to Friday every week. I dropped out of school in eighth grade, and took up drinking instead. I never drank socially. I always drank to get as drunk as I could, as fast as I could. I didn’t care what I was drinking, as long as I was going to get drunk.
When I was thirteen, I made a pitiful attempt at suicide. I took a large bottle of extra-strength acetaminophen. I don’t think I really wanted to die, because I phoned my best friend an hour later and told her what I’d done. I was desperate to be seen, to be noticed. I especially wanted my mother to see me. But all she did was tell me to go and drink some coffee and then go to bed. I ended up in the hospital for a couple of days, with a social worker telling me I was crying out for help. I went home feeling embarrassed and stupid. I didn’t care about anything. I drank right away, too.
By this time, alcohol had taken hold of me. I went back to school for a year and then left—I had a hard time with teachers and authority. That was just an excuse at the time, though. I really just wanted to drink and be cool. At fifteen, I got pregnant. I didn’t drink for the nine months that I was pregnant, but it was all I thought about. I wanted to have the baby so that I could get on with drinking again. When I did have the baby, I got drunk a month later. I tried to breast-feed, but couldn’t do that and drink, so I eliminated the breast-feeding. That’s how it was for the next few years.
I went back to school twice, but quit both times. Alcohol consumed my whole life. I went from weekend drinking with my friends to drinking almost every day, alone. I wasn’t the best parent all the time, either. It was as if I had absolutely no morals when I drank. I didn’t care about anyone or anything except getting the next drink. This included my son. Most of the time, I left him at home with my mom while I went out and partied. When he woke up in the middle of the night, my mom would call me to come home. I would go home, but just to get my son and bring him back to the party. That was the insanity of my drinking.
I had no God in my life, except when life was going badly. Then I begged God for help. When it didn’t come, I hated him. I certainly didn’t have any real faith. Then, in July 2000, I ended up in a hospital in four-point restraints, ready to be committed to the psych ward. I was more drunk than I’d ever been before, and I had left my son at someone’s house, and then forgotten about him. As a result, I was under investigation by the Ministry of Social Services. I thought my life was over. I begged God to get me out of this one, and I would never do it again. I wished that it had all been a bad nightmare and that I would wake up. But the reality was that I was in big trouble and alcohol had gotten me there.
My therapist came and released me from the hospital and took me home. I had to call an alcohol and drug counselor in order to get out of trouble with the Ministry of Social Services. I swore to myself and everybody else that I was never going to drink again. Never.
I was drunk that night. I couldn’t figure out how it happened, or why. When I called the counselor the next day, she told me that I was a binge drinker and that I should get some help. I was very angry, but a seed was planted.
I wasn’t quite ready to quit drinking, but every time I drank, I wondered whether I was an alcoholic or not. I drank for another month after that, and it got worse. All I could think about was getting drunk and how to get the money to get drunk. I even spent my son’s savings.
My last drunk wasn’t my worst drunk. It wasn’t even anything special. But that morning, I had a moment of clarity—my spiritual awakening. I looked in a mirror and saw that there was nothing left inside of me. My family wanted nothing to do with me, and neither did the family of my son’s father. I was ashamed, and full of guilt and fear. As I was walking down a flight of stairs, I heard a voice inside my head. It said, “My name is Rosie, and I am an alcoholic.” I don’t think it was my voice. I think it was my Higher Power’s voice. But when I heard it, I thought of Alcoholics Anonymous. I looked up central office’s number and called. Somebody picked me up that night and took me to my first meeting. That was August 24, 2000.
My favorite thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is the genuineness. People are honest and they care. I have earned trust. I have learned to trust and to love. I am the secretary of my home group. Every so often, I speak about alcoholism and AA in high schools. I finally finished twelfth grade.
All my life I searched for a purpose, and now I’ve found it. I need to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous to others so they will have the same chance at life that I did. My son now has a chance at life, too, and I am forever indebted to AA for that.
ROSIE B.
NANAIMO, BRITISH COLUMBIA
Teen Nightmare
October 2011
I was already emotionally unstable before I started my career as an alcoholic. Both of my parents were born in Mexico. My parents split when I was about 13. I was happy as a child, but I just went wild. My dad had left the state with his new girlfriend. Now it was just my mom, my sister, and me. I was a freshman when I started drinking, and that same year I started cutting myself.
The following years were nothing but parties, cruising in stranger’s cars, fights with the family and a lot of self-destructive behavior. At 16, I became bulimic. I made myself throw up because I felt ugly. Within a year, I was hospitalized at a mental hospital for the third time because of suicide attempts. I have been in and out of AA since I was 16. I worked with a drug counselor, a therapist, and a psychiatrist and they diagnosed me as a bipolar manic-depressive. I was prescribed a variety of meds to help keep me stabilized. The only pills I felt OK with were the mood stabilizers because they helped with my intense emotions and anxiety.
After a relapse when I was 17, I drank with all of my medications. I was heavily drunk when I decided to gulp them. This happened a night before my mom’s birthday. I thought my life was over. I was just so tired of waking up and seeing my world dark and clouded. I couldn’t bear to look in the mirror. I was numb. I felt as if my life was an endless movie of self-destruction, rejection and abuse—something unreal. It became so unbearable that I finally just gave up. I stayed sober for 13 months and relapsed a few weeks before my 19th birthday. I stayed out for two months and realized that even if I didn't feel like killing myself, even if I had all the things I wanted and was fit and healthy, alcohol and drugs were not going to clean up the mess I created. I was throwing my life away. Maybe, just maybe, I don’t know so much about living life.
Today I am in service every single day—from the moment I wake up to the hour I go to bed. Today I try to be honest with myself so that I know what my real intentions are.
At first being thoroughly honest was hard. I didn’t like admitting to humans, God and myself the exact nature of my defects. I still don’t like admitting that I’m powerless over everything and everyone. I still don’t accept that my life is unmanageable on a daily basis. But all of this is becoming easier for me to do by practicing it and following suggestions from my sponsor. Whenever things get hard, or I don’t want to follow through with a suggestion, I simply humble myself to my Higher Power and say, “Just for today.” That helps me live in the moment, and accept that—just for today—AA is my reality. I didn’t need meds to stay sober, just a Higher Power, a spiritual path and someone to hold my hand through it all. AA has given that to me.
EDUARDO C.
SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
Wiped Out
June 1997
My drinking career may seem short to some. It lasted about twelve years, starting when I was fourteen. I could buy anything, anywhere because I was six feet four inches tall and weighed 200 pounds. I was every father’s nightmare of
