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I AM PRESENTLY DOING TIME in a maximum security institution for juveniles. I’m not able to attend any meetings, and I feel the need to share some of my experience, strength, and hope in order to stay sober — and help someone else if I can.

I’m a recovering teenage alcoholic. I started drinking on a regular basis at the age of nine or so. My early childhood was filled with the ugliness of alcoholism. My stepfather drank to excess and then he’d beat my mother and me. I told myself that I wouldn’t end up like that and I meant it. But somewhere I forgot all that pain; I lost it the first time I got drunk.

My first drunk was a blackout, but I do remember that special feeling the whiskey gave me — the feeling that we alcoholics want to recapture time and time again, regardless of the price we pay or the consequences we endure.

My parents were divorced when I was about ten and I went to live with my mother. It was a long divorce, with them getting together for awhile, then things ending up worse than before. I used anything I could get my hands on in order to escape. I started smoking marijuana out of “necessity” because it was much easier to get hold of. But alcohol remained my drug of choice.

At this time, I started stealing “for the fun of it.” I got off on the thrill it gave me. It was another form of escape. I also started getting into trouble with the law and at school.

My mother couldn’t control me anymore, so she sent me to live with my stepfather. Again I was in trouble with the law and at school. My drinking increased and my stepfather finally gave up as well. He took me to court, charging me with being unruly, and thus I was made a ward of the court. I was given the choice of going to a foster home or a group home.

I chose what appeared to be the easier of the two. My foster home was with one of the nicest families I’ve ever met. They were far from rich, but they were full of good old-fashioned love. But alcohol had gotten its hooks in me, and I drank when I could, which wasn’t too often. I remember going for bicycle rides and looking for full cans of beer along the road. I found them! During this time, my mother was institutionalized in a mental hospital due to her drinking, and I felt I was to blame because of my actions when I’d lived with her.

After a year with the foster family, I was given the choice of remaining or moving in with my mother. For the sole reason of alcohol, I chose to live with my mother. I thought it would be my dream come true, but in a short time I found it to be more terrible than anything before. One day my mother “went off” and started throwing everything out of the apartment. The police came and she was taken away, tied down to a stretcher. I felt guilty, so I drank excessively from this point on with little care about anything. I believe this is when I crossed that imaginary line of no return.

I went to live with my grandparents, but they weren’t equipped to deal with me, so I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle. I got in trouble with the law once again and was expelled from school for good this time. I went back to live with my grandparents, for I had nowhere else to go. During this time, I began eliminating things that I thought were causing me to have problems. Of course, alcohol wasn’t one of them. I seemed to think it was others around me, or maybe I was just jinxed when it came to life.

My stay with my grandparents didn’t last too long. One night in a blackout, twelve hours after getting my driver’s license, I took my grandparents’ brand-new customized $16,000 van out for a spin. I was picked up for driving while intoxicated and a long list of other charges. My grandparents gave me a choice: jail for grand theft or a rehabilitation center.

So now I was introduced to the Fellowship of AA. Strange indeed are these folks, I thought to myself. But I could relate. I remember that more than anything else. But ready I was not. My mother was now staying sober with the help of AA, and she told my grandparents to let me run my own course with little interference from them — in other words, give me enough rope to hang myself with. And I did. I kept going on binges every couple of months, each one worse than before. Each time I came closer to death.

On my last drunk, I wrecked my car and killed a close drinking buddy of mine. My world crumbled around me. I saw, at last, the horror of alcoholism. I had a decision to make — either commit suicide or surrender to God and AA.

I will soon be one year sober, one day at a time. I’ve been locked up for eight months now and am going to be released soon, with God’s help. Prison life isn’t easy, but it’s where I had to get sober. I can’t escape myself in here. I have to deal with myself — and the Steps are my keys to freedom.

We can all make it, one day at a time.

Anonymous

Ohio

May 1995