"now, One Foot In Front Of The Other--"

[Guest Ratio]

I started drinking just before my thirteenth birthday. At first it was just something to do to brag about, something the stereotypical cool kid did. It's not like I had never had a drink before. Nothing serious. Where my family comes from, we drink wine with dinner every night. Just a glass, though, maybe one and a half for father. Then, it got to be routine. After I got off the bus stop, I'd go home, and just, you know, have a drink. No harm done, right? Syntax error, incorrect-o. I started to be able to hold more. Which meant I drank more. One day mother noticed we'd ran low on some alcoholic beverages, and went out with father- completely splurged on arrays of bottles, some with names that were completely foreign to me. I was in wonder. Was there really that many different kinds of alcohol? One day I brought over two friends, and when they saw what I was grabbing for, they were in awe. Utter awe. I thought, 'How weird, they don't drink?' I offered them a couple wine coolers, not wanting to dose anything heavy on them. One of my friends was a foreigner, she recognized a bottle near the back, and picked it out. She kept saying her family had it a lot, and I had never even heard of the name before. We went through the whole bottle, and dozens of little juiceboxes. Whiskey is only good with juice apparently. Mother came home, and noticed the bottle gone. My friends were gone, I had passed out on my bed; it looked like I was having a doze. She went with thinking she left it at the store somehow.

I met another foreigner whose family openly drinks alcohol with each other, only in their household, nowhere else. One day she brought a thermos of juice mixed with whiskey, It was about 2% juice. We downed the entire thing before second period, which happened to be phys. ed, and she was completely fine. I wasn't, to say the least. Things were bright. Blinding. I couldn't see. My world toppled, as did I, literally, and I fell down the spiral staircase. Luckily I only came out with bruised elbows and a skid mark on my knee, but if it weren't for our other friend who was in on our little fun, I would've been busted.

I stopped drinking like a heifer a year ago; my own little present to myself, and my organs. Of course I have the traditional holiday glass of wine, but nothing more. I'm proud to say I went down the gutter, swam up the putrid sewer waters of addiction, and into the open, crystal clear lake of reflection and healing. I broke free.

They say breaking an addiction is like learning how to walk all over again. Instead, I flew.

[Guest Jenny K.]

Good for you!

[VickySGV]

If YOU can do it that way, WONDERFUL and heres an uplifted glass of water to toast your success!! For all too many of us though, it will be a serious LIFELONG STRUGGLE, not only with alcohol, but with the potential for prescription medicines or other things beyond our personal control. The fact that we will have a tougher time does not make us less than you or you greater and better than us, we are just different and all of us have to realize it is LIFELONG. Only a few can fly from addiction, for the rest of us its a daily crawl, or at best a very slow walk. We still however will have the freedom to see and know the clean wonderfu sky of recovery just from a little different view point. Good luck to you and best wishes!! Really.

[Michelle 2010]

I like to think of recovery as a life long journey... a journey with a dark cave lurking out there somewhere, but one I don't need to go into. There are a lot of flowers and vistas and wonders along the route. I can steer towards the sunlight or steer toward the darkness. If I surround myself with people who are steering toward the sunlight, I am more likely to stay on that path. I've been in the cave. I prefer the sunlight.

For a person like me the 12 steps are simply a roadmap of how to live my life in the sunlight instead of the darkness. Some people don't need a road map. Some people need a road map and don't know it exists. Some people know they need to pick up the road map lest they end up in the cave, but are too proud to admit it.

Lastly, some people will die before they are willing to admit they are lost. By picking up the map I get to take the scenic route

I'm glad I picked up the roadmap

Best wishes

Michelle

[Guest NyB]

I love the posts in this section. Thanks. I controlled my drinking or thought I did for many many years and that was cheating myself out of real freedom, the journey I am taking now makes me feel happy, control, even if I would have just one, cheated me out of true liberation,

I wish I could go back and tell my 20 year old, work those steps, you will have the life that is meant to be yours, I/we can't change our choices, so we share our experience with one another in hopes that our experience might save another of years of hardship or knocks, it took me another 27 years to admit I have this disease of alcoholism. I am grateful that I am free of trying to control my drinking, because in the end it won, it controlled me, but I couldn't see it.