivered enough the sips could get much bigger and the drunks would not really notice at all. I became the expert at drinking nearly a third of the beer every time I bought one to the table.

I was around 6 when I discovered the real value in being invisible. I had parents that really were not great at standing up for themselves or their kids. My dad was too drunk to see anything most of the time and my mom was an enabler and would do anything to never ruffle a single feather. So, on any occasion in which I saw my grandparents, on either side, I was treated differently. One side of the family (where my brother was the only boy) was under the belief that girls were to rarely be seen and certainly never heard. Boys on the other hand were expected to be noisy, and mischievous. My brother would pick on me, hit me, chastise the heck out of me etc. I would get in trouble if I complained or tried to defend myself at all. On the other side, (where I was the only girl) I was told from the time I knew the difference
between a boy and a girl that I was nothing because I would never carry on the family name. It was driven home on every holiday as I watched all the male children in the family be lavished in gifts and attention, while I was placed in a corner and given some token type of gift.

I had the whole invisibility thing well under wraps. It was almost second nature. What I felt, though, was completely unworthy of anything especially someone’s love and attention. Those beers I started drinking the tops of as a little kid grew to be the relief I needed. They made me feel good. By the time I was in junior high school I had found out that not everyone lived like I did. I, however, had found out how to spot someone who did from a mile away. I gravitated to those people. They might not have had the same worthless feelings but they had the same family dynamics in one way or another.

I will never forget the first time I visited one of these friends when I was 12. Her parents asked if I wanted a drink when I walked in the door. I asked if they had a soda. They said if you want a drink here you can have a real drink. I’m not so sure what happened after that. I don’t think I even drank, I just don’t recall. I did however feel relieved and went to that friend’s house more than any other person’s house. I learned how to raid my family liquor stash not long after that time. They kept it all in a kitchen cabinet above the phone and desk. Since my mom never drank more than a simple pina colada on a very rare occasion she never bothered even looking in the cabinet. My dad could always be convinced that he must have drank more than he thought.

I started high school just before my 14th birthday. I was finding out more and more that I was not like other people. Not just your typical middle schooler or high schooler no one likes me type of stuff. I had some real-life troubles, from years of all types of abuse to not understanding why I never felt the same about the hot guys in school as all the other girls did. The drinking had only escalated and I found a group of kids, a few that lived on the same long
road I did. They all brought booze to school in thermoses, and hid it to make it through the day.

Just after my 15 th birthday I went on school winter break. I didn’t make it back to school for quite a while after winter break. I slit my wrist while drinking a bottle of Bacardi laying on my bedroom closet floor. That closet was the only place I felt safe. I was on the phone with a friend and they convinced me to talk to them. When I did they called their youth pastor and told him. He had the phone company do an emergency break on the line and the house phone rang even though I had it off the hook. My dad answered before I could manage to answer and hang up. He was livid and came and dragged me out of my room. The next day I was locked up in a mental hospital. I met a psychiatrist for less than 5 minutes who diagnosed me bipolar, later I was told that was a misdiagnosis. Turns out it really wasn’t, I just had more than one mental health issue. Lucky me. My family was told I would be there 6-9 months. Thank God my dad had crappy insurance, I got out after 28 days.

One thing that happened while there was that I went into some mild withdrawals. My brother also came to see me on his 21 st birthday so drunk they would not even let my family into the locked ward. It started them asking me more about alcohol and how much I drank etc. I ended up being moved to the chemical dependency group. I was taken to my first AA meetings while still in the hospital. I really just wanted to get the hell out of there. I was tired of being force feed psych drugs and filled up with Thorazine every time I spoke my peace. I learned again the value of being invisible. I was very thankful to get out of that place.

However, when I got home things were different. The house was completely free of alcohol. My dad had done a sort of support program and stopped drinking. My mom banned the stuff from coming in the house at all. So, at 15 the one thing that had ever given me any form of relief was out of reach. I was not trusted at all. My folks had even gone so far as to lock up all the knives in the house and wouldn’t even let me cut my own meat at dinner. I “needed” to find a way to deal with life again.

I will just say this much as it is a big part of my story. Just as I could easily find the other kids that had families like mine I could also find the dealers
at the school. My drug of choice changed due to the fact that I couldn’t gain access to it as easily as I could the other stuff. That my parents had no idea about. I was either completely wasted on psych drugs that I was way over prescribed or stuff from the dealer. That lasted until my senior year of high school. By then I had completely gotten rid of the psych drugs and only used the others when “Needed.” I convinced myself I was just fine since I could go without. Then my dealer got pinched and I learned just how badly I did need them. However, I came off of everything, not willingly just again due to lack of access. My senior year of high school, I was mostly sober and completely clean. It ended up being the best year of school for me. Imagine that I was clean and sober and had a great year. Should have told me something right there, it didn’t.

The day after I graduated, I flew to Germany with a group of students on an exchange program. I was in a bar the first night. My drug of choice back in my hand like nothing had ever happened. I spent about a month there and I remember very little of the trip. I remember being so tanked one night I ended up on the bus hours away from where I was staying. Not speaking more than 10 words of the language. The bus driver kinder than I ever knew drove me back to the town I was staying in and dropped me off there. Still lost I wondered around till 2-3am until I wondered into the house. I remember my exchange partners boyfriend beating the snot out of her because she went to
the USA and brought one back with her. He threatened to kill her and me.
Perfect excuse to go out drinking and not really go ‘home’ for anything other than to crash.

July 4 th , we went camping I remember promising not to drink. Only to run off less than 10 minutes later to hop a ride to the liquor store. I got kicked out the tent. No problem. I passed out. They found me in the woods with my face buried in dirt where I had shoved all the leaves etc. to the side and laid down.
I was filthy but refused to acknowledge I was wasted. I threw up everywhere and blamed it on riding the merry go round. My exchange partner got me home and took me to someone’s house the next day. It was a 12 step call but I had no idea what the person was saying at all. I finished that trip in Berlin, pounding hurricane after hurricane in the Hard Rock Café there. I came home missing half the clothes I left with on that trip. No idea where they went.

When I got home I had different color braids in my hair. Someone told me I got them on the black market in Berlin. No clue. But I did like them. Ended up with a couple of dreads afterwards. I also came home with a suitcase half full of booze. (prior to 911) so we just walked around customs instead of going through it. That didn’t hold me long as my intake had really grown.
It was not long before I was back into withdrawals and trying to hunt that stuff down. I was still only 17. So, I couldn’t buy it myself.

The little time I drank in my senior year some friends had taken me to some seedy joint down deep in the city. We had left some cash on the counter and walked out with a case of beer. I drove all over in the seediest parts of the city trying to find that place. Never did find it. I did however get a job. Met a guy who was quite a bit older than I was. I wanted him to get me booze. I needed him too. He was the only one old enough. He refused to even be seen outside of work with me until after I turned 18. Then I gave myself to him in return for booze. After that first time he just took what he wanted when he wanted it. I had to beg for booze and rarely got near enough to offset the need. I did however get something else. Pregnant. I had my daughter and managed to somehow get sober and stay that way after I found out I was pregnant.

I went to college and graduated top in my program 3 rd in the school.
When my daughter was almost 2 and I turned 21. Finally of legal age to buy my own booze. And Boy did I. You hear in the rooms that your disease is doing push-ups in the parking lot. I was in a seriously bad way extremely fast.
I went from “celebrating” my birthday to being unable to come to and get up in the morning without a drink. To black out drinking every day, and not knowing where I left my toddler in less than 3 months. It scared the living hell outta me when I couldn’t remember where I left my kid.

Long before that, the seed of AA had been planted in me. I came online, to a different room at the time, but I knew I needed help. I drank my way through meetings in the beginning. Having a roommate that was a great bartender didn’t really help. People in the rooms told me I needed to be willing to change everything. So, I broke the lease, went crawling back to mom and dad’s where I knew there was not going to be any booze, and stopped going to the same places I used to go. No more liquid lunches, no more hunting down the booze and cheerful greetings at the ABC stores.

After a few months of constantly relapsing but still trying I did listen to the people in the AA room when they said get to a meeting in person. I did and spent the next 2 years relapsing over and over again. I was just not willing to listen or do any work. When I did it was half assed or just to the extent I could get away with. I did a 4 th step that barely even touched the surface. The 5 th step complete bull. I never went any further than that at all. I finally got a little time put together and decided that I needed to take my daughter out of
state to get some medical help. More like Mom was pulling a geographical cure.

I had met some people online in yet a different room and gotten close with a few. I ended up moving to Wisconsin. I actually went to meetings there. Only 2 a week in the tiny town I lived in. I went to one and then I went to Madison for the others. 2 of the people I met online lived in the tiny town and helped me secure housing etc. I ended up in a relationship with one of them.
Although we parted and went to different coasts because I couldn’t find work or child care for my kid so I could afford to go to work. A year later I had bought a house in the town I grew up in and my partner moved in with me.
We were together living a sober life, or at least a dry drunk life. Things got bad and with no program at all to rely on I went out and drank again.

I was looking for that old friend at the bottom of the glass to make it all better again. It didn’t, all I felt was the incomprehensible demoralization and despair the big book talks about. I knew I was going to drink there was no mental twist that convinced me it was ok. I knew going into that it was not going to work. I simply couldn’t help myself. I had no real defense against that drink. I didn’t say first drink because I only had one. That was all it took before I wanted to melt under the table and ooze myself out of the place.

I came home to a partnership that was already on the outs and admitted I drank. I went straight to bed. It was not long at all before that relationship was over. I never drank again but I didn’t go back to AA right away. I stayed living in the dry drunk hell torturing myself because I felt like that was what I deserved. Talk about a serious case of self-centeredness and self-pity.

When I finally thought I was going to drink again I got myself to another in person meeting. It had child care available so I could go. It was a 40 minute drive one way but I didn’t care. I would have gone much further and done much worse for a drink. When the meeting opened I introduced myself as an alcoholic and that it was my first time at that meeting. Then the person leading the meeting asked if anyone had anything they needed to talk about
otherwise they had a topic. I was not so sure what came over me at the time but I spoke up and shared that I really wanted to drink. I left that meeting with a lot of phone numbers, an escort to my car, and a new since of hope
versus dread.

I went back again the next week, and the next. I stayed dry didn’t drink in between the meetings. I ended up going out to lunch with a group of the woman from the meeting. The same thing happened for a few weeks, before I told one of the women that I really wanted to ask another lady in the group to be my sponsor. She looked at me and said well you better hurry up and ask her before she gets to her car. I panicked and yelled out the lady’s name and went running to her. I blurted it out really fast. The lady said I will consider being your sponsor but I have rules, not suggestions I know you, and you have to be willing to follow them or I won’t sponsor you. I had thought she was going to be kind of a softy she was always nice. Yeah got that one wrong too. I however got that sponsor. I also followed her rules, call me every day, 90 meetings in 90 days, and no you cannot double up and take a day off, call at least 5 other people in the program every day, you can text if you want but it doesn’t count towards the calls. This woman had all my tricks figured out before I even knew them. We got to work on the steps and I really did them to the best of my ability. I stayed sober and really was sober not just a dry drunk.

I started to get busy after a couple of years. I started to miss meetings and just eventually went to meetings on my side of town because I was too busy to get to the one way over on the other side of town. I stopped calling but managed a pretty decent meeting routine until I got a little too busy for that too. I found myself a dry miserable drunk again and I stayed that way for a long time.

Then, I found this AA chat room and “walked” in the door. I was miserable, spiritually bankrupt, and on the verge of relapse. Since then I can say I am no longer a dry drunk. I have found another sponsor. She is a sweetheart but won’t sugar coat recovery. She tells it like it is whether I really want to hear it or not. I find I need that. I also need to trust which doesn’t come easy for me.
I trust her today more than I think I have ever trusted anyone. I have worked the steps again directly from the Big Book. I think more thoroughly then I even knew I could, and still do.

After being so close minded to the entire God concept, I finally got sick and tired of being miserable trying to rely on something I didn’t believe in. I made a decision. I told myself that if I wanted want people had, in terms of spirituality, I had to be open to listen and do what they did. So, I stopped walking out of the room every time the person who had what I so desperately
wanted, yet refused to acknowledge to anyone other than myself, shared. I became open minded to the concept of God. After listening and trying to follow her lead for a bit. I finally broke down and asked this person
to please help me get to know God. It took a lot of patience, tolerance, love, and work on her part and a lot of willingness and work on my part. Today she is my spiritual mentor, I am her disciple. Through the work we do together I found a true connection with God that I had only faked or fumbled through before. That has been the greatest gift of recovery for me. There have been many many gifts in sobriety but finding God has allowed me to live a life I never would have even dreamed of. Without that I would not have even recognized all the other gifts.

I have had many spiritual experiences throughout my time of sobriety both of the educational variety and the light bulb type moments. Today I have been blessed to live in a safe loving environment where my spiritual life is nurtured. Living life in God’s Will to the best of my ability, every day I am blessed to wake up, has given me such hope, peace, serenity, and love. I know today how blessed I am. Not perfect but blessed to be given the opportunity for yet another 24 hours.

JJ

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