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January 2003

When I look at what my life is like today compared to the way it was going seven years ago, I’m amazed. Seven years ago, I couldn’t stop drinking although I desperately wanted to. All but one of my friends had had enough of my erratic, violent, and rude behavior while drinking. I ate barely enough to keep me going; eating made getting drunk a slower process, and I needed to get drunk as fast as possible. I also wanted to die, but I couldn’t think of a foolproof way to do it. I couldn’t bear the thought of the shame I would feel if I tried to commit suicide again and failed. I didn’t really want to die, but I didn’t know that till I’d been sober quite some time. What I wanted was to have my life changed, but I didn’t believe that anything but death could change it.

Thankfully, I did find an alternative to suicide. In 1995, I found AA and have been sober ever since. Oh, I knew about AA long before 1995. My father had gotten sober several years previously; in fact, the year he got sober was the year I started drinking in earnest. He took me to open meetings and although I knew in my head that alcoholism wasn’t about willpower, I didn’t believe it in my heart. I believed I could drink differently, so I got drunk for the first time at age twelve. I never want to forget that night. I remember thinking, I’ve found it. This is what I need to feel okay. For the first time that I could remember I felt that I was okay, that everyone else was okay, and that the world was a safe and fair place. That was before I blacked out and was sexually assaulted.

I made a decision before the blackout to drink as much and as often as possible. The next morning, when I heard what had happened while I was blacked out, I felt deeply ashamed. I thought that guy’s taking advantage of my drunken vulnerability was my fault. And there began the pattern that defined my drinking. I always drank to get drunk. I always blacked out and did, or had something done to me, that made me feel ashamed. And then I needed to drink more to bury the shame that got bigger every time I drank.

My drinking continued that way for the next seven years. I got sober at age nineteen, only nine months after I became legally able to drink. Before reaching that age, I drank as much as I could, when I could, but that wasn’t often enough. When I could walk into any bar or liquor store and legally buy anything I wanted, my downhill slide accelerated significantly. By the time I got sober in May of 1995, I was beaten. I had known something was wrong long before—I had first tried AA when I was sixteen, but hadn’t been willing to change my life in any way. This time I was ready. The night of my last drunk, I had a vision: I saw myself not far in the future, drinking alone, and dying. I realized I was an alcoholic and called my father, who took me to AA the next day.

I haven’t looked back, but it would be a lie to say it has been easy. I was one of very few young people in the town I sobered up in. I got a lot of “I’ve spilled more than you drank!” and people telling me outright I wouldn’t make it. Worst of all, I couldn’t get a sponsor. But I stayed sober then for the same reason I stay sober now: I was willing to do absolutely anything to do so. I didn’t want to die drunk, and I knew that was what would happen if I didn’t get help.

I worked hard the first few years and grew a lot. The Fourth and Fifth Steps helped relieve a lot of the shame that made it feel necessary for me to drink. I began to feel good physically and picked up my university marks so successfully that I was accepted to do graduate work. Things were going well, but I got complacent. My meeting attendance dropped off. I didn’t contact many people in AA. I thought I was okay until after I got my master’s degree. I found myself working in a foreign country without all the usual support networks, which made complacency that much easier. I managed to find the AA number, and after weeks of excruciating phone tag, I made it to a meeting.

Serious culture shock had awakened me to the danger I was in after a year of slacking off, and I became involved in AA again. I seemed to be doing everything right. I got a sponsor who was serious about the Steps. I went to four meetings a week. I hung out with AA people with good sobriety. Yet, I started being plagued by voices telling me that drinking wasn’t as bad as I remembered. I couldn’t believe this was happening after five years of sobriety and following all the suggestions. It was then, finally, that I truly accepted in my heart, not just in my head, that I am an alcoholic, now and forever. I realized that in the back of my mind, I’d always believed that because I got sober so young, I would be cured someday. Things I’d heard at meetings but didn’t really understand suddenly made sense, especially “My disease wants me back” and “We have a disease that tells us we don’t have a disease.”

Since then, life has gotten better. I still have thoughts of drinking, but I cherish those passing thoughts because they remind me that I’m not cured and never will be. For me, staying sober depends absolutely on three things: staying involved in AA, remembering where I’ve come from, and accepting that some part of me will always want to self-destruct. The difference today is that I have choices.

Today, I try to treat others with respect. I try to treat myself with respect, and sometimes that’s harder. I try to give back what’s been given to me. Next week I celebrate seven years of continuous sobriety. I’m thinking of how miraculous that is and my nose is getting red and my eyes tickly. I’ve had the opportunity to make amends to several of my family members and friends. I do service work putting on detox meetings and now I’m starting to do public information work at schools. I’m doing graduate work in something I love. And I have a host of real friends today. But all of this is gravy. The real meat is that I’ve managed to stay sober one day at a time for seven years, no matter what.

C.S.

KINGSTON, ONTARIO