them. They searched my room for paraphernalia, then left me alone. I was busted. I felt like my whole world was crumbling down. I knew that I was alone.
I decided to stay clean and sober, because I knew I was going to have to go to court. I had a real incentive this time, and I was actually able to do it, but not without a price. The first week I was clean I lay in bed under the covers and shook. I screamed at anyone who came into my room and at people who weren’t there. The paranoia and fear I felt was overwhelming. I thought I was going to die.
I began to slowly get better, physically anyway. By the time I went back to school, I wasn’t getting sick anymore. The girl who had turned me in ended up being in two of my classes. I hated her more than anything. I thought she was responsible for my pain. I always had to have someone or something else to blame for the way I was feeling, and she was perfect this time.
Somehow, one day in gym class the girl and I ended up running laps next to each other. She had tried to talk to me before, but I’d always ignored her and given her dirty looks. For some reason, that day I heard the words “What’s up?” come out of my mouth, and we started talking. I know today that God was completely responsible for this one. A week later she called me up to ask if I wanted to go to a meeting. I had no idea what she was talking about and she explained to me that she had been able to stay sober by going to AA meetings and working the Twelve Steps. I told her thanks, but no thanks. I was doing just fine on my own.
But that phone call really made me start thinking. Was I doing fine on my own? What about my obsession to go back to drinking and using drugs? The threat of court wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to drink and I didn’t care what the consequences were. I decided to try one of these meetings with her the following week.
I remember very little about my first meeting. They probably had a First Step meeting for me, but all I know for certain is that I cried the whole time. It didn’t matter that everyone else there was much older than me. I finally felt that I had found a place where I belonged.
I drank one more time after this meeting. I told my friends not to tell anyone because I was afraid the people at the meeting would find out. I was ashamed and I knew I was acting like an alcoholic — just like the people at the meeting had described. I didn’t decide then that would be my last time drinking, but from that day to this I have not had to pick up another drink. I know I owe that to AA.
I slowly started going to meetings and slowly started taking the suggestions and working the Steps. I was hardheaded and wanted to do things my way, so it took a long time for me to start feeling really better. Something told me that things were going to be okay if I kept going to meetings and didn’t drink. It was very hard and very painful, but one day at a time I was able to keep coming back until the miracle happened.
When I was about two years sober, I was sitting in a First Step meeting, telling my story, when suddenly I came to believe that getting busted was the best thing that ever happened to me. If it hadn’t been for that, I would never have found the program that I so desperately needed. I had been so resentful over that situation, but now I could be grateful for it. I believe that was my first miracle, and I’ve experienced many since then.
I am now twenty-four years old, and I just celebrated my seven-year anniversary in AA. The only way it’s worked for me is to do what others have done in the past: don’t drink, go to meetings, get a sponsor, and read the Big Book. It can be a very painful process, especially in the beginning and even now, but I’ve been given the tools to get through the pain and get to the gratitude. I’ve been able to see some of the Promises come true in my life, and I truly believe that is a miracle. I was able to get through the rest of high school and college sober. I have a job that I love today and people in my life whom I love. Everything I have I owe to AA. Most important, AA has given me a relationship with God. This has allowed me not only to stay sober one day at a time, but to live a full and meaningful life.
This is an incredible Fellowship and I’m very grateful to be a part of it, although I don’t always feel this way. Sometimes I feel very sorry for myself, because I’m young and I’m an alcoholic and I’m never going to be able to drink again. When I start to think like this, I remember that this is a one-day-at-a-time program and that God has a plan for me. I was brought to this Fellowship at exactly the right time. I drank as much as I needed to get here and felt as much pain as I needed to. I’ve already been fortunate enough to see how my experience as a young person in AA can benefit others. I attend an AA meeting at a treatment center for adolescent girls. So many of these girls tell me that they can relate to me and that maybe AA can help them, too. I don’t know how many of them stay sober once they get out of treatment, but that really doesn’t matter. They help to keep me sober one day at a time, because they help me remember where I was and why I got here when I did.
Thankfully, there isn’t a set amount that we have to drink or certain things that we have to lose for us to become members of this Fellowship. I always remember that “the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” I know I have this desire, so I will keep coming back.
Jennifer B.
Libertyville, Illinois
July 1999
My Sneakers Never Looked As Good As Yours
ALTHOUGH I ONLY DRANK FOR FIVE YEARS, I am an alcoholic. I was born with this disease and I will die with this disease. Without AA, I would be dead. I am so grateful for this program. It has given me eleven years of sobriety this month. Everything I am is a direct result of God and AA.
When I speak, I talk about my childhood a little, not because I blame anything that happened for my alcoholism. I talk about it because I believe I was born with this disease. Whether I came from a mansion or a cardboard box, I would still be an alcoholic.
As a child I always felt different. I like to say I had a God hole. I was filled with fear. I never felt like I measured up. I always just fell short. I judged my insides by everyone’s outsides. They all looked so happy. I wanted to feel the way they looked. I just didn’t know how to get there.
I come from a loving home. Alcohol was always present, but I wouldn’t consider it an alcoholic home. I was adopted at age three but I was never made to feel different. Yet I was always filled with fear. And that God hole was always there.
The best way I can describe the way I felt is with my sneaker story. When I was a kid, sneakers were a big thing. If you had a cool pair of sneakers, then you were cool. So I would see a cool pair of sneakers on someone and I would go out and get the same pair as they had. But for some reason my sneakers didn’t look as good on me as they did on other people. I was in constant turmoil. If I could have unzipped my skin and crawled out, I would have. I was always searching for a way to feel okay, something that would take the fear away.
I had my first drink at age eleven. I had seen drinking as a kid. I noticed before people started drinking they were quiet. But after a few drinks, they seemed to be happy. I wanted what they had. So a friend and I raided his mother’s liquor cabinet one night. I had a little bit of everything. And then it happened! For the first time in my life, I felt okay. The fear was gone. And my sneakers were as good as everybody else’s, and if they weren’t, it didn’t matter. I could talk to people, I was as good as, and I measured up to. I knew then that I was going to drink whenever I could.
The “Twelve and Twelve” says that “alcohol the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and will to resist its demands.” “Rapacious” means “feeds on living prey.” When I look back, I realize that alcohol robbed me blind. It stole family, opportunities, and finally my desire to live. At the end, I prayed for death.
I
